mitt+romney

Boston-New York rivalry heats up again

Gloves off at Republican debate

Posted by Blake on Nov 29, 2007 - 02:55 pm

Last night’s Republican YouTube debate was interesting, entertaining, and more often than not, awkward (Republicans and the Internet don’t usually mix well).

The night included questions about which candidate hates taxes the most, which candidate hates immigrants the most (hint: it’s Tancredo), and which candidate loves guns the most (another hint: it’s not Giuliani). I’m sure Duncan Hunter also said some stuff.

The debate also included a surprising number of personal attacks, spread out between all of the relevant candidates (Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, Thompson, and McCain). The most interesting moment of the night was a spat between Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani over which one of them was the most complicit in hiring illegal immigrants.

Death of a Salesman

Posted by Blake on Feb 10, 2008 - 03:40 pm

Following some disappointing Super Tuesday results, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination, leaving John McCain as the very likely candidate for the GOP in November.

Romney looked really good on paper, being successful in pretty much everything he’s done. He’s super rich, he was a well-liked Republican governor in the bluest state in the union, and he even succeeded in bringing the Olympics, the biggest celebration of diversity on the planet, to Salt Lake City, Utah. So why’d he lose?

Last year’s Wake Forest graduation speaker David Brooks says it’s because he was an orthodox Republican in an unorthodox election year. Newsweek’s Howard Fineman says it’s because Romney was a fake. Slate says it’s because Republican voters just didn’t like him. The Boston Globe implies that it was because the GOP’s Evangelical base wouldn’t vote for a Mormon.

On second thought, maybe Mitt wasn’t such a strong candidate on paper.

Tags: election+2008, mitt+romney, | Comment

Veep Watch

Posted by Seth on Aug 28, 2008 - 12:00 pm

So, with the news that McCain will announce his running mate Friday, I thought it might be fun to run down the prospects, and their pros and cons. So, here we go:

Eric Cantor: U.S. House from Virginia, reliably conservative, and Jewish. Reports are that he has been in discussions with the campaign, and has possibly been vetted.

Joe Lieberman: U.S. Senate, one of McCain’s most prominent backers against the wishes of his party. Matches McCain on the War in Iraq and climate change legislation, but on little else. There’s always a chance that McCain might pull an Abe Lincoln and select a member from another party, though this might sink him among conservatives who have only recently warmed to him.

Sarah Palin: Alaska Governor, a reform Republican in the style McCain wants to be, and to quote pollster Dave Dittman, “The [Alaska] landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed [Palin].”