THE GOLDEN RING
THE QUEST FOR THE US PRESIDENCY
by Michael Hammerschlag
YAHOO
NETWORK Hammernews
in Ukrainian in Russian (coming) Scoop
After Joseph Smith found his holy golden plates- metal pages, according to Wikipedia, in an 1823 cliffside in upstate New York, and wrote what became Mormon
scripture, The Book of Mormon, he set
up a community of true believers; but again and again, in the land of the free,
from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois to Missouri… they were attacked,
killed, and driven out. Finally after Smith was killed by a mob in 1844,
Brigham Young led the remnants west, into the hauntingly beautiful desert mesa
country, beyond America, beyond civilization… where they ruled the state they
created, Utah, for over a century. Even there, in 1857 the US Government sent
an army against them over the banned practice of polygamy, which they finally
abolished in1904.
In his trek towards
the probable Repub Presidential candidacy, Mitt Romney must feel echoes of his
religion’s past, as one after another pretender arises and is anointed front
runner… for a few weeks or days, then drops away, by the fundamentalist base of
the Republican Party, desperate to stop the ascension of a “cultist” Mormon,
who are not considered Christian. Even among general US pop, 38% don’t think
Mormons are Christians, however 67% view them favorably, though 82% know little
or nothing about them, according to the Public
Religion Research Institute. The perhaps insurmountable
problem for Romney is 42% of Americans wouldn’t feel comfortable with a Mormon
as President as late as Nov 2011, only 40% even
realized he was Mormon (although similar attitudes existed about blacks
before the advent of Obama).
First there was Rudy
Giuliani, and then Donald Trump bloviating about the birther issue,1 leading, though they weren’t even declared candidates; then
the execrable Michelle Bachman, a glaze-eyed evangelical zombie whose Fox News
factoids were so outrageous that normally complacent reporters had to
repeatedly correct her, “I don’t think Obama spent $200 million
a day on his trip to India.” Then giant-killer
macho Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who had never
lost a race, strode onto the scene with his
Texas homilies and hard-line talk, but he
embarrassed himself and the state by goofy
ineptness in the debates, “Oooops”, he said,
forgetting 1 of the 3 federal agencies he
pledged to abolish. As Romney looked more
inevitable, winning by a few votes (then
losing by a few, but only 2 weeks later)
in Iowa and winning easily in his near-home
state of New Hampshire; the anyone
but Romney-ites became more frantic. Then black big-businessman-banker
Herman Cain was the flavor of several weeks,
till a chain of women accused him of harassment,
forcing him to quit the race. Likeable oddball
anti-war anti-government perennial candidate
Ron Paul maintained a dedicated base of young
and independents who ignored his extreme
and unworkable plans, and he ran strong seconds
and thirds in most northern states (
almost won in Maine caucus).
But from the tax
cuts, greed, and banking collapses of the Reagan era, Republicans have marched
steadily to the right, till every candidate in their early debates had to not
only disavow Global Warming, but even evolution to appeal to their hard-right evangelical
base. The only principles they still stand
for is more tax cuts for the rich; and total
laissez-faire rules for business, no matter
what the risk. Even their so-called commitment
to a balanced budget is nonsense: the fantastic
Ryan Budget (that Romney has endorsed), would destroy
social guarantees while transfering huge
sums to the rich, exploding the deficit.
In an exclusive interview, fmr Vt. Gov. Howard
Dean, who came a hair from snaring the Presidency
in 2004 and then built the Democratic Party
back in only 2 years as Chairman to capture
both House of Congress2, said:
“The Republicans have been dominated by their
extremes … what I call the ‘hate wing’ of the republican Party: anti-minority,
anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-gay- since Nixon put in the Southern Strategy (1968).
Former Bush
speechwriter David Frum, excommunicated from the Party after some heresy,
explained:
“Backed by FOX News, their book-publishing industry, supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Another "disgraced" former Repub staffer, Mike Loftgren gripes, The Republican party, with its "prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the "low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter".
Then the atrocious Citizens vs United Supreme Court
decision of 2 years ago that overturned (Nybooks commentary) a century of campaign finance laws came into play,
allowing unlimited secret donations to candidates- it was designed by a radical
Court to permanently tilt the playing field to the Republicans. Ironically it
has caused a bloodbath among Repubs: with two $5 million checks from right-wing
Macau gambling billionaire and fervent Israel-backer Sheldon Adelson, the
flakey, scorched-earth, self-styled big thinker former Speaker of the House Georgian Newt Gingrich produced a devastating
½ hour documentary on Romney’s life as a “vulture capitalist” leveraged buyout
manager of Bain Capital When Mitt Came to
Town; and flooded the TV airwaves touting Romney’s $250 million fortune and
Massachusetts liberalism. Their SuperPacs even had dueling names: Saving Our Future and Romney’s Restore Our Future.
In South Carolina,
the last real bastion of the Confederate South, Gingrich crushed Romney in all
but 3 counties by 14%. Gingrich, a man who had left 2 wives when they were sick
or dying for a younger model, even as he led the charge against Bill Clinton’s
sex scandal in the 1998-9 Impeachment farce, was roundly detested by Americans
(negative 57%- positive 27%), but he was a glib bare-knuckle fighter who could
take the battle to uber-orator Obama.
The great Rolling Stone and ex-Moscow Exile writer Matt Taibi summed
it up: -----If Romney is a scripted automaton who could make it
through a year's worth of marital coitus without one spontaneous utterance,
Gingrich is his exact opposite - taken prisoner in war, Newt would be blabbing
state secrets without torture within minutes, then would be calling his guards
idiots who lack his nuanced grasp of European history, and then would be lying
to two of his captors about an affair he had with the third.-----
The wealthy Michigan scion of Gov. George
Romney, former head of American
Motors, Romney made several gaffes emphasizing his privileged upbringing, saying
in interviews: “I don’t care about the poor”, “I don’t make much from speaking fees” ($367,000 but a drop in his investment income of +$25 million; but
alone putting him in the top 1%); we should let the “housing market bottom
out”, “I like being able to fire people”; trying to bet Perry $15,000 in a
debate, and revealing he was taxed at only 14% and had accounts in the Cayman
Is. and Switzerland- common tax shelters.
Even as the fervent
conservatives settled on Newt as their savior, establishment Republicans
realized he couldn’t win, and Mitt’s far greater resources- his SuperPacs, backing, organization,
and bruising counterattack (“Newt
Gingrich, too much baggage” with audio of dropping suitcase) led to a big
win in the big and diverse winner-take-all state of Florida (46-32%) Jan 31st.
Mitt was back….or was he.
The next flip in this
carnival was Feb 11th’s sweep in Colorado and Minnesota caucuses and
Missouri primary by fundamentalist Ex-Pennsylvania Sen Rick Santorum, who got
his own millionaire sugar daddy, Wyoming cowboy-investor Foster Friess (Guardian), surprising
because Mitt won CO and MN 4 years ago. Santorum’s big obsession is fanatical
anti-abortion and gay rights, even opposing the federally required exception for
rape or the life of the mother, and contraceptives, not too popular in a huge
and diverse country. “When you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the
French Revolution,” Santorum thundered
in Texas. “What’s left .. became the guillotine!”
“He’s far too right and socially conservative, but
his personality is not too bad,” says Dean, who has
debated him. Romney squeaked out a do or die win in his home state of Michigan Feb 28,
where he opposed the Obama Auto Bailout that saved the industry, and Santorum’s
working class origins plays well, though he is now a rich lobbyist, according to AP.
Rick has had staying
power- though he is as unelectable in the general as Newt, and Romney’s money
and institutional advantage have weighed in- the heavy artillery of the
negative ads, but if the fading Gingrich withdraws, the conservative
anti-Romney vote wouldn’t be split, and he could have serious problems. One
clever Santorum bill proposed preventing the US Weather Bureau from issuing
free reports where there were competing private firms (which he was connected
with); he was a singularly undistinguished Senator who lost his last Penn. race
by 18%, with his pessimistic and apocalyptic message, he terrifies the Repub
old guard. In the Feb 22 Ariz. debate, where they all endorsed harsh
immigration policies, he was blasted by every candidate as a Washington
insider.
These caucuses are
tiny- 40-90 people getting together in a schoolroom for 2-3 hours to pick 2-3
delegates: in Colorado only 1.3% of voters showed up (I ran one in Seattle).
They can easily be hijacked by 10-15 dedicated partisans, like anti-abortion
activists, and often are totally unrepresentative of the general vote. Obama
only won in the 2008 Primary because he rolled into tiny Dem Party caucus
states in the Republican West with superb organizations and racked up a big
lead in delegates, beating Hilary Clinton before she even knew what hit her,
although she won
almost all the big states, the last ones by big margins, as well as
the popular vote.
Romney barely won his
home state of Michigan (splitting delegates), and Arizona by a big margin Feb
28. Mitt failed to wrap it up in the 10 state March 4th Super
Tuesday contests: edging Santorum in important Ohio (no one has won the
nomination without Ohio) and taking WTA (winner take all) Virginia, Mass.,
Idaho; winning splits Vermont, and Alaska; while Gingrich won his home state of
Georgia big; and Santorum pleased the pundits (who love the endless battle) by
winning Tennessee, Oklahoma, and empty North Dakota. But even in winning OK, he
split delegates evenly and lost many delegates in Ohio because he never set
them up, as Romney netted 63% of them. In Mississippi and Alabama March 13,
there were two unprecedented 3 way splits: 29-31% each for Santorum (won both),
Gingrich, and Romney (3rd!); but in winning Hawaii and Samoa, and
splitting the South, Romney still amassed more delegates.
After sweeping Puerto
Rice (where he dishonestly promised
statehood- Repubs wouldn’t allow that Dem territory), Romney crushed Santorum
in the big central St. of Illinois and has a commanding lead (more than all
opponents together), and despite many misgivings, is still marching towards
the nomination. But his weakness in the
Repub base of Dixie was evident again in losing 27 to 49% in Louisiana March 24th,
yet even there Santorum netted only 5 more delegates, with 31 more unallocated
Party people, who will likely break for the leader. Even when he wins big,
Santorum is losing the delegate race. Losing winner-take-all Wisconsin was his
last gasp April 3rd- pressure was growing to consolidate behind Romney- he
received several endorsements, from right wing Sen Marco Rubio, and former
President Bush 1. Santorum is even behind in his home state Pennsylvania, where
he was being outspent 10:1.... and faced with that humiliation + crushing Party
pressure, he quit April 11th.
It's hard to leave the Presidential carnival- nothing you ever do will
even be as exciting, powerful, and intoxicating- I've covered the campaigns 2½
times and even as press it is overwhelming, great gobs of hope, money, lies, and enthusiasm being thrown
around. After this Newt returns to being a self-styled scholar of history and a
political footnote.
Mitt Romney comes off
as plastic, artificial, an android without normal human emotions; but that is
partly a product of his Mormon faith, its strictures and its secrecy
(nonbelievers are not allowed into Temples). Because of their religion’s
persecution and skeptical public attitudes, Mormons are very reluctant to talk
about it- but another better explanation and justification speech is needed,
like he did in 2007 (YouTube) in his “Faith in
America” address, as Obama did about race and JFK did about Catholicism. To
the suspicious masses, Mormonism must be dragged into the sunlight. They have
to go on unpaid missionary missions for 2½ years in their youth- Romney spent
time in France (subject of an “elitist” Newt attack ad), and was a deacon in
his church- there must be heartwarming tales of human contact there that could
counteract his soulless nerd image. But even as he is polite, Romney can be
gleefully vicious, as when he dissected Newt Gingrich in a debate before
Florida- pundits say “he looks like the guy that fired you”, and in his job as head of takeover managers
Bain Capital, he was savaged by Perry as a vulture capitalist, sucking
the life out of companies.
I like Mormons- I
worked for them at an Idaho TV station: they are polite, smart, honest,
hard-working, optimistic people with the best religious ads on TV (family); but they are the straightest
people on the planet: no alcohol, drugs, tobacco, tea, coffee, cola,
extra-marital sex, lying, little meat, and their beliefs were and are often
deeply exotic: from polygamy (Mitt’s great grandfather escaped to Mexico to
avoid prosecution, where Mitt’s father was born) to religious undergarments, to
believing American Indians were a lost tribe of Israel, to believing blacks were
cursed with the mark of Cain, says USA Today. There are about 5-6 million Mormons in America, 8 million outside it.
Only 1% of American Mormons are black- they were restricted from most rites
until 1978. Kiev has a large temple in Sophiesky Borshagovka for the 12
thousand Ukrainian adherents.
Governor of liberal
bastion Massachusetts, Romney has had to run from his only governmental
achievements: creating an Obama-like health care plan; and had to reverse his
position on abortion and contraception…. to appeal to the far right that
dominates the Repub primaries... but dooming him against Obama. This makes him
seem more artificial, and leaves nothing to talk about but the trash
meaningless culture war red herrings
of the jihadist right. The latest tempest in a teacup is Obama’s requiring
Catholic hospitals to cover their employees for contraceptives- Repubs went
ballistic, calling it an assault on religion, but 99% of US women use it, even
+60% of Catholic women- it may have been a clever trick of Obama’s to expose
their extremism.
“This is what the Republicans do, try to
divide people,” complained Dean. Romney has
been clsing his speeches speaking or singing
America
the Beautiful, a cringe-worthy spectacle accentuating his overweaning
dorkiness; though he surprisingly won the Conservative
Political Action Convention Feb 11th with 36% to Santorum’s 31%
to Gingrich’s 15%, pledging
to be “severely conservative”. 4 years
ago there, he was the great conservative hope against McCain, now all the
contenders are to his right.
Republicans have also
been using the time tested tactic of
disenfranchisement, according to NY Times: 14 states have harsh new voter
fraud (which almost never has been proven) laws requiring State ID’s that
some minorities, poor, and very old don’t have- 11%, mostly Dem voting groups.
They also are aggressively carving up state election districts in the
bipartisan decadal cheap trick of gerrymandering, but they control most states
doing it.
Obama has let down
many of his true believers on the Left with his embrace of Bush era abuses-
rendition, Patriot Act resigning, Guantanamo non-closure, endless compromises
with the Right, the failure to prosecute any of the neocon’s crimes in the Iraq
Invasion conspiracy and subsequent war profiteering, or the destruction of $15
trillion in the 2008 popping of the home-mortgage-fraud-scam-bubble.
Dean agrees: “I think we needed to have some prosecutions: there was huge corruption and lying to the public on both Wall St. and the Invasion of Iraq. But, I ran into some guy in a coffee shop who said ‘I’m not gonna vote for Obama’ and I said, ‘Oh yes you will, in October… when you see what the alternative is!’ A NJ Ukraine Democrats Abroad leader complains: “Obama's form of compromise is ‘OK, lets compromise - here's my half’ -the Repubs say, ‘OK great, we offer nothing.’ We then repeat the process several times.”
If Romney is the
candidate- 97% chance I think, he will be the whitest candidate in history
running against the blackest, dubious in a country inexorably becoming browner-
Hispanics have twice the birthrate of whites.
“He said ‘I
will veto the Dream Act’.. that’s for (illegal) kids who’ve grown up in
America, done well in America, to stay in America. That will kill him with
immigrants!” gasps Dr. Dean (they must do 2 years in college or military to
qualify). Indeed, latest polls have Obama ahead among Latinos by a
stunning 40-47% (67-27%), women by 12%, and blacks
by 86%! Even Romney thinks these numbers
are fatal, and they necessitate a Hispanic
running mate, like Fl. Sen. Marco Rubio.
Romney’s been demonizing Obama with the standard
wildly inaccurate rightwing brush: unamerican,
socialist, anti-business, anti-religion; reckless charges that appeal to
the racist unease many have with a black President. But Obama, who finally
caught Osama Bin Laden, increased troops in Afghanistan, deported more illegal
immigrants, and ended the self-inflicted quagmire of Iraq, is solidly middle of
the road; and has seen his ratings (Washington
Post) bump up to 50% approval with 243,000 new jobs in
Jan and an unemployment drop to 8.3%; and is leading Romney by 6-9% in polls,
Santorum by more. 2/3 of Americans think Romney’s 14% tax burden is unfair, and
52% to 37% believe Obama better understands their economic problems. But
ominously for the President, 9 of 10 rate the economy negatively, which now has
become Obama’s albatross, though he
is innocent of any original culpability.
“I don’t think any of them can win (against Obama), but Romney is the best against us cause he’s the most moderate,” says Gov. Dean, “but it’s been a bloody Republican Primary- I don’t think they’re going to recover from it. He’s the Wall St candidate, of the (top) 1%, but he’s a damaged candidate... by his own people.”
We will see- Romney
has a seemingly insurmountable lead. But in this free-for-all, with talk of
saviors at a brokered convention, unlimited cash, and
widespread qualms about Romney…. anything can happen. And with an extra
trillion of two of billionaire bucks, this will be the dirtiest, loudest, and
most negative campaign ever.
Michael Hammerschlag (Hammernews.com) has covered 2½
Presidential campaigns, managed a Democratic Presidential caucus in
Seattle, helped save Clinton with an anti-impeachment org/website, and produced
political ads and media advice. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Seattle Times, Providence
Journal, Columbia Journalism Review, Honolulu Advertiser, Capital Times, Media
Channel, Modern Photography, Scoop; and Moscow News, Tribune, Guardian, and
Times; and Kyiv Post, Weekly,+ Business Ukraine.
1. that Obama wasn’t
born in the USA, despite birth certificate from Honolulu, despite testimony of
doctors, but in fact was some secret Muslim African 5th columnist. This
circulated since 2007 among the right wing conspiracist-crazies. Obama finally
released his long form birth certificate, and Trump was laughed off the stage.
One must be born in USA to be President, supposedly, but McCain wasn’t.
2.
10 year Vermont Gov.
and medical Dr. Howard Dean, whom I questioned twice in the 2004 race, was the
smartest and most honest politician I’ve ever met- he blew people away with his
straight concise answers. In the 3 weeks before the Iowa Caucus he suffered a
25% drop, the greatest collapse in US political history after concerted and
dishonest media attacks (Dunning Dean-
Was the Doctor Gored), and
effectively lost by the end of the month to John Kerry, a good man, but a poor
candidate: richest in the Senate (Heinz catsup wife), pompous, stentorian
speaker Even Kerry came within 65,000 votes of defeating Bush (in Ohio), and
I’m convinced Dean would have won- he was a new face and there was little
ammunition for master slanderer Karl Rove to use against him. Now he runs the
liberal organization Democracy for
America, mobilizing people to support progressive candidates and
principles, and to pressure the Obama Admin. to not concede them. Decent chance
he will be a future President.
Everybody (Mormon) Golden Plates
Wikipedia
Fact Sheet |
Attitudes about Mormons and Implications for Mitt Romney’s Candidacy in 2012 Public
Religion Research Institute
Elizabeth Drew
Can We Have a
Democratic Election?
Nybooks.com
US News Blog
Foster Friess:
All you need to know about the Sugar Daddy The
Guardian (UK)
Stephen Braun
Santorum's tax
returns show rise in wealth
AP
AquaRacer8
Faith in America - Mitt Romney (Original speech given 12/06/2007
YouTube
Daniel Burke
Will Mormons'
racial history be a problem for Mitt Romney? USA Today
Erika Wood
Florida. How
Soon We Forget
NY Times Op-Ed
joint authors
Obama holds
edge over Romney in general election matchup, poll finds Washington Post