Entry tags:

buffyverse, mitt romney, senior partners, south carolina, warren tompkins

Personal Politics
(I) You create the appearance of a struggle for the purpose of building the myth of your own overcoming.

(II) You create the appearance of a crisis for the sake of introducing a solution that -- absent the crisis -- would be unacceptable.

(III) Having employed force and fraud to obtain some honor you feign disinterest in laurels -- suggesting that anyone, really, might do even better with just a little, honest, hard work.

(IV) You refuse to acknowledge any rival's disadvantage -- always ready with the story of some third party in a yet more difficult circumstance; you admit no comparison with yourself.

Circa 2008, on-line, the two things worse than being stupid are (a) being old; and (b) being boring. That's why you hate (a) history; and (b) politics. And that's why you're stupid.

Recalling the Republican Presidential Primary of the year 2000, the last year that the nomination was contested, George Bush struggled against John McCain till South Carolina:

"McCain won a 48%-30% victory over Bush in the New Hampshire primary and seized the attention of the media. In the South Carolina primary, however, Bush soundly defeated McCain. Some credited Bush's win to the fact that it was the first major primary in which only registered Republicans could vote, which negated McCain's strong advantage among independents. Some McCain supporters blamed it on a campaign of dirty tricks such as push polling, including the false suggestion that McCain fathered an African-American child out of wedlock, perpetrated against McCain by his political enemies. Whatever the real reason, McCain's loss in South Carolina stopped his momentum cold. Although McCain won a few additional primaries, Bush took the majority and handily won the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia." (1)

Bush's "negative" campaign in South Carolina is said to have been executed by one Warren Tompkins. Mitt Romney has hired the same party -- Warren Tompkins -- for his South Carolina campaign. (2)

If there is no change in Romney's favor after South Carolina, it would still be possible to affect the mood of the electorate with a "Gulf of Tonkin" action in the Strait of Hormuz (3) or some similar domestic event.

Interesting in ABC's NH debate was Mitt Romney's defense of the pharmaceutical industry. (4)

See too "Making Mitt Romney: How to fabricate a conservative" in Harper's. (5)

If Mike Huckabee manages to capture the nomination I'll be forced to restore my faith in the American political process. But I don't see it happening. I've got to believe that Wolfram & Hart (6) will succeed, somehow, in introducing their creature: their pro-business, pro-globalism, pro-torture (7), man. Mike Huckabee -- like him, or not -- believes in his God and in his religion. And people who have a conscience simply will not do. No, the Senior Partners need an essentially amoral man who's committed to the principle of radical inequality, as manifest in a rigid social hierarchy, chiefly indicated by a grossly unequal distribution of wealth and power.

Thanks for going to the Buffyverse (8) with me.

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(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2000
(2)http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=warren+tompkins+2008&btnG=Search
(3)http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7175325.stm
(4)http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mitt+romney+defends+drug+companies&btnG=Search
(5)http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/11/0081773
(6)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senior_Partners
(7)http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mitt+romney+guantanamo&btnG=Search
(8)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffyverse

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p.s. Romney + Giuliani? Obama + Edwards? Clinton + Richardson?
p.p.s. How does Obama do better than JFK & RFK? I read too many such references on-line, and hear too many such references on the radio. Americans can be ugly. The country is becoming meaner -- and more fearful.