HOWARD MEGDAL: Mitt, Mitt, Mitt, Mitt. What the hell are you doing, Mitt?
If you are running with the hope/belief that enough moderate Republicans and Republicans realistic to pick the most electable candidate are going to make you the nominee, you support the debt ceiling deal. If you intend to try and pick off as many Tea Party Republicans as possible since you believe you’ll be the most palatable to moderate Republicans/realistic Republicans anyway, you oppose the debt ceiling deal.
But waiting until the deal is done? Then halfheartedly opposing it? All you are doing is playing into the narrative about yourself that you are always looking for a true north on your beliefs.
And you gave Sarah Palin a cudgel. She’s closer to running for president. Thanks to you looking like even more of a paper tiger.
To be clear, there are plenty of things you can use to attack Sarah Palin. (Whether that merely plays into her Nixonian ability to turn attacks on her into a political plus is another question.) But simply by waiting, you changed the subject from the issue itself into one about your own political character. And every day you are playing defense on that is a day you aren’t playing offense by making it clear that the rest of the field won’t clear 45 percent against President Obama.
I’m still not convinced that there really are enough moderate Republicans/realistic Republicans left in the primary electorate to get you nominated. But if you allow yourself to be defined this way by the end of the primaries, you won’t even be the most electable Republican, either.
CHRIS PUMMER: Of course Rick Santorum’s solution to his sticky situation — the one where he languishes at the bottom of polls and can’t raise money for his presidential ambitions — is to make it stickier.
Santorum will be passing out his homemade Presidential Peach Preserves to supporters at the Ames Straw Poll in Iowa. Because apparently, nobody has told the man with a Google problem the joke that goes, “What’s the difference between jam and jelly?”. It’s true, though, that jelly does help with the jamming. You can Google THAT, TOO!
Far worse is that according to that Des Moines Register report, Santorum and family picked 600 peaches, and all they got was a measly 40 jars of preserves. Not being an expert canner, pickler or preserver, I don’t know what exactly the yield should be. I also don’t know how big these jars are. But only 40 jars from 600 peaches? How many jobs do we think this guy is going to be able to create? Not many at that rate of efficiency.
It’s all a sweet gesture by Santorum and his family, and as gimmicks go it leaves a much less bitter aftertaste than his talking points on the stump.
But really, when you go to the circus, you’re more likely to expect the clowns to be passing out cotton candy.