Obama "gifts" - what Romney nonsense

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Turns out Mitt Romney's 47% comments he made a few months ago are really what he thinks. On Thursday Romney decided that the reason Barack Obama won the election was because he gave "gifts" to certain parts of the electorate and compelled them to vote for him. 

As per the New York Times:
With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift,” Mr. Romney said. “Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.

And as per ABC:
"[Obama] gave [Hispanics] a big gift on immigration with the DREAM Act amnesty program, which was obviously very, very popular with Hispanic voters, and then number two was Obamacare," Romney said. 

 Romney said that "Obamacare was massive" for "any lower-income Hispanic family … For the Hispanic household, my guess is [median income] is lower than that, maybe it's forty thousand a year. For a home earning let's say thirty thousand a year, free health care, which is worth about ten thousand dollars a year, I mean is massive, it's huge.

Let's take a run through:

College loans: In March 2010 Obama signed legislation which halved the interest rates payable on student loans. In mid-term elections in the November following that legislation, Democrats were shellshacked - absolutely hammered. In fact Republicans won their greatest ever portion of the House of Representatives, and reduced Democrats' majority in the Senate. Elections at the state-level all swung towards Republicans, and what happened to the youth vote after this magical gift they receives from the Muslo-communist president? They just didn't even bother coming out to vote: young voters (ages 18-25) made up 18% of the electorate in 2008 and only 9% in 2010. If you want to compare midterms to midterms, the youth vote turnout was 13% down in 2010 when compared to 2006. So this "gift" didn't get the socialism-seeking youth to the polls in 2010. It is unlikely this would have changed in two years.

Obamacare: Same story. This "gift" of Obamacare? Well it was largely the reason Democrats were so pummeled in 2010. Remember how this was going to be hung around the president's neck? It is also worth differentiating between policy and bribery. The USA has a massive problem in that a fat percentage of its population has no health insurance, which means in a best case scenario injuries or sickness plunge them into debt, and in a worst-case scenario they are prevented from seeing a doctor. Voting to maintain such a policy is not at all the same thing as getting a freebie. Many people who can affordd healthcare voted Democrat. Romney admits poor families would have to spend a third of their income on healthcare - but fails to explain that Obamacare isn't just a freebie - one would need to fulfill many criteria to receive government-backed healthcare. Also, if this was such a massive vote-getting gift, then why did Romney, who blueprinted Obamacare with a state-wide plan for Massachusetts when he was governor, leave office after only one term with upside-down favourability numbers? (39% approve, 59% disapprove, according to SurveyUSA). Was it because the idea of the vote-bribing gift of "free healthcare" is hokum? Yes.

Free contraceptives: This is a made up idea. Obama's push is for contraceptives and other birth control measures to be covered under healthcare plans. Healthcare plans you PAY for.

Dream Act Amnesty Programme: Romney actually has a point with this one. Obama pinched momentum which was being led by Republican Senator Marco Rubio (FL) who was pushing for a DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) to pass through the Senate. Basically, this said the children of illegal immigrants who were brought to the USA through no fault of their own have a path to US citizenship. It was likely Rubio's attempt at passing an updated piece of legislation (which was originally authored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT)) would have failed, but nonetheless Obama authorised a policy directive (note: this was NOT an exrcutive order) which gave some minors a path to citizenship. Now, would it have been a gift if Rubio had done it? Or only if Obama did? I don't think Romney was really clear on that point.

Not only are Romney's grape sour, they are incorrect. 

Why Rick Perry might not yet be down and out

Of the Republican candidates in the race, there's only a few we need to take seriously.

We can discount Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and ex-Senator Rick Santorum because they are both too extreme to appeal to independent voters - not all Republicans belong to the (modern definition of the) tea party, after all. Congressman Ron Paul, while easily the most intelligent and skeleton- and hypocrisy-free candidate, will not win the nomination because he is just far too extreme, and his libertarianism wouldn't permit Republicans to ban women's right to decide what to do with their bodies, and would defile Jesus by telling the government to get out of deciding who can get married. While his dedicated supporters will follow him around the country, they can still only vote once. John Huntsman, another candidate who suffers from being able to think outside popular rhetoric, is just not being taken seriously at all.

It is going to be a showdown between ex-Massachusetts governor and flip-flopper extraordinaire, Mitt Romney, Uz-busi-busi-busi-businessman Herman Cain, controversial ex-House speaker Newt Gingrich and erm, uh, hmmmm, erm, who's the last one? Oops. Oh yes, Texas governor Rick Perry. 

Romney's unpopularity is fairly well-known and easy to identify.
1) He was governor of a blue state.
2) He, on record, backed a woman's right to choose whether she wanted to terminate her pregnancy (but has since changed his mind).
3) He backed Massachusetts' relatively restrictive gun control laws (but has since changed his mind).
4) He said he would fight for equality for homosexual people (he now supports the defence of marriage act which would ultimately ban gay marriage).
5a) He had a statewide healthcare plan for Massachusetts from which, according to numerous sources, Barack Obama pinched ideas his own healthcare reform which is, ironically, causing more heart attacks within the Republican base than no healthcare would. (He professes a distaste for Obama's healthcare bill now, on the grounds that states should decide their own fortunes.)
5b) Under the healthcare bill which he signed in 2006, illegal immigrants could get medical attention.

At every one point in time, he has been on the wrong side of a very strong electoral issue with the members of his party. However, Romney remains the fancied candidate because of the sheer screw-ups his competitors seem to be making. While there is a far larger faction which doesn't want Romney, it is split between Cain, Perry and Gingrich. Which should present them with a fair few opportunities.

And in my humble opinion, Perry is best-placed to take advantage of this.

Herman Cain can't seem to stop messing up. Even if we remove the sexual harassment and sexual assault allegations against the man, of which we still don't yet have conclusive proof, Cain seems to make a daily cock-up which the media pounces on. It started with the piss-taking of Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan which is actually quite an important nation when it comes to the war in Afghanistan. He moved onto China attempting to test nukes. Weird, as they were also doing that in the 1950s, and launched their first nuclear missile in 1966. He seized up on a fairly simple question about Libya, and then dropped the same answer he'd given at a Republican debate about Afghanistan, and then blamed the questioner for being out to make him look bad. He asked what the Cuban word for "delicious" was. His 999 plan is an absolute fiscal disaster, no matter how much voters may dislike the current tax plan.

Gingrich's rise in the polls will in all likelihood come to an end. Bear in mind every poll you see within the next 24 hours will not take into account the revelation that Gingrich was paid a $1.6 million consulting fee by Freddie Mac, a pretty hated government institution which is often blamed for the housing bubble which preceded the financial crisis in 2008. In theory, it is anathema to voter wanting smaller government to vote for someone who was complicit in a large one (full disclosure: many Democrats and other Republicans are guilty of precisely the same thing). This is on top of some of the more socially conservative voters' qualms about his exploits outside his marriage. While I think the latter is a rather low priority when it comes to selecting leaders, it IS an issue for many (Republicans and Democrats, by the way). Gingrich also has a history aligned with a shut-down congress during his term as House speaker (from 1995 to 1999), which isn't so hot to have on your CV when Congressional approval ratings, according to polls, sit below that of almost everyone except Cuba.

This leaves us with only Rick Perry who may have been as effective during debates as a condom with air vents, but has had a storming week since he hashed the name of the third government department he would shut down if he was president. Perry started by dealing with the fallout thereof, self-deprecating with his Texan drawl on David Letterman and numerous press conferences afterwards. He has one of the largest donor bases and is abusing the hell out of it, with adverts lambasting President Barack Obama, and staying consistent with his message of sorting out Washington and social conservatism. All of Perry's dirt has been in the open and is old news: his in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants so as not to have extra unemployed mouths for the state to feed, holidays at a farm called Niggerhead etc etc. Although Perry was once a Democrat in the 1980s, it was a hell of a long time before Romney's pro-Democrat leanings, and a Texan Democrat is still a conservative, pro-business politician. Perry is pro-life, anti-gay marriage, pro-Don't Ask Don't Tell, loves guns and has a history running Texas.

Finally, with his dirt out in the open, Perry is beginning to talk about the things he wants to talk about: Texas' marvellous run in creating jobs while the rest of the country's unemployment rate has increased. There are two views about whether this was beneficial to most Texans or not, but hell, he is bragging and in a presidential campaign he damn well should be. Perry also didn't flub foreign policy at last week's other debate, coming through largely unscathed. While others also made it through alright, Cain's repeated dribble relating to anything outside the border continues to plague him (hell, if I was Hawaii I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him). Perry's other big idea is shake up how Washington DC runs. While he would actually be seeking constitutional amendments, and is unlikely to ever get them, he has concrete plans to go along with his rhetoric, such as reduced hours for Congress so they can work in states, reduced terms for justices (which currently run for life) to 18 years, staggered so that a new judge is elected every two years. Gingrich is the only other non-Romney Republican in the race and for reasons I expressed earlier, I don't think his bounce in the polls will last long. An invitation for a debate with minority House leader Nancy Pelosi was a good show of confidence, and his bluff remained in tact as she declined.

Perry's huge advertising budget goes hand in hand with his ability to campaign. He is known as a master on-the-ground campaigner. Add to this a solid set of socially conservative policies, a state which has created more jobs than any other (and by quite some margin), pro-business speak, and the fact that he's never lost an election, and, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you someone who can break up the non-committal poll results we consistently see.

This is all on the proviso, however, that he doesn't screw up anymore.