"In 2012, Ron Paul has missed 136 votes while casting only 15…. Paul has missed 91.8 percent of roll call votes for the first quarter of 2012, the highest in his career. He went long stretches this year without setting foot on the House floor and then would show up to vote on a high-profile bill before jetting off again. During the longest of these stretches, from Jan. 19 to Feb. 27, he was absent for 69 votes in a row." —Living large!
In a contentious election year in which Barack Obama’s approval rating sits at right around 50 percent, let’s offer the same caveat as last year: Just because the President is taking ten minutes to fill out a bracket doesn’t mean he isn’t focused on creating jobs. Political TV producers will have to find something else to fill 12 hours of talk today.
With that said, let’s dig into President Obama’s bracket, keeping in mind that in last year’s version, he out-performed 87 percent of the country (despite whiffing on his national-champ pick) and has spent his first term with annual bracket success ratings well into the 80th percentile.
I met Bill Nye, the global warming guy.
Herman Cain went from "That guy who debated Clinton?" to candidate for the Republican nomination for president of the United States of America to frontrunner in that race to the "Cain Train!" to walking embarrassing quote machine to "Sexual Harassment Train" to "Whatever happened to that guy who debated Clinton and then ran for president?" That took place in about nine months.
But all was not lost. Along the way, Herman met a great gang of people. And as they say, what's important is the journey, not the destination. Let's look back on a scrapbook of Herman Cain's two [...]
Rule 23: Always separate your cause buttons for easier reading.
Rule 24: Layer for warmth.
Rule 25: "Birth of a Nation" is a great pre-action psych-up film no matter the political faction.
Rule 26: Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Liquor before beer, you're in the clear. Also, vomit is an acceptable protest projectile.
Rule 27: Ridicule is the most potent weapon you can use as a commenter on Brooklyn Vegan.
Rule 28: By substituting a Panera Bread's® Half Smoked Turkey Breast Sandwich on Country Miche with Steak Chili for full Frontega Chicken® Panini on Focaccia, you'll save 370 calories.
I arrived back in New Hampshire a couple days after Christmas, attending a Mitt Romney event at Geno's Chowder & Sandwich Shop on a wharf at the port's mouth in Portsmouth. A few hundred people showed up too, the usual Republican mix of dyed-blonde women in furs, size-38-pants men, Brooks Brother-y bros, and girls in those knee-high brown storm-trooper boots that have recently invaded the suburbs.
Mitt's DJ told me that he can't play The Boss or Mellencamp, his faves for campaign rallies (he is a professional political DJ), because they'd sue. "Freedom ain't free when it comes to 'Born in the USA,'" the DJ said. "But Kid Rock, [...]
In a campaign field that includes a twice-divorced anti-gay-marriage candidate who took an oath against adultery and who believes in mining the moon, it takes a special candidate to stand out. Michele Bachmann is just that special.
As she prepares to caucus dead last in her "home state" of Iowa, Minnesota's 6th District Congresswoman insists she still has a chance to win the Republican nomination for president. Odder things have happened, like that time one day's worth of lamp oil lasted eight.
Like a lot of impossible things Bachmann says—from claiming the HPV vaccine causes retardation, to the fact Obama is grooming NASA "for outreach to the Muslim [...]
Opposition research—political Dumpster diving perfected by Lee Atwater and Roger Stone—has been a part of American politics for nearly 200 years. Your familiarity with Willie Horton, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and John Edwards' $400 haircut is a tribute to its irritating persistence as a campaign tool. What follows is oppo research, but we do not aim to inflict damage. In fact, The Awl's effort, a collection of early media mentions of the Republican candidates (sometimes appearing under their given names), may actually endear these Presidential hopefuls to you. Or am I the only one charmed by 11-year-old zoo booster Newton Gingrich?
MITT ROMNEY New York Times
—February 28, 1960
By [...]
