Sassenach wrote:I suspect that the Bain stuff is hurting Romney, but it may not necessarily be because SC voters are strongly anti venture capitalists. The likelihood is that they never realy wanted to vote for Romney anyway and now that his main pitch is being questioned in the media people are starting to queston why the hell they ought to vote for him at all.

I think Gingrich has embarrassed the party over time," Christie said. "Whether he'll do it again in the future, I don't know. But Gov. Romney never has."

"We all know the record," Christie said. "He was run out of the speakership by his own party. He was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. This is a guy who has had a very difficult political career at times and has been an embarrassment to the party ... I don't need to regale the country with that entire list again except to say this: I'm not saying he will do it again in the future, but sometimes past is prologue."

Maybe Romney is not a good candidate

rickyp wrote:And yet
Steve says:

Maybe Romney is not a good candidate?

They look like they are going to beat each other with clubs for the next 5 months.... Appealing increasingly to the hardened core of Republicans and scaring off moderate Independents....and disillusiioned democrats...
If the economy continues to move in the right direction ......

If Gingrich wins Florida, I'll be worried.

Neal Anderth wrote:False picture but still true enough.


BTW, I'm hoping for a brokered convention so we can install Cthulhu and cut out these two bit middlemen.

rickyp wrote:steve

If Gingrich wins Florida, I'll be worried.

The latest poll has gingrich up by 8 in Florida. Start worrying...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2 ... L_0122.pdf

Sassenach wrote:Is anybody else interested in why Romney doesn't want to reveal his tax returns ?

Why is he not releasing all of his tax returns ? Does he have something politically embarrassing (not illegal, just politically awkward) that he'd rather not reveal ?

Nope. Are you interested in why Gingrich only released one year? Romney is releasing two.

Are you interested in the Rezko and Obama land deal?

Do you want to know the extent of Obama's cocaine use? If he ever sold it? If he ever committed other crimes to fund his habit?

He was running for President then. If there was something that horrifying in it, he should never have thought to run again. I think you're off the deep end.

Candidates today don't release 5,6, or 12 years of income tax returns.

And, if it doesn't? Say goodbye to the Republican Party and say goodbye to the United States.

He was running for President then. If there was something that horrifying in it, he should never have thought to run again. I think you're off the deep end.

rickyp wrote:steve

And, if it doesn't? Say goodbye to the Republican Party and say goodbye to the United States.

steve

He was running for President then. If there was something that horrifying in it, he should never have thought to run again. I think you're off the deep end.

Yeah. Sass is off the deep end.

Sassenach wrote:I'm not familiar with the details of the land deal, but my understanding was that it's already in the public domain, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

History

In 1990, after Barack Obama was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, Rezmar Corp. offered him a job, which Obama turned down. Obama instead took a job with the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland,[28] which primarily worked on civil rights cases. The firm also represented Rezmar and helped the company get more than $43 million in government funding. The firm's former senior partner, Allison S. Davis, later went into business with Rezko and, in 2003, was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Investment by Governor Blagojevich at Rezko's request.[7][29] On July 31, 1995, the first ever political contributions to Obama were $300 from a lawyer, a $5,000 loan from a car dealer, and $2,000 from two food companies owned by Rezko.[30] Starting in 2003, Rezko was one of the people on Obama's U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, which raised more than $14 million.[7] Rezko threw an early fundraiser for Obama that Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendelland claims was instrumental in providing Obama with seed money for his U.S. Senate race.[2] Obama in 2007-08 identified over $250,000 in campaign contributions to various Obama campaigns as coming from Rezko or close associates, and said that he donated almost two-thirds of that amount to nonprofit groups.[31][32]
[edit] Real estate dealings

In 2005 Obama purchased a new home in the Kenwood District of Chicago for $1.65 million (which was $300,000 below the asking price but represented the highest offer on the property) on the same day that Rezko's wife, Rita Rezko, purchased the adjoining empty lot from the same sellers for the full asking price.[33] Obama acknowledged bringing his interest in the property to Rezko's attention,[34] but denied any coordination of offers. According to Obama, while the properties had originally been a single property, the previous owners decided to sell the land as two separate lots, but made it a condition of the sales that they be closed on the same date. Obama also stated that the properties had been on the market for months, that his offer was the best of two bids, and that Ms. Rezko's bid was matched by another offer, also of $625,000, so that she could not have purchased the property for less.[35]

After it had been reported in 2006 that Rezko was under federal investigation for influence-peddling, Obama purchased a 10 foot (3.0 m) wide strip of Ms. Rezko's property for $104,500, $60,000 above the assessed value.[7][33] According to Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Mark Brown, "Rezko definitely did Obama a favor by selling him the 10-foot strip of land, making his own parcel less attractive for development."[36] Obama acknowledges that the exchange may have created the appearance of impropriety, and stated "I consider this a mistake on my part and I regret it."[35]

On December 28, 2006, Ms. Rezko sold the property to a company owned by her husband's former business attorney. That sale of $575,000, combined with the earlier $104,500 sale to the Obamas, amounted to a net profit of $54,500 over her original purchase, less $14,000 for a fence along the property line and other expenses.[37][38] In October 2007, the new owners put the still vacant land up for sale again, this time for $1.5 million.[39]
[edit] Obama's letters

In June 2007, the Sun-Times published a story about letters Obama had written in 1997 to city and state officials in support of a low-income senior citizen development project headed by Rezko and Davis. The project received more than $14 million in taxpayer funds, including $885,000 in development fees for Rezko and Davis. Of Obama's letters in support of the Cottage View Terrace apartments development, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, "This wasn't done as a favor for anyone, it was done in the interests of the people in the community who have benefited from the project. I don't know that anyone specifically asked him to write this letter nine years ago. There was a consensus in the community about the positive impact the project would make and Obama supported it because it was going to help people in his district." Rezko's attorney responded that "Mr. Rezko never spoke with, nor sought a letter from, Senator Obama in connection with that project.[40]

In the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential debate on January 21, 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton said that Obama had been associated with Rezko, whom she referred to as a slum landlord.[41] The L.A. Times indicated that its own review showed Rezko played a deeper role in Obama's political and financial biography than Obama has acknowledged.[42] Within days of the debate, a photo of Rezko posing with Bill and Hillary Clinton surfaced. When asked about the photo, Hillary Clinton commented "I probably have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures. I wouldn't know him if he walked in the door."[43]