from a political perspective, I dont have a problem voting for a Mormon like Mitt.

[alanmolstad]

My predictions for the Michigan primary?



I dont know the future, but i can guess what different results may mean.

If Mitt wins big?......Then Mitt is in a good position to win big on Super Tuesday and knock a name or two out of this election .


if Mitt wins close?......Then Things will switch to Super Tuesday and we are on-track for a real battle that day for all the chips.


If Rick wins close?.....Then Rick might be able to pull off the needed Super Tuesday victories that he needs to drive someone (Newt or Paul) out of this election.


If Rick wins Big!?..........then Mitt is in deep-deep-deep trouble going into Super Tuesday....and from then on in this election we will have a lot more open talk about other names getting into this election, and everyone in the Mitt camp starting to talk about a VP spot for Mitt to take under a guy like Rick or Jeb Bush.......

[BigJulie]

So, I've liked Rick--liked how he has come across---so, as usual, I start looking at his voting record to see if he is someone I could support. If he wins, I would vote for him, but ONLY for his stand on the family. His stand on birth control is a little backwards (no birth control even in marrige---really?) He says that there should always be consequences to sex--okay??

I don't know---after being married for years, I see birth control as a gift. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to have child after child with no say. My body gave out after three children and I had some pretty serious health stuff. It appears this happened with Rick's wife as well, but rather than abort, the doctor gave her large quan***ies of a drug that caused a natural abortion (if you can call that natural).

I don't know---it seems conflicted to me to say you don't believe in birth control or abortion on one hand, but when faced with the dilemma of your wife's death, you do the smart thing. I think that would have taught him that some decisions just have to be between the family and their doctor. *sigh*

Economically---the guys record shows no insight or even that his education was worth its cost. He voted to let China have a super-computer. Okay---s.tupid, s.tupid---China is KNOWN for stealing intellectual property. Companies that off-shore there are very likely to get their technology stolen and pirated. That is the sad truth of the matter. That is why Romney has been so adament about addressing their behavior with the WTO. China was admitted in the WTO in 2001 and that needs a serious look at. Rick hasn't really addressed that.

Rick has also voted against open trade policies with good countries and for subsidies in our country. Anyone who has had a modicum of understanding knows that the net effect of that is to cause downward pressure on the GDP---a basic history of the Great Depression shows that.

But alas, it appears that the lemmings of the evangelical cults are falling into line with their cult leaders and are not doing their own research into who they are voting for...which is why they have jumped from one candidate to another depending on the "non-Mormon" de jour.

[alanmolstad]

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...9153159AAnWRwx



I do not talk about such personal issues....

But I do try to point people away from myths when I can...


I will say that I do not find even the slightest fault with the way Rick handled this moment in his past.
His is an example of how a good husband and good father should act under this type of stress...

[alanmolstad]

I believe Rick's position on birth control is in-line with the Catholic church position.

and the Catholic position is in-line with the tenancy of things like birth control pills and IUDs to cause the fertilized egg to be rejected by the body...thus they are a form of destruction of a conceived human life.....a form of abortion.

a lot of women dont know this fact, and it is the hope of many in the prolife movement that a more open discussion about how the pill works might cause people to understand that it can cause abortions in the normal manner it was designed to work....


The news reports as of late are centered around the catholic church being forced under Obamacare to pay for their church employees to be give the pill.

as the pill can cause an abortion as part of how it normally ends a pregnancy, this goes totally against the Catholic church teachings that all unborn life must be respected.

[alanmolstad]

What i do think is going to happen in the next few weeks, is that the supporters of Mitt will understand that Mitt has lost to Rick on the social issues...and so they will attack him on them.

This means they will dig up dirt,
spread rumor
invent stories.
connect the dirtiest stories with Rick or his family.


This is just the same as when Clinton got caught with that girl in the oral office.
Remember how the supporters of Clinton never said that Clinton was in the wrong?

what the supporters of Clinton did was to dig up the dirt on other presidents....they would go on talk shows and when asked about Clinton;s sex life would quickly point to President Jefferson's sex life, or to the many girl friends of Kennedy.

The idea the Clinton supports had was that by making the bigger flaws of other presidents the topic, then you make the flaws of Clinton appear smaller.



My own view of this is as follows:

All of us know some type of Hitler we can compare ourselves to.

All of us know that if we wanted to we could think of any number of people that most people would consider as worse than us by a long shot.

But this is a moot point.

If you try to make your own sins appear minor by always pointing to Hitler's sins, then you will NEVER find a reason to imporve yourself.


Your standard on behavior should not be set by the very worst person who ever lived!


If you want to compare yourself to someone, compare yourself to someone far better than yourself....



In this election, there are people in it that will show that sooner or later that all got their personal flaws.

If we were electing a person who never made a single mistake, we are going to be disappointed.

They all got flaws, and that is why it is so important to make a hiring decision based on the things needed to do the ***..

The office of the president is a political leadership/administration position.
A president has to have the ability to speak and promote a line of thinking that will gather to him the needed support to get things done.

Im a conservative, so what I look for in a president is someone I feel will have a strong voice for my conservative point of view.


So i listen to what each person has to say and how they say it....and based on a gut feeling , I vote on the guy i think is the most clear voice for my views.


I know this person might turn out to have a past history where he might have had trouble with the law, or got mixed up with the wrong people at times....

I understand that none of us lead pure lives.

But I dont have to dig up dirt about the other guys in the race to make my own guy's flaws appear smaller....

[BigJulie]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...9153159AAnWRwx



I do not talk about such personal issues....

But I do try to point people away from myths when I can...


I will say that I do not find even the slightest fault with the way Rick handled this moment in his past.
His is an example of how a good husband and good father should act under this type of stress...

Yes, the drug was admininstered that would save his wife's life and end his childs. That was a smart move---but as noted, there are something left to the family. I personally think Rick Santorum puts his nose a little too far into other's people's business with his opinions on this and needs to trust that like him, people will choose what is best for their circumstances.

[BigJulie]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

I believe Rick's position on birth control is in-line with the Catholic church position.

and the Catholic position is in-line with the tenancy of things like birth control pills and IUDs to cause the fertilized egg to be rejected by the body...thus they are a form of destruction of a conceived human life.....a form of abortion.

a lot of women dont know this fact, and it is the hope of many in the prolife movement that a more open discussion about how the pill works might cause people to understand that it can cause abortions in the normal manner it was designed to work....


The news reports as of late are centered around the catholic church being forced under Obamacare to pay for their church employees to be give the pill.

as the pill can cause an abortion as part of how it normally ends a pregnancy, this goes totally against the Catholic church teachings that all unborn life must be respected.

I agree that the Catholic church has a right to decide what it will pay for. I just don't happen to agree with Rick's view of what cons***utes "abortion." And as far as I am concerned, men should stay out of this discussion completely as the one topic in which they are completely clueless is pregnancy---all the science in the world is still not the same as the experience.

[BigJulie]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

What i do think is going to happen in the next few weeks, is that the supporters of Mitt will understand that Mitt has lost to Rick on the social issues...and so they will attack him on them.

This means they will dig up dirt,
spread rumor
invent stories.
connect the dirtiest stories with Rick or his family.


This is just the same as when Clinton got caught with that girl in the oral office.
Remember how the supporters of Clinton never said that Clinton was in the wrong?

what the supporters of Clinton did was to dig up the dirt on other presidents....they would go on talk shows and when asked about Clinton;s sex life would quickly point to President Jefferson's sex life, or to the many girl friends of Kennedy.

The idea the Clinton supports had was that by making the bigger flaws of other presidents the topic, then you make the flaws of Clinton appear smaller.



My own view of this is as follows:

All of us know some type of Hitler we can compare ourselves to.

All of us know that if we wanted to we could think of any number of people that most people would consider as worse than us by a long shot.

But this is a moot point.

If you try to make your own sins appear minor by always pointing to Hitler's sins, then you will NEVER find a reason to imporve yourself.


Your standard on behavior should not be set by the very worst person who ever lived!


If you want to compare yourself to someone, compare yourself to someone far better than yourself....



In this election, there are people in it that will show that sooner or later that all got their personal flaws.

If we were electing a person who never made a single mistake, we are going to be disappointed.

They all got flaws, and that is why it is so important to make a hiring decision based on the things needed to do the ***..

The office of the president is a political leadership/administration position.
A president has to have the ability to speak and promote a line of thinking that will gather to him the needed support to get things done.

Im a conservative, so what I look for in a president is someone I feel will have a strong voice for my conservative point of view.


So i listen to what each person has to say and how they say it....and based on a gut feeling , I vote on the guy i think is the most clear voice for my views.


I know this person might turn out to have a past history where he might have had trouble with the law, or got mixed up with the wrong people at times....

I understand that none of us lead pure lives.

But I dont have to dig up dirt about the other guys in the race to make my own guy's flaws appear smaller....

To me, Rick's flaws are minor on the social issues and huge on the economic issues--which is why I said that if I support him, it will be based on his stance with the family (in spite of his over-reaching on women's issues) and NOT on his economic issues.

Right now, Obama is dumping as much as he can into the economy to give us the sense that things are improving---but look at a couple of things--inflated commodity prices on top of a dead housing market.

My husband and I went to buy a property in the last couple of weeks. We had everything in line and then guess what? Because of federal rules, we could not buy an investment property of this sort unless we had CASH or were willing to pay for a private loan (can you say shark interest rates?) I can tell you why the housing sector is still going bust in spite of the Fed Res putting in 7.7 trillion (yes that was trillion) dollars into the economy---bad bills, the reversing of liberalization of the finance sector---this is precisely how you kill an economy.

Mitt, by the way he talks understands this---even Ron Paul has a better grasp of this. Santorum speaks of nothing but family issues and he is the opposite of a blue dog democrat---he is a red cat republican (he spends and spends and seems to have no concept of how to increase GDP.)

[alanmolstad]

Originally Posted by BigJulie

.... And as far as I am concerned, men should stay out of this discussion c....

if a man should speak, let him speak up for the one in this discussion that is too little to speak on their own...

We are never more in-line with the will of God when we defend the most innocent.....

If we must be found guilty of something, let us be found guilty of defending the rights of they who who have proved to easily overlooked by the liberal media.,

[alanmolstad]

Mostly I think all the finger pointing by Mitt's sad supporters is because they have their own demons to deal with.

We shall see that happens in the Michigan primary, but right now the thing is shaping up to be a moment of truth in this election.

The favored son comes home, and finds that he is several polling points behind someone else????....this bodes ill for Mitt on Super Tuesday...


I cant predict the future, but I do understand that Michigan is the final stop before Super Tuesday, and that a win for Mitt in Michigan will help him greatly on Super Tuesday.


On the other hand, any type of loss for Mitt in Michigan will have me and a lot of other conservatives demanding he pull out of the race if he cant do any better on Super Tuesday.

[BigJulie]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

if a man should speak, let him speak up for the one in this discussion that is too little to speak on their own...

We are never more in-line with the will of God when we defend the most innocent.....

If we must be found guilty of something, let us be found guilty of defending the rights of they who who have proved to easily overlooked by the liberal media.,

I have never known a man to jump in front of a bus for his children the way a women would. If you want to see suffering for the love of a child--look to the women. When you go through 9 months of morning sickness and 20 hours of labor, stretch marks, painful nursing, when you have a child sit on your lap when you are sick and you still care for them----or as I did--when you are p***ing a kidney stone and you still make your kids lunch--THEN, you have anything to say to me.

So, please get off your high horse about this. If anything, the only women I have ever met to get an abortion of convenience, it was at the insistence of the man in her life. So please, your diatribe on this rings hollow. That said, for Rick to stick his nose into the issue of birth control is beyond me.

[BigJulie]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

Mostly I think all the finger pointing by Mitt's sad supporters is because they have their own demons to deal with

Baloney---running for president is always a vetting process and you guys have been finger pointing at Mitt throughout this whole process---so, once again, get off your hypocritcal high horse.

On the other hand, any type of loss for Mitt in Michigan will have me and a lot of other conservatives demanding he pull out of the race if he cant do any better on Super Tuesday.

This line of reasoning if rediculous and I think even you know it.

[alanmolstad]

Originally Posted by BigJulie

orse.




This line of reasoning if ridiculous and I think even you know it.

Allow me to show you how this is actually very logical...and likely to happen if given the right situations.

I cant predict the future...
I dont know who will win what primary.

But looking forward I can make a guess as to what things would mean if they happen.

If Rick has a loss before the Super Tuesday Primary, then it does not set him up well for later.
On the other hand, if Mitt has any loss at all before Super Tuesday it will mean he is in big trouble later.
And when Super Tuesday is over if Mitt does not look strong enough to sweep the rest of the States then I got to tell you right now he will not be allowed to lead the ticket.

The Republican leadership will step in and open the convention and that will be it for Mitt and he will be done for this election..

Once the Con is opened, and everyone is allowed to vote for anyone they want, Rick has a good chance of leading the ticket, and Mitt has a good chance of being shown the door.


The tell-tail moment seems to be working out to be Michigan.

The media has put a pin in Michigan and informed us that even here on what is clearly Mitt's home turf he is in trouble.
Even out spending Rick by (in some cases) 10 to 1, he is still dropping in the polling.

My guess is that should we see Rick do well this next week, that it will change the conversation totally....
And that at that moment Mitt will know that he has to go "All-in" on Super Tuesday and spend all his cash because there is no point in pretending to go on after Super Tuesday if he comes in 2nd.

Mitt has to come in 1st on Super Tuesday, or he becomes "Dead Man Walking"


The Party leadership can do many things to ease a person off the stage.
They can open the convention and allow people to vote for anyone they want.
Or they can suspend the rules, and simply invent new rules so that all of this election so far becomes a moot point...


My guess is this:
The way I see a chance of Mitt not getting the lead spot on the ticket comes down to Michigan and Super Tuesday.
Should Mitt come in 2nd in Michigan it's going to cause an earthquake in party Leadership and it would be the signal that Mitt will not carry the mid-west and central RED STATES.

Heres the thing with the Republican leadership that you have to understand.
The leadership, while it would 'like" to have Mitt win, they are way, way, way, more concerned with getting control of Congress.
Thats means keeping their vote count in the House, and getting one or two more seats in the Senate .

The leadership is also very concerned with the States, and knows that in many red States they are in danger of losing control.
Thus what the Leadership wants is a guy at the top of the ticket that has coattails, and can help sweep the party as a whole to victories in key Blue states.

The LAST THING the party leadership wants is a Presidential ticket that has no ability to help keep congress.


The Republican leadership was counting on the ticket to have all the central and western states in the bag so as to not need to spend money there.
A loss in Michigan means that Obama can move in and do some damage there....all the way down to the local level.
That would mean that rather than spending the money on the BLUE STATES with the idea of getting a few victories there, the Republicans will need to switch to full "defense mode"...and just try to hang on to what they got because of a known weak Presidential ticket.

I think this is why that suddenly Michigan has come to be seen as so important to the republicans:
It shows everyone if the Republicans will be playing Offense and taking the fight to Obama in the fall?

or

Will the Republicans be dropping back and playing defense and hoping to just hang on to the Red States they got?


and so trust me....If Michigan shows the party Leadership that we might lose the Red State advantage because Mitt cant automatically carry his own home State, then the leadership is going to start openly saying that "Mitt has got to go"


Simply put, the Rep leaders will not allow the top spot on the ticket to go to a guy who cant show he can bring home the Red states....

The SC primary results showed us that Mitt will never get the support of the conservatives to beat Obama
The Michigan primary results will show us if Mitt can expect to get the support of the Central and mid-west Red States?



But all this just in the unknown future, so I cant say for sure it will happen....but should Michigan not go Mitt's way, then you can bet what i have just posted is likely to play out next.

[alanmolstad]

oh....and as always, a little checking will prove that really nothing Im saying here is all that different...

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...about-michigan

"“It is very hard to see Santorum getting to 1,144 delegates,” Geoff Skelley of the University of Virginia’s Center of Politics said, referring to the number of delegates required to win the nomination.

“A brokered convention? There is the possibility for that to happen. "


"Romney displays “an astounding inability to provide voters with a rationale to support him”

[alanmolstad]

In real terms....when you hear someone in the media or the Party start to talk of a "brokered convention" what they are really saying is "Get rid of Mitt"


Thats the point of a brokered convention.

That is the reason so many people now are listing it up there with the other things that might happen.

They are saying that in thew future the Party might need to "Get rid of Mitt"


Even if Mitt wins enough Primary votes the win the nomination, the brokered convention is how the Party would get rid of Mitt no matter what.

That is the thinking behind all the talk in conservative Talk Radio now.

Everyone knows that it is not really very likely that Rick will win enough Primary votes to beat Mitt, and so that is why as the date for the convention draws ever more near, you also start to hear more and more voices talking about a "brokered convention".


a brokered convention is the same thing as saying "Get rid of Mitt"

[alanmolstad]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...new-candidate/


"A prominent Republican senator just told me that if Romney can’t win in Michigan, the Republican Party needs to go back to the drawing board and convince somebody new to get into the race.

“If Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate,” said the senator,

[alanmolstad]

I think what we are seeing in the media reports of leading Republicans talking about different ways to get rid of Mitt, supports what i have been talking about for a while now.

The fact is that Mitt clearly is never going to get enough support from the Republican conservative base to beat Obama.


No one is disagreeing with that conclusion now...
The lessons learned in the SC Primary were very clear...


The leadership of the Party now clearly sees the danger Mitt's lack of support within his own party could have on the rest of the election where many States will be up for grabs.

The Party is clearly looking for a way to ease Mitt off the stage should he prove on Super Tuesday that he just dont have what it takes to draw voters of his own Party to himself.

This Michigan Primary has ended up being the key State to watch for this season.

Michigan will tell us if the Republicans have any chance at all with Mitt or not?

If Mitt does good in Michigan?, then the fight moves to Super Tuesday where Mitt really has to put this away to save his race against Obama later.

If Mitt finishes 2nd in Michigan?....then look for everyone to start talking about "Someone else", if Super Tuesday proves to be the disaster for Mitt that Rick is aiming at.

Rick wants to win big in Michigan.
If Rick does win big in Michigan he can turn around and use that victory to gain ground on Mitt on Super Tuesday.
Rick can claim the number one position in this election at that point and conservatives love to support the guy in the lead...

Rick wants to win in Michigan because of how much that would make Mitt look bad to the people voting on Super Tuesday...

Rick does not "need" to win Michigan as much as Mitt really needs to win there.
But if Rick does win, then at that point I believe we will see a lot of people who have been sitting on the fence in this election start to line up behind Rick.

[BigJulie]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

"Romney displays “an astounding inability to provide voters with a rationale to support him” [/COLOR][/I][/B]

This is a biased opinion---the proof is that Romney has the backing of 17 senators---Rick, none.

[BigJulie]

"Paul said the focus on social issues is a fundamental problem and an unwise fight for the GOP.

"I think it's a losing position," he said. "I talk about it because I have a precise understanding of how these problems are to be solved," on a state-specific level, he said."

I agree with Ron Paul on this---the focus on social issues is an unwise fight for the GOP.

[BigJulie]

Maybe you can verify for me if this is legite. I was actually reading an article about Newt on Drudge and someone posted this:

In 2006, Rick Santorum, less than two months before suffering one of the worst losses in Senate history, was named one of three “most corrupt” Senators by CREW, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

According to CREW:

“The officials named in this report have chosen to enrich themselves and their families and friends by abusing the power of their office, rather than work for the public good. Their collective corruption affects all Americans,” stated the executive director of CREW, Melanie Sloan.”

“Sen. Santorum’s ethics issues stem from the manner in which he funded his children’s education and his misuse of legislative position in exchange for contributions to his political action committee and his re-election campaign,” CREW notes, on page 207 of their exhaustive report (PDF), which delves into deep detail across eleven extensively-footnoted pages.

In February of 2006, CREW had filed an ethics complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee against Senator Santorum, “alleging that Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) violated the Senate Gift Rule by accepting a mortgage from The Philadelphia Trust Company, a bank that serves affluent clients.”

Charging that “ethical tresp***es have become the norm for Sen. Santorum,” CREW’s Melanie Sloan cited Santorum’s “contempt for the rules” as “particularly ironic given that Sen. Santorum has long attempted to position himself as the poster child for public morality.”

[alanmolstad]

http://www.undueinfluence.com/citize...and-ethics.htm


"a far-left Democrat social-change attack group targeting Republicans and centrist Democrats in Congress and conservative non-profit groups."


They attack Republicans...that make charges...they get money from other Liberals to attack Republicans.
I bet they really hate the pro-life stand of Rick, so its to be expected that they would make charges against him...

Rick stands up and speaks out for a way of thinking that goes against everything these people support.


Liberal Republicans dont really become their target

[alanmolstad]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

What i do think is going to happen in the next few weeks, is that the supporters of Mitt will understand that Mitt has lost to Rick on the social issues...and so they will attack him on them.

This means they will dig up dirt,
spread rumor
invent stories.
connect the dirtiest stories with Rick or his family.

..........

as predicted....

[alanmolstad]

Originally Posted by BigJulie

"Paul said the focus on social issues is a fundamental problem and an unwise fight for the GOP.
.

The guys like Ron Paul were the very ones suggesting the same advice to our ticket when Dole ran and when McCain ran.

Both Dole and McCain were guys who the Dems loved, as they never tried to run on social issues...

McCain pointed out that he would not support the conservative agenda at all....
Dole refused to speak up in support of conservatives issues ....

Both Dole and Mccain, believed that they would just get the vote of all the conservatives, so they never tried to move closer to their positions...they never tried to draw the conservative voter.

Dole and McCain were thinking at the time, "Who else will the Christians vote for?



Both guys said that making an appeal to the country to consider social issues would be an error and would push people away.

Both were wrong!




The way to bring people to you is to take a moral stand!

Thats how you get people motivated to get out to vote for you....You frame the debate as being good against evil....

pro-life against pro-murder...


Im not surprised that Ron Paul thinks different than i do...after all Paul is not actually a Republican, he is a "Libertarian"....

So he is not reflective of the party, nor has he shown in any National election that his views are held by many people at all......


Ron Paul is what he is and always will be.....a side-issue guy...a protest vote...a pro-drug use vote....

In other words.....he is moot

[alanmolstad]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Michigan.html



another voice that is saying now what i have been saying for a while...

"Mitt Romney's hopes of winning the Republican presidential nomination would be fatally wounded should he fail to win the primary in his home state of Michigan, both his rivals and senior party figures have warned."

Did you notice that now the story about what another loss by Mitt will mean are now starting to quote "senior party figures"?


As I was saying on another post, I believe that if Mitt were to do baddy this week, and it set things up for Super Tuesday where Mitt again does poorly?, that the republican Leadership will start to push Mitt out of this election.

I think the leadership is warning Mitt that he has to win this week, and on Super Tuesday, or he will face a call by the leadership for a "Open Convention"


and remember, the only reason for an Open Convention is to "get rid of Mitt" no matter how many votes he has won in the primaries.

So basically, everything I have been talking about from my own private point of view, is being confirmed as how things actually are panning out.....
My conclusions are being fulfilled....

[BigJulie]

Originally Posted by alanmolstad

as predicted....

of course as they go through the process, each candidate's Super Pac's will expose the other candidates---that is to be expected--it has happened with them all.

I am curious what you think about Rick being voted as one of the most corrupt politicians for his receiving money and also that one of his biggest donors right now is someone he has given huge earmarks to.

This was surprising to me---I wonder if the pastors who all voted for him did any homework at all before they voted. It appears that they didn't--from this perspective.