Trapped in a car with Fox News

Sun, 04 Nov 2012 17:45:00 +0000

In the last leg of my five-day journey back to New York after Hurricane Sandy, I found myself in a car with my cousins to the Poughkeepsie train station counting my blessings. Although I was stranded and couldn’t get home, I rode out the storm with people I love in Milwaukee and Albany, with plenty of food, my own bedroom, cable TV, Wi-Fi and lots of fun. In light of real storm-related suffering, I had a great adventure. So for my last hour, I chose real suffering: listening to Fox News on Sirius XM in the car on the way to the train.

On Fox News the election is shaping up to be a Mitt Romney squeaker. He's scaring them, OK, but he's going to pull it out. We tuned in to hear Romneybot Steve Doocy grappling with a little bit of reality, grilling Dick Morris about whether it isn't a tiny bit worrisome that Romney had to visit Virginia and Florida when he's supposed to have those states sewn up; in fact, he can't win without them.

Not a problem, Dick Morris says – Romney will win both states, and he'll carry George Allen and Connie Mack to the Senate on his coattails, too. Congratulations to Virginia's Tim Kaine and Florida's Bill Nelson, who can probably quit campaigning now.

GOP candidates put their moms to work

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:39:00 +0000

The political conventions were not the high water mark of family marshaled for political theatrics. You may have thought that the peak of pandering was Ann Romney shouting, "I love you women!" and Michelle Obama's repeated self-designation as "mom-in-chief." In fact, if you're a Republican, it's enlisting your mother or grandmother to promise that nothing is going to happen to your Medicare -- unless it's Obama looting it.

It's not easy being a down-ticket Republican with Paul Ryan a notch below the top. Democrats got plenty of leverage early in the fall pointing out Ryan's plans to voucherize Medicare and past designs on Social Security. As compiled in a roundup by the National Journal, the senate and House candidates who trot out their mothers (and to a far lesser extent, their fathers) to, well, vouch for them respond using the same discredited line that Romney-Ryan have: That it's Obamacare, not the Republicans, that are a real danger to Medicare. And who is more credible than a sweet, white-haired lady who conveniently might double as a salve to the gender gap?

Salon.com > Connie Mack

Trapped in a car with Fox News

GOP candidates put their moms to work