Roger Simon from Creators Syndicate

Mitt Romney Is Dazed and Confused for 02/10/2012

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

You never want to let them see how much it hurts.

You get hit by a pitch, you don't rub the spot. You get rocked by a punch, you try to throw a counter-punch. You lose three races in one night as a political candidate, and, well, you don't do what Mitt Romney did.

Romney is known as an even-keel kind of guy. Doesn't get too high; doesn't get too low. But Tuesday he lost three stat ...

Updated: Fri Feb 10, 2012

Newt Driven by “Personal Hatred” for 02/08/2012

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Some men grow in office, and others just swell.

Sam Rayburn said it, and Newt Gingrich proves it. During his 20 years in Congress, Gingrich swelled from a conservative pioneer to a disgraced speaker of the House. In resigning both his speakership and House seat, Gingrich said in 1998, "I'm willing to lead, but I'm not willing to preside over people who are cannibals."

Th ...

Updated: Wed Feb 08, 2012

A Low Road Through a Weak Field for 02/03/2012

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The road is low, the field is weak, and the future is bleak. Just three things to consider after yet another primary.

1. The Road Is Low

Presidential campaigning in America has long been dirty and vicious because we've always had politicians who deserved it.

By 1800 — only America's fourth presidential election — our infant nation had already reached a vile poli ...

Updated: Fri Feb 03, 2012

America Don't Back No Losers for 02/01/2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

On the 17th ballot at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in late August, the delegates remained deadlocked.

Inside the sweltering convention hall, "Moon Colony" delegates wearing wedges of green cheese on their heads continued to demonstrate for Newt Gingrich.

Mitt Romney, ahead in the delegate count but without a majority, remained holed up in his comman ...

Updated: Wed Feb 01, 2012

GOP Makes Obama Look Good for 01/27/2012

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Republican field debated for the 19th time Thursday night, and once again, the media promised us it was going to be a "make or break" event.

Don't believe the media.

The media say the debates have been the most critical factor in the nominating race so far because the media have been forced to watch them all. And take notes. And write stories.

And we want some ...

Updated: Fri Jan 27, 2012

Newt Gingrich Is Angry for 01/25/2012

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Newt Gingrich trundles into the meeting hall — a former X-rated movie theater — to rapturous applause.

He is not the best-looking guy in Republican race or the best-funded or the most ideologically pure. But he has found his shtick, and he is shticking to it.

Newt Gingrich is the angriest man in America.

Mitt Romney will tell you that Ba ...

Updated: Wed Jan 25, 2012

Changing States of the Union for 01/24/2012

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Remember the stirring words from Barack Obama's State of the Union address last year?

Liar. Hardly anybody remembers SOTUs (as the press calls them), including, perhaps, the presidents themselves.

Not that they are casual affairs. The White House is thrown into a state of frenzy — more so than usual, that is — before SOTUs, because every branch, department and niche in ...

Updated: Tue Jan 24, 2012

Newt Wants Adultery Forgiven and Forgotten for 01/21/2012

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Nobody does self-righteousness like Newt Gingrich. Nobody.

On stage here Thursday night at the 17th Republican debate, Gingrich was asked about the accusations his second wife had just made about him on ABC News and to The Washington Post.

Gingrich's face took on the appearance of a cartoon character whose face blows up like a beach ball until steam ...

Updated: Sat Jan 21, 2012

After a Disastrous Campaign, Perry May Run Again in 2016 for 01/20/2012

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — To know Rick Perry was to ignore him.

The more he campaigned for the Republican nomination for president, the lower his poll numbers dropped.

As he traveled the country, gripping and grinning with voters, laying out his personality, plans and proposals, his surge began to sag like a leaky zeppelin.

Though Perry is an experienced politician and ...

Updated: Fri Jan 20, 2012

Promise Them Anything, but Give Them Death for 01/18/2012

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Just in case you sometimes get Mormons and Quakers confused, Mitt Romney cleared things up Monday night.

"Bin Laden got what he deserved," Romney, a Mormon, said at a Republican debate in South Carolina. "A bullet in the head."

The crowd, as debate crowds sometimes do, went wild.

The audience assembled in Myrtle Beach, S.C., at a Fox/Wall Street Journal ...

Updated: Wed Jan 18, 2012

Mitt Romney Wants to Save Your Soul for 01/13/2012

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

NASHUA, N.H. — Alone in his hotel room on a dark and stormy night, the presidential candidate was memorizing his talking points when the Devil appeared before him.

"Worry not," the Devil said. "I can grant you a victory in the primaries and the nomination of your party. But in return, you must sell me your soul.

"You must betray all decent principles. You ...

Updated: Fri Jan 13, 2012

Of Pigs, Pokes and Pious Baloney for 01/10/2012

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

MANCHESTER, N.H. — There is a popular show on cable called "Storage Wars." In it, people are allowed to peer into abandoned storage lockers and then bid on the contents.

They are not allowed to enter the locker and can gaze at the jumble of stuff inside for only a brief period of time before the bidding begins.

The presidential debates have become "Storage War ...

Updated: Tue Jan 10, 2012

Hello, Goodbye for 01/10/2012

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

NASHUA, N.H. — So it has come to this: Seven days since it began, it is essentially over.

Just a week since the Iowa caucuses, the first contest of a long primary season, it is widely assumed that Mitt Romney will be the nominee of the Republican Party.

Forget about delegates. Iowa, which Romney won by eight votes, gave him no delegates. It was a pure beauty contest.

...

Updated: Tue Jan 10, 2012

Santorum in the Lions' Den for 01/07/2012

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

CONCORD, N.H. — Lions' Den events are often very good politics.

A candidate appears before a hostile crowd, where with the sheer weight of his courage, calm and courtesy, he wins over the angry lions, or at the least those people watching it later on the nightly news.

There is a trick to this for the candidate, however: Even if bitten, never bite back.

The candidate, ...

Updated: Sat Jan 07, 2012

Is It Now OK for Our Presidential Candidates to Weep? for 01/05/2012

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

DES MOINES, Iowa — It has been a trail of tears. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry all cried on television in the days before the Iowa caucuses.

What they did was warm, human and utterly genuine. A few years ago, we would have called them sissies.

But America has grown far too sensitive for that. Today, we look upon male lacrimation as a combination of manly sensit ...

Updated: Thu Jan 05, 2012

Ron Paul Is on Time and on Message for 12/30/2011

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

NEWTON, Iowa — Ron Paul does not overpower a room when he enters it. He barely occupies it.

He aspires to medium height and is thin, though not frail. He has, at least temporarily, given up the gap-at-the-neck suits that made him look shrunken at debate after debate.

He shows up at a speech here, 30 miles east of Des Moines, precisely on time, which is virtually unheard of i ...

Updated: Fri Dec 30, 2011

Mitt Romney Is Wild Like a Stallion for 12/30/2011

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

MASON CITY, Iowa — There is no trouble in River City. Mitt Romney has arrived.

He glides into Music Man Square, a painstaking re-creation of the set for the famous movie bearing the same name, where a small Iowa town in 1912 is waiting for Harold Hill to lead 76 trombones down the street.

Hill was, of course, a con man. But he is saved at the end of the movie by the powers o ...

Updated: Fri Dec 30, 2011

Mount Newt Erupts! for 12/28/2011

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

DES MOINES, Iowa — Nobody erupts like Newt Gingrich. While his face remains largely placid, the words flow from his lips like lava.

"I think Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American," Gingrich told CNNs Wolf Blitzer Tuesday evening.

Ron Paul, Newt says, has "not yet disowned" his own newsletter that has contai ...

Updated: Wed Dec 28, 2011

Are Polls Really Magic? for 12/21/2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

With the glut of debate stories safely behind us until human beings actually cast votes in Iowa on Jan. 3, the media now shift their full concentration to what really counts: polls.

Polling drives our political process far more than debates do. Debates are just the candidates yakking in real time.

Polls are predictions of the future. They are crystal balls. They are magic.

...

Updated: Wed Dec 21, 2011

GOP Over-coached and Over-careful for 12/16/2011

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

In the last debate before voters ruin things by actually voting, the candidates for the Republican nomination met in Sioux City, Iowa, Thursday night to thrash things out.

The media were hoping they would thrash each other.

But they simply gave viewers more of the same. And sometimes less. The top-tier candidates were over-coached and over-careful, painfully aware that the Iowa ca ...

Updated: Fri Dec 16, 2011