sarah wouldn't appreciate your urbane sophistication, she'd call you and elitist at least you're honest about the only appeal she has
Tim Pawlenty was my governor for 8 years so I can tell you quite abit about him. He has pretty much been running for President for the last 8 years and has tailored his policies as such refusal to raise taxes. In the meantime MN has been beset by a declining economy and unbalanced budgets during many of those years. While these aren't Pawlenty's fault his Admin. hasn't done much to address those. His line about not raising taxes isn't exactly true as many fees were jacked up under his Admin. and property taxes have skyrocketed while he was in office. Much of Pawlenty's popularity among wider GOP circles tends to come from that in 2006 he survived an election when the GOP in general did very poorly nationwide. What many don't realize is that it took a last minute epic meltdown by his DFL opponent Mike Hatch for him to win the election otherwise he would've been defeated. While he didn't run again in 2010 he didn't leave office widely popular and wasn't able to even get a preferred successor the Republican endorsement. For awhile he was pushing the idea of "Walmart Republicans" to emphasize his own blue collar roots. That idea never caught on and I think people like Palin have outdone Pawlenty as being an everyman / woman Republican. In general though he doesn't come off as strident or shrill, even if what he is saying is actually extreme, and for the most part steers clear of hot button social issues. In some cases he has even taken what are considered liberal stances such as strong support for reimportation of prescription drugs and also support for cap and trade, which he now is against. On the positive side Pawlenty is very personable and out of all of the politicians I have met both in MN and out he was the nicest and genuinely seemed the friendliest. This could help him quite a bit with the retail politics of Iowa and New Hampshire but doesn't translate well for a national campaign. My own feeling is that Pawlenty isn't a bad candidate for the GOP but just lacks the outsized personality and charisma to really catch fire. Even if he does win the GOP, I highly doubt he would beat Obama and it wouldn't surprise me if in a head to head match up he even loses MN.
lol samuel - once again, your desire to argue for the sake of arguing (or e-slapfighting, as you call it) is making you look most foolish. lol. their PAC's, executives, owners, employes and their families did. and it really paid off for them - obama has been a great corporatist, which is why he will be president again. wrong again samuel. goldman sachs by itself gave obama close to 1 million. the numbers are in the link above. clearly, contributions from executives and employes and PAC's of these large corporations were a massive chunk of obamas funding. and obama didnt run a billion dollar campaign in 2008 - he plans to run one next year - the question is why would someone spend such a large amount of money for a job that only pays a few hundred grand a year? why in the world would anyone need to spend a billion dollars to run against a republican candidate who is going to lose anyway? so you went to the university of chicago library to use their computer to complete your university of phoenix online degree? neat!
There's a very good reason there is not much satire from the right. I'll let the late, great Molly Ivins explain...
The Secretary of the Treasury, TARP, bailout money that saved all their investments, and a slow-footed DOJ and SEC that can't seem to persecute a simple cut-and-dry case of perjury?
he gave them the secretary of the treasury, geitner was already in the system. tarp was signed before obama and it avoided a complete meltdown. i'll have to read the rolling stone article later
So now, any employee of a corporation counts as a contribution from part of that evil corporation from your perspective? So when the blue-collar assembly line worker at GM donates $100 to Obama, that shows that Obama is beholden to GM?
TARP was expanded by Obama---so was the bailout money. It avoided a "complete meltdown"---why, yes, a self-caused meltdown fraught with fraud and deceit, where Goldman sold short on stocks it deliberately marketed to others---while behind the scenes, discussing the absolute horses*** they knew they were selling as "securities". Goldman was largely responsible for the fall of Morgan Stanley and AIG, and of the entire ******* economy, yet it received slaps on the wrist for a heist that may have cost American children their chance at freedom of debt, and many American workers their jobs. Obama ultimately had at least some choice in the Treasury Secretary. That he appointed the head of the Fed in NY with very established links to Goldman, and with an inclination towards bailing out GS and it's "investments" but not rival Bear Stearns is very telling indeed.
the only bailout outside of tarp was gm. look, i'm not happy with what investment banks did and deregulation over the last 20-30 years, but a lot of people's fates were tied to the bailout. necessary evil
LOL - thanks for posting that but I'm well aware of that list, which is why I basically posted your response while the creaky gears were turning in your darling head, and the frantic googling was occurring(because I was discussing it with Rocketsjudoka last week in anohter thread.) Couple of questions: *$900,000 contributed independlenty by GS employees is what percentage of the ~$700 million raised by the Obama Campagn? *What do you think benefitted the Obama campaign more, rank in order of 1-4 $499,000 donated by GE Employees directly to campagn $900,00o donated by GS emlployees to campaign $43 million donated by lawyers and law firms? $24 million in direct independent expenditures by the Service Employees International Union BTW while the Obama Campaign only directly raised about $700 mm last cycle, when you add in the independent expenditures (on both sides) from donors like the unions, the DNC etc - it goes well above $1 billion. Listen, I'm all for going after Goldman et al when they break the law, but this kind of paranoid ranting that they managed to buy the government because their employees put a few drops in the campaign cash bucket is silly, which is why nobody agrees with you. A lawsuit that cost them $600 million to settle - I guess $900,000 doesn't go as far as it used to?
It would be a necessary evil if TARP actually achieved "Main Street" goals of a saner Wall Street, but all we're left with is a weak, revolving-door SEC and an investment regulation act that does much of nothing. mark my words, this s*** will happen again, thanks to corporate cronyism. Little-known fact---a lot of big bank securities/bonds are priced according to the fact that the government will bail them out in case of failure. we're just rewarding stupidity over and over again.
Disingenuous considering how much GS made off of their criminal activities, and how much they continue to make. Call me when they indict Goldman executives for the same thing they indicted Clemens for---perjury and 5 years of jail-time. last I checked, Clemens didn't bring down the whole ******* economy with him either.
..the Right is the party of the wealthy, and no matter that a "Left" candidate has the presidency because the wealthy are always in power, no matter what party has more (or bigger) seats.
I forgot their specifics but I'm pretty sure that GS takeaway from the infamous fabulous Fab/Paulson transactions was in the 10's of millions. But overall I agree there are probably other skeletons out there (wondering why Cuomo/Schneiderman haven't used the Martin Act more which is a bit broader).
