Remember all of the talk about Barack Obama becoming the first African-American president? The race wasn’t about race, it was about hope and change, and the fact that America elected its first black president was a wonderful achievement for our country. Remember the hype? Remember the tingle in the leg?
While not politically correct to say, the truth of the matter is that Barack Obama is half-black. His father was black and his mother was white. In 2008 Obama’s racial makeup was enough to energize millions of black voters into the voting booth, increasing the historical black Democratic vote from the mid 80% range to well over 90%. His race also served as a motivating factor for other Americans to help write a new historic chapter to the legacy of the American presidency.
Mitt Romney is currently leading the race to be the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, yet there has been very little discussion about the fact that he is Latino. Yes, for those new to this idea, Mitt Romney’s father was born in Mexico. His great-grandfather moved his family to Mexico to avoid religious persecution, and he helped start a Mormon colony that still exists today. (note: Mormons outlawed polygamy in 1890. It was/is still practiced by the occasional religious rebel, but the practice is not official Mormon church doctrine.)
Mitt’s grandfather Gaskell had one wife. Together they had seven children, George was the middle child. When George was five years old his family fled the violence of the Mexican Revolution, leaving their home and virtually all of their possessions behind.
George Romney grew up in America, here are a few facts about his upbringing:
- After living on government relief in El Paso, TX the family moved to Los Angeles.
- George’s father Gaskill worked as a carpenter for a year, then moved the family to Idaho to try potato farming.
- He failed at farming and moved to Salt Lake City, UT to work construction again. He eventually became a successful home builder.
Mitt’s father George Romney also started out with modest beginnings:
- George started working in the wheat and sugar beet fields at age 11.
- At age 14 he became skilled in lath and plaster work in the 1920s. The Great Depression eventually ruined them in 1929.
- After a year of junior college he began missionary work in the UK in 1926.
- He followed is girlfriend to Washington DC and found work in politics and the private sector.
- He eventually found steady work at Alcoa and his rise in corporate America began, eventually resulting in becoming CEO of AMC (a car company, you young folks) in 1954.
- While running on a platform that included decrying both the large influence of labor unions within the Democratic Party and the similarly large influence of big business within the Republican Party, he was elected governor of Michigan in 1962, a job he held until 1969.
So, back to Mitt. He learned about hard work through the example set by his father. By the time Mitt was a teenager his father ran for governor and Mitt worked on the campaign. He also worked summer jobs as well as a security guard at Chrysler. While at Stanford he worked nights. He left college after a year to serve 30 months as a missionary. He came back to the states, completed college, then instead of starting a business he entered law school at the suggestion of his father. He excelled at law school and was heavily recruited. The rest of his story is a textbook example of an educated man working his way up the corporate ladder. To sum it up, he earned his way to the top, it was not handed to him on a silver platter.
Given his family history and his own personal successes you would think that Latinos would be rallying behind Romney in a wave of support for another historic moment in American political and racial history. You would think that Romney’s potential candidacy would serve as rallying point for the fastest growing segment of our population. Sadly, this is not the case. Apparently being born in Mexico doesn’t make you Mexican, or at least Mexican enough.
If you listen to many Latinos today they dismiss Romney as a rich, white, anti-imigration elitist who was given everything. This could not be further from the truth, but today it seems to me that too many voters in America care less about truth and more about American Idol.
What is the crux of their discontent? Part of it is class envy. Romney is a self-made billionaire. More significantly, Romney is for the increased securing of our southern border and is against amnesty or other benefits for illegal immigrants.
At the end of the day, a problem we will not overcome is that too many Latinos support, encourage and want lax border enforcement. Every Latino I know is related to or knows of people living in America illegally. The left will continue to propagate the lie that conservatives and Republicans are anti-immigration. Conservatives welcome legal immigration, we recognize that it was a major factor in America’s rise to global superiority. But try explaining that to a liberal and you will probably end up being called a racist.
So, while Mitt Romney has changed his stances at times, and he has said stupid things, I still think he is better for America than President Obama. I’m hoping that at least a few Latinos jump on the Romney bandwagon to support someone that has at taste a piece of Mexico in his blood. After all, we’ve been told that if you are 1% black you are 100% black, so why not extend that concept to other demographics? Come on Latinos! Get with Mitt!
Over at PJ Media, David Goldman wrote a wonderful analysis of the so-called economic recovery. President Obama talks about how things are getting better, but that only makes sense if you ignore reality and create your own metrics. The following graph is included in Mr. Goldman’s article.
The gray bars indicate recessions. The blue line is the percentage of people working. After almost every recession you can easily see a sharp increase in the employment rate. The only two exceptions are the early 1960s and the current administration. My version of the graph highlights the trends.
What caused the spike in the 1980s? I think it was those evil Wall Street investors and that evil Trickle Down Economics that the left claims didn’t work. What caused the rise in the 1990s? The dot-com boom, you know, all of those evil rich kids creating companies with daddy’s trust fund money.
I would also like to point out that despite the recession after the dot-com bust AND the attacks on 9/11 Under Bush and a Republican controlled congress, America was rising economically. Unemployment was around 4%. But what happened? Democrats took control of Congress and the spending spree began. Sadly, President Bush went along with it, which was one of the vital seeds that led to the rise of the Tea Party.
If you listen to the left, America is not a place where people can start a company in a garage, or drop out of college to become 1%-ers. Nobody earns that success, therefore it needs to be stolen and given to the “less fortunate.”
I would like to point out that the largest drop in the employment numbers followed the housing bubble burst while Congress was under Democratic control. I’ve written about how Democrats enabled the disaster we are still recovering from, despite Republican attempts to prevent it. These are facts, not opinions. Why isn’t it getting better? Because the current president is doing nothing to give business the confidence to hire or invest. This is a major distinction. Until our government gets reigned in, businesses will have no choice but to keep things very tight financially.
The bottom line: Obama is making things worse. He is extending America’s suffering. No amount of government spending will help. In fact, it will make 0ur future far worse than most average Americans can imagine. Obama is making things worse. Repeat and share.
…whenever you damned well want to, Mitt.
The entitlement mentality is in high gear as people on both sides of the political spectrum clamor to see Mitt Romney’s tax records. What exactly do they expect to find in them? What benefit does this release offer the public? None. The only people that care about seeing the records are those that want to dig for dirt to knock Romney down.
I think his answer at the debate, while not smoothly delivered, was spot on. He will release his records at his own pace, probably around April. Why should he release them now and potentially give any of his opponents more ammunition with which to attack him?
Romney is playing this smart and the beltway babies on both the right and left can’t handle it.
Here’s an idea that I gladly offer Team Mitt for fair use: They should offer to release Romney’s tax records the day after President Obama releases his college transcripts. After all, President Obama campaigned on transparency, right?
I’ve been trying to avoid politics and debates for the past month or so to clear m head. (I’ve found that listening to sports talk radio instead of news talk radio can be very therapeutic.) I still cruise over to Hot Air quite often to stay current, but I just can’t stomach any more debates. Besides. by the time the primary reaches me in Texas my choices are truly limited. I’m still miffed because back in 2008, thanks to Huckabee and Florida, we got screwed. Romney would have been a much better choice then, and I think he is the best choice now. Not the ideal choice, but the best choice we have remaining.
But talk radio has sucked me in again. This week we have seen lots of complaining about attacks on Romney and attacks on Gingirch. Romney’s superPAC ran ads in Iowa that shredded Gingirch over his political record. Repeat: over his political record. Topics included his $300k ethics fine levied by a Republican congress, his $1.6 million from Fannie/Freddie, and his coziness with Nancy Pelosi. All are true, by the way, and they are pertinent to the current political discussion.
On the other side of this fight, Romney supporters are screaming about attacks on Bain Capital, and capitalism in general. The focus has been on who was fired at companies that Bain took over, and how much money was made by Bain executives. All true, but none of it is pertinent, and here’s why.
Bain Capital is a private company and it exists to make a profit. That is how capitalism works. Profit and losses occur when transactions are made, and it takes two parties to complete a transaction. When companies are struggling they need to make changes in order to survive. Contracts get signed when companies are taken over, and sometimes an owner of a company brings in a firm like Bain to get help. Sometimes said owner just wants to get out and/or wants to dump the company to cash out after years of hard work. And that is fine. On the other side of the transaction is a company like Bain. It sees the potential for profit and agrees to the transaction, just like the business owner did.
Bain has had successes and failures. But every time it made changes to companies — which by the way range from process improvements, accounting corrections, business planning, to the firing of employees — the ultimate goal was to make money. The agreement between company owner and Bain was not signed with the specific goal of creating jobs. It was signed with the goal of the former owner making money, and the new owner eventually making money. Ideally this would happen by making the company more financially stable and attractive and then profiting by the sale of the new and improved entity to someone else that perceived value in the new company. In a perfect world the company would not only be saved, but it would grow and therefore need to hire more people.
Now to the attacks. From what I have seen of the Romney superPAC ads, the call out a few things:
- Gingrich being fined $300k for ethics violations by a Republican congress.
- His receipt of $1.6M from Fannie/Freddie before or while criticizing them.
- His coziness with Nancy Pelosi and legislation that was friendly to China.
These are all true. They are not distortions, at least not from what I’ve seen. (If I am wrong and they are lies, or these statements are misleading, please let me know. I want to be accurate here.) Now, with regard to the attacks on Romney, Newt has gone as far as interviewing people that were fired by Bain Capital. Were they fired? Yes. Did it make sense to do so to save the companies? Probably. but as I’ve said before, it is better to downsize than to go out of business. Avoid firing 20% to be nice and you might end up causing 100% to lose their jobs because you didn’t take the steps necessary to save the company.
Why not interview people who’s jobs were saved by Bain Capital, or people that were hired thanks to the efforts of Bain’s improvements to clients? Yes, it is true that these people were fired, but they are only part of the story. It is cherry picking of the highest order and makes zero sense coming from a supposedly capitalism-friendly Republican like Gingrich. To me it is a childish and pathetic attempt to do anything he can to win, at all costs. It is indicative of his temper and political ADD. But, if the Gingrich team wants to take this path, lets give them something to truly bitch about and release ads featuring interviews with people cheated on by Newt. They would be true, right?
I am so tired of hearing about and reading about Iowa and New Hampshire. Iowa is a great state, I’ve had some of the best corn I’ve ever tasted there. I’ve had lots of fun at the Valaire Ballroom in Des Moines. And New Hampshire is a wonderful place as well. But why should America care who voters pick in the Iowa primary? It’s not like they have a decent track record of selecting winners. 
Think about it. Here is a list of the winners from each party over the past 30 years:
Iowa Primary Winners vs. Actual Presidential Candidates
- 1976 – Ford (R, incumbent), Uncommitted (D)
- Ford was unopposed, IA Democrats disliked Carter enough to select “Generic Dem” as the winner.
- 1980 – Bush (R), Carter (D):
- Carter was unopposed, IA picked Bush over Reagan by 2%.
- 1984 – Reagan (R, incumbent), Mondale (D)
- Reagan was unopposed, IA picked the eventual Democrat candidate.
- 1988 – Dole (R), Gephardt (D)
- IA picked Dole, GHWB won. Dukakis was the Democrat nominee.
- 1992 – Bush (R, incumbent), Harkin (D)
- Bush was unopposed. Harkin won 73% if IA, Tsongas 4%, Clinton 3%.
- 1996 – Dole (R), Clinton (D)
- Clinton was unopposed, IA picked Dole over Buchanan by 3%.
- 2000 – GW Bush (R), Gore (D):
- Iowa picked GW Bush, a non-incumbent winner.
- 2004 – GW Bush (R, incumbent), Kerry (D)
- Bush was unopposed.
- 2008 – McCain (R), Obama (D)
- IA chose Huckabee.
In the past nine elections, when Iowa voters actually had to make a choice (versus selecting the incumbent) got it right once. Now let’s see how the fine folks in New Hampsha’ fared:
New Hampshire Primary Winners vs. Actual Presidential Candidates
- 1976 – Ford (R), Carter (D)
- Ford was unopposed.
- 1980 – Reagan (R) Carter (D)
- NH correctly picked Reagan.
- 1984 – Reagan (R) Hart (D)
- Reagan was unopposed.
- 1988 – GHW Bush (R) Dukakis (D)
- NH correctly picked GHW Bush.
- 1992 – GHW Bush (R) Tsongas (D)
- Bush was unopposed.
- 1996 – Dole (R) Clinton (D)
- NH picked Buchanan.
- 2000 – McCain (R) Gore (D)
- GW Bush won.
- 2004 – GW Bush (R) Kerry (D)
- GW Bush was unopposed.
- 2008 – McCain (R), Obama (D)
- NH picked the eventual candidate.
New Hampshire did better, it managed to get three of eight correct when have to choose a candidate versus selecting the incumbent.
So I ask anyone willing to listen: Why do we still care about how Iowa and New Hampshire vote in the primaries? The world has changed folks… we’ve got instant news, opinions travel at the speed of light and every candidate’s words, facial expressions and body movements are overanalyzed, critiqued and force fed to the masses. Let’s give the vote back to the people and tell the mainstream media to rethink its coverage priorities.
