Maine GOP Stole Maine Caucus Vote From Ron Paul

You have to check out this YouTube clip of a local Fox News affiliate report on the disastrous Maine caucus vote last weekened, which the state GOP's chairman declared had been won by Mitt Romney by fewer than 200 votes over Ron Paul. As it turns out, the vote announced by the chairman included only 84% of the votes cast. Votes that were scheduled to be taken in two counties were cancelled by the state party due to bad weather concerns that never materialized. The state's GOP chairman says those votes will not be counted in the statewide total announced last weekend because they missed the deadline. Among the statewide vote reported last Saturday, the votes cast in dozens of towns in Maine were registered as casting zero votes according to this report. The person who chaired the caucus at one of the towns registered as casting no votes told the news reporter that Ron Paul had won the caucus vote, and those votes had been sent to the state GOP to be included in the statewide count. Local caucus chairs were instructed by state party officials to keep the vote results under seal; however, the caucus voted to make their vote public, and the caucus chair did so by posting the final results on Twitter. When the caucus chair contacted the state party about the discrepency, he was told by a woman working for the state party that their votes had been received, but she gave a vote count that showed Romney a big winner, when he had in fact finished a distant third behind Paul and Santorum. The woman became silent when the caucus chair challenged the tally result. Other towns not counted in the statewide vote are also reporting that Paul won the vote in their caucuses. The state party has already revised the statewide vote count in light of complaints by Republicans throughout the state that the vote was rigged, but the party's chairman has said he won't publicly release the revised vote count until the state party meets next month after the Super Tuesday primaries when it won't matter. This is the exact type of shenanigans that went on four years ago in the Democratic nomination race where Obama operatives rigged caucus votes in a number of states. Obama won the 2008 Democratic nomination narrowly on the strength of the caucus votes. Hillary Clinton actually received more votes during the 2008 primaries, but thanks to stolen caucus votes, Obama won more delegates than her.

The Daily Caller has a separate report here on the Maine GOP's refusal to release updated caucus results.

The Maine Republican Party has added additional votes accidentally omitted from Saturday’s caucus results, state party chairman Charlie Webster told The Daily Caller Wednesday. But those votes won’t be publicly released.

“We don’t want any more drama,” Webster told TheDC. “I’ve already got death threats and 1,800 emails.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was declared the victor in Maine over the weekend, claiming a slim 194-vote lead over Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Paul supporters, however, expressed dismay over errors in tabulating vote counts in various localities, including several towns in Waldo County. That county’s Republican committee passed a motion of censure against Webster on Tuesday.

In addition to the missing votes, a caucus scheduled for Washington County on Saturday was postponed due to a forecast of snow. The Paul campaign insisted that it would have won the state had the vote not been pushed back, and the county’s GOP chair is advocating that its results be included in the ultimate tally.

The Paul campaign is expected to make a serious push for turnout in Washington County’s rescheduled caucus this Saturday.

“If Romney lost by 20 votes, would we be having this big discussion?” Webster mused.

Ron Paul Raises More Money From Hoosiers Than Other GOP Candidates In The Fourth Quarter

This might come as a surprise to the elite insiders of the Indiana GOP who are all backing faux Republican Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, but Ron Paul actually raised more money from Hoosiers in the fourth quarter of 2011 than any of the Republican presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney. Paul's support comes from grassroots supporters and not big money bundlers who raised all of Romney's funds. The Star's Maureen Groppe picks up on this in her story in today's Star and mentions that your's truly is among the Hoosiers supporting Paul:

Filings by the candidates show that Texas Rep. Ron Paul raised the most Hoosier dollars in the last quarter of 2011 among the GOP presidential candidates.

Paul raised $93,757 from Hoosiers who gave more than $200, the amount that requires disclosure of a contributor.

Indianapolis attorney Gary Welsh called Paul "the only truly traditional conservative in the Republican presidential race."

"People have forgotten what it means to be a conservative in the Goldwater tradition of keeping the government off our backs and out of our bedrooms," said Welsh, who gave Paul $250 in December.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney raised $84,251 in large-dollar contributions from Hoosiers in the fourth quarter. Romney, however, raised the most from Hoosiers to date: $273,549, compared with Paul's $180,107.

It should come as no surprise that the Darth Vader of the Indiana Republican Party, Barnes & Thornburg's Bob Grand, is Mitt's money man in Indiana:

Romney's campaign also disclosed that Bob Grand, a partner in the Indianapolis-based law and lobbying firm Barnes & Thornburg, raised $110,150 for Romney from others. (Candidates have to disclose "bundled" contributions from lobbyists.)

Did anyone catch the little-noticed story over the weekend about how Romney, whose campaign has questioned the Republican bona fides of Gingrich and Paul, was actually a registered Democrat in his home state of Massachusetts as recently as the 1990s when he backed Paul Tsongas for president. It turns out that Romney had originally planned to challenge Ted Kennedy in 1994 not as a Republican but as a Democrat in the Democratic primary. Yep, no surprise here. Romney became a Republican out of political convenience, not out of political conviction. The guy actually sent out his attack dogs to falsely accuse Gingrich of being no friend of Ronald Reagan when Romney didn't even support Reagan's election as president.

Gingrich Upsets Romney In South Carolina

No sooner had the polls closed in South Carolina than the major news networks called Newt Gingrich the big winner in tonight's critical primary election where 25 delegates are at stake over Mitt Romney, who had led in polls by a wide margin only a week ago. The Palmetto State has a perfect record to date in picking the eventual winner of the Republican nomination. Gingrich captured 40% of the vote to Romney's 28%. Rick Santorum trailed with 17% and Ron Paul finished in fourth place with 13% of the vote. Interestingly, exit polling data showed Gingrich winning big among voters who described themselves as tea party members or evangelical Christians.

Take a deep breath. I don't for one minute think Gingrich will wind up the winner of the Republican nomination. After three tests, Romney, Santorum and Gingrich each have a victory, although Gingrich's win tonight was the largest to date for any of the candidates. In the all important delegate count, Romney is leading narrowly with 31 delegates, followed by Gingrich's 26 delegates, Paul's 10 delegates and Santorum's 8 delegates. The fact remains that, unlike the campaigns of Romney and Paul, Gingrich does not have a campaign organization or money to handle the heavy schedule of upcoming primaries and caucuses. The next primary is in Florida where Romney currently has a big lead, but as we've seen tonight, Romney's support is very soft and can be challenged. Paul and Santorum aren't competitive in Florida, and Paul's campaign says he may skip the state altogether and focus on upcoming caucus votes in Nevada and Minnesota where he believes his chances are better.

Romney still has to be considered the odds on favorite. He has the money and the organization the other campaigns, except Paul, are lacking, which is critical for any candidate to win a drawn out fight for the nomination. Having said that, Paul's campaign has to be very disappointed with his poor fourth place showing tonight. A Republican presidential candidate has to have appeal among southern voters in order to win a general election. His 13% share of the vote in South Carolina suggests he will have a tough road ahead of him in the remaining primaries in the South. What tonight's upset win for Gingrich does is give pause to many prominent Republican leaders about Romney's status as the presumptive nominee. If Gingrich is able to reverse Romney's lead in Florida as he did successfully in South Carolina, then you can expect Republican leaders across the country to view Romney as the nominee with trepidation.

Pundits are already talking about the possibility of a late entrant into the presidential race, but the reality is that it is too late because any candidate entering at this late date has already missed the filing deadline to get on the ballot in many of the upcoming primary elections. What party leaders may hope, instead, is that a drawn out nomination battle may result in no candidate having a majority of the delegates by the time the convention rolls around next summer. Because delegates are being awarded proportionally instead of the winner-take-all rules of past elections, losing candidates can still win delegates as long as they are earning a significant share of the vote in the states in which they are competing. The best hope a late entrant candidate could have is a convention where no candidate has enough delegates to win on the first ballot, in which case the nomination could be opened up to other candidates. It's been a long time since either party produced a nominee through a brokered convention. The Republican Party hasn't had a brokered convention since Thomas Dewey won the nomination in 1948.

Rove-Like Dirty Tricks Appear In South Carolina

In New Hampshire, it was the campaign of Ron Paul who was the victim of a dirty tricks operation to make it appear his campaign was behind a controversial video portraying Jon Huntsman as a "Manchurian candidate." In South Carolina, it is New Gingrich who is the victim of a dirty tricks operation sending fake e-mail messages to the state's Republican voters. One of the spoofed e-mails appeared to be a CNN Breaking News alert claiming that Gingrich's ex-wife had accused him of forcing her to get an abortion before the two were married. A second spoofed e-mail claimed to be from Gingrich himself confessing to supporters that he had once asked his ex-wife to get an abortion. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the details:

South Carolina's reputation as a haven for political dirty tricks reared its ugly head as a pair of e-mails were sent to Republican voters here claiming Newt Gingrich forced his ex-wife to have an abortion.

Gingrich told reporters that whomever sent the emails should be prosecuted and the state's House majority leader, Republican Kenny Bingham of Lexington, called on the state's attorney general to investigate.

The first e-mail, made to look like an official CNN breaking news alert, claimed Marianne Gingrich, the candidate's second ex-wife, alleged he "forced her to abort a pregnancy conceived during the affair that preceeded her marriage to Gingrich," according to a copy of the message obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

CNN acknowledged the email on air Friday, but said the network did not send it out.

The AJC also obtained a copy of a second fake e-mail sent to Gingrich supporters that appears to be a message from Gingrich confessing to the charge. It features Gingrich's graphics and even has an "unsubscribe" option that makes it appear real.

A Gingrich spokesman confirmed that the e-mails are fake . . .

The state has a history of these types of shenanigans. In the 2000 GOP primary, U.S. Sen. John McCain was hit by last-minute anonymous smears that helped deliver the state, and the nomination, to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

These last minute smear campaigns are straight out of the Karl Rove play book. The Jon Huntsman video helped stall Paul's surge in the New Hampshire primary where he finished a distant second behind Romney after getting within striking distance of Romney in the Granite State according to some polls taken shortly after the Iowa caucus. Polls taken in the Palmetto State in recent days have shown a surge in support for Gingrich, who is now leading Romney according to polls released the last couple of days after trailing him by double-digits as recently as a week ago. You have to look at the Romney campaign as being behind these smear efforts in both cases. Karl Rove is backing Romney, although he claims he is not working directly for his campaign so he can pretend to be an objective paid political consultant for Fox News, which has operated as an extension of the Romney campaign the past couple of months.

UPDATE: The Daily Caller has more details on the origins of the e-mails:

The email’s graphics included a message claiming that it was “paid for by Newt 2012.” The sender substituted the number “1” in “2012” with a lowercase letter L.

The email originated from the phony Internet domain “newt20l2.org,” which uses the same letter-for-number substitution. The domain was registered shortly after 11 a.m. eastern time on Friday morning, according to records available online. The owner used Domains By Proxy, a division of the Internet registrar GoDaddy that allows anonymous registration and guarantees its customers’ privacy.

The fake email was sent roughly four hours later.

Todd Kincannon, a South Carolina lawyer and former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, received the email at 3:11 p.m. Kincannon told The Daily Caller that he firmly believes the email is a concentrated effort from the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to squelch Gingrich’s surge.

“If I were on a jury, there would be no doubt in my mind that Romney did it,” he said. “I mean, the circumstantial evidence is there. Romney’s the person who’s trying to stop Newt.”

“Ron Paul wouldn’t do it,” Kincannon told TheDC. “Paul wants Newt to win. Paul thinks he’s got a shot at a brokered convention. I don’t think the Santorum people would do it. It’s just not their style. But it is definitely the Romney people’s style.”

Paul's Campaign Sues Maker Of Huntsman "Manchurian Candidate" Video

A YouTube video uploaded to the Internet in the crucial period leading up to the New Hampshire primary where Ron Paul's support was surging is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by the presidential campaign of Ron Paul. The anonymous poster using the identity "NHLiberty4Paul" uploaded a video attacking Jon Huntsman as a "Manchurian candidate" purporting to be produced on behalf of Paul's campaign. The media immediately pounced all over Paul, blaming him for the actions of one of his supposed supporters. Paul's campaign says no one associated with its campaign produced the video and believes it was a dirty trick played by one of Paul's political opponents. Bloomberg reports on the lawsuit filed in a federal district court in northern California.

A video uploaded from a Twitter account to YouTube on Jan. 4 called “Jon Huntsman’s Values” questions the ex-governor’s religious faith, refers to him as “China Jon” and ends with a fictitious depiction of Huntsman in a Mao Zedong uniform and the text “American Values and Liberty -- Vote for Ron Paul,”according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in San Francisco.

The makers use the pseudonym NHLiberty4Paul, “which further implies that plaintiff created endorsed or is affiliated in some way with the video and its contents,” the Paul campaign’s lawyers said in the complaint.

Press coverage of the video has been “scathingly negative” toward Paul because of the assumption that he was behind it, the lawyers said . . .

“This is a classic case of dirty politics resulting from the unlawful use in commerce of an underhanded and deceptive advertisement designed to tarnish plaintiff’s reputation,”according to the complaint. The identities of the videos creators are unknown, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint for false designation, false advertising and defamation seeks unspecified punitive damages and a court order barring use of Paul’s name and trademarks and requiring the video to be taken down and destroyed.

It should prove interesting to learn who was behind this video. Paul's campaign is doing the right thing in pursuing legal action against the anonymous poster. Persons responsible for these drive-by shootings that are all too common on the Internet need to be held accountable for their actions.

Tonight's CNN debate for the four remaining Republican presidential candidates in the South Carolina primary was true to form. The moderator, John King, pretended Ron Paul was just standing on the stage to listen to the other candidates whom he obviously deemed more worthy of standing on the stage. This has happened in every debate without exception. Ron Paul has received more votes than any of the other candidates besides Romney, and he's raised more money than any of the other candidates except Romney. Yet each debate appearance plays out the exact same way. The other candidates are called on first, second and third and given all the time they want to rebut each other's comments. Paul is only occasionally allowed to throw in a brief comment as mere filler while the other candidates catch their breath and review their notes. It's total BS. Paul is the only candidate offering thought-provoking solutions to the problems that ail this country, but he obviously doesn't support the agenda of the New World Order so it is necessary to censor him as much as possible. The follow up after the debate included interviews with Romney, Gingrich and Santorum but not Paul. Hell, you wouldn't even know that Paul had participated in the debate listening to the egg heads CNN included in its post-debate discussion.

GOP Presidential Candidates Prove They Aren't Cut Throat Like Obama

Barack Obama once told his supporters that if your opponent brings a knife to a fight, you bring a gun. He meant it. Obama won his two elective offices in Illinois prior to running for president by default. When he ran for the state sentate, he hired a team of lawyers to challenge the petitions filed by the long-time respected incumbent, Alice Palmer, and got her, along with every other primary opponent he faced, tossed from the primary election ballot for deficiencies in their petitions. As we now know, Obama's campaign forged its way onto the Indiana ballot. But for hundreds of forged signatures, he would have never made the Indiana ballot in 2008 and could well have lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton as a consequence of that misstep.

When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate, his political guru David Axelrod, former political editor for the Chicago Tribune, convinced his former employer to go to court to get the divorce records of a self-financed candidate polls showed winning the primary race. Damning, but unproven allegations by his ex-wife, contained in the documents sunk his campaign. Facing another self-financed attractive candidate in the general election, Axelrod got his newspaper buddies to unseal that opponent's divorce records containing unproven allegations made by his ex-wife, forcing him to leave the race when party leaders decided they didn't want to even make an attempt to defend the first-time candidate. Obama wound up facing a carpetbagger, loser candidate, Alan Keyes, who even the state GOP chairman refused to support.

It's quite a different story in Illinois today where the Republican presidential candidates faced tough filing requirements in order to make the ballot. Gathering enough signatures to get the candidate's name on the ballot is only half the battle. Each candidate must also field a slate of delegate candidates that run separately in each of the state's 18 congressional districts. The delegate slates in each district  must have a minimum of 600 signatures on their petitions to secure a spot on the ballot in every district statewide. Without the delegate candidates, it makes no difference how many votes a candidate receives in the popular vote. Only the winning delegates pledged to support a chosen candidate get to cast the votes that matter at the national nominating convention. Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich each filed petitions to field a full slate of delegate candidates in the 18 congressional districts. Rick Santorum only managed to file petitions for delegate slates in 14 of the districts, and of the 14, only 4 contained the minimum 600 petition signatures.

So the Republican sharks managing the opposing campaigns could smell the blood in the water. Would they go in for the kill? No. Each of the campaigns reached a pact not to challenge each other's candidate petitions. Santorum's campaign released the following statement:

Leadership from the Romney campaign (Dan Rutherford), Gingrich campaign (Bruce Hansen and Nick Provenzano), Paul campaign (Chris Younce) and Santorum campaign (Al Salvi and Jon Zahm) have agreed today to withdraw all petition challenges in Illinois against one another’s statewide and delegate petitions.

What is it they say? Nice guys finish last. Obama believes it and lives it.

Romney's Big Win In New Hampshire Pleases New World Order

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the American people will have an echo not a choice in this year's presidential race. Mitt Romney, a billionaire insider who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and who has absolutely nothing in common with ordinary Americans, is poised to put the GOP presidential nomination in the bag barely before the race has started. Romney's win tonight with 38% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary mirrors the large victory the Granite State gave to prior GOP nominees, including Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and John McCain. Ron Paul finished second with 24% ahead of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who finished third with 17% of the vote. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum finished fourth and fifth with about 10% of the vote each. Texas Gov. Rick Perry struggled to get a mere 1% of the vote.

The next primary is South Carolina where Romney had looked weak, but the continued collapse of Gingrich's campaign has seen his large lead disappear with the rise of Rick Santorum. Still, Romney is beating both candidates in the latest polls in South Carolina. Paul is performing badly in South Carolina and has no plans to compete in the Florida primary, the largest primary state ahead on the calendar. Nobody in the field seems positioned to challenge Romney in Florida, a winner take all state that will give the victor 51 delegates. Perry's campaign is over for all practical purposes. Jon Huntsman, who like Romney is a super wealthy Mormon with little in common with the American people, learned today that he won't be on the ballot in several large states, including Arizona, Illinois and Virginia. He built his entire campaign on pulling an upset in New Hampshire, spending more time there than any other candidate, and finished no better than a distant third. Rick Santorum is proving to be a flash in the pan for good reason. He has no national organization or money to compete as a serious candidate, aside from being dead wrong on most of the issues.

As I predicted last week, there is really only one candidate, Ron Paul, who has the money and organization to go the distance against Romney. The GOP establishment, however, has been pulling out all the stops to destroy Paul at its own peril. The Huntsman "Manchurian Candidate" video created by a Karl Rove-like operative within the GOP establishment, worked as intended to stop Paul's momentum in New Hampshire dead in its tracks and to allow Huntsman to double his support over the past week from the single digits to his 17% showing, while preserving Romney's big lead. Middle Americans have no reason to turn to someone like Romney as an alternative to the failed policies of Obama. He has managed to be on all sides of an issue depending on the place and time his political ambitions took him. There is absolutely no enthusiasm at all within the party for his candidacy, and he carries more baggage than any GOP nominee in recent memory. If you had told me a few months ago the GOP was going to deliberately throw the 2012 presidential race, I would have said you were crazy. Today, I'm convinced that is exactly what is transpiring before our very eyes.

Jon Huntsman "Manchurian Candidate" Video Classic Karl Rove-Like Tactic To Discredit Ron Paul

On Wednesday, an anonymous account was created on YouTube and a few brief minutes later a video using this anonymous person's account was uploaded depicting Jon Huntsman as a "Manchurian Candidate" because he was Obama's U.S. Ambassador to China, speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and has an adopted Chinese daughter. The person(s) behind the video intended to make it appear that the campaign of Ron Paul was behind the negative attack ad. A link to the video was almost immediately sent to Huntsman's campaign where the first viewer of the video was associated with Huntsman's campaign website. Not surprisingly, the Huntsman campaign pointed fingers at Ron Paul's campaign and the media gleefully chimed in, blaming it on the candidate by implication because one of his supporters supposedly created it.

Only a fool would truly  believe that a Ron Paul supporter actually created that video. What we know is that polls show that only Paul is in a position to compete against front-runner Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, where an open primary allows voters of all stripes to participate in Tuesday's election. Huntsman, who has devoted all of his efforts in New Hampshire, can't break 10% in Granite State polls, while Ron Paul has surged to 20% or better in some polls, although well behind Romney. Huntsman and Romney are fellow Mormons who have no love lost for one another. The video most likely was part of dirty tricks operation by the Romney campaign to kill two birds with one stone. The subject matter of the ad clearly is aimed at stirring up xenophobic fears towards Huntsman at the same time making those who back Ron Paul's campaign appear to be simple-minded racists. The diabolical nature of it is a classical Karl Rove-type negative campaign operation against political opponents.

Throughout his career as an operative within the Republican Party, Rove has been at the center of one dirty trick after another. Rove, who was raised in Nevada, took his first role running a U.S. Senate campaign in Illinois in 1970 after dropping out of the University of Utah. During the campaign, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign headquarters of a state treasurer candidate, Alan Dixon (D), where he stole letterhead bearing the candidate's name. He then printed up fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, in order to successfully disrupt Dixon's campaign rally. The college drop out became a key figure in the dirty tricks operation of Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign and became involved in a highly disputed election to head up the national College Republicans organization. Rove manipulated the credentialing of delegates to the convention to claim victory over his opponent. The dispute was taken to the RNC Chairman, George H.W. Bush, who declared Rove the winner. When the losing candidate wrote to Bush inquiring how he could have concluded Rove won the election fairly, Bush sent the young man the "angriest letter" he had ever received in his life.

After serving as chairman of the College Republicans, Rove settled down in Texas where he worked for campaign organizations associated with the Bushes and their allies. Rove helped Democrat-turned-Republican Phil Gramm defeat Ron Paul for a U.S. Senate seat in 1984. When he worked on the campaign of former Texas Gov. Bill Clements, he claimed his offices had been bugged by a political opponent, an allegation dismissed by the FBI and police after an investigation was conducted. Critics believed Rove had made the story up and planted an inoperable bug in his own offices to cast suspicion on Clements' political opponent a short time before the election. A common Rove tactic is to create whispering campaigns about political opponents, including accusations they are gay, a tactic employed against Texas Gov. Ann Richards when George W. Bush ran against her. Rove used push poll questions asking voters their impression of Richards if they knew her staff was dominated by lesbians. Rove's step-father, incidentally, later lived an openly gay life with a same-sex partner after divorcing his mother, who committed suicide. George H.W. Bush would fire him from his 1992 re-election campaign after he got caught leaking negative information about a close Bush campaign ally to columnist Robert Novak.

Rove's dirty tricks operation reared its ugly head again when he ran George W. Bush's race for president in 2000 during the Republican primaries. Suggestions that McCain was not a natural born citizen because he was born in Panama while his father was serving in the Navy emerged. Rumors were circulated via fliers during the South Carolina primary that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock, that he was gay and that his wife was a drug addict. McCain was accused of being guilty of treason because of things he told the Vietnames while being tortured in a POW camp in Vietnam for five years. Other rumors were spread that McCain was mentally unstable and had actually gone insane while a POW in Vietnam.

As a Fox News analyst today, Rove's attacks against Ron Paul have been especially sharp and always focus on marginalizing him and his supporters as much as possible. Rove claims not to be working on behalf of any of the candidates, but his public statements leave no doubt that Romney is the candidate that he believes should be nominated by the Republicans in 2012. Fox News commentators all ape the negative attacks Rove fuels during his appearances on the cable news network. Fox News, not surpisingly, did all it could to tarnish Paul over the Huntsman video despite absolutely no evidence that anyone associated with his campaign had anything to do with its production. Yes, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that only the mind of someone like Karl Rove would have created the controversial Huntsman video. Watch as Fox News blames it on Paul's people without any substantiation. I can barely stand to watch Fox News any more because of the way it has permitted a low life like Rove to manipulate the political discussions in this country.



UPDATE: Cando.com says its analysis points to the Jon Huntsman campaign itself as likely being behind the attack video against him, which makes it all the more sinister if true.

Ron Paul's Campaign Hires Englehart Group To Produce Viral Videos

The Republican presidential campaign of Ron Paul has chosen a talented local media relations firm, The Englehart Group, to produce several viral videos in the lead up to the critical New Hampshire primary on January 10 of this month. A video crew from the firm will shadow Paul in the coming days as he campaigns in the Granite State, editing and posting video footage on the Internet in real time in the lead up to next week's primary. The strategic marketing communications firm is located in the historic Mass Avenue arts district in downtown Indianapolis. "This type of video project plays into our company's strength, which is to produce the highest quality video and communications work both quickly and at a reasonable cost," said the company's president, Blair Englehart. The firm's video crew will be led by Kevin Winkler, a multimedia designer for the firm.

Iowa Caucus Disappoints

It looks like the only real winner in Iowa tonight is Rick Santorum, the candidate with the least money, a virtually non-existent campaign organization and a remarkably naive view of the world. He's sharing the top honors tonight with Mitt Romney with each getting about 25% of the vote. Presumably, the religious fanatics came out to support Santorum just like they did Mike Huckabee four years ago. A win or close second in Iowa does little to move Santorum's campaign forward. With no money and no campaign apparatus, he will likely fail to make the ballot or field delegate slates in some of the upcoming states. Only Romney, Paul and Perry have the money and organization it takes to run a national campaign. Even Perry failed to make the ballot in Virginia with plenty of money and a large campaign staff, and he finished a disappointing fifth tonight behind Gingrich's 13% share of the vote with only about 10% of the vote. Romney is doing no better in Iowa this year than he did four years ago when he lost to Huckabee after spending $10 million and receiving only a quarter of the vote. Paul improved his numbers substantially but finished a disappointing third place with about 22% of the vote.

The first primary in New Hampshire is just around the corner. Mitt Romney is way out front there according to the latest polls with Ron Paul in a distant second place. As happened to his campaign in Iowa, Gingrich's New Hampshire effort has collapsed even with the endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader. Earlier polls showed Gingrich running well ahead in South Carolina and Florida, but his lead will most certainly dissipate rapidly in the coming weeks as he struggles to raise money and operate without a campaign organization. At least he has some staff. Santorum has virtually no staff to compete anywhere close to the level Huckabee competed in 2008. What this means is that the only alternative candidate that has both the money, organization and strength to go head-to-head with Romney is Ron Paul. The establishment Republican and media attacks on him have made it difficult for him to break out though.

After all of the bluster, Iowa produced only 25 delegates tonight. The New Hampshire primary produces even fewer delegates with only 16 at stake there. Thirty-one delegates are at stake in the South Carolina primary and 91 are at stake in Florida, which will be the real pivotal contests in the coming weeks. It takes 1,245 delegates to win the nomination. Reading the tea leaves, it's probably a pretty safe bet that this race will be over after Florida with Romney the overwhelming favorite to win the race. Bachman is probably out after tonight. Gingrich will be through after a dismal showing in New Hampshire. Perry will hang on until at least South Carolina in hopes of picking up Gingrich's support, but I have my doubts he can get his act together to mount a credible campaign. Santorum's fifteen minutes of fame end tonight in Iowa. Paul will stay in the race for the long haul. He'll have a chance to shine when he gets to the point of going head-to-head with Romney, but it will probably be too little too late.

UPDATE: The final vote count show Mitt Romney a winner by a mere 8 votes out of more than 122,000 votes cast. Bachmann has scheduled a press conference for later this morning where she is expected to announce she is dropping out of the race. Rick Perry has returned to Texas to reconsider whether he should move ahead. Meanwhile, Rick Santorum is looking like the dog who chased a car he didn't expect to catch and then didn't know what to do with it when he got his teeth snagged in the bumper.

And They Call Ron Paul's Foreign Policy Views Dangerous?

Ron Paul has been repeatedly accused of advocating dangerous American foreign policy views by Republicans and Democrats alike because he thinks it's time for America to stop meddling in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries and mind our own damn business. In its infinite wisdom, the Obama administration is giving millions of dollars to Muslim clerics in Pakistan who actually teach jihad to change the minds of extremist terrorists who want to kill Americans. If these efforts aren't dangerous, they're at a minimum incompetent beyond belief. From the AP:

Sultan Mehmood Gujar was a solid supporter of Islamist militants fighting in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India and even donated money to them, until he attended an innovative 40-day lecture series by a moderate cleric aimed at countering violent extremism . . .

“I was shocked to discover that what the militants were doing was against Islam,” said Gujar, sitting on the floor at the madrasa in Okara city where the lectures were delivered. “Now I call them terrorists, not jihadis.” . . .

The U.S. has created a new unit in Pakistan that aims to leverage such grassroots efforts by working with local moderates to counter violent extremism — the first of its kind set up by an American embassy anywhere in the world, according to U.S. officials here. The existence of the unit has never before been reported . . .

The unit is just now ramping up operations, said officials. It was funded with an initial budget of $5 million that officials hope will grow. Officials declined to provide details on specific programs they are funding or plan to fund, for fear that publicly acknowledging U.S. involvement would discredit their partners.

That’s a major worry in this country where anti-American sentiment is rampant. Any cleric known to be taking U.S. help is likely to be shunned by many. There are other challenges as well. Many among clerics and the public who are considered moderates have mixed views — they often oppose the killing of innocent civilians in Pakistan, but support jihad against U.S. forces in Afghanistan or against neighboring India. Further complicating the situation is alleged Pakistani government support for some militant groups . . .

You just can't make this stuff up. The jihadists will gladly take our tax dollars to supposedly support efforts to combat terrorism, but they can't publicly admit they are taking American tax dollars because they would likely be killed by the terrorists they are trying to "re-educate".  Sounds like a great plan. Not. This money will wind up being used for the exact opposite purpose for which it was given. These types of efforts almost always backfire on us. The U.S. has repeatedly flown drone aircraft into Pakistani airspace to carry out attacks which sometimes go awry and kill innocent civilians. Not surprisingly, the U.S. drone attacks aren't helping our popularity in that country. The pro-Taliban support against U.S. soldiers expressed by one of the clerics who welcomed a meeting with the U.S. ambassador says it all. “Afghanistan was invaded, and the Taliban are waging jihad to protect their homeland, their freedom and their rights, so I recognize that as jihad,” said Zafar.

Why don't we just get the hell out of these countries and stop meddling in their affairs? Islam is their religion by choice. It's been that way for thousands of years. We've given billions of dollars in foreign aid to Pakistan to help combat terrorism, only to learn that the country had been providing safe harbor to bin Laden for nearly a decade. No amount of money is going to change these people's views, particularly when they see Americans continuously sticking their nose into the internal affairs of their countries. If we're stupid enough to give them money we don't have to give away, then we shouldn't be at all surprised if it winds up being spent on future terrorist attacks against our soldiers and innocent Americans. What would we think if the Chinese government started pouring millions of dollars into Christian ministries inside the United States to coax ministers into helping convince their religious followers that communism was really okay?  Think about it.

Hat tip to Debbie Schlussel.

UPDATE: The ACLU has released its annual report card grading elected officials on protecting civil liberties. Obama received a lower rating than Ron Paul. In fact, it gave Obama a failing grade. From the ACLU's blog:

Our experts found that Republicans Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman earned solid scores, with four, three and two torches across most major categories, although both received one torch on marriage equality and none on reproductive rights.

President Obama also achieved solid scores or better across most categories, including four torches for ending the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. However, he received just one torch and none for keeping Guantanamo Bay open and continuing unconstitutional surveillance under the PATRIOT act, respectively.

Republican-turned-Libertarian Gary Johnson scored even better than Paul, Huntsman and Obama, earning four and three torches on most major issues. They stand in stark contrast to the other major GOP candidates, three of whom -- Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum -- didn’t earn a single torch in any of the seven major categories.

Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich received torches in only one category: two torches each for promoting a humane immigration policy, including their support for a path to legal status for some long-term residents.

Ultimately, the good news from the report card is that genuine support for our constitutional values and freedoms has no partisan boundaries. Indeed, Ron Paul’s recent surge in Iowa has been attributed to his adherence to the Constitution and civil liberties.

GOP Attacks On Ron Paul

Polls show show that GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul's impressive show of grassroots support in the Iowa caucus is driven by the support he is receiving among independent and younger voters--two critical blocs of voters that the winning presidential candidate in the November election traditionally captures. The thought of the independent, non-traditional thinking Paul winning the Republican presidential nomination has been turning establishment figures in the party apoplectic. The personal attacks against Paul are somewhat ironic when you consider that Paul, who as far as I've been able to determine, is the only Republican candidate who has consistently supported conservative fiscal policies throughout his political career, is faithful to his wife and is a proud veteran who served his country with honor.

The attacks against Ron Paul by the Redstate blog have been particularly over the top. One blogger has run a four-part series entitled, "Ron Paul is crazy." Another calls him "The Real Warmonger" despite the fact that he is the only candidate advocating our withdrawal from undeclared wars ordered by the military industrial complex to keep the war machine running at full capacity, even if it bankrupts and destroys the country in the process. He is attacked by another blogger for having a base that is "Not Republican," who also suggested Paul is the Barack Obama of the 2012 campaign who would become another Andrew Johnson-like president because he would have no support in Congress if he is elected. And that's just what the Redstate blog had to say about Paul in the last three days.

The attacks on Ron Paul by the Redstate blog go beyond intraparty feuding in my judgment, particularly when you consider that its founder, a paid commentator for CNN, says he is "comfortable supporting Newt Gingrich" for the nomination despite this same blogger's view that Herman Cain had to drop out of the Republican presidential race because of unproven accusations he is a womanizer. Gingrich is now on his third wife after dumping wives one and two for younger congressional aides. Gingrich supported health care mandates and global warming before he opposed them. He was driven from the Speakership of the House under an ethics cloud and fined more than $200,000 for his bad behavior after he rose through the ranks of the House GOP's leadership, in part, on his success in bringing down the former House Majority Leader on ethics charges he led against him. Lest we forget that this principled conservative inked a $1.8 million consulting contract with Freddie Mac at the same time the agency was seeking $317 billion in federal bailout assistance while insisting with a straight face that the money he was paid was not for lobbying Congress.

Pardon me while I put on my tin foil hat, but if I didn't know better, I might think the Redstate blog is ground zero for an Operation Mockingbird-style operation in reference to a propaganda operation funded by the CIA beginning in the 1950s when it put thousands of American journalists on its payroll to promote its agenda for the country. By 1975, the Church investigations by the U.S. Senate's select committee on intelligence estimated that the CIA was spending $265 million a year to misinform the public through its covert propaganda machine. President Ford fired former CIA Director William Colby after he testified to the Church Committee about the extent of the Operation Mockingbird activities, as well as other covert actions by the CIA and replaced him with President George H.W. Bush, who was one of the first CIA agents contacted by former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy because of Hoover's concern of possible CIA involvement in the killing of the president. As we now know, the American news media bombarded us with misinformation in the lead up to the Iraqi War based on totally false claims concocted by the George W. Bush-run CIA that Saddam Hussein had developed weapons of mass destruction.

It sure looks like some pretty powerful forces far beyond the simpleton thinking of the Redstate bloggers are at work stoking fear and misinformation about Ron Paul because of the threat he poses to the military industrial complex. I can't help but think that these voices sound remarkably similar to the establishment GOP meme in 1980 warning us that Ronald Reagan was too old, too dumb and too dangerous to elect as president. Will you be fooled by their propaganda campaign against Ron Paul? And shouldn't you know that these same forces would just as soon see four more years of Barack Obama?

American Troops Get Why Ron Paul Has It Right On Foreign Policy

This video is a must view if you want to understand Ron Paul's views of the blowback effect of America's disastrous past foreign policy decisions and how it has produced our costly and unsustainable war on terrorism. Ron Paul is alone among the presidential candidates in understanding the historical significance of the mistakes of our past actions. If you watch it, you will understand why so many of our active duty troops support Ron Paul over the other candidates. They get it because it's their lives who are put on the line every day fighting these costly, endless and pointless wars in the Middle East. Obama, Romney, Gingrich, Bachman et al. all support a continuation of the disastrous Bush-Clinton-Bush policies that have gotten us into this mess. Listen to what our troops have to say. Listen to what national security experts with a conscience have to say. It's the best 13 minutes you can spend in helping you decide what direction our country needs to take in the 2012 election.

Des Moines Register Predictably Endorses Romney In Iowa Caucus

A Gannett-owned newspaper by definition represents the establishment so it comes as no surprise that the Des Moines Register, which gave us Dennis Ryerson at the Star, would endorse former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in next month's Iowa caucus, the first test in the 2012 GOP presidential race. "Sobriety, wisdom and judgment" are the key words the editorial staff chose in offering their endorsement to Romney. Other candidates in the field "pandered to extremes with attacks on the courts and sermons on Christian values." Romney is "very smart" because he came from a super rich family and earned a degree from Harvard. He also "offers smart and well-reasoned alternatives rather than simply to swing a wrecking ball in Washington's direction" so says the newspaper's editors. The editors dismiss Newt Gingrich as "an undisciplined partisan who would alienate, not unite." As for Ron Paul, they say his "libertarian ideology would lead to economic chaos and isolationism, neither of which this nation can afford." Really? The last four years haven't been an exercise in total economic chaos? What planet are they living on? And we really can afford the policy of playing policeman to the world and continue spending trillions of dollars fighting undeclared wars that never end? What a bunch of clueless nitwits.

Will Ron Paul Be The Last Candidate Standing In The GOP Presidential Field?

One by one, each of the Republican presidential candidates seems to be self-destructing. Texas congressman Ron Paul may be the Rodney Dangerfield among the crowd of candidates who gets no respect, but he is arguably the only one of the candidates who has remained true to his political convictions throughout his political career. His consistency and integrity may be starting to pay off as the first 2012 election contests in Iowa and New Hampshire near.

Paul seems to be the candidate on the move in both states as support for the other major candidates in the field has resembled a roller coaster ride. He's running near the top of the field in Iowa according to the latest poll, and he's jumped to a second place showing in New Hampshire behind the heavy favorite, Mitt Romney, who served as governor of the neighboring state of Massachusetts. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich seems to have become the latest flavor of the month among the GOP field as he soars in national polls, but I don't expect that ride to last much longer.

I still haven't made up my mind which candidate I will support, but if I were to base it on trust and principle at this point, Ron Paul would be a clear favorite. There is also no other candidate in the field who would upset the political establishment more than Paul, which adds to his attractiveness in my opinion.  The pure evil political manipulator, Karl Rove, has tried his best to marginalize Paul and his supporters, but Rove has never been a friend of people who believe in true Republican Party principles. Not surprisingly, Rove thinks Romney is the candidate the party should be backing. Romney hasn't held a political position yet in his career he wasn't willing to flip flop on. When a guy wants to argue about what his real first name is, he's got more than a credibility problem.