Written on February 17, 2012
By Bill Press
Tribune Media Services
Headline from the Detroit Free Press website: “New Polls Show Rick Santorum Leading Mitt Romney in Michigan Primary Race.”
That’s the welcome Romney received when he returned to campaign in his home state. The Free Press reports that an MRG Michigan Poll, conducted with Lansing-based Inside Michigan Politics, “showed Santorum up 43 percent-33 percent on Romney.” And that Mitchell Research, a polling firm in East Lansing, “released a survey showing Santorum ahead of Romney 34 percent to 25 percent.”
Which prompts me to ask my Republican friends: What are you smoking? Are you seriously considering picking Rick Santorum to be the Republican Party’s nominee in 2012? He’d be worse than Newt Gingrich.
Santorum brags about his electability. But, remember, this is the man who, after two terms in the Senate, lost his 2006 bid for re-election in blue-collar Pennsylvania by 18 points. Why? Because he was so extreme on the social issues — and still is.
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Written on February 14, 2012
Here we go again. Panic over the price of gas. It’s already started for 2012. Cable television warning the average price of regular gas could soon top $4 a gallon. My question is: Why do we fall for the same con game every year? Isn’t it clear by now that oil companies will collude to…
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Written on February 10, 2012
By Bill Press Tribune Media Services I love protests, and have taken part in many of them. My first was picketing in front of Safeway in San Francisco, urging shoppers to support California farm workers and boycott grapes. But there are real protests and there are phony protests. And one of the phoniest we’ve ever…
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Written on February 9, 2012
Judging from the cries of outrage coming from Catholic bishops, you’d think President Obama had shut down Catholic churches, sent all nuns back to Ireland, and dropped an atomic bomb on the Vatican. Accusations of “Catholic bashing” and “infringement of religious freedom” are being heard all over the media. But here’s the truth. All the…
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Written on February 7, 2012
By Bill Press Tribune Media Services “If not now, when?” It’s one of the most famous maxims of history, attributed to the great Rabbi Hillel, who’s also credited with a down-to-earth version of the Golden Rule: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest…
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Written on February 2, 2012
It was supposed to be his victory lap after a big win in Florida, but for Mitt Romney it turned into another public relations disaster. In an interview on CNN, Romney told Soledad O’Brien: “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Quote, unquote. What a disaster. What was he thinking? Now, to be fair, in…
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Written on January 27, 2012
By Bill Press Tribune Media Services Political junkies like me have never seen anything like it: Running 20 points behind, just a week before the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich catapulted to the top of the pile and ended up defeating Mitt Romney by 12 points. It’s almost enough to make a believer out of…
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Written on January 26, 2012
Latest news out of Florida: Last week, Mitt Romney was 20 points ahead. Today, he’s tied with Newt Gingrich. And Newt’s sudden rise in the polls is all the more astounding because it’s based on three big lies. One, he’s an outsider. Talk about pious baloney. He came to Washington in 1979 as a newly-elected…
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Written on January 20, 2012
By Bill Press Tribune Media Services CHARLESTON, South Carolina. —You have to see it on the ground to believe what a mess Republicans have made of this election. It’s the worst way to run a primary campaign — unless your goal was to lose the election, in the first place. The Republican Party started out…
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Written on January 18, 2012
Years from now, Wisconsin school children will be singing a new version of Humpty-Dumpty: “Scott Walker sat on a wall. Scott Walker had a big fall. But not all of the Koch Brothers millions could not put Scott Walker back together again.” How sweet it is! For America’s working families, it’s two big wins in…
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