The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Hey, Mitt Romney: Bet Me $10,000 I Won’t Post This Vintage Pinup Girl

Posted on | December 11, 2011 | 29 Comments

Ha, ha! You lose!

Lots of fallout today over last night’s debate, in which Mitt Romney offered Rick Perry a $10,000 bet that Mitt’s book did not include a call for nationalizing RomneyCare. The video:

Lisa Graas reminds us that Mitt reportedly spent $45 million of his own money on his failed 2008 bid for the Republican nomination, and Lisa also provides this quote from Everybody’s Favorite Candidate:

“Well that is a lot of money for me . . . I don’t go around throwing around $10,000 bets.”
— Rick Santorum

Kathie Obradovich of the Des Moines Register:

Romney was casually offering the equivalent of about one-fifth of the average median income for an Iowa family. Romney’s privileged background was driven home later when the candidates were asked whether they’d ever had to cut costs in their own family budget.
“I didn’t grow up poor,” Romney said, and noted that if voters are looking for someone who did, they’ll have to vote for somebody else.

This is really unfortunate: Class warfare as an issue in a Republican primary? I don’t like it. However, it does effectively highlight one of Mitt’s tactical weaknesses — a weakness that the Democrats and media (but I repeat myself) would love to exploit in the general election campaign. It’s not necessarily about Mitt’s wealth, but about his tone-deafness to such sensitivities in a year when economic hardship and populist sentiment will be major political forces.

You know what would be nice? It would be nice if the Romney campaign would drop a few bills on some conservative bloggers.

Maybe not on me — the Future Ambassador to Vanuatu isn’t offering to sell out — but I’d bet $10,000 my buddy Jimmie Bise Jr. of Sundries Shack fame could be persuaded to provide some of that “New Media strategy” advice for Team Romney. Because in case you didn’t realize it, I’m once again stealing Jimmie’s “Clearing the Browser Tabs” idea to do a round-up of random links:

Oh, and that vintage pinup girl? Not entirely gratuitous, because I’m also trying to hitch a ride.

Remember that I am planning to depart for Iowa the day after Christmas, Dec. 26. I’ve already bought my ticket to Cedar Rapids ($275) and then a ticket from Des Moines to Boston ($205) on Jan. 5, but there are still other expenses to be covered on my 36-day campaign-trail trip all the way to Florida on Jan. 31. Your contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund are earnestly solicited.

Category: Debates, Election, Iowa, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rule 5

Comments

29 Responses to “Hey, Mitt Romney: Bet Me $10,000 I Won’t Post This Vintage Pinup Girl”

  1. William_Teach
    December 11th, 2011 @ 12:21 pm

    Wait, you took my schtick and aren’t sharing the $10k? 🙂

  2. AJ Lynch
    December 11th, 2011 @ 12:40 pm

    Please stop this ABC fake issue BS.

    And Santorum is a pompous phony- I read somewhere very recently that Santorum made over $800,000 last year doing speeches and TV appearances. He could not get re-elected in my home state and he sounds like a lunatic zealot most of the time. 

  3. Hugh Vaughan-Williams
    December 11th, 2011 @ 12:47 pm

    Stacy is holding  your schtick hostage and demands that you hit his freakin’  tip jar.

  4. ThePaganTemple
    December 11th, 2011 @ 1:07 pm

    Glenn Beck is an idiot. I figured that out back when he started that “the EU headquarters was modeled after the Tower of Babel” bullshit, but I let it go. And what does he do, goes and proves I was right the first time. Fuck him!

  5. richard mcenroe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 1:12 pm

    Michelle Bachmann won last night because she has boobies and should do Blogads for Stacy.

  6. richard mcenroe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 1:13 pm

    I guess you  missed the “Moses Stick”…

  7. Anonymous
    December 11th, 2011 @ 1:24 pm

    1. Let’s face it: Without stolen schticks, I wouldn’t have a blog. I am to schtick-stealing what Donald Trump is to comb-overs — the freakin’ king, baby.

    2. I! Am! The 99 Percent! Y’know, like Al Sharpton.

  8. richard mcenroe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 1:41 pm

    Actually, there was a “racist” charge Beck could have raised against Newt supporters but Beck missed it for the walls of his own box.

    I suspect Stacy might guess what I’m talkin’ about…

  9. ThePaganTemple
    December 11th, 2011 @ 1:47 pm

    I didn’t notice the boobies, but she does have better hair than Mittens or Perry.

  10. Joe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 2:02 pm

    AJ Lynch, let Stacy have his pet project, Saving Private Santorum.  All the other conservatives have fallen (well except Michelle Bachmann) and Stacy feels like he is on a mission. 

  11. Joe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 2:04 pm

    I like somethings about Glenn Beck.  I like he is self educated and promotes that.  I wish we had more of that in politics and popular culture.  Historically, Americans were a self taught people. 

    But I think he really believes the end times are upon us.  And I want to dismiss him as a crank, while I continue to build up my supply of ammo, guns and dehydradated food. 

  12. Joe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 2:05 pm

    Michelle Bachmann has a nice figure.  But I question any man who describes that part of the female anatomy as “boobies.” 

  13. richard mcenroe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 2:09 pm

    Just trying to raise the tone of this thread.

  14. Proof
    December 11th, 2011 @ 2:38 pm

    Stacy: Walk softly, but carry a big schtick!

  15. rosalie
    December 11th, 2011 @ 2:45 pm

    After three years of O, I don’t even care if the end times are upon us.

  16. Joe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 2:58 pm

    Well I am pretty sure another term of Obama and we will be facing the end times. 

  17. Joe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 3:00 pm

    Tits works.  Although my wife points out that tits is the wrong word too.  Not for being crude, but because she believes tits are for small breasts.  She prefers breasts.  She says boobies, but a man should describe them as boobs.  

    If you want to raise the tone, why not go with fun bags? 

  18. JeffS
    December 11th, 2011 @ 3:35 pm

    I prefer “jugs”, myself.

  19. Joe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 3:42 pm

    Seventies retro is always a good bet. 

  20. Garym
    December 11th, 2011 @ 4:42 pm

    How about love muffins? Is that a little too personal?

  21. William_Teach
    December 11th, 2011 @ 4:54 pm

    LOL

  22. Zilla of the Resistance
    December 11th, 2011 @ 4:59 pm

    Here’s one more if you wanna stick it to Mittens:
    Mitt Romney says islam is not violent and that jihad has nothing at all to do with islam.
    http://zillablog.marezilla.com/2011/12/dhimittude.html

  23. Joe
    December 11th, 2011 @ 5:05 pm

    Have you been evesdropping on me and my wife? 

  24. Garym
    December 11th, 2011 @ 6:48 pm

    Have you been evesdropping on me and my wife?     

    I swear, that was the wind, not me in the bushes!!

  25. JewishOdysseus
    December 11th, 2011 @ 8:14 pm

    Here are Newt’s key words from last night:
    “This is a propaganda war, in which our side refuses to engage, and we refuse to tell the truth whiie the other side lies, and you’re not going to win in the long run if you’re afraid to stand firm and stand for the truth.”
    Maahh friends, a long time ago we elected a President whose enemies declared that he had a war-against-Russia agenda, and it was important that he not rock the boat and start a thermonuclear war. They said by merely questioning the legitimacy of the neo-Stalinist regime he was hurling us into the apocalypse. Now we know that, in private, when he was asked about his view of the Cold War, he said: “We win, they lose.”
    Go back and look at Newt’s quote there. Did any other candidate jump up and agree that we are in a propaganda war in which our side refuses to engage? Can anyone deny it? But only Newt had the courage to stand for the truth, even Rick Santorum went all nervous-Nellie on us.
    People, allow me to state the obvious: You cannot win a war if you don’t realize you are in one. You cannot win a war by refusing to engage the enemy. And you cannot win a war if you’re afraid to stand for the truth.Period.
    Well done, Mr. Speaker. And to think that some bloggers wrote you out of the race for that kissy-face with Al Sharpton and Arne Duncan!

  26. 4n0ny
    December 11th, 2011 @ 10:22 pm

    Not that anyone cares, or will see this comment so late after the post, but Soylent Green has a few more of those Lohan pics than Douglas linked to. http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/the-lindsey-lohan-nude-marilyn-monroe-photos/

  27. Finrod Felagund
    December 12th, 2011 @ 1:49 am

    Glenn Beck makes some good points now and then, but calling Newt Gingrich a socialist is just plain stupid.  I didn’t see the show but it sounded like he decided he was going to tear down Newt and Newt wasn’t having any of that so Beck started saying stupid stuff.

  28. Bob Belvedere
    December 12th, 2011 @ 10:58 am

    Bodacious Ta-Ta’s?

  29. Bob Belvedere
    December 12th, 2011 @ 2:40 pm

    Thanks for the link in this post, Stacy, and the HEADLINE.

    Keep schticking it to The Man.