BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

NBC’s Brian Williams Monday night focused almost half of the Florida presidential debate, not on substantive issues but on negative ads and who is saying what to whom and what they’re saying back. It was more than 32 minutes into the debate before he posed a question on a real issue–Iran.

The headlines the next day were predictable.  “Mitt Romney Smacks Newt Gingrich”, Romney Accuses Gingrich of ‘influence-peddling’,” Romney Unleashes Attack…”, Front-runners Go Toe to Toe…”

For anyone interested in learning where the candidates stand on issues that affect their lives, this debate was the wrong place on the TV channel.  They would have been better informed watching the Home Shopping Network.

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BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

If only these debates were important, or moved votes, or caused some changes in the race, I might not mind that they come about every 18 hours.

You know what happened in South Carolina: In five days, including two debates, the race turned upside down and what appeared to have been a easy, if surprising, win for Mitt Romney turned into a huge, if surprising win, for Newt Gingrich.

The moderator of this debate was NBC’s Brian Williams. I am prepared to institute a law that says no one may moderate a political debate whose name is not Brian Williams or Wolf Blitzer.

Unlike the audiences in South Carolina which sounded like they were watching a World Wrestling Federation steel-cage death match; the audience last night was mostly silent, allowing the candidates to answer the questions and not vie against each other for the best applause line.

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BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

I was listening with half an ear to cable news Monday when I heard a correspondent reporting from the Penn State campus on the death of legendary coach Joe Paterno.  She said people didn’t think he died of cancer.  They think he died of a broken heart.

I can believe that. My dad used to tell me shortly before he died that you know when you are through living, and it is time to go.

From what I have read, Joe Paterno’s life, outside his family, was Penn State and the people of State College, PA. They were family, too.  He gave them all he had: sthe majority of his time on earth; his talent (he could have gone to the pros but stayed there and won over 400 games, 24 bowl games and two national championships) large sums of money (news accounts put his donations to the school north of $4.1 million. Most of all, though, he gave them his heart. (more…)

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BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I was wrong.

I wrote a blog post a couple of years ago where I made the claim that Stephen Colbert is not funny.

My friend Gayle Osterberg said I was wrong and she was right.

Colbert is funny. But these days, he is not only funny. He is funny and his humor is dead on when it comes to the political process.

Instead of criticizing the ridiculous state of our campaign finance laws head on, Mr. Colbert would rather show how ridiculous the laws are by participating directly in them.

By first announcing that he was starting a Super Pac and then by handing off the Super Pac to his good friend Jon Stewart, and then announcing that he was starting a exploratory committee because he was thinking about running for President, Stephen Colbert showed how incredibly silly our campaign laws are. (more…)

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BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change at TCBMag.com

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9

When Groupon first burst on the scene, it was easy to get caught up in the excitement of what appeared to be the iTunes of couponing, the Facebook of discount seekers, and the Google of where to get a good deal. As copycat technologies started popping up, Groupon gained even more steam as the dominant icon in its field.

Aside from losing ground recently among investment banks and retailers, Groupon really was and is nothing new to the great retail universe. Consumers have been clipping coupons and rifling through the Sunday newspaper circulars for 100 years or more. Groupon offered an alternative platform that was no different from the myriad of coupon platforms that have existed for decades, i.e., direct mail, in-store, and newspapers. A recent lunch with the publisher of a daily newspaper indicated that the daily’s circular business has been their single strongest revenue source in spite of Groupon’s presence, but then, it always has been. (more…)

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BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change at TCBmag.com

I had lunch the other day with a very successful investor and entrepreneur. He came to the United States from Iran as a young teenager. The extreme dichotomy that is Iran is fascinating to say the least—a huge country of well-educated people who, when given the chance to emigrate to the U.S., succeed disproportionately to the population, much like our friends who emigrate from India.

And yet Persians live in a medieval world, governed by strict Shiite theists who employ fear, suppression, and violence to manage both domestic and international relations. So, which is the real Iran? A wild-eyed, blustering Muslim theocracy, or a country of contemporary people living their lives in spite of—and hopefully out of harm’s way of—the unstable demagogues who control power? (more…)

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BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

When I first started on Capitol Hill (23 years ago…man, I am getting old), I was not terribly sophisticated in the world of politics. For example, I couldn’t quite come to grips that one of the most powerful men in the House of Representatives had the same last name as a famous comedian who spent every Labor Day raising money for disabled kids.

Jerry Lewis, at that time, was Chairman of the House Republican Conference and, along with Mickey Edwards and Tom DeLay, a rival of new House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich.

Even back then, Lewis was old-school. A former insurance salesman, Lewis understood politics from the street-level. He wasn’t a particularly brilliant theoretician, but he was a great practical politician who got into the game to help his constituents. (more…)

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BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Club for Growth fancies itself a savvy investor in a better, more pro-business Congress.

With a Board of Directors stacked with Wall Street millionaires, the organization was founded in 1999 by now-Wall Street Journal editorialist Stephen Moore. It quickly made a name for itself by running advertisements against Republican politicians who didn’t adhere closely enough to the organization’s philosophical beliefs.

These days, Chris Chocola, an independently wealthy former congressman, leads the Club for Growth. Chocola lost his reelection bid in 2006 to Joe Donnelly, a moderate Indiana Democrat who has since easily carried the seat in two subsequent elections.

You would think Chocola would learn from his own experience that picking the most conservative candidate doesn’t always work, but since taking the helm of the Club, he has only doubled down on a strategy that makes it harder for Republicans to keep their majority in the House and take the majority back in the Senate. (more…)

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BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com and Townhall.com

When political professionals get together to discuss things like ads, campaign tactics, and debates they know the only thing that matters in the end is: “Did it move votes?”

That’s the question I was asking myself as I watched the five-man Fox debate last night from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Did it move votes?

Let’s look at the individual candidates. (more…)

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BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

The Obama Presidency is a wonder to watch.  Barack Obama is making changes, which taken together—the sum of their parts—are transforming government and politics in disturbing ways it will take years and maybe decades to reverse.

His presidency is the triangulation of three distinct characteristics of politics and government.

First, the Obama Presidency is an Imperial Presidency, accumulating and concentrating power in the Executive like few Presidents have done before.

Second, it is a campaign Presidency, intensely focused on winning a second term, at the expense of public policy and cooperation with Congress.

Finally, it is an Administration, a collection of Cabinet departments and federal agencies which he is using to move the government and the country in a starkly different direction than in any time certainly since Reagan, and maybe Roosevelt.

The Imperial Presidency, historically, is a label applied to administrations that have taken unilateral military actions or engaged in aggressive foreign policies: James K. Polk’s intervention in Mexico; Theodore Roosevelt’s internationalism; and in more modern times, Lyndon Johnson’s expansion of our role in Vietnam or Ronald Reagan’s aid to Contra rebels in Nicaragua. (more…)

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