Who is to blame if Mitt Romney loses tomorrow's election? Don't blame Romney because Hurricane Sandy "broke his momentum," claims former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. Watch the spin AFTER THE JUMP ...
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Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and leading Republican strategists are blaming Hurricane Sandy for their possible defeat on Tuesday. CBS News reports that Romney's campaign claims that the storm "stalled" heir much-hyped "momentum":
Campaign sources concede superstorm Sandy stalled Romney's momentum. For eight straight days, polls showed him picking up support. The campaign's internal polling, which is using different turnout models than most public polls, had him on solid ground in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Iowa. He had a slight lead or was tied in Ohio, New Hampshire and Wisconsin and was in striking distance in Pennsylvania, a state Republicans hadn't won since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
But then came something very big: a natural disaster that left a path of death and destruction on the East Coast. Suddenly, there was little talk about small things. Those leads in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Iowa still hold in the internal polls, campaign sources say, but Romney's movement flattened out or, as the campaign likes to say, "paused." Nevada is now off the table.
Romney certainly "gained ground in the polls in the week or two after the Denver debate" but hasn't since mid-October, reports Nate Silver. And Nevada was never "on" the table. Only "a single poll all year has found Romney leading in Nevada," adds the New York Times' FiveThirtyEight. Cute spin, though.
Republican strategist and former Bush deputy chief of staff Karl Rove continues the meme in a Friday interview with The Washington Post, claiming that Hurricane Sandy was the "October Surprise."
"If you hadn’t had the storm, there would have been more of a chance for the Romney campaign to talk about the deficit, the debt, the economy. There was a stutter in the campaign. When you have attention drawn away to somewhere else, to something else, it is not to his [Romney's] advantage,” Rove [said]. "Obama has temporarily been a bipartisan figure this week. He has been the comforter-in-chief and that helps."
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour is also pushing the meme. "The hurricane is what broke Romney's momentum. I don't think there is any question about it," the former Republican National Chairman said on CNN's State of the Union.
Spin, spin baby.
Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree won the Mississippi Democratic gubernatorial primary runoff on Tuesday. DuPree becomes the first Black candidate in modern times to win a major-party nomination for Mississippi governor in a state that "hasn't had a Black statewide official" since Reconstruction.
DuPree, 57, who led in the Aug. 2 primary, defeated Clarksdale lawyer and businessman Bill Luckett, 63, in the Democratic runoff Tuesday, snagging 55 percent of the vote. He will face Republican nominee Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, as well as independent Will Oatis and a potential Reform Party candidate, in the Nov. 8 general election.
"I feel good," he said Tuesday night after the results were announced. "It's been a long (race), and I feel we were rewarded for a lot of hard work."
DuPree said he's aware of the milestone he has achieved in a state known for its difficult racial past, but he doesn't want to harp on it. "What we've been trying to express to people is a message," he said. "I don't think I have to focus on (race)."
DuPree became the first Black mayor of Hattiesburg when he was elected in 2001. DuPree is a business partner of actor Morgan Freeman, with whom he owns an upscale restaurant and blues club.
DupRee and his white opponent, Clarksdale businessman Bill Luckett, avoided personal attacks in the primary. Luckett promptly endorsed DuPree on Tuesday night, reports the Hattiesburg American.
Republican Gov. Haley Barbour could not seek a third term this year. Thankfully.
Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has refused to denounce a Southern heritage group's proposal for a state-issued license plate to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was a founder and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
Barbour is the current chairman of the Republican Governors Association, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and considered a potential 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
Raw Story reports:
The idea, put forth by the white heritage group Sons of Confederate Veterans, would create a state-issued license plate by 2014 in honor of Confederate General and KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest. It would include a car tag and a series of other Civil War license plates.
Mississippi lawmakers are considering the proposal, and Barbour said it's unlikely to be approved but refused to stake out a position against it. The NAACP's Mississippi chapter president Derrick Johnson called on the governor to denounce it. The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified the Sons of Confederate Veterans as a "hate group" known for its racist and white supremacist activities.
More on Forrest from The Associated Press:
Forrest, a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and reviled by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war. ..
[Mississippi NAACP president Derrick Johnson] said he's not bothered by Civil War commemorative license plates generally. But he said Mississippi shouldn't honor Forrest, who was an early leader of what he calls "a terrorist group." "He should be viewed in the same light that we view Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden," Johnson said of Forrest. "The state of Mississippi should deny any vanity tags which would highlight racial hatred in this state."
Johnson and the Mississippi NAACP president Derrick has called on Barbour to denounce the license plate idea. "I don't go around denouncing people," Barbour told The Associated Press.
During a December interview, Barbour praised the Council of Conservative Citizens—successor to the hateful segregationist White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s. Barbour later walked back the comments.
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Not everyone is excited to see Kenneth Branagh's Thor.
The Council of Conservative Citizens—successor to the hateful segregationist White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s, defended this week by Mississippi Gov. Barbour—have declared their intention to boycott the Marvel film following filmmakers' decision to cast Idris Elba as the Norse god Heimdall. Idris Elba is the award-winning British actor who shot to fame as Stringer Bell The Wire. And he is Black.
It’s not enough that Marvel attacks conservative values and promotes the left-wing, now mythological Gods must be re-invented with black skin. It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves. An upcoming movie, based on the comic book Thor, will give Norse mythology an insulting multi-cultural make-over. One of the Gods will be played by Hip Hop DJ Idris Elba.
The Council insists "the American people and government should remain European in their composition and character". The bigots attempt to prove Heimdall's "true" likeness by posting drawings of Heimdall in classic mythology and Marvel’s version from 1960′s-era comic.
Says Idris Elba: "Thor’s mythical, right? He has a hammer that flies to him when he clicks his fingers. That’s OK, but the color of my skin is wrong?"
Psst: Heimdall wasn't actually white ... because he never existed.
News Corporation, the corporate parent of FOX News, New York Post and Wall Street Journal, donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, reports Ben Smith at Politico.
"The company's media outlets play politics more openly than most, but the huge contribution to a party committee is a new step toward an open identification between Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and the GOP. The company's highest-ranking Democratic executive, Peter Chernin, recently departed. ... Spokesman Jack Horner emails, 'News Corporation believes in the power of free markets, and the RGA’s pro-business agenda supports our priorities at this most critical time for our economy.' The giant check to the RGA dwarfs low four-figure checks from Fox's PAC to Democrats including Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer."
The RGA is headed by Mississippi's right-wing and anti-gay Republican Gov. Haley Barbour.
So much for fair and balanced. In the wake of Target's refusal to donate to pro-gay candidates to make amends for its $150,000 donation to anti-gay Republican Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, the era of corporate social accountability is apparently rapidly disappearing.
