Santorum is out - Is Romney electable?

[Cara]

given the line of business he was in, if romney is only worth 12 million dollars as was claimed in this thread, then i'm afraid that his busines acumen is not that fabulous.

tatty, nice rant. 

[Cara]

I just heard about It maybe he was young and that was decades ago but I can't get over the fact that Romany bullied gays  in highschool just can't  not that he seems like a mean humanbeing now but this is a soft spot that I can't look past It

How you act in high school does speak about the core of your personalty IMO

http://www.washingtonpost.../10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

This act went beyond bullying IMO. He and his buddies physically attacked their classmate when they jumped him and cut his hair off. I wasn't a fan of his to begin with, especially after the dog incident, but this new revelation makes me  

This news disgusts me too.  Do you know what I found even more revolting?  His bs apology!  During an interview with Brian Kilmeade of Fox Radio he just said
Back in high school, you know, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously, I apologize for that… You know, I don’t, I don’t remember that particular incident [laughs]… I participated in a lot of high jinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far, and for that I apologize.  

if he would be subjected to the same treatment, i doubt that he'd call it high jinks or pranks. 

[SouthernBelle]

I love your rants, tatty! 

The Romney story is disgusting but I find the media calm to be even worse. If it was revealed that Romney had physically assaulted and abused a Black or Jewish teenager there would be outrage and 24/7 news coverage. Yet because the young man was gay there has been relatively little said. IMO.

I think the media is ignoring this story because it happened nearly 50 years ago. If they focus on this, it would open the door to Obama's past as well and no one in the media wants that. People also tended to disregard Clinton and Bush's past antics during their campaigns.

His actions were horrible but bad behavior as a teen/young adult doesn't disqualify someone from public office in the U.S. Ted Kennedy was accused of vehicular manslaughter and Robert Byrd was a grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. I consider those actions worse than Romney's and they both managed to have long careers in the Senate until their deaths.

[TLLK]

I love your rants, tatty! 

The Romney story is disgusting but I find the media calm to be even worse. If it was revealed that Romney had physically assaulted and abused a Black or Jewish teenager there would be outrage and 24/7 news coverage. Yet because the young man was gay there has been relatively little said. IMO.

I think the media is ignoring this story because it happened nearly 50 years ago. If they focus on this, it would open the door to Obama's past as well and no one in the media wants that. People also tended to disregard Clinton and Bush's past antics during their campaigns.

His actions were horrible but bad behavior as a teen/young adult doesn't disqualify someone from public office in the U.S. Ted Kennedy was accused of vehicular manslaughter and Robert Byrd was a grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. I consider those actions worse than Romney's and they both managed to have long careers in the Senate until their deaths.

  I agree. There is a reluctance in the media to investigate incidents that any public figure may or may not have committed in the past especially when the event was decades ago. At some point those involved might be dead, suffering from memory loss or quite simply time has made the facts and details to difficult to recall with accuracy. Nearly every individual that runs for public office has moments in their past that they would not want brought to light. Those who do disclose are likely aware that it is better for them to share the incident with the public than having to try and defend themselves in the court of public opinion.

[Cara]

I think the media is ignoring this story because it happened nearly 50 years ago. If they focus on this, it would open the door to Obama's past as well and no one in the media wants that. People also tended to disregard Clinton and Bush's past antics during their campaigns.


His actions were horrible but bad behavior as a teen/young adult doesn't disqualify someone from public office in the U.S. Ted Kennedy was accused of vehicular manslaughter and Robert Byrd was a grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. I consider those actions worse than Romney's and they both managed to have long careers in the Senate until their deaths.

IMO it made it impossible for him to run for president.

[SouthernBelle]

I think the media is ignoring this story because it happened nearly 50 years ago. If they focus on this, it would open the door to Obama's past as well and no one in the media wants that. People also tended to disregard Clinton and Bush's past antics during their campaigns.


His actions were horrible but bad behavior as a teen/young adult doesn't disqualify someone from public office in the U.S. Ted Kennedy was accused of vehicular manslaughter and Robert Byrd was a grand wizard in the Ku Klux Klan. I consider those actions worse than Romney's and they both managed to have long careers in the Senate until their deaths.

IMO it made it impossible for him to run for president.

Kennedy ran against Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980. An interview with CBS destroyed his campaign, not the manslaughter charge.

[Cara]

you are talking about primaries. i am talking about the presidentials (running against the republican candidate). that would have been much harder and i think it would have made it impossible for him to be successful in that bid. JMO.

[Miss Hathaway]

Southern Belle     
As for Obama's sudden support of gay rights, there cannot be any change in current policy until the laws change. So he can say whatever ha wants but until a bill is introduced and passed in the House and the Senate, two gay men still cannot be legally married in Georgia, South Carolina, Montana, etc., etc...

Also, every candidate (Republican and Democrat) loves to take credit for things that are positive and then claim innocent when things go wrong. Obama all but personally took credit for the assassination of Bin Laden. And yet, he frequently comments about the economy saying he inherited the problem and it was George Bush's fault. Finding Bin Laden was the culmination of 10 years of work that began long before Obama was even a senator.

As for health care, the health care reform bill was pushed through Congress quickly without having thought through details like how will such a program be funded. Part of the Health Care Bill is unconstitutional and will probably be repealed. AFAIK the US government cannot force citizens to purchase health insurance..

As for Romney being worth 200 million dollars, he is actually worth about 12 million. Romney clearly has good business sense and has been financially successful. I feel like that is a great asset for a president, especially during these difficult times worldwide.

Last, there is a lot of innuendo and outright lies that are told during an election year. Be skeptical of what you hear and read.

Very sensible, Emma Rose.   

I hope that everyone who is so outraged about Romney’s alleged bullying incident that neither he nor the target’s family can recall will be equally outraged by Obama’s own admission of shoving and shouting at a young girl when he was a schoolboy.  I do like even-handedness.

[Cara]

not taking sides here but while i can easily imagine that most of us have at some point shoved and shouted at some other kid or teenager, i can less easily imagine that most of us took a pair of scissors to cut another person's hair because of his/her sexual orientation, actually for any kind of reason, while said person was held down by a gang.

i agree that kids/teenagers do stupid things, something that romney sort of acknowledged. i can also accept that times were different back then and that what he did was probably not as frowned upon then that it would (hopefully) be now.

what was unfortunately missing from his acknowledgement was a genuine stand, as the adult he is now and hopeful presidential candidate, against that kind of behavior and bullying of any kind.

JMO.

[Maria]

It's still mindboggling to me that the issue of gay marriage seemingly gets to take precedence over the economy at this point. I do not get it at all.

[Chris]

It's still mindboggling to me that the issue of gay marriage seemingly gets to take precedence over the economy at this point. I do not get it at all.

The US public agrees with you.  While most people seem to feel that the most pressing issue right now is the economy, the news organizations continue to focus on the issue of gay marriage...especially the 24-hour cable news channels.  I assume it's because they prefer the more controversial, polarizing issue.  Everyone agrees that something must be done about the economy...and quickly.  But we're all over the map on the issue of gay marriage.  It provides many more opportunities for contentious sound bites and video "teasers."

[Cara]

and none of them has a miracle recipe (nobody does). i would imagine that there's also a hope of seizing votes from gays that tend to vote republican.

[Chris]

and none of them has a miracle recipe (nobody does). i would imagine that there's also a hope of seizing votes from gays that tend to vote republican.

While I agree with you about the "miracle recipe," IMO submarines will have screen doors before the gay community votes Republican.

[Cara]

and none of them has a miracle recipe (nobody does). i would imagine that there's also a hope of seizing votes from gays that tend to vote republican.

While I agree with you about the "miracle recipe," IMO submarines will have screen doors before the gay community votes Republican.

yet not all gays are democrats. there's a small percentage of them that votes republican despite the overall republican party conservative line when it comes to gays and gay issues. there are also a few gays that will not openly admit that they are republicans because of that.

[hanzo1]

I think the Republican party will have a problem decades from now with more liberal voters to me It looks like the case of the Vatican and their ban on Contraceptions sometime an old man was against It and they made It their main issue and were left behind It's gonna hurt them a lot If they'll carry on opposing every move making gays equal