Politico

Apparently this is technically possible under the 22nd Amendment, or so these two claim. And, really, this idea is not very much dumber than the Hillary Clinton “buzz,” and it certainly makes more electoral sense than the prospect of a totally unwanted Bloomberg third-party run. Maybe Goldman and Rozell are highlighting the absurdity of the fantasy football school of political punditry? Maybe everyone will decide, upon reading this very silly piece, that the entire running-mate-swap genre of analysis is stupid and embarrassing? (Joe Biden is … not actually unpopular, for one thing.)

Or maybe this will just continue to escalate the imagination-based 2012 campaign analysis arms race. Soon Politico will suggest that Romney select Obama as his running mate in order to win over independents. Or maybe there should be a Biden-Palin ticket? Ron Paul should switch parties and primary Obama. How about an independent Scarborough-Shep Smith ticket? Barack and Michelle Obama must trade places if they want to win in 2012. (Failing that, a Malia and Sasha “Freaky Friday” scenario polls well among married women.) Next week: Mark Penn writes that Obama can only save his presidency by traveling back in time and throwing the election to John McCain. Anything is possible, when you don’t actually understand politics except as an amusing parlor game.

The president had called Boehner to congratulate him on passing those pointless trade agreements. But Boehner wanted to talk about how Obama had accused the GOP of not having a jobs plan. That won’t fly with hard-charging House Speaker John Boehner! According to Boehner’s summary of how cool and in control he was on the phone, Boehner had no time for these congratulations. “I want to make sure you have all the facts,” Boehner said, according to Boehner:

“The speaker told the president that when he sent his jobs plan to the Hill, Republicans pledged to give it consideration, and have done so,” the release stated. “The president was reminded of a memo written by GOP leaders outlining the specific areas where they believe common ground can be found. The Speaker also noted that a number of the president’s ideas have already been acted on in the House, including a veterans hiring bill, trade agreements, and a three percent withholding bill approved by the Ways & Means Committee today that will be considered on the House floor this month.”

According to Boehner’s account of the call, Boehner then put on sunglasses and got on a motorcycle. Also he was smoking the whole time, coolly. Then Boehner continued not holding votes on anything important while Eric Cantor repeatedly and blatantly undermined him to the press and the most conservative members of their caucus.

Jim VandeHei and famous email newsletter author Mike Allen are spearheading the campaign (which has already been unfavorably reviewed by CJR). Here, they explain why America was crying out for Politico Primary:

The public has had it with Washington and conventional politics. It has lost trust and respect in the conventional governing class. There is mounting evidence voters don’t see President Barack Obama or the current crop of GOP candidates as the clear and easy solution. As Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg argues, it seems likely if not inevitable an atmosphere this toxic and destabilized will produce an independent presidential candidate who could shake the political system.

If so, who? Is there a person in politics, business or entertainment who could harness the public’s hunger for something new, different and inspiring? We are putting this question to readers on POLITICO, Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter as well as viewers of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to solicit ideas and ultimately vote on them. This is part parlor game, part reporting assignment — and hinges entirely on voters and readers engaging in the debate. So have at it.

America is sick of “Washington and conventional politics,” and so Politico has chosen the following unconventional non-Washington candidates to shake things up:

• Deficit hawk Erskine Bowles, a conservative Southern Democrat who was Bill Clinton’s chief of staff.
• John Chambers, a CEO.
• Hillary Clinton, the current secretary of state, a former senator, the woman who was almost the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and a Washington insider by any definition since her tenure as first lady of the United States in the 1990s.
• Gen. David Petraeus, a general.
• Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state who worked in both Bush administrations and was involved in the campaign of misinformation that led to the war in Iraq.

Doesn’t that scream “new, different and inspiring”? Each candidate also gets a hilarious blurb from VandeHei and Allen. Here’s the intro to Bowles’:

The most depressing reality of modern governance is this: The current system seems incapable of dealing with our debt addiction before it becomes a crippling crisis.

That is indeed the most depressing reality of modern governance, as long as every single other one of America’s festering unsolvable problems is a pure abstraction to you, because you’re rich and gainfully employed.

Then Politico’s readers made their picks! They nominated billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, current incredibly unpopular Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, perennial fantasy candidate Gen. Colin Powell, former OMB head and No Labels favorite David M. Walker, and consummate insider center-left Democrat Sen. Mark Warner. What a great lineup!

Columbia Journalism Review’s Greg Marx raves:

Indifference to policy, an eagerness to see politicians as products to be marketed, undue deference to institutional authority, a fetish for “centrism,” regurgitated conventional wisdom, a breathtaking failure of imagination—it’s all here.

That about sums it up. Vote billionaire businessman deficit hawk moderate general for president in 2012!

You could tell when the Politico/MSNBC-sponsored debate began that the moderators wished there were fewer people onstage. Almost the first 15 minutes of the debate were spent on an argument solely involving the only two people with a shot at the nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Brian Williams and John Harris clearly preferred addressing their serious questions to those two, and many of the questions aimed at the others onstage were about one of those two ex-governors. Poor Michele Bachmann, heretofore the only credible non-Romney candidate, seemed barely to be present. Huntsman got a lot of airtime, but he’s been getting plenty of press attention this whole time.

The lovable third-tier candidates — the guys who were never, ever going to win this — will have fewer and fewer chances to share their madness with America after last night. Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul will remain in the race for a while longer (or a lot longer, in Ron Paul’s case), but going forward, they’ll be less likely to be invited to debates, less likely to inspire “dark horse” fantasy analysis stories, and less likely to inspire blog posts documenting crazy things they said. (Well, fine, they’ll continue inspiring blog posts until I stop writing them because people have stopped clicking on them.)

The debates do lose something when the candidate pool coagulates into two very slightly different people. Ron Paul will occasionally bring up the few things he is right about, like the drug war. Herman Cain is the funniest person on the stage, without fail. Rick Santorum is fun to have around as a reminder that sometimes assholes aren’t rewarded for their awfulness. And Newt Gingrich can still nail an applause line — he got love from the (deplorable) audience by demanding an English-only law and rather pointlessly attacking the media for … asking him to debate his colleagues.

Of course Bachmann is still in third place. But the data indicate she could still win the Iowa caucuses in January. So it was truly weird that the moderators ignored her in favor of hopeless cause (and liberal favorite) Jon Huntsman. Neglecting Bachmann does help the press create the “narrative” of her impending collapse now that Perry’s in the race. But that’s premature. We’ve got a year to watch Perry and Romney beat each other up; there’s no reason to prematurely push everyone else out. Even if everyone else is laughable.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my “favorite” Politico comments on the story.

“J.O.B.S.” writes:

MITT ROMNEY’s father, Governor George Romney of Michigan, marched several times with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. MLK’s history of his being a Christian conservative is carried on today by his brother’s daughter, Dr. Aveda King. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr wanted Gov. George Romney to be the POTUS and not Nixon.

Christian conservative Martin Luther King would definitely have voted for Mitt Romney over Barack Obama. I am positive of this fact.

“velvet steel” says:

“His speech Sunday dedicating a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. near the National Mall”

Oh you mean the “Monument of Greed”?

No other family of anyone featured on the mall was ever PAID any money for their likeness or words. Only the “King family”. In fact they were paid nearly a million dollars.

Pretty humerous since the “Monument of Greed” was “Made in China” and they ended up making him look slightly Chinese.

What another utter DISGRACE that this administration has set upon America. Couldn’t get the statue right and then to find out that it’s all about GREED and how to make a BUCK.

Pretty humerous indeed.

“TTSSYF” says:

So many blacks love to wallow in the past. It provides an excuse for their on-going failure as a group to advance in our society, and it serves as a tool with which to continuously bludgeon whites. They’re addicted to feelings of outrage and resentment and thus obsess about events and conditions of 50 years ago or more. I’m convinced most of them WISH it were still 1965 so they could have an excuse to riot. It’s apparently much easier (and safer) to sit around and whine and complain about all of the so-called injustice or “institutional” racism that is supposedly holding them back than it is to apply themselves and be confronted with the possibility of failing on their own merits or lack thereof.

Yep, black people definitely still wish it was 1965. Things were great for them in 1965! That’s what the rioting was about, all of the fun they were having pretending to feel oppressed.

“matt22″ has a certain word that he clearly really, really wants to say:

51 years ago. things have changed a lot..

just uttering the word ‘n****r can get a white man fired from his job for creating a “hostile work environment”, along with getting charged with a hate crime.

if you are black, you can scream it from the rooftops and it’s ok.

Pigressives want to keep race issues on everybody’s minds. they want every year to be like 1965. White guilt got Obama elected in 2008, why not try again in 2012?

It’s just not fair, that white people are no longer allowed to use racial slurs at work. (This is why Pigressives, like black people, wish it was still 1965.)

“CatoTheElder” has a great recommendation:

Why not a painting of Rev Wright preaching “God damn America”? That would truly resonate with Barack Hussein Obama.

Yes, I am sure it would, but where would one even get a painting of Reverend Wright preaching “God damn America,” and how would anyone who saw the painting know what Reverend Wright was supposed to be saying? Would there be a little caption, or a word bubble? Because then it sounds more like a “cartoon.”

Of course, it’s mean to pick on barely literate commenters. Sure, they’re representative of a toxic right-wing blogosphere devoted in large part to hatred, pseudohistory, misinformation and paranoia, but the pros are really much better at writing this sort of shit without accidentally wishing out loud that it was still OK to say “nigger.”

Today, I still remember those Sunday morning trips to church — not because my parents were striking out at the inequities of a system that created such economic winners (them) and losers (us) — but because of what my mom would say as we drove past the glorious homes of doctors, bankers and lawyers.

“You see that house, Joey?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“If you work hard in school and keep fighting every day to improve yourself, you can live in a place like that when you grow up,” Mom would say with admiration in her voice.

But that was 1970, which everyone now remembers as the golden age of the American dream, because, unlike now, Joe Scarborough was still a little kid. Ah, 1970! America’s Renaissance!

Sadly we’re no longer living in sepia-toned 1970 America. Now, things are bad, because … I think because of our massive and growing wealth disparity?

In late 2009, Business Week reported that the divide in corporate America was only getting worse: “While we’re seeing record-low budgeting for base salaries, we’re seeing record-high budgeting for bonuses.”

The article showed evidence that CEO bonuses were at their highest levels in the 33 years the data have been recorded.

“What’s counterintuitive,” according to a compensation expert interviewed by Business Week, “is that the highest level of funding for bonuses is occurring in the heart of the recession.”

“Counterintuitive” seems to be a bit of an understatement. Shortsighted and stupid better describes a trend that cannot be seen as good for the long-term health of America’s economy.

While these income disparity trends were bad under George W. Bush, they have only gotten worse over the last three years.

Since 1970, executive pay has increased 430 percent while workers’ wages have crept up at a pace that barely kept up with inflation. The average executive’s pay has jumped over that time period to 158 times that of the average worker’s pay in those companies. It’s no wonder that the top 0.1 percent of income earners get richer by the day while millions of Americans are seeing their situations get worse.

This is not John Wayne’s America. This is Gordon Gekko’s America.

Ha ha, so Joe Scarborough is a socialist, now? I mean, this is basically socialist talk. What should we do about this massive and disgusting state of affairs, then, Comrade Joe Stalinborough?

Mr. Scarborough forgets to get to that part of his opinion column, the “what should we do about this” bit.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that if the Duke faced one of these CEOs in a John Ford film, he’d kick some ass and force the leech to start treating his workers fair. And you can bet that my Republican father would be cheering him on from the front row of the theater.

That’s not to say that Dad would ever want the government to step in and tell companies what to pay their executives. He wouldn’t — not in a million years. But he would ask what became of the America that he knew, where working hard and playing by the rules always paid off.

This weekend I began to wonder, 40 years after those Sunday morning drives, whether parents across the country still embrace the American Dream with the evangelical fervor that made a 7-year-old boy sitting in the back of a Buick believe that in America, anything is possible.

And then that’s the end of the column. For real. “Dad would say keep the gubmint outta my business but where oh where is the America I used to love, from 1970? Something to think about, right? Oh well, bye!”

Writing a column is so easy! Diagnose a problem, talk about dad, have a beer, watch TV. Done.