“California made the bad choice by going with an old retread,” Christie told California’s delegation to the Republican National Convention here, a crowd that lapped up his message. “Let me tell you this – I cannot believe you people elected Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman. … Jerry Brown. Jerry Brown? I mean, he won the New Jersey presidential primary over Jimmy Carter when I was 14 years old.”
Christie said the 74-year-old, three-term governor told him that he’s not trying to raise taxes, that he is allowing voters to decide by putting a tax proposal on the ballot.
A few observations: Christie governs a state that doesn’t require two-thirds majorities of both houses of the Legislature in order to raise taxes. California’s GDP grew by 2 percent last year, while New Jersey’s shrank by -0.5 percent. And Meg Whitman now presides over Hewlett-Packard, which last week reported its largest-ever quarterly loss – $8.9 billion – and is stumbling dangerously, according to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek.
The deadline to file as a delegate candidate to the California Democratic Party’s 2009 state convention is Dec. 31 at noon. Click here for an online application.
Party members will gather at caucuses to elect 12 representatives per each of the state’s 80 Assembly districts on Jan. 10-11. Click here for the caucus schedule.
The party will select its platform, elect its leaders, vote on other party issues and generally gloat about its 2008 election successes on April 24-26, 2009, in Sacramento.
A colleague sent this link to me and it is one of the funniest bits of political TV humor I have seen this campaign season.
Watch Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, a cigar-smoking puppet at the Republican National Convention who nipped just about everybody including Karl Rove. My favorite line is when Triumph expresses admiration that newcaster Wolf Blitzer kept his “porn name.”
Be forewarned: It’s a bit raunchy and not appropriate for young children.
So, now foot-tapping is protected by the First Amendment. What’s next? Nose-scratching? Coughing?
CNN’s Political Ticker blog reports that lawyers for Idaho Sen. Larry Craig argued in court today that foot-tapping — the infamous alleged sex solicitation signal between Craig and an undercover cop in a Minneapolis-St. Paul men’s airport bathroom — is free speech. Craig is asking the court to throw out his 2007 guilty plea.
I was recently in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport to attend the Republican National Convention. There was a a bit of talk about sending me to find the bathroom and write about it. I didn’t.
For one, I couldn’t go into the men’s bathroom without attracting law enforcement attention. Two, it’s not like Craig is still there. Three, the airport has a lot of bathrooms and it hasn’t put up an identifying plaque on THE bathroom door, such as the “The Foot Tapper Crapper.”
Buddy Burke and Donna Brazile at the CNN Grille in St. Paul at the Republican National Convention
As an alternate to the alternate, McCain delegate Buddy Burke found out very late that he could go to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul last week.
But it didn’t stop him from making a new friend: Democratic Party super-delegate and CNN commentator Donna Brazile.
He even sent over pictures to prove his stories:
Buddy Burke of Walnut Creek at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.
If I had it to do over again – dare we even think about 2012? — I would definitely do a better job of promoting the local bloggers. I also suspect that a lot more people will be blogging in four years as the technology becomes more familiar to more people.
John McCain is officially the Republican Party’s nominee, signaling the start of what promises to pitched battle leading up to the Nov. 4 general election.
He strode to the stage tonight and delivered, in many ways, a classic McCain speech that focused heavily on service over self. (See the full text below.) Crews revamped the stage overnight and built a runway-style platform in Excel Center more suited to McCain’s style and reminiscent of Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s stage at Mile High Stadium in Denver a week ago.
Critics say McCain failed to deliver adequate policy details, that he repeated again the details of heroic military background as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
But some voters may find it more difficult to reconcile the two very different tones between last night and tonight. On Wednesday night, his veep nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and his former challengers such as ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, ripped into Obama with the very kind of partisan rancor and scorn that McCain decried tonight.
The only unscripted moment in the speech happened when a young woman in the audience attempted to unfurl a banner and yelled out something I couldn’t quite hear.
She was relatively close to me and I could see security guards rip the banner out of her hand and haul her up the stair as she went limp. (I tried to videotape it but the stands were too dark and I figured my editor wouldn’t like it if I got myself arrested, too.) I assume it was an anti-war protest; a CodePink women reportedly pulled a similar stunt during Palin’s speech on Wednesday but it was on the other side of the stadium and I didn’t see it.
Here are a couple of videos of McCain’s entrance and the famous balloon drop.
I arrived back at the hotel very late last night after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin dazzled Republicans with her debut speech as the party’s vice presidential candidate.
“California made the bad choice by going with an old retread,” Christie told California’s delegation to the Republican National Convention here, a crowd that lapped up his message. “Let me tell you this – I cannot believe you people elected Jerry Brown over Meg Whitman. … Jerry Brown. Jerry Brown? I mean, he won the New Jersey presidential primary over Jimmy Carter when I was 14 years old.”
