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Health & Fitness

Yes, This Is Very Serious

Discussion of the gaffs and tangled remarks of 2012 Republican Presidential Primary candidates.

 

Republican politics—ya gotta love it. The daily gaffs. The statements incompatible with the truth. Claims of fact that are proved later not to be true.

Every once in a while we have moments when the truth is stated, only to be changed later. There’s the instance, several days ago when the Blunt Amendment was being debated in the Senate. This amendment would allow an employer not to provide health insurance coverage for a moral or religious objection to the benefit. In this case, the issue arose from the contraception debate concerning the Obama Administration’s decision that religious businesses such as colleges and hospitals would have to provide contraception coverage to their employees.

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Here is Romney’s initial reaction in an interview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp_ogBxAjtM&feature=player_embedded

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As you see he was against the Blunt amendment at this time of that day. My thinking is that was Romney’s actual feelings about the Blunt Amendment.

However, later that day the Romney campaign sent out a press release “correcting” the candidate’s response. Poor Mitt was confused by the question, and answered…the question he thought he heard. Yet, as you listen to his response to the interviewer’s question, there’s no other question that could have elicited that answer he gave.

But, let's give Romney the benefit of the doubt. These interviews can be very tricky.

Then we have Senator Santorum’s remark where he stated that he wasn’t concerned what the unemployment rate is going to be. “It doesn’t matter to me, “ he is quoted by Salon.com’s Joan Walsh. “My campaign doesn’t hinge on unemployment rates and growth rates.” So, Mr. Santorum, what does your campaign hinge on? Complaining to Joe Scarborough a Republican host on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he and other members of the media were trying to pidgeon hole him because of his views on contraception, he explains his campaign is concerned about First Amendments and freedom of religion.

As Joan Walsh further discusses, what does his campaign hinge on if not unemployment and contraception? To read the full article: http://tinyurl.com/6q9jgvv

So what does all this really mean? More of the reality TV show that is the Republican Primary of 2012? It demonstrates how problematic it is to run on the extreme conservative, fundamentalist Christian agenda. The Republican Party has been captured by a minority extremist fringe. All the desires of this group which for mainstream voters have been veiled in mystery up until now, are being exposed and now we all have an even greater understanding of what those desires really are. They want a white nation, with political power in the hands of a radically right-wing so-called evangelical Christian plutocracy, which will run President Obama out of Washington on a rail.

Don’t confuse any of these individuals and their supporters with such Republicans as Dwight D. Eisenhower,  Gerald Ford and especially Ronald Reagan or the Mitt Romney who used to be Governor of Massachusetts. Romney has been forced to rid himself of all of his former positions on planned parenthood, the individual mandate for health insurance and equality for all including women in the workplace.

To those of my readers who feel inclined to say that every politician changes their positions, I don’t disagree that can happen. How does Mitt wake up every morning believing one thing and lying all day about it? This does not credit him at all.

As for Rick Santorum, there are many of us who knew what he was really about. Now the rest of America knows also.

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