Michele Bachmann's campaign chairman quits and switches to Ron Paul

Well this is an interesting turn of events for the Bachmann & Paul campaigns.

From The Guardian:

The US Republican candidate Michele Bachmann's Iowa campaign chairman has resigned and endorsed rival Ron Paul, six days before Iowa voters begin the nomination process to select the party's 2012 presidential nominee.

Kent Sorenson, an Iowa state senator who had served as Bachmann's state campaign chairman for nearly a year, said he had decided to switch his support to Paul because the campaign had reached "a turning point".

This is quite a blow to the Bachmann campaign, which is practically on life support at this stage of the game. In an effort to save face, Bachmann responded to the departure by alleging that Sorenson sold himself out and left to go to the Paul campaign after they offered him money:

“Kent Sorenson personally told me he was offered a large sum of money to go to work for the Paul campaign,” Bachmann said in a hastily arranged news conference outside a Pizza Ranch in Boone, where she held her 11th campaign event of the day.

It turns out though that that might actually be a complete lie, as Michele Bachmann's Iowa political director Wes Enos later issued a statement completely contradicting the Minnesota congresswoman:

“I won’t say much about the situation or the conflicting statements beyond this; I can say unequivocally that Kent Sorenson’s decision was, in no way financially motivated.

While I personally disagree with Kent’s decision, and plan to stay with Michele Bachmann because I truly believe in her, I cannot, in good conscious watch a good man like Kent Sorenson be attacked as a ‘sell-out’ ….That is simply not the case, and it was not the basis of his decision,” said Mr. Enos.

So Michele Bachmann comes right out and says "he's just doing it for the money" and within hours her political director says it's completely untrue. Not off to a good start considering her chairman just resigned on the same day. And all of this just 6 days before the Iowa Caucus.

Donald Trump's debate: will it be cancelled?

Media-whore blowhard Donald Trump was scheduled to host the Republican debate co-sponsored by Newsmax on Dec. 27th. Announced with much excitement during a joint conference with Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich, it was supposed to be a must-see event. Now the pieces are crumbling and it looks like it may not go down at all. In the beginning Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman put out a statement saying they would not be attending the debate. At first it seemed like a bad move for those candidates - they're polling towards the bottom and really can't afford to not be seen. But other candidates have followed suit and now they're down to only 2 candidates that have confirmed they'll attend: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

Are Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum enough to make it a worthwhile debate? Or will they just can the whole thing altogether?

The whole thing has been a disaster from the start. Republicans need to get serious and they need to quit being so goddamn stupid by following celebrity whores like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. If you think those people are good leaders for the Republican party you need to wake the fuck up. They have no interest in serving to help this nation, they're self promoters who hop on bandwagons to feed their careers.

I'll be honest, deep down I wanted to see this. It was certainly going to be a train wreck that would be hard not to watch. But I also know nothing truly good will come out of it. It's cheap entertainment at a time where we need serious solutions, not sideshow distractions.

Hopefully this whole event will get canned and Donald Trump and the Republican party can both realize that neither of them are a good fit for the other. Shame on all those out there who think he has a serious role to play in politics, you've definitely been punked.

The Republican Presidential Campaigns: Why is Jon Huntsman not getting more attention?

We here at People Liking People have been keeping an eye on the Republican primary presidential campaigns. It seems like every week there's a new front runner, and it almost feels like a game of musical chairs. Early on the focus was on Donald Trump, then it turned out the whole thing was a publicity stunt (shame on you all who actually fell for it). Mitt Romney has long been seen as being the most presidential and the one having the best chance at beating Obama. But to this day it seems a big share of the conservative base is having trouble rallying behind him. His level of support has been the most consistent of all the candidates though, for better or worse. Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain have both had their moments where it looked like they were the new front runner, and now Newt Gingrich is in that spotlight. And of course there is Ron Paul, who has a very strong support base but will have a hard time crossing into mainstream status. Oh and Rick Santorum...yawn. Look for him to be out of the race soon, along with Bachmann.

There is one candidate whose experience is very solid and he has carried himself quite well in the debates, but for some reason or another has not gained the attention and support of the media or the conservative base, which is becoming puzzling for us because he seems like one of the more solid candidates. That candidate is Jon Huntsman. He gets much less speaking time during the debates than most of the other candidates and you rarely hear his named tossed around seriously as having a real chance. But why is this? Let's look at Jon Huntsman's experience:

- Executive of the Huntsman Corporation (a chemical company)
- United States Trade Representative
- Ambassador to China
- Governor of Utah



Huntsman is arguably the most moderate of all the candidates, which is probably why there's not much excitement behind him within the conservative base. He's somewhat like Romney, except with Huntsman we get the feeling he stands by his positions, whereas with Romney he has a history of flipflopping on almost every issue (abortion and universal healthcare, for example).

We're making a prediction here: Newt Gingrich will be in the lead for the next few weeks and it'll seem like he'll end up being the guy. But that will also come with increased scrutiny and people will begin to reconsider if he's really the one they want as the Republican nominee. When the excitement over Gingrich begins to fade and people look back over the list of candidates to make sure there wasn't anyone better that was overlooked, they'll discover Huntsman - and it'll be just in time for the primary elections.

Herman Cain is Done

Well it's official: Herman Cain is finished. He no longer has a chance to become president in this upcoming election. If by some miracle he ends up winning the Republican primary, there is no way he will be able to beat Obama. Either way he's toast. And it has nothing to do with the sexual harassment allegations. We gave Herman Cain the benefit of the doubt and still do. More details may come out later of course that indicate he did sexual harass those women, but at this point in time we simply don't have any evidence that he did. No, the reason Herman Cain is toast is this "performance" during an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Watch below:



This is just embarrassing, and it's too terrible to justify. There's no way to spin this one at all. How could anybody be so clueless as to what's going on in the world? Sure, when you run for President of the United States, you have to quickly learn a ton of information - everything from international politics to tax policy to more local issues that are going on in the towns that you visit while campaigning. But at this point in the campaign he should be up to date with what happened in Libya.

And let's say we give him a pass for not knowing too much about Libya or the Middle East. Let's look at how he handled it. A third grader could have done a better job answering the question. "Uhmm Libya...ok let's see....uhh....Obama...was.....for...the opposition..right? Ok...uh" He's asking the interviewer to help him answer the question, and that's pathetic. And you gotta love how he shuffles his water bottle back and fourth on the table like he's some kind of genius deep in thought. Nope, not fooling anybody. That may have worked during corporate board meetings but it definitely didn't help here.

Once he's at the understanding that Obama was for the uprising and the ousting of Gaddafi, he then begins to offer his criticism on the way Obama handled it:

"I don't agree with the way he handled it for the following reasons:

uhmmmm.....nope that's a different one. Uhm... let's see..I gotta go back and see..uhh...I got all this stuff twirling around in my head...uh...specifically what are you asking me what do I agree or not disagree with Obama on?"

That's just terrible man. Just admit that you don't know. People already know that you don't know much about what's going on in the middle east, we get it, it's not your specialty. But to try to pretend that you do and fail so miserably is just embarrassing. And to attempt to criticize Obama for the way he handled it when you don't even know the situation or how Obama handled it? How are you going to criticize something before you even know the details of what happened? For all Cain knows, Obama's strategy on Libya was genius.

For the record: we here at People Liking People would prefer not to get involved at all with Libya or any other of these uprisings and civil wars. Do we not have enough of our own issues to deal with? And that's the real answer Cain should have given. Why are we talking about Libya when we have so many problems of our own? Let's take care of our own first, Libyans will find a way to work things out on their own.

And that reveals another problem with Cain. He's afraid to give his real opinion on international politics. Now maybe he isn't the brightest guy in the world when it comes to the middle east, but he's gotta have some kind of views one way or the other. But instead of giving his honest view, he's sitting there trying to remember what the establishment Republican positions are. He doesn't want to say anything that's out of line with the status quo, because he knows if he gets called out on it and asked to back it up, he's in trouble. So he's trying to play it safe and give the standard answers. Israel? Support it 100%. Libya? whatever Obama did, that was wrong. He's afraid to take real unique positions. He may have a "bold" 999 plan but with everything else he's merely going along with the Republican talking points and is afraid to take a stand or real position on anything.

We wanted to see Cain do well, in the beginning he really seemed to shine above the other candidates. But the more his campaign continued the worse it got. In the beginning of his campaign when he was asked international questions, he would say things like "I do not know the best way to resolve that because I need to look over the facts". Back then we thought it was kind of a weak answer but at least it was honest and we understood. Now he's trying to fudge his way through answering those types of questions and it just doesn't work.

Herman Cain and Rick Perry both have their own "Oh shit" moment

The Republican primary campaign has been going on for a few months now but it's really starting to get entertaining lately and is making the 2008 campaign look like a snooze fest. Remember John McCain? Rudy Guiliani? God it's no wonder Obama won. Of course, it didn't help that the majority of the country was fed up after 8 years of Bush but that's another story. Anyways...one of the most entertaining parts about this whole process is watching these politicians squirm as they're asked questions on things they know nothing about - and they have to pretend to be very knowledgeable on the subject. Most of the time they can pull it off pretty well. One of the things that works in their favor is that half the population doesn't understand the issues so people barely notice when politicians are bullshitting their way through answers. For all Joe Sixpack knows, the politician is offering some genius proposal. But every now and then their knowledge is so lacking that they can't even pretend to bullshit their way through, which is what happened to Herman Cain a few days ago during a debate between Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, watch below:



And then tonight during the debate on CNBC came what is probably the most embarrassing moment yet during the campaign: Rick Perry completely forgot what he was going to say mid-speech, and ends it by saying "oops". Ouch.

"I will tell you, it is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: Commerce, Education, and — what's the third one there? Let's see..."

Notice how after saying "oops" he immediately looks over to his right, presumably at Mitt Romney.