Why Newt Gingrich can’t beat President Obama.

A couple days ago I wrote an article giving four major reasons why I believed Romney couldn’t beat Obama.  Well, now that Gingrich has emerged as a formidable obstacle in Romney’s pursuit of the lukewarm nomination, I think I should probably write a similar article about Gingrich.

All right, let’s start with a picture of Gingrich—

Wait, no… That’s Gothmog, the Chief Orc at the battle for Pelennor Fields in Return of the King.  Let me get a picture of Gingrich.

Ok, there we g— Wait a minute.  That’s Gothmog again.  Wait…  Shit, I’m confused.  Anyway..

REASON NUMBER 1 NEWT GINGRICH CAN’T BEAT BARACK OBAMA:

He’s Newt FUCKING Gingrich.

All right.  That ought to do it.  Until next time!

What the New England Patriots mean to me.

So the Patriots are going to another Super Bowl.  A lot of people rolled their eyes at this news, asked when a new team was going to go to the Super Bowl or just used it as fodder for their frustration that the Niners didn’t make it.  For me, however, the moment that Billy Cundiff (poor guy) botched the last second field goal kick in the AFC Championship, I was running up and down the stairs in my house screaming like a raving lunatic.

Hi, my name’s Colin… And I’m a Patriots fan.  (“Hi Colin.”)

The last 24 hours have been interesting for me.  Though I was euphoric when the missed field goal assured another Super Bowl trip for the Pats, it wasn’t soon after that that everybody was voicing their opinion to me about how much they hate the Patriots, how much they hope they get creamed in the Super Bowl and how boring of a matchup it’s going to be.  It was a strange sensation to be in celebration mode and defensive mode (I even found myself defending the Giants, the team that I want the Patriots to beat the most after they lost to them in 2008) at the same time.   The funny thing is, I was actually taking it pretty personally.

I was thinking about that a lot today, and at first I just chalked it up to it being my team and the fact that I wanted to celebrate without being badgered for it.  But I realized that over the years, the Patriots have meant a lot to me and it’s actually informed my identity quite a bit.

Now, this isn’t to say I’m an emotionally unhealthy, crazed sports fan that is going to overturn cars if his team doesn’t win (all I needed last year when the Pats lost at home to the Jets was just getting some anger out via a couple NWA songs and then I was fine), but my attachment goes back to when I “decided” I liked the Pats a few years before they won their first Super Bowl in 2001.  My friend Patrick had gotten me into football and he was a Steelers fan so I was a Steelers fan (back in the Kordell Stewart days which wasn’t exactly a glamorous era for them), but after a little bit, I decided I wanted to have a team I could call my own.  I sort of liked playing as the Patriots on NFL Blitz because of Drew Bledsoe (the video game announcer pronounced his name like “Blitzo), my mom told me how much she liked their logo and when I put 50 cents into a novelty NFL mini-porcelain mug dispenser and the first mug that rolled out had the “Flying Elvis” logo on it, my destiny as a Patriots fan was set.  When you’re a young pro football fan in Utah, you have to resort to some strange methods to pick a team.  Unless you go by boring proximity rule like Broncos fans (sorry, Tyler).

At that time in the NFL, the Patriots were a laughing stock.  I remember being so excited to watch Monday Night Football and see them actually WIN a game, since a) they almost never broadcast Pats games in Utah and b) if they did, they were always playing really good teams that would destroy them.

But then the 2001 season rolled around.  Bledsoe got injured.  Brady stepped up and led them to the Super Bowl (with a little help from a healthy Bledsoe in the AFC championship).  This was February 2002.  Four months earlier, my mom and I had moved out of my childhood home after she left my dad.  I was in a new middle school, my only friend there had decided that he suddenly hated me, I was sick a lot and unable to go to school much anyway and remembered fantasizing about living in the Shire (the first Lord of the Rings had just opened) so I could escape my undesirable existence.  Even when the Patriots made it to the Super Bowl, nobody gave them a chance.  They, at 11-5, were playing the Rams who were 14-2 and were touted  as the “Greatest Show on Turf” …And they were playing on turf.  The Rams came out one by one, announcing their all-star names and getting wild cheers from the crowd, and then the Patriots came out… together… having chosen to be introduced not as individuals, but as a team, and only as a team.

Nobody gave them a chance, nobody thought they even deserved to be there and they were all set to laugh them out of the stadium…  As an eighth grader at a school where nobody liked me when I was actually healthy enough to attend, I kind of identified with them.  

And they won.  Against all odds.  They silenced the doubters. 

Not long after, I started making friends in my neighborhood…  One of whom I still consider my best and all of whom I’m thankful I had.  Over the years I gradually developed into a more socially composed person and have even become something of a group leader (if only in the regard that I often decide where my friends and I are going to eat after our evening church service)  But looking back, there are three things that got me through that low point in my life…  My mom, great movies and the New England Patriots.

The Patriots also developed into a strong, consistent team.  They even became a powerhouse team like the 2001 Rams in the 2007 season and led an undefeated regular season that was tainted with the Spygate scandal and accusations of running up the score on opponents.  Sometimes the plucky upstarts can become a little too arrogant after some success and need to be knocked back down a few tiers (which the Giants were happy to do).  Though I’ve never excelled socially like the 2007 Patriots, I’ve definitely had some issues with arrogance and it’s been a good thing when I’ve been humbled.

Not to twist every Patriots season to fit a season of my life, but for more than the last decade, the Patriots have been a constant for me.  So if I seem a little overly sensitive when you badmouth a multimillion dollar organization about their advance to the Super Bowl, it’s because inside of me somewhere is still the insecure eighth grader staring wide-eyed at my friend Kristin’s big screen TV as Adam Vinatieri kicks a 48 yard field goal as time expires— bringing a visual component to the achievements that are made possible when the underdog believes in himself, even when nobody else does.

Why Mitt Romney can’t beat President Obama.

I’ve been talking with quite a few friends and have seen a number of polls and pundits saying the same thing: Mitt Romney is probably the only candidate that can beat Barack Obama.

Really?  Mitt Romney?

I think you have the wrong Mormon.  

Since he threw his hat into the ring (and recently took it out), I’ve always said that Huntsman had the GOP’s best chance against Obama, but that’s neither here nor there since he’s already dropped out and was never going to win.  People’s bar for competency has been set so low for the GOP that for some reason they are starting to think that people suddenly like Mitt Romney.

Just because he’s not the only one who isn’t a raving lunatic doesn’t make him a formidable candidate.  In fact, despite his “best chance” of beating Obama, I believe he is the most easily dismantled on a general election front—For several reasons that have been right in front of us this whole time.

1. O-Romney-Care.

Despite its unpopularity, Barack Obama could use the election vs. Obama to really sell his Affordable Care Act, simply because it’s been wildly successful in Massachusetts and Romney’s health care advisors MET with Obama to design the national model version of Romney’s health care plan.  All Obama has to say at the debates is: “Mitt, why are you rejecting the health care model that made your state second in the nation for health care?  Your guys met with my guys and you even said it’d be a good national model.  Shouldn’t you be endorsing this?”  Cue Romney’s creepy laugh and the sound of his poll numbers dropping.

2. Bain Capital.

When you get Republicans to wage “class warfare” on each other, you know some serious shit must have happened.  On the stage of a general election, and with Romney touting job creation (with no actual evidence that he directly contributed to the jobs created by Domino’s and Staples), the people whom he fired are going to come out of the woodwork to tell their stories.

3.  He’s John Kerry.

He’s unexciting, he’s unappealing, he’s flip flopped on even more positions than Kerry ever did and he, as MIchael Savage once so unceremoniously described the 2004 Democratic nominee, also has a face that would scare small children.

 His party isn’t excited about him and if he gets the nomination (which is essentially inevitable even if Gingrich wins South Carolina), it will be even more lukewarm (can something be MORE lukewarm or is just cold at that point?) than Kerry’s.  Plus, Obama just has to take a page from Bush’s playbook (he’s been good at that lately) and say: “You may not agree with where I stand, but at least you know where I stand.”  Boom. 

4.  You know… The Mormon thing.

Mormonism has a more positive image in America than ever before.  People are more accepting of them, more people consider them Christians and many people believe our nation is ready for a Mormon leader, and personally I would have no problem with a Mormon being leader, as is evident since I am fond of Huntsman.  The problem is that when an election goes national, it gets ugly.  Every last little thing about somebody’s past (or present) is dug up and used against them.  With 2008 we had Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.  Hell, people even tried to use Obama’s days as a community organizer against him.  How on earth do you spin helping poor and unemployed members of churches find work as a bad thing?  I guess if you’re a Republican, helping poor people is pretty bad.

Anyway, every last weird thing about Mormonism’s history and current practice is going to be dug up in the general election.  If Obama wanted to, which he never would, he could even say at a debate “Tell me, Mitt, if I were a member of your church in 1977 and I wanted to get married in the temple that is necessary for eternal salvation, why wouldn’t I be allowed in?”  Temple robes, polygamy, Brigham Young claiming God had physical sex with Mary, becoming a god with your own planet, “magic” underwear.  All those things are going to come up and while many people may dismiss it as oppressive negativity, it, combined with the three prior reasons I listed is why Mitt Romney will lose to Barack Obama in November.

It’s easier than ever to fact check and nobody does it.

I saw two separate stories reposted on facebook this week that deeply disturbed me.  Not because the content of the stories were particularly unnerving, but because they both lacked a certain something: any factual accuracy whatsoever.

The first was a supposed piece written by Ben Stein where addresses the so-called “war on Christmas” that conservative Christians love to get their panties in a twist over.  He spoke as a Jew addressing the fact that he can still enjoy and appreciate Christmas and even endorse being wished a “Merry Christmas” despite the fact that he doesn’t share the beliefs from which Christmas stems.  Fair enough, right?  Well, then the article goes on (while still claiming it’s Stein’s words) to say that since school prayer is a thing of the past, God has forsaken the nation.  And that since “we” have rejected God (despite the majority of the nation claiming Christian belief), he has “bowed out” and allowed school shootings and terrorist attacks to befall this nation of ours.  How do we correct this?  Apparently, by spanking our children (as Jesus taught, of course).  The article states that since Dr. Benjamin Spock advocated against the idea of spanking children, his son later killed himself as a result.  …Because he wasn’t spanked.  I’m not kidding.  It actually says this.  Not only that… HIS SON NEVER KILLED HIMSELF!

The second I saw is a graphic of a white, well-dressed Christian couple handing a Bible to a woman from Haiti.  The caption beneath it reads: “Thank you, this looks delicious” insisting that the couple is there to simply drop off Bibles, take a picture to feel good and leave them in their squalor.  Anybody who is familiar with Christian mission trips knows this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Mission trips, while often having an evangelizing bent, typically involve very practical help such as building shelters, building wells, supplying food and water or setting up sponsorships for families.  

You’d think that both of these pieces would be quickly squashed out.  For instance, if you google “fact check ben stein christmas article,” the two top stories swiftly debunk the article as false and, except for the first four paragraphs, not written by Stein.  For me, it popped up in .30 seconds.  Not even ONE second and I had the article fact-checked, yet this article has been circulating for TEN YEARS.  Ten years of a propagated lie of an article as opposed to less than one second of a fact check.

The problem is that people see something they agree with and they want it to be true since it speaks to their personal sentiment.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to believe something unless I’ve done the proper research.  And if something I believe turns out to not be true, I’d like to know about it!  The internet is a wonderful tool that is not being utilized for what it should be.  We can be given a free crash-course on any historical period by typing a few words into our smart phones.  We should all be educated master minds and yet ignorance is as as widespread as ever.  Do yourself a favor— Take nothing at face value.  Research it first.

The hypocrisy of supposed “nice” guys.

A friend of mine posted a picture on his facebook today and while he isn’t in the situation himself nor does he necessarily agree with sentiment displayed, the image itself is the latest in this strange and creepy trend of these blogs and images circling the internet about the entitlement of the “nice guy.”  Here’s the one I saw:

To be honest, it’s pretty funny.  It’s just that it perpetuates this idea that because a guy is nice to a girl who is his friend, she is now obligated to fall in love with him.  There’s another image I saw circulating around where it was the confession of a “former nice guy,” who lamented the fact that he was the shoulder for her to cry on as all the assholes broke her heart over and over again.  He then concluded that in order to get girls, he was going to become an asshole because he “tried” being a nice guy and that didn’t work out.  

Newsflash: If you’re only being a nice guy with the intent of getting into a girl’s pants, you’re NOT A NICE GUY.  You’re just the passively manipulative version of an asshole.  

From what I know, which isn’t much, when it comes to my dating experience and observing my friends’ dating lives, it’s not that girls like assholes.  Nor do they like pitiful guys that are overly sensitive, weepy and offer nothing but incessantly supportive statements.  Most girls, just like guys, like somebody who is balanced!  Not a complete selfish asshole, but not a dweeby yes man.  If somebody is defining how they act simply by how it affects their dating life, then they probably aren’t stable enough to date anyone and should find an actual personality before asking somebody on a date.