“This whole thing with Obama saying the rich don’t pay their taxes is fucking bullshit, and I voted for the guy and I’m a Democrat. What a fucking asshole,” -Jon Lovitz.

And then he got even better: “First they say … ‘You can do anything you want. Go for it.’ So then you go for it, and then you make it, and everyone’s like, ‘Fuck you,’” Lovitz said. “[Obama] is the perfect example. He’s amazing. He had nothing … and the guy ends up being at Harvard. He’s the president of the United States. And now he’s like, ‘Fuck me and everybody who made it like me.’”

I’ll find out whom his partner on stage was before I publish this post, but at the time, I’m not sure of anything except that he’s a terrible performer and kindov a douche. Actually, I feel bad saying that because I suspect from the sound of the voice that it is Kevin Smith and its hard not to like Kevin Smith. But whomever it is – they’re awful. ZERO improv skills and general plain douchery. That was what I paid the most attention to. What Lovitz is saying is just what I’ve been saying for years. But his stage-mate had nothing to add to either the commentary or performance. Unforgivable.

Proper response to this situation:
Agree with Lovitz? Cool. say so and why. “Yes, and” rules of improving.
Disagree with Lovitz? Cool. say so and why. “Yes, and” rules of improving if you have talent (trickier to do when disagreeing) but if you dont then no worries – just butt heads. clash. Tell him HE’S the asshole or whatever it is you think. do SOMEthing for Christ sake.
Uncomfortable with the topic or don’t have anything to say? “Yes, and” rules of improving by going on a tangent or springboarding into more familiar territory.

What happened was none of the above. Instead, the dude just blandly naysays with no jokes, no substance, no anything to offer the performance or his partner at all. He just tries to get Lovitz to stop talking with snide tactics that dumbass teenage girls use like “are you done?”.

UPDATE: It is indeed Kevin Smith. God dammit…

Lovitz also criticized Smith for “masquerading as a 99 percenter” — a reference to the Occupy Wall Street movement that the director said he supports.

Later on in the podcast when Lovitz’s diatribe against Obama really started to heat up, Smith suggested that the government would come and shut down the podcast.

“They’re gonna come in and shut this place down, man. They’re gonna be like: ‘We heard the fourth fucking episode. You won’t leave Obama alone.’ This is an election year, man … they’re gonna come in and make an example of you, man,” Smith said. “The government can do that. They can take your shit away.”

As Smith goaded Lotivz, the lights in the theater abruptly turned off. Smith said, “Whoa, what the fuck happened? Oooh. The government’s here. They turned the lights off!”

While the Republican Primary has been over for some time to the people paying attention to the delegate math, some supporters of other candidates have held false hope and continue to send their money to people like congressman Ron Paul.

Colorado Republicans are heading to their national convention with their most conservative delegation in years, as supporters for Ron Paul and Rick Santorum masterminded a stunning upset in electing delegates.

At the state convention in Denver today, Paul forces easily were the most vocal, adding their candidate’s name at almost every opportunity. When Republicans sang “Hey, hey, hey, good-bye” to President Barack Obama, Paul backers changed the words to “Hey, hey, hey, Ron Paul.”

The momentum was painful for Mitt Romney supporters, who had assumed when Santorum dropped out of the presidential race this week they’d have a much easier time in winning Colorado’s delegate and alternate seats to the Republican National Convention in Tampa in August.

Instead, some of the Santorum’s supporters united with Paul’s backers to form the “Conservative Unity Slate” to win a slew of delegate slots. Four years ago, only one Paul supporter was elected to attend the national convention.

“This is a revolution,” said Florence Sebern of Denver, an “unpledged” delegate who was wearing a Paul pin. She was part of the slate.

I feel bad for these people. in a sense i guess they get peace of mind out of their donation in the same way a person who goes to see a “psychic” about a deceased loved one does, but still… sending money to a candidate who has won zero states and has prospects to win zero in the future? why? because they like the Paul family that much and just want to fund them (family members make up a majority of top level campaign staff positions)? oy.

At this point (and at this point last year…) the Paul campaign makes me just think of this:

Citing a rapper in support of legislation is kindov a weird move but citing the lyrics wrong is worse. Doing so in a loose “realtalk” persuasion speech and getting the correction issued a split second later makes the whole thing pretty epic though. Thank goodness there were cameras, although the reaction was so loud that the audio cuts out.

Via the Washington Free Beacon comes this gem in American state politics, titled “Roc-A-Fella Republican” (you get the pun, right?).

Two Florida state representatives on opposite sides got into a conflict over the lyrics to Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” on the floor of the Florida House of Representatives Wednesday while discussing an amendment to the Florida Evidence Code regarding allowing certain types of hearsay as evidence:

REP. ALAN B. WILLIAMS: I think one of the reasons why were supporting the amendment is because we got such a warm and fuzzy farewell from you to set the mood to support this amendment. To go even further, you think about a wise businessman. He even said he knows his rights. And Jay-Z…I think Jay-Z said it best and I’m going to quote for you. “I know my rights and you’re going to need a warrant for that.” And he even went further, “Aren’t you sharp as a tack, are you a lawyer or something?” Members, when you look at it, support this. If you support Jay-Z, support this amendment. Thank you.

SPEAKER DEAN CANNON: I must respectfully disagree with a correction, Rep. Williams. In the song, it was the officer who said, “Aren’t you sharp as a tack?” or something. “You should try for lawyer or something,” so I got you on that. It’s an unspoken rule, if you’re going to invoke Jay-Z, you must get the lyrics correct. I’m not sure Jay-Z would support this amendment.

During the Republican presidential debate Saturday night, Rep. Ron Paul cited CREW’s research as he focused the spotlight on former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, whose ethical lapses landed him in our 2006 Most Corrupt Members of Congress report. We also filed an ethics complaint against the senator.

Instead of addressing the charges, Mr. Santorum responded with the tried and un-true GOP talking point that CREW only targets Republicans. Fortunately, many fact-checking reporters caught onto Mr. Santorum’s trick.

• The New York Times pointed out that our 2011 Most Corrupt list is bipartisan, with four liberal House Democrats on the list of 14 lawmakers. Three more Democrats merited dishonorable mentions.
• The Washington Post noted we’ve named plenty of Democrats as corrupt.
• ABC News explained that CREW “focuses its criticism on both parties.”

Mr. Santorum should take a lesson from CREW and just stick with the facts. To us it doesn’t matter if politicians are Republicans or Democrats, only that they’ve broken the rules.

Now that he’s back in the game, maybe Mr. Santorum finally will be forced to explain his unethical conduct.

Read CREW’s 2006 Most Corrupt Members of Congress Report

Other than the ethics stuff, I only have 1 other problem with Santorum and that is the gay stuff. He’s an okay candidate running on blue collar middle class principals and blah blah blah that is just fine – except for his handling of the social conservative nonsense. To some extent, abortion, but more so the gay thing. If he were the nominee, the headlines and media coverage would be about nothing but buttsecks and his opinion about it. What happened was that Santorum was explaining why he doesn’t think the constitution protects any and all sexual activity and that was why he opposed a Supreme Court ruling that struck down sodomy laws. Santorum claimed that the ruling opens a legal loophole that says you can do whatever you want to whatever you want with your genitals since it would be protected under the equal protection clause. The argument is a constitutional and legal one and has merit and should be debated – however, Santorum allowed himself to be a target for the issue after gay activists took his words to mean that there was some equivocation going on between being gay and raping squirrels. Santorum could have shined in response, but he didn’t. He is essentially correct on the questions raised in the argument, but handled the attacks in response to it so poorly that he should be disqualified as a candidate for that reason alone. In one of the debates he was asked what he would do if his son told him he was gay and Santorum responded that he would love him just as much as he did the second before he told him and would try to be the best father to him that he could. -A good answer, but he should have been saying that for the past 6 years when talking about the subject to crush the “you disagree with me, therefore you hate me” arguments leveled against him. Since he didn’t, he built up too much negativity that he cant fight against by just starting to now.

Santorum called the classification of his words a “jihad” by gay activists but… thats lame. and it’s a defensive argument coming way too late.

Gay activists also Google-bombed his name by linking to a website that proclaims that the word Santorum is henceforth slang for “The frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.” Santorum himself participated in the innuendo making by making the following unintentional acronym on his website:

As far as the primary contests go:

Rick Santorum isn’t going anywhere. Despite a third place finish, he’s on his way to the Sunshine State. Newt is still speaking very kindly of Rick in public, knowing that he needs Santorum’s supporters if he does manage to turn it into a two person race with Romney, but he’s got to be annoyed.

For his part, Santorum is correct to note that he has now won exactly as many primary contests as Mitt and Newt. And as per number 4 above, he has no reason to leave. Newt may have all the momentum at the moment, but if he does trip and fall, number 2 above should tell us that there is an excellent chance that Newt’s backers will actually stampede to Rick, rather than “falling in line” behind Romney. If he can just put in another strong pair of performances at the Florida debates, he will remain well positioned to lurk in the background and wait for his opportunity.

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary last night, despite competitor Mitt Romney having been ahead in the polls for the past few weeks up until Texas Governor Rick Perry dropped out of the race and Gingrich’s numbers in the state soared. Romney won the same percentage of the vote (27%) that polls showed him having two weeks ago when he led 27/24 over Rick Santorum.

The Republican party could have wrapped up their nomination process and voted for their best candidate in the field, Mitt Romney, but decided to be stupid about it and give Gingrich a reason to keep campaigning hard and dragging this thing out longer than it needs to be.

Hugh Hewitt on the results:

“We’re ready to take out some of the balloons we’ve been storing,” is how Democratic strategist Donna Brazile greeted the idea that Newt would win by a significant margin in South Carolina, an hour before the polls closed and Newt was indeed declared the winner. She was echoing James Carville, who said much the same thing. So what is it that makes these two lefties happy about Newt’s win?

They think they know that tonight’s result means one of two things — Newt as the GOP nominee, which they pray for, or a battered and bloodied Mitt Romney as the president’s opponent, which they will settle for.

Newt is good at delivering speeches and one liners, but is otherwise has a hit and miss record and is a bit of an embarrassment. Don’t we already have a president with that exact resume?

I dont even wanna think about having to choose between Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama until i absolutely must. On the issues, he is supportable but just has sOooOo much BAGGAGE, is sooOOOo douchey in so many ways and theres no reason for it.

Theres an alternative named Romney and he’s squeaky freaky clean, just as good a public speaker and debater, has just as good small government/tax/lower regulation plans and ideas and NONE of the Newt-Negatives. Newt would be a great cabinet appointment in the Romney administration but the dudes not electable and his wife – whom im sure is very nice and i wish them lots of happiness (big-ups to my boy for marrying a blonde thats the same age as his daughter) – is just too awkward and coo-coo-bananas looking to be our first lady, especially compared with the picturesque perfection that is Obama’s family.

People dont vote on ideas, they vote on style, appearance, deliverability, reliability and then ask themselves “does this person scare the shit out of me or not?” and if the answer is “less than the other guy” then they vote for them.

Romney is the only one who can win that fight against Obama.

“Apparently, South Carolinians would rather have the emotional satisfaction of a snotty remark toward the president than to beat Obama in the fall,” Coulter, the author of “Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America,” said. “We saw it in the debates when Gingrich would say things that didn’t really make sense. That is what you usually associate with Democrats, which I described in my last book, ‘Demonic,’ how mobs behave.”

Some of what Gingrich has said might appear to make sense, she said, but should be analyzed more closely.

“Something that sounds like it makes sense like, ‘Mitt Romney doesn’t have influence over his super PAC — that makes you wonder if he’ll have influence as president,’” she continued. “How many times does Mitt Romney have to say it is illegal for a candidate to have influence on the super PAC. It is not, interestingly, though, for a president to have influence. So it makes no sense if you think about it for all of three seconds, but it sounds like it makes sense. It is just like what you get from liberals most of the time and the cheers and yahoos, and that is what we kept getting from this audience.”

As dozens of sites participate in a blackout today (this one is my favorite), the rest of the internet is finally learning about what myself and others have been trying to notify people over for several months. While the 2 proposed laws to filter the internet (which both my Senators in California think is an awesome idea, unfortunately) have been shelved for now, we’re left wondering whether it’s just a pause before these laws come back twice as hard or if today was a big defeat for the movie industry.

Movies, music, and publications are among America’s most valuable exports—more than $30 billion in 2007—and the industry has a lot of pull in Congress. Nearly half the Senate, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signed on to the Senate version. In the House, 32 representatives from both parties—including Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), the fourth-ranking House Democrat, and Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the powerful Judiciary committee—backed the entertainment industry’s proposal. (You can see supporters and opponents of the bills over at ProPublica’s website.) Maplight.org found that since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, SOPA’s 32 sponsors took in nearly four times as much in campaign contributions from the entertainment industry than from the software and Internet industries (nearly $2 million versus a little over $500,000). For SOPA opponents, the ratio was reversed—foes of the legislation took about twice as much money from software and Internet firms as they did from the entertainment industry.

The White House, which has close ties to the entertainment industry (earlier this year, for example, President Obama appointed famed anti-filesharing lawyer Don Verrilli as Solicitor General) seemed to be on board. As the Washington Post‘s Brad Plumer wrote, “these bills seemed all but inevitable.” The House Judiciary Committee held only one hearing on SOPA on November 16. Of the six witnesses invited, only one, an attorney with Google, testified against the bill. PIPA, meanwhile, passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee with nary a hearing.

So what was the big deal about this “SOPA” (Stop Online Piracy Act) law? So the government would be able to take down websites just for hosting even linking to copyrighted content. How hard can it be to just NOT do that?

Idk. Ask the author of the law… SOPAthetic…

PS: It would not have saved a single net job.

Don’t forget the penalty…

Live blogging the event….

Ron Paul notes that Santorum is a “big government conservative”. He is. (click for a long list of evidence).

Santorum is doing well. He is making me doubt the things i’ve bashed him for:

Lobbyist? He says he approached a local coal company to lobby for them specifically to defeat Cap & Trade.

Voted Most Corrupt? He says that’s a charge sent by a liberal organization every election cycle just to smear conservatives.

hmm… there could be truth to both of those. Got me wondering…

Yahoo! has this question:

UPDATE: they fixed it…

Moderator asks okay question that rests on stupid premise: “only 2 of you have served [in the military] – do you think that makes you better suited to be President?”. This is so stupid. Didn’t work for George Bush Sr – didn’t work for Bob Dole – didn’t work for John Kerry – didn’t work for John McCain and although G. Dubya won twice, it wasnt at all thanks to his Air Force Texas and Alabama Air National Guard service. this issue is a dud.

Ron Paul refines his “chickenhawk” argument against Gingrich so it sounds more sane: says that if you got multiple deferments when you had the chance to serve then you shouldn’t order anyone into war. that makes total sense but is a big difference from the chickenhawk argument which smears everyone who did not elect to join the military as having actively hid from it. That is stupid. Paul is doing really well tonight. I wish he ran this good a campaign in 2008 and/or performed this well in the 08 debates.

Newt says it is “inaccurate and false” that he asked for deferments. I don’t care cuz I’m more annoyed that he said “inaccurate AND false”. They mean the same thing, dude…

[commercial break]

Do states have the right to ban contraception? what in the what? — oh shit – Romney is voicing my exact reaction and chiding Stephonopolous for asking it. The question was based on a court case but still asked oddly. — NOW Stepho cuts to the chase and asks whether the Constitution has a “right to privacy”.

Ron Paul on the right of privacy in the Constitution: it pertains to your personal belongings and the state meddling with them with warrentless searches and whatnot.

Question from Yahoo asker: Since you’re against same sex marriage, what do you want gay people to do with their partners?

Gingrich: Favors hospital visitation rights, will and similar sensible laws. just quibbles over the word “marriage”

Huntsman: “Civil Unions are fair and I support them”. Doing well until he uses the old trope by saying he doesnt believe his marriage is affected by gay couples or same sex marriage or civil unions or idk what he;s referring to there but either way its stupid because no one has ever said gay relations of any kind affect their marriage. dumb thing to say.

Santorum: Let the states decide – but then stops himself and says there should be a singular Federal law so people arent married in one state and not married in another. derp? Then says “this is a state issue not a federal issue” – double-derp? Moderator asks what happens to same sex marriages if Santorum passes a law saying marriage is one man one woman – Santorum doesnt answer. just repeats that if the law passes it passes.

Romney: says its a “wonderful thing” for people to commit to each other long term but they don’t need to call it “marriage” and receive approval from the state that way and I bite my nails because I like Mitt and that is almost the right answer but only if he follows it up with “BUT, lets give le gayz more legal rights” like what Newt said. Thankfully he did go on and is talking about those rights right now as I type this: basically favors civil unions, legal partnerships, etc and just wants to preserve the word marriage. I don’t care about the word marriage but I dont have a problem with this traditionalist-but-non-hater position. whew! glad he got it right and remained the only candidate to avoid saying things that I would be embarrassed by if I were to publicly support.

Gingrich comes back and asks (openly, not to any individual) whether the Catholic church (he is a convert to Catholicism) should be forced out of the adoption business because they dont adopt out to same sex couples. gets applause.

Romney agree’s and notes that that is exactly what happened in Massachusetts by a court order he disagrees with.

Stepho beats the dead horse of Ron Paul running as a 3rd party candidate even though he says he doesnt want to and has never expressed interest in doing so. Paul gives the same answer as always: he’s not doing it and has no plans to do it but won’t promise not to do it.

Ron Paul says he’s doing well in the polls and says with a warm smile that he’s getting “closer to Mitt every day”. People laugh. its a nice/friendly moment.

Perry is asked if everyone on the stage should rule out a 3rd party bid. Perry doesnt answer and instead says anyone on the stage is better than Obama and then goes back to same sex marriage and says he wants a Constitutional amendment to define marriage.

Romney and Huntsman on when to leave Afghanistan: Huntsman says leave right away and dont invest another penny in that boondoggle. Romney says get em out soon but no hard date cuz you’ve got to asses the details as President first.

Perry says to send troops back into Iraq… when pressed: Perry says we need to because Iran will move in “literally at the speed of light”. Holy shit, those are fast Iranians…

[commercial]

Romney says that there are things Government can do to help the job market – like fix bridges n shit, but fundamentally government does not create jobs, it can only encourage the private sector.

I miss these two:

Romney: bring down taxes to be competitive with other nations and give relief to people who need it most and mostly hurt by the Obama economy, the middle class. Reduce rates. Reduce the amount of exemptions. Simplify the tax code and broaden the base — God damn you Republicans who don’t love this guy are stupid. He’s SO your best candidate in decades…

blah blah boring stuff – im checking twitter for a few minutes…

Huntsman vs Romney on China: Huntsman pulls the “i know Chinese” card and says a sentence to Romney in Mandarin and doesn’t explain what it means. SO. fucking. Douchey….

Huntsman says Romney wants a trade war with China. Romney says “nigga, the fuck you talkin bout?” (paraphrase) and does a thing with his hands saying he doesnt want a trade war but “we sell China *this much* [higher raised hand] – they sell us *this* much [much lower hand gesture] – who do you think doesnt want the trade war?” – bam.

[commercial break]

oh. that’s the end.

Well that was one of the best ones they’ve had. Everyone did very well.

Post debate commentary by ABC panel: Donna Brazil, former Gore campaign manager said that it was a good night for Democrats because no one attacked Mitt Romney. When everyone on the panel gave a hearty “wtf?” to that comment she explained that the weakest candidate is the one that no one attacks and that was Mitt Romney so Democrats are happy. Everyone reacted in unison with a “nooo. you don’t mean that” in the tone of when you say “aawww, c’mon” when an elderly great aunt says something controversial but you want to brush it off and ignore it instead of deal with it.

UPDATE: here’s an out-of-context recap, but the clips are not at all in chronological order.

TECHNOLOGY:

Congress does not pass SOPA but there is little victory over it because similar legislation lurks elsewhere, including the horizon. Representatives also fail to feel a noticeable sting in their re-elections due to SOPA support and major corporations only learn to be more stealthy about support of such laws and power expansion policies in the future.

Apple continues to disappoint us with software and lackluster hardware releases and suffers from bad press about whether the company can keep its magic without Steve Jobs. As much as I want an AppleTV television right now, I predict it doesnt come out in 2012 (unless it makes a last minute appearance in October) and we continue being teased until 2013.

Facebook, despite not wanting to, finally goes public and i’m forced to learn what IPO actually means/is.

Netflix recovers from its series of terrible mishandlings in 2011 and no one even remembers the fiasco anymore.

CELEBRITY:

Reverend Billy Grahm passes away. Fidel Castro (finally) and Hugo Chavez die.

Bill Clinton has a health scare but lives. Betty White lives. Lindsay Lohan lives but theres a close call.

Charlie Sheen stars in a new show. It doesn’t last long but doesn’t ruin his career. He mellows out.

Megyn Kelly gets a new show on Fox and Jake Tapper hosts the sunday show on ABC (finally), like he deserves.

POLITICS:

Ron Paul does not win the Iowa caucus in the Republican primary.

Donald Trump will not run for president and will endorse the Republican nominee (see below).

Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee, will choose a hispanic vice president (either Rubio or Fortuno) and will ultimately defeat Barack Obama in the November election.

As is often talked about, Hillary Clinton will NOT switch places with Joe Biden in their respective roles as Vice President and Secretary of State. Clinton will in fact plot a comeback. Barack Obama, constitutionally allowed to serve 1 additional term as president, plots his own comeback in another run for president but waits out the following cycle to avoid a rematch with Romney. See 2013′s predictions for how and when Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey will run for political office.

Liberals who have been vocal about how disappointed they are in Obama all year change their mind and come out with vocal support for Obama again, making the election much closer than previously thought by popular wisdom.

Republicans will keep the House and just barely capture the senate – possibly causing a 50/50 split.

The Tea Party will fuck up chances for bigger Republican victories and something will be done about that shit.

The Occupy Wall Street bullshit fizzles even faster than the nuts int he Tea Party get netted under control and more former supporters start to be more open about their embarrassment about what a masturbatory joke that whole thing was. Romney as the GOP nominee causes more anti-Wall Street activism press but not due to Occupy.

 PERSONAL:

I start a new website to moderate/respectable success.

My hairline either starts receding or thinning.

I release pilots or first seasons of at least 9 new animated series. Several flop. Several do so-so. 1 or 2 is a big success.

This year, when Republicans finally get their shit together and realize that they have no hope with Governor Perry or former Speaker Gingrich and correct their mistake they made in 07 and nominating Romney to the position he deserves this time – their only choice is for a hispanic VP.

You’ve got to have SOMEthing to counter the history of the first black president (yes, I know he’s only half black so he’s just as white as he is black but he’s the first with dark skin so dont send me dumb messages or comments on that) and “first Mormon” isn’t a landmark. no one outside of the LDS faith cares if we have a Mormon president or not and no one should. who cares?

To counter the affirmative action that took place in skyrocketing a state senator to the Washington Senate for only 2 years of accomplishing nothing but making good speeches and being charismatic and putting him in the Presidency – the Republicans need to counter with a minority pick that ISN’T an affirmative action choice.

That rules out Herman Cain, who has never been elected to any public office, and it’s not good for the parties optics to choose a black VP this cycle anyway. Answering the first black president with the first black Vice President is a lame move, won’t gain votes and should be avoided unless the possible candidates for VP who happen to be black are just so good that it can’t be avoided and that doesn’t apply this year, as congressmen Allen West (FL) and Tim Scott (SC) were only just elected in 2010.

So where to next? Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana just won reelection in November by a landslide and remains super popular. He does well in interviews that could excuse his terrible performance in the Republican response to Obama’s state of the union speech a few years ago but it’s still a stretch. The dude may be president some day but he’s super young (just turned 40 a few months ago) and has time. He’s not THAT good of a speaker to completely erase the poor teleprompter read delivery of that infamous GOP response.

That leaves Republicans with asians in the sense of what people think of when they hear asian and hispanics. Republicans have no prominent asian elected officials from which to choose so that leaves the latter and there are excellent people to choose from. Here are the top 5 with their pros and cons, ranked in order of their net-gains in my estimation from least to most:

1. Jaime Herrera Beutler: Congresswoman from Washington’s 3rd District.
   PRO: Womanandhispanic. ha cha chaaa.
   CON: House members are usually not tapped for the VP slot and she’s too unknown/unremarkable for this to not be seen as a ploy. That could be overcome but with the “unknown” part of the equation, we just don’t know if the dame is up for it. too risky with not enough reward.
   …
2. Brian Sandoval: Governor of Nevada.
   PRO: Nevada went for Bush 2004 but Obama in 2008. A Sandoval nomination could secure the state back into the Republican column and help out in neighboring New Mexico and Colorado which also changed their 04 Republican votes to 08 Democrat ones.
   CON: Short term as Governor. Endorsed Rick Perry. Is pro-choice, which won’t sit well with Republican base. in fact, it won’t be possible with Romney as the nominee because of all the smears against his abortion postion which evolved over the years from “I’m against it but it should be legal” to “I’m against it and it shouldn’t be”. Romney won’t need Sandoval on the ticket to win Nevada, either. So Sandoval’s out.
   …
3. Susana Martinez: Governor of New Mexico.
   PRO: Border state that voted for Obama in 08? Useful. Her last name? REALLY useful. A Romney/Martinez ticket, sharing the values of hard work capitalism and socially conservative values hispanics are polled to favor by a majority would switch over vast numbers of mexican-americans who had only been voting Democrat because they’ve been told that Republicans hate them and want them to fail. Argument becomes invalid when a Mexican-American is on the ballot for Vice President of the freakin country.
   CON: Palin problem: she is being attacked in her home state and struggling to deal with the onslaught + personal life stuff will be dredged up with no guarantee that  she will be able to handle the press and constant accusations of being stupid (the “go to” attack line against Republican candidates) which are key to being an effective candidate.
   …
4. Marco Rubio: Senator from Florida.
   PRO: An excellent speaker. A picture perfect family. Does well in interviews and speeches. Articulates American ideals exquisitely.
   CON: Aside from him constantly saying he does not want the job and would rather get work done in the Senate to which he was only recently elected to in 2012: He’s Cuban and Cubans are already Republicans because their country was freakin destroyed by Communism and constantly has people attempting to escape it for that reason. The GOP’s problem is with Mexican hispanics, so Rubio’s hispanicanism isn’t a guaranteed help there. Plus, the last name Rubio is not immediately identifiable as hispanic like the other contenders’ names are and Rubio is very fair skinned so his Cubanism may be more of a sidenote fun-fact than the major selling point the GOP needs. Might be better to keep him in the senate where he wants to be until he runs for President in the future.
   …
5. Luis Fortuño: Governor of Puerto Rico.
   PRO: Unless he killed a hooker and paid off someone who saw it go down? Everything. From the accent mark over the “N” in his name to his record as Governor – dudes a winner. He does well in interviews and like Rubio, articulates small-government, pro-freedom ideals articulately and effectively.
   CON: Although also not a Central or South American hispanic, he has the last name, skin tone and Spanish speaking cred that makes for such great optics and Rubio lacks, which could make up for it.

More:

UPDATE: Fortuño has endorsed Romney for president. As you can imagine, I received the news while in an office that was lit only by the light shining through descended but angled Venetian Blinds to which I responded by tenting my fingers and saying “excellent…” in a soft but sinister tone.

UPDATE: Romney wins the Puerto Rico primary by a whopping 75%