Because of his showing in Iowa on January 3, 2012, I learned that Santorum’s grandfather was a coal miner and his parents worked at the Veteran’s Administration in West Virginia; they moved to Pennsylvania when he was 7 years old; he was a 32 year old lawyer when he was elected to the US House in 1990 and he served 2 terms; he has 7 children (the youngest has a disability and he said they don’t take her out in crowds); his campaign motto is ‘faith, family & freedom’; he quickly raised $3 million and he compared same sex marriage with polygamy.
On January 8, we heard that a Las Vegas, Nevada billionaire with ties to Newt Gingrich donated $5 million to an independent group supporting Gingrich’s run for the White House (on January 24, the casino owner’s wife also donated $5 million). In the debate on this date the candidates feeling they had faltered, tried to correct their responses on the issues. They continue to bring up Reaganomics and it was pointed out that in 1982 (half way through his term) unemployment had risen to 10.4%, the highest level in US history. It was also pointed out that Romney served only one term as the Massachusetts Governor and did not run for a second term; he said he went there to make a difference and he did. Santorum wanted to know why he really didn’t run for a second term and Gingrich said it was because he had a very poor running record so he decided not to.
On January 10 we found out that Huntsman didn’t quality for Arizona primary and a poll shows that Republicans believe Romney has a 55% chance of beating Obama. On this same date, Vice President (VP) Biden when talking to New Hampshire (NH) Democrats said Romney “Thinks it’s more important for the stockholders and the shareholders and the investors and the venture capital guys to do well than for those employees to be part of the bargain.” Romney’s response was that the VP and the President oversaw General Motors and Chrysler and what did they do – they came in and closed factories, they closed dealerships and laid people off, they did it to try to save the business”. Romney again said he’s proud of his record, 10s of thousands of jobs were created; the President lost almost 2 million jobs in his tenure and he did concede that the auto industry is doing better (GM and Chrysler both reported strong sales for November, 2011 and on December 15 we heard that more cars passed safety tests; mainly because the roofs were strengthened; Toyota took 15 awards and GM 14). I have a problem with Romney’s statement that the VP and President decided how to rebuild the auto industry; they were given stimulus money by Congress and the business decisions were left to the companies. The result of GM’s decisions was made known on January 19 – GM is again the #1 automaker in the world; making more than $7 billion in 2011; after filing bankruptcy in 2009 they’ve have paid back almost half of the money received with the stimulus package; they pared down their product line and made the vehicles better; they topped Toyota for first time since 2008. I know we can’t forget the effect of the Tsunami but I think they deserve some praise.
On January 11 we learned that Romney got 39% of the NH primary votes, Paul 23% and Huntsman 17%. And, Romney supporters are spending $3.6 million on Florida ads. On January 12, former UN Ambassador, John Bolton, endorses Mitt Romney. And we learned that Romney raised $24 million in the last quarter and has $19 left. It’s said the President has raised $68 million and would need more and on January 13 we hear that combined with the Democratic National Committee he has $240 million.
On January 12 we hear that Mormons are 2% of the US adult population and 46% of them feel they’re discriminated against. They say they follow Christ and are Christians; their doors are open, closed portions are for special ceremonies like weddings. This foolish argument among Christians irritates me so I looked up religions on the internet. Site after site classified Mormons, the Amish and Jehovah Witnesses as Christians as they are off shoots just as Protestants and Episcopalians are. On January 15, the social conservative leaders backed Santorum and Huntsman pulled out of the race and backs Romney. On January 16, I couldn’t believe that Perry defended the Marines accused of urinating on dead Taliban. I was happy Perry dropped out of the race on January 19; he’s proof that you don’t have to be intelligent to be rich or run for office and now Texas can stop wasting its taxpayer dollars on his campaign.
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