Why I Want To Be Your President: Republican Round-Up

The wild and wacky things coming out of their months continues:

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty made his debut in front of the Tea Party, addressing the Tea Party Patriots at their national conference in Phoenix:

Like many speakers, Mr. Pawlenty also slipped in a jab at the president. “Now, I’m not one who questions the existence of the president’s birth certificate,” he said. “But when you listen to his policies, don’t you at least wonder what planet he’s from?”

No, Gov. Pawlenty.  Actually not something I wonder about.

Newt Gingrich wants me to forget about his affairs, and that he is on wife #3:

On a recent winter night here, Mr. Gingrich, 67, stood on stage at a Catholic school with his wife, Callista, and introduced a film they produced about the role Pope John Paul II played in the fall of Communism in Poland. As Mr. Gingrich looked out over a crowd of 1,300 people, he warned that the United States had become too secular a society.

“To a surprising degree, we are in a situation similar to Poland’s in 1979,” he told the audience, which had gathered at a banquet for Ohio Right to Life, one of the nation’s oldest anti-abortion groups. “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”

To most audiences, Mr. Gingrich does not talk directly about converting to Catholicism, but his faith has become an important part of his dialogue with conservative voters.

Now, I could be wrong about his, but I don't think the average voter wakes up every morning and thinks that what is wrong with American is that we're a lot like Poland was in 1979.

Then there's Mike Huckabee, who went all-birther on us this week.

During a radio appearance yesterday, Mike Huckabee repeatedly falsely claimed that President Obama grew up in Kenya. After questioning Obama's purported secrecy about the birth certificate, radio host Steve Malzberg asked Huckabee if "we deserve to know more about this man." Huckabee responded, "I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough."

Speaking on WOR's The Steve Malzberg Show, Huckabee -- a Fox News host and potential presidential candidate -- said that "one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American ... his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

He then took it all back, very, very, very badly.

Says his spokesman Hogan Gidley to POLITICO:

“Governor Huckabee simply misspoke when he alluded to President Obama growing up in ‘Kenya.’ The Governor meant to say the President grew up in Indonesia.”

“When the Governor mentioned he wanted to know more about the President, he wasn’t talking about the President’s place of birth – the Governor believes the President was born in Hawaii. The Governor would however like to know more about where President Obama’s liberal policies come from and what else the President plans to do to this country – as do most Americans.”

The extent to which these guys spit out lies in order to do damage, and then later hide behind the mea culpas is amazing.

I know New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is no where near announcing a run in 2012, but he certainly is a darling of the party. Cover story of The New York Times Sunday magazine. From there:

The argument you heard most vociferously from the teachers’ union,” Christie says, “was that this was the greatest assault on public education in the history of New Jersey.” Here the fleshy governor lumbers a few steps toward the audience and lowers his voice for effect. “Now, do you really think that your child is now stressed out and unable to learn because they know that their poor teacher has to pay 1½ percent of their salary for their health care benefits? Have any of your children come home — any of them — and said, ‘Mom.’ ” Pause. “ ‘Dad.’ ” Another pause. “ ‘Please. Stop the madness.’ ”

By this point the audience is starting to titter, but Christie remains steadfastly somber in his role as the beseeching student. “ ‘Just pay for my teacher’s health benefits,’ ” he pleads, “ ‘and I’ll get A’s, I swear. But I just cannot take the stress that’s being presented by a 1½ percent contribution to health benefits.’ ” As the crowd breaks into appreciative guffaws, Christie waits a theatrical moment, then slams his point home. “Now, you’re all laughing, right?” he says. “But this is the crap I have to hear.”

I guess I just don't get what passes for funny these days.  I must have little, if any sense of humor.  He sure is cocky, though:

“I have people calling me and saying to me, `Let me explain to you how you could win,’” he said in the interview, which was conducted last week when he was in Washington. “And I’m like:`You’re barking up the wrong tree. I already know I could win.’ That’s not the issue. The issue is not me sitting here and saying: `Geez, it might be too hard. I don’t think I can win.’ I see the opportunity both at the primary level and at the general election level.”

But, despite the fact that he says he can win, he still insists he's not running.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour sticks to the pit-bull tradition, offering up no new ideas while pinning everything on the President. In a speech to the U.S.Chamber of Commerce this week he accused the Obama administration of purposely trying to drive up the price of gasoline.

In 2008, four dollar gasoline brought my state to its knees, before Wall Street melted down, and we have blown through three dollars a gallon on our way to four," Barbour, a Republican who is seriously considering a White House bid, said Wednesday in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "We don't need that where I am."< "But this administration's policies have been designed to drive up the cost of energy in the name of reducing pollution, in the name of making very expensive alternative fuels more economically competitive," he said.

And there's more:

"In the United States, it's harder to get a permit to mine coal than it is to get a heart transplant," he said. "If you look at the moratorium in the Gulf yesterday, it was announced there was a drilling permit issued for the Gulf of Mexico. Turns out it wasn't for a new well, it was to resume drilling for a well that they shut down, because the federal government made them shut down. We're going to produce about 13 percent less petroleum in the United States this year than last year. Now how is that good policy at any time when energy security is supposed to be a priority, but particularly at a time of turmoil in the Middle East and the oil-producing states? I hope the Obama administration is going to announce a reversal of course. But I'm not optimistic."

Shouldn't it be easier to get a heart transplant in this country than a permit to mine coal? Quite an insight into Gov. Barbour's thought process.

And we can add former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer to the list. The former governor, is also a former Democrat.

Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer (R) will announce Thursday he will explore a bid for president, according to a top Republican source.

Roemer is already scheduled to head to Waukee, Iowa, for a forum hosted by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition on Monday. He will announce an exploratory committee on Thursday at the Baton Rouge bank he runs, according to WAFB-TV.

Roemer served four terms in Congress as a Democrat between 1981 and 1988 before being elected governor in 1987. He switched parties to become a Republican in 1991, then lost a gubernatorial primary as a Republican to former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke.

Looks like lots of people with the word "former" in their titles maybe, maybe, maybe making taking the plunge.