Pensito Review » Verbatim

Trump Puzzled by Santorum

Buck Banks — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:54:21 +0000

Rick Santorum was a sitting senator who in re-election lost by 19 points, to my knowledge the most in the history of this country for a sitting senator to lose by 19 points. It’s unheard of. Then he goes out and says oh ‘okay’ I just lost by the biggest margin in history and now I’m going to run for president. Tell me, how does that work? …. That’s like me saying I just failed a test. Now I’m going to apply for admission to the Wharton School of Finance. Okay? He just failed a test …. And now he’s going to run for president. So, I don’t get Rick Santorum. I don’t get that whole thing.

— Donald Trump, who claimed his endorsement gave Mitt Romney victory in Nevada, telling CNN he was perplexed about Rick Santorum.

Romney Accuses Opponents of Acting Like Democrats

Buck Banks — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:47:26 +0000

When Republicans act like Democrats, they lose. And in Newt Gingrich’s case he had to resign. In Rick Santorum’s case, he lost by the biggest margin of any Senate incumbent since 1980.

— Mitt Romney, quoted by NBC News.

For Obama, No Re-Election Means No Positive Legacy

Buck Banks — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:32:45 +0000

If Barack Obama loses this fall, he will forever seem a disappointment: a symbolically important but accidental figure who raised hopes he could not fulfill and met difficulties he did not know how to surmount. He meant to show the unity of America but only underscored its division. As a candidate, he symbolized transformation; in office, he applied incrementalism and demonstrated the limits of change. His most important achievement, helping forestall a second Great Depression, will be taken for granted or discounted in the dismay about the economic problems he did not solve. His main legislative accomplishment, the health-care bill, may well be overturned; his effect on America’s international standing will pass; his talk about bridging the partisan divide will seem one more sign of his fatal naïveté.

If he is reelected, he will have a chance to solidify what he has accomplished and, more important, build on what he has learned. All of this is additional motivation, as if he needed any, for him to drive for reelection; none of it makes him any more palatable to those who oppose him and his goals.

— James Fallows, writing in The Atlantic.

The GOP Made Obama So Moderate

Buck Banks — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:29:02 +0000

Republicans, however, can and should take partial credit for this. Obama is so moderate in part because the Republicans are so extreme. Politicians are ideological, of course, but they are also opportunistic. And the GOP, in closing ranks against almost every major initiative Obama has attempted, has taken away most of his opportunities to be truly liberal.

Ezra Klein, writing in the Washington Post in response to a new study that finds President Obama “is the most moderate Democratic president since the end of World War II, while President George W. Bush was the most conservative president in the post-war era.”

Is Obama ‘Luckiest Man Alive?’

Buck Banks — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:11:03 +0000

At the last possible moment to save his re-election, the economy is beginning to hum, as evidenced by Friday’s jobs report. And Obama’s Republican opponents are shaping up to be as formidable as, well, marshmallows. While Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are making each other unelectable, the president is singing Al Green, congratulating Super Bowl winners, playing with science projects, raising obscene amounts of campaign cash and watching his poll numbers soar.

— Dana Millbank, writing in the Washington Post, asserting that President Obama just might be the luckiest man alive.

Santorum Stealing Gingrich’s Thunder

Buck Banks — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:07:32 +0000

Because right now, angry and almost broke, Newt is no longer the leading candidate to be the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. That man is Rick Santorum. And what makes Gingrich especially grumpy is that the man he is losing to was once just a pimply backbencher in the 1994 Republican Revolution… So for now Newt is left broke and unloved, facing the long road ahead with a raised fist. There probably will be better days ahead — Super Tuesday offers southern states, and Newt has already proven his ability to rise from the political dead. But Rick Santorum just had his best night of the campaign. For all his faults, he has none of the personal baggage of Newt that might offend the faithful.

— John Avlon, writing in the Daily Beast, noting that Newt Gingrich’s narrative of a two-man race collapsed under Rick Santorum’s trifecta win last night.

McCain Does Not Plan to Watch ‘Game Change’

Buck Banks — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:10:59 +0000

It’ll be a cold day in Gila Bend, Arizona, when I watch that movie.

— Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in a CNBC interview, on “Game Change,” which premieres on HBO March 10 and is based on the best-selling book of the same name about McCain’s failed presidential campaign and Sarah Palin’s role in it.

Berlusconi Likes Gay People — Less Competition!

Buck Banks — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:04:54 +0000

The only thing I have not been accused of in all these over-hyped descriptions of my relations with women, with the opposite sex, the only thing they have never accused me of is being gay. I have nothing against homosexuals, let it be clear. Quite the contrary. I always thought the more gay people around, the less competition.

— Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in an interview with The Atlantic.

Romney Turns Guns on Santorum Campaign

Buck Banks — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:01:15 +0000

It’s a badge of honor that Romney has decided to try to destroy us.

— Rick Santorum adviser John Brabender, quoted by Byron York, on Romney turning his guns on the former Pennsylvania senator.

Biden Tries Out a Re-Election Slogan

Buck Banks — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:11:01 +0000