Fifty percent of Americans now have a favorable opinion of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, up from 39% in February and his highest by 10 percentage points. His current 41% unfavorable rating, though, leaves him with a net score of +9, after being at -8 in February. In roughly half of the 28 measurements Gallup has taken of Romney since 2006, more Americans have viewed him negatively than positively.

The spike in Romney’s favorable rating in the May 10-13 USA Today/Gallup poll is predictable, given that he has become the presumptive Republican nominee. Presidential candidates typically get a spike in their favorable ratings in the wake of winning the nomination. Gallup’s prior measurement of Romney, in February, came as Rick Santorum was surging in the polls after a series of primary and caucus wins that made him Romney’s main challenger.

Republicans and independents are fueling the rise in Romney’s favorable rating, with Democrats’ views of him unchanged. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans now view him favorably, up from 65% in February. His favorable rating among independents is 11 points higher, and independents now view Romney more positively (48%) than negatively (43%).

CONTINUED at Gallup.

Mitt Romney continued to drive a debt-oriented message here on Wednesday morning, extending his “prairie fire” of debt metaphor with the assistance of a prop.

In a nod to the independent voters who pushed the Sunshine State into the Democratic column in 2008, Romney noted that both parties were responsible for pushing the debt to the “incomprehensible” levels – which were represented on a giant prop debt clock behind him.

CONTINUED at MSNBC.

My Two Cents: Is this a pick the biggest neocon douchenugget competition? End Two Cents.

With his name slated to be on every state ballot in the country in November, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson is an important voice – bringing bold new ideas to the table that appeal to voters across the political spectrum.

Johnson, a Republican who served as governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, is running on a platform that includes slashing government spending to balance the federal budget by 2013, ending wars the U.S. in involved in, and drug reform —  beginning with the legalization of marijuana but extending all the way to the war on drugs, drug policy, relations with Latin America, and even law enforcement policies and priorities– issues that neither of the two major candidates President Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are pursuing right now.

Having received the Libertarian nomination in Las Vegas last weekend, Johnson must now cross a new threshold to ensure that his voice is heard and give these important initiatives a lot of exposure — achieving the 15 percent required by the Commission on Presidential Debates to participate.

To date, Johnson has been polling between 6 and 9 percent nationally – several points shy of what he needs.

If the two parties continue to move to the extreme left and right, and if our economic situation continues to remain bleak, it is conceivable that a fresh face emerging would find a degree of responsiveness in a political environment that is as hostile as I have ever seen.

Last weekend, voters in Greece rejected both major political parties amid a dire fiscal situation there, while a disenchanted French electorate voted out President Nicolas Sarkozy. The European elections speak to a major anti incumbency trend that  is likely to have profound implications for the 2012 presidential election.

Voters across the board are unsatisfied with the current political system. Most people think that neither party is effective at solving the country’s problems, congressional ratings are at an all-time low, and support for both the Democratic and Republican parties is on the decline.

Amid this toxic political climate, a  recent poll put out by Harvard’s Institute of Politics suggests Libertarian ideas are gaining traction with those age 18 to 29. Moreover, polling conducted by my firm, Douglas E. Schoen LLC, has found that there is a great deal of support for a third-party alternative to the current two-party system, and voters are receptive to voting for alternatives to the Democratic and Republican Presidential tickets in 2012.

With neither Obama nor Romney offering an overarching message that has been able to resonate with an electorate that is becoming increasingly cynical about anyone’s ability to fix this country’s ongoing, trenchant and most vexatious problems – Gary Johnson’s voice is one that needs to be heard.

Bottom line: At time of massive dissatisfaction with our political system, we need to expand rather than narrow the debate.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political strategist, Fox News contributor, author of the new book, “Hopelessly Divided: The New Crisis in American Politics and What it Means for 2012 and Beyond” (Rowman and Littlefield). Follow Doug on Twitter @DouglasESchoen.

Source: Fox News.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Yesterday was a pretty emotional day for Paul supporters everywhere. The Paul campaign announced that they would no longer compete in the states that have not yet voted as it would cost too much money moving forward. In fact, here is what Ron Paul said himself:

Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.

This is completely understandable and really just goes to show how fiscally responsible Dr. Paul truly is, especially when comparing him to his conservative counterparts who spent themselves into oblivion and racked up some serious campaign debt. With that being said, this is only more reason to vote for the man as he knows where to draw the line and also knows what all of Paul supporters know, which is that we will all continue to vote for the man regardless of the campaign’s inability to compete with the Wall Street funded Mitt Romney. When those Occupy kids are looking for a leader it should probably be the guy whose campaign is funded by the downtrodden 99 percent as opposed to the 1 percent big bank bank funded candidates like Romney and Obama.

This doesn’t mean that Paul is completely out of this race. As was just mentioned, his supporters are loyal and will vote for him despite this seemingly tragic pitfall. The hunt for delegates will continue and ultimately, Ron Paul will continue to surprise the doubters and make a serious impact on this race. This isn’t blind faith or overly-loyal Paulbot idiocy, this is facts. I doubted the campaign’s strategy but have since learned that in the realm of acquiring delegates, they are doing a hell of a job. The media doesn’t accurately report on what’s going on in the delegate hunt and honestly, you can go to various mainstream media sites and look at their delegate counts and the numbers don’t match – corporate media is clueless. Romney may have been announced the winner in Maine but Paul walked away with the most delegates. Santorum and Gingrich have lost theirs and with 11 states left to vote, Paul could continue to be a thorn in the side of the establishment beast. As I’ve said many times, this isn’t about winning, this is about the message and gaining enough support to stamp it on the leviathan’s forehead before it is once again let loose on the masses. In other words, Paul might not win the fight but he is going to break a motherfucker’s nose.

Even though the mainstream media has been quick to gleefully write Paul off as a quitter, his forces are moving forward – just more covertly in a way that is unique and foreign to these political experts spewing regurgitated pre-written bullshit through our television and radio speakers. In order to dispel the mainstream hogwash, Paul’s chief strategist Jesse Benton sent out an official statement. Here is some of what that memo states:

Let me be very clear. Dr. Paul is NOT ending his campaign. As Dr. Paul has previously stated, he is in this race all the way to the Republican National Convention in Tampa this August. Looking ahead, our campaign must honor that trust by maximizing our resources to ensure the greatest possible impact at the National Convention. So while our campaign is no longer investing in the remaining primary states, we will continue to run strong programs at District and State Conventions to win more delegates and alternate delegates to the National Convention.

To this end, our campaign has several positive and realistic goals: 1) Having recently WON Maine, we believe we can win several more states. 2) We will win party leadership positions at both the state and national level. 3) We will continue to grow our already substantial total of delegates.

We will head to Tampa with a solid group of delegates. Several hundred will be bound to Dr. Paul, and several hundred more, although bound to Governor Romney or other candidates, will be Ron Paul supporters.

Unfortunately, barring something very unforeseen, our delegate total will not be strong enough to win the nomination. Governor Romney is now within 200 delegates of securing the party’s nod. However, our delegates can still make a major impact at the National Convention and beyond. All delegates will be able to vote on party rules and allow us to shape the process for future liberty candidates.

We are in an excellent position to make sure the Republican Party adds solid liberty issues to the GOP Platform, which our delegates will be directly positioned to approve. Our campaign is presently working to get several items up for consideration, including monetary policy reform, prohibitions on indefinite detention, and Internet freedom.

Finally, by sending a large, respectful, and professional delegation to Tampa, we will show the Party and the country that not only is our movement growing and here to stay, but that the future belongs to us…

Considering that two of the biggest states, California and Paul’s home state Texas, haven’t yet voted, there are a shitload of delegates that could easily go Paul’s way, especially since he has performed well in both of those states. The race is still as interesting as it has been all along, even though the media is ignoring Paul and pretending he isn’t even a part of this race anymore. Their “out of sight, out of mind” strategy hasn’t worked in the past and it won’t work this time. Paul supporters aren’t going anywhere and their numbers will continue to expand.

In retrospect, was this even about winning the presidency or was this about turning the Republican Party on its head and making a real difference? Is this really about shattering one half of the two-party mold in an effort to fix the system from within? If so, will it work? Either way, this game has been well-played by the Paul camp and ultimately it’s up to us everyday people to see that the message is sent and clearly understood. From here on out, this game is going to get pretty fucking filthy. Put on your gloves because we aren’t done swingin’!

Since yesterday’s Washington Post profile of a prep school-aged Mitt Romney showing the presumed Republican presidential nominee terrifying a kid everyone thought was gay, conservative outlets have been scrambling for another perspective on young Romney. They’ve found it in a softball piece on Romney from Automobile Magazine, that other great source of American political news.

When Romney was in prep school at the “prestigious Cranbrook School” he reportedly picked on some kid who may have been gay and definitely had bleached blonde hair. Here’s the key part:

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors

Romney has sort of acknowledged/apologized for any vague “dumb… stupid” things he did in high school. Youthful indiscretions and all that.

The conservative press refuses to let the darn liberal media get away with anything, so right-wing media watchdog at Breitbart’s Big Journalism has found its proof that the Post is full of it inDavid Murray’s Automobile profile of a young Romney that doesn’t make him look like the bad guy from Better Off Dead.

The WaPo article focuses on the alleged John Lauber haircutting incident, including quotes from Romney childhood friend Phillip Maxwell: “‘It was a hack job,’ recalled Maxwell, a childhood friend of Romney who was in the dorm room when the incident occurred. ‘It was vicious.’”

Apparently not so vicious, however, for Maxwell to relate the incident for the Auto Mag article.  Auto Mag does, however, quote Maxwell giving crucial details notably missing from the Post piece: “‘I’m a Democrat, so I won’t vote for him,’ says Maxwell. ‘But he’d probably make a pretty good President. He’s very smart, very principled.’”

The Post neglected to mention these relevant facts, just as it neglected to mention Maxwell’s skepticism about Romney’s religion as reported in the Auto Mag piece: “‘He’s determined to claim the highest office in the land—to be the first Mormon to do it.  He keeps that undercover because he doesn’t want to frighten people.’”

This isn’t a contradiction at all, of course, as you could make a good president and still be kind of a dick to some kids in high school. You can also be a Democrat and be a truthful eyewitness.

Automobile‘s piece doesn’t contradict anything because it doesn’t really say anything. It’s not bad, it’s just about as edgy as a 1998 Ford Taurus. We learn Mitt Romney liked his father, was kind of boring, and people generally got along with him. The only serious claim against him in the magazine is that he’s not really a Detroiter. Not a car guy. But then they give him a break for that.

Mitt Romney may be from the golden age of Detroit and the car industry, but it must be clear by now that he is no longer of that wonderful time and place. Then again, these days, what is?

The Post‘s readers may view Romney as a bit of a prick in high school, but those 533,000 “Auto Mag” subscribers will know the truth.

Source: Jalopnik.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Mitt Fucking Romney. The name is synonymous with dissatisfaction. Well, one would think anyway. The consensus from most conservative people is that they didn’t want this guy to be their candidate. They tried so hard to prop up all the other GOP weaklings but Mr. Romney was just slightly stronger it seems and because of that, is the last man standing for the establishment righties to vote for. I mean, they aren’t going to vote for Ron Paul, that much has been established and since they’re going to vote for “Anyone but Obama” (which doesn’t include Paul), I guess it should be no surprise that Captain Haircut swept three more states on the road to the nomination.

Romney racked up victories in West Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina. North Carolina wasn’t a surprise as the people there also voted to ban gay marriage. Surprisingly though, their intolerant right-wing idiocy didn’t push Santorum to the front of the pack, even though he is completely out of the race. I know that sounds crazy but look at West Virginia. Santorum actually came in second place in that state ahead of Ron Paul! Santorum who isn’t even in the race and who has endorsed Romney beat Ron Paul who is still in this thing! It’s not a showing of how weak Paul may seem to be, it is a showing of how insane the inbred people of West Virginia are. I mean, didn’t those ‘Wrong Turn’ movies take place there? You know what I’m talking about, those cheap ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ knockoffs that saw incest-loving mutant hillbillies hunting and eating tourists who accidentally turned off of the main road and into their neck of the woods. Sounds like Santorum cultists for sure.

With Ron Paul in second albeit last place, Santorum’s performance was pointless and the backwoods beasts who voted for him are retarded for even bothering to show up to their precincts. Maybe all the precincts were barbecue joints and the customers got confused and thought they were filling out comment cards. It really is hard to say when we are dealing with people who have the brains of ravenous rabies-afflicted canines. The people who casted votes for Gingrich might be even slightly more insane. Whatever, I’m tired of bashing these people and frankly, I don’t want them to eat me alive. Luckily, Florida is a long way away and these West Virginia mutants can’t operate a GPS system and would probably just use maps to make clothes.

At least Dr. Paul is racking up a shitload of delegates and even though he won’t be staring down Obama in an upcoming debate, he has still proven to be a force of fucking nature in this race regardless of media blackouts, blatant bias and establishment shenanigans. These fuckers can try and fix an election but they can’t fix the brains of the vigilant self-educated masses who are growing in numbers year after year. As I stated previously, it looks like the Paul campaign’s questionable delegate hunting tactics have worked to some degree, especially now that former Senator Ass Juice and former Speaker of the House Newt Giggles have dropped like flies drunk on Off! Bug Spray.

The clock is counting down and the Republican National Convention is just around the corner. When Tampa comes, shit could get really interesting in this race. Hopefully by then, the Santorum mutants have gone back to eating lost teenagers and the Gingrich supporters have gone back to living in holes. I guess it just bothers me that people are stupid enough to put a check next to a name on a ballot when that candidate is a quitter. Well, losers typically flock to other losers and when your grey matter is made up of the sort of stuff a typical right-wing establishment neo-conservative has between their ears, you are going to make really stupid decisions while contributing to the downfall of this country.

Truth be told, I know this is coming off as somewhat irate and that I am resorting to name-calling but fuck you people. I’m not going to hide behind some political correct bullshit in an effort to save face and have a sane and rational discussion with you people when everything about you is insane and irrational. Stop being such parasites and stop living your fucking fear turtle life in a goddamned shell afraid of every boogeyman your worthless heroes throw at you. It’s time to stop looking at everyone that doesn’t jive with your bullshit philosophy as an enemy. That goes for other nations, the other side of the political coin and other Americans who aren’t privy to your psychotic idiocy. Now you may be thinking that I am being hypocritical in my words and that I am coming at you like you are my enemy or better yet that you are the enemy of anyone who is a libertarian, a constitutionalist or a free-thinker. I’m not, I’m just sick of the games and being labeled crazy when you are the assholes who are stuck in your ways – ways that have been proven to fail again and again. None of you want to try anything new or examine history, you just want to keep your side of the assembly line moving in an effort to beat out the other side. Whether that’s for bragging rights or just because you want to win just for the sake of winning, doesn’t fucking matter to me! Both sides of the assembly line are in a rush and are in turn making really shitty products while pointing fingers back and forth. It’s time to shut this inefficient factory down and move the business elsewhere. Rant over.

And congratulations Mr. Romney. You really took it to those weak contenders.

Mitt Romney has won the Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia presidential primaries.

The trio is certain to push Romney closer to the 1,144 delegates he needs to clinch the GOP nomination, handing him 100 or so delegates of the 288 he still needs.

None of the outcomes is a surprise. Romney faces no serious challenge to the Republican nomination.

Even the candidate himself is essentially ignoring Tuesday’s primaries. Romney has been spending the day campaigning in Michigan, where he castigated President Barack Obama as an “old-school liberal” whose policies would take the country backward.

Source: The Toledo Blade.

Vice President Joe Biden spoke out forcefully against the Iranian government Tuesday at the Rabbinical Assembly Convention meeting, saying actions taken by the Obama White House were preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. But the Romney campaign was quick to disagree.

Military assistance, coupled with financial and oil sanctions passed by the U.S. and the European Union, would cripple the Iranian economy, Biden promised.

“When we took office, let me remind you, there was virtually no international pressure on Iran. We were the problem,” Biden said. “We were diplomatically isolated in the world, in the region, in Europe.”

Biden continued, “We were neither fully respected by our friends nor feared by our opponents. Today is it starkly, starkly different.”

The other side of the aisle struck back at Biden’s comments, with GOP presidential candidate and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney’s Policy Director Lanhee Chen calling foul on the placement of blame, and stating the vice president’s words were “wrong and completely inappropriate.”

CONTINUED at CNN. Video at link.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I had a long weekend but it is now over. My time in Gainesville with my cousin and friends was a blast, as I haven’t actually been partying too hard over the last month. This trip was a good way for me to drown in bourbon, Irish whiskey, tequila, Long Islands, Guinness, ginger beer and Pabst. I’ve been trying to be healthier in an attempt to lose weight and potentially live a somewhat longer life but even with my more health conscious attitude, my inner party monster still needs to be entertained and unleashed every now and again. What better time than with other party monsters that I genuinely cherish in a wild college town during graduation weekend? There was no point in taking any prisoners, as we ran roughshod over downtown Gainesville leaving no bottle unturned. A few days later, my stomach still hurts and my head is still swimming in a sea of 86 proof delirium – a special shout out goes to 1.75 liters of Old Crow Reserve.

To those who might find my more health conscious behavior a bit unsettling, there is no need to worry. It’s not called selling out when you do it because your liver hurts and you’ve been pissing blood. The blood part was not related to the booze but it was still a wake up call to straighten my shit out some what. Have no fear though, I will not go soft and become a shell of my former self like so many writers and artists who went clean only for their work to suffer and lose its appeal. Trent Reznor immediately comes to mind, although his Academy Award for a very boring and minimalist film score probably proves me wrong but only if you take the Academy seriously and turn a blind eye to their petty politics.

Anyway, my first night in Gainesville on this latest trip was intense. It started almost immediately with two Guinness Draughts and four Long Island iced teas while I watched my friends play pool. I didn’t participate in the contest because I was enjoying my own game of drown the writer in the dark and dingy corner of smoke and neon light. It is a one-player game but the odds are always steep and the challenge is never dull. Needless to say, I won the bout and went on to fight in other bouts in other venues for the remainder of the 48 hour tournament.

The weekend wasn’t all about completely succumbing to vices however. I mean, I never came across any other substances to entertain myself with and that’s fine, the booze was enough. I did get to spend a lot of the time talking politics and economics with the college kids, some of them a part of the Occupy Gainesville movement. Now while we didn’t see eye-to-eye on solutions, we did agree on the vast majority of the problems. My job, from my standpoint, was to try and get them to understand that you can’t just blame the banks for the madness. The government is just as responsible as is the Federal Reserve. Truth is, they were really receptive to a lot of the things I was saying. Now I had half a dozen conversations with a dozen or more people but for the most part, other than two or three close-minded joiners, they got what I was saying and left the conversations with the intent to look into their new perspective on these matters themselves. One of them even promised to pick up some of the books I wrote down for him on a napkin (titles by Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Henry Hazlitt, Milton Friedman and more modern authors Jeffrey Tucker and Stefan Molyneux – who has a ton of free e-books).

One interesting thing I discovered among talking to multiple college kids, is that their only real beef with Ron Paul is his pro-life stance. I told them that it is an issue I also disagree with Dr. Paul on. However, I told them that if you look at the rest of his platform and like it, writing him off over one issue is a bit careless. Especially since Dr. Paul thinks that it should be an issue left up to states and not the federal government regardless of his personal opinion on it. Most of these kids understood that but had a hard time envisioning a country were states’ rights were protected, at least on this issue. I explained that you cannot pick and choose issues and that the rule had to apply with everything. If you make one exception, you will make plenty more. They got and respected it but still had a bug in their ass about it and I get that. I then spoke to them about Gary Johnson who is basically a clone of Ron Paul policy-wise but is pro-choice instead of pro-life. Most of the people I talked to had not heard of Johnson and were actually pretty excited upon finding out his stance on the abortion issue. They also liked that Gary Johnson was not a Democrat or a Republican. I didn’t bring up all the issues they said they had with Obama however, as there were a lot more than what they had with Paul. Regardless of this, they will probably vote for Obama again even though they claim they are opposed to war, Gitmo and a plethora of other issues he has failed them on.

Now don’t get me wrong, not everyone was cordial. There were those few dumb bastards in the mix and fucking with them and sending them off in a self-conlficted rage was quite amusing. One kid was calling for anarchy and at the same time was calling for government to step in and regulate the banks more. Point is, this kid’s whole world-view was completely hypocritical. On one hand, this kid (and those like him) want to scream “Fuck the man!” and “Fuck the police!” while on the other hand want the government (the man and the police) to step in and regulate everything even more than they do now. I don’t understand how so many young people can’t seem to make a correlation between these two things? You want the government who is bought and paid for by the banks to regulate the banks? You can’t see how this is completely asinine, let alone how this is what has caused all these problems to begin with? Your solution to the problem is more of the problem itself? Does the meth addict break the cycle by taking more meth? No, the meth addict dies! Common sense is like a disease in the hipster socialist-anarchist psyche.

The ones who are so passionate in their ignorance don’t even care about the real crux of the problem. They want to continue to buy into their conflicted and hypocritical indoctrination and smash anyone who doesn’t swim in their sea of shit. On top of that, they don’t want to better themselves, they want to stay at the bottom so they can continue to bitch as they wallow in dirt and filth because if they were to try and actually get out of it, they’d be outed as a “sell out” or even worse a “hard-working capitalist pig consumer”. Yep, keep pointing your Djarum-clutching fingers as you slur your PBR-soaked words kiddies.

Not all is lost on the generation after mine however. Amongst the sea of those I dealt with, only a few were bad apples and completely hopeless. I remember myself at that age, as I had a similar view of the world. It was someone challenging me on my preconceived notions that got me to pay attention and learn how this whole game really works. If at least one of those kids breaks free from the mold and is affected by our encounter, my debt is repaid. I enjoyed the friendly and civil debates and even had fun with the assholes. In the end, it is about standing your ground and living by your own code not the code of some undefined group whose ideology is lesser than the sum of its parts.

I got home, feeling pretty good about how most of the weekend went down. I also felt great for ignoring my responsibilities for a few days while not even paying attention to what was going on in the news. I didn’t really miss anything, other than Rick Santorum finally wiping away his bitch tears to endorse Mitt Romney, which just gave me flashbacks to 2008 when he was riding that Romney train hard. Something tells me that if I had the same debates with Santorum supporters that I had with the college youth of Gainesville, it wouldn’t have been as civil. I hope that all of those sweater-vests the Santorumites bought up like quaaludes at a disco are constructed of Iranian dog hair and Chinese asbestos. It would be the perfect ending to such a vile group of people.