The definition of Sacrifice

Merriam-Webster defines sacrifice as: destruction or surrender

of something for the sake of something else, something given up or lost, the sacrifices made by parents.

I have discovered in recent years that the definition of sacrifice varies more with other factors, generation, political beliefs, political party, etc.  The “greatest” generation, those born from 1911 to 1924, seemed to sacrifice a great deal.  Many of these people suffered through the great depression, many went on to fight in World War II, and many did not come home.  There are those that didn’t fight for our country in Europe or the Pacific but worked in factories to support the war effort, but all were impacted by the war.

Everyone was restricted in the fuel they could use; scrap metal was reused to make planes, tanks, ammunition, etc.  People made do with what they had at the time, if the radio broke you fixed it, you didn’t throw it away and buy a new one, people didn’t replace cars every twelve months because it was “old”.

[Read more]

So obvious even Tweety Can Figure it out

Enjoy Here

Poor Romney

All he Had to do was say “I didn’t know about it, but I apologize for the firms actions and will take care of it.” But of course, he didn’t, and now he’s got one hell of a mess to clean up that could’ve been avoided:

First, from Time Magazine’s Jay Carney:

And so, on page A3 of the Washington Post, appears my favorite political story of the day — about the link between South Carolina’s feared and (in some quarters) revered GOP hitman, J. Warren Tompkins, and the creation of an anti-Fred Thompson website called PhoneyFred.org. Tompkins is serving as Mitt Romney’s top South Carolina adviser — a role he has played often in his 25-year run as the most powerful non-elected man in Palmetto State politics. It was the role Tompkins played for George W. Bush in the Bush campaign’s smackdown of John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. For those who don’t recall, that was the state where “mysterious” pro-Bush forces waged an under-the-radar slander campaign against McCain, who had just demolished Bush in the New Hampshire primary. The Bush campaign — including Tompkins — claimed no complicity in the slander, an assertion taken at face value by exactly no one with any experience in South Carolina GOP politics.

PhoneyFred.Org disappeared from the Web shortly after the Post’s reporter, Michael Shear, began asking the Romney campaign about it. Thompson spokesman Todd Harris (a McCain 2000 veteran) called on Romney to fire Tompkins. As this SC blogger pointed out last year, Tompkins’ power in the state has been ebbing. And his role in Romney’s campaign hasn’t done anything to lift the former Massachussetts governor out of fourth place in South Carolina polls of the GOP candidates. We’ll see what happens.

Next, we hear from the New York Times:

The site, PhoneyFred.org, was created by Wesley Donehue, who is not an employee of the Romney organization and created the home page without the knowledge of anyone in the campaign, said Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Romney.
“We had no knowledge of it whatsoever,” he said.
But Mr. Donehue is listed as “the first associate consultant and vice president” on the home page for TTS Strategies, where Warren Tompkins, Mr. Romney’s top political consultant in South Carolina, and Terry Sullivan, Mr. Romney’s South Carolina state director, are partners. The blurb describing Mr. Donehue’s role at the firm said he ran its daily operations and called him one of the state’s most experienced political operatives.

Of course, that link has disappeared today also.

From the Flap:

Uh-huh. Romney’s spokesman also says Donehue is “not an employee of ours,” yet Donehue’s “On The Mark” direct mail firm received $81,225.02 from the Romney campaign during the second quarter of 2007, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Incidentally, Time Magazine’s political blog, aptly-titled The Swampland, has an interesting piece this afternoon detailing Tompkins’ shady past. The post even links to a story we wrote on the old FITS last year about the consultant’s declining influence in Palmetto politics.

UPDATE - If there was any doubt as to the inter-connectivity of Donehue’s “On The Mark” direct mail firm and the “Under The Power Lines” netroots firm (which created the anti-Thompson site), both are prominently featured on Tompkins and Sullivan’s corporate website. Or at least they were prominently featured before the website was taken down earlier today. Don’t worry, we saved it for you here.

Click Here to see that Mr. Tompkins site very prominently advertised Mr. Donahue’s site. Of course, it was taken down today.

For more on Donehue, we now turn to the Washington Post:

The firm Tompkins, Thompson, Sullivan has received $37,596 from Romney’s campaign, most of it for “Political strategy consulting.” The web site for that firm has been taken down, but a recent page cached by Google lists him as an “associate consultant and vice president” of the firm.

“As the first associate consultant and vice president of TTS, Wesley Donehue runs the daily operations of the firm. Despite being only 27 years old, he is one of the most experienced operatives in the state,” the site says.

The firm is run by Warren Tompkins — Romney’s senior adviser in South Carolina — and Terry Sullivan, who is on Romney’s payroll as the South Carolina state director.

The company Under the Power Lines, which describes itself as an internet consulting firm, lists Donehue as a “Partner/Consultant.” The phoneyfred.org website was hosted on the same server as the Under the Power Lines website.

Donehue is also listed as an “Associate” in a direct mail firm called On the Mark Direct, which has been paid $146,018 by Romney’s campaign for printing.

If only Romney would’ve done the right thing, he could’ve avoided this mess. However, as usual, he tries to deflect the blame onto somebody else.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of, well defeat

The Romney campaign, no longer content to let the voters decide who will be the nominee, should be embarrassed that one of their high ranking campaign officials went out and created a completely bogus web site about Fred Thompson. 

Mitt Romney can’t defend his positions of the past, he hasn’t been able to convince people that he means what he says on any issue.  So he pulls out the Democrat Party handbook and starts trashing his opponent.  Has Fred made any attacks on Romney, no.  Has Fred made any attacks on any of the candidates, no.  Yet the other night each candidate took turns bashing Fred.

Fred just continues to go out and articulate his beliefs and his positions, and the voters are responding, Fred is leading in several polls, he is ahead of Romney in almost every poll, when the new state polls come out in Iowa and New Hampshire we will see Fred moving up in those states as well.  Fred is ahead of Romney in the latest poll in California and only two points behind Rudy.  Romney is falling behind McCain again dropping to fourth in the latest Survey USA California poll.

Romney is now running fourth in two of the three latest polls, and the only one that he’s not running fourth in he is only one point ahead of McCain for fourth.  It’s evident that Romney’s campaign is struggling, but the true test of a leader is how you act in the face of adversity.  This is a test that Romney is failing.

Thanks to Tommy Oliver for the link to the latest numbers in California.

Technorati Tags: Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain.

Fred the gentleman, Romney the thug!

It certainly sounds like Mitt Romney and his campaign are tired of running third to Fred and Rudy so they go out and create a website to bash Fred.  Real intelligent stuff, and someone please explain to me why this man thinks he’s qualified to be President?

http://conservativesuperiority.com/2007/09/10/team-romney-busted/

Technorati Tags: Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney

Team Romney Busted!!!

From the Washington Post:

A top adviser to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney appears to be behind today’s launch of a new Web site attacking GOP presidential rival Fred Thompson.

The site, www.phoneyfred.org, paints an unflattering picture of Thompson, dubbing him: Fancy Fred, Five O’clock Fred, Flip-Flop Fred, McCain Fred, Moron Fred, Playboy Fred, Pro-Choice Fred, Son-of-a-Fred and Trial Lawyer Fred. [View an image of the Web site]

Shortly after a Washington Post reporter made inquiries about the site to the Romney campaign, the site was taken down.

Fred Thompson in period dress — from the Phoney Fred Web site. (PhoneyFred.org)Before it vanished, the front page of the website featured a picture of a regal Thompson dressed in a frilly outfit more befitting a Gilbert and Sullivan production than a presidential campaign. Under the heading, “Playboy Fred,” the site asks the question: “Once a Pro-Choice Skirt Chaser, Now Standard Bearer of the Religious Right?”

Nowhere on the site does it indicate who is responsible for it. But a series of inquiries leads directly to the website of Under the Power Lines, the political consulting firm of Warren Tompkins, Romney’s lead consultant in South Carolina.

They left the section called “Pimp Fred” out of the article, but you can click on the article link and see that it’s there. Pimp Fred, Mitt? Nice way to show your true values. Let’s continue…

The site www.politicanetroots.com brings up the homepage for “Under the Power Lines,” which lists Tompkins as “Partner, Consultant,” along with Terry Sullivan and Welsley Donehue.

South Carolina politics is known to be rough-and-tumble. In 2000, it was in South Carolina that then-candidate John McCain ran into an organized effort to tar his character, including anonymous allegations that he had fathered a black child.

At the time, then-candidate George Bush was desperate to stop a surging McCain, who had just won a stunning upset in the New Hampshire primary. Tompkins was the chief strategist for Bush in South Carolina at the time, though Bush campaign officials have always denied that the campaign was responsible for the attacks.

A spokesman for Romney’s campaign said he would look into questions about the anti-Thompson site. “Our campaign is focused on the issues and ideas that are of paramount concern to voters,” said spokesman Kevin Madden. “The website we are focused on is MittRomney.com.”

Tompkins did not return calls or emails for comment.

So this is how the Romney camp wants to play? Desperate measures for desperate times.

« Previous Page — Next Page »