Borowitz Report on Polls

DETROIT (The Borowitz Report) – With just one day until the key Republican contests in Michigan and Arizona, a new survey of likely voters indicates that in a match-up between former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, a majority would choose suicide over either candidate.

The poll, conducted by the University of Minnesota’s Opinion Research Institute, shows Mr. Romney drawing 21%, Mr. Santorum 18%, and various forms of suicide 61%.

“Throwing yourself in front of a speeding city bus” was the most popular means of suicide at 22%, with “jumping off the roof of a really tall building or bridge” coming in second at 17%.

Good 'Late Night' Jokes: Front Runners

David Letterman

• Mitt Romney has been the front-runner from day one but nobody likes Mitt Romney because he's not kooky enough.
• They're looking for somebody kookier so Rick Santorum is a pretty good choice. He does not believe in birth control. Does not believe in global warming. Does not believe in long-sleeve sweaters.
• The latest polls show Romney and Rick Santorum neck and neck. Not to be confused with Newt Gingrich, who is shown in the polls as chin to chin.

Best Actress Academy Award (Photo credit: cliff1066™)

Craig Ferguson

• President Obama is trying to come up with a new campaign slogan that would replace "hope and change." He's thinking of going with "I am not Mitt Romney."
• There are rumors that Mitt Romney will ask Ron Paul to be his running mate. He was originally going to reach out to Rick Santorum. But Rick's not crazy about other dudes reaching out for him.

Jimmy Kimmel

• Oscar night is the magical night where we sit around in sweat pants and criticize the way famous women are dressed.

Gail Collins on Michigan Trees and Romney

Image via Wikipedia

Is it true that Romney told people in Michigan that their trees were just the right height?

Yes, he was trying to butter them up. He also said “I love cars!” This is yet another example of Mitt’s common touch. In Ohio recently, he told a long story about going to a friend’s wedding, taking some nail polish and writing on the soles of the groom-to-be’s shoes so that when he knelt at the altar, the congregation could read HELP.

This anecdote raises several questions. A) Do you think it actually happened? And B) If you found out it was true, would that make you like Romney more, or less?

What is the right height for a tree?

Not sure, but he said it again on Friday, adding that in Michigan “the streets are just right,” too.

Then he undermined all that hard work on the carpenter-dad angle by adding that his wife drives “a couple of Cadillacs.” The man has an army of political advisers who feed him with oppo research about Rick Santorum’s earmarks, but apparently nobody suggested downplaying the second Caddy.

Related articles

• Romney: My Wife Drives 'A Couple Of Cadillacs' (thinkprogress.org)

Good 'Top Ten': Mitt Movies

Top Ten Other Movies About Mitt Romney

10. Dial M For Mitt
9. Mitty Mitty Bang Bang
8. The Mittrix
7. Butch Romney And The Sundance Mitt
6. Mittion: Impossible
5. When Harry Mitt Romney
4. Terms of Endearmitt
3. Mr. Romney Doesn't Go To Washington
2. Dog On A Hot Car Roof
1. They're Just Not That Into You

Good 'Late Night' Jokes: Test-Tube Meat

Jay Leno

• Oil prices jumped to well over $100 a barrel, and analysts say it's due to tension in the Middle East. So, luckily, it's just a temporary thing.
• Dutch scientists say the world's first test-tube meat, a hamburger made from cow stem cells, will be available sometime this year. Test tube meat made from stem cells. I hope it tastes as good as it sounds. 
• Rick Santorum said today that during his 16 years in Congress, he was an outsider the whole time. You know what? After 16 years, you're not an outsider. You're just unpopular.

Chris Christie - Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

David Letterman

• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has outlawed gay marriage with one exception. He said Ben and Jerry, they're OK. They can go ahead and get married.
• Usually the only thing Chris Christie vetoes is a salad.
• Scientists have now created artificial meat. They've done so with stem cells in a test tube. Is your mouth watering?
• Rick Santorum says Satan is out to get America. Do we have enough trouble? Now it turns out Satan's after us. 

Jimmy Kimmel

• Bob Morris, a state lawmaker from Fort Wayne, Ind., has decided not to support a proposal to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts. He believes the Girl Scouts is a, quote, radicalized organization that supports homosexuality and abortion. I'm all for freedom of speech, but that kind of talk might get you picked as Rick Santorum's running mate. 
• Rick Santorum said he believes that Satan has his sights on America. Apparently Satan is still upset about the time he went down to Georgia and lost that fiddle. 

Conan

• During a concert at the White House yesterday, President Obama got on stage and performed with Mick Jagger. Apparently, Obama wanted to prove to Republicans that he could work with a rich old white guy.

Jimmy Fallon

• Tomorrow night is the 20th Republican debate, which explains that new campaign slogan, "Vote Mitt Romney — or else we’ll keep doing this.”
• Last week a toy store in Massachusetts accidentally received a liquor license, which explains that new toy — "Call-Me-a-Cab Elmo.”

Related articles

• Catholic Church Now Goes After Girl Scouts (ken_ashford.typepad.com)
• Jon Stewart Skewers Chris Christie: What If Fat Marriage Were Illegal? (queerty.com)

Gail Collins on 20th Debate

Image via Wikipedia

Take your pick, Republicans. On one hand, the guy who once drove to Canada with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car. On the other, the guy who won his first Congressional race by criticizing his opponent for moving his family to Washington. And then later moved his own family to Washington, but said it didn’t count because the Senate was different from the House.

Much of the debate involved the two front-runners squabbling, and Santorum proved that even if the subject was rutabagas, he would still find a way to point out that Massachusetts passed its universal health care law when Mitt Romney was governor.

When the topic turned to a murky discussion of contraception, in which birth control pills seemed to get the blame for rising rates of unwed motherhood, Santorum suddenly said: “The whole reason this issue is alive is because of the bill that you drafted in Massachusetts, Romneycare.”

Romney then announced that everything — I think this included both unwed motherhood and the Obama health care reform — happened because Santorum had endorsed Arlen Specter for the U.S. Senate in 2004.

The Arizona crowd was totally on Romney’s side. This was no easy task, since it required a lot of booing and cheering at those obscure earmark arguments. But Mitt needed all the help he could get. He’s facing a must-win primary next week in Michigan, which is, of course, his home state. Along with Massachusetts and New Hampshire and California, where he has, um, homes. Michigan appears to be the only Romney home state where Romney does not have an actual residence.

In his attempts to make up for that oversight, Mitt has really been laying it on thick. “I love this state!” he told Michiganders at one campaign stop. “It seems right here! Trees are the right height!”

In another ploy to re-win the love of the state whose major industry he wanted to send into bankruptcy, Romney got Donald Trump to record robo-calls that will tell innocent Michigan phone answerers that Mitt Romney, is a “good man” while Rick Santorum, is a “career politician.”

Romney thinks Michigan voters will like him better because he has earned the respect of Donald Trump. A person who claimed he had to postpone plans to run for president himself and save the nation because of a conflict with the airing dates for “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Well, there’s always Santorum. The career politician! Actually, Trump was entirely unfair on this point — Santorum has been out of office since 2006, when he was defeated for re-election by one of the widest margins in American history.

Take your pick, Republican primary voters. If neither one works for you, there’s always Newt. Or Ron Paul. Some choice, dudes. Not groovy.

Related articles

• Op-Ed Columnist: Four Dudes and a Table (nytimes.com)

Maureen Dowd on 'Mullah' Rick Santorum

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Rick Santorum has been called a latter-day Savonarola.

That’s far too grand. He’s more like a small-town mullah.

“Satan has his sights on the United States of America,” the conservative presidential candidate warned in 2008. “Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

When, in heaven’s name, did sensuality become a vice? Next he’ll be banning Barry White.

Santorum is not merely engaged in a culture war, but “a spiritual war,” as he called it four years ago. “The Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country — the United States of America,” he told students at Ave Maria University in Florida. He added that mainline Protestantism in this country “is in shambles. It is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.”

Satan strikes, a Catholic exorcist told me, when there are “soul wounds.” 

Santorum, who is considered “too Catholic” even by my über-Catholic brothers, clearly believes that America’s soul wounds include men and women having sex for reasons other than procreation, people involved in same-sex relationships, women using contraception or having prenatal testing, environmentalists who elevate “the Earth above man,” women working outside the home, “anachronistic” public schools, Mormonism (which he said is considered “a dangerous cult” by some Christians), and President Obama (whom he obliquely and oddly compared to Hitler and accused of having “some phony theology”).

Santorum didn’t go as far as evangelist Franklin Graham, who heinously doubted the president’s Christianity on “Morning Joe.”

Mullah Rick, who has turned prayer into a career move, told ABC News’s Jake Tapper that he disagreed with the 1965 Supreme Court decision striking down a ban on contraception. And, in October, he insisted that contraception is “not O.K. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

Related articles

• Op-Ed Columnist: Rick's Religious Fanaticism (nytimes.com)

Good 'Late Night' Jokes

Image via Wikipedia

David Letterman

• The Yankees now have a new fragrance. It was just bound to happen because any time you walk into their clubhouse, you say "Oh wow, if someone could just bottle this."
• The North Korea news agency is saying that the birds and the pandas and all the wildlife are moaning because they're so depressed over the death of Kim Jong Il. Wait a minute. Is it possible they are moaning because they live in North Korea?

Craig Ferguson

• People should stop believing bizarre stories about U.S. presidents. George Washington did not have wooden teeth. Abe Lincoln did not write the Gettysburg address on an envelope. And President Obama wasn't born in Kenya. It was Tanzania.
• Obama was going to be born in Kenya but it wasn't socialist enough.

Jay Leno

• You can tell gas prices are going up in California. Prius owners are getting that smug look again.

The Wild Heart

Paul Krugman on the Redness of the Safety Net

Cover via Amazon

But why do regions that rely on the safety net elect politicians who want to tear it down? I’ve seen three main explanations.

First, there is Thomas Frank’s thesis in his book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?”: working-class Americans are induced to vote against their own interests by the G.O.P.’s exploitation of social issues. And it’s true that, for example, Americans who regularly attend church are much more likely to vote Republican, at any given level of income, than those who don’t.

Still, as Columbia University’s Andrew Gelman points out, the really striking red-blue voting divide is among the affluent: High-income residents of red states are overwhelmingly Republican; high-income residents of blue states only mildly more Republican than their poorer neighbors. Like Mr. Frank, Mr. Gelman invokes social issues, but in the opposite direction. Affluent voters in the Northeast tend to be social liberals who would benefit from tax cuts but are repelled by things like the G.O.P.’s war on contraception.

Finally, Cornell University’s Suzanne Mettler points out that many beneficiaries of government programs seem confused about their own place in the system. She tells us that 44 percent of Social Security recipients, 43 percent of those receiving unemployment benefits, and 40 percent of those on Medicare say that they “have not used a government program.”

Presumably, then, voters imagine that pledges to slash government spending mean cutting programs for the idle poor, not things they themselves count on. And this is a confusion politicians deliberately encourage. For example, when Mr. Romney responded to the new Obama budget, he condemned Mr. Obama for not taking on entitlement spending — and, in the very next breath, attacked him for cutting Medicare.

The truth, of course, is that the vast bulk of entitlement spending goes to the elderly, the disabled, and working families, so any significant cuts would have to fall largely on people who believe that they don’t use any government program.

The message I take from all this is that pundits who describe America as a fundamentally conservative country are wrong. Yes, voters sent some severe conservatives to Washington. But those voters would be both shocked and angry if such politicians actually imposed their small-government agenda.

Related articles

• Op-Ed Columnist: Moochers Against Welfare (nytimes.com)