Rick Gorka to Reporters: Kiss my Ass. Stewart Stevens: Romney’s Trip was Awesome!

The Romney campaign has had a rough overseas trip.  In a matter of a few days, the Republican nominee hopeful has managed to alienate the

British, anger the Palestinians and now just annoy the traveling press corps in Poland.  To Romney’s defense, he didn’t do the last thing himself, that was the handiwork of his press guy, Rick Gorka.

As the story goes, Romney was at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw paying his respects.  As he was leaving, reporters were shouting to get his attention.  Gorka, who apparently doesn’t have

much patience with the press corps, got pretty annoyed and shouted things back like ‘kiss my ass’ and ‘get bent’ back to reporters, after scolding them that they were at what was considered a holy site for the Polish people.  Gorka later called to apologize to the reporters

he dressed down but sadly for this campaign, the trip ended up being a

disaster, it’s just that they don’t seem to think so.

Stewart Stevens, Romney’s senior political advisor and someone I think has the same level of gumption as a Karl Rove (in most cases) feels that the trip was a great success for Mitt.  According to CNN, Stevens felt like this trip allowed the world to see the real Romney and see where he stands on foreign policy and governance.  Yeah.  The British seemed to be happy to see him go and the Palestinians are now calling Romney a racist for his remarks that they are poor because of their culture.  If, as Stevens puts it, this is the real Romney, that’s not going to bode well for his campaign. 

The Obama campaign, of course, has jumped all over this, calling the trip a public relations and campaign disaster for the Romney camp.  While they are sort of correct, this is not the death knell.  It’s still early enough for this to be turned around.  The Republican machine is picking up speed and the Democrats know it.  James Carville said in an email “Mitt and the Republicans are out-raising us, attacking us and voila - they’ve almost got this thing tied up.”  The Obama camp is concerned and I feel rightfully so.  

How much this has hurt the Romney campaign will be shown when the next round of polls come out.  Election day is still a long way away and a lot can happen.  I think the best thing Stevens can do for Romney is to keep him under wraps for a bit.  Unleashing him again too soon will do nothing to help their cause.

Gay Marriage as Political Dogma? I Just Like the Waffle Fries

Who would have thought that a simple purveyor of chicken sandwiches, waffle fries and milkshakes would be caught in a giant political firestorm?  Even better yet, who would have thought that this fast-food company would be the catalyst to a major political party creating an historic platform in the wake of said controversy?  While I figured that there might have eventually been some backlash to this company’s position regarding homosexual relationships, this is hardly news.  I mean, the company in question here, Chick-fil-a, is a self-anointed conservative-Christian company.  They are going to have conservativeChristian views.  Why are people surprised?

My surprise doesn’t even stop here.  Actually, after hearing that the Democrats are going to take the step and make marriage equality a cornerstone platform plank, I’m surprised with the amount of power Chick-fil-a actually has in potentially guiding public policy.  All of this based on essentially a misquote taken from Chick-fil-a CEO Dan Cathy.  Cathy was never asked a question about gay marriage, rather he was asked if he supported traditional families and he said, yes, he did.  That was it.  From all of this, cities are threatening to ban chicken sandwiches, people are up in arms and babies are crying.  None of this is news and any other year besides this one, no one would have given this much thought.  Being 100 days before an election however, this is political gold.

While the Democrats will never admit it, a better opportunity couldn’t have been given to them.  The Chick-fil-a issue (greased up by the media) further galvanized supporters from both sides of the issue and both candidate camps have used this to their advantage.   It was only this weekend that the DNC decided to add marriage equality to their platform.  The Daily Kos reports:

"Retiring gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who sits on the committee, told the Washington Blade on Monday that the 15-member panel unanimously backed the inclusion of a marriage equality plank after a national hearing over the weekend in Minneapolis, in which several
witnesses testified in favor of such language.  “I was part of a unanimous decision to include it,” Frank said. “There was a unanimous decision in the drafting committee to include it in
the platform, which I supported, but everybody was for it.” [...]

A DNC staffer, who is familiar with the process and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the language in the platform approved on Sunday not only backs marriage equality, but also rejects DOMA and has positive language with regard to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act."

Granted, the Democrats didn’t get hit with a policy lightning bolt as soon as this Chick-fil-a controversy broke.  This is a policy that has long been in hopper, especially the piece coming out against DOMA.  Here in DC however, timing is everything.  Major anti-gay controversy breaking around 100 days before the election?  Democrat supporters galvanized against the non-remarks of a chicken pusher? Days of nearly non-stop media coverage?  There was no better opportunity than to capitalize on this upsurge in the party base than this.

So there you have it.  A company that specializes in a boneless chicken breast sandwich and waffle fries has managed to single handedly shape a major part of the platform of the national Democratic Party 100 days before the 2012 federal elections, at least insofar as marriage equality is concerned.  How?  By doing really, nothing.  Good for them.

Maybe the guy with the falafel cart down the street won't say something about how Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel... oh, nevermind.

Man, I love those waffle fries.