“My guest tonight is a former Democratic governor of Louisiana who is now a Republican candidate for president. I better get to the interview table before he becomes a federalist,” comedian Stephen Colbert joked in his introduction of former Gov. Buddy Roemer, who appeared on The Colbert Report Thursday night.
In a light-hearted exchange that touched on Roemer’s populist themes, namely his refusal to accept “special interest” campaign contributions, the former congressman and governor proved an affable engagement for the Comedy Central star.
“All my life I’ve studied economics and history and I’m proud to be an American,” Roemer told Colbert. “I think our country’s in trouble. We’re giving our jobs away, and special interests own Washington, D.C.”
Roemer explained his position not to accept donations greater than $100 and to accept no contributions from political action committees, which he sees as a corrupting influence in American politics: “I will not listen to the special interests with the big checks,” Roemer added, drawing applause from Colbert’s left-leaning studio audience.
Roemer recently took up residence in New Hampshire to campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Name recognition — and funding, based on his pledge not to accept PAC money — are his main hurdles. In fact, the former governor acknowledged that he’s not on the ballot in Iowa, the first primary state, because he doesn’t “have the PAC money” to mount a campaign. Roemer urged Iowans to donate to his campaign to get him on the ballot there.
See Part 1 of Roemer’s interview with Colbert here.
Part 2 can be viewed here.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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