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ProSense

(116,464 posts)
Sun Jun 15, 2014, 07:51 PM Jun 2014

'Populist' Schweitzer courts Romney's donors?

'Populist' Schweitzer courts Romney's donors?

by brooklynbadboy

So, Schweitzer has been making a lot of noise about a populist challenge to Hillary Clinton, saying she's too close to Wall Street. But then:

The former Montana governor, MSNBC contributor and 2016 hopeful delivered a stem-winder of a speech to some 300 Republican elites assembled here in a theater-in-the-round setting at a luxury mountaintop resort.

Schweitzer’s remarks Friday afternoon were all over the map — from life lessons he learned as a boy leading his steer at 4-H club showings to his disagreements with the Affordable Care Act and the war in Iraq to sharp criticism of President Obama’s energy policy. And he said the one elected official with whom he agrees on some issues is Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).

During a question-and-answer session, Republican strategist Ana Navarro asked Schweitzer whether he was more relatable to average voters than Clinton is. The rancher-politician said he is, but quickly segued to a diagnosis of Romney and Obama’s likability in the 2012 election.

“I don’t know why you lost the election, Mitt, but I know this: I was watching you on TV and I didn’t see the Mitt Romney that I knew,” Schweitzer said. “You are a fun guy and you’re easy-going and Obama is not. I’ve been in the room with him a little, too. He’s stiff as a board and you’ve got it going on.”

Guy in cowboy hat and bolo tie tells Democratic primary voters President Obama is no fun, but Mitt Romney is awesome. LOL! In front of a room of rich GOP donors. Including Mitt Romney himself. He doesnt know why Obama won?!

More:

In fact, moments later, Schweitzer appealed directly to one of the biggest GOP donors in the room, billionaire energy investor Harold Hamm.

“Harold, when you’re done getting all the easy oil out of the bottom, what do you need to increase oil production?” Schweitzer asked.

He better hope this isn't accurate.

Stick a fork in him! NEXT!!!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/15/1307242/--Populist-Schweitzer-courts-Romney-s-donors

LOL!

11 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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sheshe2

(83,324 posts)
2. “I don’t know why you lost the election" said Schweitzer.
Sun Jun 15, 2014, 08:20 PM
Jun 2014

Yeah me either...









Schweitzer. DOA!

Thanks for the laugh ProSense!

wyldwolf

(43,865 posts)
3. "but... but.. (insert some that famous progressive mind reading...
Sun Jun 15, 2014, 08:23 PM
Jun 2014

... where we're told what he's really thinking and what it really means and how it's all ok, he really is a 'goooood proooogresssiiivvee')"

Cha

(295,899 posts)
9. Fracking Schweitzer.. wtf is up with him. The last I heard he was Whining about Obama and
Sun Jun 15, 2014, 09:42 PM
Jun 2014

now this?!

Obama's "not easy going"? Either Schweitzer is stupid or he's a gawd damn liar.. or both?

ProSense

(116,464 posts)
11. NYT article (2006):
Mon Jun 16, 2014, 04:16 PM
Jun 2014
<...>

Within months of his election, bloggers were clamoring for a presidential run, and his popularity transcended the wonk journals to include coronation as “Hot Governor” by Rolling Stone magazine, while “60 Minutes” called him the Coal Cowboy. On camera he persuaded Lesley Stahl to take a whiff from a vial of diesel fuel synthesized from coal — a product that Schweitzer claims will not only fill Montana’s coffers but also help end the nation’s dependence on foreign oil peddled by “sheiks, rats, crooks, dictators.”

<...>

Schweitzer veers right on many economic and social issues: he opposes gun control, favors the death penalty and preaches about lowering taxes and balancing budgets. At the same time, he leans left on some issues that matter to progressives: championing energy conservation and environmental regulation, opposing governmental restrictions on abortion and criticizing free-trade deals. “He’s as much a prairie centrist as he is a prairie populist,” Bruce Reed of the Democratic Leadership Council told me. Schweitzer has the ability to reduce a complicated issue to a few sharp lines, reframing it with themes of patriotism and underdog know-how. “I was a critic of Nafta, I was a critic of Cafta and I’ll be a critic of Shafta,” he says of free-trade agreements, long the hobgoblin of even the most articulate liberal politicians. “Why is it that America supposedly creates the best businessmen in the world, but when we go to the table with the third world, we come away losers?”

<...>

Other than the fact that they grew up on farms, it’s not immediately clear what unites Schweitzer and Tester, Ritter and the Salazars. With his outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq — “I was very public before we went in that it was a bad idea, and history has borne that out,” he told me — Schweitzer has become a hero to progressives, while Ken Salazar has infuriated liberals with his support of Alberto Gonzalez’s nomination for attorney general and his endorsement of Joe Lieberman’s independent re-election bid. Governor Richardson of New Mexico suggests that such differences are evidence that the movement has no overarching strategy. “It’s happening from the bottom up,” he told me. “This is a natural evolution. It’s no grand design.” Or maybe it’s that the region’s Democrats simply don’t have many core beliefs in common. Schweitzer remains an iconoclast; he says he supported John McCain’s presidential bid in 2000, though he has since soured on McCain because of the way he has courted the religious right, and he says he is now intrigued by the possibility of a presidential run by Mitt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, in 2008. “If he gets the nomination, I might support him,” Schweitzer told me.

- more -

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08governor.html?pagewanted=all


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