Atlantic political writer Josh Green and I just did a podcast on Mitt Romney, who is facing his make-or-break moment today in Michigan's primary. Part I, on Mitt's background, is here, and Part II, on whether both parties are out of ideas, is here. Both are roughly a trim, enjoyable eight minutes.
Update Link problem fixed
Are these subscriber-only? I can't access these through the links.
Looks like the links are to a web-hosted mail service.
Linky no worky.
This one works:
http://www.theatlantic.com/audio/200801/green-romney.mp3
Looks like only one of the two parts was linked to.
The comment moderation is holding my post with a corrected URL. So... you may want to know that a working URL is contained (at the end) of the broken one. Hope this helps.
Now they're both the same URL.
Both links seem to point to the same file.
Here are the corrected links (both, for the win):
1) http://www.theatlantic.com/audio/200801/green-romney.mp3
2) http://www.theatlantic.com/audio/200801/green-romney-2.mp3
Here's hoping that the comment moderation lets this thru. It's a good listen.
Go ahead and post the transcripts too, for us differently-hearing people.
Romney poured a lot of money into TV ads made specifically for Michigan, which mainly made me wonder which party's nomination he was running for. The ad started off with saying that MI is in a "one-state recession". I can't say how truthful that is for the other 49 states, but it's accurate enough for MI. Main reason, our biggest business is still the manufacture of gas-hogs, and the price of gasoline tripled in a few years. Romney didn't say anything about that - wisely, because we all know he'd be lying if he'd claimed he could do something about it...
But even businesses which have nothing to do with the auto industry are hurting in MI now. The second biggest factory in my town made plywood, and it closed in 2006. The biggest made circuit boards for banking equipment, medical equipment, etc., and it closed in December. I'm in Indiana getting those jobs set up in another factory. These plant closings had nothing to do with the auto industry, but much to do with Michigan's high business taxes and over-regulation.
And last fall, facing a serious state budget shortfall (which has to be balanced, per our 1960 constitution - enacted after a previous generation of political idiots put the state into bankruptcy) our Socialist, er, "Democrat"
governor vetoed every proposed budget cut. The only thing she would sign to keep the state government from closing on October 1 was a tax increase - and the People's Republik of Detroit provided a large enough minority in the legislature to prevent a budget override, and the rest didn't have the guts to just let the government shut down until the Democrats felt the pressure to get the welfare flowing again...
So, what did Romney say about this? Nothing about too many taxes and too many regulations. After the first line, it was all about what he'd have the government do "for" us.
He's not even pretending to be a conservative.
A way to subscribe to your podcasts through Itunes would be nice if someone at The Atlantic can figure that out.
It's so much trouble for a lazy guy like me to have to download something manually.