2012 Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney was almost right, President Obama DIDN’T win re-election because of “gifts” http://tinyurl.com/RomneyGifts … he won because of promises.

Conservatives MUST explain that liberal promises are built on sand, destined to crumble. We can’t afford a massive cradle to grave entitlement society, when it falls, America will be impoverished like an increasing number of our European friends. No winners, just losers. Obama won by taking us all closer to losing.

How does an All-American gal from the Midwest fall in love with an English football Club?

I was actually a soccer fan growing up in St. Louis, soccer has always been important to the city’s identity. That’s right. From the five St. Louisans on the 1950 USA World Cup squad that shocked England to the St. Louis University Billikens NCAA Soccer Dynasty, 10 National Titles to the popular 1980s indoor soccer club the St. Louis Steamers, it’s in the city’s blood.

http://tinyurl.com/STLindoorSoccer 

During the 90s, the St. Louis Ambush had a good run in the National Professional Soccer League, winning the league in 94’-95’. That was my team! The first sporting event that I attended without adult supervision was an Ambush game. The tickets were cheap, St. Louis won most of the time and I’d hoot and holler with my friends, loved those Ambush days.

When the NPSL folded in 2001, I lost all serious interest in the game. Just before the start of the 2003-2004 English Premier League campaign, I watched a BBC reporter interviewing an elegant, supremely confident Frenchman named Arsène Wenger. Arsenal F.C.’s manager was more professor than football coach. During the piece they featured Arsenal highlights. I was hooked, the attacking style, the ball movement, the excitement and Thierry Henry!

http://tinyurl.com/WengerYears

Having just moved into a new apartment and surviving on very little cash, splurging for a dish for the sole purpose of watching Arsenal matches seemed crazy at the time. I was falling in love, Henry was the perfect finisher while Dennis Bergkamp was the maestro orchestrating the rhythmic Arsenal attack. It was a pleasure to watch so many players on that club, Freddy Ljungberg, Ashley Cole, Robert Pirès and goalkeeper Jens Lehmann to name a few.

http://tinyurl.com/InvincibleArsenal 

I didn’t have a boyfriend at the time and I didn’t go on a single date that entire season, following Wenger’s Men occupied a lot of my time. The wins started to pile up for the Boys from Highbury, they beat Liverpool, they beat Chelsea, they beat Leeds United and they crushed Middlesbrough. My enthusiasm was growing with each goal.

Admittedly, I spent most of the season isolated glued to my television until the week of their second fixture with Tottenham. I ventured out of my cozy Gunners world to a South St. Louis pub where Arsenal supporters gathered to watch the undefeated Arsenal side face their arch rivals the Spurs.  I was instantly in love with these hearty Gooners, they sang, they chanted, they mocked the Spurs players, I felt the bond, they were my people. When the match ended, Arsenal clinched the Premier League title at White Hart Lane, their arch rival’s ground. So sweet. A few weeks later Arsenal defeated Leicester City to finish the Premier League season unbeaten.

Learning about Arsenal’s storied history has deepened my affection for the club and watching their recent struggles have made me appreciate that magical “invincible” season. My love affair with those men in red continues. 

The first thing anybody mentions about former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is that he was Barack Obama’s ambassador to China. That has been his biggest problem with conservatives. So I’ll address that first. He served as ambassador to Singapore under George Herbert Walker Bush, he speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, he was one of the most qualified politicians of either party to be named ambassador to China. Every president tries to find a few members of the opposite party to put in positions, so picking the most qualified major politician for the job made sense. Accepting that position doesn’t mean he agrees with the President on most issues. George W. Bush had liberal Democrats like Norman Mineta serve while he was president, they didn’t stop being liberal because they worked for a conservative president and Jon Huntsman didn’t stop being conservative because he spent a year and a half in Beijing.

In a race where one of the Republican frontrunners disavowed Ronald Reagan, trashed the NRA and supported abortion rights, Huntsman’s conservative credentials are rock solid. Huntsman worked as a White House assistant to Ronald Reagan. http://tinyurl.com/Jon2012Reagan As Utah governor he signed several pro-life bills including one making 2nd-trimester abortions illegal. http://tinyurl.com/Jon2012prolifeRecord The lead lobbyist for NRA thanked Huntsman for defending the 2^nd Amendment as governor. http://tinyurl.com/Jon2012gunrights Huntsman cut taxes as governor and the Club for Growth praised his ‘pro-growth stance’. http://tinyurl.com/Jon2012taxcuts Solid conservatism, it should also be noted that those have been his positions throughout his political career, no flip-flops not every candidate can claim that.

I’ve never claimed he’s perfect, I don’t agree that the science behind climate change is settled but I respect his opinion. I can deal with his position better than somebody that plays kissy face with Nancy Pelosi while endorsing Al Gore’s website only to back away from it when he’s questioned about it. Huntsman has taken a no-pledge, no-pander posture which is very appealing. http://tinyurl.com/Jon2012nopledges , I’m tired of the pandering, flip-flopping folks that will say or sign anything to get elected. Jon Huntsman deserves a first look. A lot of people dismissed him from the start, with him moving up in New Hampshire polls http://tinyurl.com/Jon20123rdNH it’s time to consider him as an alternative to the frontrunners.

Herman Cain was at times more comedian than candidate from his affable gaffes, quoting the Pokemon movie to joking about ‘Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan’, he made playing for laughs part of his campaign strategy, the president should be likeable but the president should maintain a level of seriousness.

Enter the Jon2012girls http://twitter.com/Jon2012girls , they act silly and absurd so their father doesn’t have to. At first the Huntsman Campaign wasn’t sure what to do with his daughters and their unique brand of silliness. Now they have found their place, think of them as the official Jon Huntsman cheerleaders, they aren’t trying to be serious political commentators like the often obtusely ignorant Meghan McCain.

When you don fake mustaches and re-write the lyrics to ‘Sexy back’, you aren’t demanding to be taken seriously by the political class. That’s the point, they’re having fun, getting a few laughs and joking around. That’s fine for three twenty something year-old gals not a person that wants to be president of the United States.

Along with Jon Huntsman’s gorgeous wife Mary Kaye (they’ve been married 28 years) they do a great job showing a personal side of the candidate. There are plenty of candidates running that are a lot worse than Governor Huntsman, I didn’t dismiss him, I decided to give him a good look and I liked his consistent conservative record.

So there’s new Sarah Palin gossip, this propped up scandal unlike the previous frivolous, false, fabricated revelations provides us with a teachable moment. Last summer writer Joe McGinniss briefly moved next door to Sarah Palin to finish his exposé about the former Alaska Governor. At the time Palin wrote about McGinniss on her Facebook page.

“Here he is — about 15 feet away on the neighbor’s rented deck overlooking my children’s play area and my kitchen window. Maybe we’ll welcome him with a homemade blueberry pie tomorrow so he’ll know how friendly Alaskans are”. http://tinyurl.com/PalinNosyNeighbor

After getting up close and personal, McGinniss is back with his finished work a book called ‘The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin’. The NATIONAL ENQUIRER http://tinyurl.com/EnquirerPalinSecrets  revealed some of the book’s bombshells; yes the Enquirer, stop laughing.  Allegedly when Sarah Heath was a young spunky sports reporter for an Anchorage TV station, she had sex with a Michigan Wolverines basketball star named Glen Rice, when his team came to Anchorage for a basketball tournament in 1987. The Enquirer describes it as a “steamy interracial hookup”, which honestly says more about their attitudes about race than anything else. Joe McGinniss writes Sarah had a “fetish” for black men at the time and he quotes a friend as saying Sarah had “hauled (Rice’s) ass down”, scandalous, right? For what it’s worth Rice who was arrested on a felony battery charge in 2008 http://tinyurl.com/RiceArrested , confirms that the encounter occurred.  

Obviously the alleged tryst exploded on Social media and Sarah Palin was roundly derided by her usual critics. This allegation is probably false, given its not so credible sources. The whole hook up hubbub made me think, what if it’s true? She wasn’t married at the time, both parties were consenting adults, is this even an issue? We certainly aren’t subjected to these types of stories about male politicians of either party.   

I was offended by the concept of the smear. The fact that Sarah Palin’s enlightened political adversaries think you can smear a woman with her consensual sex life; demonstrations how little attitudes about women and sex have changed. Enter the teachable moment, Governor Palin should declare that her pre-marital sex life with consenting adults is her business and leave it at that. The truthfulness of the tawdry allegation is secondary; these kinds of questions should not be legitimized. There are thousands of smart women all over America that might want to run for office. Yet, they might decide not to run because they don’t want to answer questions about every guy they had an encounter with in their 20s. Male politicians don’t have their sex lives examined in this way, so why should female politicians be treated any differently?

I couldn’t help but think about the movie “The Contender” from 2000; the movie centers around a sex scandal involving a female senator nominated to be Vice President. The great thing is that she reveals that there wasn’t any sex but she refuses to set the record straight because it would legitimize the allegations.

Here is the scene were Senator Laine Hanson played by Joan Allen reveals the truth and explains her principle.