Showing posts with label Buddy Roemer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buddy Roemer. Show all posts

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Signs and wonders on the campaign trail

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This is what you call a sign of the times.

Well, that and evidence God has a wicked sense of humor.

I know you have a crucial question on your mind right now . . . namely
"Huh?" Trust me, I understand this.

But I want you to consider something, and when you do, your "Huh?" will give way to understanding. And fear.

This is what I want you to kick around in your head for a while: A Louisiana politician -- former Gov. Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer III -- is the most honest, principled and above-board presidential candidate in 2012. Not only that, he's making the most sense.

Sadly, this can mean only one thing (two if you count "The Apocalypse is nigh!"). He doesn't have a chance. After all, this is America -- a land where you, as Auden wrote, "shall love your crooked neighbour with your crooked heart" but an honest man doesn't stand a chance.

Good luck, Buddy. You're gonna need it.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Hail to the Rubber Band Man


Former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer might run for president?

Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap) Cancel! (snap)

FROM the Monroe (La.) News-Star:
Former U.S. Rep. and Gov. Buddy Roemer said he will announce within the next month whether he will be a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2012.

He said he’s “doing my homework,” but Roemer talks in an interview as if his mind is already made up. He’s discussed it with his family and board members of his Business First Bank and even has lined up a vice president to run the bank in his absence while campaigning.

“I’m getting ready to make my case with the American people,” he said Friday.

Roemer, who served one term as governor, 1988-92, before being squeezed out of a re-election bid by two candidates on political extremes — former Gov. Edwin Edwards and neo-Nazi and ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke — said he’s working on a message that he believes would “wake America up.”

“As a banker, as a businessman, I thought I’d read President Obama’s budget a couple of months ago. It was a mistake,” he said. “He’s got a deficit every single year, smaller ones at first but three-quarters of a trillion dollars in the third year. By the 10th year the deficit is $1.4 trillion and the deficits are higher in the out years.”


Saturday, February 16, 2008

Remember, you heard the 'R' word here first

Buddy. Roemer.

With the shaky start Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is off to on his ethics jihad thus far, it is useful to remember the last messiah who was going to fix everything that's wrong with my home state.

Buddy. Roemer.

If messiahs actually existed in politics, so many Louisianians (and others) wouldn't have been doing so much "magical thinking" regarding what Bobby Jindal actually could do for the Bayou State. See, if messiahs actually existed in politics, Gov. Buddy Roemer would have fixed all by 1989, and the Gret Stet would now be known as the Land of Milk and Honey.

With boudin for dessert.

But it ain't. Instead, the Gret Brown Hope -- with the Legislature in special "ethics" session -- now gets to show the world he, too, buys his footwear at Pottery Barn.

On the up side, however, the gub'na has plenty of cash to pay the fine for failing to report campaign contributions in a timely manner, and his chief of staff got swell free tickets to the Hannah Montana concert.

In the Gub'na's Box, no less.

A GENERATION AGO, Buddy Roemer could not turn grafters into servants, a Third World enclave into Silicon Valley or -- while he was at it -- water into wine. As I recall, I reminded folks of that after Jindal got himself elected and hopes were reaching Obamaesque heights.

Alas, some Louisianians still will be surprised to discover Jindal is no more the second coming of Christ than Roemer was. Shocked that one man -- even with feet of flesh and blood, as opposed to clay -- is incapable of feats that rightly belong in the Almighty's realm.

In politics, as in life, there is no such thing as cheap grace. There is grace, for sure, but cooperation is required for it to work its wonders.

The change Louisianians await lies not within one man -- no matter that the man is some sort of wonkish wunderkind. No, the change Louisianians await lies within themselves.

There is grace in this world. But Louisiana must first "come to Jesus" to unlock its power.

And Bobby Jindal ain't no messiah.