For months Mitt Romney has been trying to relate to the average American who thinks that he is too rich and elitist to understand their troubles.  Well now Romney can relate because his campaign is $11 million in debt this month after borrowing more than $20 million in August.  Earlier in the month Romney announced that his campaign raised $111.6 million, which is less than Obama's campaign, that raised $114 million.  Brendan Spaar tries to pay all of his bills on time and never borrows more than he can pay back.  So now Mitt Romney has two things that he can relate to American's with:  1) He has significant debt and 2) he is borrowing more money than he is making trying to keep afloat.

Source:  http://news.yahoo.com/romney-reports-first-debt-campaign-014954415--abc-news-politics.html

I've been hearing a lot about Romney's latest "gaffe" about airplane windows not rolling down and I have to defend him on his statement.  First of all, here's what he said:

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no — and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous."

Gov. Romney was speaking about an electrical fire aboard a plane that his wife Ann Romney was flying on last week.  You might think the best way to get smoke out of a confined space is to open the window right?  Well you can't do that on a plane.  I believe that Romney was trying to crack a joke about how airplane windows don't open so you can't effectively vent the smoke out.  The press needs to realize that this man couldn't tell a joke to save his life.  Either the press needs to realize it or maybe Romney needs to stop trying to tell jokes.  When your jokes are looked at as "gaffes," you aren't funny.  Brendan Spaar has seen many commedians including George Carlin, Robin Williams, Dane Cook, and Lewis Black.  He knows better than to try to be funny in public.  Sometime's it's best to do what you're good at and leave the jokes to the professionals.  Otherwise, the joke's on you.

Source:  http://news.yahoo.com/why-plane-windows-dont-roll-down-romney-221323006.html

After months of campaigning about the #1 issue facing Americans, both candidates seem to have moved on to other topics.  Brendan Spaar has noticed that both campaigns have shifted their strategy to the conflicts in the Middle East in the wake of the YouTube video that took social media by storm last week.  Romney has been plagued with attacks and has had to explain his comments a number of times this month.  Obama is faced with foreign policy nightmares as well so it's no wonder the candidates are a little distracted at the moment.  Look for the debate in October to focus heavily on the economy.  There should be a new jobs report around that time.  Then we'll see what sort of impact the teacher's strike in Chicago ha

Source:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-race-polls-show-economy-still-no-1-issue-but-obama-and-romney-both-drifting-off-topic/2012/09/20/c9de8856-0346-11e2-9132-f2750cd65f97_story.html

It wasn't too long ago that one Wilford Mitt Romney rolled into the South and tried to win the people over with his new found love of "cheesy grits" and use of the term Y'all.  Post convention, the Southerners have seen through the carefully crafted political illusion. 

White republicans who believe Obama is Muslim are going to be voting for him this time around because they would rather have a person in office that can somewhat relate to their issues.  In a recent poll, voters said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is "very wealthy" than one who isn't. 

Then there's the issue of religion, something that Southerners take very seriously.  Afterall, they call it the Bible Belt for a reason.  Of the group polled, lower- and middle-income white Bible Belt voters, say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who is Mormon.  Many evangelicals believe that the Mormon religion is a cult and are not encouraging their congragations to vote for Romney in the way that they did with McCain and Bush in previous elections.

This election campaign has been a rollercoaster for sure but if Romney intends to win, he had better look for votes north of the Mason-Dixon because Southerners just aren't buying into him.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/southern-whites-troubled-romneys-wealth-religion-050312040.html

I'm Brendan Spaar and I approve this message.

Did you see Mitt Romney's entrance to the Republican Convention in Tampa a few weeks ago?  He is trying to appeal to a younger demographic.  Brendan Spaar would vote for Romney if he really was as dynamic as this parody portrays him as.  Unfortunately Robo-Mitt cannot be upgraded to have moves like these.

The President learned last weekend what Southern Hospitality is all about when a pizza shop owner from Florida embraced him in a bear hug that lifted Obama a good foot off the ground.  Now don't worry, the man wasn't arrested for doing this.  Even though he's a registered Republican, he says that he doesn't vote party lines and will likely vote for Obama in this November's election.  What's really impressive is that he can bench press 350 pounds.  Brendan Spaar is investigating ways to lift more weights at the gym.  I can currently lift about 31 pounds but I am working to lift more each day.  I didn't actually start going to the gym until around 2008.  There's a really good LifeTime Fitness gym in Alpharetta Georgia that is worth checking out. 

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/florida-pizza-shop-owner-powerlifts-obama-195921467--election.html

Many have nicknamed Georgia 400 the Alpharetta Autobahn.  I guess no one told the son of a Mexican Consular that this was only a nickname.  You can't really drive 85 on this 65mph highway.  So the guy was arrested and charged with driving too fast (and too drunk)!  Brendan Spaar knows not to speed on GA 400 because there are sherrif deputies all along this highway just waiting to pull you over.  And if you thought foreign officers couldn't be arrested or had immunity from our laws, check this out:

Under federal law, foreign consular officers, such as Saynez-Ruiz-Duran, have only limited immunity from state criminal laws when they are performing an official function. They may not be held in jail pending trial if they are arrested for a misdemeanor offense. They are required to appear and answer the charges in court and, if convicted, can be sentenced to jail.

Maybe this guy needs to request a transfer to Texas.  I hear there's a toll road between Austin and San Antonio that is raising its speed limits to 85mph.  You still can't drive drunk so he may


Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ready-set-go-texas-to-open-toll-road-with-85-mph-speed-limit-the-highest-in-the-us/2012/09/06/54091822-f887-11e1-a93b-7185e3f88849_story.html

In about a month we may find out if one Willard Mitt Romney has a reason for not releasing his tax returns.  A hacker group claims to have the returns and is threatening to release them at the end of the month unless PricewaterhouseCooper hands over a $1 million ransom.  Even if they fork over the money, Brendan Spaar bets the group will release the returns anyway.  Media outlets were sent a flash drive supposidly containing an encrypted copy of the old returns.  This puts the outlets in a dangerous catch 22 scenario.  The flash drive could be a trojan horse which would unleash all sorts of havok on the organization if opened.  Then there's the chance that the group is lying just to get a $1 million pay day.  The release of Apple device UUIDs this week that may or may not be legitimate has already called data released by anonymous hacking groups into question.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/06/politics/romney-tax-threat/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

I hate to give the impression that this blog will have a left leaning slant but there's just a lot of ammo right now aimed at the right.  Maybe in a few days we'll have some lies from the left for me to blog about.

The latest "gotcha moment" comes once again from VP candidate Paul Ryan.  He was quoted recently with saying that he finished the Chicago Marathon in 3 hours and 11 minutes.  Then later he walked that number back a little saying he actually ran 3:12.  Some fact checkers took a look at the official results and determined that Mr. Ryan actually completed the marathon in a little more than 4 hours.  While I can understand a memory lapse in the 22 years since he ran the race, he should have known which hour block he finished in. 

For instance, I am trying to improve my 5k pace.  I recently broke through the 30 minute mark and considered that a huge personal accomplishment.  I write all of my times down and will probably have them handy 22 years from now.  I would think that Mr. Ryan would have written his finish time down from the Chicago Marathon as this is a big event in someone's life.  Even if he didn't, the numbers man would know within a 15-30 minute margin of error the time that he finished said marathon. 

Bottom line:  If you are going to brag about an accomplishment and use exact numbers, in this day and age, your numbers had better be correct.  Especially if you're known as t


Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/opinion/pearlman-ryan-marathon/index.html