{"id":22037,"date":"2010-09-30T22:30:56","date_gmt":"2010-10-01T04:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=22037"},"modified":"2010-10-01T06:51:29","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T12:51:29","slug":"levi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/09\/levi\/","title":{"rendered":"Levi!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-22063\" title=\"Levi_Johnston_at_Minnesota_Republican_Convention\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/Levi_Johnston_at_Minnesota_Republican_Convention.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"127\" height=\"149\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In further displays of 2010 Republican bizarreness, we can now add <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Levi_Johnston\">Levi Johnston<\/a> to the mix.<\/p>\n<p>(And,\u00a0while I\u00a0would love\u00a0to name names and run through the roster of <em>crazies<\/em> and <em>craziness <\/em>to date this year, I will refrain.\u00a0I will refrain because 1) it&#8217;s just too depressing for those of us who are desperate for serious and thoughtful candidates to step up and 2) in all fairness, it gives short-shift to\u00a0the likes of \u00a0Senator Scott Brown and Governor Chris Christie, who actually\u00a0give heart and hope for right-of-center moderates like myself.)<\/p>\n<p>Back to Levi Johnston. He wants to be mayor of Wasilla and all but announced\u00a0his 2011\u00a0mayoral bid on MSNBC&#8217;s\u00a0&#8220;Last Word&#8221; with Lawrence O&#8217;Donnell.\u00a0It was a fascinating interview &#8211; in a bad way. Take a look.<\/p>\n<p><object id=\"msnbc85336d\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"420\" height=\"245\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"launch=39411229&amp;width=420&amp;height=245\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" \/><param name=\"name\" value=\"msnbc85336d\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"launch=39411229&amp;width=420&amp;height=245\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed id=\"msnbc85336d\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"420\" height=\"245\" src=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/32545640\" name=\"msnbc85336d\" wmode=\"transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" flashvars=\"launch=39411229&amp;width=420&amp;height=245\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>What I want to know is this &#8211; what is Levi thinking? He does not yet have his GED (he&#8217;s &#8220;working on it&#8221;),\u00a0but has deemed himself somehow qualified to run for mayor of Wasilla. You realize that\u00a0this puts Levi\u00a0in the same pool as millionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and possible Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s simply absurd.<\/p>\n<p>News flash: Just because a person <em>can<\/em> run certainly doesn&#8217;t mean\u00a0a person\u00a0should run or is\u00a0qualified to run.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>My disapproval is not a statement on Levi&#8217;s intellect or education level; really, it&#8217;s about maturity, the ability to follow\u00a0 through,\u00a0and experience.\u00a0If you can&#8217;t finish your GED, why on earth should anyone rely on you to implement anything as mayor?<\/p>\n<p>The current mayor or Wasilla, Verne Rupright, provides a good basis of comparison. Amongst many things, Mayor Rupright is a Vietnam Veteran turned lawyer turned mayor. On his current mayorial agenda, he lists revamping ethics rules for city elected officials as well as\u00a0laying the groundwork for\u00a0a commuter rail system as an alternative means of transportation and a\u00a0means of bringing employment\u00a0to Wasilla.<\/p>\n<p>Levi, are you ready for this?<\/p>\n<p>In other brilliance, Mayor-hopeful Levi Johnston stated on national television, &#8220;I don&#8217;t believe in abstinence.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0OK, genius or political wizard he is not. I mean, while the birth of his son states the obvious, what future conservative candidate wins votes by suggesting that teen abstinence is bad idea?<\/p>\n<p>For the sake of the Republican brand, and attempts to rebuild this brand, we can only pray that Levi does not run.\u00a0 Candidates, Republican and Democrat alike, used to run on leadership&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>Sarah Lenti is the blogger behind NMPolitics.net\u2019s <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/the-savvy\/\"><em>The Savvy<\/em><\/a><em>. E-mail her at <\/em><a href=\"mailto:sarah@nmpolitics.net\"><em>sarah@nmpolitics.net<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In further displays of 2010 Republican bizarreness, we can now add Levi Johnston to the mix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1196,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-the-savvy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}