Strategic Allied Consulting has recently been fired by state Republican parties in response to reports of large numbers of questionable registration forms produced by the group. It turns out that the company was set up by one Nathan Sproul, who has reportedly been involved in a number of voter registration outfits accused of improper behavior. (And yet the GOP kept hiring them.) Brad Friedman has a fairly detailed report about this on his blog. Interesting detail from an article in The Los Angeles Times: “Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the RNC’s request because the party wanted to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations.” (RNC stands for “Republican National Committee.”) You might also be interested in Josh Marshall’s article about Sproul at Talking Points Memo.
Some conservatives have been up in arms over a video showing a woman crediting Obama for being able to get a telephone. In fact, the program in question was established under George W. Bush, not Obama, and is an extension of something originated under Ronald Reagan. See for example Charlie Pierce’s explanation on the Esquire politics blog.
Playboy rates the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, founded by Thomas Jefferson, the top party school in America. But in a breakdown by category, they put the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill the top in terms of sex life, because, the magazine says, “Tar Heel women possess a trio of virtues: They’re plentiful (outnumbering male students 10 to 7), they’re beautiful (ranking among the best looking according to student-generated website College Prowler), and they’re progressive.”
From what I’ve read, women increasingly outnumber men on college campuses nationwide, which is a striking demographic shift. That’s good news for guys looking for dates but obviously lousy for female students, in the case of UNC meaning that if students pair off boy-girl fashion (overlooking those who are not exclusively heterosexual, anyway), 30% of women are left standing in that game of musical boyfriends. (I’m tempted to say I’m there for them, but I rather doubt they’re quite that desperate.)
Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan managed to garble an aphorism the other day: “Teach a man how to fish, he can feed himself for a life. Don’t simply feed fish.” Steve Benen’s post includes a video clip. (You can jump ahead to the 47-second point to skip Reverend Al Sharpton’s framing comments.)
Updated: Corrected above to reflect the fact that the provision of cheap cell phones for the poor was initiated under George W. Bush as an extension of a program originally created under Ronald Reagan. (The post originally implied that the cell phone program itself had been established under President Reagan.)
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