An alert reader sent us this link, a further analysis of Republican Mitt Romney’s God-and-politics stemwinder Dec. 6 by author (and expert) Garry Wills. His essay puts into historical context Romney’s speech, and specifically finds it lacking compared to former President John F. Kennedy’s similar speech, to which Romney’s has been much compared. (Then again, Wills finds flaws with Kennedy’s address, too.)

To do some comparison yourself, check out Kennedy’s speech and Romney’s.

Each year, we at Various Things & Stuff rate the many Christmas cards we receive, and boy, do we receive a lot. It’s probably because of our friendly, outgoing demeanor and the fact that we always have something nice to say about everybody.

Thanks to all for the Christmas cheer and congrats to Vegas.com for the best card of 2007.

We’re getting down to the wire here, people. Iowa voters will caucus tomorrow, and campaigns are doing their best to make a last-minute push.

And sure enough, we got one, from the campaign of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Check it (and no, we have not made a word of this up):

Richardson Welcomes Former Clinton, Obama Supporter to Campaign

Switch shows caucus goers still deciding, indicates race is still wide open
   
CENTERVILLE, IA– Today Governor Bill Richardson welcomed Susan Klopfer as a new supporter to his campaign.

"We welcome Susan and the tens of thousands of other supporters that have decided to stand with me on caucus night," Richardson said. "This just shows how fluid the race still is and the momentum my campaign is seeing on the ground. We are surging. We are confident we will surprise folks with a strong finish on Jan. 3."

As NBC reports, Klopfer had been volunteering for Hilary Clinton. She later switched her support to Barack Obama.

But after hearing Richardson speak yesterday, Klopfer again changed her position and decided to caucus for the New Mexico Governor on January 3.

"In both [Clinton and Obama], I didn’t see the experience that I’d like to see and kind of the groundedness that I’d like to see," Klopfer told NBC.

Klopfer added: "Probably I’ll caucus for Richardson."

"Like Susan, caucus goers across Iowa are looking for real experience, proven results, and someone who can bring true change to Washington," Richardson said.

"There are a tremendous amount of undecided Iowans still out there. And as they begin to decide who they will support on caucus night, I am confident they will see me as the most experienced candidate in the race and the one best ready to lead on Day One."

This is what it’s come to, governor? News releases welcoming random, possibly bi-polar voters to your side in the hopes of arguing your rivals don’t have the thing sewn up yet? Show some dignity, man! Seriously, is this chick Mitt Romney’s sister or something? She’s changed candidates more times than he’s claimed his father once marched hand-in-hand with Mighty Zeus off Mt. Olympus to congratulate Ulysses on returning from his midnight run to warn Americans that Jesus was coming to Missouri in the Second Coming!

The most safe year-end prediction (and yes, we made it, as you will see Thursday on the CityLife website) is that Gov. Jim Gibbons would continue to stumble like a drunk on a badly listing cruise ship, which, it turns out, he may actually have been. But that’s beside the point.

Let’s take a look at portions of that memo, with snarky comments provided by us in italics, of course. You know, for context: 

In looking back at 2007, we had a great 1st year!  We faced both challenges and opportunities that allowed us to move the State of Nevada forward in a new and positive direction.  

This is clearly a view shared only by Gibbons, his immediate family, and the Review-Journal. Pretty much everybody else thought Gibbons barely survived his first year, and if this state is going in a "positive direction," some jokester has put a magnet on the governor’s political compass.

Even with the down turn [sic] in tax revenues, we were able to provide increased funding and services in education, health care and other essential services over the previous biennium. When the economy and revenues of Nevada returns [sic] to their normal positive growth, I firmly believe that our State will be stronger, more efficient and more effective in providing those essential services without having to increase taxes on working families and small businesses.

When will the economy and revenues, ahem, "returns" to their normal positive growth? That’s anybody’s guess. But since the state isn’t very effective in providing essential services now, it’s highly unlikely that it will become stronger, more efficient or more effective without new taxes. The best we can hope for is increased revenue under the current system with an economic rebound. So, we’re going to say things will actually start improving, oh, three weeks from never, or until a new governor gets sworn in, whichever comes first.

Looking forward to the New Year and the work we have ahead, preparing for the 2009 Legislative Session and a new biennial budget, I have decided to make a structural change in this Administration. As such, I have decided to promote Dianne Cornwall to Chief Operating Officer (COO) effective January 1, 2008. 

If "chief operating officer" sounds like a business title, not a government title, you’re perceptive. But Republicans are always saying that government should run like a business, right? So Gibbons is just putting that philosophy — which saw its heyday during the Reagan administration — into practice in 2008. Of course, government is not a business, and cannot be run like one, for reasons both simple and myriad. But let’s stick with the memo for now.

She will be responsible for the operation and management of the day-to-day actions of each Department or State agency, and she will be reporting directly to the Chief of Staff.  All agencies and departmental directors will report directly to Dianne Cornwall in this position.  This will streamline the chain of command, as well as improve communications and reporting throughout the Administration.

Now, it seems to us that in "streamlining" his chain of command, Gibbons has made Dayton’s position redundant — if Cornwall is running things day-to-day and Gibbons is at the top setting policy and formulating overall "strategy," (such as it is in this administration) — what is Dayton doing? Not that we’re complaining, since the number and quality of clusterfucks in Gibbons first year — which typically fall on a chief of staff –  were considerable. So maybe, just maybe, this is Gibbons’ way forward, and an end run around Dawn Gibbons, his wife, who rejected top-notch chief of staff candidate Robert Uithoven in favor of Dayton, after Dayton had left Gibbons congressional office under a considerable cloud.

Could things be getting better for Gibbons? Or will the parade of relative incompetence continue?

We can’t wait to find out!

We’re still amazed by the story broken by the Salt Lake Tribune recently, which revealed that former Gov. Michael Leavitt held seminary moments with key staffers to discuss how the principles of Mormon theology might be put into practice in state government.

So, Mitt, Mike and the rest. Where do you stand?

There’s no better way to start off the New Year than with some Quick Hits. (Don’t worry, we’ll do predictions, too, but in the print edition of CityLife. You can check them out on the website starting Thursday.)

Here we go!

• You know why all those people came to Las Vegas this week? "It’s the party, stupid … according to travel experts." Seriously. They wrote that.
  
• Hey! There’s some people missing from the Las Vegas Sun’s list of pundits, not least of which is inestimable blogger and CityLife scribe Hugh Jackson.
  
• That reminds us: It’s been 183 days since we sent a letter to the editor of the Sun, correcting a glaring omission in a profile of another CityLife columnist, Gustavo Arellano. (The Sun forgot to note that Arellano’s Ask a Mexican column runs in our pages.) We’re starting to think those bastards aren’t going to publish our letter!
  
• Back in my day, we didn’t have fancy televisions! In my day, we read funny stories off parchment! And we were bored stiff, but we liked it. Then, the Civil War came…
• Quotable: "Great leaders realize there are just moments, windows of opportunity, and I think he missed." — Princeton history Professor Julian Zelizer, on U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. (For his part, Reid argues the Republican minority has nailed the windows of opportunity shut using the Democrats’ once-favored filibuster technique, but using it more than ever before in Senate history. (Reid still got a 3.128 out of 5, according to experts quoted by the Sun.)
  
• Anybody out there see Mitt Romney’s dad march "hand-in-hand" with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.? If so, were they riding astride majestic unicorns, hoisting fairy princesses on their shoulders and helping a mermaid get back to her undersea home? (And the saddest thing? The mermaid part of that sentence is the part most likely to be true!)
  
• Let’s get this straight: Chelsea Clinton hits the campaign trail for her mom, but refuses to talk to press? Even when the "press" is a 9-year-old girl writing for the Scholastic News? Sure, Chelsea declined politely, but whatever. If she’s on the campaign trail, she’s putting herself in the arena. To refuse to be accessible to reporters is … pretty much in keeping with the Clinton strategy, we guess.
  
• Hey, we know! How about a total ban on anything Chelsea Clinton says to anybody at any time on the campaign trail? If she won’t talk to press, then the press shouldn’t talk to (or quote) her. At all. Problem solved.
  
• Quotable: "I am the most powerful man in Nevada. … If you guys have a problem with the way I am handling things, you can leave." — Steve Wynn, in a meeting with his employees, according to a federal administrative law judge’s ruling.
  
• Ironically, Wynn came to the meeting wearing fake vampire teeth, trying to strike a lighter tone. And he would have, if he’d chosen an appropriate getup. Like, say, a clown costume. More particularly, an ass-clown costume.
  
• Quotable: "I’m the home team. There are the Pats, there’s the Sox, there’s the Celtics, and then there’s Adelson. They’re champions in what they do. We’re the champions in what we do." — Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson, using the royal "we."
  
• An omen? Senior Judge Miriam Shearing, who was serving on the Supreme Court in 2001 when the Nevada State Education Association’s initiative to tax business profits was struck down on constitutional grounds, will hear the Nevada Resort Association’s challenge to the teachers union’s latest initiative, a gambling tax increase, which is being challenged for the same reason. What a coincidence, no?