I completely agree with Steve M. that Romney will pay no price for his outright lies and wingnut craziness in the general election. After all, even the liberal Politifact agrees that Democrats tell worse lies.
My favorite Romney story, because it’s just the kind of thing Establishment media savaged Al Gore for supposedly telling, is this one:
A day after being labelled “out of touch” for casually offering a $10,000 bet to a rival candidate, Mr Romney told supporters he had experienced austerity as a missionary in France, using a bucket for a lavatory and a hose for a shower. “You’re not living high on the hog at that kind of level,” he said.
But the Republican presidential hopeful spent a significant portion of his 30-month mission in a Paris mansion described by fellow American missionaries to The Daily Telegraph as “palace”. It featured stained glass windows, chandeliers, and an extensive art collection. It was staffed by two servants – a Spanish chef and a houseboy.
Although he spent time in other French cities, for most of 1968, Mr Romney lived in the Mission Home, a 19th century neoclassical building in the French capital’s chic 16th arrondissement. “It was a house built by and for rich people,” said Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president at the time of Mr Romney’s stay. “I would describe it as a palace”.
None of this will hurt Romney at all, because like it or not, you hippies, the man has the requisite Hayekian modesty to be president.
What will hurt Romney in the general is all the bullshit about the moat on the border patrolled by sharks with frickin’ laser beams. I almost wonder if the complacency of the librul media has lulled Republicans into a false sense of security, that it made them they believe they can get by with brown-baiting in the primaries the same way they get by with the rest of the lies and craziness. But I don’t think they can.
Veritas
Yup, you got it.
Get ready for a long, painful general election followed by a crushing defeat for Obambi, “progressives”.
The Koch Bros. have big, fat stacks of UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH, and they’re going to use it to go negative on Obambi while Mitt stays squeaky clean. It will make the Swift Boating of John “Effing” Kerry look like a walk in the park by comparison. We’re talking massive ad buys, feature-length films, direct mail, websites, social networking groups–the whole nine yards.
Davis X. Machina
None of this matters.
Romney’s white. He’s a guy. He wears suits, and makes President-noises. He has an R after his name.
So the bidding opens somewhere between 55 and 60 million votes in the general election. Nothing – nothing can push that number below 50 million.
I suppose in a country where Velveeta™ can be sold as cheese, Veritas can use his screen name free from worries about the FTC.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, I’m wondering if the teatwits and their talibangelical allies and fellow travellers can get past all the baggage Romney carries, particularly the magic underpants baggage, and actually rally behind him in the general, as they did for the “unacceptable” John McCain in 2008.
Normally these authoritarian followers would just fall into line, albeit not with a song in their hearts, but they’d obey because it’s their nature to, if not with great enthusiasm. Of course, in 2008 they had Mooselini to cheer them up, seeing as how she just bitch slapped the hell out of liebral Katie Couric by refusing to answer a question about what newspapers and magazines she looked at the pictures of.
So, perhaps Romney will make a similar move to placate the mouth breathers of the base, so that they can hold their noses as they vote for the member of a satanic cult as chief executive, hoping that whoever it is that is their rep in the veepship can cause the much needed tripping down a flight of stairs to rid themselves of the satanic cultists two months into the term.
This all assumes, of course, that the rest of the country fails to show up at the polls and give Obama the thundering landslide that seems to be on the horizon for him.
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Holy shit, nobody’s ever tried that before.
dmsilev
For Christmas, can we please get a new set of trolls? We promise to take good care of them, and feed them and walk them and mock them and everything. The old trolls suck.
Please?
Veritas
@Chyron HR
This is different. Again, thanks to Citizens United, folks like the Koch Bros. can spend UNLIMITED AMOUNTS OF ANONYMOUS, CORPORATE CASH to run absolutely brutal negative advertising campaigns against Obambi, while Romney remains above the fray. UNLIMITED CASH.
Brian
@dmsilev: ROFL!
Captain Haddock
Oh, I think they can get away with it. I live in a racially and economically mixed area (college town, inner city), but come voting time, who do I see at the polls? Old white people mostly. I assume – HOPE – the college kids vote from home or use absentee ballots.
Villago Delenda Est
@Veritas:
That’s a pretty good Darth Sidious. Did you understudy Ian McDiarmid by any chance?
JGabriel
@Veritas:
And you’re proud of this?
Hmm.
.
lacp
@Captain Haddock: What makes you think they’ll be allowed to?
Veritas
@JGabriel
Does the fact I just stated about the Koch Bros. piss you off, JGabriel? Mad?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
You’re basing that last sentence on…..what?
Certainly not the corporate media I’ve been observing since, oh, 1997-98.
Those spots ain’t gonna change in 2012.
Captain Haddock
@lacp: Who will be allowed to what?
Chyron HR
@Veritas:
Are you okay? You’re breathing kind of funny there.
Oh. Ewwwww. Never mind.
JGabriel
@Villago Delenda Est:
Heh. I think there’s a little more Snidely Whiplash and Mr. Potter in Veritas’s performance (and world-view).
.
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: Two things about John McCain, though, that Romney can’t count on. One, the media always loved McCain, including liberal and liberal-ish people like Jon Stewart and the writers of Saturday Night Live. They liked his uncensored nature and his behind-the-scenes dirty stories. Romney doesn’t have them on his side, and for damn sure is neither uncensored nor fun to hang out with. Two, McCain can channel anger and toughness. Even if other Republicans didn’t like what he stood for or what he did, they had to respect that he often did it with rage; the way he carries himself is all about how in his heyday he could kick your ass, and probably still could. Romney doesn’t have any of that attitude or image. So Romney isn’t interesting, isn’t funny, isn’t aggressive, isn’t fun to be around, and doesn’t stand for anything. That’s a lot to overcome with a pile of money. It didn’t work for Carly Fiorina, either.
Kane
Team Romney appears to have adopted a familiar theme similar to the one often offered by Bush and McCain and others for the defense of their Iraq policies. Instead of wrapping himself in the American flag and accusing critics of the war of being unpatriotic dividers, Romney is wrapping himself in the flag of “Free Enterprise” and arguing that any criticism of his actions at Bain of destroying American jobs and outsourcing jobs abroad is an attack on free enterprise itself and that you’re dividing Americans.
Litlebritdifrnt
I was in my car this afternoon after picking up my lunch and a woman called in to Rush Limbaugh, she gushed his praises, then said that “we have no cable or internet so we rely on you for all of our news”. She then gushed some more and said that she had home-schooled her children because of Rush and used his radio shows in lessons. These people vote. That is what scares me.
dmsilev
@Litlebritdifrnt: Sounds like members of a cult who are going to need to be deprogrammed.
chopper
@Veritas:
tell us more about this magical future. are there flying cars?
Veritas
@Litlebritdifrnt
As opposed to such geniuses as these who can vote?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI
Seriously. This woman thought Obambi was going to pay for her mortgage. Must be quite a disappointment, but it does go to show you their attitudes towards government–use it to steal other people’s money and redistribute it.
“The problem with Social1sm is you eventually run out of Other People’s Money”–Margaret Thatcher
EconWatcher
I@Veritas:
Got a question for you, buddy: How is some kind of unhinged negative advertising onslaught going to work against Obama this time around?
See, here’s the problem: That might work for someone people don’t know. But Obama’s been in the public eye constantly for four years and counting. People know him. And mostly, they like him–even those who don’t agree with his politics.
So let’s see: Secret Muslim? Palling around with terrorists? Woops, he killed Osama.
Gonna take your guns away? He sure kept that quiet.
Obamacare? That’s just another name for RomneyCare, and everybody knows it.
Crazy tax and spend liberal? He’s offered big deals. But all Republican candidates are on record that they will not accept ten dollars of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases to balance the budget. Sell that one in the general, smart guy.
I’m sure your buddies will bring this campaign to new lows in sleazy smears, playing on a 24-7 loop, because hey, that’s just how they roll. But I don’t see how it’ll stick this time around.
JGabriel
@Veritas:
On the contrary. I like getting in flame wars with you, Veritas. Usually I feel kind of guilty about them, but with someone who has views as repugnant as yours, it’s like beating Hitler with a lead pipe. I get to be mean and enjoy it.
Does it bother you, that people equate you with evil? That the people who pay you to spread these views on blogs will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes?
Ooh, I see a tear. Are you scared, widdle fascist?
.
cathyx
DougJ-
Is it your goal to make the title of every post you write a song lyric?
dmsilev
@EconWatcher:
According to the NRA, the fact that he’s kept quiet is *proof* that he’s coming for your guns.
Maybe someone should buy Wayne LaPierre a tinfoil hat for Christmas.
Monkey Business
I’m just wondering, how exactly will the Koch Brothers huge stacks of hard, throbbing corporate cash help the Republican candidate defeat the President?
John McCain, for all his bluster, was at least somewhat reasonable, and had the war hero thing going for him.
The collective GOP field is ten pounds of crazy in a five pound hat, and a thimblefull of common sense in a big empty glass.
I underestimate the American electorate as much as anyone, and believe that if you are willing to be an absolute racist nutbag you can win local and maybe even statewide elections. However, I do not believe that you can openly be a racist nutbag and win a national election. To do so would be to say that this is a fundamentally racist nutbag country, and I refuse to believe that to be true.
However, more importantly than my philosophical beliefs, what exactly are the Koch Brothers going to say about Obama they haven’t already said? He’s a communist, an anarchist, a socialist, an anti-colonialist, an illegal alien (both terrestrial and otherwise), a Kenyan, a usurper… What names are left? Are they going to hire people to go on TV, hold up pictures of the President, and go “He’s a n****r!”? Because I’m pretty sure that’s all they’ve got left in the Lee Atwater Memorial Dirty Toolbox.
ObamaDem
Here we go again, with some on the Left joining the delusional, clueless republicans in thinking whatever clownish nominee emerges will get away with the usual GOP garbage, mendacity, dissembling, distortions, etc. Not happening, period, because the Obama campaign won’t let it.
The Bush MO in 04 is referenced as a “success” for shady tactics, yet the skills demonstrated by the Obama campaign in 2008, and its success in not defeating both Clinton’s and McCain’s shenanigans to stand is ignored. Not sure why.
Ed in NJ
I guess the troll doesn’t realize that Obama has been in office for 3 years and already went through a presidential campaign. It’s the advantage of incumbency. What negative attacks are going to be run that are not just warmed over birtherism, faux scandals, and dog whistles that everyone has seen and heard before?
The race will be won or lost on the economy and how much everyone hates Romney by election day. In a way, it’s comparable to Bush v Kerry. Will the electorate be willing to look past a still-sputtering economy and re-elect Obama over someone they can’t stand? Just like the electorate was willing to overlook GWB’s incompetence post-9/11 to avoid having a President Kerry.
JMG
Negative advertising is effective in inverse proportion to how well known the person being attacked is. So it’s less effective against an incumbent President (of either party) than against anyone else. That’s just political science. It’s balanced by the fact a decisive minority of the electorate blames an incumbent President for anything that happens in their lives which they don’t like — including their daughter’s new boyfriend.
chopper
@EconWatcher:
hey now. clearly, a dude with a ceiling of %25 within his own party is going to whip the shit out of a president who has a near %50 approval in the midst of a depression. obviously people like mittens more than obama. it’s totes obvious.
Veritas
@chopper:
“Near 50%”? Try around 42. And Obambi won’t outperform his approval rating in the popular vote. Incumbent Presidents don’t.
This election is a referrendum, not a choice.
agrippa
There are no readily discernable consequences for lying. This has been true from the start of the republic. Perhaps, from to time, there have been some voters who punished a candidate by voting against him/her. But, there is guarantee of that.
Chyron HR
@Ed in NJ:
But this is DIFFERENT! UNLIMITED CASH! ANONYMOUS campaign commercials for Mitt Romney that somehow nobody will associate with Mitt Romney! VICTORY!
dmsilev
@Chyron HR: Be kind to the troll. Apparently it thinks that 42 is equal to 49.
DougJ
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Republican poll numbers among Latinos are in the toilet. It really is a killer for them.
chopper
@Veritas:
so what color will these magical cars come in? please say blue.
shit, 75% of republicans hate mittens’ guts. and those are the guys who are supposed to like him. even UNLIMITED CASH can’t save that loser. the koch brothers know it, that’s why they were backing someone else.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@JGabriel:
You and me both, my good man. You and me both.
agrippa
@Veritas:
The problem with Social1sm is you eventually run out of Other People’s Money”—Margaret Thatcher
Socialism does not exist.
fail
Culture of Truth
Romney doesn’t work and still makes $25,000.
A day.
ruemara
Can we just cage the troll for a bit? At this point it’s become a stupid spammer.
agrippa
@Veritas:
The name is Barack Obama.
Not Obambi.
another fail.
Rusty
@FlipYrWhig: This is my perception of the media’s perception of Romney, too. Well said, in my opinion. The media is going to have some fun batting Romney around. They especially don’t like politicians who sequester themselves away from their prodding questions, e.g. Palin. They like supposed straight talkers who answer their questions at any time, morning, noon, or night. That isn’t Romney. The media forgives and forgets a lot of a candidate who has a new quip or answer at the ready.
agrippa
@Veritas:
Does the fact I just stated about the Koch Bros. piss you off, JGabriel? Mad?
No
Derisive laughter
third fail.
On one thread
well done
slag
@DougJ:
I just hope we can pick it up in GOTV efforts.
I’ve sworn to not give Dems money this year (after the debt ceiling fiasco), but time is another story. The only question is, will nagging be enough? The DREAM Act seems a pipe dream at this point. And, anecdotally, even some in the traditional voting blocs are still threatening to fold their arms and stamp their feet instead of voting in 2012. I hope the campaign turns that around. Because, as always, it’s all about turnout.
chopper
@dmsilev:
also, a president’s popular vote percentage is never higher than his approval rating the year before the election. that makes sense.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Yeah, the current batch only wants to talk about pie!
jl
A little off topic, bur related to ‘paying a price’ for bad faith and BS.
Latest spin I heard from House GOP on news radio this morning was that they were bravely standing on ‘principle’. The specific principle in question was never mentioned by the House GOPper, and the silly ‘news analysis’ following echoed the fact that allegiance to unspecified ‘principles’ were driving the House GOP. It was the ‘principled’ House GOP versus everyone else willing to ‘hold their noses’ and get the dirty job done.
Hold their noses over exactly what, for a miserable two week extension?
It was really bizarre. A media narrative completely divorced from any recognizable reality. Seems to me it was the completely unrelated poison pills introduced by the GOP itself, and the lack of principle in holding that only tax cuts for high income earners do not need to be paid for, that made any nose holding necessary.
It was kind of irritating to listen to, but I wonder whether anyone outside the 27 percenters could take such obviously and hilariously empty flimflam seriously.
slag
@ruemara:
Reluctantly agreed. Preschools have nap time for a reason.
GregB
I hope that during the campaign, Joe Biden re-uses the old Dick Cheney line about terrorists.
If we elect the
DemocratsRepublicans there’s a chance we could be hit again and hit hard.Oh that would be funny.
Sasha
Add “(I hope.)” to the end of this paragraph and you’re on the right track.
wrb
@ruemara:
It is indistinguishable from trolls that populated a local forum that I gave up reading because they were so tedious and predictable. This troll is so without talent it is rendering these threads too boring to read.
Squish it.
Roger Moore
@chopper:
Well, Very Serious People like Mittens more than Barack, and isn’t that who really matters? Who cares what the voters think, or think they think. By election time, they’ll think what their betters tell them to think.
Mary G
I guess I am a cock-eyed optimist, because it seems to me that even the low-information voters are beginning to blame the Republicans for the mess in Washington. Sometimes I even wonder if President Obama was playing the fabled 11th dimensional chess by playing weak and letting the opposition rage out of control so badly they are hanging themselves with the rope he has provided. This payroll tax thing is big. The primary is a popcorn manufacturer’s dream.
Of course, the Democrats still have time to roll over and hand the advantage back with another chickenshit surrender disguised as a compromise. In the spirit of Christmas, I am hoping for change.
jibeaux
Dammit, I said new thread without troll santorum all over it and you guys take the bait the very next time, wtf is wrong with you all?
EconWatcher
@jibeaux:
You’re right of course. And we’re probably all just arguing with Dougj anyway. He’s sneaky, that one.
David Hunt
@DougJ:
I expect that helps explain why they’re working so hard on suppressing votes. I’m sure there will be a bunch of efforts to convince Latinos that if they show up to the polls, their whole families will be shipped of to Columbia even if they were all born in Des Moines and don’t even speak Spanish. You only have to get the majority of the votes that are cast…and counted.
DougJ
@cathyx:
Yes, I thought everyone knew that already.
gaz
@Veritas:
Shorter Veritas:
YAY CORRUPTION!
mpbruss
It’s hilarious to me that some people seem to think the Citizens United decision only affects Republican candidates. Obama broke every fundraising record known to man in 2008, and he will almost certainly break his own record in 2012. The guy knows how to raise money and campaign, and every one of his potential rivals has given him more than enough material to work with. Demographic trends being what they are, Republicans have done great work on establishing their permanent irrelevance outside of the south, starting in the very near future.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I suspect the wanting to make your grandparents eat dog food by freeing them from the evils of socialist medicare an’t helping the GOP either, judging by their frantic efforts to spin that.
Culture of Truth
He’s dead to me.
wrb
Dougj:
Humph.
Highly dubious. They just swap one set of voters for another.
But we’ve disagreed about this before. No need to repeat.
slag
@Culture of Truth:
Yeah. But you don’t understand. He’s a producer! A risk taker! A job creationist! He earned it all! On a level playing field where all the rich white dudes who were born to other rich white dudes wrastle it out to see who gets to be the Richest, Whitest Dude of All, which is the title he won. He’s entitled, you know.
Dr. Loveless
@DougJ:
And if anyone in the GOP or the Village ever listened to Spanish-language media — hell, if any of them even spoke Spanish — they’d know that all the brown-bashing is not going unnoticed. Whether it affects the outcome of the election is up in the air, but between Latinos and Millennials, the GOP has blown off the two fastest-growing chunks of the electorate.
Culture of Truth
Hands filled with sandwiches, Romney began auctioning the subs out to the press, yelling, “Who wants a veggie? We have an Italian here, who wants an Italian? Turkey…turkey…I’ve got a whole flock.”
When no one wanted a ham sub he was offering, Romney joked, “What are you guys eating back there? Filet mignon with some brie, is that it back here? What’s going on?”
A reporter responded: “Arugula.”
“Yeah, some arugula. This is the John Kerry bus, back there, I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling.
Culture of Truth
Joseph Nobles
Veritas, you ignorant slut.
Satanicpanic
@Ed in NJ: Solyndra! Because the right thinks that everyone cares about that.
Judas Escargot
@JGabriel:
Naw, in my head he sounds more like Vizzini from The Princess Bride. (Or, for those who prefer scifi to fantasy, the Ferengi Grand Nagus from DS9– same vox, after all).
Try reading one of his comments out loud in your best Wallace Shawn impression. All anger subsides.
Gin & Tonic
@Culture of Truth: Ouch. Next you’ll probably tell me he was eating “Manhattan clam chowder.”
boss bitch
I think you’re both wrong. Romney will be effectively painted as an emotionless corporate raider who lies at the drop of the hat and will say anything you want him to because he so desperately wants to be president. His flip flopping will be used to show that he can’t make decisions as a leader and he’ll be saying all kinds of crazy shit in order to please the tea party.
Chris
@Dr. Loveless:
Back in 2010, I read that there were several districts where the media either predicted the wrong winner or overestimated the margin of victory for the Republicans – because they were relying on polls that didn’t call primarily-Spanish-speaking households.
The Dewey-Defeats-Truman effect all over again, as it were.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@DougJ:
Okay, now I get it. I thought you meant “getting away with it” in terms of getting away with it witht the corporate media drones.
They will continue to do so with that crowd. Brown people? You’re right and the polls have consistently been that way since Obama was sworn in and *really* that way since the Teatards took over the House.
There’s a reason state Repups are trying to disenfranchise so many voters, lord knows they can’t win them over by, oh, what they say about them on a routine basis. Oh, I see that’s already been said in #57.
Brachiator
I’m not sure what the price is supposed to be, or who collects it.
This will hurt with a lot of Democratic voters, but I don’t know what the general mood towards immigration will be in November. Mitt’s best shot will be to downplay the hard core on the right and pretend that he will be a moderate Republican with a conservative core. Then it will depend on how many voters fall for this ruse.
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
No, because you’d just get tired of playing with your new trolls after 5 minutes and come whining about wanting more!
Dang – I was a dad for too long :)
Kirk Spencer
@Mary G:
I think this week locked it. That little game the House Republicans played with the payroll tax and unemployment extension and the rest is going to tick off a lot of people.
“Hi. Your benefits are ended. Have a nice day. Signed, your house Republican Representative. Oh, and don’t forget to vote.”
I’m already seeing unhappiness among long-time R voters I know.
DougJ
@Brachiator:
Ah, the usual non-quantitative bullshit about how immigration won’t hurt Republicans. Tough to win elections when you pull 32% of the Latino vote. It is that simple.
demz taters
@Litlebritdifrnt: It scares me more that they breed.
dmsilev
@Schlemizel: Awwwww, you’re no fun. I hate you I hate you I hate you!
The Moar You Know
No biggie. The only people who hate Willard more than Democrats are Republicans. Sure, they’ll rally around the pinata like they always do, but it will be with all the enthusiasm they mustered for McCain. Minus evangelicals.
You all can keep trying to rebut the imbecile posting upthread, but I’d save your pixels for something important. The losing end of history is replete with useless pawns shrieking “VICTORY”, while the winners quietly go about carving the intestines out of those who funded the useless pawns.
Brachiator
@DougJ:
Jeebus on a swizel stick. I never said that immigration won’t hurt Republicans. I am in Southern California, where I saw Meg Whitman’s attempt to win the gubernatorial election collapse over the nanny issue.
But this does not mean that the immigration issue will resonate with voters on a national level, compared with other issues, like, you know, JOBS. And the Latino vote is concentrated in key states, and no one knows what voter turnout will be.
Anyone suggesting that the Latino vote is the single key or locked up, or even that Latinos have a single view about immigration is just making shit up.
Schlemizel
@dmsilev:
KEEP IT UP YOUNG @dmsilev: AND I’LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT!
every parent has to channel their own once in a while
JCT
@Litlebritdifrnt: Was Limbaugh moaning as he enjoyed this virtual blow job?
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
I dunno, the VSPs don’t seem all that fond of Romney, either. They did love them some W back in 2000, because they’d all known him for years and he was just the kind of glad-handing, back-slapping asshole they love best.
Romney, not so much. In the high school world of the Village, W was the head cheerleader, but Romney is the president of the chess club. Tolerated, but not actually popular.
Schlemizel
@Mnemosyne:
I have been trying to get a mental image for the way Willard gets treated by the Kool Kids Klub & you hit it right on the head – thx
Litlebritdifrnt
@demz taters:
Worse still they breed future voters :)
Linda Featheringill
By the way, while we are throwing numbers around:
John McCain garnered 53% of the white vote in 2008 and it wasn’t enough. Barack Obama took in 47% of the white vote and won handily. [Of course, he did much better with minority voters, about 80% or something like that.}
DougJ
@Brachiator:
You honestly believe that eight months of non-stop anti-Latino rhetoric might not hurt Republican with Latino voters?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Roger Moore: Aren’t these the very same VSP who liked McCain more than Obama?
carpeduum
Shorter DougJ post.
“The media is lazy”.
wrb
Well, just to state the reason for a differing perception: I live in a county with a median family income of $35,000 with a less than 5% Latino population and the immigration issue is absolutely radioactive among the voters (meaning most voters) who feel threatened by non-citizen labor.
All the stuff Democrats do for the working class doesn’t matter in comparison.
and
Latino votes aren’t going to swing this county, but the impression that one party is less likely to protect working class citizens easily could.
So I just don’t think the net effect is as clear as you think it is. Maybe the balance will tip in the direction you think, but that seems highly uncertain when in this environment.
This is not an anti-brown comment, just about tactics and outcomes.
MarkJ
I don’t know. I think, if nominated, Romney is just the kind of candidate the press corps likes to give the Al Gore treatment. The flip flopping, the patrician waspy attitude, the woodenness. I don’t see the R next to his name saving him from a savaging at his first general election misstep. That assumes, of course, that he wins the primary, and I think there’s still some doubt about that.
Judas Escargot
OT but, breaking… Holder says Obama will indeed issue a signing statement regarding the NDAA.
trollhattan
@Schlemizel:
Even worse: will spend the next week playing with the troll’s crate.
If we’re lucky, the dog will get hold of the troll.
boss bitch
@Judas Escargot:
beat me to it.
MikeJ
@MarkJ: Romney also doesn’t handle pressure or challenges of any kind well. Obama will have him running around in circles clucking like a chicken.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Veritas: Anyone else notice V is advocating two brothers completely destroying the Constitution in order to get one man into office?
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
I’ve said this before, but if they lose two elections in a row with a “RINO” representing their side, I’d be surprised if their next candidate wasn’t dressed up in white sheets and dunce hat.
trollhattan
Something to keep in mind is that despite the lazy, shiftless media and the evil Republican overlords, the clever people will still mostly be on Obama’s side. An example.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/newtgingrichcom-goes-to-embarrassing-moments.html
dmsilev
OT, but too too funny. According to the NY Times, newtgingrich.com is owned by a Democratic PAC, and they’ve just listed the domain for sale on Craigslist for …one MILLION dollars.
Mnemosyne
@Judas Escargot:
… and then the firebagger screaming begins that Obama promised not to do any signing statements and he’s a sellout and he sucks and we need to primary him etc. etc. etc.
Can’t win.
Snowball
@Veritas:
Kind of like when you stole my money to pay for your Iraq war?
You don’t mind spending other people’s money as long as it for something you agree with.
Citizen_X
@Litlebritdifrnt:
So that’s how our troll got that way!
Valdivia
@MikeJ: I totally agree with this.
I know the meme that Obama is weak is strong with the Republicans and even some Dems but can you imagine Romney handling the amount of bs that the media and the Reps and some dems have thrown at Obama? He would melt in a minute. Romney ha a glass jaw it’s just that no one has touched it yet.
Davis X. Machina
@Snowball: Then it’s not other people’s.
A Democrat looks at half-a-glass of water, and sees a glass half-empty.
A Republican looks at half-a-glass of water, and says “Hey, that’s my fucking glass.”
Davis X. Machina
@Valdivia: You can pay people to not-touch it. Handsomely.
boss bitch
This Thread Needs An Exterminator!
Roger Moore
@wrb:
Which, IMO, is why the Republicans aren’t going to take as big an advantage of this as they potentially could. The Republican take on anti-immigration is based much more in xenophobia than economics. They spend a lot more time talking about scary brown people who commit crime and don’t speak English than they do about low wage workers stealing your jobs. I assume some of that is because they don’t want to piss off the business faction of the party, which wants illegal immigration precisely because it tends to depress wages, and some of it is that they’ve found that xenophobia sells. But part of the problem they’re encountering with the xenophobia side of things is that it scares away working class Latino voters, who might well be won over by economics based arguments.
Narcissus
Veritas, if this is going to be your shtick, you need to be better at it.
Valdivia
@Davis X. Machina:
I’ve been wondering why no one had yet.
ed_finnerty
I dunno
The GOP just lost Barry Ritholtz with this one.
rikyrah
there is brown-baiting, and then there’s what the GOP has been doing.
when you go around the country passing the
WHAT ABOUT IF YOU AIN’T WHITE, DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND laws…
that question the basic HUMANITY of those who are BROWN…
and, the GOP pols STAY SILENT
and somehow, all is supposed to be ‘ forgiven’ come general election time?
ok, maybe Latinos roll differently than Black folk. maybe they are more understanding.
DougJ
@wrb:
Latinos will swing the country, in all likelihood. Maybe not this election and it’s still possible Romney will get in and inoculate the party from the issue. But if I had to bet on it, I’d bet that immigration swings the country Democratic within the next 10 years.
wrb
@Roger Moore:
Roger,
I think you have it exactly right.
If the Republicans actually did something effective to protect citizen workers (like fine the employers of undocumented workers) they would swing a lot more to their side. However they don’t really want to stop it, because their “job creator” constituency doesn’t want to pay more for those jobs, so their stuck with xenophobia, which less powerful, and rallies fewer people than would something real.
wrb
@DougJ:
Perhaps.
My bet would be that when Latinos got the numbers to swing the election the Republicans would immediately drop the xenophobia and stress abortion, Christianity and their other issues that play well with the Latino electorate.
I’m not confident that the Latino vote will stay on the D side.
But I could be wrong.
ericblair
@Roger Moore:
I think this is where things get complicated. Anybody know which way the wind is blowing in Alabama, for instance? They just fucked themselves publically and spectacularly with Papers Please laws, and I don’t know whether the public has wised up or doubled down on the stupid.
Then there’s Texas, where it’s now a serious crime to hire undocumented workers, unless you need them to clean your toilets or mow your lawn, in which case, whatyagonnado?
They know they have to do this; they already should be. They can’t get away from the xenophobia.
AA+ Bonds
Mmm hmm, oh ho ho ho ho . . . .
So, what are the odds on someone tracking down “Mitt Romney’s houseboy”?
I really like how that looks and sounds, “Mitt Romney’s houseboy”.
Maybe even “Mitt Romney’s Parisian houseboy”.
MarkJ
@AA+ Bonds: Yes, that’s John Kerry windsurfing times ten.
AnotherBruce
The problem with capitalism is that the banks eventually run out of other people’s money.
Chris
@ericblair:
Yeah, but
Ding ding ding ding ding.
Bush and Rove already tried to make inroads into the Latino community, and it worked to an extent, not enough to flip the entire Latino vote, but every little bit helps. Then the teabaggers took over the party, destroyed all that work and then some, so they’re back to square one. Before Latinos can start voting GOP in large numbers, they have to feel secure enough to do so, which means the GOP base has to stop using them as a punching bag.
When you look at the last wave of immigrants (Irish/Italian/Polish/etc), quite a few of them defected to the GOP starting in the late sixties. But that was only possible IMO because the WASPs stopped pummeling them, or at least toned it down to quite an extent. If the dividing line between WASPs and immigrants had still been as big a deal then as it had been in the past, it would’ve been much harder, if not impossible, for Nixon and Reagan to draw the kind of voters they did.
Catsy
@Litlebritdifrnt:
OT, but I have no idea why we, as a country, allow this sort of thing.
I mean, I get that people have different beliefs and stuff. They have the right to pass on their values to their children, no matter how repugnant or insane those values are. They have a right to raise their children the way they see fit, within limits. And we do set limits. One of those limits is the requirement that they ensure that their children have at least a basic education.
I hear tell of–and have met–so many homeschooled children who were left utterly unprepared for the real world because their parents refused to teach them anything that disagreed with their world-view. I’m not opposed to homeschooling on principle, but I am opposed to allowing people to do permanent harm to their children by replacing that basic education with propaganda, mythology and hate.
A lot of what is wrong with this country that persists from generation to generation can be traced back to this kind of dangerous indoctrination, this uncontested bubble that parents are allowed to keep their kids in under the guise of freedom of religion. Religious freedom is not a license for child abuse, and this ought to be recognized as such.
pseudonymous in nc
There’s this funny belief among GOPers that if you say something in English, Teh Mescans can’t hear you.
Catsy
@wrb:
Here’s the problem with that: even if you assume that Latino voters have no long-term memory and will cheerfully forget all those decades that the GOP dehumanized and demonized them by pandering to the xenophobic racists in their party, the xenophobic racists are still xenophobic racists. What are they going to do when the GOP tries to pivot to amnesty and immigrant love?
My bet is that they’re going to do exactly what they’re already doing as teabaggers: nominate and elect insane people, and force non-insane GOP candidates to answer damaging questions, say phenomenally stupid shit, and pass impossible purity tests. They’re not going to suddenly stop being xenophobic racist assholes just because the GOP establishment realizes the party needs to change its tune or face death by demographics.
Villago Delenda Est
@Catsy:
Just this.
The stink of the racist assholes is now a permanent part of the odor of the GOP. Deal with it.
wrb
@Catsy:
I disagree for this reason: those running and governing are insincere about the xenophobia. Or at least it isn’t important to them. If they weren’t they would do something to actually keep the furriners out. They make a lot of xenophobic noise and fan the flame of xenophobia because they see it as a strategy that works, at this time.
If Latino numbers rise to the point that the xenophobia is a major barrier to their gaining power and money, they will pivot and the nominee will be a neo-Nixon, embracing the once toxic.
Rove tried to pivot too early, is what I think a lot of the party thinks.
wrb
@Villago Delenda Est:
Blacks somehow came around to voting for Democrats, post-Nixon.
The taints don’t stick. People vote for the individual. All the Rs will have to do is nominate the new, non-racist anti-abortion pro-church Republican.
OzoneR
@Veritas:
Which explains why Bush got 51% when his approval rating was 47%.
OzoneR
@wrb:
Neither am I. At one point Italian-Americans were electing people like Vito Marcantonio to Congress, now the same people who sent him to Congress, their descendants are sending Peter King, Scott Garrett, Michael Grimm.
People change over time and forget who they were. It’s my grandmother bitching and moaning about immigrants taking jobs from real Americans when her parents came to Indiana from Italy 85 years ago and blue blood Indianans thought they took their jobs.
It’s a vicious circle
Catsy
@wrb:
It doesn’t matter whether they are or aren’t sincere.
The xenophobic racist assholes in their base are sincere. And they will not be silent while the GOP tries to throw their entire system of beliefs under the bus and pretend they don’t exist.
And when the Democrats repudiated the racists in their base and embraced civil rights, what happened to those racists who used to vote for Democrats?
Oh, right: they changed parties and started voting for the GOP.
So what happens when the GOP tries to do the same thing? What are those voters going to do? For whom are they going to vote?
What happens to the GOP when a nontrivial chunk of their base decides to 1) fight to nominate mouth-breathing racist teabaggers in an attempt to take back the party, 2) stay home in disgust, or 3) jump ship the way the Dixiecrats did and join, say, the Constitution Party?
Because other than holding their nose and voting for a party that repudiates them–something not all of them are going to be willing to do–those are the options left if the GOP really does have a come-to-Jesus moment with immigration.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@OzoneR: This. The American identity is premised upon an ability to forget. Amnesia is assimilation.
Brachiator
@DougJ:
All right. Let’s work it out step by step.
Latinos are not monolithic. Anti-immigration rhetoric is not exactly the same as anti-Latino rhetoric, no matter how loudly Balloon Juicers want to insist that it is.
And yeah, gabacho bigotry is apparently mobilizing Latino voters. Is this going to be enough to swing the election definitively toward the Democrats? I don’t know. As someone who is pro Obama, I would hope so. But what I hope is not the same thing as analysis.
So the Nate Silver type question, still only a projection or a prediction, would be whether strong Latino turnout can have an impact on electoral vote outcomes in states where Latinos are strong. The other thing that might be interesting would be actual polling of Latino voter sentiment. Otherwise, people are just guessing and assuming what Latinos might do. This is good for cheer leading and blogging, but otherwise is meaningless.
Chris
@Catsy:
Agree with this too. Question for Republicans is, if they drop the xenophobic rhetoric, will the Latino voters they pick up be enough to make up for their losses in the current teabagger base? As long as the answer’s “no,” they’ll stick to what they have now.
pseudonymous in nc
@OzoneR:
It’s the American way: immigrant to nativist in three generations.
But it’s most notable today, I think, among those who got the Levittown leg-up in the post-war era. That’s what created the O’Reillys and Scalias and Alitos: subsidised housing and cheap education and an environment of class mobility. I’m not sure the same conditions exist today.
Mike G
After suffering criticism for offering a $10,000 bet to a rival candidate, Romney retorted, “OK, we’ll just have our butlers fight to the death.”
wrb
@Catsy:
Stick with the GOP. The xenophobic thing was fun and effective in peeling of a bunch of the the working class for the cause of the 1%, but no real xenophobes are going to vote for the liberals.
So they gotta talk pretty for awhile. They are down with that. That is, like, MILITARY.
pattonbt
@Chris: One thing I always gave Bush a tiny smidge of credit for (individually) was his views (outspoken) on Latino’s and immigration. While they weren’t quite where I’d prefer my presidents to be, they were heaps better than the other asshats in his party.
Alex
I’ve decided to picture Salma Hayek every time DougJ uses the word “Hayekian.” Modesty, indeed.
Chris
@pattonbt:
That and the fact that he made distinctions between fighting terrorism and fighting Islam.
He was the first president I paid attention to and I wasn’t that impressed at the time: I acknowledged it, but, okay, you’re not a flaming bigot, what do you want, a cookie? Now that I see what the TPM’s made of, it does seem slightly more meaningful.
AA+ Bonds
Well, if you keep saying that it’ll probably come true, in other words, don’t say this
Dr. Squid
@Mnemosyne: Naw, World Affairs Club. Too dumb for the chess club. Same deal, though.
@MarkJ: The media sure do love them some tire swings. And booze. Neither of which Mittens has.