Aside from Bobo, everyone — including the National Review — is hammering Mitt for not releasing his tax returns. Usually, the right likes to defend its own no matter what, but my take is that they just can’t get behind geeky bean-counting shenanigans. If Bain had shot striking workers or used its own paramilitary force to overthrow left-leaning governments, that would be cool, but it seems they were just wonky paper-pushers. Where’s the romance in that?
Rich people like conservatism because it protects their interests but conservatism is often about something more mystical and magical than simple cha-ching. Corey Robin:
“When I said that the neocon project was not about defending oil, that it was much more a Kulturkampf that goes to the heart of conservatism’s deep ambivalence about the free market, people on the left didn’t buy it,” he said. “To them it’s all just the pursuit of economic interest.”
The right loved Dick Cheney not because he was possibly a Haliburton profiteer, but because he got off on torturing people and telling Senators to go fuck themselves. If he’d been a mild-mannered Mormon technocrat, they wouldn’t have loved him, no matter how many wars he started.
Southern Beale
Everybody hates Mitt.
That doesn’t make his nomination any less inevitable, but it does mean when he goes up against Obama in the general we’re going to see an explosion of anti-Obama hate-mongering of the likes we can’t even begin to fathom. They gotta get their voters to the polls somehow.
gaz
I’m not convinced that the right is jumping all over Romney due to the nature of his shenanigans. It may play a part, but I think that the fact that they simply do not like guy counts for a hell of a lot.
shortstop
DougJ:
I never thought of the universal GOP distaste for Mitt that way, but good point. It was so much easier when they were cruel.
@gaz: But part of the reason they don’t like the guy is that he’s not exciting enough in his assholery, no?
Martin
Wait. But the right didn’t love Cheney. The neocons may have, but they’re not even that large a subset of the right. Hell, the guy’s approval rating was at 13% at one point, and I don’t think it was out of the low 30s when he left office.
I think you might be conflating the right-wing radio fluffers and the WaPo op-ed board with the party on this one, but the polling suggests that Republicans at large were at best mixed about him. Were there any serious calls for him to run for President? On paper, he’s the strongest candidate the GOP would have been able to field in a generation.
EconWatcher
@Southern Beale:
I don’t have a lot of confidence about the election because of the shaky economy. But if you’re right that they’re going to try a full-bore attack on Obama’s character–and I think you are–this will likely backfire badly.
They’ve had their chance to paint Obama as some kind of sinister character. They tried and failed. Outside the 27%, people aren’t buying it. And you can’t redefine someone the public has known for four years unless you find something new and really juicy. And they’re not going to get that from Obama.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
You may have a point that Romney just isn’t macho enough for the right. They do seem to favor manly men, heh. Of course the fact that their idea of “manly” is rather warped is beside the point.
chopper
“secretly you yearn for a cold-hearted Republican who’ll cut taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king!”
Jake Nelson
Love the song reference.
There’s a word for this mindset, y’know. It’s called “evil”. Word gets thrown around a lot, but this is one of those literal cases. Damn frustrating it’s near impossible to use it…
Cat Lady
Mitt’s a classic rich bully who will never ever deign to get his hands dirty – smiling that phony smile while his lesser minions do the wet work in quiet rooms. In the movies those guys all die a horrible death. In real life they inspire revenge fantasies. I don’t know who on earth his base is supposed to be.
PeakVT
conservatism is often about something more mystical and magical
Conservatism is ultimately about preserving the existing social structure. While the benefit is obvious economic for those on or near the top, for those farther down conservatism promises to provide certainty about their status, and reassurance that they are still above somebody.
Martin
@efgoldman: Eh. That survey is dodgy. This stands out:
$1M in assets excluding real-estate translates to an expected $50K per year in investment income. When I retire, I expect to have $1M in assets excluding real-estate, and I don’t expect to have a higher income than I do now while working. Now, if they surveyed people with returns on investment in excess of $1M last year, excluding real-estate, that’d be a more representative group to who is being targeted by this rule, but I can see a lot of the people falling in categories far outside what the Buffet Rule is intended to touch, and I can see a lot these people landing in what we would consider to be reasonable earned+unearned income brackets.
I know my mom is sitting on $1M+ in non-real estate investments, and roughly 100% of that income is going straight to health care. She’d certainly feel she should be exempt if the survey came to her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cat Lady: smiling that phony smile
I wonder how many memos have gone back and forth among his staff about that creepy, phony laugh. “Can we get him to stop doing it, or do we need to hire somebody to help him learn to laugh like a human?”
Violet
Part of why they hate Mitt is his waffling and blowing-with-the-wind positions on various issues. If, for example, he’d owned his rich guy image and said, “Hell yeah, I’m rich! I love making money for my company and everyone else. Being rich is excellent. I want everyone to be rich!” I think people would hate him a lot less.
Instead he pretends he’s unemployed, says his $350,000/year speakers fees is “not much” and refuses to release his tax returns. He’s trying to pretend he’s a regular guy when he’s about the furthest thing from it. He won’t own who he is and it makes him seem fake and people don’t like fake.
You can lather, rinse, repeat with about any issue and Mitt has acted the same way. He’s not real. People don’t like him for that reason, among many others. But I think it’s the core of why he turns off so many people.
Martin
@PeakVT:
I think that’s really the bottom line.
Jon O.
Y’know, I don’t doubt that much of the GOP establishment finds Romney odious – how can you not? – but in this instance I’m actually willing to take them at their word. Surely they understand that one way or another, economic populism is going to be one of the strongest running themes in this year’s election. Before Mitt gets coronated, they probably would like to know exactly how fragile his glass jaw is on that front.
Jay B.
I’d say that’s partially true. There will always be true believers like Robin who’ll be played for suckers. You see it in evangelical Christianity and you see it in the neo-con “killing huge numbers of their families, friends and/or neighbors will make the survivors want to be just like us” core belief system.
But those at the highest level of that enterprise, can serve multiple masters. Certainly Likud, but also Lockheed-Martin. Straussian philosophy, but also BP. Some wanted to kill a bunch of people in a deadly part of the world for some grand experiment in nation building. Others saw it as a great chance to secure gigantic oil fields. Still others simply sponsor war at all costs. All of them could be considered neo-cons.
His claim about “conservative skepticism in the free market” is a fucking joke.
Cat Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He’s trapped in the Uncanny Valley and there’s not one thing that can be done about it, unless there’s a scientist somewhere who can do personality transplants, stat. Newt’s a gaping mendacious racist asshole, but he’s really a gaping mendacious racist asshole to his very core, not just playing one on TV.
Villago Delenda Est
He’s near. Can’t get much more sinister than that.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Jon O.: That’s my thought. I think most of the GOP establishment is expressing what Christie was saying: Get them out now, so you can deal with it and get it over with.
We’re at the stage where we all know Mitt is not an typical person. The voters would accept it better if he would stop the act, and instead pretend that none of his money keeps him from understanding what the voters are going through.
ETA: I’m a geek, and while I’m smarter than most of the people I know, I did have to learn to pretend that I expect people to get it if I explain things slow enough.
Martin
@efgoldman: I’m not convinced that the rich are opposed to the Buffet Rule, though. I think the Koch brothers are, and the Walton family, and the other inheritors of massive wealth, and some of the hedge fund guys, but not most really high earners. I don’t think athletes and entertainers necessarily are, or entrepreneurs who hit it big, or even a lot of the other financial guys are. Hell, Buffet’s a fund manager and he’s got his name on this.
I think the whole issue has been massively distorted because the handful of people who are venomously opposed to the issue are basically the financial backers of the GOP, and they’ve turned it into a strangely effective wedge issue.
Oh, and anecdotally, the tea party wingnut Obama is a soçialist where’s his birth certificate neighbor of mine was foreclosed on this morning. Only the 3rd foreclosure in my immediate neighborhood (of 300 or so homes ) so it stood out. Rumor is that his also wingnut parents house a block over isn’t far behind. Who says we’re not a meritocracy?
fasteddie9318
@Jay B.:
Why? I can easily see a conservative fear that real “free markets,” if such a thing were really possible, might result in peasants/darkies/browns/fags/bitches/camel jockeys/Jews/whatever displacing fine, upstanding, straight (as far as anybody knows), rich white Christian men at the top of society. What they want is markets that are gamed to favor the right sort and heavily repress everybody else, and this is even true for conservatives who are clearly part of the “everybody else.”
Robert Sneddon
The push for Romney to put out his tax return(s) from the right-wing is pure self-protection. He has to make them public and they are going to be bad news, but the sooner they are published the quicker the right-wing pundits can start spinning the figures, whatever they are. By the time of the election they will have as much effect as the Wright “scandal” was for Obama, something the low-information majority of voters can’t quite bring to mind as they go into the voting booths and besides didn’t the press explain it all?
The delay in publishing them is to Romney’s immediate benefit; his first hurdle is to seal the nomination and releasing them right now is going to cause problems, possibly fatal ones for his chances. Get the nomination and then take the hit seems to be his plan.
gaz
@shortstop:
Absolutely, which is why I was careful not to dismiss it out of hand. The fact that he’s not a crusader certainly does work against him – people in general, and the wingers in particular, just love a good crusade – but I’m just skeptical that this is Romney’s single biggest problem with the base. Some of it too, is I think a plurality of the wingers think Romney is a RINO., also that he’s a liar (he hasn’t been very good at spin), and that he’s a *gasp* mormon. His single biggest asset to the wingers is that he looks like an aged Ken Doll, which is what I think the nom will really come down to – looks. They’re all desperate and flailing at this point. They got nuthin’ else.
Tractarian
@Southern Beale:
I call bullsh*t on this. There’s virtually nothing that hasn’t been thrown at Obama already. I mean, 27% already think he’s a Muslim Manchurian Candidate from Kenya who also happens to be the anti-Christ.
What could the GOP possibly attack Obama with that is worse than that?
I know, I know, you were exaggerating when you said “we can’t even begin to fathom” the attacks that are coming. But the point you seem to be making is that the 2012 attacks will somehow be qualitatively different from the 2008-2011 attacks, more nasty, harder to defend against… I disagree with that.
AnotherBruce
@Martin: Both things can be true.
wrb
@Cat Lady:
I can’t think of any of them anymore without disturbing imagery:
Uses of the Mitt:
If the gingrich is spasmed use the mitt to massage in santorum.
The gingrich will become
ever more slippery and supple, eventually ready for Willard.
Is there a better word for a puckered asshole than a “gingrich?”
AnotherBruce
@Tractarian: They will probably have no problem fabricating new bullshit about Obama. It probably won’t stick but they’ll try.
Zach
I bet he won’t release them. Saying that he pays 15% the other day is a good indication that this is what he’ll do for now on… he can pivot from that to explaining how we need to encourage investment in private enterprise instead of having the government take that money for socialism, and then say how he wants to make it 0% for 95+% of people so that everyone can have a stake in America’s private sector. He’ll just repeat that every time the question is asked. Anyone with that much personal wealth has all sorts of mechanisms set up that will look really bad for Mitt. His income is probably distributed between himself, his wife, and his children. He’s probably realizing it through various corporate vehicles to avoid taxes. He’s probably filed state returns in a number of states that he doesn’t actually live in.
Probably the most important thing is how careful his campaign has been when responding to questions about his Bain assets held in foreign, tax-sheltered corporations: “Romney, the campaign said, has paid all U.S. taxes on income derived from those investments.” What they mean is that he’s paid taxes on income that he’s repatriated into the United States by selling foreign assets. We have an idea of some of the magnitude of his foreign assets from his campaign disclosure, and we know the typical rate of return for the Bain funds headquartered there. His returns will show that he hasn’t paid much tax on foreign income because he’s not realized foreign capital gains.
Which brings up another question. Romney supports a repatriation tax holiday, right (temporarily tax foreign corporate profits at 5% instead of 35%). How much money would he stand to make from this? How much would he personally make from keeping the maximum long-term rate at 15% when it’s scheduled to raise to 20% in 2013? Democrats need a Heritage-foundation equivalent who can come up with estimates of these things given the scant information available. Make a series of ads that focus on one thing Romney does (like sheltering income), how much money his proposed policy will bring his way, and how many average Americans’ income this is equivalent to.
gaz
@Tractarian: I agree – Tough I think SB is correct insomuch as folks like Rush Limbaugh and the rest of AM hate radio will keep flailing and throwing out petty nonsense attacks and racist dog whistling, but Obama is pretty squeaky. If he was dirty, they’d have use that by now. They don’t have much. But expect to see the right wing noise machine turned up to 11. I agree with SB in that respect. Just cuz it ain’t working doesn’t mean they’ll stop. They’ll double down, if anything.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@efgoldman:
We’ll take the nears and the left-handed, but not the gingers.
Sly
And it’s also regional. The GOP has been put through an intense process of Southernization for the past forty years. American Conservative culture is, for the most part, Southern Conservative culture, and a big part of what makes Romney untrustworthy in the eyes of mainstream conservatism is his Massachusetts identity. It is just as alien to them as his Mormonism.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@AnotherBruce: THey’ve apparently found an ex-Solyndra employee who’s willing to blame Obama for shutting them down, one thing the Romeny team has learned is the Rove lesson of using your own weakness against your opponent. I think it was Benen who pointed out how they did this against Newt (flip-flopper!) and Santorum (Big Government liberal!).
On a related note: if anyone saw TRMS last night, I think the weirdest thing about the RCCC’s fake Rachel Maddow ad isn’t so much that they had the idea of making a fake Rachel Maddow ad, but that they’re claiming the Keystone pipeline would’ve/will create 130,000 jobs– that’s more than six times what the oil company is claiming– and guarantee us “energy independence”. I’m sure Politifact is all over it.
Comrade Dread
Well, the average conservative sees himself and his fellow travellers as martyrs, unjustly condemned and mocked by the ‘liberal’ media and subjected to mild scrutiny and standards that they alone must follow, and they equate this as akin to that of Christ being wrongly condemned, flayed, nailed to a cross and left to die a horrible agonizing death.
It’s small wonder that they’re always looking for a cowboy or a knight in shining armor to come in and make the liberals pay somehow.
mainsailset
Since the FOIA request on Bain was returned with a no come ment because of ongoing investigation it’s probable that Mitt’s little people are trying to make sure his returns are on the same page as Bain.
Yutsano
@gaz: They’re running out of social issues to gin up their voters with, so they need to do SOMETHING to get their base energized to vote. I can’t wait for the convention now.
scav
Working for something useful to salvage out of this spectacle incohérente.
Mittmentum: the inevitability of all other lines (lanes of cars, etc.) begin to move faster, no matter which line or line you opt for.
pragmatism
don’t quote mitt boy ’cause he ain’t said shit.
quote noot, he says shit all the time.
RIP Eazy.
handsmile
Angry Doug J:
Gee shucks, I’ve always wanted to be part of a “online fracas,” even if indirectly, that the NYT would deign to cover. “You have chosen wisely,” Dr. J. But now that Corey Robin has been profiled by such an august publication, will he have time to swan over to this more bumptious rag?
The January 5 entry on Robin’s blog offers a goldmine of links to reviews and interviews on The Reactionary Mind, and serves to remind me that I need to spend more time at Crooked Timber.
Re the coronation of Mittens the First: given the astonishing maladroitness and highhandness of his campaign, the polling effect of Newt’s Bain attacks and embrace of racist cant, and the vagaries of state primary delegate assignment, I remain stubbornly unpersuaded that this Mormon former governor of Massachusetts will ultimately be the 2012 GOP presidential nominee.
I realize that conventional wisdom holds that authoritarians will follow a designated leader, but here this putative leader is so wounded, so uninspiring, so noxious to so many factions of the faithful, that I struggle to understand how this rally will occur.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
OK, because I don’t give a shit, I didn’t know that the Sheriff was also a leftie.
That just seals the deal, certainly in the linguistic sense.
Villago Delenda Est
@handsmile:
Oh, OvenMitt will be the nominee, of that much I am reasonably certain.
OTOH, he’s getting damaged. He’s not reacting well to the onslaught of the vile amphibian. The problem with shouting the dreaded N word is that while it sells like hotcakes to the 27%, it doesn’t look too good for the electorate in general, which of course is the Rethuglican dilemma; you have to tack right for the primaries then tack left for the general, and unless you’ve got a good crew, that’s tough to do. I think Romney’s crew is a bunch of lubbers, myself.
Bob
Rafer Janders
@Violet:
Part of why they hate Mitt is his waffling and blowing-with-the-wind positions on various issues. If, for example, he’d owned his rich guy image and said, “Hell yeah, I’m rich! I love making money for my company and everyone else. Being rich is excellent. I want everyone to be rich!” I think people would hate him a lot less.
That’s why Trump, for example, is able to get away with it — he owns it.
Davis X. Machina
@Villago Delenda Est: Some ridiculous percent of Presidents have been lefties, far in excess of their natural occurrence.
Davis X. Machina
@Villago Delenda Est: The GOP’s best game plan is wait for Europe to melt down, and then do a reverse 2008 — blame the incumbents, cultivate and exploit the FUD, and sweep up the when-in-doubt-throw-them-out independents.
Angela Merkel will have more of an effect on the 2012 elections than ever Ms. Palin did in 2008.
Violet
OT–Apparently Mitch Daniels is going to give the Republican response to the State of the Union address. Isn’t he kind of a little gnome-like character? How are they going to make him seem larger than life and authoritative? I’m hoping for another Bobby Jindal/Kenneth the Page type appearance.
catclub
@Martin: Cheney is the true 1%ers candidate. He could raise money like nobody’s business.
I remembered 11% being his popularity – truly hated by all but the ultra wealthy.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
Daniels is the math challenged little shit who was the deserting coward’s budget director.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@gaz:
This. In some ways, he’s seen as John Kerry. Okay, he’s not a Democrat but he’s from Taxachussetts, is a RINO despite his campaign rhetoric and he’s a MORMON. The Mormon makes him as bad as Democrat.
We talk about the righties “falling into line”. Ain’t no amount of that feeling that’ll work getting somebody to the polls if they simply don’t want to vote for somebody. Better to stay at home than vote for the Repup Lite Mormon.
Yes, the hate will come spewing out from all corners of the sewers fueled in great part by Citizens United money. Won’t make any difference in the end. Obama will beat Romney with about the same margin he beat McGrumpy and Caribou Barbie.
Martin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I think that might not be it, though. There’s the ‘get the bad news out of the way’ angle, but the GOP might be looking at Mitt as their own John Edwards scandal brewing, and if that bubble bursts with Mitt as the official nominee, they’re fucked – and by mid-April there won’t be enough delegates left out there to ‘properly’ change the course . If it bursts now, there’s still enough time before the convention to go with plan B. If Republicans seemed to trust Romney, I’d lean toward the former, but they don’t seem to, so I’m leaning toward the latter. I think they’re worried that the tax returns will be fatal.
shortstop
@Davis X. Machina: ‘sa fact that my southpaw third baseman is fond of repeating. When I mention that the list includes Hoover and Reagan, he clams up.
Violet
@Rafer Janders:
Yep. The other option a rich guy like Mittens has is to emphasize how lucky he was to be born into wealth and how he aims to use his good fortune to help others. Or something like that. But Mitt doesn’t do either of those. It’s like he embarrassed about his wealth while not wanting to give up any of the perks of being wealthy. It’s very off-putting.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
He doesn’t seem fake, he is fake. Pretending to be something other than what you are is exactly what it means to be a fake. His problem isn’t that he’s a fake, since lots of politicians are fakes. Romney’s problem is that he’s such a transparently obvious fake that everyone notices it.
Culture of Truth
Marianne: Newt wanted me to share him with Callista
shortstop
@Violet: He’ll be seated on the Manhattan phone directory. The DC version is far too thin.
dmsilev
@Villago Delenda Est:
Nate Silver’s latest update for his South Carolina predicto-matic has the Romneytronic 3000 tied with Newt. It was only a couple of days ago that the Rombot was about a 10:1 favorite.
Villago Delenda Est
OK, I’m a bit concerned that Elizabeth Warren is soliciting “money bomb” contributions. Smacks too much of the sloganeering of the Birchite twit from Texas.
shortstop
@Roger Moore: That’s exactly right. People can’t help but have contempt for a political figure who can’t even fake shit convincingly — any of the time.
dmsilev
@Culture of Truth:
Newt: “Don’t worry, ladies. There’s enough of me to go around!”
And now if everyone will excuse me, I’m going to go vomit up my lunch.
shortstop
@Villago Delenda Est: To me it smacks of someone who wants to win an election against an incumbent who has big corporate money behind him. Paul may have pioneered money bombs, but a lot of people use them now. Let’s not hobble ourselves by not using every opportunity to get small donors interested.
Davis X. Machina
@Villago Delenda Est: There’s a non-trivial overlap in their respective donor bases’ most cherished positions, especially when it comes to the FIRE sector. It may put your teeth on edge — it certainly puts my teeth on edge — but we may not be the target market.
Violet
@Roger Moore:
Well ,yes, of course Romney is fake. The bigger problem is he seems fake. He can’t fake his fakeness. People don’t like fake very much.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Violet:
I don’t think he’s embarrassed about it at all. I think he has a sense of entitlement like an early nineteenth century British earl. Those aren’t “perks” those are his God-Given rights! (IIRC Mormonism has a hefty streak of prosperity gospel, ‘god favors the deserving’ thought, at least among rich Mormons) The two telling moments, among many, that stand out to me are his smug, even a bit sick, little joke about being “unemployed” and when he matter-of-factly explained his tax rate was so low because the money wasn’t “earned income”. Twenty years of running for office, and he still doesn’t know how to shift out of MBA/Meeting-speak.
Joel
It goes without saying that the Dynamite Hack version of this song describes Mitt Romney’s life pretty accurately, doesn’t it?
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
I just wish she’d call it something else. I don’t know what that would be offhand, but it’s the name that bothers me.
@shortstop:
Their fund raising strategies seem similar, yes. I’m all for lots of small contributions. Obama ’08 actually fulfilled the spirit of the checkoff system without actually using the checkoff system, which I thought was brilliant from both practical reality and an appeal to my own ideals in the matter.
As I indicated above, I just don’t like the name. :P
Alex
Doug, I’ve noticed your comments for the past month or two have been particularly dyspeptic, not to mention humorless. Maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised, given the latest rendition of your byline. I still appreciate the cogency of your arguments, and I realize a healthy rancor toward the political scene might be the most appropriate posture to assuem. But I have to say that I somewhat miss the wit that used to accompany many of your posts.
shortstop
@Violet: Taking that a step further, people know that there’s no goodness or virtue behind the fakitudinous conduct. When Bill Clinton went around dabbing his peepers and twisting his mouth to show he was Deeply Moved, I may have rolled my eyes at all the drama, but I never thought it meant he didn’t actually care about poor people. Mitt’s fakery covers nothing but hollowness.
@Villago Delenda Est: Fair enough.
Gin & Tonic
I keep seeing Mitt referred to as “one of the wealthiest” ever to run for President. Who was wealthier? I’m not convinced the Kennedys were, so who else?
Angry DougJ
@Alex:
I’ve been busy! It takes me a while to think of funny things to say and I haven’t had the time.
gaz
/plays some NWA
The Other Chuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So Solyndra was this uber-corrupt Democrat Kickback Machine worse than Watergate, Iran-Contra, and every war in history, that sucked down eleventy thousand quadrillion megadollars of taxpayer money, but Obama’s the bad guy for shutting it down.
The Republican Mind.
shortstop
@Gin & Tonic: Perot.
ETA: And Steve Forbes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic:
FDR hailed from a wealth family. He was a class traitor, you know, for preventing the tumbrels from rolling for those of his own class. He was called a class traitor for saving them from their well earned just desserts.
The Other Chuck
@shortstop:
Nelson Rockefeller also comes to mind.
Culture of Truth
Rachel also said last night Mitt is determined never to say anything controversial, after what happened to his father. So unlike Chris Christie or Dick Cheney he won’t say ‘hell yes I’m rich’ or ‘damn right I tortured that gu’.
The result is of course, in an effort to avoid a candidacy killing gaffe, the guy has become an endless gaffe machine.
Violet
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Maybe embarrassed isn’t the right word, but he sure isn’t comfortable with his wealth. Maybe he is among his Mormon bishop peers, where they all understand what the goals are and they believe the same thing about good people being rewarded with wealth. But out there on the campaign trail when he has to interact with regular folks, he isn’t comfortable with it at all. So he comes up with dumb crap like being unemployed to try to make him seem like more of a regular guy and it backfires spectacularly.
SenyorDave
@dmsilev: I’m trying to decide whether that concept is more repulsive to men or women. As a guy, its depressing to think that a truly disgusting amoral piece of vermin like Gingrich can attract anyone, but if I were a woman I’d be appalled that I was the same sex as anyone who would voluntarily sleep with Gingrich.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Gin & Tonic: I can’t find the article I was thinking of, but a couple years back somebody calculated the wealth of every president in current dollars. IIRC, Washington was the richest, along with all the other Antebellum planters. This list puts Washington second, and Kennedy first, by counting the whole family’s money.
Violet
@SenyorDave: Gingrich was rich and powerful. Many people, both men and women, are willing to do pretty much anything to be associated with the rich and powerful. It’s a form of prost1tution.
Villago Delenda Est
@Culture of Truth:
And irony meter manufacturing stock rivals popcorn futures as the key to a quick killing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Washington made a killing in land speculation. All that time spent surveying paid off in the end.
ChrisNYC
It’s not right or left or neocons. It’s politics. In politics, people like people who win. If you don’t win, or look like you’re going to win, people bash. See, e.g. John Kerry. Happens with Obama too, by the way.
Paul in KY
@Violet: If you put kids around him, he doesn’t look so short. Plus, he’s got that giant head thing that alot of people on TV seem to have. Makes your body look slimmer (I guess).
David Hunt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I read a story about Nixon somewhere. I can’t remember where but I’d guess it was something Pearlstein wrote. Someone who didn’t like Nixon and had access to the press was making fun of him, saying that he was so humorless that he wore special underwear that was wired to give him a very mild shock by remote signal. They said an aide would watch the President when he was interacting in public and send him the mild jolt whenever someone said something funny. A member of the staff in the Nixon Whitehouse responded that there was no such special underwear and that Nixon’s aides used hand-signals to tell him when to laugh…
Nixon, at least, could laugh convincingly and tell pre-scripted jokes. Whenever I see Romney speak I want to go watch Body-snatcher movies as research to find the one weird weakness that will kill the alien.
handsmile
My off-line life is calling, but two quick reply-and-runs:
@Davis X. Machina: (#49)
Your remark re Angela Merkel is a brilliant observation, the implication of which (impact of economic/political implosion of the Eurozone on US elections) is too little appreciated.
@Martin: (#54)
The overall import of your comment undergirds my skepticism that Mittens will be the 2012 GOP presidential nominee once the confetti is cleared from the Tampa Bay convention floor.
Hill Dweller
@The Other Chuck:
Also, too, the Solyndra CEO is/was a Republican. Many of the investors were right wing billionaires(e.g. Waltons). One of their lobbyists is now working for the Romney campaign.
They’ve got nothin’. Trying so desperately to make something out of this is a tacit admission of that fact.
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: Maybe FDR’s family when he was young (had his own railroad car).
The Moar You Know
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Rove is working for Romney. I don’t know if that’s official but there’s no other explanation for Rove sitting his fat ass in the seat next to me when I saw the Book Of Mormon last summer. He sure wasn’t there for the comedy.
gaz
@Yutsano: My guess is that we’ll be treated to much overt race baiting, and outright racism. [ Not by Romney though ;) ]
David Hunt
This reminds me of one of John Rogers’ great essays from before he had success creating Leverage and he had the time and inclination to do political blogging. It was his Learn to Say Ain’t http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/05/learn-to-say-aint.html and especially it’s followup post at http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/05/feedback-criticism.html
I’m sorry for the raw urls but my link-fu always fails and they’re not long.
He talked generally about how audiences can spot someone who’s trying to project a false persona and specifically (in the follow up) about how GWB’s good old boy image wasn’t a fake even though he was born to wealth and position, raised in New England, and went to Yale. The money quote:
…
Romney doesn’t have this advantage. He knows he’s the reincarnation of Thurston Howell III. He also knows that people would hate the real Romney so he tries to project a fake and what comes through it the MittBot v12.1. In other words Bush actually liked himself, but Mitt realizes the truth: that is an agent of evil.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Moar You Know:
So close. You had an opportunity like that little girl for Johnson did back in the 60’s.
The Moar You Know
@Villago Delenda Est: You just can’t shank a guy in the middle of a crowded theater. You have to wait until he goes to the bathroom during intermission and knock him off in a stall.
gaz
@The Moar You Know: I’d quote both of you in that last post – but I’ll spare the real estate. =)
I hope you guys are right. If there’s one thing I think Obama has figured out (on the campaign trail at least) it’s how to out maneuver Rove’s tactics (on the campaign trail at least).
Villago Delenda Est
@The Moar You Know:
Point taken. Your heart is obviously in the right place.
Alex
@AngryDougJ:
Understandable. I did overlook the amusing Republicans-as-gangsta rappers motif you’ve been running with.
gaz
Hypothetically speaking, if Romney shank’d a guy on TV, who’d question it, other than the librul media?
His numbers would skyrocket with the wingnut base.
And Even The Liberal New York Times would commission Bobo to opine on it. After accepting a check worth roughly 6 months of your (underwater) mortgage payment, Bobo would write an psuedo-intellectual and overtly moralizing column about how uncivil the DFH’s were for beating Romney up in the press.
And before you know it, we’d be saying:
President Romney is SUCH AN ASSHOLE!
People, Fuck this shit. Viva Mexico!
BenA
@The Moar You Know:
Holy heck that’s just weird… I’ve had dreams where shit like the has happened…. but talk about an oddball evening at the theater.
DFH no.6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Lotta Mormons ‘round these parts (Sheriff Joe Arpaio County, AZ).
You won’t find a Mormon bishop who doesn’t just also happen to be relatively well-off.
Quite the coincidence that.
They all know, bishops and non-bishops alike.
AA+ Bonds
I’m on the left and I’ve been writing about this since before I could legally vote
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to be vindicated, but Robin needs to stretch his brain a little
AA+ Bonds
To me this was one of those things:
“If Saddam Hussein has WMDs, why are we kicking the inspectors out first?”
“If this is about oil, why wouldn’t we just suck Saddam’s dick and start buying from him again?”
Bill Arnold
@AA+ Bonds:
My wife’s take was “If Saddam Hussein has WMDs, why are we invading?”
chuckieboy
PuhlFuckingEZEEEEEE. Sometime I think my librul kinsmen are as stupid as the wingnut fascist. Don’t you fucking people get it? These motherfuckers are CALVANIST. They believe god created a special, superior, blessed class (THEM) to rule over the inferior rabble (US)that god also created. We are inferior in ALL ways, there isn’t a fucking thing WE can do about it, that’s the way Mister Fucking Knowitall wants things to be. That justifies their ideology that promotes greed, racism, fear mongering, and murder via war. You see we don’t and can’t comprehend these things are beneficial to US and society. Now do you see how stupid we are?
JR
Sigh, I will never forgive Nino Scalia for reintroducing “kulturkampf” into the conservative asshole lexicon.