Beware the RomneyTron, Still
(Drew Sheneman via GoComics.com)
In case the loathly shenanigans of Rick Santorum may have distracted anyone from the deep and abiding dishonesty of Willard “Mitt” Romney, Mr. Charles Pierce at Esquire provides a history lesson for those of you not living in our beloved Commonwealth:
... [T]he centerpiece of the days in which Willard was still interested in being — we’ll get to that in a minute — was his attempt to use his mighty presence to reconfigure the Massachusetts political culture. In 2004, he committed himself (and most of his credibility) to getting more Republicans elected to the state legislature. He really went balls-deep on this one, putting together a slate containing 131 candidates, more than the Republicans had put up to contest the legislature’s 200 seats in over 10 years. He campaigned hard for his “reform” ticket.
Whereupon it sank without a trace. The Democrats actually picked up two seats in the House and one more in the State Senate.
Which is about when Willard decided he’d stop being governor and start trying to be president. The Globe series quotes him memorably telling the newspaper’s editorial board, not long after his reform effort went under the waves, “From now on it’s me-me-me.”...
The final Romneycare bill had an employer assessment fee in it. Republicans screamed that it was a new tax. Romney vetoed that part of the bill, sending his Democratic allies into the ionosphere with rage. They put the fee back in by overriding his veto, but the ill-feeling still remained. Willard had gotten what was going to be the centerpiece of his inevitable presidential campaign, and he’d gotten to look like an anti-tax hero at the same time. This chronic determination to walk on both sides of the street is nothing new, I assure you.
It was about at this point at Romney had his famous revelation on social issues — in which, I believe, an angel came unto him and said, “How do you think these things will play in Iowa, dude?” — and he proceeded in his limitless ambition to betray almost everyone else who was left to support him. He double-crossed the state legislature on stem-cell research. He began stumping for abstinence-only sex education. He completely reversed himself on a woman’s right to choose; in 2002, he’d said his support of it was “unequivocal”. He began crusading against gay marriage…
On the stump today, this is the material from which he constructs the fictitious character of Willard Romney, Embattled — Yet Severe — Conservative. He brags about all the bold vetoes he cast. What he doesn’t mention in the fact that, according to figures compiled by the Globe for its series, the Massachusetts House overrode his vetoes 99.6 percent of the time. It was worse in the Senate. There, Romney was overriden every single time — often, as the Globe points out, unanimously. The numbers of overriding his line-item vetoes are even more preposterous; of his 283 budget vetoes in 2006, the Globe found, Romney couldn’t even get a single Republican to vote for him on 81 roll calls in the state senate, and on 60 roll calls in the Massachusetts House. As governor, his approval ratings never went above 50 percent after March of 2005, and he left office with a miserable 34 percent approval rating to take with him out into the wider world. The Commonwealth had grown very sick and tired of being used as a test-track for Willard Romney’s ambitions.
The difference between Santorum and Romney is that Little Rick really, truly believes that his Opus Dei God has appointed him to serve as the cilice cinched around every American’s private parts. Willard, on the other hand, merely believes that if this week’s quorum of GOP godbotherers wants him to serve as the cilice cinched around every American’s private parts, well, us gentiles should’ve read the small print in the footnotes appended to the subcontract on page 237 section xlxcvii before humbly donating our votes to his Presidential ascension.
I believe the technical legal-philosophical term for this would be “a distinction without a difference.”
Beware the Romneytron, my ‘tard:
The jaws that lie, the claws that snatch,
Beware the Gingrich-bird,
And shun the lib’ral Paulites’ stash!
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:52 pm
clutching two, tiny pearls of dubious genetic origin…
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Poor Mitt “Fill in the ________________” Romney.
All of that money.
All the great clothes.
The beautiful family.
The great hair.
The Presidential demeanor.
And a lifetime, like “Baby Doc” Bush, of trying to not be his father – whom a lot of people actually liked.
If “Baby Doc” Bush had these debates to go through in 2000, I doubt he could have sold himself, or “Compassionate Conservatism,” to the rabid base.
Back then, before the Teabagging/Bircherite lunatics got more say, the money boys controlled the party.
Now?
Uhm, not so much…
Bad luck, Mittens.
It couldn’t happen to a bigger, faker, @$$hole.
“Resolute?” LOL!
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Any polls as to who won the debate (besides President Obama, of course)? I thought I’d seen something that Santorum’s surge seems to have plateaued. Just typing that sentence makes me retch.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:56 pm
So, as Governor, Romney had not a single fncking one of his vetoes upheld? Great legislative record, there, Mitt!
But the worst part is that I really doubt whether he (at the time or even now) cared an good goddamn one way or another; as long as something, anything he did could be spun into campaign fodder. Tool.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:56 pm
I’ve never heard of a veto being overruled unanimously.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:57 pm
@Benjamin Franklin: Oh, are we back to discussing duck gonads as appetizers again? And did we ever decide if they could or couldn’t be served with corned beef? It’s so hard to keep up. . .
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:57 pm
@Violet:
Everything I’ve read says Ricky got slaughtered last night.
February 23rd, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Charles Pierce is da shit. I love that guy.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:00 pm
@Tonal Crow: Thread, won.
A customer associate will be with you shortly to discuss delivery of your internets.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:02 pm
rommey lie’s so much and throws his morals/beliefs away so fast just to win votes, if that asswipe remains a morm0n (sic), I bet his father converts (since conversion for dead people is par for the course in mormon mythology.)
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:03 pm
@Mark S.:
I watched part of it and didn’t think Ricky did that bad. And the bit I saw used in a clip on a morning show was the part at the end where Mittens told the moderator he’d answer the questions he wanted to answer, not the questions he was asked. I don’t think that kind of thing plays well with the wider public. It wasn’t even a hard question, really a throwaway question. Why couldn’t he just answer it?
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:03 pm
I realize that the perfect cromulence of unfamiliar words is to be respected, per Internet traditions. But the vocabulary nitpicker in me demands that I make a stand on behalf of “loathsome”.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:04 pm
@scav:
I missed that discussion. Appetizers are what, the Eucharist?
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:06 pm
” cilice cinched around every American’s private parts ”
That is olde timey religious penance, or S&M reference?
Or is there any difference?
I guess one difference is that under one bunch, if they ruled the world, it would mandatory for everyone.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:08 pm
@Violet:
This is how a moderator should respond: “Answer the question I asked, or I cut off your damn mike.”
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:10 pm
@Amir Khalid: Or that it be spelled “loathely”.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:10 pm
@Amir Khalid:
Loathly is an old word:
loathly: Hateful, disgusting, loathsome, repulsive, hideous, horrible. Rare in 17th and 18th cents.; revived in the 19th c. as a literary word.
Was used by artistes:
Chaucer, Wife of Bath’s Tale 244: Thou art so loothly, and so oold also.
and prudes
Pilgr. Sowle (1859) i. xiii. 10 He hath‥wesshen in the lothely lake of cursyd luxury.
Edit: 1859 was pub date, that was written around 1400
See the entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:14 pm
@Annie Laurie (quoting Charles Pierce):
Mitt should’a realized the angel was a struggling journeyman hack in the heavenly ranks trying desperately on his own initiative to pull off a miraculous intervention to impress his bosses, when the angel presented his advice to Mitt on tin tablets, and said his name was the Angel Baloney.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:14 pm
@Violet: Because it wouldn’t get on TV. He was upstaged by the “Syria is Iran’s path to the sea”...and he had one more chance to do something memorable or Paul was threatening to let his eyebrow drop again. There was an opening and he took it.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:14 pm
@Amir Khalid:
Mitt Romney could buy that microphone, AND YOUR ASS!
/veritas
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:14 pm
@Suffern ACE: @Suffern ACE: Yes, that’s probably it. But the path he took makes him come across as having something to hide and being something of a bully. It just wasn’t a good look for him, whether or not it got him TV time.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:17 pm
Whoa. I turned on Rev Al’s show and and I am right now watching something that looks like a program that called tomorrow’s world and it is discussing the Antichrist and who and what the Antichrist is
!!
It seemed like a biblical show infomercial! It had to be on for 5-10 min and then it cut off and Rev Al’s show came back on an continued as if it was never interrupted! This program basically pre-emptied half a segment of Rev Al. I recorded the last few minutes so I could rewind to see if my eyes were playing tricks, but it was def on
!
!
WTF
Did anyone else see it? I’m here in Dallas, TX.
Please tell me I’m not crazy
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:19 pm
Mrs J and I were Massholes from the time Romney poked his head up and got his ass handed to him by Teddy and for most of his governorship…we were just everyday, run of the mill Massholes, he was just an incredible asshole.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:21 pm
@lamh35: I thought Tomorrow’s World was one of those vaguely sciencey shows that are really more about vapourware tech than actual science
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:23 pm
@Violet:
He’s channeling Palin, who said essentially the same thing to a reporter (“I may not answer like you want me to answer but I’m going to tell the truth to the American people!”)
Did it work well with the wider public? Obviously not with Palin.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:27 pm
@Amir Khalid: Agreed. I had exactly the same thought. I do love a lot of the neologisms that appear on political and satirical sites, e.g. wingnuttery. But loathsome is a beautiful word.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:27 pm
@Mark S.: I listened to some of it. I did not get that impression; I thought “Sweet Jesus, Ricky knows how to package up the red meat for the rubes.” Romney does not.
If the audience was full of non-insane people, I don’t think Ricky would do well. But this is a GOP debate, so…
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:30 pm
@Violet: It’s pretty standard practice for politicians to answer the question you wanted, not the one that was asked. Mitt’s problem (as with most social interactions) is that he’s not very good at it. He was probably trying to pull Newt and impress the GOP base by attacking “the media,” but the only way answering the question you wanted works is if you don’t make it obvious, so trying to do both undermines both.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:30 pm
@MikeJ:
Don’t know about that, but I recorded it with my DVR and I recorded it just now with my IPad, I’m gonna download it to photobucket and provide a link
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:36 pm
Thirty-four percent approval rating, and this guy has the stones to claim he’s an outsider, not a career politician. BECAUSE YOU’VE WON ONE ELECTION IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE DESPITE RUNNING FOR OFFICE MORE OR LESS CONTINUOUSLY FOR 20 YEARS.
I’m not sure he’s ever gotten as far as truly caring what the godbotherers or anyone else may want. I think this guy truly believes that if he wants something, he deserves to have it. I imagine he’s continuously mystified—with some of that patented Romney anger thrown in—that America’s not playing ball.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:37 pm
Up top:
I find this incredibly difficult to believe, actually. He’s such a corrupt little weasel, I really doubt he’s any more sincere than the Mormon fellow. I think he’s merely better at playing the part than Romney is.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:40 pm
@Redshift:
It’s a high-handed evasion, is what it is. Your debate moderators should issue the warning I suggested to all candidates before the debate goes live. It should go without saying that the moderator must have both the means to cut off an offending candidate’s microphone, and the balls to do it.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:42 pm
@lamh35: @MikeJ: @lamh35:
Here is the video recorded with my Ipad, check at the 2:14 mark to see what I mean about the video pre-empting Politics nation.
http://s14.photobucket.com/alb.....cfe1b3.mp4
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:43 pm
@Chris: She may have said it to a reporter at other times, but she famously said it during her debate with Biden…and the rubes ate it up.
I don’t think Romney’s wrong to think there’s still a substantial portion of the base that wants to see GOP politicians stick it to the librul media; the roars of approval at Newt’s moderator-bashing are recent proof of that. Romney’s just wrong in thinking that he can pull that shit, or anything else, off with any kind of panache. My god, if they wanted to bottle awkward and hamhanded, his mouth would be the flowing font.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:43 pm
@Benjamin Franklin: whoops, sorry, distracted by Fry & Laurie and dinner. Some sort of cooking show of John’s (2 nights ago?) where we wandered deep into the territory of duck anatomy because it really seemed to be a secret ingredient. It all started out of nearly sane . . .
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:44 pm
@ShadeTail: I go back and forth on that. I think perhaps Rih’s convinced himself that he’s exactly the person he pretends to be.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:46 pm
@scav:
Julia Childs was nearly sane.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Barney Frank – No bigots at my wedding.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:46 pm
@Suffern ACE: Loathely the Old Ones appeared under the eldritch moon, and no living witness left but the screams of their beholders.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:47 pm
This makes total sense. I always figured Romney did not run for re-election because he needed to move right and distance himself from some of his acts as Governor. That’s why I had to laugh when a few weeks ago Romney said he Governed MA as a “very conservative” Governor.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:49 pm
@ShadeTail:
I suspect you are correct that Santorum is a dishonest hypocrite, or at least started that way. He doesn’t mind lying and changing his statements to fit the situation.
Warning: Link to the Uygur in youngturks segment, but informative.
Rick Santorum a Progressive Conservative?
http://youtu.be/a2j5Rl8YQfg
Edit: haven’t had time to check but this is a report on some stuff from Pitt Post Gazette. Not sure whether it is related to recent internet post (Edit: anyone know what big time blog it was from? BJ linked to it in a recent post) about Rih’s political history.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:52 pm
@Benjamin Franklin: yes, and she had a purple towel. froopy dude. (Ever watch her pull the skin off a whole chicken?) and it wasn’t the Eucharist, perhaps Baptism though as it was in the Dehydrated thread. ETA: the duck bits of discussion, I mean, not the towel, the naked chicken, the clothed and nearly sane Julia! or any other noun loosely attached to the conversation. The Baptism part is possibly attached to duck bits.
February 23rd, 2012 at 6:57 pm
@Hal:
That and he was going to have a giant, humiliating loss if he dared to run again.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:00 pm
@Hal:
Mitt’s much remarked upon phrase was “severely conservative governor” — unusual but, per the language experts, well grounded in previous usage.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:01 pm
It is good that things are looking up for Obama – let’s hope this continues.
However – Rethugs control the House – and there is a very good chance they will control the Senate, come November (although, is it looking up that the House will be in Democratic control?)
So, for all the reasons we have given before, the political economy of the U.S. is still pretty messed up. And I still haven’t seen any satisfactory solutions being proposed. As long as money is the thing, the be all and end all, we are still looking at a very distorted political world.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Someone pointed this out on a previous thread, and I got such a kick out of it that I have to repeat it: Did you know that if Rubio is chosen for VP they’ll have one person who is Catholic, Mormon, and Baptist? Quite a trick.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:04 pm
@c u n d gulag: Why do people insist on saying that Romney has great hair? Romney has shellacked corporate hair – nothing great about it.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:09 pm
OT! I know, I know, HuffPo, but remember when we were joshing that Mark Penn must be running Komen’s PR effort? Now he is. I cannot stop laughing.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:09 pm
@Omnes Omnibus: For the same reason they thought Rick Perry had great hair. They’re trapped in the early 1990s.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:11 pm
@scav:
And a red beanie? But she used white wine. Is she a heretic?
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:15 pm
@shortstop: I hear what you are saying, but I would not have agreed back then either.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:20 pm
@shortstop:
That’s priceless, thanks!
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:21 pm
For using the phrase “He really went balls-deep on this one” in reference to Mittens, Charles Pierce wins the internets.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:25 pm
@Omnes Omnibus: Good point; neither would I, though it would have been less out of touch then to do so, at least for Rick.
I can’t really think of any reason for admiring Mitt’s hair at any point in American history.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:28 pm
@ShadeTail:
Shhhhh.
AL actually ventured a thought that wasn’t cribbed from Charlie Pierce. Don’t discourage her.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:40 pm
You knuckleheads got the world’s problems solved.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:44 pm
@Amir Khalid: Rantorum’s henanigans are beyond loathsome, they’ve attained loathall status…
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:47 pm
@Benjamin Franklin: no, for her gnocchi were of potato and not wheaten. the FSM has thus taken her under his noodly wooden leg for sure (QI break this time).
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:50 pm
I just heard on the tube that Rand Paul would be ‘honored’ to be Willard’s running mate. We are not worthy!
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:53 pm
@raven-Yep. A big part of the solution involves just doing what I tell everybody to do. The rest involves only speaking when spoken to.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:53 pm
The only election Willard ever won was against the worst possible gubernatorial candidate I’ve ever seen the Massachusetts Democratic machine barf up – Shannon O’Brien – and I’ve seen them barf up some real hair balls. She literally had a super power of Anti-Charisma.
February 23rd, 2012 at 7:54 pm
@goblue – were it not for that win, he would be the John Jay Hooker of Massachusetts. Every state has one.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Ah, 2004, Romney’s CEO line-up, come to clean up the legislature. After picking the CEOs to run, pretty much all he did was carpet-bomb mailboxes with baldly negative postcards. Even Senatorial districts in Massachusetts are small enough (roughly 160K population at the time) that many people know the incumbents, and the attack ads backfired big-time.
I really enjoyed kicking those Armani asses.
Rmoney’s been trying the same tactics, super-PAC edition. Not working this time either…
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:15 pm
Google is not helping me out here, but in the 1960s in Washington, we had a guy named (Mumblemumble) Patrick, who ran for some office in every election, despite his complete lack of qualifications. He was finally forced to take a psychological evaluation, which concluded he was “not insane”. (Yeah, I know “insane” is a legal term. The newspaper probably mistranslated it from psych terminology.)
That didn’t stop him from running—he just advertised that he had been officially determined to be “not insane” and challenged his opponents to offer proof of the same.
EDIT: This was meant to be replying to Suffern ACE at 63. I clicked “Reply”, honest!
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:36 pm
@The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:
That’s what they all say.
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:40 pm
@scav: They’re Baptizing duck testicles now?
February 23rd, 2012 at 8:48 pm
@kdaug: I wonder if it changes the flavor- you know, like a marinade.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:02 pm
Maybe I’m confusing threads here but if Romney is going balls deep on anything, I’m thinking duck, testicles.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:06 pm
@lamh35: I haven’t seen that show but I’ve seen similar things during the day with a shortened (10 Minutes) infomercial cut into another show. The most recent one (several times, actually) was a face cream/lotion promoted by Cindy Crawford and Valerie Bertinelli.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:13 pm
@kdaug: It’s snowflakes coming and going now apparently. The mallard snowflakes are slightly unexpected, I will admit, even post Georgia. Wonder if we’ll be able to marry them or not.
February 23rd, 2012 at 9:58 pm
Willard would sell his mama for a block of votes
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:39 pm
@rikyrah:
No, but he’d leverage the living shit out of her.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:55 pm
@marv: If Romney (or any other Republican) is trying to go balls-deep in anything, it’s this.
February 23rd, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Mitt Romney, the man who never had a principle he couldn’t give up for the sake of expediency and votes.
Mittens: Go home. Nobody likes you – fuck, dude, most of the people in your own party don’t like you and they’re supposed to be your supporters. There’s not enough money in the world to buy enough votes to make you Preznit, not to mention that if you blow the family wad your own kids will put out a contract on your ass. Go buy a private island. Buy a private jet. Buy a Ferrari. Hire some hookers. Hoover up a ton of Bolivian marching powder. Face it, you’ve been running for Pres full time since 2006 and people think you suck; they think you’re a rich Wall Street prick who lies like a rug. Give it up and go do something else (constructive or not), because this thing you so deeply desire is…not…going…to…happen.
(Besides, if Little Ricky gets the nomination he’ll not only lose big but the Rs will probably lose the House too, but we won’t get into that because we’re too nice.)
February 23rd, 2012 at 11:12 pm