Who knew that long-time Wingnut Welfare recipient Byron York was so funny.
In a column today he focused on Republican/Wingnut jitters about Mitt Romney’s very successful and endless #romneyshambles campaign. The panic is setting in and the groundwork is getting laid to blame Mitt for the failure of the CONservative movement.
Here is the set-up:
This is a true test of Romney’s resolve. He’s like the pilot of a plane rolling down the runway for takeoff. There’s a tree line at the end of the runway that he has to clear. He’s sure he’ll make it. He’s gaining speed, getting some lift, but he’s still not high enough, and at about three-quarters down the runway, a lot of passengers are getting scared. Does Romney keep going according to plan, confident he’ll clear the trees when the time comes? Or does he try some last-minute maneuver?
The idea that Mitt Romney has resolve or a backbone or courage or a plan is funny stuff. To kick the joke into high gear, York adds:
Romney is an experienced leader, with an executive sensibility to the core. But he’s never had to make a decision like this.
Any Republican with an once of sense (a small group to be sure) and any wingnut with survival instincts is getting of the plane. York is clearly heading to the exits. In a few weeks all of their efforts will be spent on trying to hang onto the House as Mitt flies their 2012 hopes and dreams into the tree trunks.
And then we’ll have some debates.
Cheers
Dennis G.
ps: You can now text a donation to President Obama. Dial 62262 and text GIVE. Reply YES to the confirmation text you get and your donation is added to your phone bill.
And make sure you’re registered to vote and know how to get involved in the campaign at: http://www.gottavote.org
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
Dan Rather is working his folksy sayin’s overtime tonight on TRMS. “The press was on that like a roadrunner on a rabbit… the Romney campaign has more twists than a pretzel factory” He just scolded Obama for not respecting Republicans, then called on the press to cut the “one side says, but the other side says…” crap. So a solid C for Uncle Dan tonight.
Comrade Jake
Motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane!
Spaghetti Lee
Does Romney keep going according to plan, confident he’ll clear the trees when the time comes?
Depends. Are the trees the right height?
Redshift
I wonder how it affects the stability of a plane at takeoff to have a bunch of passengers bailing out too low for their chutes to open…
Violet
What sort of last minute maneuver options does he have? Getting Israel to bomb Iran? I mean, really, what options are there?
I wonder if the Republicans are thinking about getting rid of Romney? That would be pretty fun to watch.
dmsilev
That’s kind of the wrong metaphor, since 3/4s of the way down the runway, you’re pretty much locked in and if the plane doesn’t have enough lift there’s dick-all that can be done to keep from crashing into the trees.
OK, maybe it’s the right metaphor.
Violet
@dmsilev: Byron York is obviously not a pilot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
Romney is an experienced leader, with an executive sensibility to the core.
I don’t think that’s a strength, we were talking earlier about the troubles in his campaign probably being due, at least in part, to Romney’s dislike of being contradicted*. I suspect there’s a very short list of people– Fernstrom, Tagg, The Lady Ann– who can speak to him honestly.
One aspect of Our Willard that has kind of fallen to the side as he evades tax talk and stumbles over himself, IIRC when he was Governor he pissed off legislators on both sides (drink!) by isolating himself– something about a private elevator, Massachussites? I tend to think all Willard wants is to avenge/trump Daddy*, and then he’d be the right wing rubber stamp of Grover N’s dreams, but I’m sure he’d still manage to piss them off somehow. They already don’t like him
*all kinds of Bush in Willard’s head
Baud
dmsilev
Exclusive video of Romney campaign launch
Baud
Punchy
The trees are metaphore for taxes, and need to cut quickly before The Plane of the Economy crashes into them….
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet: @dmsilev: I was thinking the same thing. fucking analogies, how do they work?
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@Punchy: and then the trees are the right height?
dmsilev
@Violet:
How? He’s their official nominee now, endorsed by the convention and everything. I suppose he could withdraw “for the sake of the health of his family” but given how badly he wants the Presidency I don’t think anyone has the leverage to convince him to step aside. I guess if we want to go all conspiracy-theory, someone could call someone else and arrange for an “accident”, but that’s about the only way. They’re stuck with him.
Mr Stagger Lee
Maybe I ought to spread this rumor at the RW sites. Romney is an high level Obama operative. In exchange for mucking up the campaign, his tax crimes will be forgiven.
cbear
Anyone with half a fucking brain and a rudimentary knowledge of the physics of flight would bail out of the plane as soon as they saw Chris Christie being fork-lifted on board.
The only thing scarier would be to see Candy Crowley waddling in after him seeking an interview.
Violet
I don’t think even Romney thinks he’s going to win. He’s got that look of defeat about him. Like he’s just going through the motions. I don’t think he wants to be president, although I think he might want to win the election.
Ben Franklin
This is a true test of Romney’s resolve. He’s like the pilot of a plane rolling down the runway for takeoff. There’s a tree line at the end of the runway that he has to clear. He’s sure he’ll make it. He’s gaining speed, getting some lift, but he’s still not high enough, and at about three-quarters down the runway, a lot of passengers are getting scared. Does Romney keep going according to plan, confident he’ll clear the trees when the time comes? Or does he try some last-minute maneuver?
The words seem to want to make hash of Obama’s poll numbers, but it is whistling through the graveyard. the only question I have is when Romney loses, will they run him again in 2016?
Dems haven’t given a failed campaign a second chance since Adlai Stevenson, but the roles seem to be changing.
MaximusNYC
@Spaghetti Lee:
The joke writes itself.
Dennis G.
@Violet: …but he does believe in magical thinking, so the analogy would work for him and his fellow travelers…
dmsilev
@Violet: I disagree with the second half of your comment. Romney wants to be President. Very badly. He’s been chasing that job since 2004 pretty much full-time. I think, though, he wants the title more than anything else. Sort of like Bush, who wasn’t all that interested in the whole governing thing.
Michael2
You say Romney lacks the backbone or courage to step on the gas, yank on the yoke and avoid the trees. While I don’t disagree, I fear that you may be _profoundly_ mis-underestimating Willard’s desire (in his mind it seems more like a birthright) to be President.
Ted Kennedy in 1994 called him “Multiple Choice” Mitt because Willard’s desire to be important obviously outweighed any convictions he has/had. We’ve almost a 20-year sample of Willard saying whatever he needs to say to get ahead. Why do you think this would be any different, and that he would lack the courage to say/do/pander to whomever he needs to to get elected.
Schlemizel
I refuse to get happy yet despite all the hard work going on to make me squee with glee.
I have spent most of my life having my dreams, large and small, crushed for the amusement of some unseen sadist. Just as 2010 followed 2008 any victory was followed by suffering but most potential victories were illusions with a big build up followed by the intense pain of loss like a kick in the gut.
As happy as these wingnut tears make me I refuse to believe what the numbers are trying to tell me.
Violet
@dmsilev: Anything is possible. First he’d be “encouraged” to leave the campaign. If he won’t go, the powers that be tell Romney they’re pulling all their SuperPAC funding and he’s on his own. Word comes down from on high to other Republican candidates not to be seen with Romney (this may happen anyway). He’s shunned.
I know it’s unusual, but it can happen.
WaterGirl
Since this is an open thread, can i Just say how much I enjoyed reading “You didn’t write that!” as the headline on the article about Romney’s quick donate website pretty much copying Obama’s word for word?
Open mockery of Romney makes me happy.
elftx
@Spaghetti Lee:
beat me to it…god I hope they are lol
notice that today the meme seems to be if he loses the GOP is finished or should be terminated..I say with extreme predjudice
Violet
@dmsilev: Yeah, that’s really what I meant when I said he wanted to win the election but not to be president. I think he wants to win the election so he can say he’s president and have all the trappings. But the job and the responsibility? Not so much. He’s like Palin. She just wanted “the title” (as she called it).
The Dangerman
@dmsilev:
Not quite so; he got his tax cuts to wipe out the surplus and then went to the ranch.
ETA: Hell will freeze over before Romney drops out.
Calouste
@Ben Franklin:
I was looking at the odds for the election offered by some betting sites, and Romney was the favorite to win in 2016 at 9/2. Some good odds to be had though, Deval Patrick was 66/1 for example, Cuomo 16/1.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:
Memo to Dan Rather: Just retire for real, you tired old fuck. Googling “like a roadrunner on a rabbit” gets exactly three hits, two of which are Rather back in January. And he seems to be misusing his own phrase, because he seems to think it indicates predatory quickness, like “a crow on a junebug,” which is an actual Southern locution that I do remember occurring in real life, although not lately. But roadrunners don’t prey on rabbits, and the other, non-Rather link (to a jokey academic blog) uses it in the sense of extra quick, i.e., a rabbit is fast, but a roadrunner (riding) on a rabbit would be super fast. Haw-haw-haw.
I hate that faux folksiness bullshit. As if you couldn’t tell.
Violet
@efgoldman: Yeah, I’m not saying it’s going to happen, just that it’s possible. With Akin, he said something and they all distanced themselves and figured he’d fall in line. He didn’t. With Romney it would all be behind the scenes where they kind of told him how it was going down. Then it would just happen.
Violet
@Steeplejack: “Chicken on a junebug” is commonly used where I live.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, there is stupid, and there is stoooooopid.
These two sentences require something several orders of magnitude beyond stoooooopid.
raven
@Violet: duck
dmsilev
@Violet: I suppose, though with less than two months to go, there isn’t all that much more fundraising to do. And frankly, pushing Romney out (and it sure as hell would leak that he was pushed out) would do far more damage to the GOP than just cutting their losses on the Presidency and concentrating on House/Senate/state races. It’d be an ugly mess in the full glare of the final lap of the race, party unity would be utterly fractured, turnout would crater, etc.
I kind of hope they’d try that.
hhex65
If I know Rmoney he’s in that cockpit wearing helmet and pads because he was told York was gonna use a 4th down and twenty-six metaphor.
Spaghetti Lee
@Ben Franklin:
but it is whistling through the graveyard. the only question I have is when Romney loses, will they run him again in 2016?
Doubt it. My god, aren’t they sick of him yet? Was there some ‘Kerry 2008’ movement that I forgot about?
Spaghetti Lee
@efgoldman:
For the record, that race is close to tied now. Akin was up by 10 a month ago.
Warren Terra
@dmsilev:
My response exactly. I mean, I’m not a pilot, but just what sort of maneuvers does he imagine are available? It’s a bit late to just taxi to a stop, you’re already pulling up to gain altitude, and you can’t exactly turn off the runway. And I don’t think there’s an ejection seat for the pilot of a passenger airplane.
Steeplejack
@raven:
[Drops and looks around] What? Where? Oh.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
Yeah, “duck on a junebug” is what I picked up from my dad, who grew up in the Arkansas Ozarks.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Raven does not waste words.
Nikita
@Spaghetti Lee: FTW. Dear FSM, this thread is so done.
? Martin
I assume that Ryan is strapped to the roof of this plane.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I confess that I was not terribly politically aware when Mondale lost, what, 49 out of 50 states. Was that a surprise at the time? Were there any polls suggesting that Mondale had any sort of chance?
I am quietly very pleased with these new poll numbers, but, damn, things turn around fast it seems. One day I hear on NPR that economists are saying we’ve turned a corner and the economy is on the mend, and then the next day we’re back to doom and gloom. I don’t know how Romney is even as close as he is presently, but I don’t want to bet against the stupidity of all-too-many American voters.
Yutsano
@raven: GOOSE!!
(oh wait…)
Boudica
Another vote for duck. Never heard chicken or crow.
shoutingattherain
Plane crash analogies on the day before 9/11?
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Ben Franklin, I cannot even imagine Romney would be a viable candidate in 2016. He’d be 69 (a little long-of-tooth) and seriously damaged goods. Don’t you think it likely that the Republican party will become more conservative rather than less so? I don’t know who they will trot out, but I won’t be one iota surprised if they trot out a fundie T.P.er who thinks the universe is 6,000 years old and that Adam rode on the back of a T-rex.
Emma
@Mr Stagger Lee: OK, I just spurted coffee all over myself… and then couldn’t stop laughing.
Fluke bucket
@WaterGirl: That is what I like most about him.
Villago Delenda Est
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
The “Rmoney wasn’t conservative enough!” meme is already emerging as the excuse for an electoral debacle of epic proportions.
It’s cliche, but it’s true: “Conservatism” cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Geoduck
Not a chance Romney gets another shot if/when he loses. I wonder what the man will do with the rest of his life when that happens.
Mark S.
@Geoduck:
Swim in his money like Scrooge McDuck.
Mitt is making me wonder if being a CEO requires above average intelligence. I think Romney just found ruthless sociopaths at Bain and had no moral qualms at doing anything to make a buck.
He also found tax lawyers who would use any shady loophole to keep from paying taxes.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
And that is a scary thought, Villago Dellenda Est… After ’08 I can recall pundits wondering if the Republicans would moderate or lean right. I foolishly hoped they might become less shrill, less ridiculous. Alas, I was dead wrong. I wonder what talking heads they’ll lose if they do, indeed, move still further right. We’ve seen David Frum begin the long, (very) slow process of intellectual divorce from the party. Of course, the true believers/serious grifters will stay on-board that speeding train to hell. Interesting theater, yes?
Matt McIrvin
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
No.
Central Planning
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:
Or, to be childish: “Willard’s head in all kinds of Bush”
LanceThruster
Maybe some magic seagulls will show up and trim them trees to the right height (or be the feathers beneath his wings – and sucked into the turbine blades).
Question: What is the white stuff in bird poop?
Answer: That is bird poop, too.
Kurt Vonnegut – Timequake
Violet
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): David Frum has said he will be voting for Romney. No matter how bad the clown show gets, and no matter how much he tries to portray himself as someone who is still “conservative” but not Republican, he’s simply unable to vote for anyone but the Republican. Principled conservative, my ass.
tkogrumpy
I have not read previous comments, but every pilot knows if your 3/4 of the way down the runway, it is way past decision time.
danielx
Shorter Byron York:
Attention all rats, it’s time to don your life jackets and abandon ship.
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
They probably will become more conservative – as has been pointed out repeatedly, conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Their problem is that the more conservative the party becomes, the smaller it gets. There’s an inverse relationship between “conservatism” and “repulsiveness to the average voter”.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
True enough, Violet (@ #63). I didn’t hear that Frum had already declared his vote, but I’m not really surprised he’s going with Romney. I guess there is still a lot of money to be made in telling the 27% what they want to hear (to wit, Ann Coulter, Rush, Savage, et al).
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I wonder, danielx, if there will come a day when the Democratic party is viewed as too far to the right. Think about it… we’re perhaps seeing the death throes of the Republican party as it becomes ever more xenophobic, anti-science, angry and old. Will the Democrats become truly progressive or just a somewhat greener, kinder version of the Republicans?
There is an argument to be made that the blue dogs are being quickly weened from the party, but there are also those who say that the Democratic party itself is corporate-owned (just less obviously-so than the Republican party). Mind you, I’m not necessarily saying this is my view, although I did expect a little more from Obama these last few years on such issues as global warming, science funding, education, etc. (Of course, he’s been largely held captive by intransigent Republican politicians.)
So ten or twenty years from now, might we have a truly very progressive party that will seriously push for universal health care, green energy, etc.?
jwb
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): It will be Ryan and whichever of the GOP midwestern governors who manage to get re-elected who will be the 2016 frontrunners.
cokane
I frankly disagree that Romney is to blame for crashing the Republican plane or whatever.
If anything Romney is buoying the party’s campaign. The Republican party, and the conservative ideology is just so damned unpopular right now. People are finally starting to see the cracks in their policy, and the wingnut dittoheads are a dying demographic.
Derelict
Actually, I think THIS is the plane crash Byron was thinking of:
http://youtu.be/OGHVnIxNUIw
Sherlock Hound
For years, Blue Mass Group liked to represent Romney For President as the Hindenburg. Byron may be more right than he knows.
jimmiraybob
The question is, are they fine Michigan trees of just the right height?
Calouste
@cokane:
If any of the other clowns from the primary had won, Obama would have been polling 5% or more up since May.
1badbaba3
@Ben Franklin: @Spaghetti Lee: @West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): He’ll be as viable in ’16 as he is today. Of course viability was not nearly as big a factor as the giant wad of cash he used to either buy off or outspend the rest of the field. Even after he gets blown out in November he’ll still be loaded, connected, ‘inevitable’ even. And as horrid as the field was this year, does the possible inclusion of jumbo and not as dumbo as Georgie really improve things? I mean, can’t he just outspend them too? So the GOP could be stuck with das mittens in ’16, just like they are now (thanks citizens united), which is such delicious irony that it ought to be fattening.
Also too; Paul Ryan as Tattoo ” ‘Da plane, Boss! ‘Da plane!”
karen marie
@Villago Delenda Est: There are lots of decisions he’d have to make as president that he’s not familiar with. If he can’t handle campaign decisions, how could he possibly handle presidential decisions?
With friends like those, Rmoney doesn’t need enemies.
karen marie
@shoutingattherain: Geez, I didn’t even realize it. Any word on where Rmoney is going to be? I look forward to being entertained with tomorrow’s #FAIL.
Thoughtcrime
Alternate thread title for DougJ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhrqsnvPaco
Emerald
Ay, there’s the rub. If Mitt’s billionaires realize soon enough that he’s gonna lose, they’ll start pouring all their cash into the down ballot races, and that cash easily could make a real difference there.
And if they keep the House, what’s kind of legislation is Obama gonna be able to pass? ‘Cause they’re gonna double down on the obstruction, make no mistake about it.
We may have to wait until 2014 to get ’em out, if that’s even possible then.
It’ll be a helluva second term.
TenguPhule
That’s *OFF* the Plane!!
TenguPhule
Never stopped them from trying before.
Just One More Canuck
@Steeplejack: Maybe he was thinking of that time when Bugs Bunny filled in for the Roadrunner against Wile E Coyote
brantl
That’s ounce, not once and off, not of. Anybody proof-read?
The Moar You Know
Three-quarters of the way down the runway under full takeoff power? He’s already well past V1. Ain’t nothing left to do in that scenario but keep going.
Aaron S. Veenstra
A plane where the passengers can see what’s immediately up ahead? So Romney is the pilot of a commuter plane that carries a maximum of eight people, which even if it does clear the trees will only be in the air for about 25 minutes? Sounds about right.