Remember the Beallsville miners who were ordered to attend an unpaid “mandatory, but nobody was forced to attend” campaign rally for Romey? According to the Chicago Tribune, Willard’s campaign is doubling down on the venality:
On Wednesday, the Mitt Romney campaign released an ad spotlighting President Obama’s putative “War On Coal,” despite a controversy in Ohio about the coal miners’ rally featured in the spot. In the ad, Romney appears on a stage before rows of hard-hatted miners, their faces smudged with coal dust, as he says, “We have 250 years of coal. Why wouldn’t we use it?”
The rally was held last month in Beallsville, Ohio, thick with miners from the Century coal mine, owned by Murray Energy, a major donor to Republican causes. Within days of the rally, Murray employees contacted a nearby morning talk radio host, David Blomquist, to say they were forced to attend the Aug. 14 event at the mine….
The “War On Coal” ad is clearly aimed at shoring up Romney’s support among working-class white men and at making inroads into Obama’s persistent lead in the crucial battleground state of Ohio.
Asked about Romney’s use of video from a rally that miners were forced to attend and that cost many a day’s wages, Romney spokesman Ryan Williams chose instead to focus on Obama: “”It remains a widely accepted fact among Democrats and Republicans alike that President Obama has spent the past four years waging a war on coal that has devastated Ohio workers and coal communities. This is one reason why the nation’s largest coal mining union, the United Mine Workers of America, has refused to endorse his reelection.”
The union has not endorsed Romney either…
The mine is owned by Robert Murray, an enthusiastic Romney supporter and major contributor to the Republican Party on his own and through Murray Energy, one of the largest private coal companies in the U.S. Murray and his wife have given Republican candidates a total of $471,185 since the 2008 election, including the maximum of $5,000 each to Romney this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Additionally, employees of Murray Energy and its subsidiaries contributed almost $1.5 million to Republicans over the same period.
Somebody really needs to tell Eric “Etch-A-Sketch” Fehrnstrom that George Orwell did not write 1984 as an instruction manual.
(I owe some commentor a hat tip, if you want to claim it.)
trollhattan
Awesome! They have a readymade jingle, also, too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5DR1oyr4g8
Linda Featheringill
Were the miners paid for appearing in R’s ad? Did each and every one of them sign a release?
Corner Stone
You know what has been waging a four year war on coal?
The fucking free market, you stupid hump son of a bitch.
Stabby. I’m feeling stabby lately. Need more sushi.
maya
I owe my soul,
to the company
storecoalMary G
Well, this is just the way it should be! They should be glad to be able to help out their betters – after all, they get to be on TV!
Face
They got miners to show up? Was there a parental consent form? Was it past curfew?
WereBear
This evening Mr WereBear asked me, “If Romney were to step down, who was the one with the most delegates?”
I said, “I think it was Ron Paul.”
And then we laughed and laughed.
The Ancient Randonneur
Did you know that Mitt’s dad once received public aid as a child?
So in one generation they end up with … Mitt. An ungrateful self-entitled prick who believes he should be President because … well, because he would allow us to elect him.
Political Observer
Fun fact of the day: Carter was up by eight points–eight, in OCTOBER, and still won in the end.
beltane
Who cares, they’re all a bunch of parasites and moochers anyway. When these coal miners can afford to pay $50,000 to hear Mitt speak in a rich pervert’s house then we’ll worry about them being used as props. They have clothes to wear, they look well fed. What’s the big deal?
Baud
I’ll claim it. As an Obama supporter, I mooch off the hard work of others, dontcha know?
cathyx
@Linda Featheringill: No, they were just allowed to keep their jobs if they showed up.
Comrade Mary
@Political Observer:
You really aren’t very good at this, are you?
Boudica
@Political Observer: Are we talking ’76 or is it ’80 and you mean Carter lost in the end?
danielx
@Corner Stone:
I’m glad to see someone else enjoys that particular word.
Stabby (adjective): describes the user’s mindset as being in the mood to stab someone. Repeatedly.
And yes, we are all props in Romneyworld. I believe that one of the characteristics of a sociopath is to regard other human beings more or less as cardboard cutouts, to be used, enjoyed and discarded at will. That seems to describe the Marquis’ attitude towards humanity in general to a fare-thee-well, does it not?
Political Observer
@Boudica:
I meant LOST in the end.
Todd
Cacti
Funny, I thought it was cheap natural gas that had waged a war on coal.
Cacti
@Political Observer:
We forgive your Freudian slip about Mitt’s chances.
Sorry you won’t get a nickel for your fail post.
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
I thought it was this. (Not the original, but a good video.)
trollhattan
@Cacti:
Seriously, Turing test fail. iPhone 5?
MattR
@Political Observer: The Red Sox were up 9 games in the Wild Card race on September 4, 2011 and didn’t make the playoffs. I don’t pretend that means that blowing a 9 games lead with a month to go is something that can reasonably be expected to repeat itself.
Corner Stone
@Political Observer:
We know honey. We know you did.
trollhattan
@Political Observer:
So, the only thing between Willard and a win is becoming Reagan in the next six weeks? Got it.
Cacti
@trollhattan:
And somehow making white people 80 plus % of the electorate again.
Glidwrith
As I recall Murray Energy was the same one that had gotten a bunch of miners killed lately…
Anonymous
We always get the poor trolls.
nwithers
This is what I love so much about Balloon-Juice, the hilarious and overwhelming smack-down against sub-par trolls like P-O.
trollhattan
@Glidwrith:
Yup, they ran the Crandall Canyon Mine where several miners, then would-be rescuers, were killed due to their shabby mining practices. Even more were killed as at Big Branch a few years later, but that was Massey Energy.
Yes, coal can only be bettered by more coal.
demz taters
@MattR: We’re talking about the Red Sox.
MattR
@Cacti:
They’re doing the best they can with all their state level voter suppression tactics.
The Dangerman
@Anonymous:
He/She/It is one of the 47%?
Glidwrith
@trollhattan: What I love too, Obama had been talking about clean coal all this time but the frackers, whom the Rethugs have been protecting, are the ones responsible for the trouble coal is having in the free market. How ironic.
Steve
For anyone who doesn’t know: Reagan was ahead of Carter from May 1980 all the way to the end. You can cherrypick individual polls that showed Carter with a lead, but Reagan consistently held a lead in the polling average.
LD50
Am I the only one who’s amazed by the inability of Republicans to leave the ’60s and ’70s? Every election is 1980, every opponent is Jimmy Carter, and all the people on the other side are dirty hippies and welfare queens in Cadillacs. It’s like they’re all trying to get revenge for George Wallace.
In 2008 I once saw a wingnut seriously claim that the choice of Sarah Palin as GOP VP candidate would ensure that “the flower children would be destroyed once and for all”. Yes, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are “flower children”.
catclub
@Steve: Speaking of data driven (the next thread), there is a figure showing gdp growth in election years versus incumbent election fraction. 1980
was the WORST year for that figure, about -5.8% and sure enough, Carter did not win. This year ain’t great, but nothing like -5%
contraction.
here is one example, first half of year data, multiply by 2
http://www.asymptosis.com/study-sez-rich-states-are-full-of-swingers.html
Anoniminous
I am Spartacus.
pseudonymous in nc
This particular member of the Stick-up-ass Troll species? Hilarious.
danielx
@LD50:
They can’t get over the fact that the dirty fucking hippies had more fun (and got laid a lot more) than they did, even now. To add insult to injury, the DFHs turned out to be right about a lot of things, which is even worse. Wingnuts hold on to grudges until they die, then they have them stuff and mounted.
Jibeaux
@Anonymous: I have always maintained that Cole should offer dental.
Petorado
I think I’m smelling a new BJ tag here:
1984 is not an instruction manual
danielx
FYWP. I’m getting irate.
Suffern ACE
@LD50: What amazes me is the number of men and women my age who respond to calls for attacks against the sixties. The Beatles had broken up two months before I was born. I have no recollection of the 1960s, but the hatred of those dfhs run deep.
danielx
@Political Observer:
I am awed – truly awed – at your turd-polishing skills.
danielx
@The Dangerman:
I dunno about the 47%, but he/she/it is mos def part of the 27%.
lacp
When I first heard this story, I was surprised to learn that an employer could order employees to attend a political event. I must have worked for nonprofits for too long, because you damn sure couldn’t get away with that – you’d lose your tax exemption.
KoolEarl
@Political Derp:
PO: wrong again about Carter being up 8 points over Reagan
Cacti
@Suffern ACE:
Or how they send out Paul Ryan for commentary on the Carter years, even though he was all of 6 years old when Carter was elected.
LD50
@Suffern ACE: And yet they never try to relive (or even mention) the glories of the events that REALLY stuck it to the Dirty Fucking Hippies, the elections of Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972. Wingnuts seem to have just blacked out about 80% of the last 50 years.
jefft452
@LD50: “…the inability of Republicans to leave the ‘60s and ‘70s? Every election is 1980, every opponent is Jimmy Carter…”
The biggest reason that this is not 1980, is that my calendar says 2012
In 1980, the New Deal coalition had been “the establishment” for half a century. If you were unsatisfied with life in the late 70’s, Reagan offered something different
I’m almost as young as it is possible to be and still vote in 1980 … and I’m an old guy
Reaganism has held sway 30 years, If you think the country is on the wrong track today, then Romney/Ryan doubling down on Reagan and W just aint going to cut it
Waynski
I remember the last three years of the 1960’s, man. So much self discovery, so much love. Everyone else was doing the work, man, and I was sucking off the teat at least part of the time, constantly questioning authority, and I could piss and shit and run naked whenever I wanted to. I was a taker from the makers. And it was fucking beautiful, man, because I was three years old. You shoulda been there.
I guess that makes me a bippie?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@LD50: One of our commenters the other day mentioned that no one under 45 remembers Carter’s presidency.
Think on that, and think on what a useless line of attack this is.
My take: at 45, one would have been 10 when he was elected and 14 in 1980. I was following politics at that age; I voted for Clifton DeBerry, Militant Workers Party, in our school mock election in 1964.
So let’s make that 35 or 40, instead.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Waynski: Allow me to deliver your internets on a silken pillow. That was beautiful. You had me hanging on until the punch line.
nellcote
@LD50:
You’d think PBO would get more credit for being hated by Occupy.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@Cacti: Paul Ryan and I.were born three weeks apart about 20 miles from each other in Wisconsin. All I remember of carter himself was that my sister and I found his accent and smile hilarious. She would say “hello, I’m Jimmy Carter” and i would say the same in a goofy southern drawl and we’d laugh hysterically and do it again. Im guessing Ryan was crying himself to sleep over the panama canal. But that’s wild guessing.
joel hanes
@Waynski:
You shoulda been there.
I was sixteen in 1968.
You can’t know unless you were there,
and apparently most of the people who were there have forgotten.
It was an optimistic time, a time when anything was possible and love was all you needed. Whatever that meant.
James E. Powell
Another point re “what really happened in 1980”
There was only one presidential debate. Carter did not want a debate, but agreed to one finally because he could not close the gap. It was a Hail Mary. It did not work.
Darkrose
I’m the same age as Paul Ryan, and I remember the 1976 election quite well. I was solidly behind Ford in the 1st grade mock election, until my parents explained to me that Republicans don’t like black people.
36 years later, I’m still voting Democratic, and the Republicans don’t like black people.
Patricia Kayden
@Darkrose: They love Herman Cain and Mr. West. And Condoleeza Rice.
You’re wrong!