Nate Silver had Illinois as the ninth likeliest Senate seat to switch parties in his most recent rankings. I’ve got to think that the Republican reaction to the Olympics decision is going to change that.
Mark Kirk can’t be too pleased with the wingerati right now.
mcc
Don’t blame it on the sunshine
Don’t blame it on the moonlight
Don’t blame it on the good times
Blame it on the boogie
aimai
So, is “wingerati” derived from glitterati, or illuminati? Because it makes a difference.
aimai
The Grand Panjandrum
Burris didn’t do himself or the Democrats any favors by blaming the lost Olympic bid on Bush.
DougJ
So, is “wingerati” derived from glitterati, or illuminati?
I don’t know. It just came to me. I haven’t had a drink all day, so I can’t say what I’m thinking.
smiley
I don’t know. Given how many people in Chicagoland didn’t want the games, it will depend on how many people in down-state Illinois were offended by the right-wing’s reaction. I don’t think it will effect much at all.
DougJ
Burris didn’t do himself or the Democrats any favors by blaming the lost Olympic bid on Bush.
Isn’t he getting primaried?
EDIT: I don’t think he’s running at all.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
He’s not running, announced it quite a while ago,.
Steal it if you want.
General Winfield Stuck
Fairly quick dude.
Napoleon
I thought I read a few days ago that Kirk never stated any kind of support for the Olympic bid.
Mark S.
Is anyone going to remember this Olympic stuff in a week?
aimai
You know, Smiley, I’m not sure I agree. I’m familiar with the phenomenon of people who live in a state but don’t identify with that state’s majority political party, and very often they don’t identify with that state’s economic or political interests because they feel angry and alienated. I live in MA so that is the MA republican party we’re talking about. But even those guys, when it comes to a sense of ownership and pride, don’t like outsiders to kick their state around and make fun of it. Other, atavistic, and very powerful angers come into play.
I think the Republicans made a huge error–well, not huge from a national perspective but huge from a local perspective–iin trying to make Chicago synonymous with all timey evil and setting up a situation in which actual Chicagoans and Illinois residents are going to feel globally insulted and attacked.
Basically, as far as I can tell from looking at the coverage through a pinhole, they decided to manufacture a public version of Chicago in which it was all black/white ethnic/urban corruption that deserves every bit of spite and viciousness that the national press corps and the good conservatives can dish out. They did it because they wanted to hang that around Obama’s neck and it was convenient. But when you have to go hat in hand and appeal to voters later you then have to dissaggregate that spite and explain to them, retail style, that you “didn’t mean them when you said nothing but rapists and murderers lived in Chicago and you didn’t mean them when you rejoiced that Chicago had been denied the Olympics.” And sure, some people are going to buy that very easily. But Mittens tried it here in MA–running against the State all over the country and it left a very bad taste in people’s mouths. On the one hand the local people who hate Democrats felt a teeny bit vindicated when Mitt bitched about how evil we all are. On the other hand, they had a hard time feeling spoken for when Mitt never once said “of course, there are a few good people there.” And you have to do both. And the right hasn’t done both in the case of Chicago.
I’d say woe betide any conservative candidate who got photographed smiling and nodding along with the Weekly Standard crew. Even stone Republicans who didn’t want the Olympics won’t stand for that.
aimai
Comrade Jake
I’m kind of partial to “wingeranus” myself.
Common Sense
I’m certainly not one of these”Obama should ignore the Olympics because of Congressional deliberations” people, but it does seem like he could have devoted more than an hour to talking to them, or skipped showing up entirely. The IOC sounds like they were touchy about being treated like children. If Obama was going to lobby for Chicago he should have done so. This decision the week of the event to give em a 45 minute pep talk didn’t seem to help much, if at all.
aimai
I like both derivations, glitterati and illuminati. I think we should keep both for different things. For the Balloon Juice Lexicon I’d suggest two entries:
A) noun
“Le tout bumfuck was there…all the wingerati…”
B) noun
“The Wingerati met in a small chapel in a townhouse on C street…it was a formal affair, robes and torture implements mandatory…”
aimai
OK, this time I’m really going to put on the roderigo y Gab and clean the kitchen.
Napoleon
@Common Sense:
????
Did he have a choice. It was the IOC’s meeting he showed up at and I suspect they set their own schedule so its pretty safe to assume they told each national committee they had XX time to make their presentation.
Common Sense
@Napoleon:
C’Mon man. He landed and drove directly to the convention, spoke for less than an hour, then was on an airplane before they started voting. Tony Blair spent three days lobbying for London, and I guarantee you that every country that sent its’ leadership to speak had them in Denmark for longer than the time it takes to eat dinner. I’m just saying if you are going to schmooze, then freaking schmooze. Don’t half ass it.
Ruemara
@Common Sense:
Except he had his wife there for days doing the lobbying.
AhabTRuler
Gordon Brown?
Common Sense
Here’s what the Danes thought.
—
“The explanations are many. The former Danish IOC member Kai Holm says to Berlingske that he believes that it is due to disrespect. Professor of sport history at the University of Copenhagen Hans Bonde suggests presidential arrival at the last minute and neglected personal lubricant of IOCs members.”
“- At Chicago kicked out so early shows to me that Barack Obama does not understand the psychology of the IOC, said Hans Bonde. ”
——
I think of the IOC like I think of the press. They will give you whatever you want if you kiss their ass hard enough. Obama chose, for the most part, to bypass the major media nand speak directly to his constituents rather than throw the press a major BBQ. If he had given the press a half off coupon at Mickey D’s when they expected a full course meal, they may have been even more pissed than if he had simply not bothered to schmooze em at all.
JK
@Common Sense:
I think the IOC had decided on Rio from the start and no amount of pitching from Obama would have resulted in a different outcome.
Hopefully, the MSM will manage to get over this story by Monday and be able to focus on real news like Jon and Kate, Roman Polanski, David Letterman, and Tom Delay’s performance on Dancing with the Stars.
Mental Lint
You’re right to point out that the wingerati reaction is (un)excellent news for Mark Kirk. It probably won’t switch any downstate soybean farmer votes, but does make a great locker room bulletin board posting to help motivate scandal-fatigued Illinois Democrats.
Losing to Rio wasn’t shocking, but crashing out first hurt. It probably had more to do with strained relations between the USOC and the IOC, and frustration with the visa process for visiting the US.
JK
@Napoleon:
That fucking traitorous bastard. Who the hell does Kirk think he is?
JK
@Mental Lint:
Cool screen name.
Midnight Marauder
@JK:
This 100 times over. I think this point has gotten lost in the shuffle of wingerati jubilation and traditional media concern trolling. Anyone who paid even a modicum of attention had the feeling that it was Rio’s/South America’s time after never having hosted the Olympics at anytime.
Ash
Chicagoans might not always be happy/pleased with local government, but they (or at least 95% of them) love their city and all this Rethuglican bullshit is getting really fucking tiring.
smiley
@Common Sense:
As I said in a thread yesterday (or maybe the day before) I had a brief close encounter with the USOC about 12-13 years ago. That is one seriously superior bunch. Their shit don’t stink. I can only imagine an order of magnitude greater sense of superiority at the IOC. Their shit smells like roses.
+3
P.S. There seems to be a pretty good game going on in South Bend (so far).
mai naem
Maybe the wingnuttia can hold their own Olympics in Chicago in 2016 instead. The Wingnut Games can have a bunch of events. There can be a photoshopping event on which wingnut can photoshop an event with a larger crowd the best. There could be an Obama sign event. There could even be a spelling event. There could be a fake scandal event. Granted it’s not The Olympics, but it would still be entertaining. Ofcourse, FOX would have the TV rights.
Zifnab
I mean, when you’ve got a national hissy fit like this focused on a local venue, it’s not easily forgettable. Guys in Minnesota and Florida probably won’t think twice of this two weeks from now, but some Olympics enthusiasts in Chi-town aren’t going to remember this fondly.
The GOP has been going balls-to-the-wall anti-Chicago since November, with their “Chicago-style politics” and city-baiting class warfare bullshit. But that’s all at the national level. So who knows?
I don’t see this winning any new voters, though. If this anti-Chicago two minute hate and subsequent wank-fest is how they plan on running campaigns in 2010… I mean, which demographic is that supposed to rope in? Is this going to inflate GOP voter turnout? Are we going to get another
70k personMillion Man March to Washington out of this? I’m not seeing it.PaulW
I gotta ask: what have the Republicans done this past year to make anyone think they’ve got a positive agenda to sell the American voters? Even regional voters?
All they’ve done is insult, attack, lie, deny, anything it takes to MAKE OBAMA LOOK BAD. Even when it makes the whole country look bad.
And yes, I know that there are vulnerable seats in the South where the far right outrage is boiling over, but even that’s not always a strong enough reason for Democratic incumbents to lose too many seats in the Deep South. And that’s just the Deep South. There is NO sign of GOP growth in the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and only pitiful growth in the West.
And there’s still a full year for the GOP to get EVEN WORSE. All this blather about health care reform? Wait until Immigration Reform comes back onto the table…
Skepticat
@aimai: Spot on. I didn’t get along with my sister, but woe betide anyone else who tried to give her a hard time.
JK
@Midnight Marauder:
This was the perfect storm in terms of various factors conspiring to set up an epic fail for Obama
1) This was the zillionth Olympiad to be voted upon following an unbroken string of venues that were located outside of South America and Africa. Of course, the cheerleading fuckers in the MSM couldn’t be bothered to mention this salient fact in their round the clock coverage. This unbroken streak had to end at some point.
2) Obama’s hometown of Chicago was a finalist. If Obama hadn’t made the trip to pitch for his hometown in person, he would have been denounced by the MSM and wingnuts everywhere for slapping Chicago in the face.
3) The rest of the world likes us again, they really like us again. The MSM exaggerated this sentiment and consequently gave the false impression that Obama would have world leaders and dignitaries eating out of the palm of his hand.
Surabaya Stew
@Mark S.:
Of course nobody will remember this, except the GOP; they will try and use Obama’s “failure” to round up campaign dough and to win over new voters. I suspect they will succeed at the former but fail at the latter…
Skepticat
@Common Sense: Did the other heads of state there give presentations? If so, how long were theirs?
smiley
@smiley:
And Athens too.
Notorious P.A.T.
Shooting wolves from a helicopter, pairs book-burning, and of course crying on cue.
Demo Woman
The anti-American views held by the wackos is indefensible.
In more important news Little Bitsy needs 29 votes to break the 2000 mark.
Corner Stone
@smiley:
The real excitement doesn’t get started til 8:05 CT in El Paso, TX.
(12) Houston at UTEP
Shell
It was posted somewhere else here at BJ. A headline from Drudge’s site re: the Olympic decision – “Bad for USA, Good for GOP?”
Glad they’re finally admitting it. Right now, whatever the GOP is pushing for is toxic for America. It should be a bumper sticker.
Corner Stone
@Common Sense: I agree with you in that the effort itself seemed a little iffy at best.
But IMO, this was a done deal and as I told a couple family members recently, “Anyone who thinks this decision had anything to do with Obama is an imbecile.”
ETA – not saying you or anyone here is an imbecile – directed at the wingers who are crowing about CHI getting the early boot. Like Obama somehow failed to persuade the IOC in any way instead of the incredibly more likely fact that CHI was a duck going into the vote, no matter what.
Brick Oven Bill
Another very good and inclusive Chicago competitive sporting event would be to time athletes jumping out of a car, hitting a simulated person over the head with a railroad tie, kicking two pumpkins, and then running three blocks to a safe house.
The event could be scored by the measuring the force excreted by the railroad tie on a pressure sensor, the amount of damage to the pumpkins, and then timing the event from start to finish.
Nethead Jay
@Common Sense: Hi, Danish citizen here. Don’t take Berlingske too seriously, it’s a right-wing paper and they really don’t like Obama. It’d be strange to me if they weren’t out looking for ways to put him down. I’m also not surprised to see Kai Holm and Hans Bonde willing to supply quotes to that end. They’re both notorious media hounds.
As for why Chicago didn’t win, from what I’ve been reading Rio de Janeiro has been the odds-on favorite for a while and Madrid being in the final round was due to what euphemistically being called “strong pull” by old guard people with close IOC ties. Ironic, considering how the wingnuts have tried to paint Chicago these last years…
Demo Woman
@Brick Oven Bill: Take a hike outside of the resorts in Rio Bill.
PurpleGirl
Just voted for Bitsy… she needs 21 votes now to break 2000.
smiley
{shudder} I think this is the first time I’ve responded directly to BOB.
Beck and his fellow idiots keep referring to the board (a 2×4 or 4×4) as a railroad tie. I’d pay to see someone pick up a real railroad tie. And hit anything.
Corner Stone
@Brick Oven Bill:
I’m not a strict word usage type of person like some here are, and in fact I liberally employ some transmogrification of our larger national lexicon, but for the life of me I can’t determine how to excrete force.
I can think of some other crude iterations, but this one’s got me.
Corner Stone
@smiley:
Then I’d pay to see them try and get the creosote off them.
Nasty stuff.
Brick Oven Bill
Smiley makes an excellent point. Substitute a baseball bat for the railroad tie. Baseball bats would also be easier to monogram with the Olympic logo, and be easier to sell at the store. Corner Stone also makes an excellent point. Force is exerted. Blame it on Bill Gate’s fucking spell checker.
Liquid is excreted from a tube, or something like a tube.
+0
Svensker
@Demo Woman:
Make that 19.
Come on, gang. Go over to the side ——-> and vote for the Bitsy Girl!
Xenos
@aimai: Since the ‘The Family’ branch of wingnuts have a moral code derived from Gnosticism and, quite possibly, Albigensianism, I would vote for “Illuminati”.
JK
@Brick Oven Bill:
Salud BOB. Now go home and get your fucking shinebox.
JK
@mai naem:
Field dressing a moose
Word salad endurance contest
General Winfield Stuck
@Svensker:
All right. done. for the thirtyeth time, at least. Longest dern contest in history.
Dean Wormer
@aimai:
i was thinking “wingerazzi” might be more à propos, since the x-erati tag implies some myst/mythical powers, whereas a paparazzo is just a media whore
(pace Walter Santesso)
Demo Woman
1 minute left in the LSU/Ga game.
FYI.. Bitsy needs 16 votes for the 2000 mark.. Maybe she’ll win this week and we can stop voting.
Dean Wormer
@Corner Stone:
i believe the formula would be
{newtons per second per second} * {doughy pantload} ^2 / {arbitron AQH}
resulting in the total joules per foot-pounds-sharted
Midnight Marauder
@Brick Oven Bill:
I don’t know why, but this might be the most hilarious thing ever posted on Balloon Juice.
For many, many reason.
JK
@Demo Woman:
How do you plan to celebrate this remarkable event?
Robertdsc-iphone
Win!
Brick Oven Bill
There was a time where I witnessed an athletic contest between:
a. Two guys with a single 2×6 plank between them, probably 5 feet in length; and
b. One guy with a machete.
This was somewhat concerning to me, as due to my poor planning, we were cornered and the guy with the machete really liked my date. But it was one hell of a contest to observe. If the guy with the machete was not out of his mind on cocaine, I think he would have prevailed. But he probably succumbed to his injuries by the close of the day. Solid head shot. Thud.
Anyway, this is just a thought for some Gladiator- style athletic contest for the Chicago Games. This athletic event would get very good TV ratings, I predict. The advertizing could help pay back the taxpayers for the millions of dollars in jet fuel that Barack’s 747, Michelle’s 757, the two other backup 747s, and the military transports used to fly around Barack’s armored limo, burned on their trip to Europe.
Last place baby.
+0.5
Demo Woman
@JK: If Bitsy wins for the week, I plan on sleeping in and not worrying about voting for her again. Laura has us vote for Bitsy for weeks and then she disappears. What’s up with that?
My mutt Moxie is disappointed in GA losing to LSU. Actually she’s not a football fan but she would prefer not hearing her master yell.
Midnight Marauder
@Brick Oven Bill:
I recant my previous statement. This is the most hilarious thing ever posted on Balloon Juice.
JK
@Demo Woman:
That sounds awfully prosaic. But hey… Whatever Gets You Through the Night.
JK
@Demo Woman:
Well, there’s always baseball and the playoffs are just around the corner.
SiubhanDuinne
Bitsy needs only 9 votes!
Single digits, you guys!
JK
@SiubhanDuinne:
Number 9, Number 9, Number 9…
General Winfield Stuck
@JK:
If Bitsy doesn’t win, I will expect an explanation and possible impeachment of those responsible for expending the prestige and time of this blog when we could have been saving the world for democracy and catblogging.
Demo Woman
@General Winfield Stuck: Two votes left for the 2000 mark. Where the hell is Laura?
General Winfield Stuck
@Demo Woman:
Dunno, Maybe she left us for Facebook.
SiubhanDuinne
JK: That works. Longest track on the album = longest contest in history.
valdivia
I vote for Bitsy every day and still cant figure out why, with all of us voting all the time, she has not won for the week. BTW would we know if she won for the week?
As for the IOC–it is pretty ridiculous to think that the IOC felt Obama did not give them enough attention. You know what gets IOC votes–goodies. In Lat Am we call this la mordida or the bite. Nowadays it cannot be out and out bribery but you get my drift. Rio was leading and I can bet a lot of promises of great attnetion to the IOC was given by the brazilian govt. This is how it works. Funny that the wignuts who think chicago is hyper corrupt cannot see the tip of their noses about this. But you can bet that if chicago had won this is exactly what they would be saying.
DougJ
+0.5
What the hell kind of wuss posts that?
Corner Stone
@valdivia: Mmmm…promises of great Brazilian attention….{insert noise Homer makes when seeing donuts}
Brick Oven Bill
Its not even 5pm here yet, DougJ.
+2.5
General Winfield Stuck
Nyquil buz.
Reason60
The conservative movement is steadily burning its bridges with entire swaths of the country-
You can hear it on blogs and Fox, the drumbeat of scorn and derision aimed at Dem strongholds like San Francisco, New York, LA, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, the entire states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington…..
Similarly, the resentment and bitterness aimed at Hispanics, gays, blacks, and non-Christians. (most of it hidden behind the victimology of affirmative action).
The GOP is ironically turning into the caricature painted of it by the Left- the party of Wall Street interests fronted by disenfranchised rednecks.
Martin
BOBs shit keeps pushing even when it’s hit the bowl. Remember, that in addition to the vast left-wing conspiracy against our thermostats, BOB has warned us against the vast left-wing conspiracy to monitor our toilet flushes. Anyone whose shit doesn’t flush itself is subject to monitoring by Herr Obama.
Kudos to BOB for getting ahead of the game.
Brick Oven Bill
Now that I am + a solid three, you might be pleased to know that, being a geographic bachelor, I just pissed in the sink Martin. This is more environmentally friendly than the Brazilian TV commercials advocating pissing in the shower.
Earlier today, I pissed off the porch several times. This is the most environmentally friendly practice of all, as it never begins to smell, and requires no flushing water. I really am ahead of the game in the arena of environmentalism. Perhaps the forthcoming Chicago Games could entertain a similar contest.
In order to get water where I’m at, it is necessary to engage an electric pump to raise groundwater several hundred feet above the water table. It is not only the elevation head, but also pressure head that this electricity has to overcome. My pressure tank limit switch toggles between, I believe, 20 and 40 pounds per square inch.
Now I am leaving to go to the bar.
Martin
Keep pissing, BOB. They love that at bars.
Ruckus
@Corner Stone:
Wouldn’t measuring the force excreted give you the speed of wingularity? And measuring the height*width*length of the pile would give you the amount of wingularity.
Now because the pile of wingularity crap is so high and is being spread at such force, no one with any sense wants to get close enough to actually measure either one is another story altogether.
superluminar
@BOB:
So that’s how you offset your posts! Ok.
Studly Pantload
What does it say about Mark Kirk that nowhere on his campaign site’s homepage is he identified as a Republican, but he’s happy to display the FOX Snooze logo?
+0 and determined not to let that last
Pug
Take a hike outside of the resorts in Rio Bill.
Don’t wear a watch. You’ll get robbed for sure if you do.
If you don’t, there is only a a 75% chance of being robbed.
sparky
@superluminar: win. a BOB self-degrading composter?