I find it cute that Mittens wants to run away from his governance in Mass. and his role in Romney Care, but decides to make this bold stance:
Mitt Romney forcefully said Tuesday night that he believes President Barack Obama was born in America and that “the citizenship test has been passed.”
“I think the citizenship test has been passed. I believe the president was born in the United States. There are real reasons to get this guy out of office,” Romney told CNBC’s Larry Kudlow the day after he formally announced that he’s exploring a run for the White House. “The man needs to be taken out of office but his citizenship isn’t the reason why.”
I don’t know why he is even wasting his breath. The same people who think that Barack Obama is a Kenyan muslim non-citizen also think that Mitt Romney belongs to a cult. They aren’t going to listen to him, they aren’t going to vote for him, and no matter what you do, they are going to be convinced they are doing the work of Jeebus while the corporate wing of the GOP continues to rob them blind. Thomas Frank could write a book “What’s the Matter with These Morons” and he would be talking about them.
Maybe Romney is calculating this will get him some credibility with important people like… the Politico and the rest of the Beltway media. As we have just learned, the bar for seriousness is incredibly low. Just last week, Ryan proposed cutting taxes on the rich and paying for them by ending Medicare and Medicaid and was met with starry eyed fanbois throwing their panties at him, so maybe all you need to do to be considered serious with these clowns is to acknowledge Obama is American.
4tehlulz
Mittens apparently has written off every primary/caucus whatevs outside Nevada and Utah.
Bobby Thomson
Exactly. There’s literally no downside to Romney taking this position, and this kind of straight talk
is excellent news for John McCainwill have the desired effect on certain gasbags susceptible to mancrushes.Jim, Foolish Literalist
I know Mittens was pro-choice when he was gov, wasn’t he also pro- or at least non-crazy on gay rights? I figure “Romneycare” will be the cover they use to vote against him for that, that and the cult.
Jack
Kind of related, very worth reading:
Privatized Fascism
jon d
John Cole –
Did you see this?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110411/ap_on_bi_ge/us_spending_showdown_details
Can someone give the GOS the memo to stfu now?
Bob
Mittens is taking a very serious position Cole!
It’s the start of an important debate and gets the ball rolling!
NobodySpecial
No, he has to add the tax cuts to be considered serious. Just considering Obama American will only get you to the level of ‘second-rate pretend Democrat we put on the teevee to agree with Republicans that soc!@lists are mean’.
taylormattd
He just lost the nomination.
Chris
Not sure about this. How many of these people are devoted followers of Glenn Beck, who’s part of the same cult?
PurpleGirl
OT
Professor Krugman again quotes a John Cole post in his blog (title: Reductio Ad Absurdum).
Congrats John.
Chris
Not so much low as really really crooked. Ryan’s proposal may have passed the Seriousness bar, but a proposal for single-payer health insurance wouldn’t in a million years, no matter how realistic and serious it actually is.
meh
mormonism is a fucking cult – I was raised in that batshit religion, was baptized in it at 13, and have run screaming from it ever since. They are just as fucked up as the scientologists, although at least Scientology has decent fiction to go along with it. Mormons have Jesus coming to America.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
A candidate that endorses pureform birtherism cannot win a general election in 2012.
I think what the GOP will do is have a non-birther on the top of the ticket, and a semi-birther on the bottom.
GregB
Romney is bracingly serious.
kdaug
Politics + Reality TV + Low-Information Voter + Short Attention-Span Theater.
Interesting times.
Culture of Truth
Maybe Romney is calculating this will get him some credibility with important people like… the Politico and the rest of the Beltway media.
I think that’s right. It’s also a good strategy to go into the primaries as the least crazy in a field of crazies.
salacious crumb
whatever happened to Jon Hunstman..wasnt he planning on running as well, or did he realize he would have to imitate Hu Jintao, RushBo style to win votes of Tea Tards…
Did anyone see the look on Mittens wife the last time he ran. Every time he lost a state and promised to keep on fighting his wife had that flustered look that was just priceless..it was that stop spending your kids inheritance money on a race u cant win u fuckin loser!!
New Yorker
@meh:
And this makes it different than, I dunno, every other religion on earth….how?
I don’t see how the stories of the Nephites and Lamanites are any more kooky than the stories of talking snakes and global floods and people rising from the dead that are present in the holy books of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
4tehlulz
BTW, I, for one, look forward to Mitten’s brave stance against Holocaust denial.
joeyess
Here’s my prediction for who gets the GOP nomination: T-Paw/Huck.
Huckabee will play the part of Onward Christian Soldier Hatchet Man rallying the shock-troops, while Pawlenty will be made to look reasonable and electable. Well, electable, assuming they can relieve him of the tan-line left behind by the ten year stint of his mullet.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@jon d: Don’t worry, they found reasons to hate it even after they found this out.
Culture of Truth
They aren’t going to listen to him, they aren’t going to vote for him
Not exactly. Those who think Obama is a Kenyan non-citizen will vote for Romney in the general election. Mitt may belong to a goofy religion, but by god the man is white as white gets.
mclaren
Proof that the rich are stupid and lucky, not smart and savvy.
Romney is trying to capture the sane centrist Republican primary voters. Trouble is…there aren’t any sane centrist Republican primary voters.
Uloborus
I think you’ve nailed it. This is his play for Seriousness. Remember how the punditry latched onto the new discourse in the most asininely shallow way possible. Admitting publicly that Obama is American will privately strike them as some kind of brilliant political ploy and thus give them mancrushes, and publicly make him the icon of the Republican trying to drag things back to the reasonable center-right where they’re SURE the country lies.
@jon d:
Sadly, no. We’ve been arguing about this most of the last 48 hours. Apparently this is Obama’s feint before passing Simpson/Bowles. Myself, I read about that (all the articles seem to have different numbers, but they’re all glowing) and wanted to do the Happy Happy Dance. Our negotiator is the most scrupulously polite shark you could ever not hope to play poker with. We’ve got a lot of negotiating to do, and this was very reassuring.
Culture of Truth
You gotta feel for Mitt – he was born into it too. Oh how he wishes he was born a Baptist.
Uloborus
I think you’ve nailed it. This is his play for Seriousness. Remember how the punditry latched onto the new discourse in the most asininely shallow way possible. Admitting publicly that Obama is American will privately strike them as some kind of brilliant political ploy and thus give them mancrushes, and publicly make him the icon of the Republican trying to drag things back to the reasonable center-right where they’re SURE the country lies.
@jon d:
Sadly, no. We’ve been arguing about this most of the last 48 hours. Apparently this is Obama’s feint before passing Simpson/Bowles. Myself, I read about that (all the articles seem to have different numbers, but they’re all glowing) and wanted to do the Happy Happy Dance. Our negotiator is the most scrupulously polite shark you could ever not hope to play poker with. We’ve got a lot of negotiating to do, and this was very reassuring.
Trevor B
@New Yorker: The part that gets me about Mormonism is the blatant racism inherent in a religion founded more recently. I especially like the part about how all the Indians in America will become white skinned once all of them have been converted to Mormonism. As a Jew, I also like being referred to as the “evil ones” within their scripture
Violet
@joeyess:
I prefer to call him Timp.
@salacious crumb:
Yeah, she doesn’t want him to run for President. A good Mormon wife supports her husband, though, so she’ll be dutiful. She’s got MS, right? A grueling campaign has to be tough if you’ve got a disease like that.
Uloborus
I think you’ve nailed it. This is his play for Seriousness. Remember how the punditry latched onto the new discourse in the most asininely shallow way possible. Admitting publicly that Obama is American will privately strike them as some kind of brilliant political ploy and thus give them mancrushes, and publicly make him the icon of the Republican trying to drag things back to the reasonable center-right where they’re SURE the country lies.
@jon d:
Sadly, no. We’ve been arguing about this most of the last 48 hours. Apparently this is Obama’s feint before passing Simpson/Bowles. Myself, I read about that (all the articles seem to have different numbers, but they’re all glowing) and wanted to do the Happy Happy Dance. Our negotiator is the most scrupulously polite shark you could ever not hope to play a WP banned card game with. We’ve got a lot of negotiating to do, and this was very reassuring.
Bob Loblaw
I’m still not clear on how we got to this point. Why isn’t the media’s first response when a politician goes full blown racist on the President with the birther shit to cut the feed/interview, never ask that person back on the air/record, and apologize on for allowing such calculated hate to enter the public record in the first place?
I mean, for fuck’s sake, do they not realize how harshly history is going to judge them for allowing this to be part of the Obama time in office?
jibeaux
@joeyess:
Interesting combination, but can I just point out that that scenario requires Republican Primary voters to choose the man who is arguably the least crazy, least known, and most boring candidate?
Violet
@Bob Loblaw:
Ratings. Duh.
Corner Stone
@Bob Loblaw:
The shareholders that profited from that drama will have long since passed away.
And that’s assuming we get to write the history.
gene108
Slightly off topic but there was a FP post about a MJ article about Republicans trying to defund Dems and Dems being hapless in response.
What’s missing is the fact that if Republicans ran on their policies and agenda, without trying to subvert the democratic process in this country, like say the Democrats did in the 1930’s, 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s, when they maintained decades of dominance in Congress and held the White House for 20 straight years (1932-1952), they’d lose so much it’s not funny.
Why doesn’t anyone make Republicans own up to their agenda, because if they had to run on that, instead of trying to figure out why Democrats aren’t as into dirty tricks, I think the political debate in this country would change.
Make Romney run on his term as governor. Make Huckabee run on his governership, rather than run away from it. They weren’t terrible governors, in the sense that things got better during their tenures. In the Republican world, they weren’t good because they raised taxes, invested in infrastructure, expanded health care access, etc.
Make ’em own up to their bullshit policies.
magurakurin
@jon d:
funny thing about the GOS, if you stop going there completely, in about a week you realize how utterly irrelevant that place is and in fact always has been. It’s a fever swamp and after you leave so does the fever. And I am someone who has a KOS ID of around 20,000. I spent a lot of time there in the past. It was a good nexus for info years ago, but it’s a worthless shithole now.
gene108
@Trevor B:
Is that evil ones with or without horns? (joke)
Uloborus
@gene108:
The Republicans just had their chance to defund the ACA and finreg. They flubbed it. I will now resume chortling.
Tom Q
@Bob Loblaw: Under Clinton, they not only allowed vile things to be said, they expressed and promoted the ideas themselves (rapist, etc.), and no one but us hardcore Dems seem to hold it against them. Hell, Clinton (who’s now a Beloved World Statesman) does special shows with Chris Matthews, who repeated every venomous libel the GOP created. (Democratic) Politicians and celebrities are held responsible for everything they’ve done past the age of 5. Media people? Anything before yesterday doesn’t count.
scav
Well, the crazy-end of the field was getting a little crowded. He’s just running a little bit to the middle of the track to make it round that tricky corner. Probably figgers he could drift back to the crazy rail (or anywhere else for that matter) when nearing the finish line. It’s not like the Mitt means anything longer than it serves him.
joeyess
@jibeaux: I think they can do that. T-Paw just has to last past Iowa and New Hampshire, then do a brief imitation of Teh Crazy in South Carolina. After that, the chattering classes will forget everything they said and put on their grown-up pants. Of course, not before we’re all treated to the spectacle that will be the GOP debates. Complete with Teh Crazy Paeans To Randiansim , birtherism, and, of course, no GOP debate would be complete without denying the following: evolution, global warming and tax-cuts for the rich don’t create jobs.
BTW, that last one? That one only happens on the huge assumption that someone will ask a sane question on the matter of The Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich and the fact that no jobs have materialized since their implementation and extension.
lacp
Another sign of just how clueless Willard is. He doesn’t seem to understand that “Kenyan” and “socialist” are words they throw out there ’cause the word they REALLY want to use wouldn’t be allowed on the teevee.
Arrik
Congrats, John for the line of the day.
Sasha
And yet, Romney still can’t embrace Obama’s citizenship without qualifying:
Is “The citizenship test has been passed; the president was born in the United States” really that hard to say?
He’s still flashing the birthers some skin.
joe from Lowell
I find it sad that this genuinely does represent a brave move for someone running for the Republican nomination.
He’s not talking to them. He’s not trying to convince them. He’s talking to the other half of Republican (optimistically) primary voters. He’s distinguishing himself from the rest of the candidates.
Which bring us back to how sad the Republican Party is, when all it takes to stake out a position as a moderate is to point out that the president was born where he was born.
joeyess
@magurakurin:
I have a low user ID as well. While I agree the comments section and many of the front pagers are worthless and hyperbolic, the site is still a good source of information if you’re looking for wonky charts and solid numbers. PPP polling seems solid as well.
sixers
Mitt knows he’s never going to win with the base of his party supporting him so he’s not bothering trying to slum it on this issue. He’s trying to just be the last best choice standing after the Palin, Huckabee, Santorum debates which sounds actually pretty easy. 20% of the GOP is crazy and can’t be reached but a signifigant portion of the 80% left just cares about two things. Money and winning. Romney will be the most appealing to them and their desire to win at all costs over Obama will help him get the nomination.
Observer
So then we’re agreed, Cole, that’s it’s not racism that’s driving birtherism after all.
joeyess
@Observer: Right. It’s racism and bigotry.
jibeaux
@joeyess:
Allright, then, I’ll take “not T-Paw” for a pint of something not too hoppy. You in for a virtual beer bet?
magurakurin
@joeyess:
perhaps, but I can’t wade through the crap anymore. It makes me feel shitty. I’d rather wait in places like this and hope that kind (and stronger) people like yourself will discover such gems and reveal them here…
Amanda in the South Bay
Does this mean Mittens is Sully’s new crush now? He’s serious!
danimal
I dunno. If Romney starts talking like an adult, he may actually pull the thing out. If 30% of the GOP is partially sane, the clown show composing the rest of the GOP field can split the ‘absolutely stark raving mad’ vote and Mittens can claim the ‘partially insane or mean’ vote and win.
My prediction: Romney/Bachmann 2012
CaseyL
Pawlenty as GOP standard-bearer?
JHChrist. I know peoples’ memories are short and all, but how come no one in the media so much as mentions the I-35 bridge? A few hundred people dead because Pawlenty ignored the engineer reports that said the bridge would fall down if it wasn’t repaired. A few hundred people dead and the entire incident has fallen down the memory hole.
I swear sometimes I hate this country. Or at least its miserable, useless, moronic media commentariat.
bkny
“The man needs to be taken out of office
that’s an odd phrasing…
Dennis SGMM
Just as the Dems use the threat of a Republican loony in the White House to insist that we must vote for Obama no matter what, the Republicans in turn will use the threat of having the Kenyan usurper re-elected to insist that Republicans must vote for their nominee no matter what.
The teabuggerers may make some noise and they’ll definitely make some threats. I just don’t think that enough of them will actually sit out the election to make a difference.
Culture of Truth
The more nuts enter the race, the better for Mittens. Even a small percentage of non-crazy primary voters could get him the nomination.
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
1. Because it isn’t “full-blown racist.” It’s calculated, modulated, implicit racism, carefully refined through years of practice to slip in just under the wire.
Remember the old days, when people would have to apologize for showing pictures of Obama in Somali garb? The people arguing this disreputable line have refined their pitch for the specific purpose of meeting the media’s standards.
ETA: 2. There is no number two.
NonyNony
@Bob Loblaw:
History judge? The press care about history? Huh?
Why would journalists care about how history will judge them? They’re cogs in the machine – does the accountant at Chase Bank care how history will judge him? History isn’t going to remember his name.
Nobody but the big-time politicians and corporate pirates care about how history will remember them – and for most of them even that takes a backseat to a fat paycheck up front now and an inheritance that they can leave behind to their kids. Once they have that they’re secure in doing a handful of good deeds to create enough propaganda to make people forget how they got their power and their money and only remember the good they did, following in the footsteps of folks like Carnegie.
Villago Delenda Est
For pretty much the same reason that Rush Limbaugh must, with every ounce of will he has, resist the urge that is burning in his soul to say the N word live on the air: it’s a line you simply cannot cross.
joe from Lowell
@Dennis SGMM:
Interesting juxtaposition. You scare Democrats by talking about bad policies. You scare Republicans by talking about Kenyans.
Nom de Plume
@magurakurin:
Word. It used to be that I’d first read all the traditional news sites and then head over to DKos for “the real story”. Now I do the opposite: I read their hyperbolic hysterics, and all the weepy drama queens on the reclist auditioning for their own reality shows, then I say, “Okay, it’s off to Google News to get a more accurate read on things”.
redoubt
@Violet: Because, for years, in the national media black politicians were either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Neither of which had a snowball’s chance of being a senator, let alone a President.
Now you have Obama, “brother from another planet” who doesn’t trade in the easily raised (and just as easily dismissed) American view on race. How can he be from here? What do we do with this guy?
joeyess
@jibeaux: You got a bet.
joeyess
@magurakurin: I’ll do my best without linking you to the GOS. And yes, there are a lot of Pollyannas over there.
CaseyL
@Nom de Plume: @magurakurin:
Sadly, yes.
GOS has become the negative benchmark: The more hysterical they get about something, the more I know it’s a non-issue.
jibeaux
@joeyess:
Excellent. So if I win, you buy me a beer wherever it is that you are, but by all means go ahead and drink it yourself, and I’ll replicate your beer-buying by getting my own beer. Then if I win, it’s the same but in reverse.
joe from Lowell
@magurakurin:
Yeah. It was the DADT “debate” that did it for me. Everyone was so absolutely certain that the “Homophobe in Chief” was going to betray them, that pursuing repeal through Congress was just a charade, right up until it passed. Anyone who argued that it was likely to pass was made into a pariah.
And then, when it passed exactly as predicted, was there any introspection? Any reappraisal of their opinion about Obama, or about their own authority to speak authoritatively? Any discussion of whether their political strategy, which revolved around the demonization of Obama as a homophobe, needed tweaking?
Nope, they just became more obnoxious, and explained that they were right to be wrong, because they were wrong for the right reasons. It was the Iraq War pundits all over again.
joeyess
@NonyNony: Wow. If there were such a thing as a George Carlin Award for political rants, I would bestow one upon you in a heartbeat. That pretty much sums up our government/media structure in a single post.
joeyess
@jibeaux: Sounds like a beer in any case, so I’m in agreement. Always.
catclub
@Violet: Timp the Gimp doesn’t sound very nice.
Timp and the Gimp? New sitcom.
Anyway, I laughed.
cat48
I’m not impressed with Romney declaring Obama is a citizen.
Romney is a huge flip flopper, remember?
Observer
@joeyess: Hell of a coincidence then that’s it’s apparently the exact same people.
Guess they must all be Archie Bunker.
Bruce S
Gallup has Trump beating Romney…
At long last, there is no good news for John McCain.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Nom de Plume:
That’s mistake #1: Never read the Wrecks List. Same FDL types shrieking to the same echo chamber.
I don’t always agree with the Front Pagers but like their work and writing. Too bad the comments are pretty much like the Wrecks List.
NonyNony
@joeyess:
Thanks, but seriously? I don’t even consider that a rant, just a straight-up observation. My rants generally include more spittle and anger rather than resigned acceptance. And are liberally sprinkled with the word “fuck” for emphasis.
But I do think it’s worth keeping in mind that few people inside the Machine (or the System or whatever Capitalized Nomenclature you wish to use for our consensual agreement to structure our civilization the way we structure it) consider things like Their Place In History when making decisions – decisions in the Machine are generally short-term decisions to maximize personal agendas. Only a few people in the Machine are ever going to even be remembered by History – and that’s only if they do something so they can be remembered as spectacularly awful (Hitler, Stalin, Ghengis Khan) spectacularly awesome (FDR, Lincoln, Churchill) or both (LBJ).
aimai
@joeyess:
Wow. I think my userid is in the 1000’s. But I think Kos still has a lot of good features if you just ignore most of it. I think the front pagers are pretty good. I avoid the ones I don’t like, and occasionally stumble on a good diary from a person whose voice I would otherwise never hear. Of course the whole place is noisy and chaotic and hysterical–these are american voters.
aimai
Sentient Puddle
@jibeaux: I WANT IN ON THIS BET TOO.
Put me down for Herman Cain winning the presidency.
punkdavid
Maybe it’s because Mitt symapthizes, being that Mitt’s dad was a presidential candidate who was NOT born in the United States, and would have a had a MUCH tougher constitutional argument for his “natural born’dness” than someone like John McCain (Panama Canal Zone) or Barry Goldwater (Arizona Territory) would have had to make.
WaterGirl
“The man needs to be taken out…”
That just jumped off the page as I read the quote.
Not “the president”, not “voted out of office”.
Nope, it’s “The man needs to be taken out…”
Very scary.
“I think the citizenship test has been passed”.
“I believe the president was born in the United States.”
Nice nod to the birthers. Because, well, we really can’t know for sure.
joeyess
@aimai: Oh, I agree with you. However, on the more than odd occasion, the FP’s can be hyperbolic and sensational. It’s the comments section that really gets into the nonsense.
lacp
@Sentient Puddle: “Herman Cain is the name and I pulled on the Teabag train…” Help me out here, people.
joe from Lowell
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
I noticed something interesting about the diaries during the debate over the HCR bill: the shrieking hysterics always lost their own polls by 2:1.
No matter how slanted against Obama the diary was, no matter how leading the poll questions were, no matter how much the comment threads were dominated by PUMAs and Naderites, the polls always came back in the same 60=something to 30-something range in favor of Obama and/or the ACA.
Eventually, it got to the point where they stopped including polls in their diaries entirely.
Keep in mind, these results represented the opinions of people who read anti-Obama diaries on Daily Kos and vote in the polls. Even among that fringe of a wing of a faction of a party, they were losing 2:1 consistently.
Joe Beese
Someone has to win the Republican nomination. Mittens has money and looks – and he’s played this course before.
And it’s not like he’s facing a murderer’s-row of competition.
joe from Lowell
@Joe Beese: Agreed. Flip-flopping, anti-charisma corporate stooge Mitt Romney would be a laughably weak candidate in just about any other year.
Like Pawlenty, he only scores high if you’re grading on a curve.
There’s got to be a no-name governor out there for them to turn to.
Ash Can
This is excellent news for Donald Trump.
In all seriousness, the only thing that gives me the willies about an actual, real-live presidential run by Trump (as opposed to a made-for-TV prolonged photo-op concluded by him dropping out of the race halfway through the primaries) is that now, with Citizens United, he can launder all his cash through nonprofits, think tanks, PACs etc. and funnel it all into his campaign. I don’t want to think about how much cred and realism in the eyes of the voters that kind of dough could buy.
Dennis SGMM
@joe from Lowell:
True. That says a lot about the Republicans. I have an old Navy buddy who’s gone full metal winger over the years and not a day passes that I don’t receive a couple of scare emails (Usually with a about twenty forwards) deriding Obama or reacting in shock and anger at some made-up shit. I’d put him in the spam category save for the fact that he provides me with a ground level view of what the lunatic fringe is up to.
AAA Bonds
What? He’s not wasting his time at all. He’s staking his position.
Romney is betting that he will win a contentious primary schedule against the birther candidates. How could he not and still run? Maybe he won’t win the Republican candidacy, but obviously, he’s betting he will by running in the first place.
He and his campaign figure, probably correctly, that in the general election, early and constant opposition to birtherism will reflect well on Romney among most independents and conservative Democrats, and especially with the majority of the non-Fox press.
As for Fox, and Republican voters, it’s a good (if not certain) bet that they will support any Republican whatsoever over Obama in 2012, whether or not they think that candidate is properly convinced of the President’s nefarious Kenyanism.
Don’t see why this is hard to understand . . .
Quiddity
We must never, ever, forget that David Brooks’ initial reaction to the Paul Ryan plan was that it was “the standard of seriousness”.
Never forget that.
Re Mittens: If you’ve ever seen him off-script, he’s basically a moderate Republican and fairly smart. Not that that’s anything his party wants at the moment. As to his Mormonism, I suspect at the end of the day he will be very resentful of his Christian-pure Republican party which holds it against him.
AAA Bonds
@Dennis SGMM:
Good on you, no sarcasm intended. Failing to stay abreast of that information is the most common mistake among Democrats, and my guess is that there is a far greater reliance on ‘traditional’ e-mail lists among the right than the rest of the country.
You can bet that Republicans always have their eye on the left end of America and its ideas and statements.
Unlike the far left, though, the far right has a large influence on the mainstream, and the right-wing media figures who drive Republican policy regularly pluck trial balloons from the lunatic fringe. These are floated on Fox Nation, Fox News’s right-wing aggregator, and if any of these trial balloons prove interesting to the audience, they find their way to Fox News, and from there to the Post, the Times, Newsweek, etc.
So there is a far greater strategic need for Democrats to pay attention to the far right, DAILY and REGULARLY, but many Democrats have weak stomachs and avoid contact with far right media at all costs. This has to change.
jibeaux
@Sentient Puddle:
Bet noted.
AAA Bonds
@joe from Lowell:
So you’re saying that on average, two-thirds of the people who read Daily Kos supported the President’s bill. Certainly you haven’t presented evidence that most of the people reading those stories or voting in those polls were predisposed to be critical of Obama, and I doubt that was the case.
I hope you don’t think that’s surprising or “a point” in anyone’s favor.
I’m also amused by your fantasy of an organized left-wing anti-Obama commentariat among DailyKos diarists, a “they” that chose to stop including polls because “they” didn’t like the results. Does this go along with this blog’s little snit with FDL or what? I can never keep up with your sandbox fights here.
AAA Bonds
@WaterGirl:
Ahh, very good observation here, and I hadn’t noticed it. He is leaving himself some room to walk it back if “new information” comes to light during the Fox media blitz – that is, if another angle to the conspiracy theory catches on with primary voters.
lawguy
@jon d: And you believe this because?
joe from Lowell
@AAA Bonds:
Yup. Two thirds of the Daily Kos’ readership – a group to the left of the average online Democrat, which is to the left of the median Democrat – supported passing the ACA.
No, I didn’t. As a matter of fact, I presented evidence of exactly the opposite: that most of the “netroots,” a group that some claim has turned against Obama, supports him.
I think it would be surprising to those who think liberals, or the Democratic base, or the netroots, are opposed to Obama, and a point in the favor of those who argue that they have not.
The only fantasy here is your insertion of “organized” into my argument. I don’t think the dropping of polls was organized in any way. I think that each of the firebaggers realized on their own that the poll results kept going against them and made them look bad, and each made the decision individually to stop including them. I also think that this makes my point even more clearly, because it means that this recognition was not imposed on a large body of people, and is therefore in doubt, but was achieved individually by the people most inclined to believe the opposite.
chopper
@meh:
i just choked on my coffee.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
I think it’s smart and I expected it. Romney is positioning himself as the Serious Alternative and will happily watch as the others out-insane one another and split the insane vote. Remember, in many states he doesn’t need to win anywhere near a majority of primary votes to secure the majority of delegates. As you yourself point out…
Exactly, so he can safely ignore them in the primary process, assured that they’ll come around in the general rather than see the Kenyan socialist get another four years.
BombIranForChrist
Maybe he’s trying to be the McCain / Dole / Kerry candidate. Let the outer edges of the candidates cannibalize each other and then emerge on top. Kinda like hiding under corpses in the middle of a battle.
AAA Bonds
@joe from Lowell:
Source?
*cough* Source? I mean, this seems more plausible on its face than the above, but can we really take it as a given?
Oh, that devious “some” and their claims. They’re terrible at phrasing things – they always seem to say what their opponents want to attack.
I think you’re right about Democrats and people who identify as liberals. As for the “netroots”, we’ll see in 2012, because those people are going to be identified by funding compared to 2008. I can’t say I’m as optimistic as you.
See, this is exactly what I mean, “firebaggers”. The bundling together of your opponents to the left – the people you need to win elections – as a gang of grouchy untouchables identified by clubhouse playground jargon. That shit is stupid.
When the Democrats lose people on the left, it’s the left they’re losing. It’s not your least favorite blog or Ralph Nader or whatever fringe personality serves as a convenient scapegoat next cycle.
pattonbt
I’ll just never forget Romney’s “Double Guantanamo” comment in the GOP primaries last time. I always knew he could be politically fluid as necessary, but that really struck me that he held no belief whatsoever – just whatever he thought it took to win.
So I am kind of surprised by this. I do believe, though, it is a simple political calculation of him re-branding himself as the “serious” candidate.