I enjoy presidential primaries in the same way that I enjoy March Madness, but for some reason I’m feeling burned out on this one already.
I am liking TNC’s Paultard-mocking twitter feed, and I’m hoping that a google search for Santorum continues to yield this as the top result. What’s a good place for making fun of Romney?
MikeJ
Any where you happen to be.
dmsilev
This is a good starting point:
Can’t you just feel the MittLove?
Villago Delenda Est
The enthusiasm expressed there is threatening to blow me two time zones away.
Into the North Pacific Ocean.
BGinCHI
Still thinking about that older Vietnam Vet guy who asked Romney about gay marriage and benefits. That’s a powerful video.
Southern Beale
According to my Twitter feed, at an event in Sioux Falls earlier today they introduced Rick Perry as “the next Governor of the United States … ”
Bwaahaaa..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I find Mitt Romney profoundly depressing. Every argument he makes against Obama is the cheapest kind of demagoguery– he doesn’t understand America, “No Apologies”, ‘fighting for the should of America”, etc–and it has I think at least a 50% chance of winning him the election in November.
eemom
tee hee
Mark S.
“Lincoln was a war criminal–but let me qualify that by saying I’m against the drug war.”
PeakVT
but for some reason I’m feeling burned out on this one already.
Possibly because it’s been going on for about three years now, and almost one year at full throttle.
wrb
I think what Rand Paul came with when trying to insult Santorum has beauty: a moderate warmonger.
If only he were an extremist warmonger, then he would at least be worthy of consideration.
ChrisNYC
Nothing will ever beat the dog on the roof thing. You have to think of him doing it, while you watch him talk. So so so crazy. (Sorry dog lovers. I know it must have been horrible for the dog.)
Raven
@BGinCHI: OLDER!!!!!
Jay
“What’s a good place for making fun of Romney?”
A smarter, funnier person than I ought to spoof the “Five Brothers” blog of 2008 with a “Draft The Five Brothers” blog about the ongoing effort to hold a special, one – day military draft just for the Mittster’s five combat – avoiding sons. Which one’s the birther again? Tripp? Trig? Sparky? Wait…
Either way, I’d like to see the birther Romney kid in a combat zone. He’d squirt tears pretty quickly.
The Other Bob
It seems that every Presidential contender gets asked the boxers or briefs question. Will Mitt be asked about his magic underwear?
SiubhanDuinne
Anywhere and everywhere. Duh.
Amir Khalid
@The Other Bob:
Does any candidate ever answer “Commando!” ?
aimai
@MikeJ:
Yeah. I was going to answer “Massachusetts.” But I think Mike is right.
aimai
JGabriel
DougJ:
18 debates in 8 months (15 of them in the last 5) , with 6 more debates scheduled in January alone, will do that to you.
.
handy
TNC’s twitter feeds are a riot. The hashtags alone are worth the price of admission. My current favorite: #imwithchronic
hildebrand
@Amir Khalid:
Does any candidate ever answer “Commando!” ?
Mitt would respond with ‘The Commander?’ Because truly, that is his role model.
Samara Morgan
Do you think Paultard mockery will FINALLY break up TNC and Sully?
i do not think sully does twitter, altho he does fb.
ima go look and see if they are still giving each other tongue.
dmsilev
@JGabriel: Two debates in the next week, including one at 9 AM? Who the hell is going to be watching a GOP debate at 9 AM on a Sunday morning?
Also, too, shouldn’t all of these self-professed devout Christian candidates be in church at that time?
slag
This is actually a good question. I’m starting to worry that Romney is getting the shaft for being the best coiffed clown at the show.
Romney’s ridiculousness needs some love. But where to start?…that’s the question.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: I think that Jesse Ventura, did give that answer.
hildebrand
@dmsilev: The good Roman Catholics will have been to Mass the night before. Well, maybe.
Why is it that I always feel that Republicans who tout their religious bone fides are likely the least truly religious people. Oh, that’s right – the whole Pharasaical nonsense usually operative with such up-tight wankers.
Samara Morgan
do you who does have twitter? glenn greenwald.
praps we can hope for a TNC/greenwald twitter-war.
praps some one could rudely point out that Sully is still humping Paul.
Richard
Paul on his newsletters…
That’s pretty to swallow. Here’s a link to pdf of a 1993 newsletter:
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/11/12/Solicitation2.pdf
It’s only 8 pages long! It literally is simply a letter, and consists of a few hundred words at most. He couldn’t spare 5 minutes to read it?
One Paulist excuse I’ve heard is that the situation is analogous to Forbes magazine. You wouldn’t hold Steve Forbes personally responsible for it’s content and so should it be with Paul’s newsletters. Comparing a major magazine with many contributors to something like this is clearly laughable.
The thing is too is that a lot of whacko stuff in his old newsletters is still part of his current rhetoric, albeit now more carefully framed in polite terms . Paranoia over the threat of the US coming under the rule of a world government. Conspiracy theories regarding currency (nowadays we must fear that UN is going to take over the dollar). Warnings of imminent riots in the streets.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jay: I think it was the NYT profile on Romney that said they made a deliberate decision to keep the Romney boys out of the spotlight this time. It’s one of the few times I’ve been in sync with the larger electorate in finding those aging spoiled fratboys irritating. Somebody could make a fun web ad, if they do keep popping off, in defense of the estate tax.
Tweety said a few minutes ago that Newt is gonna go hard after Romney on abortion, so I guess Newt is joining the Santorum campaign.
ChrisNYC
Worth watching Newt’s stuff today. He’s way cranky and looks all messy and shredded. Calista may as well have a word balloon over her head saying, “Get me the fuck out of this shithole.”
freelancer
Wow, I always thought the newsletter issue was overblown or that he’d contributed to some kooky pamphlets or some such shit. Things that I knew were bad, but straight from the source, it’s unconscionable.
He’s got his name plastered all over it, and it’s insanity. I was in fourth grade in 1993 and I would have recognized prose like this as vile, unhinged poison.
https://twitter.com/RP_Newsletter
Fuck Ron Paul, he is the polar opposite of the kind of extremist all the wingnuts accuse Barack and Michelle Obama of being. That the Whitey Tape bullshit made gigantic waves in the primary and yet I haven’t seen a major outlet address direct quotes or scans of the newsletter is just insanity. Fuck Paul, Fuck libertarianism, and Fuck Sullivan for his whole “I pronounce that I hereby endorse Paul…I mean not his racist aspects, but it’s still worth listening to him…oh what’s that? He has supporters that are racist AND homophobic?! Well then I have to reconsider a possible suspension of my retraction in reference to my hesitance about my much vaunted endorsement!”
JGabriel
Why not here at Balloon Juice?
Mitt Romney, 2012: Because you can’t know a man until you’ve walked a mile in his flip-flops.
.
Amir Khalid
@schrodinger’s cat:
I will never understand how Jesse Ventura, of all people, managed to have a political career, or why he even wanted one.
Violet
@Southern Beale:
That’s awesome. I really wish a candidate like Perry would pull a surprise win in Iowa. It would completely upset the punditariat and make the race a lot more interesting.
JGabriel
@Richard:
Nah, a typewritten page like that is usually 250-325 words. 8 pages is probably in the 2000-2500 word range.
Doesn’t affect the rest of your point though, since it still takes less than 10 minutes to read it.
.
JGabriel
@Violet:
I’m rooting for Santorum, if only for the subsequent video of TV commentators saying things like, “Santorum surged ahead,” or, “Santorum exploded all over Iowa!”
I am shallow and easily amused.
.
Anoniminous
A journey of ten thousand snarks begins with a first step, from wherever thou art.
Having said that, I will beg off reading Mr. Robo-Waffle directly. I don’t hate myself that much.
Randiego
Is there such a thing as a committed Romneyite? Who would this be? Wall Streeters, Republican beltway types that are in it for holding power? How could Romney earn trust from anyone?
Violet
@JGabriel:
It would be great if Santorum surged to a strong finish in Iowa. But him surging to win wouldn’t be as much of a surprise as if someone who wasn’t doing well in the polls actually pulled out a win. So, Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich…if they did well it would completely upend the race.
MikeJ
@JGabriel: Santorum comes from behind.
@Randiego: Our regular troll Veritas pretends to be.
Yevgraf
The thing that you have to remember about that odious piece of shit Ron Paul (as well as his idiot spawn) is that the letters are the coin of the realm – in wingnut land, they’re part of the grift. Sometimes you believe in them, most of the time you don’t.
That is why he’s on the wobbly side of the current disavowals. He’s drawn a bunch of money on this stupid shit, the talentless hacks who write it have made good money (the written “tone” doesn’t sound like him) and it is necessary from a marketing standpoint to back away very slowly.
For you youngsters out there, the 90s were a zenith of the conspiracy industry. The internet was just then a’borning, there’d been a few years of franting xeroxing of conspiracy newsletters, the readers frantically devoring the contents in trailers and shacks from sea to shining sea. Ron Paul gave a lot of this bullshit some legitimacy by virtue of his position – Ruby Ridge, Waco, OKC, Olympic Park – wherever whacko rightwing guys were doing bad things, there was a ready conspiracy theory about oppression from the Federal government – and Ron Paul was there to exploit it for money. Later, when the internet started to blossom and it became clear that every nut with a computer could fire up a website, the nuts were able to find each other, and odious ideas got reinforcement (because self-examination becomes less likely when you realize that somebody else thinks like you do). Ron Paul, having already gained popularity on the newsletter circuit, picked up that support too.
I’m thinking that this cycle may be the gotdammerung for the fringists.
MikeJ
@Yevgraf: It always amused me that people confused a grifter making millions from his “newsletter” with actual samizdat.
Princess
Mockng Romney:
“Mittens Romney 2012” on Facebook
JGabriel
@Randiego:
Of course. Just because someone is in a mental ward doesn’t mean they can’t have political opinions, you schizophobe!
.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
MSNBC’s political director just now: Criticizing Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital is just like the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry.
Anya
@dmsilev:
I feel exactly the same way about Romney. I think two types of voters will vote for Romney in the general: 1)those who hate Obama with passion and would vote for anyone opposing him; 2) people who vote for anyone that has “R” beside their name at the ballot. That’s why I think he’ll lose.
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well, the Swift Boat attacks were deemed A OK by most of the media at the time (or, at the very least, deemed endlessly fascinating), so I guess that means Game On.
Or is that somehow not what he meant?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: I would add in the “Well, he’s rich, so he must know all about the economy” voters, a not insignificant number, I’m afraid. I think it’s a pretty tight race.
StringonaStick
Plenty of anti-Paul fun to be had here, and all in Dr. Seuss form. I think The Coot in the Suit is my current favorite. http://drpaul2012.wordpress.com/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: He was talking about the idea of attacking your opponent’s strength. I was kind of disappointed Martin Bashir didn’t point out that the Swift Boaters weren’t just liars, they were really fucking nasty liars to boot.
Kane
All around the world people are hearing of his name for the very first time. Who is this Santorum guy, they ask. Curious to know more, they go online and do a google search…
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s another example of one of the more annoying traits of the modern political reporter, the fetishization of process over everything else. What matters to them are the tactics behind attacks, “who won the day”, etc. Truth and falsity, the probable results of a given policy, etc. are all irrelevant.
Samara Morgan
@Anoniminous:
twitter
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s what attack ads are for. The Obama campaign will destroy Mittens credibility in this area by showing an endless supply of ads featuring laid off workers who lost their job as a direct result of Romney’s work. By the time the Obama Team is done with him, people will see him as the personification of Wall Street greed.
dmsilev
Ewwwwwww:
Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid: @Amir Khalid:
The movie “Predator” had several cast members who went into politics or tried.
Wannabe Speechwriter
@MikeJ: They were doing some serious Artifice Projecting…
Geeno
@Amir Khalid: I think it was performance art, because he certainly didn’t actually like being governor.
I’m reminded of how Sir Henry Morgan – of Captain Morgan Rum fame – drank himself to death as Governor General of Jamaica, just because he hated the job.
Get a little Capt’n in ya!
Amir Khalid
@Bill Arnold:
I can recall only Jesse and Arnold, elected governor in Minnesota and California respectively. Was there somebody else from the cast of Predator?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Amir Khalid: There was a state guy in KY, as I recall. But I could be wrong…
mittensisawhacko
Mitt’s dog ride from hellstory is one thing, but Mitt’s ‘How I met my wife story’ is maybe even worse. The telling this like it is a normal thing to be proud of is what gets me. Just like the resourceful dog lover with a hose.
Throwing rocks at a horse and rider. What could go wrong?
For the horse and rider a lot. For young Willard Mitt Romney? Probably not much when daddy is Governor of Michigan.