I want to pull out of the details of the latest lie Mitt Romney can’t sustain to ask a simple question: what is this guy going to run on? Let’s take a look at where we’re at in this campaign:
* Mitt’s record as Governor of Massachusetts can only be mentioned in the most oblique way because Romneycare is more-or-less Obamacare at the state level. The House contingent of his party voted thirty-something times to repeal Obamacare, and they’re probably formulating riders to appropriation bills demanding that someone poop on it in public, so that part of his bio is pretty toxic.
* Only the most credulous hack now thinks that Romney can elide responsibility for less-than-pleasing Bain activities like offshoring and their investments in fetus disposal. Despite the best efforts of Glenn Kessler and FactCheck.org, no reasonable person believes the founder and sole stockholder can pick an arbitrary date a few weeks after he left the company to play a game of “not me”, so mentioning Bain was already dicey business for Romney. Now, it’s like skipping through a minefield.
If these two parts of his bio are out of play, the only thing left is his service as a stake president in the Mormon Church (which he also keeps on the d/l), his work at the Olympics (as a government welfare queen) and his six years of running for President. Make a stump speech out of that, I dare you.
azlib
The campaign will go negative 24×7. That is all they have left.
Xenos
Anybody else notice a resurgence in Birtherism amongst facebook friends?
Considering how Romney may have lied about his residency to get on the ballot for Governor in Massachusetts, that may be a tell. Maybe it is just a shift to the ‘bargaining’ stage of grief.
Valdivia
Apparently the choice is Obama is a crony capitalist. I don’t see it working but what do I know?
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
@azlib:
Yeah, Team Romney needs an ‘issue’ fast. They’ve lost two weeks of media cycles and that’s an eternity.
Paul (@princejvstin)
Romney’s campaign is “I’m not
that scary black manObama.”And at least 45% of America, if not more, will vote for him for that alone. And it might be enough for him to win.
Shub-Niggurath help us all.
MattF
Clearly, Obama must apologize for placing Mitt in this position.
EconWatcher
@Valdivia:
I think anything directed at Obama’s personal integrity and decency will backfire. People know him by now, and other than the 27%ers, they like him personally.
But the 27%ers hate him so much, a lot of the Citizens United money will be wasted on a futile effort to convince people that he’s a crook or has some nefarious hidden agenda.
MikeJ
Didja see the pins he had made for the Olympics? Pics up at Rumproast.
Why would somebody sell cloisonne pins of themselves romantically involved with furry mascots?
arguingwithsignposts
Mittbot: I am not black. I am not a Democrat. Vote for me.
easy.
c u n d gulag
Well, he could run on his time at that elite Prep Schoo…
No.
No, he can’t.
Cue the Nigrah-bashing, Gay-smearing, and Shameless-Hussy Hysterics!
Any bets on who’ll be the first major Republican politician to scream, “N*gger! N*GGER! N*GGER!?”
eric
He will run on the American Dream. “I believe in rewarding achievement and aspiring to greatness. That is what I tried to do as governor, while at Bain, and in saving America’s honor when he bailed out the Olympics. It is not about the petty politics of name calling and the distortion of facts to score cheap political points. I, Willard Romney, am going to run a campaign my opponent cant run — a campaign talking about my love of America and her greatness. You will hear only positive from me, but, alas, my opponent, cannot do that because his promises of hope and change remain unfulfilled.”
PS. i will leave the negative to the Super Pacs. it is what he should have done from the beginning.
Cassidy
@Paul (@princejvstin): You know, every time I see something like that, I think to myself an apocalypse of some sorts might not be half bad. I mean, I know I can take care of me and mine should society go to hell, but most of them would waste away.
sdhays
@eric: Talk to John Kerry about how that works out…
PeakVT
Romney can’t mention job creation while he was governor, either, because it sucked. Essentially the last 13 years of his life are now off limits.
Romney: Vote for me for because I did some stuff in the 1990s!
Older_Wiser
And Rmoney is the best the Rethugliscum had to offer. Think about that: http://nomoremister.blogspot.ca/2012/07/if-this-ends-as-expected-we-still-wont.html
eric
@sdhays: @sdhays: Kerry did not have super pacs willing and able to spend $1 billion to smear the other guy.
Older_Wiser
@c u n d gulag: Rick Santorum came close with “ni….”
Anya
* The sheriff is near
* Muslims are coming
* Barack Hussein Obama hates Israel
* gays and browns
* Replying the greatest hits of 2008 ( Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, etc)
* Hillary Clinton yelled at Obama ya’ll
Valdivia
@EconWatcher: I agree. I just can’t fathom what these guys think they’re going to accomplish with that given that Obama’s character is pretty set in the public mind.
JPL
Romney will always have Russia.
NotMax
Cue the channeling of Tricky Dick.
“I have a secret plan…”
That and oodles of empty platitudes referencing exceptionalism, manifest destiny, and so on.
Call it the Fortune Cookie Gambit.
Richard Fox
The limited resources of the Obama camp (relative to Romney) force them to make every buck count. Their ads and the relentless stategy to downsize Romney’s resume have been a remarkable spectacle. It helps that Romney is surely one of worst candidates of modern times. He has nothing to run on. Why is he running for President anyway? Simply because he can? Because his father did? Because he has $$? There is no there there. I think he will be reduced to whistling “Dixie” by the time the convention rolls around.
But truth be told Dems cannot become complacent. There are huge headwinds and big money rolling through the system, especially for the house. Voter suppression also worries me greatly. But hey I have optimism in spite of all that. That’s how I roll. :-)
IowaOldLady
His time at the Olympics?
I suspect the Romney campaign plans to bring out whatever they have on that against the background of Romney at the London games. I also suspect the Obama campaign has some fun video, talking about contracts going to Bain companies, maybe with a dancing horse in the background.
I hope Colbert kept his horsie suit close to hand.
Brian R.
@Xenos:
Anybody else notice a resurgence in Birtherism amongst facebook friends?
No, I don’t stay friends with moronic assholes on Facebook.
Josie
After listening to Dan Senor on Morning Joe today, I would guess that they will focus on unemployment numbers. He answered every question, no matter what, with some version of “over 8% unemployment.” It remains to be seen if the msm and the American voter can figure out that the questions are not being answered and that a program to end unemployment is not being put forward.
dmsilev
@Valdivia:
So, I assume this is going to consist of Romney and his mouthpieces shouting “Solyndra! Solyndra! Solyndra!” over and over again while the rest of the country scratches its head in confusion?
At the rate at which Romney is trying to devolve himself into a member of the GOP base, his convention speech is going to accuse Obama of forging his own birth certificate.
The Other Bob
@c u n d gulag:
I won’t bet who, but I bet that a properly placed group of thugs in a wound-up crowd, chanting: “Say it! Say it! Say it!” could get one of these nuts to drop the N-bomb.
c u n d gulag
@Older_Wiser:
Ah, yes, I’d forgotten – but later, he called them “blah” people, so it’s ok.
Pat
@eric: At comment #11.
Since the Dems have just hit him with the ad (Firms, I think it’s called) that hits on his foreign tax shelters, it’s time to pivot to his tax proposals, which apparently raise taxes for millions of households under 50k and significantly lower the rate for the wealthy.
He plays fast and loose with taxes, we who have lesser income can’t, is this the reward he’s talking about? Then he can do that generalized stuff all he wants, but his atrocious tax proposals and behavior are out there tied together.
Walker
@PeakVT:
Have you read the Bloomberg article? Even that is toxic. While many of those companies did not go under until post 1999, it was the debt from Romney’s aggressive leveraged buyouts that drove them into the ground. That man truly destroys everything he touches.
Anya
@eric: That would be a possibility if the Romney campaign was run by mature adults. Instead, it’s run by frat boys and high school bullies. The same idiots who think that they can counter Obama campaign’s devastating ad with an ad showing Obama singing, or sending its bus to circle and disrupt Obama events, honking its horn. WTF!
russell
Romney is campaigning on “I’m not Obama”.
Depending on context, that parses as “I’m not black”, “I’m not a smartass Harvard know-it-all”, and/or “I made my pile in the private sector”.
My guess is that just running on “I’m not a black technocratic government-oriented smartypants with a (D) in front of his name” will get him damned close to being President. An actual platform is lagniappe.
JPL
According to TPM Trump is harping at the college transcripts cuz they got nothing.
edit..Romney will make a commercial showing his Cranford days.. nah, that probably won’t work. Maybe Ann can mention how hard it was to go through college by selling stocks..nah, that won’t work. Okay he’s got nothing.
debbie
@ c u n d gulag:
I think they already have, every time they turn to Herman Cain. They think they inoculate themselves by hoisting another black man onto the stage and let him speak their poisonous thoughts.
JPL
@debbie: What happened to Allen West. He’s a great spokes man.
cmorenc
@Valdivia:
So many among the hard-core GOP base and teabaggers firmly believe that Obama’s a lying socialist lying scumbag with ties to radical Ayers/Wright leftists intent on destroying America as ordinary citizens know it, that they think the only reason enough of the country hasn’t risen up against Obama to throw his ass out of office in a landslide election is that the liberal media has been covering up for him and pulling the wool over too man people’s eyes. THEREFORE, if only they shout the truthiness about Obama louder and more often, it will break through.
NotMax
@Richard Fox
Because that’s what he has been bred and reared to do.
The White Horse prophecy and being inured, coddled, and empowered in ambition in that milieu does play into it, and not just peripherally.
eric
@Anya: I do not disagree. I know it is easy to monday morning quarterback, but he should have run (and still should run) on a morning in america again message. hit obama on unemployment, yes, but not just the number, but hit on the sense that we can do better. we can do better in the way we educate our children, the way we regulate business. etc. we have all heard it a hundred times because it works. stay out of the muck and then blast obama for being negative because he cant run on his record. talk about everything you ever done that is positive and when there is some negative from obama just use the reganisim “there you go again…”
political malpractice
russell
Yeah, and don’t forget that Nixon’s “secret plan” got him every state but MA.
Never underestimate the power of resentment in American politics.
“A black man with an African father and a weird name got a Harvard degree, a big fat book deal, and now he’s President, and I can’t even make my car payment.”
To a lot of folks, that’s all the evidence they need that their world has turned upside down.
The Republic of Stupdity
@azlib:
All they have left?
That’s all they had to begin with…
Litlebritdifrnt
@russell:
There was a Romney campaign somethingorother on MJ this morning saying “Governor Romney has laid out a 59 point plan and it is very specific” Joe Klein basically said “I have read it there is nothing in it” or words to that effect. It reminds me of McCain’s big secret plan to get Bin Laden, he would only tell us about it if he got elected. Funny that.
grandpa john
@IowaOldLady: The olympics? Well one thing they have is the 340+ million dollars of government money bailout which is what saved the olympicsnot the actions of lying mitt.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Catching the news on my local fox affiliate (pretty good news except when that bring in Doug Lisater (I don’t care how it’s spelled). The settled upon talking point is that Obama is talking about Bain to avoid talking about the economy.
quannlace
So Monday morning dawns, and on the news, the only new statement from the Romney campagin about the Bain attacks is that it’s ‘dishonest.’ Fine. So just tell us what are the dishonest parts.
Balconesfault
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Romney’s already there on specifics on what tax deductions and credits he’d eliminate to balance out large rate cuts.
SCHIEFFER: You haven’t been bashful about telling us yo want to cut taxes. When are you going to tell us where you’re going to get the revenue? Which of the deductions are you going to be willing to eliminate? Which of the tax credits are you going to — when are you going to be able to tell us that?
ROMNEY: Well, we’ll go through that process with Congress as to which of all the different deductions and the exemptions —
grandpa john
@eric: But how can he run on any of that with his Bain record becoming exposed daily and without offering specific solutions to problems he promises to change. People are skeptical.
Another Halocene Human
Speaking of Massachusetts, how are Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren neck and neck????
Litlebritdifrnt
David Corn has another piece about the testimony of Romney before the elections commission when he was trying to qualify to run for Governor.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/romney-bain-testimony-transition
Balconesfault
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Well, funny enough up to now Mitt has been talking about Bain to avoid talking about specifics for a plan to create jobs.
NotMax
@Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Yup. Obama hasn’t mentioned the economy for at least 8 or 10 hours.
They’re shooting blanks on that meme.
El Cid
@russell: Yeah, but Nixon’s ‘secret plan to end the war’ only had to be ‘I’m not the guy who’s the VP of the guy who’s been running and extending this war since he’s been in charge.’
It may have been shockingly wrong (in terms of Nixon’s escalations to, say, pre-genocidal bombing levels in Cambodia), but is anyone surprised that the opposing candidate vaguely describing his intent to end a seemingly perpetually sustained, hated war garners support from lots of people who hate that war and don’t believe that the VP of the current holder of power who sustained and escalated that war is the one to end it?
Nixon’s ‘secret plan’ just had to be ‘I’m committed to ending the war because I’m not those guys‘ in order to garner political support.
Donut
The stump speech hasn’t changed for Romney since he vanquished ol’ Ricky Semenlube. It’s always been pretty simple: “Obummer sux and he isn’t worthy of the presidency, apologizes for ‘Merica and is soshalist, too. Also, too, the sheriff is a n***er and teh Mexicans are coming and teh Gay Menace looms and LOW TAXES!! So vote for Mittens!
I mean, really, to me that’s pretty much all he’s been saying.
giltay
@Litlebritdifrnt: I was going to say that Romney may have no hope of running on his personal image, but that there was a possibility of him running on an old-fashioned platform of policy. But then I remembered he has no policy, either. Maybe the general Republican policy of do nothing but cut taxes on the wealthy and undo everything ever done by a Democrat.
Sharl
@Another Halocene Human: One factor is a Warren-hostile local media, according to one or more MA residents (Anne Laurie, maybe?) who have commented here. Sen. Centerfold’s wife is a popular Boston TV news reader, IIRC, and that is cited as a factor in the media going all tribal-clique against the better candidate. Wouldn’t be the first time media has done something like that. [E.g., on a national level, WaPo’s Ceci Connelly and NYT’s Kit Seelye, and their “War on Gore” in 2000]
PeakVT
@Walker: Romney: Vote for me for because
I did some stuff in the 1990s!in the 1980s!in the 1970s!I was a good kid before my parents sent me to that prep school!Gin & Tonic
@El Cid: You’re conlfating 68 and 72, I believe. “Secret plan to end the war” was 72, as was the bombing of Cambodia. By that point people were sick and tired of the war, and he *had* to run on ending it during his second term.
ppcli
If these two parts of his bio are out of play, the only thing left is his service as a stake president in the Mormon Church (which he also keeps on the d/l), his work at the Olympics (as a government welfare queen) and his six years of running for President.
Not true at all! He also graduated with distinction from Harvard Law School!
Uh, Wait….
Nevermind
grandpa john
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
well duh. and this is earth shaking how. Basic tenet of warfare, when you expose a weak point, this is where you focus your attack. Bain is and has always been a major weak point for Mitt, its the arrogance of him and his organition not being in touch with real people.
His organization has never focused on how we ordinary low and middle class people would look at his overseas accounts, and his pillaging of companies and laying off thousands of workers to make his millions. millions that none of have, hell we would be satisified with thousands in the bank
R
rikyrah
Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be sitting across from a Holy Roller, trying to extol the virtues of Willard Romney, and then to calmly ask them how their faith is reconciled with supporting a man who made a profit off of aborted fetuses.
I just want to hear them try and explain it away.
NotMax
@Sharl
Still agog at how Brown possibly thought that — in Massachusetts of all places! — his claiming, even falsely, that he was hobnobbing with kings and queens would play well.
scav
Poor mittster, Obama going about the entire entire world constantly appologizing for things and he can’t get one for himself. sob sob sob. Meany old Crony Capitalist Communist Islamo-Pastor-Following meany Hawaiian-Kenyan. . .
grandpa john
@quannlace:
While they are at it how about having them explain how citing
facts taken from public records is “lying ” about someone.
shortstop
@Litlebritdifrnt: The “plan” is out if you want to read it. It’s basically a combination of the totally non-specific (“Boost the economy!”) and, to make it seem longer, the very specific when it benefits Romney cronies (“Repeal EPA regulation number so-and-so.”). Ludicrous.
chopper
welp, this is what happens when you run on one single alleged strength which just happens to be a massive weakness. for Obama making mitt’s private sector work radioactive is like shooting fish in a barrel. everybody who has run against mitt in the last 20 years has been honing this sword and now Obama’s wielding it. and Obama was already a good swordsman to start with.
Todd
On Fox News Sports radio new blurbs this AM, they were still talking Pawlenty.
NotMax
@shortstop
Inflation rears its gruesome head. The Underwear Gnomes managed to do the same with just a 3-point plan.
shortstop
@rikyrah: Try to arrange your week so you’re in just that position. I know I’m going to.
Tom65
Abortions for
somenone, miniature American flags for others!shortstop
@NotMax: These are very serious people who know how to get er done, NM. They’re not community organizers and Harvard lawyers.
chopper
now mittens is gettin all ‘Obama just doesn’t want to talk about his record’. of course Obama’s response is ‘sure, motherfucker, let’s run on our records. tell us all again about all the shit you’ve done.’
NotMax
@rikyrah
Easy rationalization on their part.
That was then; he’s since seen the light and come into grace.
catclub
@PeakVT: “Romney: Vote for me for because I did some stuff in the 1990s!”
And we know that no one else in the whole world could make money in the late 1990’s!
grandpa john
@chopper: The fact that Mitt and company thought that Bain was a strength to begin with, just helps enforce the reality of how arrogantly out of touch with the mass of the electorate they were.I and I know some others here, have always felt that Bain would prove to be his undoing assuming from what we know about the Obama organization that it would be amajor attack point.
I really can ‘t imagine how Romney thought that his work as a vulture capitalist, destroying and looting companies ,
laying off thousands of workers to fill his pockets, and sen ding jobs overseas while personally earning millions , and then avoiding paying taxes on much of this money by putting it in offshore accounts would be positives to campaign on. Again it all goes back to his total lack of self awareness, his air of supreme arrogance, and evidently his total belief that all of us non- millionaires out here really are nothing but dumbasses who will totally forget all his previous lies from the week before in order to believe his mass of lies for this week.
Turgidson
His stump speech (at least the segments I’ve heard) consists almost entirely of lies about Obama’s record and character. I think it will continue to be thus.
shortstop
@NotMax: They believed that of Dubya. They do not believe it of Mitt.
KXB
@russell:
I was discussing this last night with my sister. Why are blue-collar white males so opposed to Obama? After all, it was the black guy who was pushing for an auto bailout that saved those white guys jobs. It’s the black guy who is getting all those white troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and put a cap in bin Laden’s ass.
What I said is that for a certain population of white guys, they have no problem thanking a black guy for scoring the winning touchdown, thanking him for putting on a great show, or thanking him for giving a ride to the airport. But to thank a black guy for helping save his job? Thank a black guy for killing the world’s most wanted terrorist? It’s just not done, and they cannot tell you why. It may not even be racial hostility, it’s just a certain degree of disbelief.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So is it crazy to speculate if the damage from Baingate is enough to force Mittens to bow out for the convention? The guys entire argument has been he is the best one able to face down the Sekret Kenyan anti-Imperialist.
chopper
@grandpa john:
i’ve said it before, during a year or two defined by occupy and banking scandals, running a wall st plutocrat as your guy is going to go down in history as just about the dumbest move ever.
Balconesfault
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes. That would take caring about anything (in this case, the GOP) more than he cares about himself.
There is nothing in his profile to suggest that this is possible.
Tom65
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t know if Baingate would be the catalyst, but his campaign has been getting beat like a rented mule on a daily basis. The messaging is awful, the visuals (“here I am on the SS I Have A Boat And You Don’t” – h/t ABL) are almost as bad, and his constant whining is starting to piss off even some party hardliners.
Xantar
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wait wait wait. Joke Line performed an act of journalism?
chopper
@grandpa john:
i’m just amazed at how incompetent you have to be as a candidate to let your opponent, an incumbent president, run as a populist. pro-tip, mittens: if you’re running against an incumbent, you’re supposed to be the populist/reformer.
Pappy O’Daniel: Damn shame! Goddam campaign is lagging! We need a shot in the arm. Hear me, boys? In the goddam arm! Election held tomorrow, that sumbitch Stokes would win in a walk!
Junior: He’s the reform candidate, Daddy.
Pappy: Yeah?
Junior: A lot of people like that reform. Maybe we should get us some.
Pappy: I’ll reform you, you soft-headed son of a bitch. How we gonna run reform? We’re the incumbent! Is that the best you can come up with? Reform?! Weepin’ Jesus on the cross. That’s it! Start drafting my concession speech right now.
catclub
@grandpa john: They also thought Bain was fine because the GOP primary campaign reinforced the idea that Bain would not be touched. Mostly incompetent opposition.
When Newt did touch on it, he won SC and then the entire GOP establishment came down on him like a ton of bricks. So no lesson about how toxic Bain really was, was learned.
The GOP primary voter is so far removed from the rest of the electorate that it makes it incredibly hard to thread the needle from primary to general.
Gus
Easy. “The President is black.”
Librarian
@russell: You’re confusing 1968 with 1972. Nixon had the secret plan in 68, when he barely won against Humphrey. 72 was the election where he won every state but MA. And, actually, I don’t believe he ever claimed to have a “secret plan” anyway.
Gus
@Todd: Not a chance. How many times do you think you’d see the “Obamneycare” clip between the convention and election day if he chose T-Paw?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Walker:
There was an episode of the Sopranos where an old friend of his ended up owing tens of thousands in gambling debts to Tony. This being a friend, TS’s “merciful” solution was to force the victim to run up all his business credit lines to buy stuff like copper pipe, equipment etc which could be sold off for profit. The business, of course, soon went bankrupt and ceased to exist, it’s credit and equity extracted and sold off.
This was apparently Bain Capital’s exact business model.
Another Halocene Human
@KXB:
I think you’re right about disbelief (hence the conspiracy theories). Our racist society accepts Black men as servants, as entertainers. It has come to accept Black men as athletes and sports stars, after a period of violent hostility.
It still has issues accepting Black men and women as intellectuals (except, of course, of “Black studies”), as lawyers, as politicians, as LEADERS.
On the positive side, children born in these times will blink in confusion when their grandparents tell them that Blacks were once considered “unelectable” (for example, Jesse Jackson’s campaign in 1988, or the Hilarybots in 2008).
maya
@Todd: Yeah! The Rmoney / Pawlenty ticket would make for an awesome campaign song:
We’ve got Pawlenty and Nothing and Nothing’s Pawlenty for we.
Another Halocene Human
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The guys entire argument has been he is the best one able to face down the Sekret Kenyan anti-Imperialist.
That was his argument to his donors. I’m not sure the Republican voting public bought it. He pulled through by running attack ads. Also his opponents were clowns. Santorum is hated in PA, Perry gaffed his way out, everyone but GA Reps despise Newtie, etc.
phoebes-in-santa fe
I was watching MJ and was quite upset that the guys from “our” side let the guy from “their” side get away with speedily sprouting all that shit about the non-importance of when Romney resigned from Bain WITHOUT bringing up the attendant part of that.
IF he “retroactively resigned” from Bain in 1999, then was he lying to the Massachusetts Election Board when he said he was often in MA in those years, in order to maintain his MA residency. Romney and his surrogates can’t have it both ways and “our” guys never called him on that part. Neither did Mika.
Roy G.
Take away his Bane experience and Rmoney is nothing more than a faith-based community organizer – in magic underwear, no less.
Tom Q
@Librarian: “Secret plan” was just the media shorthand for the fact that Nixon promised to bring the war to an end without providing any specific road-map. It’s like “malaise” (or, hell, “Play it again, Sam”) — famous quotes that were never actually uttered.
And it was, yes, 1968. By 1972, Henry Kissinger was telling us “peace is at hand”.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
@russell: Well Willard’s MBA is from Harvard, so the “I’m not a Harvard know it all” claim will be a little hard to sell.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Tom65:
That’s what I am wondering about. Mittens smells like a failure and politicians have finny attuned noses for that. They must be wondering like the rest of us as to what Romney is hiding with his taxes.
brantl
I think I see where you made your mistake……. Many people aren’t even thinking about this enough to apply logic to this. My wife can’t see what horseshit it is, as she simply refuses to think about it.
Catsy
@Paul (@princejvstin):
I see what you did there.
(Yes, I know, the Great Old One isn’t even remotely the same word… cut me some slack for a straight line.)
yopd1
More of this please. Classic Republican methodology in reverse where they don’t realize what they are actually voting for and question the person asking why they are voting to give themselves healthcare for life.
Lex
What’s left? The only thing they’ve ever had left, as reported repeatedly by Charlie Pierce over at Esquire:
russell
Brown drives a truck, Warren teaches at Harvard.
Brown positions himself as an alternative or counterweight to the prevailing Democratic political establishment in MA. MA state and Boston city government is fairly corrupt, or at least is pretty self-serving, so that plays pretty well here.
Warren’s from out of state, Brown’s a homeboy.
Also: Librarian, you are correct about Nixon ’68 vs ’72, my bad.
Rafer Janders
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Or, as explained by Ray Liotta’s character in “Goodfellas”,
describing an early private equity model:
“Now the guy’s got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with a bill, he can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy’s got to come up with Paulie’s money every week. No matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. The place got hit by lightning, huh? Fuck you, pay me. Also, Paulie could do anything. Especially run up bills on the joint’s credit. And why not? Nobody’s gonna pay for it anyway. And as soon as the deliveries are made in the front door, you move the stuff out the back and sell it at a discount. You take a two hundred dollar case of booze and you sell it for a hundred. It doesn’t matter. It’s all profit. And then finally, when there’s nothing left, when you can’t borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze, you bust the joint out. You light a match.”
kerFuFFler
@MikeJ: Why Mitt thought a pin that says “Mitt Happens” was a good idea I’ll never know!
Thanks for the link!