First, some talk about numbers. Nate Cohn at TNR:
If Romney was above 50 percent and withstood a month of bad press, that would be a real sign of resilience. But Romney’s not at 50 percent; he’s at 45 percent. And that essentially means that Romney holds the reliably Republican vote, and not very much more. The polls tell us that nearly all of these voters disapprove of Obama’s performance and that most are Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. History suggests that they have voted for Republicans in recent elections—for instance, in 2008, McCain won 45.9 percent of the vote in a hostile political climate. So 45 percent is a logical floor for Romney, given the intensity of Republican opposition to Obama. For that same reason, analysts shouldn’t be too impressed with Romney’s gains until he consistently scores above 45 or 46 percent, which would be a sign of persuading undecided voters rather than consolidating natural supporters.
Then, another couple indicators for the reason behind those numbers — namely, that Romney is trying to sell a product that most Americans aren’t interested in buying. Timothy Noah at TNR on Romney’s “disconcerting” Olympic gaffe:
… You’ve heard this voice before. It is the voice of a comically self-satisfied man basking in the glory of achieving something very few mortals would be capable of—in this case, running a successful Olympic Games. Indeed, Romney would have you believe that he didn’t just make the Salt Lake City games a success—he saved the Olympics themselves. He grabbed ahold of an Olympic torch extinguished by international scandal and relit the flame… Romney’s Olympic triumph is what made the difference (at least in Romney’s mind) between his failed 1994 Senate campaign and his successful 2002 gubernatorial bid, which put him on the path to the White House. It is, today, a significant part of Romney’s argument for electing him president.
It’s also, as I’ve written before (“No Medal For You”) a pretty weak case. Romney did a perfectly fine job running the Olympics, but so have lots of other people… Romney is deeply invested in the idea that it takes superhuman skills to save an Olympic Games from the disaster and international humiliation to which it naturally inclines. The idea that it can be done reasonably well even by a past-its-prime power like Britain is too much for Romney to bear. And I’m afraid he let it show at a very inopportune moment.
And Michael Tomasky, at the Daily Beast, on Romney’s “warmongering“:
…It’s funny, isn’t it, that if Barack Obama is such an appeaser and an apologizer, then why do their foreign-policy plans and ideas—insofar of course as Romney actually iterates any, which is not very far at all—sound so similar? The truth is, they are awfully similar. The only thing that’s really all that different is the rhetorical upholstery that supports and frames those ideas. But this is an important difference indeed, because in foreign policy more than the domestic arena, rhetoric commits a candidate to certain types of follow-through, and Romney’s rhetoric commits us to an idea about America that is out of date, reactionary, and dangerous. But the thing that amuses me is that it isn’t the automatic winner with the public that he undoubtedly assumes it is….
The emphasis on power with no downsides and not being ashamed is a signal to the neocon Project for a New American Century crowd that he’s one of them. It’s demagogic and irresponsible, sure. But at campaign time, I’m more interested in the question of its political efficacy.
Unapologetic American exceptionalism sounds like a winner on the campaign trail, and it’s the kind of big-stick, table-banging rhetoric that really used to scare liberals to death. But does it now? It certainly shouldn’t. It’s the kind of rhetoric that depends on the existence of a widely perceived existential threat that Americans understand they would make sacrifices to defeat. For still more than half of my life, for so long for many of us that it seemed like the natural order of things, there was such a threat. But in 1991, it went away. That’s a long time ago. For those with no living memory of the Commies, there was another mortal threat, delivered to lower Manhattan and the Pentagon in 2001. But that’s receding in memory, too. And when one does remember it, one remembers other things—the toxic with-us-or-against-us culture, the two grinding wars that grew out of it that still aren’t won, wars most Americans now think weren’t really worth the trouble….
Romney is talking inside a self-reinforcing circle of people who think rattling the saber is irresistible at all times and in all circumstances. But it’s not. I gleefully picture all of them waking up on Wednesday, Nov. 7, mystified about why the American people have not heeded their desperate warnings, while the man in the White House, who has personified the art of walking softly and carrying a big stick, gets back to work.
The man is stuck on the idea of the One Big Swinging Dick, an image of himself as the swashbuckling king of the woooooorld! Since he’s always had money — and been careful to stick to those realms where his kind of money could buy him assurance of his supremacy — he’s stuck with a template that doesn’t work in a campaign that requires enormous emotional intelligence (not to mention physical stamina) even more than it does the lavish application of money.
My name is Romneymandias, king of kings / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!…
arguingwithsignposts
Personally, I’m tired of being “America, Fuck Yeah.” Let someone else protect the world for a while. I’d be happy if we could just take care of our own.
Yutsano
@arguingwithsignposts: The British got there eventually. But it took basically blowing up all of Europe to do that. Twice.
Corpsicle
One Douchebag to own them all, One Douchebag to exploit them,
One Douchebag to acquire them all, and in the boardroom fire them
FlipYrWhig
It wasn’t until the front page post here about Atlanta Olympics chairperson Billy Payne that it occurred to me that plenty of people have been heads of Olympic committees without attempting to parlay it into dazzlingly earthshaking Master Of The Universe status. But it really is splashed all over The Legend of Willard M. Romney, isn’t it? Hopefully he’ll recede from memory the way Peter Ueberroth did.
MattF
I’d modify this to say Romney wants to project the BSD image. But is his dick really that big? And does anyone actually care?
Raven
@arguingwithsignposts: Check out this jackass from the Athens paper:
“bout time we get a president with some guts…f…k the iranian govt and their jew hating holocaust denying midget leader….make jan 1 2013 d-day for iran…give it up and shut er down or step back while usa and israel blast ya’ll back to the stone age….”
kdaug
Somewhere in there lies a story about a broken statue of feet dodging thrown shoes.
Yutsano
@Raven: Sure. He can lead the charge from his Hoverround!
James E. Powell
wars most Americans now think weren’t really worth the trouble….
Are you sure about that? I think that many people will say that in an abstract, passive voice, kind of way. But I don’t recall hearing any ordinary, everyday people who were in favor of invading Iraq saying, “I was wrong. We should never have done that.”
Also too, the people who thought it was a great idea to invade Iraq didn’t get fired, were not damaged, and still show up on TV all the time telling everybody what we ought to do now.
JPL
Although it’s an animated film with subtitles (I think) Persepolis is an excellent film about Iran. We have already f..ked up the country and opened the doors for religious extremist to take over, what else can we do.
@Raven: We could buy a parachute and let him lead the brigade.
Joseph Nobles
This is tagged as an Open Thread, so I’m putting out this plea to the commenter j or anyone who can help. I’m looking for some documentation on the Chick-fil-A problems in Chicago, specifically their not signing discriminatory awareness paperwork. I went back through the 347-comment thread twice and couldn’t find a link that said that. I don’t doubt it personally, but in discussions with folks, it’s hard to say “commenter at blog said it so it’s so.” I’ve done searches as well and am not coming up with anything on that level.
If anyone can fill in the backstory on the Chicago Chick-fil-A drama, I would appreciate it much.
Linda Featheringill
Something cheerful:
Compelled by circumstances to listen to a 5-minute tirade on how everything is all Obama’s fault. Followed by a 3-minute lament that Obama is going to win again and we’ll be stuck with him four more years.
Music to my ears.
Yutsano
@JPL: I saw it dubbed. And yes it’s fecking brilliant.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
I’m seeing a porn remake of Highlander. Genius! A.L., get me a three-page treatment and I can get us greenlighted by Wednesday.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman:
Hell, this vile little shit won’t be found in REMF country. Too dangerous for his cowardly type.
Mike in NC
If the PNAC scum get back into power, this country is seriously fucked.
Randy P
@James E. Powell: I’ve heard it. From people who served.
Donut
@Yutsano:
Amd Asia. The Brits were neck deep in India, Hong Kong, Burma, etc.
Donut
Burma to the Brits, but obviously better described as Myanmar.
Frankensteinbeck
I have long thought the disappearance of the cold war was a major part of the current political landscape. I am just old enough to say ‘Thank Celestia’ because I don’t have to go to bed afraid there will be a nuclear war that will wipe out all life on Earth before I wake up. The boomer generation that dominates the GOP primary base, runs the Tea Party, and most importantly makes up its major political figures were carved for half their lives by the cold war. They (and I’m referring to this subgroup of boomers, not the entire generation) HAVE to have an existential enemy to fight, and do not understand why no one younger than thirty thinks ‘communist’ is a killing insult.
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: I think that’s right, and that it has a lot to do with why Republicans _still_ get so worked up about something as abstract as “free enterprise” (witness the braying about “You didn’t build that” and the “small business” fetish). It was what made America superior; it was part and parcel of “The Free World.”
mai naem
The sad/scary part of this is that Mitt’s got about 5 of every ten voters you walk up to. I am guesstimating that’s about three of every adult you walk up to is going to vote for this idiot. Even after everything Bush put this country through. Even after all the job outsourcing this guy’s done. Even with all the gaffes this guy’s committed . Even with the questions about his taxes. Three out of ten adults are going to vote for this idiots. I live in Arizona so for me its probably more like five of ten random adults I walk up to. There’s just an insane amount of moronhood in this country. Also too, racism.
Southern Beale
Apparently they made an Australian version of Red Dawn, which we’re watching now. It’s called “Tomorrow When The War Began.”
FlipYrWhig
@mai naem: It is remarkable that a guy who _no one_ actually likes at all on any level has a nonzero shot at winning an election. I didn’t like McCain or Dole, but I can see why someone else might. I sure as shit didn’t like Dubya Bush or Reagan, but in those cases it’s even easier to see why someone else might. I guess Poppy Bush has a similar lack of personal appeal to Romney…
Geoduck
@mai naem: And, let’s be honest here, for a lot of people the economy still sucks. Yes, a lot of that can be laid at the feet of the GOPers in Congress, but the news media in the US has decayed to the point that you pretty much have to be a political junkie to know it. Obama is the quick n’ easy target.
WereBear
@Corpsicle: Love it!
And you know, Romney was the best of their candidates.
Yutsano
@Southern Beale: Needs moar WOLVERINES!!
Hal
@mai naem:
These are people who hate dems and Obama so much they can’t see straight. They voted for Bush not once, but twice, and watched while he flushed the economy down the toilet, and propped up false evidence to wage a war in order to make Dick Cheney richer.
Still, in their minds, Obama is the worst President ever in the history of the world.
Southern Beale
Sometimes I find myself really pissed off at Massachusetts voters for saddling us with this assclown. Maybe they’ll redeem themselves by electing Elizabeth Warren.
Cacti
Romney believes he is the personal fulfillment of the White Horse Prophecy, and that the United States has a religious destiny to help usher in Jesus Christ’s earthly reign.
He’s as religiously insane as Dubya, just a slightly different flavor.
Be very afraid.
WereBear
@Cacti: This explains why he acts the way he does. It’s foretold, dammit!
Another Halocene Human
Romney’s Olympic triumph is what made the difference (at least in Romney’s mind) between his failed 1994 Senate campaign and his successful 2002 gubernatorial bid
See, this is exactly it. In 1994 he tried to come at incumbent Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy. Kennedy squashed him like a bug. In 2002, spoiler Jill Stein exposed the Democratic machine candidate (I emphasize machine b/c not all Mass dems are machine dems) Shannon O’Brien as a fraud in the debate. O’Brien went from leading to trailing and even though Stein captured little of the vote, she had succeeded in swinging the independents over to Romney, whose own campaign posters had an image of a broom (!) indicating that he was going to muck out the Augean stables of the South Boston machine which had been typified by gangster Whitey Bulger’s big brother Billy, the speaker of the Mass house of delegates and, during the Romney admin., the president of UMass who took the 5th dozens of times when the grand jury questioned him about his brother. (He was forced to step down, which was bad, because Romney wanted to cut UMass’ funding.)
JILL FRIGGING STEIN put Romney in office. Jill Stein plus the arrogance of the obnoxious, power-hungry, corrupt machine Dems.
Cacti
@WereBear:
Given how little he talks about his religion, I think people underestimate just how deeply his Mormon beliefs influence his campaigning.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Mormon prophet gave him a personal assurance of victory.
Southern Beale
@Cacti:
I just read about the White Horse Prophecy today here. Very weird.
This is the kind of thing that, were Romney a Democrat, would end up as an e-mail FWD in all your right wing relatives’ in-boxes, soon to be seen at WingNut Daily, then a Glenn Beck “expose” then picked up by Fox News, whereupon CNN would just have to cover it.
Kane
By every definition, I dont think it would be wise for Romney to get into a dick measuring contest with Barack Obama.
Elie
@Cacti:
But hey, no one wants to ask him how those beliefs and prophecies will influence his leadership or decisions…
I am soooo pissed about that. It must be asked..
mellowjohn
WereBear
@Southern Beale: Holy twisted cut-rate-messiah story, Batman!
FlipYrWhig
@Another Halocene Human: Wait, the same Jill Stein who the leftiest of the left in the blogosphere say they’re going to vote for president this time?
gelfling545
@Frankensteinbeck: During the 08 election, as I may have mentioned previously, when Palin started throwing the “S” word around a number or young people of my acquaintance didn’t get the point being pretty unfamiliar with that particular ism. When I explained what it meant in general terms most of them felt is was a pretty decent idea.
Anne Laurie
@Cacti:
Short of Romney sharing this, on camera, with a “respected” member of the MSM, I just don’t think this is a good attack line for us Democrats. That pesky First Amendment guarantees people the right to be just as clinically insane about their religious beliefs as they care to be, so long as their insanity doesn’t extend to interfering with others’ behavior.
And the Democrats have been branded, in the low-information-voter demographic, as the party which publicly, outspokenly, doesn’t care whether the President might be a secret Muslim, or Communist, or worst of all an aetheist. If “we” try to pivot from ‘What the President choses to believe is none of our business, even if he were a member of a socially suspicious religion, which he’s not’ to ‘SEKRIT MORMON OOGA-BOOGA BE VERY AFRAID!’… we’re going to look like hypocrites. Desperate hypocrites. Which is not a good look, when it comes to attracting the sort of last-minute bandwagon-jumping voters who don’t start paying attention until mid-October.
Nothing wrong with pointing out that Romney is a high-ranking, practising Mormon. (Of course, the people who’d find that a reason to vote against him probably wouldn’t vote for President Obama under any circumstances, but maybe the devout Evangelicals will fail to vote for Romney.) But start talking about White Horse Prophesies, and you’ll look like the moonbat version of WND pushing the “Whitey tape”.
It’d be like the Repubs suddenly insisting that President Obama, as a member of the One Percent, was secretly in league with the banksters to destroy the middle class. Even the people most willing to believe that fantasy wouldn’t accept it coming from Dan Senor or Wolf Blitzer.
Nick (who is Australian)
@Southern Beale: “Tomorrow When The War Began” isn’t a “Red Dawn” remake. It’s based on an extremely successful young-adult novel, which has seven sequels and a spin-off series.
sharl
@Anne Laurie:
I would put nothing past Rmoney in deed, word, or thought, and it is entirely possible that, in the deepest recesses of his mechanical heart-of-hearts, he believes he is the White Horse prophecy dood. However, it should be noted for the record that he kinda-sorta denied this back in 2007, at least as reported in the Salt Lake Tribune.
Curious thing about that sltrib article though, is that it was apparently only available online (assuming I am reading that correctly). Also, it seems to me that the disclaimer at the top of that article is unusual:
Is this normal? Was this “interview” kept out of the dead trees version of that paper, which would I assume would have been seen by lots of Utah Mormons if it had been published there? And what part of the article may be “outdated”?
Very weird – like so many other aspects of the Mittbot’s campaign.
Another Halocene Human
@FlipYrWhig: YES.
*rolls eyes super-dramatically*
She was running on the Green ticket… not a single Green candidate won. It was one of the few elections that I’ve voted for a Republican (for treasurer, he was openly gay and my Dad said he was a good egg, Dad is a dyed in the wool Democrat, so I took his word for it) but the Dem machine took that downticket race in a walk… yes, no coattails for Romney, either. The Greens did better on downticket races but it was basically a farce. They needed to run delegates, of course towns have been sending non-machine Dems to Boston for years, so why would they sign on to this new party? Hence jumping to the state race, but they only had 15%. GET REAL PIKERS, WE DON’T HAVE PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. Oh well, I enjoyed the gift of knowledge but I also know this, Stein is no politician and is only running to “raise awareness” so take that FWIW. Anyone who votes for her is a fool or a purity troll who clearly does not appreciate this good president, maybe because he didn’t buy them a pony, IDK.
Another Halocene Human
@Anne Laurie: There’s no need to parse what he does or doesn’t believe because we already know who his advisers are. Whatta surprise, they are Shrub’s people. ALL I NEED TO KNOW.
the Conster
@Another Halocene Human:
I voted for Jill Stein knowing full well it meant Romney would get elected and be able to do absolutely nothing. I was going to be damned before I’d vote for Tom Finneran’s hand picked hack Shannon O’Brien. The one and only time I’d ever not voted straight ticket Democrat.
CW in LA
@Geoduck: And yet polls show people still correctly identify Cowboy Caligula as the main reason the economy is in the crapper.
mainmati
90% of Americans are checked out about anything foreign, much less foreign policy. What the Mittbot does overseas is meaningless to his election, unfortunately.
Gretchen
@CW in LA:
Cowboy Caligula? Perfect!
curiousleodog
Open thread? Olympics?
WTF is going on w/ the fencing? A South Korean woman won’t leave the field/court/strip/whateverthehelltheycallit in protest of the outcome of her game/match/bout. No announcers on my feed so I have no fecking clue. Anyone? Buehler?