I love the fact that Akin and the insane wing of the GOP (redundant, I know) have been exposed, but you know what would be nice? If our media would recognize that what Akin wants to do to women’s rights is what Paul Ryan wants to do to the poor, the middle class, and the elderly with his plan. Maybe we will just have to wait for Paul Ryan to utter the phrase “legitimately poor.”
About Akin
by John Cole| 56 Comments
This post is in: Election 2012, Our Failed Media Experiment, Sociopaths
Unabogie
Hell, they have the same views on rape and abortion.
John
“I promise to cut taxes for the rich, and use the poor as a cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel!”
Pavonis
Let us not forget that Paul Ryan also has the same position on abortion that Akin has. Romney doesn’t care either way though; only his ambitions and money matter to him.
Hill Dweller
The MSM is ignoring Romney’s false and obvious race-baiting welfare ads. There is no way they’re going to dig into legislation Ryan worked on with Akin.
Bass
The GOP is fond of the term “worthy poor.” Google it to see what I mean.
Cap'n Magic
Let’s ratfuck the GOP by donating to his campaign…..
Spaghetti Lee
From your lips to the Obama campaign’s ears.
Honestly, I think people are freaking out a bit too much about Paul Ryan. Sure, Romney’s gotten a Veep bump recently-everybody does, and his is weaker than usual. If we’re in September/October and R/R is still right there, then I’ll start worrying.
When I think about Ryan, something comes to mind. Sure, he is dangerous, in that the media loves him and he’s good at smiling for the camera and reciting slogans, etc. I also watched the GOP Primary thinking that Romney was the most dangerous, disciplined, and media-genic candidate (I think the flaw in my logic was that anyone can look cool and collected when Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are next to them). Then the Obama campaign pantsed him in front of everybody and he was down by almost 10 points in the polls (I think that’s what caused the Ryan pick in the first place, btw-panic.) You don’t think they’re gonna give Ryan the same treatment? They’re already tying him to this Akin creep.
Patricia Kayden
I would love to see an ad highlighting the fact that Ryan and Akin co-sponsored a “Personhood” bill. They’re peas of the same pod.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/20/712501/paul-ryan-and-todd-akin-partnered-on-radical-personhood-bill-outlawing-abortion-and-many-birth-control-pills/
folsom ca
Have these guys ever had sex. I think not.
TooManyJens
The Right’s been talking about “legitimately poor” vs. “fake poor” people for years. Remember, lots of poor people in the U.S. have refrigerators and cable, so they aren’t really poor and hence don’t need help.
Leadpipe
One would think that people would start to figure out that every advertising avenue Romney has tried is based on lies. Today they reversed Ryan’s position on abortion in the case of rape. A position he has always had and never wavered on. People have to know what phonies these putz’s are.
Violet
What Akin wants to do to women’s rights is exactly what Ryan wants to do to women’s rights. He co-sponsored Akin’s bill. Tie Ryan to Akin. Like a freaking anchor around his neck.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Actually, I think the phrase would poll depressingly well among the middle classes, like the notion of the “deserving poor”.
Quincy
Won’t happen. The media doesn’t care about policies (that would be taking sides) just language and tone. I’m sure the majority of them don’t see any difference between this and Biden’s comments last week. They are literally unable to differentiate between politically incorrect wording unconnected to policies or beliefs and language that provides evidence of a retrograde and offensive worldview. Unlike with race and gender issues, we really don’t have any politically incorrect language surrounding poverty or class in America so there is nothing Ryan could say or propose on that front that would cause him any trouble.
chopper
my wife got offended at biden’s ‘chains’ remark. i didn’t. it actually caused a full-on argument between the two of us, her trying to convince me it was bad and me being all ‘whatever’, but my overall response is to point at this sort of shit.
i’m sick of dems apologizing for what they say when choads like this say shit like this and stand behind it. if this is what we’re up against, i say let’s make biden look like a pussycat.
fuck these fuckers. fuck em right in the fucking ear. fuck em so hard their nose is running.
Shawn in ShowMe
Romney can’t afford to have the Akin-Ryan brotherhood exposed. If he falls behind in Missouri, his candidacy is over by the time we get to the convention. There’s no realistic way for the horse race to continue if Romney loses McCain states.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Lawrence O’Donnell winding up to an operatic elegy to Claire McCaskill by telling us all that we have to forgive her for being a Blue Dog. I agree, but chuckling smugly about “there used to be such a thing as a conservative Democrat”. “Used to be”? Like Max Baucus, Tim Johnson , Dianne Feinstein, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Mark Begich, and Mark Warner? And I’m not even counting the ones who are retiring.
He also talked about liberals like Ted Kennedy and…. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
David Koch
But The Village hates the poor, middle class, and the elderly. They’re the biggest cheerleaders of the Ryan plan.
Ryan was selected in part to curry favor with The Village.
Valdivia
And what Ryan wants to do to women. But because he seems nice the Village will never ever call him out on his radicalism. See polls coming out of Wisconsin by PPP.
Ruckus
“legitimately poor.”
They probably will utter this phrase even though it is an oxymoron to them. They don’t think there is any legitimacy to the poor. Or even the middle class for that matter.
chopper
goddamn moderation.
to repeat:
my wife got offended at biden’s ‘chains’ remark. i didn’t. it actually caused a full-on argument between the two of us, her trying to convince me it was bad and me being all ‘whatever’, but my overall response is to point at this sort of shit.
i’m sick of dems apologizing for what they say when choads like this say shit like this and stand behind it. if this is what we’re up against, i say let’s make biden’s remark look like a compliment.
fuck these fuckers. fuck em right in the fucking ear. fuck em so hard their nose is running.
Spaghetti Lee
@Valdivia:
The ones that show Romney up by one point? Can we at least wait until he’s more than a margin of error ahead until the freakout? I think Mnemosyne said in an earlier thread, it would be a story if Romney didn’t get a little bump there after choosing a native son.
General Stuck
The Stork that wouldn’t die.
Yutsano
@folsom ca: Do we have any evidence that their wives actually carried children? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Actually in Willard’s case I know he seeded Ann. His sons are just as much pricks as he is.
Baud
@Spaghetti Lee:
Didn’t Sarah Palin give McCain a boost for about 2-3 weeks?
General Stuck
Akin just brought a bazooka aboard the Titanic. In case she don’t sink fast enough.
Mnemosyne
@Shawn in ShowMe:
I’m probably an incurable optimist, but I can’t help remembering that the bridge too far in a lot of states has been “personhood” legislation. Even frickin’ Mississippi rejected a “personhood” amendment by a large margin.
If the Democrats can tie Romney/Ryan to the “personhood” bullshit, they can turn a lot of tides, IMO.
Karelian
It is awesome how difficult this makes the convention for GOP. How are they gonna handle references to banning abortion without making everyone think about this train wreck?
different-church-lady
@folsom ca:
With each other?
Valdivia
@Spaghetti Lee:
Yes, but it’s quite a swing from Obama being up by a lot. I am not freaking about it but the commentary from PPP is that Ryan is liked as a person but they hate his plan. So the dems need to pierce that persona with his radicalism, will be hard because the media refuses. But the O team knows how to play! :)
kamalokitty
It is so, so difficult not to despair. But I despair that this is what is true of people who have power. Over me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Rachel Maddow was saying in late September ’08 that she thought McCain would win. We’re so obsessed with politics we sometimes forget that to most people, even in Wisconsin, Ryan is a completely unknown quality. As Spaghetti Lee said, I think that poll is more about “Packers! Fuck yeah!” than cheering for Romney/Ryan. That said: Scott Walker last I checked was over 50% approval and Tommy Thompson is up ten points over Tammy Baldwin.
clayton
Romney just wants to finally tell all of the LDS types the secrets — it’s the long play. If any of you think putting a Mormon in the White House is not a revenge plot, I don’t know what to tell you.
They are paranoid enough to want to open up all those records.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That might be name recognition. I don’t understand WI’s love affair with Scott Walker. Even Florida has enough sense to give Lex Luther low poll numbers.
karen marie
@chopper: Was she offended without having heard that she should be offended?
Spaghetti Lee
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If I’m looking at the same polls you’re referring to, they’re both Rasmussen, so maybe take that into account? Quinnipiac and PPP have Baldwin basically tied with Thompson, although those polls aren’t as recent. Walker is more popular than not in most polls, but by a smaller margin.
From what I know of Tommy Thompson, he’s well-known, popular, has a long career in WI politics, and is relatively moderate. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if WI goes Obama but also votes in Thompson. I think he’ll be able to escape any Obama coattail effect easily enough.
karen marie
Three times I’ve tried posting a link to American Prosperity and each time it’s gone into the black hole. Once in another thread, twice in this one. Somebody fish one of them out? Please?
ant
@Baud: people love tommy here in wisconsin.
best of luck to tammy
Haydnseek
@Mnemosyne: Oklahoma rejected a similar personhood amendment. I find it easier to employ the term “overreach” in these situations, not because wingnuts don’t understand the concept, but because it really does look like they’ve have gone over the edge this time. You can only double down on the crazy so many times before you lose that critical percentage of real independents that are persuadable. These voters decide elections, assuming the election is honest. A huge assumption, I know, but that’s a subject I’ll annoy us with another day.
lamh35
Oh I Think He May Be Staying
RareSanity
@Karelian:
With “America. Fuck Yeah!” PowerPoints, on lots of fancy TVs, trimmed in wood.
The wood is to communicate “warmth”…
Haydnseek
@Baud: Yeah, but they didn’t have enough sense not to elect the King of Medicare Fraud ™ in the first place.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh35: From reading around, he’s digging in with hard core fetus fetishists, convincing himself he’s a martyr. MSNBC had the head of Planned Parenthood on his show, and it reminded me that the provincial Sarah Palin wannabe who convinced dumbass Nancy Brinker to wreck her foundation has an auto-martyr-ography coming out next month. These issues aren’t going away.
ChrisNYC
The thing that is so great/incomprehensible is that the GOP seems not able to get women’s reaction, except in the most craven election around the corner way.
This is from a post up at Redstate right now.
“Recently, a long term friend and I got into a discussion about abortion over a few glasses of scotch. … First, the logic he employed in his defense was that I could never understand the circumstances of a woman impregnated due to rape. I reject this flat out …”
The appalling first line drew me in — just two guys deciding whether abortion in cases of rape is ok with them, over a coupla glasses of single malt. Very civilized and principled. And our Redstater says, “Well, I am CERTAIN that if I was raped and got pregnant…” You read that and you just say, did you learn nothing from your losses in the winter battles against women?
TG Chicago
Cole said “…you know what would be nice? If our media would recognize…”
I was thinking the EXACT same thing, but I was completing the sentence with something about climate change.
It took no time at all for the media to point out that what Akin said was scientifically wrong. Unequivocably unsupportable.
But when it comes to climate change, you never get that. Why is that?
I guess it’s partly because rape is far more emotionally charged issue. So how do we get climate change to fall in that category?
To be clear, what I’m saying is that women’s rights advocates have done a great job of working hard to push the Overton Window in the proper direction so that when some backward fool says something stupid, the hammer comes down quickly. I greatly admire that.
So how do we get that same dynamic to work in other areas?
Tazj
I don’t expect much out of the media anymore. My own local newspaper(Buffalo News) seems intent on not letting Kathy Hochul(NY-26)gain any advantage over her Republican opponent by bashing the Ryan Medicare plan.
TG Chicago
@Bass: I did google it. The very first link I got was your comment on this post. Perhaps you can explain further?
dance around in your bones
@ChrisNYC:
You know, if those two guys got non-consensual large cucumbers shoved up their ass whilst trying to delicately consume their single malt, I bet they’d change their tune.
JWL
They “..have been exposed..”.
You certainly would think so, after all this time, and in this day and age.
But it’s not so.
YellowJournalism
@JWL: You’re right; the media is spinning this as an issue that’s bringing Dems and republicans together, as if Akin is an anomaly rather than the ruling republican norm that it is.
Triassic Sands
Naah, I think it will be “voluntarily poor” and “intentionally disabled.”
Tazj
I meant to link to this article “Mediscare tactics take center stage”. Obviously this is another “Both sides do it” piece.
Nemesis
How many times must we review this? akin is not from the crazy wing of the gop. Teh crazy has taken over the entire party. Crazy is not separate from the core, the base or the establishment. They are all one and the same.
Tweety got after this story last night. Both Fienman and a professor from UGA connected akin to ryan and akin/ryan to the prevaling attitudes inside the gop toward womens issues.
Matt McIrvin
@Valdivia: Don’t look at individual polls; look at poll aggregators. Especially the ones that deal with electoral votes, though aggregators of national polls are also good. Individual polls jump around all over the place, there are house effects creating spurious systematic differences between polls, etc. Lots of things to get you needlessly excited one way or another.
The race actually hasn’t suddenly changed by any great degree. Obama was way up before Romney clinched the Republican nomination. Then it narrowed, but once you filter out the poll-to-poll noise, Obama is left with a narrow but persistent lead.
The other thing to watch out for is that, now that we’re approaching convention time, the polls are probably going to swing around on a day-to-day basis because of convention bounces, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney is ahead after a few days of the Republican convention (McCain was in 2008), but the Democratic convention comes immediately after that.
Matt McIrvin
…for instance, here’s an article and a nice graph at HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-jackman/ryan-plus-one-week_b_1814360.html
Notice how wide the cloud of points is around those wiggly lines. Some of that is the pure sampling “margin of error” that gets listed with a poll result, but some of it is also the aggregate of systematic biases that create differences between different polls, and there’s probably also some extra crud that just comes from methodological laxness of various types. When a poll number comes out and you notice a big jump from the number you saw last week, chances are you’re just seeing that spread in the data points.
Here’s the history of Sam Wang’s electoral-vote predictor:
http://election.princeton.edu/history-of-electoral-votes-for-obama/
It jumps around a bit. Wang thinks that Ryan actually gave Romney a bounce of maybe one or two percentage points nationally, probably a temporary one that will be gone once the conventions are past. Jackman doesn’t see a bounce at all.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Maddow was, once again, the only talking head who got this right last night. She showed that over the past 20 years, this has been the Standard belief for the GOP. They’ve been saying these things forever, and now, suddenly, the mainstream media had nothing else to do, so they finally heard it. Paul Huggin’ Ryan believes the same thing! And the best mention it gets in the media is that he once sponsored a bill that would have restricted abortion. Thats all.
It was media malpractice that everyone just took the Romney/Ryan statement yesterday without followup asking about how Ryan’s support of similar bills and beliefs in the past align with Akin’s. Nobody asked about Romney’s support for a constitutional amendment to make life start at conception. These people are flip-flopping losers with no moral fiber in their bones.