I mean, I’ve said jokingly that it’s going to be Santorum’s turn soon, but I didn’t really mean it. The “Oh look, something shiny!” attention span of GOP voters is now bordering on the pathological. For the first time that I can recall, the GOP is starting to come across as unfocused and disorganized as, well, the Democrats. It’s like herding cats, except with nuclear launch codes instead of tuna fish as the reward.
You know what I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see? They get to the convention with no nominee, no clear consensus, and Chris Christie walks in and says, “You know what? You’re all idiots. I’ve decided I’m in.” And he walks out as the nominee.
PAD
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As an unashamed liberal, I’m thrilled to see that we’ll have Republicans forced to attack each other until Super Tuesday at least. Gingrich has done more damage to Romney than Obama could’ve with the same tactic of painting him as an elitist robber baron.
As someone who enjoys political theater, I’m psyched that it’s suddenly wide open again, and Romney as presumptive nominee is just gone in a flash. There’s a real chance the convention will matter, and that’s just a good story!
Of course, there’s the non-zero chance of the nightmare scenario, a Santorum presidency, that keeps my glee in check.
I am just thinking no matter who wins the nomination Obama will just have to re air the other GOP candidates ads about their nominee… What can he say about any of them that they have not slung at each other?
You’d think but we have a long history of politicians going from “My opponent, who will bankrupt our nations and sell your grandchildren to the Arab slave trade” to “Our noble nominee, who will lead us to a promised land of peace and prosperity through his Solomon-like wisdom, as demonstrated by his picking me as Vice president.”
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If the GOP picks Santorum they will deserve the absolute drubbing they will get in November. I can’t believe they would do that but I should cease to be amazed at the foolishness of our political class and the people that enable them.
and the people that enable them.
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That would be you and me.
“I can’t believe they would do that”
Yeah, you’d think so, but these are the same people who had Sarah Palin as V.P. running mate. Worry about it.
That would be you and me.
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yep.
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Yeah, you’d think so, but these are the same people who had Sarah Palin as V.P. running mate.
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palin was the least of McCain’s problems. That campaign was a textbook case of how not to run for president. Problem is, I don’t see Santorum as being any better and possibly far worse. Here’s a tactical tip–Never nominate someone who lost his last race in his home state by 18 points!!!
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“Never nominate someone who lost his last race in his home state by 18 points!!!”
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Bill, please, keep up with the talking points. He didn’t really “lose” the race, he only “lost” because of dirty tricks and redistricting.
A few points you need to remember about Santorum’s loss:
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1. Lincoln lost many more elections than he won before he got the Republican nomination.
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2. His endorsement of Arlen Specter over over Pat Toomey in the primaries the previous election cycle caused many of his natural supporters to stay home.
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3. He lost to Bob Casey, the son of a famous pro-life Democrat in a heavily Catholic state. The Catholic demographic is actually pro-big government and thus naturally Democratic in nature, and it is only abortion (and now gay marriage) that keeps it somewhat in the GOP fold.
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Santorum’s recent surge is probably more related to the recent news about Catholic health care providers being forced to provide services against their conscience. Santorum isn’t a perfect conservative, but he is flawless from a pure pro-life perspective. Whether you think the issue is overblown isn’t the point, it’s the perception.
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Please note, my point isn’t to fire up a debate about the “social issues”, but rather to explain why such a fundamentally unexciting man has suddenly become exciting.
Christie wouldn’t say “idiots”. He’d say “Numbnuts”.
There’s a reason why several conservative blogs are now endorsing Sweet Meteor of Death for 2012.
Like this?
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/02/06/the-sweet-meteor-of-death-2012/
While none of the three left were close to being my top choices, I feel such thinking becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and fatalistic, politically.
RedState stole that from Ace of Spades. Ace is a demigod of the right side of the blogosphere. When I grow up, I wanna be able to write like Ace.
“What if Newt got nominated, took on Mitt as his VP, *and* converted to Mormonism? NEWT/MITT: ALL THE WIVES, F*** YOU CNN” – Warren Ellis
As far as this contest goes, I feel like it’s 1972 all over again, but with the Republicans taking on the role of the Democrats and Obama as Nixon. The only thing separating Mitt Romney and Ed Muskie is an Ibogaine addiction and a screaming maniac tugging at his pants leg screaming for more gin.
To really seal the deal, though, we’d need to have Ron Paul take the convention in the third round, and then get saddled with an electroshock therapy patient as a running mate.
You think I’m making things up? Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail ’72, by Hunter S. Thompson. Go have a laugh. Then, know the Fear.
The Republican nominating process reminds me of gimmick products that come and go in a matter of weeks — and the maker of the next gimmick says “Those other ones were just fads — but *my* product will be popular for decades!” There’s been nothing but a string of nominees who briefly flared in popularity (remember when it really looked like Donald Trump would be the nominee?) and then faded into obscurity. And now it’s the turn of Rick Santorum (the frothy candidate!) to pretend that a little popularity means everyone loves him. And Romney keeps plodding along, not really loved by anyone but not hated enough to lose, on his way to becoming the Republican nominee by default.
It’s great for Obama that with all the economic problems he’s facing, he doesn’t have to worry too much about his actual opposition.
“It’s great for Obama that with all the economic problems he’s facing, he doesn’t have to worry too much about his actual opposition.”
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You’re right. It doesn’t matter. Because unless the economy dramatically improves, any of the three will beat him.
Or (increasingly likely) the eventual GOP nominee will be so poor/damaged a candidate that Obama will be reelected regardless of the economy.
“Or (increasingly likely) the eventual GOP nominee will be so poor/damaged a candidate that Obama will be reelected regardless of the economy.”
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That may only be possible with Romney. The danger with Romney is that the whole rationale for his campaign is that he can fix the economy. Regardless of whether he is wrong or right, that rationale evaporates of the economy looks like it is improving. he has no experience in the military and no one gets a sense he has a core set of values/convictions regarding cultural issues.
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Newt at least will fire off big ideas and Santorum can talk about his blue-collar upbringing and social issues with conviction. But if the economy looks like it is improving, Mitt is toast.
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“You’re right. It doesn’t matter. Because unless the economy dramatically improves, any of the three will beat him.”
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I doubt it. Romney has the best chance, but even he’s only a 50/50 shot at best. And, honestly, the economy is getting better. We spent most of 2008 shedding jobs like mad. Hëll, in the last few months before Bush left the White House, we were losing anywhere from 750,000 jobs a month to just shy of a million jobs a month. That bad economic momentum, a situation brought about after 8 years of Bush policies with six years of total Republican control, continued into much of 2009, but it has since turned around and we’ve been adding private sector jobs for the better part of the last two years now.
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Could it have been better? Yes, it certainly could have. Can any of the three front runners make that argument with any sense of moral standing? No. Romney in particular and Newt and Santorum in general were all in favor of letting the American auto industry bottom out and die. Not only would that have added to the unemployment numbers by a huge factor, but that would have hurt our overall economy and likely slowed any recovery. And all three front runners were in favor of cutting jobs and making public sector workers unemployed in the last few years.
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All over this country, we’ve seen cuts in general government department staffing as well as in teachers, firemen and police. And all three front runners were in favor of cutting these “leeches” from the public teat. They were in favor of adding to the rolls of unemployment and in some cases adding to the rolls of people filing for unemployment, food stamps and other federal and state aid. but they want to be the ones pointing to Obama and calling him “The Food Stamp President.”
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The simple truth is that only the very partisan are looking at the economy and pointing their finger at “the other side” and blaming them right now. Most everyone else knows that the economic stewardship of Bush and the Republicans was a disaster. Most people know that Obama has been doing at best okay getting things back on track, but should have been able to do better. The problem for the three front runners right now is that all they’re really offering as solutions is more of the same that we heard under Bush and from the Republicans when we started out 2000 with projected budget surpluses and then watched as eight years later we had staggering debt, the beginnings of a massive recession/borderline depression and an economy shedding jobs by the millions before Obama was even sworn in to office.
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Right now, the hardcore partisans on both sides are standing behind “their team” on the matter. The problem that the GOP has is that the people who aren’t hardcore partisans for them and are paying attention are seeing that things look like they could be improving. That’s compounded by the problem that, while most think Obama is not doing the job as well as he should be doing it, the only option the GOP wants to offer up is the exact same policies that many feel helped to get us into this mess to begin with.
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So, no, even if we don’t all watch as “the economy dramatically improves” over the next few months, it’s not a slam dunk for any of them. And it’s far, far from a slam dunk for Newt and Santorum insofar as being the guys who “will” beat Obama.
The unemployment numbers got better because a whole bunch of people “dropped out” of the labor pool. It’s the old smoke and mirrors trick.
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Yes, Jay, some people dropped off the hunt for jobs just as they did under Bush. And when that was pointed out under Bush, the loyal Right said that such things didn’t count and the unemployment number was what really mattered. Of course, what can be said right now that couldn’t be said under the last two years of Bush is that many people have dropped off the unemployment rolls because we’ve actually seen private sector job growth in the last two years and people have been able to get jobs that weren’t there before.
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But regardless of that fact, I really don’t think that anyone like you, Jay Tea, has the moral authority to debate such an issue and to try and point to the unemployment figures. After all, it has been the Republicans who have actively worked, and worked hard as hëll, to add hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, to the unemployment rolls in the last two years and people like you, Jay Tea, cheered them on as they did it. You got the higher unemployment numbers that you wanted and fought for, so you look like a bit of an ignorant ášš pointing to them now and blaming them all on Obama.
Jerry,
No, it was not the Repubs, or the Dems that lead us into this mess, it was both of them!
The Republicans wanted to let things be, and wanted all the money and wealth that was being generated by the housing bubble to keep their plans going, so looked the other way as folks started their shenanigans with mortgage ‘securities.’ The Democrats greased the skids by encouraging/requiring that anyone that wanted a loan, especially low income or minority folks, should be able to get one, whether they could pay for it or not. Plus, they wanted the money for their own plans.
Then, the unthinkable happened, and reality set in. Everyone panicked, bailed out their buddies, and decided that their own nests were much more important than the other guys so they laid off all the people doing actual work, and kept on all the useless flunkies that supported them.
After Obama came in, (or, as he came in, he got to preside over the middle of this mess) since he had no ideas of his own, he just followed all the same bad ideas every one already had, including nationalizing the auto industry. After scaring everyone to death, they are finally starting to recover enough to look around, and decide the world hasn’t ended, yet…
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“low income or minority folks”
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Really Mr. Hannity? The problem, despite the numbers showing that the biggest hit came from middle class (and middle class whites) getting whammed by what happened and defaulting on loans and mortgages, was them poor folks and them pesky minorities?
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I bet your one of the ones who believes it’s them pesky minorities who make up the bulk of the unemployed and the food stamp rolls as well.
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Whatever…
So, Jerry, do I have the “moral authority” to invite you to kiss my ášš?
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According to the current stats, the workforce is at its lowest number of people in 30 years. In October of 08, it was 66% of the population. Now, it’s 63.7%.
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Where did all those people go? Oh, yeah, when you stop collecting unemployment, you don’t count any more.
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I called it “smoke and mirrors.” I see Mr. Chandler is accounting for where the smoke came from.
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Yeah, Jay, we’re still rebuilding from the economic crash that started as far back as 2007, wiped out millions of jobs in 2008 and continued to wipe out jobs in 2009. We’re now finally seeing new jobs being created. We are now finally seeing people going back to work.
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And all of your usually claptrap garbage does not change the fact if the Republicans had gotten their way on the automotive industry and several other parts of the stimulus bill, we would have seen even more unemployment than we did. And you, Jay Tea, cheered them on as they tried to add to the unemployment rolls.
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And it doesn’t change the fact that the Republicans pushed hard to get “leeches” in private sector jobs fired and did get them fired from their jobs and thus added to the jobless figures; at times in numbers that caused the gains in private sector jobs in a given month to make the final total figure for that month in the negatives. And you, Jay Tea, cheered them.
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For all the Republican talk about how things could be better right now, the fact is that Republicans pushed for actions that would have made things worse overall and where they were in control they made things worse and added to the unemployment figures and welfare and foods stamp rolls. None of your bluster will change those facts.
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So neither the Republicans nor you have any real standing to be taken seriously as you claim that your side would have made things better or will make things better since you’ve spent the last three years fighting to make things worse.
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Friggen typos…
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And it doesn’t change the fact that the Republicans pushed hard to get “leeches” in public sector jobs fired and did get them fired from their jobs and thus added to the jobless figures; at times in numbers that caused the gains in private sector jobs in a given month insignificant and to make the final total figure for that month in the negative. And you, Jay Tea, cheered them.
It kinda undercuts your arguments, Jerry, when one notes that the only way we’re “recovering” is by seriously monkeying with the numbers. And yeah, it started going bad under Bush — and most of what Obama did only made it worse.
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But please, why don’t you explain how the major decline in the numbers in the work force 1) is actually reality, and B) is a good thing. ‘Cuz from my perspective, it’s just hiding the numbers of people who don’t “exist” any more as far as government statistics are concerned just so dips like you can pretend it’s all getting better.
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Oh, and yeah, I confess, the economic crash is all my fault. I was trying a little experiment and it all went haywire. My bad. Sorry.
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Does that satisfy your overwhelming urge to personalize the blame and vent your spleen at a whipping boy, or do you need something more abject?
Jerry,
I didn’t say that the poor/minorities were the ones that did all the defaulting, I said they were the EXCUSE to allow all that borrowing above and beyond any sense that happened. It is part of the law of unintended consequences – you do an action that you think will bring about result A, and didn’t realize that B, C, D would also result. When you remove all the consequences of a defaulted loan from those that are making the loan (because they are there only for the immediate fees. Some other poor schmuck is going to get the interest, if there is any…) you get loan officers that don’t care what, if any ‘standards’ there might be.
And yes, all those sub-prime and other lowered standards were done in the name of the poor and minorities, whatever else you might wish it might have been.
And, yes, the present ‘improvement’ in the unemployment stats is due purely to smoke and mirrors. Just like there is no inflation happening, the auto bail out ‘saved’ GM, you save money by moving jobs to China, and Wall Street is populated by caring, compassionate folks that feel deeply for the plight of the common man in America… 😉
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“It kinda undercuts your arguments, Jerry, when one notes that the only way we’re “recovering” is by seriously monkeying with the numbers.”
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Who did that? I know you have documented issues with relating to the reality based community and facts, but no one here did that.
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“But please, why don’t you explain how the major decline in the numbers in the work force 1) is actually reality, and B) is a good thing. ‘Cuz from my perspective, it’s just hiding the numbers of people who don’t “exist” any more as far as government statistics are concerned just so dips like you can pretend it’s all getting better.”
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I’ll waste my time explaining this to you once and only once since, well, you’re Jay and you have issues with facts. You apparently have issues so bad that you can’t even discuss the facts before your eyes.
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You saying that not counting the people who have stopped looking for jobs is meaningless. That’s how we count our unemployment figures. It’s how we have counted unemployment for quite some time. Actually, it can be traced back to the Reagan administration where it was decided that unemployment figures were scary for the new administration and so in 1982 they created new rules on who would and would not be counted as unemployed. They dropped people who had not looked for a job in at least two weeks and they also dropped teenagers who had been employed but were now unemployed.
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This is old news. This is how they count the numbers and this is how W. Bush claimed some of their “improving” unemployment figures.
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And I don’t care because, as I’ve stated several times now, I’m looking at a number you don’t want to look at or apparently discuss. I’m looking at the fact that private sector job growth has been on the upswing. I’m looking at the fact that new jobs are being created each and every month that didn’t exist the month before.
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You can’t argue this and you seem to want to duck it and play games and complain about what’s being done with the unemployment numbers despite you and others on the Right not really caring about this fact of how the numbers are totaled when Bush was holding up his improving unemployment numbers.
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We are making new jobs after seeing millions of jobs lost in 2008 and 2009. People are being hired to work these new jobs. This is a fact. You can not dispute that no matter what games you want to play. But, please, feel free to continue on and live in the fact free world of Wizbang and the fringe Right blogosphere. Just don’t expect people who don’t live there with you to go along with your disconnected from reality comments.
OK, Jerry, I think I got your point: as long as the Obama administration can find some way to rig the numbers so they look good, then obviously it is getting better. The reality of the situation isn’t important, only how it can be spun.
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I’d be more impressed if you could actually discuss the subjects, but I understand that your main ability is cheap personal attacks in place of substance and you gotta play to your strengths. Luckily for me, I don’t take you seriously in the least and feel no compunction whatsoever to either rebut or return your snideness.
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But I will note that of all the people who’ve been the most arrogant with the least justification, you’re among the finer exemplars.
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“OK, Jerry, I think I got your point: as long as the Obama administration can find some way to rig the numbers so they look good, then obviously it is getting better. The reality of the situation isn’t important, only how it can be spun.”
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Yup… Jay just dodges what’s presented to him and plays his usual mindless talking point games. No surprise to anyone here I should think.
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Jay, you won’t answer one question, the main issue I’ve mentioned multiple time, because then you can’t continue to play your silly games. The question? Have we now seen almost two years of private sector job growth after seeing almost two years of massive private sector job losses?
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The answer that anyone from the reality based community would give is “yes.” But you won’t address that even when I make it clear that this is what I’m looking at even more so than the unemployment figures. Doing so would mean that you would have to admit that new jobs being created means that some of the unemployed really are going back to work and thus we really are seeing a real decrease in unemployment. Doing so would mean that you would have to admit that things are showing signs of getting better if not actually in fact getting better.
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No, you just want to hold on to your one meaningless point that you have and pretend that it means something.
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You are, to the surprise to no one here, a partisan hack who really isn’t worth the time wasted in this discussion anymore. You have no desire to address facts, just to throw out your usual partisan garbage.
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Done with you now.
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And, for anyone else who thinks that they can have an intelligent and honest discussion with Jay on this matter, this should be all the proof you need that you can’t expect that from him.
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“OK, Jerry, I think I got your point: as long as the Obama administration can find some way to rig the numbers so they look good, then obviously it is getting better.”
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The Obama Administration is, in Jay’s world, the one that is rigging the numbers. The Obama administration is counting the numbers the same way that they’ve been counted for decades now. It’s pointed out to him that the way we count the numbers now was started as far back as Reagan. But it’s the Obama Administration that’s suddenly cooking the books in Jay’s world.
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And this is the same guy who jumped all over the first Obama budgets for adding huge amounts to the deficit and growing spending when in fact a large part of what he added in to those budgets was the war costs that Bush and crew took off the books and declared as not a part of the budget to make their numbers look better.
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So Bush cooks the books and that’s okay. Obama corrects the books and Obama is wrong and horrible. And then when the Obama administration counts numbers the same way the government has been counting them since Reagan, it’s the Obama Administration playing games with the numbers.
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Seriously, why bother beyond the humor factor at this point and, frankly, the humor in the average Jay Tea post has gotten old.
Tell you what, Jerry: I’m going to pretend that you actually want to discuss the matter, and not me. That’s a painful assumption for my ego to accept, but here goes:
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Every time the job numbers come out, the experts all add in that we need 90,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with population growth. Now, old chum, reconcile that with the Obama administration saying that the number of people in the work force actually declining over the past few months.
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Here’s how it works, and I’ll use small words because you’re obviously too busy frothing in impotent fury to actually think clearly: the Labor Department has decided to only count those people actively seeking work and collecting unemployment. Those who’ve just given up are “unpersons” and don’t count. Kind of like, say, holding a census by going house to house, and ignoring the homeless. Don’t have an address? Too bad. And then, you can use your census to say there’s no homeless problem.
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Hey, will you look at that. You managed to change the subject again, evading the two “impeachable offenses” I brought up to go off on somewhere where you think you can win. You utterly ignored how Obama’s decided the War Powers Act doesn’t apply to him, and he can decide when Congress is in or out of session.
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And to consider I was actually being nice by not bringing up all those “green energy” loans and grants that profited huge numbers of Obama supporters, how Warren Buffett stands to make billions over Obama’s blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline expansion, the “Fast And Furious” scheme that’s literally killed hundreds of innocent people…
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But hey, that’s all trivial compared to Rick Santorum actually acting like he has sincere religious beliefs, Mitt Romney being one of those freaky Mormons like Harry Reid and the Udalls and the Osmonds, and did you hear Newt Gingrich has been married three times?
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Good lord, what happened to our priorities?
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Jerry’s got his head on straight. “If it makes Republicans look bad, that’s most important!” Thank heavens we have him as our guiding star on such matters. Screw the rest. Especially Fast and Furious; with the exception of one American Border Patrol officer, they were just Mexicans killing other Mexicans, and who cares about that?
“I mean, I’ve said jokingly that it’s going to be Santorum’s turn soon, but I didn’t really mean it. The “Oh look, something shiny!” attention span of GOP voters is now bordering on the pathological. For the first time that I can recall, the GOP is starting to come across as unfocused and disorganized as, well, the Democrats. It’s like herding cats, except with nuclear launch codes instead of tuna fish as the reward.”
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What is wrong with the GOP actually taking time to choose a nominee? It seems the Clinton-Obama race actually strengthened Obama, as he was forced to run in and fight for virtually every state, including those like Pennsylvania who were deighted that their vores actually meant something, that the race wasn’t all but decided by then.
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I remember walking by an Obama campaign headquarters in March 2008, where you could see at least ten young professionals banging away on computers.
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I walked into a McCain headquarters the same day and they didn’t even have any bumper stickers or buttons yet and was told they’d “get back” to me. The extended campaign strengthened Obama and his organization for the fall.
You know what I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see? They get to the convention with no nominee, no clear consensus, and Chris Christie walks in and says, “You know what? You’re all idiots. I’ve decided I’m in.” And he walks out as the nominee.
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And why is it such a target for derision that different states may prefer different candidates? Wouldn’t it be more absurd for the GOP voters to join in lockstep behind Santorum after Iowa or Romney after New Hampshire or even Florida or Newt after South Carolina. They’re actually being thoughtful and voting for who THEY THINK IS BEST rather than following any one candidate like sheep. Or would following one candidate like sheep without thinking about who they want to lead them make them more intelligent or honorable in the eyes of those who are mocking them. “Republicans” and “conservatives” are not monolithic in their thinking.
Jerome, seriously, is there ANY incompetency on the part of the GOP or the voting right wing that you won’t knee-jerk defend?
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Don’t bother, it’s rhetorical. We know the answer.
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PAD
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Actually, there is. He and I have had a few small discussions outside of this forum and even he has pointed out that the GOP screwed up on several levels during the Bush years and that some of their actions don’t help their cause any right now. But Jerome honestly believes that the answers to the problems we face are best served up by conservatives and so he’s going to lean in that direction in most cases and, not unlike some Obama supporters, try to see the best in most things he has to deal with from his team.
Whatever, PAD. Did you feel Hillary and Obama slugging it out was due to “incompetency on the part of the Democrats or the voting left wing”?
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I offer a reasoned, analytical response and you accuse me of a knee-jerk defense.
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It’s easier for you to put people you don’t agree with in a little box than listen to what they have to say. People think differently even if they have the same party affiliation. This may be difficult for some to believe, but it’s true.
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So people aren’t rallying behind one candidate early. They’re thinking for themselves and voting for who they think is best. You are the only one I know who has used the adjective “incompetent” to describe that.
Whatever, PAD. Did you feel Hillary and Obama slugging it out was due to “incompetency on the part of the Democrats or the voting left wing”?
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I think there’s a world of difference between a see-sawing battle between two people and a constant up and down, up and down with someone new leading the polls every other week, being declared the front runner and then suddenly dropping once the focus is upon them. Anyway, I’m accustomed to the Democrats being disorganized; but seeing the GOP being this Fubared is rather new.
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They’re thinking for themselves? Considering the incessant parroting of Fox talking points, I think that’s a generous description.
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PAD
Yeah, they’re thinking for themselves by VOTING. (Really, this obsession with people supposedly spouting Fox News talking points has to stop. Santorum hardly got any coverage before the week leading up to Iowa. He visited every county multiple times AND was the Last Man Standing. So hard work and luck had far more to do with it.)
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Romney attracts the business/economy minded people; Newt attracts those who want big ideas and a warrior in the debates and who they remember him as Clinton’s foil in the ’90s and Santorum attracts blue-collar workers and evangelicals
The thing to remember is that the “Single Defining Issue” of the campaign will be whatever makes Obama look best.
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If it’s Romney, it’s the wealthy and the dog on the roof story and scary freaky Mormonism.
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If it’s Gingrich, it’s family values and Washington insiders and temperament.
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If it’s Santorum, it’s gay rights and scary religious zealotry.
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Ask any media personalities or liberal pundits what they will consider will be the most important issue(s) come the general. As long as the GOP nomination is in play, they’ll waffle.
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Not true. Quite a few liberal pundits are saying that the economy will be a major issue and that the argument to be made is that things are getting better by all factors that we measure such things. We’ve seen an extended period of private sector job growth, the automotive industry, the thing that the Republicans wanted to let wither and die on the vine, is coming back strong, the jobless figures are getting better, etc, etc, etc..
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The argument can be made and will be made that Obama, while he could maybe have done better with what he had, has been getting things back on track while the three front runners for the Republican nomination are all pretty much advocating policies to fix things that were the exact same policies that we saw for eight years under Bush and that were in place when the economy crashed and we lost millions of jobs all before Obama was even sworn in.
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Social issues will all be big issues as well. The Mormonism won’t be an issue raised by the Left though. The Evangelical Right is doing well enough on that front on their own and will likely still be telling the moderate Right what evil, satanic, cult-like people Mormons are right up until November.
“If the GOP picks Santorum they will deserve the absolute drubbing they will get in November.”
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Absolute drubbing? Really, Bill? With millions unemployed and underemployed and losing their homes, you think Obama would win in a cakewalk? Really? Why?
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It has to be the social issues, which everyone claims the GOP is obsessed with but which is all anyone talks about with Santorum. Santorum has an appeal to blue collar workers that few do. His appeal in states like Ohio and of course PA will be great, which is how he was able to win two statewide races.
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He is one of the few in either party to talk about reviving manufacturing in any meaningful way. He also doesn’t just talk about family values he lives them, both personally and politically.
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He has proposed tripling the child tax-credit. Heard about that much? Of course not. everyone’s too busy with the horse race and asking him to defend his position on gays. He also worked with Ted Kennedy to help pass No Child Left Behind though many in the GOP want to eliminate public funding of education altogether and was accused of being a “Big Government” conservative by supporting the prescription drug benefit for seniors.
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“I can’t believe they would do that but I should cease to be amazed at the foolishness of our political class and the people that enable them.
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Again, foolish how?
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“t has to be the social issues, which everyone claims the GOP is obsessed with but which is all anyone talks about with Santorum. “
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“He has proposed tripling the child tax-credit. Heard about that much? Of course not. everyone’s too busy with the horse race and asking him to defend his position on gays.”
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His problem with social issues is that he has a long history of being for positions that a majority of the population disagree with. He could stop talking about them tomorrow, but the fact is that they’re on record and they’re on record as positions that he has stated we need to have enforced in the US through acts of law.
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And this problem of his is not helped by the fact that he won’t shut the hëll up about them on campaign stump stops. HE IS THE ONE bringing up in speeches gay marriage, abortion and contraception issues as red meat for the base. Part of the reason that Santorum has taken this long to have his moment in the spotlight is because even the base knew that his greatest appeal was with the religious conservative base, but the reason for that appeal is what will kill him in a national election.
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No matter what the hardcore Right wants to think, this nation does not want to elect a hardcore religious conservative who has a high likelihood of trying to legislate his religious ideals from the office of the POTUS.
There is a reason why people keep talking negatively about social issues when refering Santorum.
A hardcore religious conservative with great charisma and a charming, folksy appeal would make people more at easy and let them focuse on other things.
But Santorum comes across as the evil, uptight teacher that wants to kill the students that party too hard.
Because Santorum is no Reagan. His charisma is, to my eyes, very limited and he does not have Reagan’s ability to disagree without being disagreeable. This is my opinion, of course, but I don’t think I’d be proven worng on his electability.
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he got clobbered in his last chance at an election–how often does an incumbent senator get clocked that badly, unless there is a major scandal. and there wasn’t–they just did not like him. I think that’s the same judgment the nation will make.
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His big positions are abortion and gay rights. Neither position is going to rally the needed independents. Conservatives who feel strongly on those issues are already going to vote against Obama so there’s no big gain there.
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The GOP needs to zero in on the economy. Is it getting better? Yes. But 8% unemployment is pretty poor (When Bush II had something like 5.6% they called it the “jobless recovery”) If the Democrats try to oversell how great things are getting they will get severe pushback–I could probably count on my hands the people I know who are optimistic about the next few years and still have enough fingers left over to play the banjo (badly). Gay rights and abortion will be distractions and not ones that will play in the GOP’s favor.
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(It will be so easy for the GOP to make some great ads by just juxtaposing what Democrats said about the economy during Bush and contrasting it to now. remember when every dime rise in gas prices was proof of the Bushitler cabal to squeeze the average Joe for greedy oil profits? By the time the election comes around we may look at $4 a gallon as a fond memory of a happier time.)
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Santorum looks like a kid. He does not think particularly fast on his feet. He can come up with some real gaffes and unlike when Romney or Obama do it, he comes off as kind of dim. He’s Dan Quayle.
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Now look–he may be a fine guy. I don’t get that vibe but it may be the case. He has a nice family. He’s undoubtedly better than some of his nastier opponents–but that’s a mighty low bar. None of that means he should be president. Same with palin–the fact that some of her critics were awful people with no sense of decency is a bad mark on them but no reason to send her to the White House.
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Europe may collapse and drag us into a worldwide economic crash. Israel and Iran may be exchanging missiles soon and the BEST we can hope for is that they aren’t nuclear tipped. Things are dicey right now. Obama is a “meh” at best but that’s no reason to roll the dice and see if the NEXT unprepared guy is a faster learner.
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For all his many advantages, Obama is vulnerable but this will be an easy election to blow and were I a betting man I’d bet on the Republicans blowing it.
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(of course there could be scandals. The OWS nitwits might make themselves even more odious than they already have. Joe Biden might begin his acceptance speech with a joke about Asian drivers. The world may fall apart to a degree that we can only dread. But it’s not a good position to be in when you have to hope the other guy screws up.)
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“The GOP needs to zero in on the economy. Is it getting better? Yes. But 8% unemployment is pretty poor (When Bush II had something like 5.6% they called it the “jobless recovery”) If the Democrats try to oversell how great things are getting they will get severe pushback–I could probably count on my hands the people I know who are optimistic about the next few years and still have enough fingers left over to play the banjo (badly). Gay rights and abortion will be distractions and not ones that will play in the GOP’s favor.”
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I doubt that they’ll try to oversell it in the campaign. If anything, they’ll probably do a version of what the Bush campaign did in 2004 and make the case that we’re in it in such a way that things will be made worse by switching horses right now.
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And, as I commented on above, it won’t take much to convince the voting independents and moderates out there that, depending on the candidate, switching will actually make things much, much worse. That’s certainly going to be Romney’s biggest weakness with bringing up the economy. He’s got his name signed to one opinion piece that advocated letting the housing market crash and mass foreclosures to happen and destroy lives and another where he said the best thing that could happen to the automotive industry was for it to hit bottom and experience a “managed bankruptcy” that shed labor and cost countless jobs and retirement pensions. And those are just the starter weapons in the arsenal.
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Newt isn’t in much better of a position. He too has made numerous on record comments in the last few years about economic matters that now look wrong and that will not play well as he seeks to claim that he knows the way to fix things. He also, if memory serves, was against the auto bailout.
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Santorum may fair better in that department just because he’s been more silent than the others in the last few years, but he largely suffers a problem that Newt and Romney also suffer. Most of his economic policies look like the same old Republican playbook. All three of them have policies that, to greater or lesser degrees, look much like what we’ve seen before during the Bush years when things went downhill.
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The Obama team might not be able to play up how great things are getting and would be smart not to since it’s only getting a little better and not dancing for joy in the streets great. But they can easily make the case that what their opponent (if it’s one of these three guys) would have made things worse from 2009 to 2012 and the only thing that their offering is exactly what we saw from Bush and the Republicans in 2000 -2008 and “helped lead us to the mess we’re in now.”
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There’s a difference between trumpeting something as great and pointing to your improving something VS the other guy making it worse. Right now, if things maintain at where they seem to be heading and Obama and his people are smart, they can basically kneecap the three Republican front runners with their own on record words and maybe hurt them with their own policies. But they have to play it very, very smartly and very, very carefully. And that right there may be the biggest and most difficult hurdle that Obama and his team have to get over.
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“The “Oh look, something shiny!” attention span of GOP voters is now bordering on the pathological.”
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I’m not so sure about that myself. I’m seeing more desperation in this than I am short attention spans or unfocused disorganization.
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The one thing we know for sure here, the one thing I’ve learned from the sheer number of spam comments that I wouldn’t approve due to the sheer level of profanity that this http://jjchandler.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/the-five-stages-of-being-a-conservative-in-2012/ brought to my blog’s spam filter, is that a large number of the conservative/Republican voter base out there do not like Mitt Romney and do not want to see him get the nomination. Granted, we’ve seen what might appear to be a softening of that stance in the form of comments from people like Coulter and others, but I think that’s less admitting that Romney might be okay and more declaring that between the two then primary front runners, Newt and Mitt, that Newt was political suicide in every way possible.
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But that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of the conservative voters out there don’t like Mitt that much.
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Mitt has been chugging along now with a fairly consistent percentage of the primary vote. The rest of the vote has been the Anybody-but-Mitt vote. The problem that the Anybody-but-Mitt vote has been facing is that the GOP decided that this year was so winnable that they could run the clown school wing of their available candidates rather than a lot of good, strong, serious contenders. So the Anybody-but-Mitt vote keeps picking the candidate that is in that moment the best of the rest.
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And then the best of the moment has to actually perform to that level, be seriously looked at and not look like a fool when the eyes of the nation turn towards them and *poof* their carriage turns back into a pumpkin and they turn back into one of the seven dwarfs (and usually, it’s Dopey that they turn in to.) And that leaves the Anybody-but-Mitt vote desperate and reaching for the next new Anybody-but-Mitt candidate.
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And now the field is down to four. The Anybody-but-Mitt vote is obviously not going for Mitt and, desperate or not, there’s no way in hëll that they’re going for Paul. So the have to choose between Newt and Mister Don’t Google Me. And, Frankly, I don’t know a lot of conservatives who are particularly over the moon about either of those two. The only thing that they will say 100% enthusiastically is that those two are better than Mitt and worlds better than Paul.
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So what we’re going to see now and likely all the way up to the floor of the convention? We’re not going to see a disorganized GOP voter base, we’re going to see a desperate one that’s also likely more than just a little depressed. We’re going to see, as we did with Florida, the states with more moderate GOP voters put Mitt ahead of the others and we’ll see the states with the more conservative GOP voters, the Anybody-but-Mitt voters, vote in mass for the best of what’s left. And the problem they’re facing is that the best of what’s left is crap. Neither Santorum nor Newt are really lighting a fire in the hearts of the voters that they need to be firing up, so the support they have will basically be based on who screws up the worst in any given publicized debate VS who looks at least passable.
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Florida went Mitt because there are a lot more moderates in their voter pool, but the results we saw from the Anybody-but-Mitt vote last night shouldn’t be surprising since Newt wasn’t even on one ballot and, more importantly, Newt came off horribly in the last televised debate (Florida’s) while Santorum used the petty bickering between Newt and Mitt to make himself look not only adult, but downright presidential in comparison. Hëll, I think Santorum is a prize winning nutter and even I thought he came out of that debate looking dámņëd good just because of how bad the others looked.
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So, no, not in my humble and maybe irrelevant to many opinion a case of being “unfocused and disorganized” as much as being desperate to see Anybody-but-Mitt and maybe a little depressed about who they have left to vote for.
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“You know what I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see? They get to the convention with no nominee, no clear consensus, and Chris Christie walks in and says, “You know what? You’re all idiots. I’ve decided I’m in.” And he walks out as the nominee.”
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If they have to broker a deal at the convention, I don’t see them giving it to Christie. He’s about as conservative as Mitt and far more prone to saying something disastrously stupid (“You know something may be going down tonight but it ain’t gonna be jobs, sweetheart.”) on a national campaign trail than even Newt has been of late. I think we’re looking at the pool right now that will be the source for the final pick for the GOP. In order of likelihood and possible electability at this point, we’re getting either Romney, Santorum or newt as the GOP nominee.
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Gonna be such a fun 2012 election season.
Yes, if they were to broker a deal at the convention, I feel the person most likely to be chosen would be Jeb Bush. He has everything, a ton of plusses…except his last name. he still appeals to Hispanics, has a record of accomplishment and is a better politician and speaker than either his father or brother.
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That said, the GOP could do a lot worse than Santorum. Considering that an absolutely ignorant novice like Herman Cain was once the frontrunner, they already have.
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I could see Jeb coming in and getting the nod, I just think it’s too soon for him to have a good shot at actually winning. He has the charisma to pull it off in most cases and he plays well to moderates and undecideds. His issue is, as you pointed out, his last name. I just think it’s way too soon for a Bush to get a chance. The only place Bush nostalgia exists is in the hardcore Right. Everyone else is burnt out on Bush and then some.
Jeb Bush’s issues are his last name and Florida.
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I just ran across a headline saying that Miami has just been picked as the most miserable city in the US, apparently beating out Detroit for that coveted title.
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I can’t put Miami at Jeb’s feet. I lived in Florida for a part of the 90s (before Jeb came in and for the first few months that he was in) and and I can tell you that Miami was sliding before he did anything. I can’t say without actually researching it myself whether or not his policies helped the already in progress downward slide to slide faster or stalled the damage, but it was happening well before he came in to office. I doubt he could have even turned a lot of Florida’s problems around in two to four years even if he did everything right.
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Off course, dámņëd few Republicans can make that argument because they would then have to admit that Obama was dealing with a crash of epic proportions started before he came into office and admit that the economy he got handed to him would take more than two to four years of work on it to slow the freefall down and start turning things around. But I have no doubt they’ll put on an excellent pretzel logic display trying to argue it both ways anyhow.
First, I want to be clear that out of the four candidates standing, Santorum is my my third choice with Romney and Gingrich tied for fourth and Ron Paul coming in fifth.
“The “Oh look, something shiny!” attention span of GOP voters is now bordering on the pathological.”
I think you’re missing something here. Santorum has the best proven track record on conservative issues, but hasn’t caught on before, precisely because he isn’t shiny. The man has the all the excitement of ceiling spackle. Sure, he might sparkle on occasion, but listening to him has all the appeal of attending the lecture of an emeritus professor on the mating habits extinct tree sloths. The reason Santorum suddenly surged (and yes, I voted for him yesterday) is because there is no other true conservative left standing. In the end we were left with boring (Santorum); Flashy but volatile and unpredictable in a bad way (Gingrich); a competent administrative flip-flopper who claims he’ll be completely different from everything his record shows (Romney); and an ideologically pure tin foil hat (Paul).
I’ve always liked Santorum, but I never considered him as Presidential material, until he became the only material left. There are some shiny stars in the conservative firmament right now. If Rubio, Jindal, or even Paul Ryan entered the race, I’d be enthusiastic about backing them, however, I have to work with what’s available. In the end, I’ll enthusiastically embrace a sweater-vest over the concrete vest of the last four years.
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You might want to nix Paul Ryan from that list for now. He may have some issues heading his way.
“You might want to nix Paul Ryan from that list for now. He may have some issues heading his way.”
He might. The list is always in flux. 15 years ago, Gingrich wouldn’t be so low on my list either.
I imagine that Tim Pawlenty is on suicide watch right about now.
Perry has regrets for not being better prepared and not entering the race sooner. A veteran, a farmer, a record as a job creator and he blew it by not being prepared.
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But at least he ran. For those who truly feel Obama is destroying the country, why didn’t Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels, Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal or numerous others run? It’s borderline irresponsible.
I suspect it’s because no one, except the most hysterical of partisans, sincerely believes that Obama is destroying the country.
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In which case, it’s not borderline irresponsible, it’s potentially clever politics.
“I suspect it’s because no one, except the most hysterical of partisans, sincerely believes that Obama is destroying the country.
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In which case, it’s not borderline irresponsible, it’s potentially clever politics.”
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True. But given the economy, decisions to be made by the Commander-In-Chief the next four years, Supreme Court appointments, etc. I find it truly reprehensible that more of the “big names” did not feel obligated to challenge an incumbent president because they feel things will be easier.
Perhaps many of the “big names” also believe that the GOP has gone insane, but rather than run as a moderate and punished for it (like Huntsman) or betray their principles and be forced to run as a hardcore conservative (like Romney), they’d rather wait for the TP fever to pass.
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Considering that Obama is the most conservative leftwing President we’ve ever had and that most of his policies are ones that were supported by mainstream Republicans (until Obama’s election made the GOP knee-jerk oppositional), I imagine that the “big names” really wouldn’t mind too, too much if he won a second term.
Sasha, I could give you three solid reasons why Obama should be impeached. Oh, he won’t, because it’s a political impossibility, but yeah, they’re there.
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Oh, what the hëll:
1) Violating the War Powers Act with his little Libyan adventure.
2) Taking upon himself the power to decree when Congress is in or out of session for the purposes of recess appointments.
3) Ordering the summary execution of an American citizen without benefit of trial, or even indictment.
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As I said, ain’t gonna happen. But that all three certainly qualify as grounds for impeachment are indisputable.
I question that these are “indisputable” grounds for impeachment (and I can’t help but find it amusing that #1 & 3 are complaints I’d normally expect to hear out of Firedoglake), but considering the pass that the previous administration received despite the egregiously impeachable offenses it committed, I suspect the only time impeachment will ever be seriously considered in the near future is if it involves lying about sex.
Jay Tea: On almost exactly the same grounds, you’d have been in favor of impeaching Bush, then?
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You know what, Jay? All three of your points are weak and can be applied to Bush to greater or lesser degrees, but this one takes the cake.
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“3) Ordering the summary execution of an American citizen without benefit of trial, or even indictment.”
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You’re still banging that drum? A drone strike is used to kill a terrorist operative in another country, an operative who was in a high level of command in a terrorist organization that we are at war with and that has attacked us and our allies, and who was in an area in the country that e was killed in that qualifies as being a part of the active battlefield.
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But he was an American citizen and so Obama is evil for letting a drone strike take him out because it meant that Obama was allowing the summary execution of an American citizen without benefit of trial, or even indictment.
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That you would even bring that up as an argument shows that you are so far gone as a partisan nutjob that there is no chance of having an intelligent discussion with you about Obama on any subject. You make the people you claim had “Bush Derangement Syndrome” look like the pictures of perfect mental health and unbiased observations.
Actually, Jerry, I have the least problem with #3. But it remains a fact: Obama ordered Anwar Al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was never charged with any crime, killed on sight. Not indicted, not captured, not given any of his rights as a citizen, but simply killed.
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I got little problem with that, but I am deeply troubled by the precedent set.
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On the other hand, when we next get a Republican president, perhaps he or she can use that power on folks like, say, Bradley Manning or the Wikileaks jáçkášš or the punks from Anonymous. Screw the courts, just blow ’em away.
Not only that, Jerry, but there was basically no opposition to the passing of the NDAA, which basically gave the thumbs up to that drone strike and more.
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But now, a decade after the Patriot Act, DHS/TSA, NDAA, and more, NOW Jay Tea tries to claim he gives a šhìŧ about the rights of American citizens?
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How badly is your knee jerking, Jay Tea?
My, I’m so flattered. I’m a nobody from nowhere, but my own standing is so, so much more important than the actual issue at hand. I guess it’s easier to play “gotcha” with me than actually defending the gross abuses of power Obama’s taken on.
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Let’s just go with the recess appointments to the NLRB. He submitted their names to the Senate, then THREE DAYS LATER announced that the Senate was in recess (an opinion the Senate itself did not share) and appointed them. He didn’t even bother submitting the required documentation on the nominees to the Senate — background checks, financial disclosure forms, nothing.
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Note for future presidents: you now have the authority to decide when Congress is in session or not, whether or not they concur.
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And Libya: the War Powers Act is officially irrelevant. Previous presidents stated they did not consider it valid, but didn’t actually challenge it. They went along with it, acting “consistent with it” but never acknowledging that they were bound by it. Then Obama says it doesn’t apply because he didn’t call what we did engaging in “hostilities,” but rather in “kinetic military action.”
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Oh, and Jerry? Finding faults in me is easy. But you have a ways to go before you can challenge the world’s greatest expert at it — me. If you have the integrity, testicular fortitude, and intellectual capabilities, try discussing the actual points I bring up. Show how you think it’s actually fine that Obama is doing these things, and don’t just sputter about Bush. ‘Cuz if you keep it up, I’ll bring up how Obama promised to close Guantanamo within one year — and now is trying to hold those awful, terrible, evil military tribunals on the detainees.
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“‘Cuz if you keep it up, I’ll bring up how Obama promised to close Guantanamo within one year — and now is trying to hold those awful, terrible, evil military tribunals on the detainees.”
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Feel free. It’ll be laughable watching you try to make a point like that since (1) I’ve taken Obama to task for his failings on those issues and (2) the other half of that equation is that Obama did attempt to hold to some of his promises on the matter and the Republicans did their level best (which means telling lies and inciting hysteria) to block him at every turn and they had help from some of the Blue Dags and independents. You can’t shut down Guantanamo and move the prisoners into federal prisons in the country when congress is blocking that.
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But, of course, explain to us about how Obama should have just overridden the congress and the law and placed the people being held there anywhere he felt like putting them and that you, Jay Tea, would now be calling that an A-Okay move by Obama and would not be screaming all over the blogosphere about the lawlessness of it all. Please explain to us, Jay, how you would be fine with Obama forcing the legal system to take cases and overriding congress and the legal system on the matter and not be now whining on about how Obama was breaking the law.
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I’ve taken Obama to task for his failings. I’ve even said I wouldn’t mind seeing him impeached over one very troubling move that he and his Justice Department made. I’ve said that he didn’t handle going into Libya well and it was a foolish venture. I’ve said that more needs to be covered about Fast and Furious and that a lot of heads need to roll over that one. I’ve criticized Obama here far more than you, one of the Republicans more regular defenders here, criticized Bush here when he was in office.
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So bring it up in some laughable attempt to make a point. You’ve already lost that argument anyway.
I guess it’s easier to play “gotcha” with me than actually defending the gross abuses of power Obama’s taken on.
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Because I’m not defending them, I’m not going to defend them. They ARE gross abuses of power.
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Abuses that, until now, with a Democrat in the White House, you yourself haven’t given a crap about.
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If that’s a “gotcha”, then it’s obvious your knee is jerking pretty dámņ hard.
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“Because I’m not defending them, I’m not going to defend them. They ARE gross abuses of power.”
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You’re wasting your time at this point. When it comes to political threads, Jay is a warped reflection of the political movement he so loves and the whole “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” ideology they seem to be embracing.
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You’re not defending Obama, but you disagree with Jay. You’re therefore against him and with them and defending Obama. He’s popped his head in to other threads and done the same. There have been threads where you, I or others have been critical of something Obama was doing but then disagreed with a criticism made about Obama or the situation because it was untrue. Then Jay comes along and declares that you or I or some other person are obviously just 100% okay with whatever Obama is doing.
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He’s an idiot and he hasn’t changed that here. Good example – He thinks he can prove some air headed point by bringing up things Obama has done that should be condemned and back me into a corner. Problem for Jay is that I have condemned Obama over such matter here, on my on blog and elsewhere and said as much.
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“February 9, 2012 at 1:38 am
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I’ve taken Obama to task for his failings. I’ve even said I wouldn’t mind seeing him impeached over one very troubling move that he and his Justice Department made. I’ve said that he didn’t handle going into Libya well and it was a foolish venture. I’ve said that more needs to be covered about Fast and Furious and that a lot of heads need to roll over that one. I’ve criticized Obama here far more than you, one of the Republicans more regular defenders here, criticized Bush here when he was in office.
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So bring it up in some laughable attempt to make a point. You’ve already lost that argument anyway.”
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Note the time stamp on the post. Note the time stamp and what Jay says in his post.
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“February 9, 2012 at 7:31 am
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Hey, will you look at that. You managed to change the subject again, evading the two “impeachable offenses” I brought up to go off on somewhere where you think you can win. You utterly ignored how Obama’s decided the War Powers Act doesn’t apply to him, and he can decide when Congress is in or out of session.
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And to consider I was actually being nice by not bringing up all those “green energy” loans and grants that profited huge numbers of Obama supporters, how Warren Buffett stands to make billions over Obama’s blocking of the Keystone XL pipeline expansion, the “Fast And Furious” scheme that’s literally killed hundreds of innocent people…
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But hey, that’s all trivial compared to Rick Santorum actually acting like he has sincere religious beliefs, Mitt Romney being one of those freaky Mormons like Harry Reid and the Udalls and the Osmonds, and did you hear Newt Gingrich has been married three times?
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Good lord, what happened to our priorities?
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Jerry’s got his head on straight. “If it makes Republicans look bad, that’s most important!” Thank heavens we have him as our guiding star on such matters. Screw the rest. Especially Fast and Furious; with the exception of one American Border Patrol officer, they were just Mexicans killing other Mexicans, and who cares about that?”
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Out of curiosity, who here has brought up Romney being a Mormon and attacked him over it? For that matter, since most of the people attacking Romney over his Mormonism are on the Evangelical Right and former staffers and mouthpieces for the other candidates for the GOP nomination, how does his bringing it up here not just make him look like more of a fool than he usually makes himself look?
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He’s an idiot. He’s a complete and utter imbecilic mouth breather. He doesn’t know how to do anything other than regurgitate talking points. Either that or he’s now decided that he’s going to out-troll Darin on political threads and do it by out-trolling Darin at his own stated game. He’ll post utter nonsense, ignore what others say, ignore facts, ignore links and just repeat what he said before as though it hasn’t been answered or proven to be inaccurate.
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This is a guy who defended and repeated proven, documented lies buy the Bush administration, but thinks other people are the unreasonable ones because, while they may disapprove of something Obama did, that don’t agree with every lie or conspiracy theory that Jay believes in and therefore must be 110% supporting Obama on the matter. This is a guy who thinks it’s beneath contempt when others accurately describe Palin as a lightweight, whiny crybaby, but is proud of the fact that he called a liberal activist he doesn’t like a c*nt in print.
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At this point, you’d have to be a fool to expect either honest or intelligent discussions with him. Honestly, I’m pretty much to the point where I’m going to treat him in political threads like I treat Darin; just shroud him. Neither one of them have any interest in actually having an honest discussion about anything. They just want to regurgitate talking points and ignore what people actually say, ignore facts and ignore reality at all costs.
Jerry, are you sure you don’t need your dosage adjusted? 😉
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I’m sure.
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That above wasn’t written red faced, angry or in any other way some might be reading it. The tone of “voice” I had writing it was just one of just expressing the facts as is and as someone somewhat resigned to the fact that the stupid is as stupid does and will likely never change.
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And Jay is, well, stupid. For any other signs of intelligence he might occasionally show, he’s shown an inability to discuss political matters in anything other than the conservative political sound bites and talking points of the moment and, when cornered by facts, he just throws them out again or throws out an unrelated sound bite or talking point and acts like it’s supposed to mean something.
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I don’t particularly care if he disagrees with me. Hëll, Bill disagrees with me and several major and not a few minor political points. But Bill can add discussion to the mix and actually take facts in to account and adjust to the reality of what’s happening and being discussed. Jay just adds stupidity at this point.
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And I’m really about fed up with stupidity these days. Especially the type of stupidity that Jay and Darin like to display; stupidity by choice and desire to be stupid.
Jerry, you have a remarkably acute — and selective — memory. Quite frankly, I don’t recall any of the particulars of our past skirmishes, but you apparently relive them on a regular basis. So I start off each time fresh; you want to take time to recount your past glories. To the casual reader who doesn’t have your exceptional recall (like me), you look like a bitter, frothing loon.
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On the other hand, good for you for honoring the “truth in labeling” laws.
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Anyhow, let’s see if I’ve got this right. I cite three specific instances of gross abuses of power by Obama. Your response is to say you’ve spoken against some of them, and isn’t it rich how I wasn’t so outraged over various and sundry Bush “abuses.”
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What that says to me is that you figure you’ve covered yourself by saying you don’t like Obama’s, but they’re not a real priority for you. No, you’re far more obsessed with the alleged crimes of Bush, who’s been out of office for three years now.
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Personally, I’d like to worry more about the ongoing problems and deal with those, perhaps even preventing them from getting worse and preventing future administrations from taking them as precedents, but that’s not a major agenda item for you. No, you want to score your political points and count coup on me.
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That’s right. You’re more fixated on proving that you were right and I and my ilk were wrong three-plus years ago than stopping ongoing gross violations of the Constitution and laws.
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Personally, I find it flattering. I find it a huge ego boost that you obsess and fixate over our past skirmishes, that you nurse your grudges and keep them fresh and ready at hand at any opportunity. Even if it means that you don’t have time to go more than “tsk, tsk” once or twice when Obama tramples all over the Constitution and the law.
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I understand, Jerry. It’s just a matter of priorities. You have yours, and I have mine.
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Yours tend to revolve around feeding your ego. Just embrace it.
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But if you want to talk about other things, then feel free to repeat your previous denunciations of Obama’s actions I cited above — the summary execution of a (legally) innocent American citizen, the complete trampling of the War Powers Act, and the gross abuse of the recess appointment power.
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Or, if you like, continue in your self-gratification by continuing the personal vendetta. I’ll even hand you the Kleenex.
“The only place Bush nostalgia exists is in the hardcore Right. Everyone else is burnt out on Bush and then some.”
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Except the hardcore right despises Dubya as a progressive, citing everything from No Child Left Behind to McCain-Feingold to the banning of incandescents to expanding Medicare with the prescription drug benefit.
Amazing how the hardcore right, who lauded W. as the resurrected Reagan and dutifully supported all of his initiatives and the GOP Congress’s rubberstamping of same, only realized how leftwing Bush43 was after his predictably ruinous policies came to fruition and left him polling worse than genital warts.
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And yet, the TP GOP’s current platforms are essentially indistinguishable from Dubya’s. Go fig.
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“Except the hardcore right despises Dubya as a progressive, citing everything from No Child Left Behind to McCain-Feingold to the banning of incandescents to expanding Medicare with the prescription drug benefit.”
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Some do, I’ll grant you that. The ones who actually think about what they’re saying do. But I’ve seen more than a few hardcore righties are still lauding Bush as a great President.
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And, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the entire GOP lines up to vote in lockstep against any move to end policies put in to place by Bush. The same people saying that Bush and the Republicans screwed up in the 00s are the same people fighting to keep the policies put in place by Bush and those Republicans from getting changed or ended.
Jerome, while I generally disagree with most of your positions stated in this thread, I have to go along with your point that SOME of the GOP heavyweights you referenced (and no, I don’t include the lackwit Sarah Palin in that category) should have considered running. In fact, if somebody like Jeb Bush had decided to run, I would definitely have listened to what he had to say. The only reason I can possibly think of is none of them thought they had a chance of defeating Obama. Does anybody have another theory?
Reposting from above, perhaps many of the “big names” also believe that the GOP has gone insane, but rather than run as a moderate and punished for it (like Huntsman) or betray their principles and be forced to run as a hardcore conservative (like Romney), they’d rather wait for the TP fever to pass.
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Sadly, you might be right to some degree. Anyone who might speak with a moderate voice is going to get shouted down by the nutjobs in the primary process this year. We saw some of this in 2010 when Republicans with a record of working with Democrats (even on good bills) were threatened with being “primaried” and, in some cases, replaced by people who had no chance of winning or who won but are facing a huge amount of buyer’s remorse from the voters right now. And even given that, the people who made those threats are happy with what they got and still making those threats to other Republicans now. A sane, moderate and intelligent candidate is not going to get the nod in 2012 or maybe even 2016 when it comes to the GOP primary process.
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Jeb would easily be a better President than his brother, but he suffers from a bad last name right now.
I don’t think Huntsman ever expected to win the nomination. I’m betting he only ran to give his name national exposure, so he’ll be a more viable candidate in 2016 when/if the ultra right-wing-nutjob GOP mentality has lapsed in favour of moderation.
And I don’t believe that Sarah Palin will ever run for President. Why would she? She obviously prefers being an irritant to being a politician. More money, practically no accountability. Paid public appearances, book signings, Twitter feeds, and a gig on Fox News means she doesn’t have to do things like seriously debate, answer questions, make important political decisions, etc.
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With regards to Palin, I’ve basically said that before. She quit her job to cash in while her celebrity was still bright and the money stream was flowing and she’s not going back to an actual job of hard work and headaches for so long as she can continue to cash in. And, hobestly, the longer she cashes in the less her chance of being a serious candidate.
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Well, unless she waits almost 16 years and then claims to be an outsider.
“I don’t think Huntsman ever expected to win the nomination. I’m betting he only ran to give his name national exposure, so he’ll be a more viable candidate in 2016 when/if the ultra right-wing-nutjob GOP mentality has lapsed in favour of moderation.”
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This is utter nonsense. I don’t believe anyone – okay, very few candidates – choose to put themselves in this mix and under the enormous strain of a presidential race if they don’t feel they have a good shot at winning.
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One exception, I believe, isd Herman Cain, who I feel was more interested in promoting his book and touring for that and was as shocked as anyone when his campaign took off like it did and he was treated seriously.
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Huntsman is actually more conservative than Romnet, arguably the most “consistent conservative” in the race. His problem was that he basically gave the finger to conservatives and that many felt that his running so soon after working for Obama was dishonorable, since he had to have planned how to run against him while working for him.
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“And I don’t believe that Sarah Palin will ever run for President. Why would she? She obviously prefers being an irritant to being a politician. More money, practically no accountability. Paid public appearances, book signings, Twitter feeds, and a gig on Fox News means she doesn’t have to do things like seriously debate, answer questions, make important political decisions, etc.”
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On this, I have to sadly agree. She COULD have been a formidable candidate if she had prepared and really had an appetite for the job. I know web sites that defended her to the bloody death and excused and rationalized all her actions and said she wasn’t stringing people along…she said she would make a decision by September 2011 and it wasn’t the end of September 2011 yet…and then September 2011 came and went and she still hadn’t announced.
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As another said, she needed to run just to stay relevant and keep the money flowing in. In a few years, she will be as sought after and “hot” as Geraldine Ferraro was. A Nikki Haley or someone else will supplant her as the GOP’s best shot at fielding a striong woman on a ticket, just as she eclipsed Hillary for a time.
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She could have possibly been president. She certainly would have had a better shot than most of those that did run. She obviously doesn’t want the job and that is a shame – especially that she seemed less than honest about her intentions.
Courtesy of my friend’s new poliblog, the presidential contenders statted out.
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(I especially dig Newt’s Special Attack: Light Self On Fire And Charge 3d12)
You ought to know better than this. There are some things one simply shouldn’t joke about. And this is one of them. It just gives them ideas.
I’m going to enjoy watching this particular gaggle of depravity flop and twitch on election night if and when Santorum is declared the winner.
I’ve heard, although I haven’t yet confirmed, that the primaries in Missouri and Minnesota aren’t fully binding, and that, as a result, voter turnout last night was quite low. So this might not accurately reflect the preferences of voters in those states. Heavy emphasis on “might.”
They weren’t binding and voter turnout has been low in every primary compared to 2008’s other than (I believe) South Carolina’s. I actually saw that voter stat brought up on (again, I believe) Fox News Sunday back well before SC and discussed as a possible sign of voter apathy on the part of the Republicans this year.
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The answer they got back was that there was no voter apathy and low primary voter numbers means nothing because the primaries aren’t against Obama. I’m not sure I buy that argument though. One would think that you would want to get out and vote in your best and brightest in the primary to make even the semi-apathetic then really want to turn out for the actual election. Why screw yourself over in the primary and maybe the election itself?
It worries me greatly that there are significant numbers of individuals concentrated anywhere in the country that would show support for such a narrow-minded bigot as Santorum. This is the first time that I have ever looked at a presidential candidate and thought, with no hyperbole whatsoever, that I would not want to live in this country if that person were elected.
I’m not sure Colorado going to Santorum means a whole lot. I’m looking over some of the county results, and in the least shocking news of the year, Santorum got more votes in El Paso County alone than almost any other county had in total votes for all candidates.
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Why is that no surprise? Because El Paso County has Colorado Springs, home to Focus on the Family. The dots aren’t far apart.
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Several of the Denver Metro counties went to Romney, but then it almost becomes blue-red stateish: the more rural and further away from the Denver Metro, the more likely the county went to Santorum.
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What strikes me as funny with the economic debate right now is that The Republicans are claiming that they can fix it and that they would act as “The Party Of Reagan” should and refuse to raise taxes just like the Gipper did, but this is complete and utter garbage. They also say that their “bold, Reagan Republican” views on things allow them to know that government doesn’t create jobs, just as Reagan himself would tell us (and occasionally misquote Reagan’s “we’re from the government” line while saying that.) The problem is, this is complete and utter garbage.
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It is historical fact that Reagan not only raised taxes during the period in his presidency that held the highest unemployment figures, but that he did so to create revenue to the federal government that would go towards infrastructure and create jobs.
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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/extras/2012/01/06/jan-6-gas-tax-increase-1983-nancy-kerrigan-attacked-1994/
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And the Republicans of now claim that Reagan’s polices worked and got us out of the problems we had coming out of the 70s and under Carter.
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But now, when Democrats speak of doing the same thing, some increases on taxes and much federal spending to be on infrastructure to create jobs, the Republicans refuse to follow the lead of Reagan and help the Democrats implement Reagan-like policies to get us out of the economic hard times that we’re in.
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So at this point, are the Republicans and conservatives declaring that Reagan never raised taxes and that Reagan knew that the government couldn’t create jobs and stimulate the economy so they won’t allow anyone to attempt either thing on the federal level now just stupid or are they really trying to damage the economy just for political gain in 2012?
The Reagan that modern Republicans worship isn’t the real Ronald Wilson Reagan, but St. Ronnie. St. Ronnie is a cartoon character, that being fictional, doesn’t have a record to detract from the “facts” being quoted about him. The real Reagan was a complex and pragmatic man, who was willing to compromise to get things done. The real man is too messy to be useful for the modern ideologically pure nut jobs. St. Ronnie is a marketing mascot, used to sell their ideas; not his.
It’s kind of terrifying that by the standards of today’s GOP, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan would be flaming liberals. These guys are lions of old-school Conservatism, but if they were around today – with Goldwater eschewing Fundamentalist Christians and supporting the rights of Gays to serve in the army, Nixon proposing universal healthcare, and Reagan wanting to raise taxes – they’d get slaughtered in the primaries.
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It’s not terrifying, it’s sad.
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Despite the Christian Coalition and the Evangelical Right of the 80’s, I grew up leaning more towards Republican ideas than those of the Democrats on many issues. I was more to the left on most social issues, but I was usually in agreement with the Republicans on things like defense, economic matters, law enforcement, etc…
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But somewhere in the early 90s it seemed like the party just started going wrong. Politics has never been clean and never been a gentle sport, but the Republicans seen to have started to get more extreme, more uncompromising and more, well, bitter and at a rate that’s outstripping the similar evolution in the Democratic party. Now, almost two and a half decades after he left office, I don’t know if even a guy like Reagan would recognize his own party right now or really want to be a part of it.
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The Democrats have shifted themselves as a whole a bit more to the Left as well, but I don’t think the shift has been as dramatic. I’ve never been a party line voting guy and I’ve always bounced back and forth on voting based on the candidate, but more and more I find less and less to vote for on the Republican side; especially on the national level.
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I already disliked the fact that we have turned our political landscape into a two party system, but it really seems worse when now with one party so dámņëd and determined to run to the extremist portion of its own base.
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So, no, not terrifying, just sad.
It’s a sobering thing to realize that in the current GOP, John Huntsman was this year’s fringe candidate.
Here’s the thing, and I say this as a Republican, it doesn’t matter who the nominee will be because the Republicans in Congress, I predict only on a gut feeling, will make a huge mistake in March. A misstep so significant that when asked, “As President, what would you have done?” that when there is no satisfactory answer, In November, several states will have swung Blue
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They’ll say something, Charles, they just won’t say anything of any substance. And, unfortunately, that will still be more than enough for many.
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Some here may want to say I’m just slagging on the Republicans for the hëll of it, but recent history backs me up. Back in 2009, the Republicans rolled out their ideas for what they wanted to see in the healthcare reform and claimed that their ideas were being ignored by Obama and the Dems. This talking point went far and wide through the conservative media and a few people here even linked to their “plan” for healthcare reform on this blog.
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The problem? Despite the large number of Republican voters who said that there was a viable plan to Obamacare being offered by the Republicans, there wasn’t. When you looked at it, it was one page of talking points and little else.
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There was no plan and no idea put forward as to how anything would work. It was just line after line of talking points like “universal access” and “educe premiums” in bullet point format with unsourced and totally bogus numbers next to them. And then, at the bottom of the page was yet another set of unsourced, bogus numbers showing how much their “plan” would save the taxpayers and the users of their healthcare “plan” VS how much we would spend on Obamacare.
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One page of talking points and garbage numbers and it was hailed as a plan by the GOP and accepted as such by many.
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And it wasn’t a one-off. The GOP did the same thing with the federal budget. They had John Bohner and Eric Cantor leading the clown brigade with a book in their hands telling the press that what they were holding was the GOP’s plan for fixing the economy. But they didn’t want to show the press the thing. When the press finally pried it from their hands, it was a page or two of talking points. No real plan, just talking points like “reduce the deficit” and “cut taxes” in bullet point fashion.
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No plan. Just talking points. But the GOP said it was a plan. Then they backtracked and said that it was just the teaser for the plan and that they would unveil the real plan based off of it in 100 days. In 100 days they had… the same thing they had before.
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But they hailed it as a plan and it was touted as such by pundits in the conservative media and by GOP voters.
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They don’t need a real plan. They’ll just say they would have cut taxes, unburdened the job creators and, gotten rid of “harmful” regulations and unleashed free and unfettered capitalism and free enterprise. And they will be given a standing ovation for it.
Santorum has been my choice since he entered the race. Needless to say, I’m pleased with last night’s results.
You hate gay people that much, huh?
BTW, does anyone else think it’s ironic that Proposition 8 in California (banning same-sex marriage) was ruled unconstitutional on the same day we learned of Santorum’s big political wins? Weird…
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I thought it was kind of funny actually.
Yeah, tyranny from activist judges is hilarious and makes one want to slap their knee.
You didn’t even read the decision, did you?
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Michael, he doesn’t care what they said. Follow this link to an older PeterDavid.net thread and read the post in question.
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Darin
March 23, 2007 at 6:41 pm
http://www.peterdavid.net/index.php/2007/03/22/this-is-all-starting-to-sound-extremely-familiar/comment-page-2/#comment-31387
Of course I did, Michael. That’s why I’m deigning to acknowledge it since James saw fit to bring it up.
And of course that’s the automatic, reflexive response isn’t it? I suppose it’s too much to expect you to THINK before you type.
It’s automatic. Tim Tebow is some sort of arrogant elitist because he’s openly Christian and Santorum MUST want to stone gay people to death with his bare hands, also because he’s openly Christian. It’s something you guys don’t feel you have to even think about first. I think it is.
I say Santorum hates gays, not because he’s Christian, but because he keeps saying hateful things about gays. (Incidentally, his doing so makes him a pretty poor Christian.)
I would agree that saying hateful things about gays would make someone a poor Christian. I just don’t see that he (or Bachmann for that matter) has said hateful things about gays… unless you are redefining the words “hateful” and “gays.”
Then you need to get your freaking eyes checked. Or maybe just pull the wool off of them.
Or maybe you could articulate just what it is you are talking about.
I hope you do well in spreading Santorum all over the place. Nothing lights up a day quite like Santorum.
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Ho-Lee-She-Ate…
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Upthread there were a couple of us discussing how the moderates in the Republican party may not feel that they can run and win because of the insanity of the party right now. It’s even worse than they thought and it’s worse in my home state of Virginia.
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A lot of people are apparently upset with the local RINO (their word, not mine) in the 7th Congressional district and are circulating a petition to force a Republican primary to have him face a real Republican, Floyd Bayne, and get removed from office. It’s not a joke and the people who are just getting this started tonight are not jokers from the Left starting crap or people pulling a stunt. I just found out about it because I know two of the people involved and they are hardcore Right Wingers who are also solidly involved with the Tea Party. Who is this RINO in the 7th Congressional district by the way? That would be Eric Cantor.
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Eric freaking Cantor, just because he has compromised with the local and federal level Democrats a small bit lately on some things, is now seen as a RINO by the some of the Right in my state and they want to primary him for his actions and replace him with someone even more extreme.
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And looking at the Right in my state and their insane view on how no republican should ever compromise with the democrats, even if they don’t succeed in outing Cantor from his seat, I will bet you that this thing will probably get a lot of support and at least get to the primary stage.
RINO or not, these people want to put the Congressional Republican leadership into disarray in an election year? Hilarious! Maybe The Speaker is behind it. If I was him, I’d be tired of checking my back for a knife all of the time,
I think it’s safe to say that the real RINOs are the Tea Party and other hard right-wingers.
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They’ve dragged things so far to the right that Obama is closer to Reagan now than pretty much anybody the Republicans have had running for the nomination this past year.
Sometimes it looks like the Tea Party won’t be happy with any candidate that isn’t the love child of Ayn Rand and Stephen King’s Carrie’s mother.
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Well, it’s not exactly all of the Tea Party though. Back in the run up to the 2010 elections, I pointed out several times in discussions here that my dislike of the Tea Party wasn’t for most of the people on the ground, it was for the people who were taking it over and running it and who were in many cases little more than the same old partisan, conservative/Republican money men and power players and they people funding the larger Tea Party events who were the same old deep pocketed money men of the Republican party.
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That difference is a little more pronounced right now. In the run up to the Florida primary, Newt made a big deal out of getting the endorsement of over one hundred Tea Party leaders and, while not actually endorsing him, Newt saw Tea Party celebrity Sarah Palin speaking on his behalf. Much noise was then made about the fact that the Florida Tea Party leaders and power player had endorsed Newt.
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The regular people on the ground, the voters themselves who identified themselves as members of the Tea Party though? The majority of their numbers voted for Romney.
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We’ve also seen in some states now that, while the Tea Party leaders and power players were disparaging of OWS, the people on the ground have actually claimed some common causes with the original and more sane OWS people and have even marched together a few times (as they did in my state’s capitol.)
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The next few years could be an interesting time for the Tea Party and its evolution. A lot of the boots on the ground in the group are realizing that a lot of their “leaders” and power players are hijacking them and turning them into just another tool in the GOP arsenal. Now, of course some of them are fine with that since many of them were regular and dependable Republican voters before they became “independents” in the “independent” Tea Party, but not all of them. Some of the early and sane OWS people are now regretting not being more strict about who they let in the group or just let hang out with them to inflate their numbers and regretting how bad some of the late coming loons made them look so fast.
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And, as I said above, you’re seeing some of the moderate and sane in each group recognize that they actually have some common goals that are not dependent on voting R or D in an election.
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I honestly would not be surprised to see noticeable chunks of the Tea Party breaking away from the main body (and thus likely having to change their name) and not even be surprised to see them merge with some of the early OWS group (and, again, have to come up with a new name.)
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Think about it for a minute. The Tea Party was first advertised as being a group focused heavily on economic matters. Supposedly they were big on tax issues, the debt, spending, etc. The leaders and power players in the group have been turning them into a shrill bullhorn cheerleader for the GOP and a number of the Tea Party candidates from 2010 got in and turned into the same old Republican song and dance. Again, some of their members have noticed that and not liked it much at all.
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If these people hold on to the fire they had to get involved and to change things in DC and don’t drop out after being burned by the Tea Party liars and some of the original OWS people stick with it rather than dropping out and feeling burned by their own mistakes and missteps… We might actually see something interesting in a few years.
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Unfortunately, the cynic in me thinks that the most realistic outcome is that the moderates and the sane will feel burnt out and betrayed, stay home from now on. The Tea Party will just keep getting dumber until it’s absorbed whole back into the GOP mass and OWS will just disintegrate and be remembered as a bunch of mindless jerks who couldn’t be bothered to wash regularly.
I actually like the fact that it’s taking awhile. Usually it feels like the first few states decide everything. I think what we have here is simply that different sectors of the Republican party have different values and have different opinions about who should be their candidate. That’s how I think the system should work, not the party unity that we’ve gotten so used to that we think something has gone wrong when it doesn’t happen.
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Haven’t said that, the reason they haven’t rallied behind one candidate is because they’re being offered three different flavors of turd sandwich.
The longer GOP primary is having the same effect on Romney, the inevitable candidate, that it uad on Clinton, the inevitable candidate. It is revealing issues with the candidate. Clinton and Romney both share the tendency to say anything to get a vote. Unlike Romney, though, Clinton did not have an anyone but Clinton contingent. No, Clinton was popular and basically had the misfortune of facing a once-in-lifetime candidate.
Romney cannot claim (well, he could — he tends to say anything) that Gingrich and Santorum are Obama 2008 candidates or are running an Obama 2008 campaign. If Obama had decided not to run, Clinton would have sewn up the nomination before Super Tuesday. Obama defeating the Clinton machine is the reason the GOP should take 2012 more seriously.
Romney is not a good candidate. He has the retail political skills of Gore and Kerry (that’s bad). He’s geographically not the type of candidate who the GOP tends to nominate. He’s not even a war hero. Bad patterns so far has been his being trounced in South Carolina, which has always picked the GOP nominee. He performed in Colorado like a Democrat – well in urban areas and poorly in rural areas. He does not tend to excite the electorate, which means he might not do well enough in rural areas in the general election to carry states.
There are ingredients here for an epic collapse. The biggest is that Romney seeks to take out opponents with negative campaigning rather than selling himself. That might work against Santorum but I don’t see how it works against Obama. He already deals with FOX News.
A GOP White knight at this stage will look bad. Santorum on the ticket will look worse. Women — especially independents — will be turned off.
Tea Partiers might also whisper that a Romney loss might not be so bad. They can run a real conservative candidate in 4 years.
Jerry, Bill, heck, even Jerome and Jay: You’re all better than television (except for Supernatural… and we’ll see about Awake).
I definitely get more entertainment out of these posts than anything on the Bøøb LED.
TAC
Maybe we should sell advertising.
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I’m waiting for the movie version myself.
Hey! I’ve sold advertising before! But who would we get handsome enough to play Bill and Jerry?
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Dude…
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You need your eyes checked.
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Or some serious downtime.
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Or both.
Or some of Jerry’s medication.
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“Or some of Jerry’s medication.”
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A cup of hot Earl Grey tea with creamer and a science fiction television marathon? Wouldn’t that just fall under the header of serious downtime?
I’ve been told by some student sthat I look like Rick Moranis. Others say no, I look like the guy from HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS. I silently weep and drink from the container of whiteout.
And this is why we have a Queen as the Head of State. So we don’t have to deal with kind of nonsense. You look at the Parties, do the math on which one is best for you, and vote. It’s about the party in general, not the person leading it.
Ya know, I’ll start with the fact that I’m a Liberal. I’m more liberal than most of my liberal friends. Certainly more liberal than most on this thread. That said, I was thrilled when Obama was elected. I thought, finally, we would have a real liberal in the white house for the first time since Kennedy. Instead we got another Pragmatic Centrist. I was hopeful with the Affordable Care Act. Maybe we could atleast get a Public Option. Nope. He caved in to the center/right.
Now, I will vote for President Obama in November. The Republican party is insane, and has no viable candidate in the current field. I will miss the Clown Show when it’s over. It’s fascinatingly lurid political theatre. I’ve become an MSNBC addict.
By the way,does anybody else feel schitzophrenic when listening to a Ron Paul speech? About a third of what he says makes perfect sense, another third is crazy talk, and the rest makes sense in a knee-jerk kind of way until you actually think about it.
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Yeah, I’m really not sure what the appeal of Ron Paul is right now other than for one group of people I know. Most of the people I know who really, really want to see him get in to office are stoners who can’t wait for him to legalize drugs.
Yeah, I love it when people say “I agree with him on domestic policy, it’s his foreign policy that scares me.”
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These people must not be looking too much into the details of his domestic policy.
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I honestly don’t think they’re looking into much of anything. Back when Obama was still candidate Obama VS candidate Clinton, I commented here and elsewhere that a lot of the Obama faithful were kind of stupid because they could only tell you generalities about Obama’s plans (and often generalities that were 180 degrees from what Obama was saying) and that Obama, the “new” kind of politician, was going to change things and then acted shocked when you made them sit down and actually look at his platform on his website. All of a sudden, they discovered that they knew almost nothing about what they were talking about and that Obama wasn’t that different than Hillary or many other politicians.
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I still get a kick out of the fact that Obama supporters and critics alike still act surprised on his more hawkish war policies when he campaigned on refocusing our campaign in Afghanistan, increasing smart targeting and removal of terrorist targets and even said on the campaign (and got criticized for it by the conservatives in the media) that if OBL was discovered to be in Pakistan and Pakistan would not or could not take him then we would.
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Many of Ron Paul’s supporters remind me a lot of those particular Obama supporters right now. Ask them about Paul’s plans and they answer in generalities and talking points. They can tell you the general ideas like cutting the federal budget, but they can’t tell you how he might go about it to the levels that he’s promising. They know maybe one or two solid points about what Paul wants to do and that’s it.
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I mean, it’s one thing to not know every detail or to not know as much as you can because a candidate has yet to publish their full platform, but to not know a lot of Paul’s long held views and the plans he discusses on his own website and on the campaign? I just don’t understand these days the desire to be that ignorant; especially with the problems we’re facing globally and economically.
“I was thrilled when Obama was elected. I thought, finally, we would have a real liberal in the white house for the first time since Kennedy. Instead we got another Pragmatic Centrist.”
It’s amazing that more people don’t have Obama pegged as a Centrist. Don’t they realise that, if Obama is getting declaimed by the Right for being a Socialist, and by the Left for being a disappointing cave-in, then he must be a Centrist?
The next time some ultra right-wing Republican and/or Tea Partier mouths off about Obama being some kind of Communist Dictator, maybe they should stop and ask themselves why, then, he’s getting less support from Progressives than he used to.
“The next time some ultra right-wing Republican and/or Tea Partier mouths off about Obama being some kind of Communist Dictator, maybe they should stop and ask themselves why, then, he’s getting less support from Progressives than he used to.”
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Because the people criticizing him on the Left are as extreme as those who accused Reagan of not being sufficiently Right?
Having extremists from both sides complaining about you does not make you a centrist. Some of these cranks will condemn anyone who does not fulfill their expectations down to the last jot.
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It’s like those people who trot out that tired old trope about how if they are getting criticized by people on both sides of an issue they MUST be doing something right. Um, no.
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“Having extremists from both sides complaining about you does not make you a centrist.”
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I’d be more cynical about the ones on the Left who are criticizing him. I’d say that they are less “extremists” and more “idiots” instead. Most of the liberals I see really crying about Obama are like the ones I mentioned up thread. They decry his actions (as an example) as being little better than Bush because he’s increased military action in Afghanistan, killed more terrorist targets with drone strikes than Bush did and given the okay on operations to scrub targets left and right despite (their idiotic words) saying he would end the wars and not do anything like that.
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Despite actively campaigning on all of that and more that he gets dumped by some of the Left over. He gets criticized by many on the Left because many on the Left just couldn’t be bothered to actually pay attention when it mattered or are just brick stupid.
I think for a lot of the ones on the left it’s more of a CYA affair. They criticize everyone so that they can maintain a legitimate distance from any blame if things don;t go right. They’ll vote for some third party nitwit (or not vote at all) so they can be the one who says “You voted for (actual candidate)? Then you have no right to argue my idiotic premise!” (I’m paraphrasing here.)
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8 years of criticizing Bush for everything that happens, 8 years of seeing every single thing that happens as some kind of manufactured distraction from their issue du jour, they can’t or are too afraid to pivot and actually be FOR something (or at least something realistic, something that will actually happen).
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The right has these kinds as well–look at the people who have stated in so many ways that Obama is ruining the country, putting our future in danger, etc etc…but then say “If (GOP candidate X) is the nominee I will not sully myself by voting for him.” Seems to me you’d vote for a small patch of brown liquid if you believed the alternative was the guy ruining the future…but then you are on the defensive when President Liquid does not succeed in every endeavour (or does something stupid like pick Joe Biden for VP).
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A pox on the lot of ’em.
I don’t think this latest kerfuffle regarding the provisions of Obamacare that affect religious freedom could have come at a more fortuitous time for Santorum and his run for the Republican nomination… to say nothing of his run for the presidency. He’s going to be tapping into the public’s outrage on this one… and correctly so.
With some of what Santorum has said in the last day or two (as if some of his previous comments/actions weren’t bad enough), can we lock him up in his little bizarro world before he hurts himself or, worse, others?
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I’m not sure it’s an issue to worry about. It may actually be even more helpful to let him run around and talk even more. That will simply serve to ensure that the closest he ever gets to the Oval Office is with a visitor’s pass.
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Despite the up and down nature of this primary fight, I’m still sticking to my previous prediction. Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee. And, frankly, the GOP should thank their lucky stars for that since he’s the only one of the four remaining candidates who has a realistic shot at beating Obama. Newt would likely lose by a 60-40 vote final, Santorum would be lucky to break 35% of the vote and Paul would likely get stomped into the ground so badly that would make Walter “Fritz” Mondale’s go at the office look like a glorious success.
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Their best shot at winning is Romney and being smart enough to put together an intelligent game plan (VS just rhetoric and talking points) that undercuts anything that Obama might want to run on. It would also have to be a game plan that is ready to deflect the obvious criticisms that would hit Romney (like advocating the bankruptcy of the American auto industry) if he tried to play the “economic leadership” card. It’s a formula that can be done, but only with, of the four remaining, Romney and only if he does not keep making so many verbal gaffes on the presidential campaign trail against Obama.
“Their best shot at winning is Romney and being smart enough to put together an intelligent game plan (VS just rhetoric and talking points) that undercuts anything that Obama might want to run on.”
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I dunno. Even if Romney somehow manages to stay gaffe free from this point on until the election (a BIG if, I know), all the smarts in the world won’t help him steamroll Obama if the electorate on the whole perceives the economy to be on a steady upswing under the president’s watch. No other issue, not religion, contraception, Iran, Keystone Pipeline, what have you, will overwhelm that.
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Actually, it might be easier than you think. If they go with Rovian politics tactics, they would attack Obama’s strengths and, frankly, his strengths aren’t that strong.
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Romney himself may have a problem going after Obama on some matters since, as I’ve addressed elsewhere in the thread, he advocated letting both the mortgage foreclosure issue and the auto industry hit rock bottom and it could be argued against him that his ideas would have made things worse. However, it can easily be argued that Obama made things worse (and not in the way the Right usually argues this.)
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And, bonus for Republicans, you go after Obamacare as well. You want the narrative? Here’s an easy starter.
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Things are getting better? Well, they should have been much better than they are. And the reason that they’re not is the mismanagement of the economy by Obama and the misplaced priorities of Obama.
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Obama came into office in the middle of a historic crash. It was already such that it almost derailed a presidential debate by having both candidates having to go to DC to deal with it, so it’s not as if he was unaware of it. People were hurting, people were suffering, people were losing their jobs by the millions and Obama made his #1 priority from day one…
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Healthcare reform.
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For almost a full year, while we lost jobs, while the economy sank and while people suffered, President Obama fiddled as Rome burned. He was too busy with his personal pet project, Obamacare, to focus on jobs, the economy and the unemployed.
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Look at the news video of the time. Obama speaking on healthcare. Obama arguing that Congress needs to get its act together and get healthcare reform passed. Obama arguing with members of his own party as they pointed out that this was not a great idea. Obama taking the time out to have a special, televised meeting with Republicans that was devoted to healthcare.
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Yeah, he offered token interest in the economy with an additional stimulus bill, but look where so much of that went. It was a goody bag for special interests. (Cue Solyndra and other references.) It was a massive boondoggle that hurt the economy by saddling the country with debt and it was, as even some in the administration have said, at times poorly focused and aimed. And it was poorly focused and aimed because this president didn’t see the suffering going on as job one and wasted his time making other issues his top priority.
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And what did that top priority get us? Nothing positive. No one has seen any improvements in their healthcare. (True since the majority of the country has employee provided health insurance and would notice any changes without a spotlight being focused on them.) But we’ve seen increased costs burdening businesses and job providers. We’ve seen increased prices in health insurance. (Also true as many providers jacked their rates before the reforms could go in. But the timing of it made a lot of people add 1+1 and get 11.)
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And, while we are struggling, we now face burdensome costs that will increase the debt and the deficit and endanger our recovery. (As easy to prove as it is to disprove because, as we’ve seen in past discussions here, the CBO numbers and statements on the thing are so all over the map that you can find the pro and con arguments on the same page.) When we needed real leadership to help turn the tide against the greatest threat we were facing, we had a commander in chief who would rather spend time on his and his party’s long sought after pet project.
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In a time when we needed a President to put our greatest needs first, he put ahead of that the priorities of his party and his cronies. And only when the American people spoke, only after they sent a shot across his bow with the 2010 elections did he pretend to begin to realize that he should have been doing was addressing the needs of the people.
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We have been mismanaged. We have been criminally mismanaged. We have been burdened with an unnecessary boondoggle that has only further harmed our recovery. We need to have leadership focused on the needs of the people and the needs of the country and we need to undo the damaging programs that have stymied our growth and progress.
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Now, that was just stream of conscious and probably not great stream of conscious writing since I’m tired. But, some professional political strategists could easily take the same ideas and shape them into something rather bad for Obama.
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The fact is that he did appear to prioritize healthcare over the economy during his first year. Yeah, he did do things about the economy, but what most people remember is the healthcare debate. Most people remember seeing Obama making speeches on healthcare, having meetings about healthcare and doing interviews about healthcare. It would be easy as hëll to create the idea in most people’s heads that he mismanaged his priorities big time.
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And healthcare reform itself is an easy thing to play with since most people out there haven’t noticed any changes or improvements. If anything, the last thing you might remember of any significance on the matter is your premiums going up. Yeah, that was kind of the usual thing since premiums always go up every year, but the timing of it with the rhetoric around it had some believing at the time that it was a side effect of Obamacare.
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And even pushing a narrative like this isn’t a great one-two punch for a guy like Romney, it would work well enough. If you put Obama on the defensive on these two issues and frame and control the debate… Obama can’t make counterarguments on the matter that make what he did do look all the great. Throw in the mistakes and the screw ups that came out of the stimulus, even if the mistakes and screw ups were a fraction of the entire package, and you chip away at Obama even more.
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The only three things Obama really has to run on as accomplishments are his actions in the war on terror, Obamacare and the economy.
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Some on the Left are appalled that Obama has done what he’s done with the war on terror. Most on the Right lie to themselves and others about much of what he’s done with the war on terror. Most in the middle seem to have everything but OBL getting killed go in one ear and out the other. Iraq is hardly a success and, despite the issues we’re seeing and will see grow having seen in the works for years now, anything that goes wrong will be played up as Obama cutting and running from Iraq.
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Libya will be thrown against him and the recent massacres in the news laid at his feet. Any turmoil in the Middle East, even if the observant have seen them brewing for years now, will be laid at Obama’s feet and it will be declared that his damaging our image/appearance of strength as the cause.
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The economy? Yeah, it’s getting better. But attack him over it and have him defend it and he only has two places to go. The obvious first place to go will be spin cycled as Obama just blaming Bush and, four years out from Bush, that won’t play well. The other way to go won’t be great for him either. It’s hard to make the argument that things suck, but they’re sucking a little less than two years ago and should maybe suck a little less in two more years.
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Obama could be doing everything right on the economy and it would still be another two to three years before it starts to really get better. Most people aren’t looking at it like that though and it will be easy to sway many of them.
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And healthcare? As I said, most people haven’t noticed the first change since this went through, but they do keep hearing about the costs of it. It’ll be an almost bigger uphill battle for Obama to justify Obamacare in an election cycle than when he was trying to get it passed.
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Put him on the defensive on these issues and his best responses will all be weakened by the reality that we’re all facing right now. He can’t run on a strong economy. He can’t run on healthcare. He can only barely run on his stewardship of the war on terror. That’s half the work right there.
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Most people aren’t news junkies. Most people don’t keep up with politics and news on a daily basis. What most people know is that they’re not doing as well as they think they should be or, in many cases, as well as they once were. Someone making very confident attacks on Obama’s stewardship of the economy and being met with less than great responses could create a powerful image in some of these people’s minds.
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If Romney can play it well, get good, intelligent strategists behind him and not make too many verbal screw ups like his recent ones, he can easily make this a very, very close race and maybe tip the vote in his favor.
If Romney can play it well
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And that won’t happen.
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Hëll, just the other day he was quoted as saying he doesn’t care about the very poor. Yes, it was taken out of the context of a larger quote, something he whined about immediately afterward.
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But he has no right to complain about such things when a) he should dámņ well know better, b) he does the very same thing – taking bits of larger quotes out of context – to others.
SER: “It’s a national security issue in that most Americans are in greater risk of going bankrupt without insurance or as the result of an illness that insurance won’t fully cover than they are of a terrorist attack.”
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You know, I’ve seen that line thrown around a lot by pundits on the Left, yet I’ve not seen that picked up as the public narrative by the majority of the people. The people who repeat it are the base who supported the effort to begin with (i.e. the people who will vote Obama anyhow.)
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Healthcare reform was, to most people, a confusing mess that did nothing for them when it passed or maybe, in the view of a few, increased their monthly premiums. It was a giant fight full of sound and whiny that came and went with no noticeable effect.
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Hëll, I keep up with politics and the news and I don’t think about it 95% of the time as it really hasn’t impacted me in any noticeable way. The thing that ate up a huge chunk of Obama’s first term and a lot of his political capital and was seen as his signature issue is something with almost zero campaigning power. He can’t promote it to anyone but the base that would vote to reelect him anyhow, but he and it can be made to look bad to the undecideds if he’s put on the defensive over it.
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Craig J. Ries: “And that won’t happen.
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Hëll, just the other day he was quoted as saying he doesn’t care about the very poor.
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First, I think he can at least cut down on them. Second, gaffes like that won’t really matter.
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Yeah, you and I may have fun with them just as Jay, Jerome and others will have fun with Obama’s campaign gaffes. But honestly, the voters are so used to that and used to each side playing garbage out of context that stuff like this really only means anything to the very partisan, the very, very stupid and the television comedy writers.
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“Spread the wealth around.
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A fun talking point last election. The Left hated it, the Right loved it and it didn’t say pulled out of context what Obama actually said to Joe the Plumber for the almost two minutes he did speak to him. It was so popular with the Right that they still bring it up now.
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Didn’t really seem to matter to anyone but the partisans.
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McCain made multiple verbal gaffes that didn’t seem to actually hurt him, and certainly not when compared to the really damaging things he did to his campaign, until he started making the same gaffes repeatedly and the term “McCain’s senior moments” started getting attached to them. And even then, I’d be surprised if that was even a significant percentage of the vote that total that he lost to Obama where the moderates and undecideds were concerned.
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Hëll, Palin was a gaffe a minute and for a while, even coming off looking clueless to everyone but the Republican base, and she seemed to have had a short term effect (or at least appearance) of lifting McCain’s numbers.
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We all have fun with gaffes, but they won’t have a significant impact unless there’s a new one every day and I think Romney (or at least his team)will be smart enough and careful enough in a general election to clamp down on his comments a bit. And, again, it won’t mean anything to the vast majority of the people leaning one way or the other anyhow unless it’s a giant gaffe of epic proportions.
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If you dig through the archives here (and likely elsewhere) from during the last presidential election, you’ll see people openly declaring that gaffes weren’t that bad or gaffes at all. Hëll, somewhere in the archives should be a thread where Bill Mulligan, myself and one other person were discussing Joe “Gaffe Machine” Biden making dámņëd near the dumbest gaffe ever by giving a speech where he said point blank that if Obama was elected we would see a major manufactured international crisis in six months, it would wham us pretty good and that the response of the Obama Administration would leave all of the assembled listeners/supporters so bewildered or dispirited that they would have to remember why they were excited at that moment (pre-election) during that tough time to come. You had people here who were making it clear that they were going for Obama in a big way say point blank that this statement was absolutely no gaffe at all in any way shape or form. And, going back to my point above, even that went away after a little play in the conservative media and had no noticeable lasting effect on things.
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We all have fun with gaffes. I think at this point though that the use and misuse of most of them have become such old hat that most people only let them sway their vote if they are already leaning in the direction that the gaffe would move them or if the gaffes are extremely bad and of an extremely regular nature.
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Romney, as bad as he is, won’t be that bad by the time of a general election and most people won’t care as much about the gaffes that both candidates will be making as much as they will be caring about their paycheck. And, unfortunately for Obama, it’s on that matter where even his strengths appear to be weak points that can be exploited.
Well, Jerry, as compelling as your arguments are, I believe that most of them are mainly fodder for Sunday morning talk show analysts to debate over, and not kitchen table subjects that most of the country is concerned over. You’re right, most people aren’t news junkies, so what they see and feel happening in their lives will drive their votes. You may be over-estimating the electorate’s concerns over the debacle that took place over getting health care reform established; if railing against Obamacare was really that effective, Michelle Bachmann would still be a force to be reckoned with in the current primaries since she couldn’t complete a sentence without bludgeoning it. And it’s not true that no one has yet to see improvements because of it; one of my co-workers was recently singing the praises of being able to keep his mentally-challenged daughter one his policy into her adulthood (an anecdotal incident, I know, but there are others out there who similarly welcomed such benefits. And while it’s true that the right will cite the immediate cost increases that some companies have had to endure, the long-term effects of no reform at all will not only continue to increase costs for government run emergency care but also result in increasingly escalating deaths for the uninsured in years to come. Maybe Obama’s timing for tackling reform could have been better, but anyone dismissing it as just a “pet project” will come off looking pretty heartless). Again, if the economy does is on a continuous upswing, unemployment figures steadily fall, even if only slowly, and living-wage jobs become more available, I really can’t see how screaming “Obamacare!” gets much traction.
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Rovian scare tactics can certainly work to fire up the conservative base, no doubt, but if the conservative alternative candidate to Obama isn’t someone who can not only excite that base on his own but also who they see as an effective standard bearer of their principles, those tactics won’t be enough to effectively incite that base who’ll mainly be bemoaning that a true conservative isn’t running. Romney is being universally assailed as the weakest Republican frontrunner in decades, so if it is him who gets the nod as candidate and he has to face a strengthened Obama economy, well, color me unconvinced that he can come up with a viable game plan to prevail (of course, I’ll eat those words with fava beans if he does win, right after my wife gets all of the sharp objects out of the house).
Jerry, you make a good point. I think Obama has not made a compelling case p, which exists, regarding health care. It’s a national security issue in that most Americans are in greater risk of going bankrupt without insurance or as the result of an illness that insurance won’t fully cover than they are of a terrorist attack.
Obama ran on health care reform, so it wasn’t a surprise for voters. I think if he’s smart, he humanizes it — the people who are covered who would not have been, the people who were spared bankruptcy. Some of this is on line already. Human stories. Human faces. Whenever Romney comes after him in a debate, he should counter with a human being affected by his plan.
Obama’s team should also take the Rove approach on going after Romney’s business background. This is not scuzzy Rove tactics. It’s actually logical. Investigate how often Romney has actually turned around struggling companies — as the US technically is — with minimal pain. If the bulk of what he did was slash and burn, how does that help us.
Romney has tried to deflect such criticisms as attacking the free market. The debate line I would give is, “Jusr because I think Michael Jordan should not have played baseball, does not mean I don’t think he’s the best basketball player in history. I’m not convinced your experience is what the country needs as president but I’m all for you returning to Bain and helping the economy that way.”
Jerry,
“Despite the up and down nature of this primary fight, I’m still sticking to my previous prediction. Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee. And, frankly, the GOP should thank their lucky stars for that since he’s the only one of the four remaining candidates who has a realistic shot at beating Obama. Newt would likely lose by a 60-40 vote final, Santorum would be lucky to break 35% of the vote and Paul would likely get stomped into the ground so badly that would make Walter “Fritz” Mondale’s go at the office look like a glorious success.”
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I think you are being wildly pessimistic here. This is based not only on my opinion but on historical precedent.
Newt losing by 60-40 and Santorum by 65-35? There is no Presidential election on record anywhere close to those numbers – not FDR’s first win, not LBJ vs. Goldwater, not Nixon vs. McGovern or Reagan vs. Mondale. certainly not Clinton vs. Dole or Obama – when he had everything going for him versus an unpopular incumbent and a weak opponent whop waged a terrible campaign – vs. McCain. Hëll, who had more against him than Carter and that was a squeaker.
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“Their best shot at winning is Romney and being smart enough to put together an intelligent game plan (VS just rhetoric and talking points) that undercuts anything that Obama might want to run on. It would also have to be a game plan that is ready to deflect the obvious criticisms that would hit Romney (like advocating the bankruptcy of the American auto industry) if he tried to play the “economic leadership” card. It’s a formula that can be done, but only with, of the four remaining, Romney and only if he does not keep making so many verbal gaffes on the presidential campaign trail against Obama.”
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But again, what is the point of “winning” if the person elected doesn’t make the tough decisions, isn’t able to inspire or lead. A pyrrhio victory is no victory at all.
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L.Hicks: “if railing against Obamacare was really that effective, Michelle Bachmann would still be a force to be reckoned with in the current primaries since she couldn’t complete a sentence without bludgeoning it.”
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You slightly miss the point and that may have been a problem with my writing last nigh and this morning. You’re not railing against Obamacare here. You’re railing against Obama’s poor management of the economy and his misplaced priorities as Commander in Chief. You’re pointing out that the American people had priorities A, B & C while Obama had priorities D, E & F and Obamacare and the long, long debate and spectacle of it is a perfect example that everyone will remember more than anything else.
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“And it’s not true that no one has yet to see improvements because of it; one of my co-workers was recently singing the praises of being able to keep his mentally-challenged daughter one his policy into her adulthood (an anecdotal incident, I know, but there are others out there who similarly welcomed such benefits.”
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Except, I didn’t say it was true. What I said was that the vast majority out there hasn’t had to do anything that made them see any difference. For most of the population, there’s been no change that they’re aware of. In politics, perception is reality and the perception out there can easily be shaped to fit what the Republicans want it to be here with very little work or convincing.
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“Out of sight, out of mind” is a very true statement when it comes to discussing the average man on the street. Even after the giant and well publicized healthcare reform debates, most people still don’t realize how much money private healthcare would cost them because most people get employer provided insurance and never see easily 80% of the costs. Why should we believe that the average man on the street is going to be truly aware of the changes to healthcare if they themselves haven’t had to use it and, even more importantly given some attitudes, care when informed because they feel that it doesn’t have any impact on them? Again, perception is reality and the perception out there can easily be shaped to fit what the Republicans want it to be here with very little work or convincing.
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Jerome Maida: “I think you are being wildly pessimistic here. This is based not only on my opinion but on historical precedent.”
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No, I’m being wildly sloppy in my writing. I thinking electoral college and wrote it as popular vote. But even with the sloppy writing, it wouldn’t have been too far off. Reagan beat Mondale with popular vote totals being 58.77% to 40.56% and an Electoral Vote total of 97.6% to 2.4%.
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“But again, what is the point of “winning” if the person elected doesn’t make the tough decisions, isn’t able to inspire or lead. A pyrrhio victory is no victory at all.”
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I’m not factoring in stuff like that, Jerome. I’m simply discussing a method to win and where I think Obama can be most hurt and not whether or not conservatives such as yourself will be happy with Romney. This is more an exercise in where I would hit Obama first and hardest. He can barely campaign on these things and if put on the defensive about them he will come out looking bad on them. As you start to hurt him with that, anything you put forward to promote yourself will probably look at least a little better just by comparison.
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And, again, this wouldn’t be the entire campaign plan, just the opening.
Jerry,
Always remember that Reagan won 49 states but just checked Wikipedia and..DANG! I forgot the popular vote was THAT much of a landslide! Yikes!
This makes the case for the blue-collar, hard-working Pennsylvanian perfectly!
http://www.redstate.com/realquiet/2012/02/12/the-underestimation-of-rick-santorum-and-how-powerful-a-candidate-and-problem-he-could-be-for-barack-obama/
One (possibly) final thought (for now)….
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Those for which abortion, contraception and gay rights will be a primary voting issue are either going to be diehard evangelicals (who stand with Santorum) or diehard liberals (who stand against Santorum). As a whole they’ll make up less than 5% of the electorate and they’ll be marginally pro-Republican.
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The economy and jobs will continue to be theme #1 in the campaign. Santorum’s plan is not nearly as radical as the other Republicans 2 tier system 10% and 25% and 0% corporate rate for manufacturing firms. But it is not class warfare and it has the real possibility of creating new and returning old manufacturing jobs. It should be a big winner in rust belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. All those states have strong conservative bases with a lot of out of work union laborers.
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The #2 theme will be Obamacare. Obama will easily deflect any attack Mitt Romney can bring with a mirror or the childhood rubber and glue game. Santorum will be very effective with a counter plan about open markets and individually owned HSAs.
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That’s what the election will be about and Santorum will compete very very well in the battleground states. The blue states will be bluer, the red states will be redder, but those in the middle should be trending pink.
I could be wrong. I often am. But I don’t see Santorum having enough of a national campaign apparatus to beat the Obama machine. Neither did McCain. His best known position is on being anti-gay rights which is a losing position and one that will put his supporters on the defensive (unless the attacks on Santorum are so over the top that they generate a backlash but as with Palin, that can only get you so far.)
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Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing people said about Reagan but you have to remember that Reagan was pretty good on the stump, smarter than they gave him credit for being and campaigning against an incumbent that people had grown to actively dislike. people are dissappointed in Obama but they don;t dislike him (which is why he needs to fear some of his supporters, who could mess things up by being total douche canoes and making people desperately want to vote them down.).
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Someone once said there are only two campaigns– “Time for a change” and “Back to basics”. The best opportunity for the GOP, I think, is to stress the latter. Romney’s lack of excitement may not hurt him there (and it isn’t like Santorum oozes charisma from his pores).
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I’d give Obama a 60-65% chance of winning at this point, which is up a bit. I think the GOP could effectively bring those numbers down but most of the cleverness I see in campaign ads are at the blog level, not the real ones. The party needs an infusion of new blood in the strategy department.
Bill,
Sorry, but I think you are wrong. This is one of those times where circumstances are playing havoc with “conventional wisdom”. To me, the people who are saying Romney is the most “electable” are the same people who thought the Democrats should “play it safe” in 2008 with John Edwards because so many Democrats thought it risky to jeopardize an extremely winnable election by nominating the first woman for office of president, especially one as polarizing as Hillary Clinton, or the first black, especially one as untested as Barack Obama.
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If I remember correctly, I felt that 2008 was the PERFECT time for Obama to run…I get the same sense that someone who has hung in there on literally a shoestring budget, who is not a multimillionaire and who doesn’t have a line of credit at Tiffany’s, who relates to the blue collar workers both parties claim to covet and was elected in an increasingly blue state twice just may be the perfect antidote to Obama.
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As far as saying what his “best-known position” is, well..that’s what a campaign is FOR..an opportunity to introduce (or reintroduce) yourself to voters.
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Trust me, I had forgotten a lot of what he had done and had been supporting Perry…but things like wanting to triple the child tax credit have reminded me that where so many in the GOP claim the “family values” mantle, he is one of the few to actually walk the walk on them.
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He is not a phony, he is not stupid and he has been doing better at debating and getting his message out. The GOP could do far worse.
I had the distinct pleasure of saying no when petitioned to get Santorum on the ballot for the Indiana Primary. My 13 year old son and I were loading groceries into the back of my car when were approached by what I took to be a panhandler. No ID. No clipboard. Naught but an uncomfortable look on her face.
She finally got into her spiel about the importance of getting Santorum onto our primary ballot. I told her no, but she persisted. So I told her that I wouldn’t support Santorum as dog catcher and that homophobic, anti-women idiots have no place in presidential politics. And I thanked her for bothering me about it in a grocery store parking lot.
Santorum did not get the required signatures for Indiana’s primary, but is currently appealing about 50 disqualified signatures (he was only about 25 short). Our primary is in May. Stay tuned, friends.
By May, the race should pretty much be over, one way or the other…
Unless Romney sweeps Super Tuesday, I do not know that this race will be over by May. All four candidates claim that they will stay in it until the Repub Convention in August (when they will be all undone by the supergroup of Christie/Daniels from the floor, after some 2nd ballot shenanigans from Palin). Doing my part to keep Santorum off our ballot is important.
I have not voted in a Republican Primary since Dole ’96, but the Indiana Tea Party is challenging Senator Richard Lugar from the right this year. Unless Lugar has a 20 point lead going into election day, I am planning to vote in their primary to fend off the Tea Party. Besides, there’s not muching doing on an Indiana Democratic Primary ballot. Lot’s of blank space.
With all the talk of the Tea Party, here is a column that I think captures the real reason for Americans’ anger that doesn’t hit the usual talking points.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2012/02/14/the-competitive-disadvantage-of-principle/
Kinda hard to take that article seriously when its falling back on the same tired “job creators” BS with lines like:
“The creators in the country who come up with the ideas, take the risks to capital and reputation, and possibly get ahead are more and more being labeled the bad guys.”
A gross oversimplification, at the VERY best.