I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

were they kidding with that music when he came out or what?! sounds like something off Team America.

Predict the electoral vote of the US Presidential Election

Also this will likely make you feel better: http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/106035/picking-ryan-isnt-bold-its-highly-risk-averse

i think if nate had been around in 2004 we would've known

Mordy, I think you are giving people far too much credit, and assuming that they sit there carefully weighing out the presumed benefits and liabilities from respective candidates and then making an "informed choice"

The frothing levels of racism and ignorance throughout the country are not something that you are going to encounter taking an informal poll at your neighborhood synagogue

Plus of course people feel so beaten up by the economy that their minds revert to primitive psychological states. If you're looking for a father figure to step into the role of the king who will save us, and if you follow a messianic religion to begin with, then of course you will bypass rationality in favor of glomming onto everything romney advertises as being

Otherwise you are voting for the guy who hasn't done anything particularly dramatic during his campaign (killing Osama bin Laden was no D-Day or Super Bowl moment... among other things it was too "elitist" and dry of an operation, not to mention anti-climactic, for people to properly rally behind in a ticker-tape parade kind of way)

People are looking for boldness and dramatic sweeping acts. There's certainly a lot of stuff I resent about what Obama has done or failed to do, but he is too dignified to make the sort of crass gestures or pander in the way that Romney-Ryan will over the next several weeks. Hence my fear

I think crass, pandering gestures are basically outside the very limited supply of social skills Romney has managed to acquire for this campaign. Really don't see him being able to pull it off.

del, turn your attention to something more important, like finding me a place where I can watch the World Series online now that MLB caught on to Chanfeed.

also, if they get elected, the Dems can just block everything REALLY awful like they always do, riiiiight?

lol, god willing

also: http://www.thefirstrow.eu/sport/baseball.html

have you looked at the polls?

romney is not popular. who likes a success story when it begins with the person being already rich?

Killing Osama bin Laden was bold, decisive, + momentous. And Obama is crass as any politician, he's just a talented politician. Romney is really bad at being a politician. Ppl on both sides of political spectrum intuitively grasp that he's an empty suit - that's why he had to pick Ryan, to signal to the right-wing that he is really one of them and not just an opportunist.

I don't know, guys. In the past 12 hours or so I have somehow managed to convince myself that Romney-Ryan are going to win.

I think that ever since Reagan people haven eaten up a many times-over distorted version of the Horatio Alger myth. Obama is certainly savvy and yes i supposed even crass in given moments, but he will never garner the popular appeal of a Romney. Because. Populism is the reverse of what it was 100 or so years ago due to somewhere during the Reagan years the democrats and their sympathizers adopting an increasingly quietistic attitude, while somehow the right have become increasingly cynical w/r/t their media presence, increasingly not ashamed to be shrill, increasingly not embarrassed to play to the lowest common denominator

Clinton was able to take office mostly b/c he ended up running against two successive candidates who were severely charisma-impaired. clinton was ridiculously charismatic. whatever mojo obama enjoys is actually lost in the present climate. people want to look up to someone who will repeat a bootstraps mythos, "all is well with capitalism in its present form" a la romney. they don't want to hear about compromise or reality in any of its forms. hearing the keywords "prosperity" is enough. that sounds like a painfully simplistic analysis, and granted i am a painfully simplistic unnuanced guy, but i know of what i speak of. president romney is a given. the real question is survival strategies three or four years down the road

I think you're overreacting just a bit here. If people responded to rich candidates that way, we'd have had a President Steve Forbes by now. Romney is hardly a Horatio Alger story,

Romney and his people know how to couch the mythology in the right terms. and romney has the unrelenting ambition. and looks "presidential". forbes and others didn't have that going for them

of course he is far from a horatio alger story but he knows how to present his story in a way that eliminates any ignoble details

I dunno. I was pretty convinced Romney was going to lose as of yesterday, and Ryan doesn't seem to me the kind of VP pick who's going to move the needle. It's possible the economy could fall in the toilet between now and November, but it seems more likely to me that it's going to continue slowly gaining steam, housing prices will slowly tick up, etc. Things are better now that they were a year ago. I think most voters probably feel like the economy is moving in the right direction, if a bit more slowly than they'd like.

i hope so. and granted i am being somewhat trolly. but i honestly got scared today b/c i think that as horrible as ryan is there is a majority of ppl who would turn out to the polls who don't care or genuinely are into him. so i am scared and genuinely disheartened by romney's bluff or whatever it is. if he had picked a less obnoxious person then i would feel like there was hope for this country.

it's just such a "fuck you", i don't even know how to read it otherwise. :(

romney believes in nothing including giving u a fuck you

Romney basically had no choice. Ryan isn't going to boost his appeal at all, but I could see a Pawlenty or Portman actually driving it down further.

of course he is far from a horatio alger story but he knows how to present his story in a way that eliminates any ignoble details

― dell (del), Saturday, August 11, 2012 8:53 PM Bookmark

Have you seen this guy? Are we talking about the same Mitt Romney? He sucks at presenting his story in a way that eliminates any ignoble details - - - hence this entire tax kerfluffle. He doesn't know how to make stories go away, he doesn't know how to shift narratives, he doesn't know how to make lemonade out of lemons, anything.

Like, in my life I'm pretty well insulated from rich guys so maybe they all have this problem. The whole "lacking the 'common touch'" thing - I figured that was sorta bullshit, like, what exactly is a "common touch"? Well, whatever it is, Romney definitely doesn't have one. I honestly feel kind of bad for the guy at this point, he's so totally awkward and bad at everything that's involved in campaigning. At least Bush I sort of seemed like a genuine nerdy rich guy and Bush II like a genuine fratty jackass rich guy.

I can't figure out how he ever won elected office in Massachusetts. I did see one story that mentioned in his old campaigns he would talk about his Mormon faith in an effort to educate people about what his church is about and that they're not a creepy cult or whatever. Politics aside, I could imagine voting for that - even if it backfired, it seems like something a, you know, human being, who earnestly cares about certain things, would do. The effort to make himself a streamlined, doesn't-offend-anybody Republican has made him uneasy in his own skin.

Remember, this is the guy who won his nomination by being the presumptive fallback after everybody that any segment of the Republican electorate actually, actively liked was proven to not animate enough of that base. If he could actually excite people, he would have locked the thing up way back at the beginning.

xpost

yeah.

it's just so sad to me. because. as someone who was creeped out by having to say the pledge of allegiance as a kid i still feel like america is such an amazing country on so many levels. i complain about it all the time to myself and feel resentful, but it really is, and could be such an amazing inspirational place. i still feel grateful i was born here, even though i have very little respect for ongoing patriotic tropes

anway i guess the gwb years were just that demoralizing that it's tough to recover from that sense that everything is fucked forever

i dunno. maybe in 15-20 years or so things will finally turn around. or romney actually will win, and things will get dystopic so quickly for such a huge segment of the population that things will inevitably turn around.

it's tough to recover from that sense that everything is fucked forever

Don't bother. It is.

will never happen, obama is a better republican than anyone the GOP has turned out in 30 years

I can't figure out how he ever won elected office in Massachusetts.

Having watched him for a year now (I didn't pay too much attention to the Republican nomination in '08), completely agree; it's a mystery.

Remember, this is the guy who won his nomination by being the presumptive fallback after everybody that any segment of the Republican electorate actually, actively liked was proven to not animate enough of that base.

Yes, but more than that even, by absolutely eviscerating Gingrich and Santorum under an avalanche of money the minute they got close (not that doing so was especially difficult). I can't remember who said it--Wiegel, maybe--but I agree that there'll be an accepted view come out of the nomination process this year, that Romney had it locked up the whole way, that's just not true. Going into Michigan, there was a real chance that the whole thing was about to unravel on him.

In 2002, Republican Acting Governor Jane Swift's administration was plagued by political missteps and personal scandals.[149] Many Republicans viewed her as a liability and considered her unable to win a general election.[153] Prominent party figures – as well as the White House – wanted Romney to run for governor,[151][154] and the opportunity appealed to him for its national visibility.[155] One poll taken at that time showed Republicans favoring Romney over Swift by more than 50 percentage points.[156] On March 19, 2002, Swift announced she would not seek her party's nomination, and hours later Romney declared his candidacy,[156] for which he would face no opposition in the primary.[157] In June 2002, the Massachusetts Democratic Party challenged Romney's eligibility to run for governor, noting that state law required seven years' consecutive residence and that Romney had filed his state tax returns as a Utah resident in 1999 and 2000.[158][159] In response, the Massachusetts State Ballot Law Commission unanimously ruled that he had maintained sufficient financial and personal ties to Massachusetts and was therefore an eligible candidate.[160]

Romney again ran as a political outsider.[149] He played down his party affiliation,[152] saying he was "not a partisan Republican" but rather a "moderate" with "progressive" views.[161] He touted his private sector experience as qualifying him for addressing the state's fiscal problems[157] and stressed his ability to obtain federal funds for the state, giving his Olympics record as evidence.[141][144][162] He proposed to reorganize the state government while eliminating waste, fraud, and mismanagement.[152][163] The campaign was the first to use microtargeting techniques, in which fine-grained groups of voters were reached with narrowly tailored messaging.[164]

To overcome the image that had damaged him in the 1994 Senate race – that of a wealthy corporate buyout specialist out of touch with the needs of regular people – a series of "work days" were staged throughout the campaign, in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage.[163][165][166] Television ads highlighting the effort, as well as one portraying his family in gushing terms and showing him shirtless,[165] received a poor public response and contributed to his being behind his Democratic opponent, Massachusetts State Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, in polls as late as mid-October.[163][166] He rebounded with ads that accused O'Brien of being a failed watchdog for state pension fund losses in the stock market and that associated her husband, a former lobbyist, with the Enron scandal.[152][166] During the election he contributed over $6 million – a state record at the time – to the nearly $10 million raised for his campaign overall.[167][168] Romney was elected governor on November 5, 2002, with 50 percent of the vote to O'Brien's 45 percent.[

so you know he had to sling a lot of mud and spend a LOT of money to win by 5%.

Dr. Casino, yeah i know. In fact both Bushes were more sympathetic in their own ways when compared to Romney, even as blechh as they both were

and yeah i know romney was the guy that ended up looking better than herman cain or michelle bachmann or newt or whatever. even the staunchest of republican poltico talking heads dislike him. plus he's not a "real" christian which i'm sure doesn't help with so much of the christian far right (to say nothing of nominating a roman catholic running mate)

but, i feel like it's expecting the audience at home to research olympic athletes' statistics before settling in and betting on them or supporting them. people don't give a shit. they just want to have their prejudices confirmed.

i hate to be a cheeseball and quote charles bukowski, BUT, "A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves" is not so far off?? people will vote based on personal projection, confirming their prejudices and fears. given that, and given the political climate in 2012 i'm thinking that there is definitely a majority who will happily vote for romney and can easily dismiss obama as being an egghead or whatever. forty years ago, the position the media occupied would have made a difference, but now people just take in whatever they want to hear.

will never happen, obama is a better republican than anyone the GOP has turned out in 30 years

haha, prob most convincing post on this thread except possibly ned's

a series of "work days" were staged throughout the campaign, in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage.[163][165][166] Television ads highlighting the effort, as well as one portraying his family in gushing terms and showing him shirtless,[165] received a poor public response and contributed to his being behind his Democratic opponent,

omg this sounds so terrible. Obama should just run clips of these ads.

@ dell - - I definitely hear where you're coming from there but I think you're undervaluing the way in which people's emotional, irrational instincts will lead them to dislike Romney because he also reminds them in tons of ways of people they personally hate. It's like Lumberg is running for President - nobody likes the dude in the suit who fires you and tries to make awkward chuckley jokes about it, they just don't. Especially in the current economic/emotional climate.

yeah, i hope so. i just feel alarmed based on conversations with people i've had who think that if obama is re-elected will take away what little they have because he is so socialist. but somehow romney will propel them upwards at least a couple of tax brackets because initiative

They're always going to think that. They'll either internalize their eventual failure and blame themselves and become bitter or weave conspiracy theories and blame others and become bitter. If that's the kind of pleasure they get out of existence, it won't be changed except by extreme circumstances and/or death.

America is a lousy country, but it had some promise 40+ years ago.

Nostalgic for the Nixon years eh?

ned thanks i think someone was trying to tell me similar off-board and what you're saying rings true

dr morbius i hear you but give it 15 years or so and i think things will come back into swing. some stuff dies hard. people like you who are a little older than me, i don't know how you deal with it. really heartbreaking. i mean, yeah things have always been shit, but not quite this much?

1964 and 1965 had their hopeful moments, tho I don't remember those years. August 9, 1974 too.

i almost wish i didn't know you weren't oliver stone

my pharmacopeia can't compete with his.

how long until SNL starts up again? is hader going to play ryan?

A Salon subheadline:

A Romney win just got scarier -- he'd have a mandate and a partner determined to repeal the New Deal

You've got to be fucking shitting me. How much of the New Deal have Bubba, W, and Bam not dismantled?

I miss the part where they sent ppl to just take photos of everything, in case we needed them for something

this very morning i checked 538 to reassure myself! nate was freakishly accurate in 08.

a series of "work days" were staged throughout the campaign, in which Romney performed blue-collar jobs such as herding cows and baling hay, unloading a fishing boat, and hauling garbage.[163][165][166] Television ads highlighting the effort, as well as one portraying his family in gushing terms and showing him shirtless,[165] received a poor public response and contributed to his being behind his Democratic opponent,

omg this sounds so terrible. Obama should just run clips of these ads.

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, 12 August 2012 02:47 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

run a clip of romney hauling some huge garbage bags down the street w/a caption WHERE DOES MITT KEEP HIS MONEY?

yeah, i hope so. i just feel alarmed based on conversations with people i've had who think that if obama is re-elected will take away what little they have because he is so socialist. but somehow romney will propel them upwards at least a couple of tax brackets because initiative

yeah this is the underlying thing, no matter what the candidates' names are, no matter what they say, no matter what wolf blitzer and john king and rush limbaugh and amy goodman and steven colbert focus on - it doesn't matter. people revert to this primal judgment that republicans will loosen up the rules and help u make $ and that democrats will increase your taxes.

it is just frustrating when those bromides are ingrained enough that they can be leant upon even while being demonstrably untrue, cf ryan being understood as a 'deficit hawk' on account of his bluster. from harper's this month:

From Harper's August 2012:

-- Percentage increase in average annual federal spending during the Obama Administration: 2.4

-- Rank of that rate of increase among the lowest under any president since Truman: 1

del, how old are you?

Romney and his people know how to couch the mythology in the right terms

haha no they don't! And there's no evidence they know how. I probably hang out with more Florida Republicans than most people on this thread and they all to a man think Romney sucks and is going to lose.

Romney picking Ryan is in some ways a, yes, conservative (in the literal sense) act of desperation. Romney, Inc. knew it needed an infusion of energy, and in picking Ryan it may have gotten it. However, the only energy it really drives up is in the press and in the radical small government wing of the Republican party. But many (all?) of Ryan's big ideas are national campaign kryptonite and Romney is not adept enough a campaigner to defend those ideas. Now, Ryan couches his crazy ideas in a safe, seemingly reasonable package, which often fools the average voters (as do shiny objects and free donuts) but now that he's been given the role of attack dog he's just going to come off a big dick. In fact, I look forward to the Biden/Ryan debate, where the former's experience will give him an upper hand, and where Ryan's assholery will give him license to hammer that the Palin pick did not. Attack dog vs. attack dog, but alpha dog is not muzzled. (I look forward to the Obama/Romney debates, too, but for different reasons).

It is kind of interesting that Ryan sort of fills the Cheney mold - the idea man as VP - but like I mentioned on another thread, I get a real sense of strategic preservation from the guy. Which may be better than Romney's cowardly self-preservation, which totally hinders him as a campaigner, but maybe Ryan will evolve on the trail.

entire premise of this thread is lol

Alfred OTM Romney and his campaign are hapless oafs, it's pretty clear at this point

Sidenote: I Kinda wish Bruce would play "4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy)."

max the euthanasia dispensaaaaaaaaa

hes a better explainer of his process/results is basically what it comes down to imho

― GOOD LUCK USA! (lag∞n), Tuesday, November 6, 2012 4:45 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah he doesn't necessarily have 'better numbers' but he is good at getting people to understand what matters

― iatee, Tuesday, November 6, 2012 4:46 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. (not to say the 2010 uk prediction wasn't embarrassingly bad.)

you can't expect his shit to work in a country run by a queen

Scared

There there gentle leprechaun.

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del I would like to reassure you that romney will definitely not win

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does same

feeling p confident

LOCK THREAD.

nah it should be converted to a temple for republican schadenfreude

LDS temple?

Feeling cautiously optimistic about this.

Ha

This will surprise me.

I'm still scared, guys. Mitt + chloroform-soaked rag + Obama mask. Think about it.

I am beginning to become scared that Ryan/Rubio will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

Dude, of course they could win. If you're already thinking they WILL win you've already given up. Relax.

71.6% Hillary wins acc to Nate: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

pretty good night for the senate

- went from joe lieberman to chris murphy in CT (moderate gain for good guys)
- went from richard lugar to joe donnelly in IN (big gain for good guys)
- went from olympia snowe to angus king in ME (probably a moderate gain for good guys)
- went from president scott brown to elizabeth warren in MA (big gain for good guys)
- went from ben nelson to deb fischer in NE (not so good but fuck ben nelson)

looks like the ND seat is still up in the air and i don't know much about the other intra-party seat changes

lol wrong thred

ben nelson was the final vote for Obamacare

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/politics/mitt-romney-black-lives-matter-protest/index.html

Way to finally start catchin up to where yr fucken dad was fifty years ago, there, Mitt.

no shock that so many Republican Congressmen were fratboys, since they routinely enjoy debasing themselves for others' approval