2012 republican presidential nominee III: can romney get santorum out of his hair?

I tried to listen to what he was saying but I was transfixed by the guy behind him to his left/to the right of the frame

just watch that guy's face for the whole clip

haha otm

anyway again it's not *the only thing* but it's easily the most important

You must have a secret pathway into the brains of all the people who say otherwise.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx

gahh we're not making progress here. it's not something that would be reflected in a poll of 'what matters to people', it's something that's already incorporated into their decision making process. the economy doesn't 'matter less' to people when things are fine, it matters exactly as much, they're just not thinking about it in the same way.

Saying the economy always is the most important issue in an election is just another way of saying that Maslow's hierarchy of needs never stops operating, even when all the needs at the base of the pyramid are being satisfactorily met. A voter's attention may slide up or down that scale in terms of what issues they are most concious of (as when answering pollsters), but moving up the scale is a luxury that is mostly determined by the current state of resolution of the issues further down the scale.

yes I think that's a good way to put it

I guess not (making progress). I'm of a mindset that looks for what matters to people to be reflected in a poll of what matters to people...time for bed.

other types of emotions, such as blah

lol

scary guy second from right in santorum video above

would I be able to slow down that video to a crawl and do a slow pan-zoom into that guy using only windows movie maker?

because that's what I want to do right now

thegarance Garance Franke-Ruta

I assumed for like 10 mins that this was gr8080.

guys, I don't believe everything I read in the NYT Magazine, but some Respected Economists think we will be in a recession by fall.

given that even the german economy is starting to go down the tubes i'd say yes

official unemployment in spain is TWENTY THREE PERCENT.. this is full-on great depression material, with zero chance of any govt spending to pull them out of it

yesterday the bank of england dropped £50 billion more out of a helicopter over canary wharf and the city

Krugman has been saying we're in a recession for a few months. Even the good economists are still economists - ie: they can't predict the future.

I don't know where you read krugman saying we're in a recession. economic indicators are pretty good and that's while Europe is already blowing up.

It’s time to start calling the current situation what it is: a depression. True, it’s not a full replay of the Great Depression, but that’s cold comfort. Unemployment in both America and Europe remains disastrously high. Leaders and institutions are increasingly discredited. And democratic values are under siege.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/opinion/krugman-depression-and-democracy.html?ref=paulkrugman

I'm pretty sure I saw more explicit discussions of this by Krugman, tho this was the quickest to find. And yes, I don't expect any economist, even Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, to be a soothsayer. At the same time, writing that column in December of last year without including any expectation about reasons to be optimistic I think pretty clearly indicates that he had no idea there'd be any good news in unemployment when statistics for 12/11 and 01/12 were calculated. Krugman clearly follows this cartoon:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20120208.gif

haha otm, of there was someone out there who could precisely predict the future of the economy they wouldnt be writing columns for the nytimes, theyd be chillin on their own private island counting their money

anyway there are mechanistic things that keep recessions/unemployment from lasting forever, and once jobs start being added as they have been it creates a virtuous circle, these trend are fairly robust and happen slowly, and the election is not that far away

europe is def in a bad place but they seem committed to kicking the can down the road at this point, them suffering through wrongheaded prolonged austerity measures isnt enough to bring down the us economy, the worry is that greece or whoever will go into default cause a worldwide cascade of systemic financial doom, but that seems much less likely to happen than it did a few months ago

he's mostly talking about Europe / 'the global economy' there. recession means something very specific to economists and we're objectively not in one. that doesn't mean things arent shitty for millions of people and even w/ pretty healthy growth this year unemployment will be quite high.

xp

btw what happens to nouriel roubini if the economy gets good, does he just cease to exist until the next recession, or is he put in some sort of holding tank or w/e

"Do you use contraception at all, ever? Hi, I'm Barack Obama, the President of the United States. My opponent, Rick Santorum, is a good man who served his country in the US Senate. He has made clear that he hopes to outlaw contraception in the United States. I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message."

― unlistenable in philly (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 10 February 2012 04:45 (9 hours ago) Permalink

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yeah it's sorta hard to imagine running against santorum in a general & having to do anything more than just pull the suspicious, unconvinced face the guy next to him in the clip above was pulling. just stand there at debates looking bemused.

The perfect time for Obama to bust out that "I'm with Stupid" T-shirt that has been hanging around the back of the wardrobe.

btw what happens to nouriel roubini if the economy gets good, does he just cease to exist until the next recession, or is he put in some sort of holding tank or w/e

I remember someone saying even he was being kinda optimistic? I forgot who.

There's a weird Catch 22 here that was visible even in 2004. You had Howard Dean who was against the war and held traditional liberal values. Then you had John Kerry who was the flip-flopper who, well, at least he's electable.

The catch is that voters may have liked Dean, but couldn't picture the rest of America going for him. So they nominated Kerry and the voters pretty much went, Well, why replace the president with someone who's a lot like the president?

Yes, I know that there is no difference between Republicrats and Demlicans….

Yes, "no one can predict the economy" (except for the fact that the key underlying toxins haven't been cleaned up, and we're going to feel their full poison eventually).... but ppl like Shakey are already predicting a landslide for O bcz hey, things are picking up and presumably can't go into the crapper again in just 9 months.

I think we're at the amazing point where the Republicans can make literally anything into an overnight controversy. Like, they could make elementary schools serving skim milk at lunch a national issue.

Like, this contraception thing blows my mind.

I think you're mixing up two uses of the word 'can.' No one can (is able to) predict anything with certainty in the future bc anything could happen: war, alien war, sabretooth alien tiger war, jamba juice declares independence from the US <-- anything could happen! However, anyone can (is allowed to) predict anything because who the fuck cares? xxp

Erick Erickson: sad man in him room

there's a big difference between 'we can predict the economy' and 'we can extrapolate from trends'. there are positive economic trends. they are not strong enough to say 'this will absolutely be a great year' and anyone who says that is just guessing. but they are strong enough to say this month will very likely have positive job growth'.

there's a big gap betweenn 'nobody knows exactly how the economy works' and 'everyone knows literally nothing about how the economy works'. I can guarantee you that there will not be 20% inflation this year. does that mean I am a genius who can predict how the economy works? no, it just means that based on everything we've seen in the history of the world it would be extremely unlikely that there was 20% inflation this year.

anyway back on subject santorum pullin in dough:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/02/santorums-two-million-dollar-days-back-to-back.html

I gather Romney's newest attack ads portray Santorum as a slick, money-hungry Washington guy. However creepy you find Santorum on a whole range of things, that particular line of attack seems like a real stretch. Romney seems to tunnel a little bit deeper every time he's in a corner.

i didn't think contraception was controversial in 2012

maybe the evagelicals can propose an anti-witch amendment to the constitution, just to really make the parallels with gambia stand out

@clemenza: hahaha, wow, that's amazing if so, if I was Romney I would really not be bringing up "money-hungry" as a campaign issue. And nobody in the GOP field at this point can be plausibly described as "slick"; Romney looked like he'd be that guy but he's actually remarkably bumbling and clumsy. Somebody page Chevy Chase.

but ppl like Shakey are already predicting a landslide for O

I don't think I ever predicted a landslide per se (it's not gonna be Reagan in '84) but the GOP doesn't have a prayer imho. I stand by this prediction.

I was just thinking about how silly that seemed in terms of Andy- Hardy/sweater-vest Santorum, but you're right, it becomes surreal when it's Romney launching such an attack.

so is it really looking like they're going to cave / waffle on contraception??

yah santorums got zero moneys compared to romney

It could be a landslide. For either party.

"Artificial" contraception is a sin in Catholic dogma, so is all sex outside of marriage.

maybe thats what it means tho he doesnt have money but he wants it, how gouache

it's kinda amazing when someone w/ santorum's character is a successful ('successful') poiltician to begin with. he's like someone's picked on little brother. was the super bowl just the beginning? is this the year of the twerpy lil brother?

Although the Cat'lick bishops played this well (they've built opposition for months), this "issue" won't, no pun intended, convert anyone. These are Catholics who weren't going to vote for the president anyway.

It's sort of amazing that both of the leads in the GOP race right now represent archetypes that, I thought, almost everybody sort of instinctively hates: twerpy, strident little fuckfaces convinced they're way more compelling and interesting than they are, and doofy rich dads convinced they're way more cooler and more popular than they are.

I think I got ahead of myself--it's not an ad, it's a banner that Romney's got up on his site.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/sites/all/files/images/-4.jpg

Not particularly noteworthy (though still wide of the mark, I'd say).

my guess is O's compromise is just meant as a palliative to bury the issue and hope the public's attention gets diverted to something else shortly

that being said it's still a stupid/unnecessary compromise

Ideally, Romney would be able to cut an ad that says, "It's 2012, but for Rick Santorum it's still 1952," followed by points A, B, C, D, all the way throught to Q. But he can't.

the compromise isnt much of one from what's being said now they've just moved the onus to provide contraceptives from the employer to the insurer - the result is exactly the same

yeah i don't see how that is going to stop republicans from say the govt is forcing all our daughters to have casual sex

you'd think standing up for contraception would be a vote-winner in the general but i guess the polls are telling them otherwise, which is a kind of o_O thought

santorum doesn't sell as a slick washington insider because he doesn't seem like someone who could have been invited to any insidery discussions or lobbyist dinner party, it would just be awkward, 'who invited that dude?'

lots of the gop primary voters are pretty cool w/ the idea of going back to 1952