the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

It's one of Romney's grandmother's bustles, leaving for Mexico

http://www.coupondad.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Aquafresh_Logo.gif

it does, but the O thing deliberately evoked a rising sun. This evokes... a fat guy going down the stairs?

alfred hitchcock's silhouette?

http://www.seat42f.com/images/stories/Front/pbs-logo.jpg

http://www.goodlogo.com/images/logos/girl_scouts_logo_3064.gif

lol croup I was considering that exact same joke

http://www.vivaomni.com/images/Omni_logo.png

i was always bothered by the right girl scout's giraffe neck

It bothered me the whole time I was in scouting, I think their logo is quite scary.

i recall plenty of bush stickers around central pa but the idea of someone bothering to do that for romney feels a lot less likely. feels very "i voted for kodos."

though i have to wonder if a blank cowboy actor once seemed just as absurd a presidential possibility as a blank mormon plutocrat

There's a guy in my building whose late eighties Benz has a Dukakis bumper sticker and I want to find him and ask, "Was it worth it?"

Reagan not going beat his VP's idiot son in the absurdity stakes.

lol sweet ride xp

late eighties Benz has a Dukakis bumper sticker

Please tell me he's really, really tall and drives around with his head sticking out the sunroof, maybe even wearing a helmet.

Looks like a '94 clip of Romney was dug up where he says, "Blind trust is an age old ruse, if you will, which is to say you can always tell the blind trust what it can and cannot do. You give a blind trust rules."

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/07/watch-live-mitt-romney-makes-his-pitch-naacp/54436/

no thanks!

He got booed for this line

“I will eliminate expensive non-essential programs like Obamacare, and I will work to reform and save Medicare and Social Security, in part by means-testing their benefits,” Romney s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jll1uT_mm5g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jll1uT_mm5g

needs to work on his comeback zingers

The awful thing is the likely political calculation involved there--he must have expected that, meaning he figures a clip of him getting booed by the NAACP may be useful.

yeah this was strictly a provocateur move

that feels a little too cynical. i'm sure he would have expected a bad reaction, but if 95% of african american voters went for Obama last time I don't think he has much to lose. he'll get credit for going in the first place, and if that drops the number from 95% to 90% then it is a win.

sorry, i think i read that 'may be useful' as 'racist tea party/right wingers will applaud a man getting booed by the NAACP' helps his credibility, even though I'm not sure that's how you meant it.

it's a win/win situation - he gets credit for going, and gets credit from the base for not going over well

I give him credit for going myself, and said so upthread. "Useful" might be the wrong word...more of a dog-whistle thing: look, everyone, here I am standing up to the NAACP. For a guy who still has not made an emotional connection with at least half the Republican party, that can't hurt. And it doesn't cost him with anyone who wasn't going to vote for him anyway.

I just find it so hard to believe he wouldn't expect vigorous booing in that situation--he's saying he's going to rip up the signature achievement of the first African-American president. Either Romney or his handlers decided it was worth it to go ahead anyway, and presumably they had a reason.

The world would probably care a whole lot more if he DIDN'T do this.

Yeah, he might as well have declared "After November, no-one will remember Barack Obama!"

p4reene seems to have it right

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/11/mitt_romney_shakes_off_boos_at_naacp/

Instead it was an attempt to seem reasonable to potential (white) moderate votes and brave to his base, by agreeing to address an unfriendly crowd and delivering supposed hard truths.

like I said

Karl Rove welcomes your hate:

Crossroads’ spartan office occupies part of a top floor high-rise in downtown, Washington, D.C. Visitors enter through a pair of wooden double doors marked only by an inconspicuous nameplate and white doorbell. With Rove serving as its premier front man, the political group attracts its fair share of protesters. The staff relishes those attacks, hanging protesters’ posters on the wall like political taxidermy.

Staffers hung one poster that declared “Indict Karl Rove” to the wall with masking tape. Just inside the entrance, there’s a framed cease and desist letter from President Bill Clinton’s counsel to Jo Ann Davidson, a Crossroads’ board member. The October 2011 letter asked Crossroads to stop using a YouTube image of Clinton in one of its advertisements. It didn’t work; the spot finished its flight.

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/58_3/American-Crossroads-70-Million-Blitz-Senate-GOP-216027-1.html

Didn't realize that Obama isn't addressing the NAACP--he's sending Biden instead tomorrow. I know it barely qualifies as a one-day story, I know it's all symbolic, etc., etc., but not good. Politically, it gives Romney an out: "At least I went." (Sure enough, Wolf Blitzer is on there hook-line-and-sinker chastizing Obama right now.) But beyond all that, it just seems like a slap in the face to your most loyal and steadfast supporters. I don't really get it.

pundits crowing all day about "is Obama taking his base for granted??!"

Obama may or may not have had to contend with the Bradley effect in '08; now he'll have to withstand the Romney effect.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/mitt-romney-i-have-secret-black-supporters-video.php?ref=fpa

guys can i just say "Bain Capital" sounds like it was lifted directly from A Guide to Evil Megacorps in Middling Science Fiction Films, 1993 Edition?

"Whaddya think they've been working on in that new building over by the reactor tower?"

"I dunno but it sure has a lot of security"

it's a win/win situation - he gets credit for going, and gets credit from the base for not going over well

He doesn't win when the biggest news story is that he got booed. And he doesn't win when it's clear that the reason he got booed was because his casual reference to "Obamacare" in front of this audience was, in Al Sharpton's words, "disrespectful."

To put it another way, isn't Romney's ostensible appeal something to do with faux-credibility and faux-presidentiality?

"I spoke with a number of African-American leaders after the event"

One is a number too though, the loneliest number I believe.

Is there such a thing as milking booing? Because if you look at the NAACP clip above, I swear that's what Romney does. I've seen many politicians get booed, and one common reaction is to speak up quickly and awkwardly in an effort to smooth things over and get back on track. They generally don't stand back and bask in the jeers.

i welcome your hatred, my friend

The 'disrespect' is theoretically an asset for the voters he is trying to nail down/woo. It's not hard to understand.

Today's NRO poll ("Was the NAACP speech a plus or minus for Romney?") should come with its own "Mission Accomplished" banner: 4,000 votes in, 92% plus, 8% minus.

The 'disrespect' is theoretically an asset for the voters he is trying to nail down/woo. It's not hard to understand.

So if I don't agree that means I didn't understand. I see.

no

"When I mentioned I am going to get rid of Obamacare, they weren't happy...That's okay, I want people to know what I stand for, and if I don't stand for what they want, go vote for someone else, that's just fine. But I hope people understand this, your friends who like Obamacare, you remind them of this, if they want more stuff from the government, tell them to go vote for the other guy—more free stuff. But don’t forget nothing is really free."

except his tax-free income

who amongst us does not want free stuff