Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

I feel like there should be some mention of the fact that "red states" are net recipients of Federal money, and "blue states" are net exporters of tax dollars.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-08-18/politics/30039546_1_blue-states-federal-taxes-red-states

am i alone in finding romney's campaign inspiring?

he makes me think, "i could run a much better campaign than that, maybe i should get into politics!"

I would vote for all this z s

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/mitt-romneys-clinging-to-guns-or-religion-moment/262496/

The difference in Obama's comments is that they were essentially empathetic, even though he landed on a caricature that obscured that: "And they felt through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate, and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." I cut and paste, so I'm not sure if the grammar was originally that fractured. Anyway, I still see a basic empathy there...am I alone in that?

"vote for me: I don't hate 47% of you"

Anyway here we go re Leder:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/09/romney-secret-video-marc-leder-sex-parties

Pretty squishy, for sure:

Well, this is Goldberg: a squish whose "prose" can't hide his cowardice. He still won't piss off anybody.

and Friedersdorf is NOT otm; it's a false equivalence. Obama wanted to woo the voters who clung to guns and religion.

(whether his policies have helped them at all is another matter)

The "sex parties" thing is a fun detail but I hope it doesn't muddy the waters with respect to the words that came out of Romney's mouth.

I think sex parties will be stuck in third place behind Latino joke (relatively little attention thus far) and giving-up-on-loser-vote. It's a crowded field there.

yeah, i'm the kind of liberal who doesn't see anything wrong with sex parties at all (not that i'm ever throwing or attending sex parties). it's just sex, at a party, who cares. but yeah i guess it would be shocking for a lot of voters

nobody even invites me to sex parties

I get invitations non-stop, but really, who has the time?

Mr. Leder personifies the debates now swirling around this lucrative corner of finance. To his critics, he represents everything that's wrong with this setup. In recent years, a large number of the companies that Sun Capital has acquired have run into serious trouble, eliminated jobs or both. Since 2008, some 25 of its companies—roughly one of every five it owns—have filed for bankruptcy. Among the losers was Friendly's, the restaurant chain known for its Jim Dandy sundaes and Fribble shakes. (Sun Capital was accused by a federal agency of pushing Friendly's into bankruptcy last year to avoid paying pensions to the chain's employees; Sun disputes that contention.) Another company that sank into bankruptcy was Real Mex, owner of the Chevy's restaurant chain. In that case, Mr. Leder lost money for his investors not once, but twice.

He killed Friendly's!

Now this is personal.

you have to mill around outside having sex for a long time until someone at the party notices that you're ok with it and lets you in

Mother Jones now releasing photos from Romney's fundraiser.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1DgDTIh-v0U/UB68wrf4u6I/AAAAAAAAH2A/PQgwtglQBWo/s400/eyes-wide-shut-ritual-sex-party.png

Latino joke (relatively little attention thus far)

yeah no shit, what the fuck is this

So apparently Romney's lurking somewhere here in Costa Mesa and according to Twitter:

COSTA MESA, CA. (AP): Romney: Comment calling Americans 'victims' was 'not elegantly stated,' spoken 'off the cuff'

Fribble shakes

a neurological frailty after eating Friendly's?

hot teen fribble video xxx

Link to AP bit:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/romney-comment-calling-americans-victims-was-not-elegantly-stated-spoken-off-the-cuff/2012/09/17/ba7f840e-0135-11e2-bbf0-e33b4ee2f0e8_story.html

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A3ChYxVCIAIS9Rc.png

lol oh shit

the pundits-on-twitter reaction that this is going to harm romney among 47% voters is hilarious/crazy to me, and feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of what the 47% meme is all about, which is basically just declaring yr team vis-a-vis producers vs parasittes

like remember how many of the 53%ers on that stupid tumblr were actually/clearly 47%ers? no one for whom this idea resonates is actually checking their tax forms. even if they pay no income tax they ~know~ that theyre heroic producers/job creators, and those people are just leechers. you know, those people *winks*

mitt is "owning" the gaffe b/c theres no real downside, it fires up his base, the press already hates him and thinks hes going to lose

typical lazy/meretricious punditry accepting the terms proffered by the candidates

max otm

it fires up his base, the press already hates him and thinks hes going to lose

Wasn't his base supposedly already fired up? Something like this strengthens the perception, rightly or wrongly, that he's going to lose; I don't see how that fires up the base any more. This may or may not hurt him. I can't see that it helps him at all--he's supposedly trying to make up ground in the remaining six weeks.

There's a way to say what Romney said in a "fire up the base" way but in the video he comes off as a callous creep who does not give a shit about half the country.

OTM. This will hurt his chances even with some people who may have otherwise voted for him.

feel like constant gaffes all in the news arent helping romney any even if individual incidences might not affect the situation much, its more of a cumulative thing

yeah the media smells blood in the water

This will dominate the news at a moment where Romney really needed positive news. Romney is behind and needs a win, so even if there was no "real downside" to this, it would still be catastrophical.

idk if some of his polling softness was due to R dissatisfaction, this might help him tbh. "no really, i hate the bottom half of this country"

The problem with "Romney's base" is that it's a mirage. The sum allegiance of that base is as strong as the prospect of him beating Obama--if that dissipates, I don't think he has much of a base. When the press dumps on a Nixon or a Palin, I think that kind of base closes ranks (or gets fired up, if you will). I don't think that's the case with Romney. Problems like this just remind them that they never wanted him in the first place.

xposts - no way this helps him. the people who straight up agree with his sentiment were going to vote for him anyway. that leaves all the others left scratching their heads at the thought that Romney is running to be President of Half the United States. That's not to mention the visceral resentment these remarks can kick up.

btw dubya in retrospect seems like a downright mensch compared to this dude.

Is there really anyone on the right who could repudiate Romney's statement at this point? Make some gesture about the GOP welcoming all Americans and etc etc or are they really that far gone?

Reagan's approval rating went down about fifteen points with Iran-Contra.

There's no way this helps Romney with any non-insane voters, base or otherwise. It makes him look like the bad guy in the Muppets: "and once we have full control of America we'll raze it to the ground and dig for oil! Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh." The right wing base you're imagining likes to imagine itself as Reagan in front of the flag and Bush on the aircraft carrier -- they're not going to cheer for the heel.

xp to clemenza on my last post

the problem with Romney is he never got properly ideologized. Since roughly Nixon the GOP has been crafting a way of speaking about America based on resentment of an elite. Romney never learned, or bothered to learn, the proper code, so he just lays bare the oligarchic thrust of the whole thing.

Reagan did drop from 63% to 43% at one point, so that must have been Iran-Contra. But I don't know--does that prove his hardcore base didn't stay with him? Anyway, my guess is that Romney's real base--Republican voters who love him so much they'd stick with him through anything--measure somewhere around 5 or 10%.

Let's go with 5%--that 10% looks silly.

i suspect Romney will once again double down and let the right wing media will handle the messaging. you know, the RW media that approx half of all likely voters consume to the exclusion of every other outlet. hell, i don't even know why bothers buying air time for his commercials.

i mean he's going to lose, but probably not much as far as the popular vote goes

Romney is like Bush I minus any of the semi-decent competent bits.

not *by* much

xpost

(Bush 1 - competent bits) + smarm to the power of ten

xpost

Reagan ended up being a more popular former president than an actual president for the most part (1984 landslide election not withstanding) but definitely he was less popular post-86 than before.

Romney is going to sweep Wyoming and Utah by at least 60% of the popular vote. And don't forget all those Texas and Oklahoma voters. He'll grab maybe 58% there. His popular vote is going to be respectable, because of high percentages in hardcore rightwing states, like Tornado Alley and the solid south.