Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

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.

Here's his press conference:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/17/obama-campaign-seizes-on-romney-victims-video/

David Brooks calls Mittens "Thurston Howell Romney".

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.

― Matt Armstrong, Monday, September 17, 2012 10:46 PM (47 minutes ago)

so does the other half!

no a lot of the other half are quite charming and likable

Watch that press conference clip--he makes everything sound so much more benevolent.

And then runs off.

this could be the bourbon talking, but lately it's hard for me to watch things like http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/17/obama-campaign-seizes-on-romney-victims-video/ without imagining a 50% opacity extreme close-up of a testicle dangling over his face

“I’m sure I can state it more clearly in a more effective way than I did in a setting like that and so I’m sure I’ll point that out as time goes on but we don’t even have the question given the snippet there, nor the full response, and I hope the person who has the video would put out the full material,” Romney said at the press conference held in Orange County, Calif.

Two or three times he asks for the question to be included in the video. I'm trying to formulate a question that would get him off the hook, and it's not easy.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2pywabn.jpg

"Just as a role-playing thing, Governor, can you spend the next few minutes in character as a guy who's written off 47% of the vote? C'mon, it'll be fun."

The only grey area with what Romney said is the difference between talking about the election and talking about being president. To give him a little leeway, he's telling his donors that he isn't wasting time and energy on the Americans who aren't going to vote for him, only on the narrow independent range that is up for grabs.

There is a longer form of the video with the question!

Maddow showed the clip with the question.

he's telling his donors that he isn't wasting time and energy on the Americans who aren't going to vote for him

But it is how he characterizes those Americans that is the basic issue.

God, what a joke

Pretty sure his math is faulty anyway. How much of the vote legitimately swings back and forth--10-15%? If he truly believes 47% of voters are lost to him no matter what, isn't he saying he has to get 70-80% of that part in the middle to win?

applauding z s's bourbon visions

Is it just me or isn't calling such comments "off the cuff" another way of saying "less scripted and less censored and therefore much closer to what I actually think"?

Hi I gotta do what oh shit help

http://images.politico.com/global/2012/09/120917_mitt_romney_press_ap_605.jpg

he looks like a cartoon bunny about to get ignorantly blasted by a shotgun.

Obama at Chelsea fund-raiser
Tuesday, Sept. 18--6-7 pm
40/40 Club --6 West 25th Street New York

Tickets are $40,000 each for fundraiser with Beyonce and Jay-Z. N. Needless to say we will be outside with signs: No Drones, End the Wars, Free Bradley Manning. Bring your own message if you like!

"the cartoon campaign"

Thanks for the heads-up, Morbs - would stop by and join but I get out of class right at 6.

god, that photo of Romney is heartbreaking in a way. I mean, if he wasn't a horrific 80s-style corporate raider sleazeball, trying to be our nation's first 80s-style corporate raider sleazeball president, you'd feel sorry for the guy as someone who worked really hard to get a gig that he just isn't capable of doing on a day-to-day basis. A shot like that really seems more damaging in its way than those "McCain looks frighteningly old" photos four years ago.

Let's make a deal, they release the full video and you release your full tax returns.

Hey, whatever happened to those sketchy h4x0r types trying to leverage their supposed Romney tax return theft?

oh no, he's lost david brooks!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/opinion/brooks-thurston-howell-romney.html?_r=1&hp

Brooks: "as a description of America today, Romney’s comment is a country-club fantasy. It’s what self-satisfied millionaires say to each other. It reinforces every negative view people have about Romney."

otm, strange to say, bcz it is David Brooks who is saying it.

Romney kinda seems to be losing interest in being president tbh

ya i read an article today detailing his schedule noting that not much of it was devoted to campaigning

Strangest thing about it is reading right-wing people saying (more or less) that the right-wing mythmaking about welfare cheats and dependents and stuff is, like, soooo last millenium. Kind of bizarre. I don't read Brooks regularly so I don't know what his schtick is exactly but a lot of stuff in that column seems like it would crack the GOP's head right open if it actually got fully absorbed.