Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

yeah I thought it was just the one

gerald ford fell down every day... on the job! do you see

http://www.theonion.com/articles/now-that-my-campaign-is-over-id-like-to-talk-to-yo,29611/

I found a YouTube that cuts out right before another fall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlz0he9rtKw

Nice jacket though!

Hitting his doubles partner in the back of the head with the tennis ball is easily my favorite Ford gaffe.

http://www.ford.utexas.edu/avproj/A6521-22A.jpg

Haha, what a goof. Derp!

Good points in the gawkr pre-post-mortem:

If taxes are so anathema and something the Republican Party is trying to liberate everyone from, why are people living free from them the enemy? (Apart, of course, from both payroll taxes and regressive excise taxes.) How are these people not heroes? Further, if trickle-down economics works, how come he can't sell it to these people?

Yeah that...huh?

"This is going to be a choice election," RNC chair @Reince says, "whether you're Hispanic or Greek like me"

I found a YouTube that cuts out /right before/ another fall.



Nice jacket though!

Haha it's like they're taunting us

Meantime:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) excused himself in the middle of the availability. The rest — Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sens. John Thune (R-SD), Roy Blunt (R-MO) and John Barrasso (R-WY) — made no mention of Romney or the race in their comments and instead lamented Senate dysfunctionality and attacked Democratic policies.

When reporters ran after them to ask about Romney’s comments, they dodged.

“First of all I’m not going to get critical — your question implies there’s some really big flaw in the way he’s running the campaign,” Kyl said, when asked whether the GOP nominee has harmed his and Republicans’ hopes in November.

Asked whether Senate Republicans voiced concerns with the Romney snafu during lunch, Blunt did his best to downplay the episode and echo his party nominee’s message.

“Well, you know, whether there was discussion at lunch or not, I wouldn’t want to say,” he demurred. “Not because — I just don’t think we ought to talk about what was said at lunch.

“I really don’t think this is of great concern to the Senate — to members of the Senate,” Blunt said. “It could have been better said, as Governor Romney himself said. But trying to get more people into the active economy should be the fundamental debate of this election. And I’m not sure it’s not good for Governor Romney to go right ahead and pursue that discussion.”

I just don’t think we ought to talk about what was said at lunch.

someones got to maintain some STANDARDS around here

Wait, this happened today too?

http://images.politico.com/global/2012/09/120919_pirate_wh_605.jpg

?!

He's gonna wrap up the pirate vote, too?

its national talk like a pirate day fwiw my lord

what a half assed costume

I dunno, he looks presidential to me

aaarrrrggg

it was tweeted with "Arrrr you in?"

photo of obama w/ beyonce & jay-z is stunning

Corporate Pirate vs ….

http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/obama-pirate-20110420-123022.jpg

its national talk like a pirate day fwiw my lord

Contrary to all reports, I don't live in a cave

do u live in a berrrrrrth

Carter/West 2024 imo

He should have met with Captain Crunch instead, now there's a pirate with gravitas.

Tryin' to figure out the polls. Any way you parse it, sez Pew Research guy: "Romney leads in no polls."
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=161436242&m=161436225

shafer drives home the nixon parallels: http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2012/09/19/willard-milhous-romney

he also seems to feel - like i do - that we really have no idea how romney is going to govern

The parallel crumbles when the facts -- and his own writings and private statements show, if you care about intentions -- show how Nixon was in every sense a liberal in domestic policy. Romney on the other hand, beholden to a right wing holding him hostage, has not only made no secret about his inclinations but doesn't have much maneuvering room anyway.

The GOP base may have mistrusted Nixon in '68 but the GOP base was also full of moderate Republicans. The definition of "the base" has changed.

beholden to a right wing holding him hostage,

i think this is overstated

he'll have to work w/ them on some things, but i imagine even if he governs like an obama moderate he'll be given a lot of leeway by his party (who will just be thrilled to be in power mostly). plus they love winners. a winner romney would have a ton of freedom. i actually think (w/ a few social exceptions) republican obama would be loved by the republicans

Explain then the dumping of his history as governor and senatorial candidate in the nineties. The article would make sense if Mr. Willard had run for president in 1988 or 1992. Or 1976.

he'll do + say anything to become president

a GOP moderate would not appoint moderate judges.

In 2008 I scoffed at the idea of Obama as Hope and Change when his foreign policy depended to such a degree on Bush's super awesome executive powers. There's no evidence showing that Romney would suddenly confound the GOP elite.

Mordy, when has Romney ever upset the status quo? The guy IS the status quo!

the guy has been coddled and swathed since birth

But the one thing that does hold (just skimmed the beginning of the piece) is the painful social awkwardness. That famously surreal midnight encounter between Nixon and the student protesters where he tried to talk football with them, that sounds very Romney-like.

romneyd happily sign whatever batshit legislation got sent his way

romney is def not the status quo. he just plays one on television. he's a (not so) secret weirdo.

The GOP base may have mistrusted Nixon in '68 but the GOP base was also full of moderate Republicans. The definition of "the base" has changed.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

hes just a different status quo (mormon) than most of us are used to

Pew Research guy: "Romney leads in no polls."

made me burst out laughing for some reason

I don't care how many wet kisses Romney may give Poppy Bush; he knows full well what happened to Poppy Bush when Mr. Voodoo Economics pretended to be a Reaganite.

romney campaign was dropping polk's name and telling the base they were going in assuming one term presidency cuz of all the radical science they were about to drop

oh please! Polk had a mullet.

http://minidovecomics.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/62-james-polk1.jpg

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/19/us-usa-campaign-poll-idUSBRE88I1E920120919

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed that more than two in five registered voters, or 43 percent, viewed Romney less favorably after an excerpt of the video was shown to them online.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/trust-him-he-cares.html

when France was paralyzed by strikes in 1968 "Romney led a group of missionaries into Spain to find an open bank" to cash "checks sent from their parents."

this is fucking hilarious. Romney vs. Situationists oh man I would've loved to witness that

Mitt Romney attended Stanford University for one year after graduating from the elite Cranbrook School for boys. He then went to France for 2 1/2 years as a Mormon missionary, completing a ritual that generations of his family, including his two oldest sons, have followed.

Romney points to the experience now as an encounter with poverty. He lived in a hotel in LeHavre that had no toilets, and had $100 a month to live on. He knocked on doors seeking converts with little success.

he even got the plum missionary assignment - france!