Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

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!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/Le_Havre_Vue_Plage_14_07_2005.jpg/800px-Le_Havre_Vue_Plage_14_07_2005.jpg

HELL ON EARTH

beneath the paving stones, Mormon converts

In part because of his record in Mass, incl Romneycare's mandate providing the key to a dependably functioning model for Obamacare, and in part because he's such a flickering, twitchy figure, President Mitt will be having to prove himself to the right, always ready to turn on him, like they did on Daddy Bush. Back when he was still in Congress, The Alamanac of American Politics indicated that some Repubs considered Bush's constituency to be D.C. He was such an insider waterboy: RNC Chairman picking up the pieces re Watergate, shared office space with the Iran-Contra masturminds, picked up the pieces after Reaganomics. Raised taxes after "Read My Lips: No New Taxes", and endorsed "A New World Order" to boot. Reagan: "He doesn't seem to stand for anything." Later, they claimed Clinton got credit for Bush-initiated prosperity, but nevermind. Grover Norquist has said Romney will be "The Hand" signing liberating legislation; he's also eagerly endorsed the Personhood Amendment too radical for Mississippi, he'll be expected to appoint judges and maybe a Justice who will make Scalia look like Pete Seeger. Does anybody really think he'll find an acceptable way to reach out to the center, even if he wants to? And where will the center be, a year or so in, after the Fiscal Cliff and all?

Financial chains off the plutocracy and the military, a very unclear picture otherwise, what kind of country has a budget like that? Oh, several.

oh I dunno, dow. Scalia and Thomas have been doing quite well adjusting to this post-Seeger environment for 20 years

Was it just a week ago that we were all talking about how Mitt seemed like a stuffed suit, how he hadn't defined himself? And now he has, if not in the way he'd planned to.

otm

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.

I really dislike polls like this...about two in five people are democrats!

37% IIRC

oh I dunno, dow. Scalia and Thomas have been doing quite well adjusting to this post-Seeger environment for 20 years Yeah, and now they're likely to have company, if not competition. Even if Rom doesn't get to appoint another Justice (not one?), he'll have plenty of opps elsewhere in the court system-- with which, as Toobin said on Fresh Air recently, Obama hasn't much concerned himself.

oh yeah: it's clear Ginsburg is waiting until the election to announce retirement.

Either way, he would have plenty of opportunities.

with which, as Toobin said on Fresh Air recently, Obama hasn't much concerned himself.

A little unfair, I think; hasn't the GOP in the Senate been stifling at least some of the appointments?

a bit of both. A priority for the Bush and Reagan Justice Departments was installing like-minded justices. It says something about Obama's tepid commitment to liberalism that neither he nor the department have delivered speeches or public statements (that I'm aware of) delineating what kind of jurisprudence they want the courts to rule on.

i.e. I've seen no passion for "living Constitution," "evolving Constitution," or whatever euphemism around which the administration can gather its legal forces.

wait so he needs to give more speeches and say 'living constitution' and that will change what exactly

If we're not seeing a vision for what a Obama justice system looks like, it's reasonable to conclude that there isn't one, therefore it's not a priority, even with unprecedented GOP resistance in the Senate.

when liberals were in the wilderness in the twenties the likes of Felix Frankfurter were gathering young talent around the kind of jurisprudence they wanted implemented once they returned to power, like the GOP did in the sixties and seventies. Ed Meese didn't suddenly give speeches and presto chango "strict construction" appeared.

if obama were to make his 'vision for the justice system' a prominent issue, then it would become more of a political issue and there would be even-more gop resistence. there is absolutely nothing to gain.

sweet! Thanks for making the White House's case

np thanks for bringing up an example from 100 years ago that has nothing to do w/ what we're talking about

I didn't think you had it in you

yeah nothing for you matters except what facts line up with your glittering metropolis untainted by suburbia.

I'm trying to have a conversation and you consistently act like an asshole. fuck off!

Ladies and gentlemen, iatee

giving this one to iatee 116-112 on effective aggression

i lold at i didnt think you had it in you, dry zing

Wait, don't you guys agree on this thing though? I mean, iatee is talking about perceived political futility of the White House trying to advance a judicial philosophy, given Senatorial intransigence and the disinterest of the electorate, and Alfred is talking about the need for a Frankfurter-style snowballing of talents and ideas, outside of the White House, until such time as the political realities will permit a wave of new justices. Right? Or am I misreading?

That's not in the spirit of this thread

now, Doctor, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about. What we talk about is what we talk about after iatee has vetoed anything not in his closed circuit loop.

girls! girls! you're both pretty!