Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

girls! girls! you're both pretty!

while i agree w/iatee on the meaninglessness of # of speeches delivered in gauging an administrations passion for jurisprudence, i do think the obama admin has shown via their repeated failure to appoint federal judges for great number of vacancies that the courts may not be at the top of their todo list

ya I don't even disagree w/ that, I just think the "why doesn't he use his magic speech power to fix things" solution to america's political problems is almost always just lol

obama must convene the 47 ronin Justices and wait for Sasha's election in 2048 to unleash them

think he mightve just been saying that the lack of speeches indicated a lack of interest

it's a shame those guys at confirmthem.com stopped fighting congressional obstruction around 2001 or so

I'm not sure how you concluded that:

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.

means I think Obama's got power to Make Things Right. It means that unlike the GOP for the last forty years he hasn't explained beyond pre-SCOTUS nominee boilerplate how Obama jurisprudence would interpret the Constitution, what it would mean to Americans, and how it differs from Scaliacons.

and the kind of grass roots efforts that made conservatives triumph in the judiciary branch took years. I'm not sure the White House, as ― lag∞n said, gives a shit about encouraging think tank writers and judicial societies. But maybe they do! I've love to read encouraging signs!

would totally put Sasha or Michelle on the bench -- but only if they devise a Federalist Society type pin they can wear on lapels.

its weird because obama is a constitutional law scholar

we don't need think tank writers or judical societies or a revolutionary new take on the constitution. we just need ways to appoint more liberal judges.

i think alfred's point was that the latter leads to the former?

one thing to do is appoint them

er, the other way around

I think obstruction of judicial nominees should always be a political loser, elections have consequences yo. So I think Obama should definitely have made the obstruction a bigger deal. But big idea speeches about legal theory that lead to the rise of leftist jurisprudence for some undefined period in the future sounds pretty pie in the sky.

guys, never mind

http://i.imgur.com/NfFMs.jpg

nah again we don't need 'the right ideas' we have 'the right ideas', maybe we need better PR but you don't need think tanks or judical societies or whatever. there is not some idea well that ran dry w/r/t policy. there is w/r/t getting elected. but again, that just makes this on the same level as anything else.

the reason reagan could talk about "legal theory" is cuz underlying all of it was the fear of scary black criminals, gay people fucking on your street, hippies pooping on the flag etc. so politically it was really good stuff. Obama's got better stuff than legal principles to fire up the crowds.

Have fun with that:

After taking a beating for comments he privately wishes he never made and from conservative critics he wishes he could muzzle, Mitt Romney and his campaign are settling on a rescue plan to show more of him - in ads, speeches and campaign appearances. A big focus, according to campaign officials, will be on Romney talking a lot more about how his ideas will help regular Americans who remain deeply suspicious of him.

“He has to own his message for people, especially women, to buy the messenger,” one top adviser said.
A campaign official said: “In a lot of the current survey data, there’s a desire among the electorate to know more about Mitt in terms of how he would lead. Over the next six weeks, the campaign is going to provide a lot more of that” – in ads, in speeches and on the stump.
Aides also expect more joint appearances by Romney and running mate Paul Ryan – most likely in the swing states of Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.
The plan, described by top aides and advisers in interviews this week, is an acknowledgment that Romney is in enough of a hole that he cannot depend on the presidential debates to turn his candidacy around. In fact, Romney, who recently did five mock debates in a 48-hour period to practice up, has confided to advisers that it may be hard to win a debate because every attack against President Barack Obama will seem stale, while the attacks on him will seem fresher and newsier to a hostile media.
Instead, Romney plans to dial back on fundraisers and vastly increase his personal appearances – both on the stump and in ads – to convince what’s left of the undecided voters that Obama has been a disappointment and that he has a specific plan that is less risky than the status quo.

A roffly detail:

The campaign is moving fast to calm nerves, especially among donors. To get a flavor of the challenge before them, a top donor said that after Romney spoke at a fundraising breakfast at the Hilton New York on Friday, a will-Mitt-win poll was taken at one table of 10 men, each of whom had paid at least $2,500 to attend, and some of whom had raised as much as $50,000 for the campaign. Not a single man said yes.

And so the solution is to put Mittbot more front and center. Of course.

Lowry, sans starbursts:

The best defense of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s instantly notorious “47 percent” remarks at a May fundraiser is that he made a bad point badly.

“I just don’t think that any of our Members are tied to Romney at all,” said a top House GOP aide who requested anonymity to speak freely. “They just don’t connect the person to Romney, and that’s good for us.”

DEFINITELY sans starbursts:

As a political scientist, Romney is an excellent former governor of Massachusetts.

I want a leaked videotape of that table's betting game

I feel really bad for how hard Mitt is going to have to work to lose

“He has to own his message for people, especially women, to buy the messenger,” one top adviser said.

This whole thing dovetails nicely with the idea that Mitt's last selling point is being a handsome white man.

maybe he and ryan can do a little "magic mike" for the lady voters at joint appearances

incidentally the facts of life episode where blair's medical student boyfriend is a male stripper was just on TV

Lol

if you aren't going to unleash ryan on the budget, at least unleash him on the cover of men's health

This is conjuring flashbacks to the Scott Brown episode of SNL

personally amazed lisa whelchel didn't veto that storyline!

holy guacamole lisa whelchel is gonna be on survivor apparently

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-pn-romney-ad-miners-rally-20120919,0,6066201.story

haha btw the ad currently riding the top of this thread for the not logged in is:

Mitt Romney-Official Site
American Military Power Is Vital. Donate $5 Now!
www.MittRomney.com

As Massachusetts governor, however, he lauded carbon emission limits and at one point stood outside a coal plant and said, "I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people, and that plant, that plant kills people." He also backed a regional cap-and-trade system, which would reduce carbon pollution by imposing caps on emissions and allowing companies to buy and sell pollution permits, before backing off of that position

xp

I always get these weird George Hamilton in "Love at First Bite" vibes from Mitt.

https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQPCLLCxH8n9MDn0pjSD0xL2J2bjPGjih23Vz-U-TJThC3F0jUtoA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oye4rhUa2Fk

wow that ad must've literally required 5% effort on the parts of all involved

wau

i was certain that was an SNL sketch or something

Not 47%?

lmao at bieber haired children at the end
ur kids can still have fashionable hair and be brought up by drooling bigots USA USA USA

That is totally the change he voted for!

the husband in that ad looks scared for a second that his wife knows that he's gay. then he recovers and disapproves of obama's radical agenda.

That ad is so good. Shot worth puzzling over: the close-up of the coffee cup being set on the counter at 0:04. I do have to wonder whether Obama will be able to get his forced-gay-marriage legislation through congress.

The close-up of the coffee-cup is in a beam of sunlight that's disappeared 0.01 seconds later.

xp yeah that's what I was trying to say, scott.

I wish there were a nod to Godard: woman looks down, overhead close-up of the coffee, all the little bubbles configure themselves into a cosmos of gay people getting married.