I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

teddy roosevelt

tsongas was 92, kick started deficit hawk mania that led to perot getting in the race, didn't want to be santa claus. beyond that wasn't a huge factor, winning new hampshire was a shock but clinton's 'comeback' was as much the real story. i can remember a day or two after the nh primary letterman had tsongas on - but not to actually sit down and speak, he just had tsongas come in thru the side door, cracked a joke at his expense, and then had tsongas leave. that's how seriously tsongas was taken in 92. clinton's real comp was bob kerrey w/ jerry brown in the spoiler role. weak field generally, heavy hitters scared off by bush approval ratings at end of gulf war, http://snltranscripts.jt.org/91/91edebate.phtml . 88 was considered stronger field - no cuomo or bradley or nunn or kennedy but gephardt, gore, babbitt, jackson, a hobbled gary hart, joe biden briefly, james traficant hilariously. dukakis had strongest campaign team, ran smartest campaign (eg were responsible for alerting press to biden plagiarism), had very successful record as mass gov. fwiw gop field was also strong that year - beyond bush you also had dole and kemp and pat robertson for better or worse. richard ben cramer's book on 88 campaign is highly recommended.

Truman, TR don't count for finishing dead guy's term. Truman could've run for his own second term though.

could've run and would've lost. vp as obv inheritor of party nod is a very recent phenom anyway right? seems like post-war emergance at the very least.

yeah it seems strange to me, that this has sprung up as conventional wisdom that the VP has "dibs" on the Presidency but it's never really panned out very well

Bush only winning one since Van Buren

truman toward the end was one of the most hated pres's ever -- bush just barely beat him in his last year or so.

yeah ALOT republicans i know used the 'history will vindicate bush, like it did truman' talk immediately after he left office, nevermind they oppose the things truman did that 'vindicated' him or that the other half of the time they could bear to mention bush they say the reason bush was a failure was cuz he was actually a liberal.

haha yeah the 'bush isn't REALLY a conservative' thing was one of the weirder GOP-think developments of the last decade.

hart was good but then he had a lil problem

Dukakis also had a "lil problem": he was 5'8".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSLW3BG3TgE

Truman's reputation started to recover in the next ten years. Meanwhile a majority of American still think Bush remains a joke.

1988 was the year I started watching SNL.

I remember this:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xletq9_saturday-night-live-dukakis-after-dark_fun

http://snl.jt.org/caps/episode_sketches/1988-11-05-8.jpg

Matthew Modine ... Lloyd Bentsen
Dana Carvey ... Jimmy Carter
Nora Dunn ... Joan Baez
Cheryl Hardwick ... pianist
Phil Hartman ... Ted Kennedy
Jan Hooks ... Kitty Dukakis
Victoria Jackson ... Donna Rice
Jon Lovitz ... Michael Dukakis
Kevin Nealon ... LeRoy Neiman

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/the-statistical-state-of-the-presidential-race/

game over man

not really what that article says man

ok

obama now at 81.9% on 538 - his highest point so far this election iirc? (previous high mark: 80.7% from convention bounce)

Sept. 26: Could 2012 Be Like 2008?
By NATE SILVER
There’s no point in putting it gently: Mitt Romney had one of his worst polling days of the year on Wednesday.

what do you have to add to NYTimes URLs to read articles for free again?

delete evthg after "html"

or just click on an inbound link http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/sept-26-could-2012-be-like-2008

oh god, i just now finally watched the joe scarborough "sweet jesus" thing, that is pretty fucking satisfying on some irrational and childish level, for me personally

From Silver's blog post:

The “now-cast” estimates that Mr. Obama would have a 97.8 percent chance of winning an election held today. Further, it pegs his advantage at five and a half percentage points in the national popular vote.

lol @ Romney

oh god, i just now finally watched the joe scarborough "sweet jesus" thing, that is pretty fucking satisfying on some irrational and childish level, for me personally

pls elaborate!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/joe-scarborough-romney-ryan-sweet-jesus_n_1915975.html?utm_hp_ref=media

what do you have to add to NYTimes URLs to read articles for free again?

― set me on fire RAAAAH (DJP), Thursday, September 27, 2012 3:15 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

add the javascript at this URL http://pastebin.com/QNyY4bdL as a bookmarklet, go to nytimes.com, click the bookmarklet. resets your article count by deleting all your nyt cookies.

how do you add the javascript as a bookmarklet?

create a bookmark and paste the Javascript as the destination

Or drag the link onto yr bookmark bar.

Sorry drag the script

will you guys be sad when the NYT is bankrupt

They released some statement about how they're getting more digital money/subscriptions than ever so no.

xp I actually just use a subscription (not my own, but whatever.)

I'm a little concerned about this potential libyagate thing, some hay to be made there possibly?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/from-video-to-terrorist-attack-a-definitive-timeline-of-administration-statements-on-the-libya-attack/2012/09/26/86105782-0826-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html

This was on tumblr with the caption "GOD YOU RUIN EVERYTHING"

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maihp4eKsl1qz80pso1_400.gif

Wait is that sped up? What the hell is he doing?

JENGA DUDE

five foot jenga my friend

― lag∞n, Wednesday, June 6, 2012 8:01 PM (3 months ago)

it was kind of charming to see romney jr. prank call dad with one of those arnold schwarzenegger sound boards.

lol youtube comment on the video: "This kind of symbolizes how he would run the country. He takes from the middle and adds to the top but when the top gets too heavy and there isn’t enough of the middle left to support the top, the entire thing collapses."

I KNOW what Jenga is, thank you very much. You'll be saying I don't know what clocks are next. I meant what the hell was his little dance.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1162348.1348002426!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/gallery_635/mitt-romney.jpg

http://www.bradblog.com/Images/MittRomney_CryingBaby.jpg

Clocks are big; machines are heavy.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRjYQaA0S4QsGNvzR3-fdW6r4xhGIbMX9_4h278ifRJq1lvv2TaRNHfXeD4XQ

xxxpost

Mr. Roboto, looking for the battery compartment.

Mitt isn't even pres yet and he's aged 10 years on the campaign trail (not least because he's been campaigning for 10 years, but still ...)

it was kind of charming to see romney jr. prank call dad with one of those arnold schwarzenegger sound boards.

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, September 27, 2012 6:35 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

woah for real?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbaBhb7w_1s

the funny part is mitt's responses also sound like they are from a soundboard.