2012 GOP Presidential Campaign -- "This individual's going to accuse me of an affair for an extended period of time."

it's easier for ron paul to sound knowledgeable. he occupies an enviable position of ideological purity: everything's reducable to a simple set of libertarian litmus tests. it's harder to be mitt romney, who lives on this planet, and has a pragmatic view of the world.

pity the poor mitt romney.

I think Romney is smart but he's a not very good actor. He seems to be struggling with the role that his political consultants have assigned to him.

i hate to quote Joe Scarborough, but this is OTM:

"If Newt Gingrich is the smartest guy in the room, leave the room."

there's a clarity of speaking that ron paul has that partially comes from ideological purity but also comes from being clear thinking. articulation is a key identifier of intelligence (esp to me). romney may be bundled up by his handlers and struggling to sneak around issues but he's also very difficult to listen to. i often will be listening to him for five minutes and realize that i have no idea what he is talking about. other politicians -even ones who are similarly going the slimly bullshitter route - don't seem to have that effect on me.

eh, i appreciate clear, straightforward thinking and communication, too. i just believe it's a lot easier for paul to do this, given his ideological purity.

If he was any more pragmatic, he'd be.. oh, yeah.

also: ron paul is a loon. the opposition research on his is overwhelming. no-one's bothered to do it, yet, since he is a marginal/vanity candidate. but if and when the other GOP contenders turn on him, his support will evaporate down to his small basic core.

for an example of what i mean, review the articles concerning race in the newsletters affiliated with ron paul.

re Paul's ideological purity: the guy invokes ~The Founders~ every bit as much as he alludes to Randian pablum... which is why his nominal support for Citizens United is a pretty big ideological blind spot imo (as it seems pretty clear to me that those dudes at the Constitutional Convention would have balked at the thought of corporate personhood. maybe i'm wrong?). Also, he supports DOMA under the guise of "states rights", but wouldn't that suggest he could/would support anti-miscegenation laws? doesn't sound very libertarian to me.

lol Gingrich tax plan

agree w/mordy on romney essentially being a bullshit artist and a pandering bore. during the last debate i realized mitt says nothing that isn't thoroughly market-tested and/or a total cliche. even when provoked.

Even his joeks he had to mail order.

i saw the video of the mitt/vet exchange, it actually wasn't bad, he's kinda stuttering & ridiculously not facing the guy while they talk, but being it effectively ends on the "i gave you the answer" thing, seemingly good naturedly

obv he is a terrible robot &c it just wasn't hugely evident there

Like, for instance, he pseudo-affably laughed his way through others dogpiling him during the Republican debates in '08, but he always seemed to be one jibe away from blurting, "Hey, fuck you guys, okay?".

i watched the video of the $10,000 bet and what struck me most about it was the enormous tower of passive-aggressive smiley teeth-gritting both perry and romney were teetering on; it did feel like at any moment one of those guys could just suddenly narrow his eyes, open his mouth and it would be this glistening radioactive maw issuing a digitally sweetened shriek-roar from hades

I realize what my hope that Gingrich will win comes down to: enough Republican voters rising up and saying, "He's a slimebucket, but he's our slimebucket." So I'm a little nervous.

he has a good chance, if only for one reason: there's a significant segment of the GOP that just rejects romney, and they may realize that time is too short to move to another anti-romney. so it may be gingrich, or nothing.

"Gingrich, or Nothing": a winning campaign slogan if I've ever heard one.

I've brought this up before, but I'll never forget the debate disaster Romney had here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qhCO7tBcaY

you can see the rage and resentment that is buried within Willard Romney.

man I forgot about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-groI7IpExA

mitt is short for willard?

i never knew.

all this time i thought mitt was short for mittens?

Those two clips are great. I was following the Democratic side much more closely at the time, and I knew next to nothing about Romney, but in the couple of debates I did watch, it was clear everyone on stage despised him.

Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani...when giants walked the Earth.

it says a lot about the current republican crop that in 2007 they had guys who reduced Romney to wincing embarrassment but in 2011 they just have gingrich and the kind of candidates who think Solyndra is a country.

Solyndra...President Obama supported the uprising, correct?...I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing.

didn't somebody make sure Rick Perry passed his vocabulary test over this shit already?

http://m.jumpstart.com/JumpstartNew/uploadedFiles/sne/pdf-screenshots/test-your-word-power-iii.jpg

i see now that schlump has already said what i said, about the weird smiley passive-aggressiveness

my suspicion is that these guys have it drilled into them to always smile no matter what, so 9 out of every 10 still photos and live camera angles will show the candidate appearing "positive" etc

i have no doubt this is based on real research and is probably "good" advice ultimately but man it leads to some weird moments

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/13/michael-tomasky-could-obama-be-headed-for-a-landslide.html

I guess it depends on what you mean by landslide--a landslide like 1980 and 1964, or a landslide like 1996 and 2008?--but this seems highly improbable even if things were going well right now. Aren't there enough electoral votes locked in for the Republicans that a classic landslide would be impossible no matter who the nominee were? And again, 8-9% unemployment producing a landslide...huh? Even if Gingrich were to get the nomination, I think Obama would win a relatively close general; if it's Romney, I think either Obama wins a very close general, or Romney wins going away.

The only thing that might bring back sanity and civility is the destruction of the current GOP. If Republicans wake up next Nov. 7 to see that their extremist-obstructionist posture of the last four years has only reelected a president who started the year below 50 percent (as he will) and whom they should have been able to beat, then they might finally return to earth.

I bet he said this in October '08.

i used to really love tomasky, he has been kinda unfocused at newsweek so far i think, & he wrote a pro-sibelius post last week re: plan B etc.

but re 'could the GOP be heading for disaster'?, i do sorta think that especially if they nominate gingrich, the huge disconnect between party infighting/base satisfaction, with the basic beer-test, tv-friendly, kennedy-vs-nixon appeal of a candidate could be exposed, and they could just bomb. idk how many people are vaguely in between but who the fuck is going to vote for gingrich in a GE unless they love him.

Or hate Obama...which surely covers many of the states that are solidly Republican. Gingrich or no Gingrich, I don't think "Texans for Obama" is going to happen.

this video is worth 1000 words. but i've still reprinted 22 of those words below.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/12/romney-2002-moderate-progressive-not-partisan-Worcester

I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.

I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.

I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.

I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.

I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.

I think people recognize that I'm not a partisan Republican—that I'm someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.

better embed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMcjJEXt9To&feature=player_embedded

i used to like tomasky too until i realized he basically just writes the same columns as everybody else

sheesh I'd never seen that clip

this race is gonna get so lol

i used to like tomasky too until i realized he basically just writes the same columns as everybody else

― his venerable escutcheon, Tuesday, 13 December 2011 15:37 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

idk. i like him as a writer, i don't know whether it's just that i thought he was particularly suited to the informality of blogging, over the more necessarily fully-formed-premise-based nature of his NW columns. just hasn't grabbed me yet. & the plan b thing.

Oppo research! Please get that clip to Newt a.s.a.p.

I heard the clip of the gay vet telling the media hordes he knows Mittens is a fake by looking into his eyes, which frankly is BS. I'm sure he would've been impressed 4 years ago by Bam's lyin' eyes.

I didn't think that clip was so awesome-awful either.

In a sane world, not at all; boasting of your moderation is the kiss of death in terms of the nomination.

I think alfred was talking about the gay-vet clip

yes

Mittens comes off decently; he answered the question without her eyes crossing, as Bachmann did when that kid programmed by lesbian parents questioned her.

*HIS eyes crossing, heh

Oops--I meant the one just above.

without her eyes crossing, as Bachmann did when that kid programmed by lesbian parents questioned her.

her eyes weren't crossing. they were summoning a righeous blast of hellfire from the lord.

and now for a funny little story about Mittens' dad:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jR1D9gmHyL8/TuepsEKfc2I/AAAAAAAAAO4/I9LGdawDEbU/s1600/GroganRomneyNYT.jpg

Man, bring back the days when Republican presidential candidates actively campaigned in San Francisco.

"articulation is a key identifier of intelligence (esp to me)."

?? i don't get this, its an identifier of a certain kind of intelligence but certainly a very limited one