If O drank Bin Laden’s blood, would that prove he’s not a Muslim? I don’t know my sharia well enough.
might prove he’s not a jehova’s witness
prob not kosher either, so AIPAC would be pissed
lolwat
lol
such a dumb — and, shockingly, scripted — move by romney. first, he’s going to endure a firestorm for looking so smug and out of touch (something that didn’t immediately occur to me when i heard about this wager-offer). and when that begins to subside, people are going to start looking at the substance of his proposed “bet,” which shines an uncomfortable light on romney’s fondness for an individual mandate(and yes, romney did remove an incriminating line from his book). finally, it will shine an uncomfortable light on the fact that romney made this change in his book when it became expedient to do so (once the debate shifted to where obama himself was proposing an individual mandate), exposing him — once again — as a flip-flopper.
i think the bet thing is overblown. it seemed facetious, and designed to prove a point (romney strongly believes in his point-of-view). but it also made him look like an ass when he didn’t need to, and it’s going to draw tons of attention to an issue where he really is very vulnerable with GOP voters,(n.1) but somehow has (until now) sidestepped the issue.
____________________________
(n.1) romney’s got a defensible position on this, but its a procedural position, i.e., that the fed gov’t doesn’t have the power, under the reverse commerce-clause, to force americans to buy a private insurance product, but individual states do. but that misses the base’s fury over obamacare, which is that no gov’t should have the power to force you to buy a private insurance product, whether it be a state or federal gov’t. romney has been very skilled at playing slight-of-hand with this, and it even appeared that the GOP base would overlook the deception, even if exposed, but that free-pass might be over now.
I can’t quite tell if you think the bet was a big deal or not a big deal...your last two posts seem to contradict each other. (I think it’s a big deal in the short term, regardless of whether it should be or not, and the short term is important when you’re inside a three-week window before the first votes are cast.)
it’s a big deal in terms of hurting romney’s image. but it shouldn’t have been a big deal (tr: media has overblown a minor moment).
but romney’s also gotten a pass on so many issues for so long in this primary season that he would have no real right to complain.
Most presidential campaigns include a whole series of tempests in teapots like this one. What’s amazing is that, eventually they add up to most of what the campaign was “about”. So, on the face of it, our campaigns appear to be “about” nothing (which isn’t strictly true).
Most presidential campaigns include a whole series of tempests in teapots like this one.
yeah, that’s true. detailed policy discussions are complicated and boring. “gotcha” moments are easily-understood and exciting.
i wish we could develop an exciting game-show that’s based on a real, deep understanding of policy issues, that people would love like america’s got talent, or whatever those shows are.
Think about how big a deal Obama’s “guns and religion” comment became in 2008, and how it supposedly revealed all sorts of sinister behind-closed-doors stuff about him. (I imagine Republicans—maybe even some Democrats—believe more adamantly than ever that that comment defined him perfectly.)
Don Gonyea @DonGonyea — At diner in Ames, Perry was autographing photocopies of $10,000 bills.
lol
<i>detailed policy discussions are complicated and boring</i>
I think that’s mostly true as an explanation, but it’s not quite that straightforward. Policy discussions also involve a lot of things that I think most people believe will not change more than incrementally no matter who wins. So the sideshow’s more tangible, and more directly indicative of the living-room test that presidents have to pass. And yes, I do realize that appalls many people.
I’m a little surprised that the big story out of last night wasn’t that we now know Rick Perry’s read two books (and that if he proceeds to read a third one, he’s venturing into dangerous territory should anyone ever ask him to name them).
Don Gonyea @DonGonyea — At diner in Ames, Perry was autographing photocopies of $10,000 bills.
lol
― Daniel, Esq., Sunday, December 11, 2011 4:02 PM (1 hour ago)
“Printed reproductions, including photographs of paper currency, checks, bonds, postage stamps, revenue stamps, and securities of the United States and foreign governments (except under the conditions previously listed) are violations of Title 18, Section 474 of the United States Code. Violations are punishable by a fine or imprisonment for up to 15 years, or both.”
http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml
<koff>
hm. maybe mitt will post perry’s bail.
The new polls today are striking in two respects. First, Newt is headed toward a landslide victory in the early states, apart from New Hampshire. He beats Romney in Florida and South Carolina by 15 and 19 points respectively. But in the same poll, Obama beats Gingrich in the general election in both Florida and South Carolina! I know it’s way too soon, and I will bet, I dunno, $10,000, that the Republican candidate will win South Carolina next November. But still: Obama beats Gingrich by 12 points in Florida. Nationally, Obama beats Newt by around the same margin he beat John McCain—6.9 percent—during a brutal recession.
Romney is far more competitive with Obama (behind by only 1.5 percent) but still underperforms the generic Republican by 2.5 points. So now you know why the Establishment is beginning to panic.
romney 42.2, gingrich 38.8 on intrade
lol. “i’m not a betting man,” but at those odds, i’d say put 10K on romney.
obama elected pres—50.4
romney elected pres—20.9
gingrich elected pres—17.5
obama+romney would be a pretty good bet. ~70% one of those two people becomes president?
I’d be too nervous to put a sizable amount of real money on either Romney or Gingrich right now. If I had go, I’d go with Gingrich.
lol, and just wait till newt secures the crucial sarah palin endorsement!
and we can build this dream together
standing strong forever
nothing gonna stop newt now.
I forget that Palin’s still out there, guaranteed to swoop down at some point. I don’t think her endorsement would do much for Gingrich; presumably he has 95% of her true believers in the bag. If she could come up with some kind of plausible rationale for endorsing Romney (presumably getting much in return), I could see where that would hurt Gingrich.
Depending upon your tolerance for Matthew Dowd and/or Charlie Rose, and how hopeless a junkie you are in general for this stuff (I got it bad!), here’s a half-hour of Dowd on Gingrich:
you guys appetite for that kinda thing is still blowing my mind; i know there’s a stage at which elections become intravenously fascinating but at this stage it still seems like a half hour of thinking about gingrich (/re-streaming a debate/w/e) you could avoid
It’s semiotics. I listen to these talking heads earnestly mention how The [insert noun] Issue will “slow him down” with certain voters and it’s all crap. Pundits only care about these “issues” insofar as they affect a candidate’s performance.
I wouldn’t mind this folderol if our press didn’t already spend too much time reducing endemic problems into “issues” suitable for Politico types.
it is for this ^^^^^^ reason that i only listen to dennis perrin.
Weird coincidence: Perry briefly made reference to semiotics in last night’s debate.
The political-junkie mindset has been a fact of life forever. You either find this stuff fascinating or you don’t. I wouldn’t be as interested right now if Romney were sleepwalking to the nomination as was expected, but what’s going on right now is amazing—and, with Romney’s campaign seriously teetering, I don’t think negligible in terms of who ultimately faces Obama.
I’d argue nothing has changed except for the media, looking to increase hit counts, starting the vetting earlier. The limelight shifting from Bachmann to Perry to Cain to Gingrich isn’t much different than we’ve seen in other primary cycles, except now we’re inundated with debates months before the first caucus.
I mean, of course we won’t know who the frontrunner is. It’s December 2011!
The number of debates has been insane, I agree. But I think the central story—a perfectly acceptable candidate who would have a good chance of beating the incumbent getting spurned by his party, and said party toying with walking over a cliff—is, again, fascinating. I don’t know that I can remember anything similar since I started paying attention in ’76.
I think you walk off a cliff, not over one. You see, this is what happens when you spend too much time watching Rick Perry.
The bet as an extension of Romney’s temperament:
Re: that article’s starting premise, since when has anyone called Mitt Romney ‘unflappable’? He’s generally good at not lashing out with, for instance, a “Have you ever sexually harassed anyone?”, but his general lack of spontaneous overreaction doesn’t make him any less flappable. He seems pretty thoroughly flapped in most public appearances where he’s challenged in the slightest. I’m pretty sure that’s what Constipation Face is all about.
Hertzberg has a few yuks here.
xxpost
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?”.
an affable flapper!
Looks like Rick Perry as Daisy Buchanan.
but he always seemed to be one jibe away from blurting, “Hey, fuck you guys, okay?”.
― In Your Velour Slacks (Hairplug Receipts), Monday, 12 December 2011 16:03 (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink
lol, otm. the weirdest thing about the $10000 bet clip is just how much insincere masking of base human emotions is going on; with Perry’s weird, smiling attempt to indict Mitt & then Mitt deploying his autochuckle so he can be seen to laugh it off. there’s this long silence after Perry says his part, it just hangs in the air. both smiling. so weird.
“He is not going to make it,” he said. “Because you can’t trust him. I just saw it in his eyes. I judge a man by his eyes.”
So, does he agree with Mr. Romney on any issue?
“I kind of liked his health care plan in Massachusetts,” Mr. Garon said.
take this to the zing thread
He seems pretty thoroughly flapped
Love that.
Wow that confrontation between romney and the veteran looked bad for romney. not sure how it played on tv, if it was video-captured, but sounded bad.
ok, idk how to embed youtubes on ilx anymore i guess — anyway, ron paul continuing to produce high quality production videos that make newt look terrible
reminds me of when gordon brown had to talk to an old lady.
delete the “feature=player_embedded” parameter; the URL needs to look like “watch?v=blahblahblah”
I’ve had that happen. You can’t embed an embed code from somebody’s else’s site; you’ve got to go to the original YouTube page.
Paul’s going to bring down Newt; Huntsman’s going to bring down Romney; Newt and Romney are going to destroy each other. Into the breach, the only man who can truly restore America.
it’s too bad he’s totally insane bc ron paul is clearly the most intelligent dude on the debate stage.
wha? no. (romney)
I’m still cracking up at
PERRY: I’d cut three departments; commerce, education and... uh... help me out here!
PAUL: There’s five!
i don’t get a sense that romney is particularly smart. i mean, he’s not dumb (like Perry or Bachmann)
he’s v smart.
The way I read Ron Paul is that his convictions have some very attractive bits, like knowing what torture is and why it is bad, and some bits that are batshit crazy, like a return to the gold standard. When he talks about the attractive bits he sounds intelligent. His greatest strength is that he has convictions, not that he arrived at them by being smart.
No Ayn Randian should ever be considered smart about anything but inanimate objects.
i don’t get a sense that romney is particularly smart
His plan is working! The RR base have contempt for anyone who looks or acts smart.
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.
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:
you can see the rage and resentment that is buried within Willard Romney.
man I forgot about this:
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?
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
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
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.