Oh man, this is painful to watch;
The conventional “wisdom” going forward is that Willard’s awkwardness on display here, along with the Herculean task of walking back all the stuff he had to say on his journey into Wingnuttia in order to win the primary, will give Obama a relatively easy ride to a second term.
The idea seems to be that so long as there are no wild-cards, like another economic meltdown or something, Obama is more or less home free. I’m not so sure.
Willard has all summer to re-market himself, and gobs of money to do it with. It’s true that he’s awkward, as this video excruciatingly shows. So what? I don’t think that’s a game-changer necessarily at all. It also seems to me that more than a few of the voters Romney will need to win over are likely to be more “understanding”, even forgiving, of his recent walk on the dark side.
It might not be as tough as many liberals like to think for him to rebuild his image as being closer to the “moderate” (ha!) Mass. Governor than the drooling wingnut he “impersonated” for the primary campaign. That old “etch-a-sketch” strategy depends on a lot of indies and fence -sitters being persuaded of exactly that, and thus not finding him as spooky as the d’s would wish to portray him.
That’s not an outrageous bet at all. Certainly no more outrageous that the democrats habitual faith that somehow, magically, rationality will prevail, and that actual substantive arguments and data will be the deciding factor. No matter what, it’s all still going to be a war of messaging, and we all know who tends to dominate that game.
If Mitt’s people can cut some kind of deal with the theocrats and the Randians, getting them to cool their jets for the duration of the campaign so as to facilitate such a repositioning, this thing could very easily be a nailbiter. That may not be so tough—they don’t trust Romney, sure, but they really hate Obama with a passion, and destroying his Presidency has been “job one” since, well, day one.
(I have a lot of family stuff going on right now, along with (unusually early) Spring chores, so posting will be sparser for a week or two—I haven’t had much time to read the news here lately.)
Gunny, thought I’d do what the Invisible Hand might do and check the market: best online Obama bet I could find: ten will get you fifteen. Best Mittens bet: ten will get you 32. So the ‘markets’ aren’t saying Obama is a runaway shoe-in, but they aren’t convinced. Yet…
Hell the country voted for Bushbaby. Twice. That’s the bad news. Worse news is, we were in pretty good shape when he was in, so he could only bring the country to its knees. We aren’t far up off our knees a the moment, no way could we take another pummeling like that. Like Bushbaby said, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
Well we know he didn’t actually finish the thought, it being too complicated for him, but I don’t see Romney fooling too many people about what kind of man he really is. Not at this point.
Sorry, meant to say the markets aren’t convinced it’s anywhere near neck and neck.
“It also seems to me that more than a few of the voters Romney will need to win over are likely to be more “understanding”, even forgiving, of his recent walk on the dark side.”
Even some of us northeastern liberals know that he did what he had to do.
Catch that bit last night in the speech about letting dreamers dream bigger? Sounds like a 180 on immigration to me .
Remember, Mittens really doesn’t owe the wingnuts shit. Look at the bind the wingnuts are in now. Hold your nose and vote for the Mormon. Or don’t vote, and let the Muslim win.
There’s a long ways to go, and the swing states are not natural Democratic territory. They may not be natural Romney country either, but they have shown a predilection towards being conservative. A couple of more months of anemic job growth and Obama’s message that all the states should be blue is not going to wear well. As I generally consider Obama’s proposed policies to be in la la land, that is what I would anticipate. There could also be another green company collapse. First Solar is trending there, though I expect it will last the year. No matter how the Supreme Court rules on ACA, it will inure to Romney’s advantage as he can simply point out that independents just may be more comfortable with his potential nominees that Obama’s, and independents just may think that’s true.
Anyhoo, there’s really not much to discuss as probably most activity the next few months will be behind the scenes in private fund raisers, leaving political bloggers on CIF to ponder such weighty questions as to which is the shitburger and which the douche bag? Summer doldrums came early.
Just took a look at the eaglets. They are huge. Momma’s gonna’ have to start bringing them livestock soon.
“Just took a look at the eaglets. They are huge.”
And really, that’s the proper perspective to assume.
PS
Exactly.
Now Willard needs for them not to sit this one out, just as Obama needs not to have the so-called progressives who were enchanted by him, and who worked their butts of for him in ’08, sit this one out either.
Here’s the thing though: no matter what Obama does, the wingnut right will never support him, and their hatred of Obama doesn’t need a whole lot of tending to keep it smouldering enough to get them to the polls.
But the progressives who are now cruelly disenchanted with Obama are going to need some TLC to get their juices flowing again, and the less toxic Willard can be made to appear, the more vital that becomes.
I tell you, right now, if it wasn’t for the implications for Scotus appointments, I’d sit this one out myself. And even with that, if I wasn’t in a swing-state I’d sit it out anyway. Well, I wouldn’t sit out the whole ballot, because there’s some local stuff that really matters, but I’d write in 9milerancher for President and to hell with the both of them.
9 Mile or Waco for a write in. And Gunny / Kevin/ Natty for AMC. Don’t think Matt bit on that one though. But next week is May.
I hope i’m voting in a different state come November, don’t give a rat’s ass about this one, happy to leave it rot. Have fuck all for choices, unless the Dem General Treasurer Gina Raimondo ran for any office. Up to and including Potus.
btw Gunny, if you’re not paying attn to the news – i caught it at work and a lot of shit apparently happened today.
Newt packed it in finally and will endorse Mittens. Scotus is leaning towards upholding Arizona’s SB 1070.
All I want to know is, why does every election have to be like some past election? Especially, why do they all have to exactly like some other election that we’re now obliged to acknowledge as “transformative?”
On the other hand, if this really is 1988 or 1992 or 2000 all over again, then maybe on my flight home tomorrow I’ll sit next to that crazy hippie chick I met in the summer of 68. Now that election had a few points in its favor, even taking Nixon into account.
I’ll sit next to that crazy hippie chick I met in the summer of 68.
fuck, that was me! (whispers) even if i was below jailbait then.
That’s what it all comes down to, I reckon. And there is clearly only one conservative in this race. And it is clearly not Romney.
You are all overlooking a factor here: the compulsive dishonesty of the Jellyfish.
He really cannot admit to any mistake or flipflop and he keeps on doing this thing, all the time. There is little chance that he will suddenly become more controlled PLUS more honest as the campaign runs into the fall.
At some point, people will move beyond laughing, to thinking. The independent voters will decide this thing, as usual. This guy does not have the charm to turn this around.
Plus, Gunny, you are also overlooking the distaste of female voters for anyone with the Republican label, this year. The gender gap is huge. That new idjit in Mississippi, did not improve matters yesterday with his assertion that Democrats have no other thought in our heads than “aborting children”.
Again, we face an election where anyone who pays attention will be pissed off at both parties. But the GOP have provoked a backlash on several fronts, including a big one from the AARP that is just beginning to develop. I really do not think this will be a good year for Republicans.
It is difficult to turn out any incumbent when major blocs of voters are angry with your team.
Amy/Pornstar
So where are you hoping to move to?
Re the election – TD is right, far too early to think about polling. Trends may become obvious over the summer, but I do not think many voters even think about who they are going to vote for until after labor day. So whatever they tell a pollster now may not translate into votes in November.
But it is interesting looking at the betting. also interesting to look at Ezra Klein’s model in WAPO.
Porn is right, Mitt doesn’t owe the right anything….on the other hand the guy has integrity issues and continually changing his mind does nothing to help that. I believe that at the moment not only do people not like him, they don’t trust him either.
Elena:
put well, there, the very problem in few words:
That is a disqualification for this particular job.
Can anyone see this guy growing a spine, and a new personality, in just a few weeks?
It is always easier to see the difficulties on your own side, and ignore the problems for the other side.
Of course not. But it is going to be excruciating to watch him pretend to do both.
kevin
Point taken, but let me play a little more devil’s advocacy just for grins (it’s all I have time for this morning);
What I’m saying is that Mitt’s glaring flip-flops can become part of a carefully managed narrative evoking sympathy among some (many) Indy voters, those who will generally lean GOP unless they are repelled from doing so. The batshit crazy utterances which would repel them, those of the kind you mention from the “idjit in Mississippi” can serve a different purpose now: whereas during the primary they were the dogs that herded the Weasel to the right, they can now become the baseline from which the new, re-tooled Romneybot v 3.0 is contrasted.
A carefully orchestrated PAC campaign can push the sympathetic narrative that all that unpleasantness was necessary to win the primary, but now that silliness is over with the candidate can now say what he really means. Plenty of people get this, and are amenable to being persuaded. Not the likes of you and me, of course, but we don’t matter in this strategy—the GOP is not talking to us.
You’re right that he doesn’t have the “charm” too. But then Dubya was not exactly Cary Grant either.
I’m not fighting with you here, you and I are not that far apart on most of these things, what I’m doing is suggesting that many of the characteristics which Willard has revealed during the primary can be overcome by the right messaging. Some of them (the gender divide, say) are more problematic to mitigate. Those will have to be marginalized by focus on Other Things, something the GOP excels at doing—and they may get some help from the economy in that department. If that fails, there’s always horny Secret Service agents too fucking cheap to pay their bills, or Michelle’s ‘anger’, or Sharia Law, or … you get the idea.
Now if the d’s actually sharpen their skills at capturing news cycles—if they would get even half as good at that as Sarah Palin once was, say—then they should do OK.
And what a day that will be, my friend. I’ve been wondering if I shall ever live to see it. Are you proposing some kind of “critical mass” theory here?
Elena;
Agree completely about polls at this point in time. I’m not even looking at them. You’re right, it’s pointless. I will include the “likeablity” polls too. People are fickle.
Elena -
Back to either NYC or the Bay Area…
they don’t trust him either.
Neither do i really, except for the uncharacteristic bursts of sanity and reasonableness he spits out when his guard is down.
Gunny:
good points.
Dem’s can be very good at managing the media. The Clinton re-election team in 1996 was legendary for their skill at counterpunching. They became so adept at throwing every GOP jab back in a distracting manner that Dole never really could get any traction.
Ted Kennedy also made life so difficult for Dole that he had to leave the Senate just to recover control of his own daily calendar. The insider’s coverage on that (some by Chris Matthews) was a riot to read, at the time.
And the people who inhabit the White House have a built-in advantage at this game. The agenda can be dominated from the WH press room.
There is one more reason to hope that the super-PACS will not buy this election. The teevee is no longer the only source of information. Quite a few people tune out the ads, the mute buttons get very exercised. That is why the Dark Side hires scum like the New NG, pays them to haunt sites like CiF-A. That money is spent for a reason.
One final point: the Jellyfish will continue to supply us all with fresh material, right up to the finish. He cannot help himself.
The more he tries to be the “real Mitt” the worse it will get.
“Quite a few people tune out the ads, the mute buttons get very exercised. That is why the Dark Side hires scum like the New NG, pays them to haunt sites like CiF-A. That money is spent for a reason.”
So everyone on Cif-A can put him on mute?
Pornilicious:
yeah, it’s very simple. Remind any new arrivals that the guy is a paid operative, and cite examples to prove it. I did that the last time we shared a thread, and he actually went away for a while.
What that forum really needs is a leader who takes some responsibility and who gives a damn for the quality of discourse. And can write, well, several times a day. Mike brought us all of those qualities, AMC none.
Porn – FYI, NYC rents are skyrocketing at the moment.
One more point:
The President is working on the cool side, in a way impossible for the Jellyfish.
Check this one out.