2012 GOP, who's it going to be?

[Murbella]

I was under the impression that Republicans in general wanted to (at least partially) disable the "safety net" so Romney saying the poor are fine because they have food stamps is kind of shockingly out of touch.

Taken by itself, his comment wasn't hugely damning. It was pretty clear he didn't mean he didn't care about the poor if you listen to the whole thing, but if he says the poor are fine because they have their safety nets and then he wants to cut those same safety nets that make the poor fine...

On the other hand, you can't make up better attack ad material than this.

Romney: "it is time we get people back to work!" (crowd cheers)(freeze and slow zoom on Romney's face)
Announcer: "Romney says he cares about the american people, but who is he really talking about?"
Romney: "I don't care about the poor, they have their safety nets."
Announcer: "Safety nets romney campaigned on cutting in order to keep his 15% tax, lower than his secretary"
Romney: "corporations are people too my friend. Where do you think the money goes?"
(Crowd responding with laughter and telling him in his pocket)
Gingrich: (comments about Romney firing people and making record profits)
Perry: "Down in the south we like to call people like Romney Vulture capitalists" (whatever he said to that effect)
(cut to that black and white video of romney in his early years, wearing a suit and shaking hands with his bain friends)
Announcer: "This year, tell romney that there are more 'people' than just Corporations"
Romney: "I don't care about the poor"

[strategy]

Stated in context that isn't nearly as stupid sounding as it did on it's own. But he will very much regret the way he said it.

That's kind of my point. When is anything ever quoted in context in politics? This is just such a dumb thing for a candidate to say - even more dumb when you are THE rich candidate.

[jeffd]

I was under the impression that Republicans in general wanted to (at least partially) disable the "safety net" so Romney saying the poor are fine because they have food stamps is kind of shockingly out of touch.

They very much do, which is what, IMO, truly makes his comment ridiculous. "The poor are doing fine. I intend to change that."

[Houngan]

I don't know what kind of "idealism" you're talking about, unless it's the Administration's misguided belief that the GOP members of Congress during 2009 and 2010 had any intention of bargaining in good faith on ANYTHING. Unfortunately, the Dems are mostly in bed with Wall St. and the investment banking sector, so Dodd-Frank ended up being so watered down as to be nearly meaningless.

That would be exactly the idealism to which I was referring. After the first six months they should have started cracking the whip and gotten shit done.

H.

[Mark Asher]

Stated in context that isn't nearly as stupid sounding as it did on it's own. But he will very much regret the way he said it.

It's very stupid because he could have made the same point without dragging in the "poor" and the "very rich." Note that he said "very rich" and not "rich" also. He's apparently still concerned about the rich! They need help too!

[Murbella]

New thought:

With a little effective cutting of romney's last comment, you could make it sound like "I don't care about the poor. The rich are fine"

[Mark Asher]

New thought:

With a little effective cutting of romney's last comment, you could make it sound like "I don't care about the poor. The rich are fine"

That would be tit for tat after that ad the Republicans ran that took a sound byte by Obama deliberately out of context.

[Jason Townsend]

The mushy centrist media would melt down completely because of the IOKIYAR double standard.

[Timex]

Way too many letters in that acronym.

Regarding taking things out of context, it can sometimes be tricky. I think a few years ago someone took some guy's comments totally out of context, to the extent that it implied he was saying the opposite of his actual statement. When the original statement was made clear to the public, they turned on the guy who was running the ad, and he ended up getting crushed in the election.

The voting public can be a fickle beast.

[ShivaX]

Way too many letters in that acronym.

Regarding taking things out of context, it can sometimes be tricky. I think a few years ago someone took some guy's comments totally out of context, to the extent that it implied he was saying the opposite of his actual statement. When the original statement was made clear to the public, they turned on the guy who was running the ad, and he ended up getting crushed in the election.

The voting public can be a fickle beast.

Wasn't it the dude that was quoted in an ad as saying something to the effect of "women should be subservient to their husbands" or the like when the actual context was him saying that he thought the exact opposite?

The Daily Show nailed that dude to the wall on that one.

[Timex]

Ya, that's the one.

[Murbella]

Way too many letters in that acronym.

Regarding taking things out of context, it can sometimes be tricky. I think a few years ago someone took some guy's comments totally out of context, to the extent that it implied he was saying the opposite of his actual statement. When the original statement was made clear to the public, they turned on the guy who was running the ad, and he ended up getting crushed in the election.

The voting public can be a fickle beast.

That person was an idiot then.

The correct political tactic is to have your "completely independent political action group" run the ad while at the same time calling for an end to attack ads.

For example:

Gamers Alliance For Freedom (this is what i would name mine): Mit Romney doesn't care about the poor, unless they are mormons!

Murbella during debate: It is time to get big money out of politics! For too long have special interests such as unions and government workers <pause for booing> bought up air time to spread their vile attack ads which more often than not are completely untrue attacks in order to support our president! <pause for booing>. Why, just yesterday i sat down with my family to watch some football <pause for applause> and I saw a deplorable ad attacking my fellow Republican, mit romney. Now, we've had our differences but i'm sure mit romney actually cares about the poor and anyone who claims that he doesn't care about them and wants to take their food stamps in order to give more money to the mormon church is not being honest.

Gamers Alliance For Freedom: Mit Romney says he is against Gays, but these videos show him going in to the bathroom with Larry Craig.

We saw Romney doing this a bit during debates when gingrich cried on his shoulder about the attack ads bringing up his past assholery. It is the primary means to have your cake and eat it too.

[ShivaX]

Well now Mitt says it was taken out of context or something. Even though the interviewer went out of her way to basically say "Are you sure you want to say that? How about you reword that?" To which Romney's response was basically along the lines of "You heard me."

But you know, he does a lot of interviews. He can't be bothered to pay attention to small fries like CNN.

[JeffL]

Mitt now says he wished he hadn't said it that way.

Duh.

[Mark Asher]

Mitt now says he wished he hadn't said it that way.

Duh.

Yeah, double duh. I assume it's captured on tape, however. It should make for a nice advertising soundbite.

Thing is, I believe him. I don't think he's worried about the poor or the "very rich." I'm sure he's plenty worried about the wealthy, however.

[Two Sheds]

No shit, Mitt. You can just imagine the horrified look on his campaign manager's face while he's saying that.

[Rightbug]

Krugman had a good piece today saying that the more context you give Romney's quote, the worse it becomes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/op...&smid=fb-share

[Lorini]

Interesting analysis from fivethirtyeight.com regarding the economy and Obama's chances for election. I really would urge you to read the whole thing. Right now, his chances are fair to moderate if you look at the economy but as we all know, the coming months will tell the story.

[MatthewF]

Krugman had a good piece today saying that the more context you give Romney's quote, the worse it becomes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/op...&smid=fb-share

Wow, that is damning.

[Papageno]

What a total phony Romney is. The sad part is there's a strong probability that he'll be President, because enough morons out there keep wanting to "take their country back" from the scary "foreign" brown man (I'm certain that that segment makes up a significant minority of the GOP base since the Nixon campaign started tapping into their fears and resentments in '68, and it's only gotten worse since then).

[Tin Wisdom]

The sad part is there's a strong probability that he'll be President, because enough morons out there keep wanting to "take their country back" from the scary "foreign" brown man

I read this wrong the first couple times. I kept thinking, "surely he doesn't think that the Mormon population is large enough to guarantee the election?"

[Murbella]

Well, apparently according to santorum, socialized medicine is the evil drug that evil liberals use to sucker people in to letting the government control their lives completely (obviously Santorum thinks it is ok to control people if they are gay or non married women).

Was i the only one who caught that he left out one key word when quoting a certain passage:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Unless i just missed it, Santorum paused at the creator word and then skipped over it. I'm not sure why he would do this though as his speech was VERY pro religion.

The question is, is Santorum a closet Atheist?

[JD]

On a totally unrelated note: BLR takes on Newt.

[Mark Asher]

So Santorum wins in Missouri and Minnesota and is leading in Colorado. These are for bragging rights, mostly, but they will get him a lot of press and continue to show how weak Romney is.

It really is the crazy year in Republican politics. It's making me laugh.

[AaronSofaer]

Anyone have a good link for a breakdown of the Republican Primary as it currently stands? Like, the states that have been voted on thus far, the states to come, how many delegates have been won by which candidate in which states, and the polling for the next round of states?

[charmtrap]

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/calendar

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/delegates

[AaronSofaer]

I thought Florida lost its winner-takes-all status for some reason? *confused*

[charmtrap]

I thought so too. As I understood it, none of the primaries before Mar. 1st were allowed to be winner-take-all. But that delegate page says "The Republican Party penalized Florida for holding its primary in January by taking away half of its delegates. The 50 delegates go to the candidate with the highest total vote statewide."

So I guess there's something here I don't understand.

[Miramon]

Santorum? No way. Santorum? Are you kidding me, Minnesota? Missouri, Colorado, meh, I can believe it, but Minnesota? I used to like Minnesota.

All the animals come out on election day -- neocons, paleocons, teabaggers, birchers, grafters, chiselers, lobbyists, sick, venal. Some day a real rain will come and wash the scum off the streets. And then there will be no one left in politics.

[Jason McCullough]

Apparently Santorum was the only candidate doing anything at all in those states why everyone else focused on Nevada.