Global thinker Paul Ryan

By Frank Moraes

Alec MacGillis at The New Republic has now written about "Paul Ryan, Global Thinker?" In the article, he alerts us to a new list from Foreign Policy, "100 Top Global Thinkers." Such exercises are always stupid. Earlier this year, I wrote about Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, "Pathetic Rock Journalism at Rolling Stone." In that article, I was particularly upset that George Harrison was listed at number 11. But I have to give The Rolling Stone credit: George Harrison was, in fact, a guitarist. I don't think that Paul Ryan qualifies as a global thinker.

The article starts by listing Ryan's bona fides as a budget guy: cut Medicaid by a third -- check; privatize Medicare -- check; savage all remaining programs other than the military -- check! According to Foreign Policy these are "bold" ideas that Ryan gradually got the Republican Party to embrace.

Wait, wait, wait! Just hold the fuck on there! Stop!

We haven't even gotten to the foreign policy part of the argument and the magazine has already piled the bullshit so high I can't see. What they fail to mention is that the first step in Ryan's budget balancing plan is to cut income tax rates. So let's look at this plan. It lowers taxes (especially on the rich) and cuts spending on programs for the poor and middle class. This is what Republicans always want. This is not a budget; this is a Republican wish list. So Foreign Policy magazine gets a very slow start by not understanding anything about Paul Ryan's domestic agenda.

Halfway through their argument, the editors finally get to Paul Ryan's global thinking. They do this by lying, "In the 2012 presidential election, contender Mitt Romney didn't just champion Ryan's ideas -- he tapped the 42-year-old libertarian-leaning lawmaker as his running mate, catapulting the debate over the size and scope of the U.S. government to the top of the political agenda." This one isn't even close. MacGillis responds, "Well, not exactly -- Romney tapped Ryan and didn't champion his ideas."

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Mitt Romney: Climate change denier and all around jackass

By Richard K. Barry

Remember this? Remember when Romney made that dumbass joke in his convention speech, ridiculing President Obama for wanting to "slow the rise of oceans" and fight climate change.

Don't seem so funny now, does it? What a dick.

Bill Clinton noticed. Watch the way he narrows his eyes when he says the word "ridicule." What a master.

As an added bonus, I'll throw in the clip from the convention speech in which Romney shows just how stupid he is, with the idiots in the room laughing along. I didn't add the commentary, but I approve.

Science is a bitch, huh Mitt?



(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Quote of the Day: Clint Eastwood on those "dumb enough" Republicans

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

"If somebody is dumb enough to ask me to go to political convention and say something, they're gonna have to take what they get," said Eastwood in an interview Tuesday with the television show "Extra" about the convention speech that won rave reviews, puzzled looks and slacked jaws.

As Harry Callahan, Eastwood's character, says in Magnum Force, the first sequel to Dirty Harry, "a man's got to know his limitations."

(By the way, for a good assessment of Eastwood's "eclectic," "attitudinal" political leanings, see this piece by Chris Orr at The Atlantic.)

When the going gets tough, campaign advisors and strategists start thinking about their next gig

By Richard K. Barry
 

Don't worry about me. I'm filthy rich.

When campaigns start to get into trouble, everyone begins blaming everyone else. It's standard practice. Hired political consultants live and die based on their reputations, and having a hand in losing a major campaign is never helpful on the old resume. Better to say early that if only things had been done your way, so-and-so would have won.

Politico reported recently about how Romney's RNC speech got bungled and there are new stories about how the campaign has now decided to shift gears at this late date to include other issues beyond the economy, like social conservative chestnuts and foreign policy. And conservative pundits are starting to see the blood in the water too, already offering reasons that Romney might not win.

As for tensions within the Romney campaign, The New York Times writes this:

Talk of infighting within the Romney headquarters in Boston has been percolating for months, but the report in Politico drew new attention to it and raised questions about Mr. Romney's management of the campaign, which includes advisers who have been with him since his first run for Massachusetts governor, since he entered presidential politics, and others like Mr. Stevens and his partner Russ Schriefer, who have become still more prominent this campaign season.

While the same story suggested it does not appear to be Romney's style to dismiss advisors, these kinds of stories can't be good.

Still, as First Read points out, when the going gets tough, advisors and consultants start pointing fingers. Referring to the Politico piece on the RNC speech debacle, they conclude with this observation:

But what is surprising is that such an article is coming so soon, before the debates and before this race is truly decided. But the Politico piece is more than a story about Stevens and other Romney officials; it’s a story about Mitt Romney. How could someone who has campaigned on his managerial experience, including running a billion-dollar enterprise -- in Politico's telling -- make something as basic as writing a convention acceptance speech seem so chaotic? As the article even quips, the campaign structure has become so unwieldy that it badly needs a consultant from Bain & Co. to fix things. Bottom line: This kind of article doesn't get written about winning campaigns. Then again, this race isn't over. But oh, what a bad narrative it feeds at the start of this week.

No, it's not over, but it's starting to feel like the end is near.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

New poll: Obama's remarkable post-convention bounce

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Given factors such as the 24/7 news cycle, the availability of information through multiple media and channels, and the hyper-partisanism of the electorate, it seems unlikely that political conventions will ever be like they once were, or ever have the importance they once had.

No longer do they introduce the presidential candidate to voters. Voters may start paying a bit more attention during the convention, to be sure, but the candidate is already widely known. The purpose now is to unify and energize the party and to try to sway media coverage and narratives for the final push to election day.

And so it would seem that meaningful "bounces" in the polls might just be things of the past as well. Which is to say, there will be bounces, maybe, just not significant ones -- just as Romney emerged from the Republican convention in Tampa with no real shift in his poll numbers.

And yet a new CNN poll shows significant movement for Obama following last week's remarkable Democratic convention in Charlotte:

A new survey indicates President Barack Obama moved up four points following the Democratic National Convention last week, and now has a six point advantage over his Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

According to a CNN/ORC International Poll (PDF) released Monday, 52% of likely voters nationwide back the president, compared to 46% for Romney. Just before the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, Obama was tied with Romney 48%-48%.

Four points is huge, and it wasn't just the top-line numbers:

This year's Democratic event wiped away some of Romney's gains on personal qualities. The Republican nominee's favorable rating increased to 53% after the GOP convention, but fell to 48% one week later after the Democratic event. Meanwhile, Obama rose to 57% in the last week, his highest mark since 2010.

Obama also took away Romney's lead on leadership for the country's future. Now 51% of likely voters think Obama has a more optimistic vision for the country's future, compared to Romney at 41%. Last week, however, 43% said Obama was more optimistic, while 47% said the same about Romney.

Another takeaway from the two conventions was that Obama seemed to come out as the candidate with a more specific plan to help the country. Before the Republican event, 45% thought Romney was more likely to have a clear plan, while only 39% felt the same about the president. Now the two have switched places, with 45% saying Obama has a clear plan, compared 39% saying the same about Romney. 

Of course, it may not last -- and likely won't. But the polls, taken together, paint a pretty clear picture of where the race stands right now, and they show Obama emerging from the Democratic convention with significant upward momentum.

And Republicans, including the Romney campaign, are panicking.

Romney thinks the U.S. should have defaulted on its debt

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Do you have the remotest clue what you're talking about?

The Hill:

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" airing Sunday criticizes GOP leaders, including his own running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), for agreeing to the August 2011 debt-ceiling deal.

Romney was asked about the $109 billion automatic spending cut known as the sequester that is due to hit in January. Some $55 billion comes from the defense budget. 

*****

The debt-ceiling deal was forged by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Vice President Joe Biden hours before the United States was set to exceed its debt ceiling and begin defaulting on its obligations.

His point here is to attack the military spending cuts, and thereby to try to paint himself as tough on defense -- understandably so after his failure to thank the troops in his acceptance speech in Tampa and the Democrats' strong record on national security, on full display this past week in Charlotte.

It was President Obama, after all, who ordered the strike that took out Osama bin Laden. It has been President Obama who has aggressively targeted America's al Qaeda and Taliban enemies, with great success. And it is the Democrats, with President Obama leading them, and with so much good work done by Michelle Obama and others, who have provided America's men and women in uniform with so much support upon their return.

In contrast, Romney has proven to be not just a lightweight on foreign and military matters but an utter embarrassment, bringing ridicule upon himself throughout his overseas trip this summer and otherwise proving to be grossly ignorant on world affairs and U.S. policy. (Russia is America's #1 enemy?!)

But this isn't just about going hard on military spending, saying that he'd spend more than Obama, even though spending more for no reason other than to spend more, and without any real purpose, is a huge part of the current fiscal problem.

Looking back, as Romney does in this interview, it's about how these relatively meager cuts came to be, and that was through a last-minute deal, with the country standing on the brink of default, to avoid disaster. Even most Republicans at time time knew that the game was up, that a deal had to be done, that their ongoing efforts to hold the country hostage had to end, at least temporarily. Defaulting would have send shockwaves not just through the U.S. economy but around the world. This is why prior to that standoff, initiated by Republican ideological extremism and unwillingness to compromise with the president, presidents both Republican and Democratic had kept pushing for debt ceiling increases, and why Congress had always gone along.

And yet here's Mitt Romney, seeking the highest office in the land, offering himself to the American people as the sort of competent, business-savvy manager the country supposedly needs at this time of economic difficulty, criticizing even the extremists in his party who went along with the deal (like his own running mate), basically saying the country should have been allowed to go into default. And all because he wants to pretend he's a tough guy?

Look, this is the same guy who thought Detroit should go bankrupt. So it's hardly any wonder he now says the U.S. should just have defaulted on its debt.

It's incredibly irresponsible as a policy position, showing that his business experience doesn't mean he knows anything about actually running the country, and it's just another pathetic attempt to bolster his image as something other than a recklessly out-of-touch, flip-flopping opportunist.

Too bad for him it's just so transparently obvious.

2004 and 2012

By Comrade Misfit

To set the stage, recall that in 2000, Bill Clinton was finishing up eight years as president. The Democrats nominated Al Gore, who lost the election.[1]

In 2004, Bill Clinton spoke at the Democrats' convention.

In 2008, George W. Bush was finishing up eight years as president. The GOP's nominee lost heavily.[2]

In 2012, at the Republican convention, George W. Bush was nowhere to be found.[3] In point of fact, the man who was the last Republican president barely rated a mention. Apparently, only his brother Jeb felt obliged to mention his name, let alone defend his atrocious record.

Hard to see why, for Bush did what Republicans like: Cut taxes for the rich, pour shitloads of money into defense, and rack up large deficits.

But to listen to the GOP nowadays, it's as though they haven't held the White House since Reagan left office.

Curious, that they need to run away from the last two Republicans who were elected president.
__________________________________________
[1] By a 5-4 vote to George W. Bush.
[2] Well beyond the Republicans' ability to steal.
[3] Presumably, he was too busy inspecting coal mines in Ulan Bator.

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Jingoism in politics

By Michael J.W. Stickings

An observation about the Democratic convention, and about U.S. politics in general:

As the commentariat stressed, the Democrats were incredibly "muscular" yesterday. Romney didn't bother to thank America's men and women serving in the military in his speech in Tampa last week, but both Biden and Obama did, both committing to support the troops, not least when they come home, but also to ensure that the U.S. retains its military dominance. There was a lot of tough talk. Yes, the Iraq War is over; yes, the Afghan War is coming to an end; but the U.S. under Obama and Biden will not shy away from wielding its military might.

I understand this, and the need for it, if only to overcome the ridiculous stereotype that Republicans are tough and Democrats are soft. And of course you need to do this sort of thing when you have all that Republican propaganda about how Democrats, and Obama in particular, are un-American. But I tend to recoil from militarism, and particularly from the sort of jingoistic militarism that is so much a part of U.S. politics and that was on display last night in Charlotte.

And it's not just the militarism. The usual "America is the greatest country in the world" rhetoric was flying all over the place yesterday, just as it did all week, just as it did last week with the Republicans in Tampa. It's the flag-waving jingoism that is de rigueur if you want to make it in American politics, if you want to avoid the un-American label. This is unfortunate, stunting debate and blinding Americans to the reality both of their own country and of the world beyond, blocking the sort of meaningful change that is needed in a constantly changing world. No one doubts America's power, but is it really the greatest country in the world? Is no other country even close? Can America just decide to lead the 21st century and have the rest of the world cower in the shadow of its awesomeness? I'm not so sure.

I love America a great deal. I'm not American in the sense that I'm a citizen (though everyone else who writes here is), but I'm an American in spirit, an American in almost every way (though I am mostly, I must stress, Canadian). My grandfather was in the U.S. Army and fought on the beaches in France, receiving a purple heart and becoming a radio broadcaster in occupied Germany and then back home doing baseball. I can trace my American heritage back, by marriage, to Davy Crockett. I have a lot of family, family I don't see nearly enough of, down in Alabama. I went to high school in New Jersey and college in Massachusetts. I have this blog dedicated to U.S. politics and culture. Yes, I love America, whatever mixed feelings I may have, and when I am critical it is only because I expect more, because I demand more, from a country that, yes, I do think can and should be great.

But so great as to reduce everything else, every other country, every other people, to relative oblivion, as if Americans are just better people than everyone else? That may play well on the stump, but it's the sort of mindless rhetoric that makes the rest of the world recoil in disgust.

For me, particularly when it comes from Democrats, it's just a huge disappointment (again, even if I understand why they're doing it and occasionally encourage it myself). I expect better of them, just as I expect better of America.

Mitt Romney, according to Mitt Romney

By Richard K. Barry

Not that I want to be fair or feel the need, but in the interest of posting things people might want to see, I'll put up the ten minute infomercial shown at the Republican National Convention to "introduce" Mitt Romney to America. The goal of the piece, the goal of the entire convention, was to humanize Mitt Romney. Strange thought, that.

Republican pundits kept saying last week that American voters didn't yet know Mitt Romney. And, in truth, I suppose many people don't pay attention until very late. But mostly GOP talking heads were trying to suggest Americans didn't yet know Mitt Romney because the Romney Americans had been introduced to so well by the Obama campaign was not an attractive Mitt Romney.

These little set pieces are required for all campaigns and given the professional help they get producing them, ought to do some good. Still, with these kinds of production values, anyone could be made to look good, almost.

If you haven't seen it, see if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. For me, not so much.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

GOP exists in alternate universe at bizarre, lie-filled convention

By Marc McDonald

Recently, I had a political discussion with a right-wing acquaintance. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. During the argument, my acquaintance called Obama an "idiot." When I asked for some proof of this, he replied, "Well, Obama said 'Internets' in an interview. He thinks it's called 'Internets.' That's really stupid."

Having grown weary of the discussion, I didn't even bother to challenge my acquaintance's contention. I did, though, think it was a bit odd. After all, the use of the term "Internets" was a well-known Bush blunder. Bush made the blunder during a debate with Al Gore in 2000. Amazingly, Bush made the mistake again in 2004, during a debate with John Kerry. It was the second screw-up that was widely ridiculed in the media.

"Was Rush now trying to somehow make the claim to his audience that this was in fact Obama's mistake?" I wondered.

Doing a little research on the Internet revealed that Obama once indeed did say "Internets." However, there was a big, big difference between the screwups made by Obama and Bush.

After all, when Obama said "Internets," he quickly corrected himself a few words later in the same sentence.

Obama is one of the most eloquent and intelligent speakers I've ever heard. But the fact is, like all modern U.S. presidents, he has an array of video cameras recording his words for hours every day. Given the grueling demands of his job and the stress that comes with it, it really shouldn't be surprising that he (or any president) might have an occasional verbal stumble. I mean, the only reason we don't have evidence of verbal stumbles by the likes of Washington and Jefferson is that there were no video cameras around in the 18th century.

Anyway, this whole episode got me to thinking. The right wing in this country has built up such a formidable propaganda network that wingnuts can happily dwell within it and never be exposed to the real world of actual facts, science, logic, reason, and truth. It's clear that my right-wing acquaintance got his "Obama said 'Internets'" quote from the likes of Drudge and that he has never even heard about Bush's far more famous (and uncorrected) blunder.

So Obama must be stupid, right? After all, Rush says so.

Such is the mind of the right-winger these days.

Which brings me to my main point. Politicians in America have historically never been the most honest class of people in the nation. But today's Republicans have set a new record for outrageous and blatant lies. It's gotten so bad that even the drowsy mainstream media has awoken from its usual slumber and started pointing out these outrageous lies.

For example, at the GOP convention, Paul Ryan trotted out his outrageous lie that Obama had supposedly promised to save a Wisconsin GM plant that later closed. Ryan no doubt thought that this latest lie wouldn't be scrutinized by a media establishment that has allowed so many other GOP lies to pass unchallenged.

No doubt, Ryan was stunned when numerous mainstream media outlets across the nation picked apart his GM fable and exposed it for the lie that it was. (As it turns out, the Wisconsin GM plant closed before Obama even took office).

Other GOP convention lies were similarly exposed by the media: "Obama has slashed Medicare!" "Obama is responsible for the U.S. credit downgrade!"

I'm sure that the GOP is stunned by the recent fact-checking by a newly-vigilant media. (And frankly, I'm as stunned as the GOP is, after watching the media let Republicans lie through their teeth for many years).

I guess the question now is this: why, in this election cycle, does the GOP have such contempt for the truth (especially when it can no longer get away with it)?

The answer to that question is simple. Because the GOP knows that, in fact, it can get away with it. This post's opening anecdote is proof positive of that. As that anecdote demonstrated, there are still many, many right-wingers out who get all of their news and info from the Fox/Drudge/Rush GOP Propaganda Network.

My right-wing acquaintance has never even heard that it was in fact Bush who made a fool of himself with his infamous "Internets" remarks. And my right-wing acquaintance will never even hear the mainstream media's debunking of Ryan's claims about the Wisconsin GM plant's closure. After all, he sure as hell isn't going to ever hear about it on Rush's show.

Such is the power of today's Great Right-Wing Propaganda Network. It is all-powerful, it is massive, it is everywhere, and it is 24 hours a day. If you are a wingnut getting your "news" from it, you'll never even feel the need to venture out in the real world and expose yourself to any other news outlet. And you'll happily continue to live in an alternate universe, where Obama will always be a Socialist Muslim Kenyan whose birth certificate is a fraud. 

(Cross-posted at BeggarsCanBeChoosers.)

The smallness and pettiness of Ann Romney

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I realize this isn't a race for First Lady, that it's not Ann Romney challenging Michelle Obama, but the fact is, the first lady and the would-be first lady are prominent surrogates for their husbands, not least at the conventions, and are very much a part of the race. We may not like it, how spouses have more and more become political actors, and have more and more been treated as such, and how they're put in the difficult position of being both submissively supportive and willfully assertive as individuals, but it's just the way it is, and that means, alas, that they're fair game, that they're deserving of the sort of praise and criticism usually reserved for the candidates themselves and for their partisan surrogates.

And the fact is, compared to Michelle Obama, who last night gave a magnificent speech, the best I've ever seen or heard by a first lady or would-be first lady, Ann Romney, while seemingly quite pleasant, has appeared small and petty in contrast, and utterly phony when she's tried to connect.

Of course, it's a tough job trying to humanize Mitt Romney, and to persuade people that you and your husband aren't just an out-of-touch rich douchebag couple living a life of extreme privilege -- perhaps an impossible one. But hasn't just been Ann's attempted humanizing of Mitt. She'd waded into politics as well, and when she has, she's proven to be as out-of-touch, as arrogant, and as condescending as her husband.

Like when she referred to "you people" when defending Mitt's decision to release any more of his tax returns.

Like when she told Latino voters to get over their "biases" and spoke to them as if they're just a bunch of selfish small-business owners.

And like when, today, she told women to "wake up" and trust in Mitt:

"Women, you need to wake up," she told the largely female audience at a "Women For Mitt" rally in Findlay, Ohio. "Women have to ask themselves who is going to... be there for you. I can promise you, I know that Mitt will be there for you, he will stand up for you, he will hear your voices, he knows how to fix an economy, he's a can do kind of guy, he's a turnaround guy."

She can try, but this isn't going to work. Mitt is leading a party that is aggressively waging war on women -- I write this while listening to Sandra Fluke speak at the Democratic convention; how very fitting -- a party that has embraced an extemist anti-choice platform, that desires to disempower and humiliate women, that seeks to obliterate a women's right to be in control of her own body, indeed, to be in control of anything, a party that wants to silence women and suffocate their concerns altogether.

Romney and the Republicans won't be there for women. They won't stand up for them. They won't listen to them in any meaningful way. They've already proven, time and time again, that they won't.

No, I'm not saying that Mitt Romney hates women. I'm not saying he doesn't care at all. He's much more sensitive to women's issues, I think, than most in his party. But as he's moved further and ever further to the right, as he's embraced the right-wing mainstream of the Republican Party, and as he's run an ugly campaign based on a far-right agenda, selecting the anti-choice extremist Paul Ryan as his running mate and otherwise joining the Republican war on women, even if he usually prefers to remain silent and let others do the dirty work, refusing to condemn what his party is doing and what it stands for and therefore appearing to support and enable it, he has shown what he is really all about, or at least what he is willing to be about in his shameless quest for power.

Elizabeth Warren has just taken the stage in Charlotte. Now there's a strong, powerful woman.

Women don't need to "wake up." How fucking condescending. It's abundantly clear which candidate embraces them and stands up for them and which candidate pays lip service to women's issues while embracing an anti-woman agenda.

Ann may love her husband and think he's a great guy, and maybe even that he cares about women, politically and otherwise, but it's Barack Obama who is the one fighting for them against the forces that would keep them down.

(photo)

Mitt Romney went down to the crossroads

By Richard K. Barry

For what it's worth, according to one poll, Mitt Romney's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was not particularly well received by the nation.

According to Gallup:

Romney's acceptance speech this year scored low by comparison to previous convention speeches going back to 1996. Thirty-eight percent of Americans rated the speech as excellent or good, while 16% rated it as poor or terrible. The 38% who rated the speech as excellent or good is the lowest rating of any of the eight speeches Gallup has tested since Bob Dole's GOP acceptance speech in 1996.

I watched the thing and, to be fair, didn't think it was that awful. Rachel Maddow said something during the coverage with which I tend to agree. She said that when Mitt Romney is just talking about his life, or his family or other non-political stuff, he's not awful. It's when he starts going into political attack mode that he begins to make people cringe. I had never thought about that, but I think she's right.

I will not be the first one to say this, but his views on so many things have been tailored to the specific requirements of this election, of securing his parties nomination, of appealing to just enough of the electorate to be successful, of balancing the interests of the hard-right against the center-right, that every political line he utters seems forced and duplicitous.

It isn't just that he has abandoned so many positions previously held, it's that the contortions required have done something to him.

I'm reminded of Robert Johnson who, the legend goes, made a deal with the devil at the crossroads. In exchange for becoming a famous and talented bluesman, he had to surrender his soul (or Faust, if you like).

I'm just saying that Mitt Romney had to completely remake himself to make a credible run at the presidency, something he has wanted badly for a long time. In remaking himself, he may have had to give up too much of who he thought he was. And that shows in the way he presents himself and the way people perceive him when he is assuming the political personae required of the task.

A lot of liberals won't agree with me, but whoever Mitt Romney is, he is probably not naturally inclined to be the presidential nominee for what has become of the Republican Party. It's not just that his campaign has a problem with the truth, but that his candidacy is in some way dishonest and it shows. The devil always gets his due.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

More like a thud

By Mustang Bobby

Most candidates get some kind of bounce up in the polls after a convention no matter what the eventual outcome is. Walter Mondale did in 1984 and so did George McGovern in 1972 and both of them got walloped in the election the following November. So a bounce is, in the words of the brokerage house disclaimer, not a predictor of future earnings.

Still, it must be disheartening to the Republicans when, after their big blow-out in Tampa, they see that Gallup shows that Mitt Romney got bupkus:

Last week's Republican National Convention had a minimal impact on Americans' self-reported voting intentions, with just about as many saying the convention made them less likely to vote for Mitt Romney as say it made them more likely to vote for him.

One theory for this lackluster response that I see rattling through the tubes is that thanks to Twitter, Facebook, texting, blogging, and the constant feed from the cable channels and YouTube, all of the anticipation and surprise has been taken out of the conventions. Voters who are paying attention have already made up their collective mind about the candidates. Nothing they hear coming out of Tampa or Charlotte is going to move the needle.

That puts the pressure on the Democrats to really come up with something that they think will move the electorate, and I'm sure they're going to try. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Where's the Tea Party?

By Richard K. Barry

BuzzFeed raised an interesting point a couple of days ago, which is that the words "Tea Party" have not received a single mention in prime time during the GOP convention.

The "Tea Party" band — which energized and even seemed to overtake the Republican Party in 2010 — has been virtually invisible at this Republican National Convention.

Not a single one of the 38 speakers during the convention's key prime time hours has even mentioned the phrase, according to an examination of their transcripts — a sign both of Romney's own distance from the movement and that polls have suggested that voters view the movement negatively.

Senator Rand Paul, another Tea Party favorite, didn't mention it at all.

To be accurate, because the truth is important, one major speaker, Texas Senate candidate Ted Cruz, did allude to the Tea Party directly, though he referred to it only as a "great awakening." Still, that was it.

Considering that the Romney campaign must approve all speeches, this is interesting.

So what gives? If I was one those crazy people who likes to dress up in Revolutionary War costumes, I'd be pretty annoyed. Where's the love? Could it be that the whole thing really was just an astroturf movement, bought and paid for by rich donors, that ended up pissing off more people than it energized?

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Shades of 20 years ago?

By Comrade Misfit

The Daily Show is titling its coverage of the Republican National Convention as "RNC 2012: The Road to Jeb Bush 2016."

Which may have a bit of truth to it.

But then again, there were stories of how a lot of senior Democrats figured that they couldn't win against George H.W. Bush, who had a 91% approval rating after the Gulf War. As the stories go, they decided to sit that one out and let some of the younger kids in the party get some experience at running a national campaign.

We know how that worked out for them.

(Not that I want to see the Romneybot win, not with his unspoken motto of "Of the Plutocrats, For the Plutocrats.") 

(Cross-posted at Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I.)

Tampa and the will to power

By Capt. Fogg

As I've been saying since Richard "you sure as hell are a crook" Nixon departed the White house and the Republican War on truth began, if the Republicans accuse their opponents of something, you can be sure not only that it isn't quite true, but that the accusation is an attempt to distract from their own guilt. So when the war criminal Allen West disgusts us with the accusation that the Democrats are "the most racist party I've ever seen in my life," we know the opposite is true.

And why doth West protest? Why because the press isn't showing him the respect his hypertrophied ego demands, and why would anyone detest the torturer of innocent civilians and despise the accusations that Democrats are Nazis and Communists (at the same time, no less?)  It could only be that he's got dark skin, of course. 

And then there's Paul Ryan, the delight of Tea Perverts everywhere, who enlightens us with lies like:

And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obamacare came at the expense of the elderly... So they just took it all away from Medicare. Seven hundred and sixteen billion dollars, funneled out of Medicare by President Obama...

when it isn't actually true -- the cuts are in payments to hospitals, not in coverage to individuals. The cuts are savings, while Ryan's plan would actually deprive Medicare recipients of coverage. Paul Ryan is a liar, but what did you expect? The truth would ride out of town with him on a rail and covered with feathers.

And then there's Paul Ryan howling like a damned soul about the "corporate welfare" that was the stimulus package. Welfare and Communism and all that, even though the Republicans asked for a much bigger package and with no requirement to tell us who was getting what, even though Ryan stomped his feet and whined and begged for even more money for Wisconsin companies. Paul Ryan is a lying, duplicitous, forked-tongued son of a bitch, but I repeat myself. I already said he is a Republican candidate.

And then there's Paul Ryan, the con man, the liar, the swindler, the bearer of false witness -- there's Paul Ryan blaming Obama for the closure of a Janesville, Wisconsin plant that was shut down before Obama became president.

And there's Ryan claiming from the platform in Tampa that Obama disregarded the advice of a bipartisan debt committee that Ryan himself condemned.

Did I mention that Ryan is a Republican? Lying is what they do, whether it's lying to start wars, lying about how top-bracket tax cuts don't cause recessions when they do and raising them prevents growth when the opposite is true. That's what history says, but hey, you can't believe history -- history is liberal. Hell, you can't even hear history, it speaks in timorous whispers while the right wing roars and threatens and rages from every screen, from every radio speaker and every corporately owned newspaper.

But why lay the lies on Ryan alone? They're all liars and pickpockets and Romney has to take responsibility for it all. He has to explain why taking the $716 billion in Medicare savings achieved by Obama and spending it will reduce spending and why reducing revenue will pay off the debt. He has to give us more than vague generalities and slogans and promises that are negated by other promises, but he can't because what he says is designed to "energize" people who know nothing and prefer to remain angry at their chosen scapegoats.  

But of course the truth would lose the election for him and of course the New Right isn't about fixing the country anyway, it's about power. It's not about you or your life, your liberty or your pursuit of happiness. It's about power, power, and more power, and such concentrated power that answers only to money -- power over a country that is more and more irrelevant, increasingly deluded and ignorant, ever more bellicose, and yet has the power to destroy the world.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

What has happened to the Republican Party?

By Richard K. Barry

I'm not a big fan of making too much of bad behavior when it comes from individuals of one party affiliation or the other. There are stupid people everywhere. You get into a lot of trouble when you point fingers because the next time it's going to be someone on your side who said or did the dumb thing.

Having said that, sometimes bad behavior by a few can signal what the many are thinking, but you have to be careful.

Still, facts are facts and should be reported. And people should draw their own conclusions about the extent to which statements and policies of decision makers are in some way consistent with the statements or actions of the bad actors. Personally, I'm convinced the Romney campaign has shifted to a new Southern Strategy, as I've written, and their views on immigration have been creating a huge problem for them with Hispanic voters. I'm not surprised that a few feel they have permission to be jerks.

A lot of people found two instances very disturbing at the GOP convention thus far. The first, widely noted, was this: 

Two people were removed from the Republican National Convention Tuesday after they threw nuts at an African-American CNN camera operator and said, "This is how we feed animals."

Multiple witnesses observed the exchange and RNC security and police immediately removed the two people from the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

The convention released a statement saying, "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

The second case was reported by Jack Hitt at Harper's Magazine:

As I was standing in line for a sandwich next to an Italian and a Puerto Rican correspondent, a controversy was unfolding on the floor. The RonPaulites, whose furious devotion to a single idea have made them the Ellen Jamesians of the right, were protesting a decision by RNC officials not to seat members of the Maine delegation, which was split between Paul and Romney supporters following rule changes made just prior to the convention. There were energetic shouts of "Aye!" and "Nay!" as a Puerto Rican party functionary — Zoraida Fonalledas, the chairwoman of the Committee on Permanent Organization — took her turn at the main-stage lectern. As she began speaking in her accented English, some in the crowd started shouting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"

None of us could quite believe what we were seeing: A sea of twentysomething bowties and cowboy hats morphing into frat bros apparently shrieking over (or at) a Latina. RNC chairman Reince Priebus quickly stepped up and asked for order and respect for the speaker, suggesting that, yeah, what we had just seen might well have been an ugly outburst of nativism.

Mitt Romney is already headed towards an statistically insignificant portion of the African-American vote. It looks like some of his supporters are trying to help him achieve the same results in the Hispanic community.

Here's a clip of the incident involving Ms. Fonalledas:

(|Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Obama's Republican Convention bounce

By Carl 

A startling column was released this morning by Nate Silver:

Polls that are published during the party conventions can be anticlimactic, representing old news since they won't fully reflect the effects of the convention bounce. And none of the surveys that came out on Wednesday were that newsworthy to begin with – although there was one, in Ohio, that had encouraging news for Barack Obama, and another, in Nevada, that was slightly favorable for Mitt Romney.

The Ohio survey was conducted by the automated-polling firm Gravis Marketing, which had Mr. Obama ahead of Mr. Romney by less than 1 full percentage point.

A one-point lead isn't much, and Mr. Obama has gotten some better numbers than that in Ohio. So why does this qualify as good news for him? Because this firm has had Republican-leaning results in the other states that it has polled, putting Mr. Romney up by 2 points in Florida, 1 point in Colorado and 17 points in Missouri, making it several points more Republican-leaning than the consensus of surveys in those states. Once the model adjusts for the firm's "house effect," it treats Mr. Obama's nominal 1-point lead as being the equivalent of a 4- or 5-point lead instead. Thus, Mr. Obama's chances of winning Ohio rose somewhat based on the survey. 

Now, his first point, about polling during conventions, is an interesting one, and one I'd dispute. The Romney camp has played up the convention heading into Tampa and if anything, should have received a pre-bounce from the naming of Paul Ryan as Veep candidate and the twin stump speeches the two have delivered practically in unison.

That Ohio has shown itself inured to the bullshit says a lot about this poll. Here's why:

By two-to-one (44% to 22%), the public says that raising taxes on incomes above $250,000 would help the economy rather than hurt it, while 24% say this would not make a difference. Moreover, an identical percentage (44%) says a tax increase on higher incomes would make the tax system more fair, while just 21% say it would make the system less fair.

Interestingly, the country is about split between the two men with respect to who would do a better job of handling the economy in the next four years -- Romney 48%, Obama 44% (MoE 3.9%).

So that's the box Romney has painted himself into. He can bash the President over the economy, but that flies in the face of public perception. He already has a monumental task in front of him with regards to firming up his own image, so to try to juggle both of these balls is near impossible.

This is why he's been hesitant to really go after President Obama on the issue of jobs and the economy, which would normally be a strong point for the challenger in a lackluster nation. People get that Obama was handed a heaping plate of crap, one that's only been piled higher and deeper by Republican mayors and governors across the nation who have gone out of their way to destroy jobs in the public sector.

Add to that an openly hostile Republican House, and few people can seriously blame Obama for the jobs problem. He's tried. He's been, if anything, too cooperative with the Republicans... remember the debt ceiling agreement that Weaker Boehner hammered out with the president? Turned out, Tanned Man couldn't even deliver a pizza.

It's safe to say, I think, that the Romney candidacy, quixotic from the outset, is floundering on the reefs of common sense.

In one respect, we should probably be grateful to Mitt Romney's ego in running in 2012, because it saves us the trouble of ever having a Romney presidency, with all its concomittant screw ups. He won't run in 2016, and we can go out and destroy Chris Christie's political career in that election.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Ann Romney woos Latino voters with the typical Romney mix of ignorance, entitlement, and douchebaggery

By Michael J.W. Stickings

By most accounts, it would seem that Ann Romney's pre-Christie speech on Tuesday went quite well, though, really, did anyone expect otherwise? She's a polished business/political wife and she now has a lot of experience trying to humanize her husband.

It went well? Big deal.

Then again, she's one-half of a rich douchebag couple -- she drives a couple o' Cadillacs, is really into dressage (a rich white person's "sport"), comes across as remarkably stuck up despite her various and ongoing attempts at modesty and humility, and refers to those beneath her, which she and Mitt see as pretty much everyone, as "you people."

So there was certainly ample opportunity for her sense of entitlement and privilege to come across in her speech, or at some point during the convention. And... well, it did, just a day after her supposed triumph:

Ann Romney's convention speech was directly aimed at wooing female voters, but at a lunch event Wednesday she changed her focus and pitched her husband to Hispanic voters, a voting bloc that is especially important in this battleground state, urging them to get past the "biases... from the Democratic machine."

Right, their biases. Like, you know, being against xenophobia and immigrant-baiting. Like being for the DREAM Act, addressing the issue of undocumented immigration with compassion, and being open to the idea of America as a land of opportunity for all, not just for the privileged (white) few.

Seriously, is Ann Romney so fucking clueless about the extremist right-wing -- and indeed outright nativist -- positions Republicans have taken on the very existence of Latinos in America?

It's not all about "small business," which Romney mentioned in her speech, as if Latinos are all small business owners -- again, what utter lack of understanding, what utter ignorance.

And then to suggest that she "know[s] what it’s like to be the daughter of immigrants" because her grandfather was a Welsh coalminer? Seriously? Nothing at all against Welsh coalminers, who had it rough, but that's completely ridiculous. (One of my grandfathers landed on the beaches on D-Day with the U.S. Army, while the other was a British bomber pilot. I know what it's like to fight the Germans!)

You know, if Mitt Romney were his own wife, he'd be just like Ann. They're perfect for each other.

Nature's way

By Mustang Bobby

No one would wish a natural disaster on anyone, and I'm glad that Tropical Storm Isaac did not hit Tampa and the Republican convention: it rains on the just and the unjust alike. And I don't believe in such superstitions as divine intervention via floods, earthquakes, and other tectonic phenomena to deliver judgment on the actions of humans.

But I can't help but notice the timing of the arrival of Hurricane Isaac on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans and the fact that anyone over the age of ten is reminded that it was exactly seven years ago that Hurricane Katrina wrought horrible destruction on the city and the heckuva job the last Republican administration did in responding to it.

It doesn't make for good visuals that the GOP is partying on while the networks are breaking away to bring us live coverage from the storm and the overtopping of the levees in Plaquemines Parish.

Call it what you will: the hand of God, karma, or a tropical cyclone. It's just nature's way of reminding us that a sense of timing isn't a quality that is unique to us mere mortals. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)