Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: C.R.E.A.M.

Open Thread: C.R.E.A.M.

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Dave Weigel says “Mitt Romney knows how to sell things: Confirmed.” I say “Did Willard’s Harvard MBA training and his years as a vulture-capitalist figurehead leave him incapable of handling any transaction without a veneer of disingenuousness ‘salesmanship’, or is he just naturally dishonest?” From Ben Smith’s Politico report on “How Romney made a best-seller“:

Mitt Romney boosted sales of his book this spring by asking institutions to buy thousands of copies in exchange for his speeches, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.
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Romney’s book tour ran from early March to late May of this year, and took him to bookstores, universities, conferences and private groups around the country. Their giant purchases helped his book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, debut on top of the New York Times best-seller list, though with an asterisk indicating bulk purchases.
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The hosts ranged from Claremont McKenna College to the Restaurant Leadership Conference, many of whom are accustomed to paying for high-profile speakers like Romney. Asking that hosts buy books is also a standard feature of book tours. But Romney’s total price — $50,000 — was on the high end, and his publisher, according to the document from the book tour — provided on the condition it not be described in detail — asked institutions to pay at least $25,000, and up to the full $50,000 price, in bulk purchases of the book. With a discount of roughly 40 percent, that meant institutions could wind up with more than 3,000 copies of the book — and a person associated with one of his hosts said they still have quite a pile left over.
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One place he didn’t charge: Iowa State University, where an official noted that they’re accustomed to getting their politicians for free.
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Earlier this week, I compared the leading Republican candidates’ speaking fees and wrote that Romney speaks for free. Instead, it appears, he’s priced between Haley Barbour and Mike Huckabee on the open market.

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  1. 1.

    Cacti

    Mitt Romney’s tips on how to get ahead in business…

    Be born the son of a former governor and President of a major corporation.

  3. 3.

    El Cid

    Stay classy, anonymous billboard-renting anti-Obama types.

    GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A billboard in western Colorado that used caricatures to depict President Barack Obama as a terrorist, gangster, Mexican bandit and a gay man has been taken down.
    __
    The sign along an Interstate 70 business loop in Grand Junction drew criticism from local Republicans and Democrats…
    __
    …The artist, Paul Snover, of nearby Loma, has said he received what he calls “very hateful” e-mails and phone calls over the sign, which he said was designed to be an editorial cartoon. [?]
    __
    Snover has said he couldn’t reveal who paid for the billboard. The Daily Sentinel said he didn’t return calls to explain why it was removed.

    Yes, there’s a picture. It actually has Obama as a suicide bomber wearing a turban and a band of dynamite around his waist, and so much more.

    White America has lost its mind, as they say.

  4. 4.

    Mark S.

    Has a conservative ever written a bestseller that wasn’t because of bulk buys? They didn’t have bulk buys back when Buckley wrote God and Man at Yale, did they? Do we have to go all the way back to Burke?

    Romney is a lame candidate who nobody can stand, but I still think he’ll win the nomination. Goopers don’t pick dark horses, and they seem to care who’s turn it is. Then again, with outside groups now having so much power thanks to Citizens United, I might be wrong about that.

  5. 5.

    Moses2317

    So Multiple Choice Mitt boosted his book sales through the same pitiful methods as were used by the Scientologists with Dianetics. Yet further proof that conservative ideas are not really popular out of the wingnut welfare circuit.

    Also too, if you have any free time on your hands this weekend, here are some ways you can get involved to help win this election.

    Winning Progressive

  6. 6.

    Dennis SGMM

    Mitt Romney set records for the 50 yard dash, the 100 yard dash, the 440, and the mile as well as the Salt Lake City marathon and he bought the medals to prove it.

  9. 9.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    Barbara Billingsley just died.

    I grew up watching Leave It To Beaver reruns but my best memory was the first time I saw the movie Airplane!

    Me and a buddy are in the theater and she stands up and says “Stewardess, I speak jive” and we both exclaimed “Hey, that’s Beaver Cleaver’s Mom!” The audience had a good chuckle.

  11. 11.

    Guster

    @Mark S.: I hadn’t though of the Republican nominee post Citizens United.

    How does that change things? It’d increase the chances of a moneycon like Romney over a theocon like Huckabee, no?

    And probably ends Palin’s chances.

  12. 12.

    gbear

    Romney is a lame candidate who nobody can stand, but I still think he’ll win the nomination.

    What are the christianists going to do when they have to choose between a cultist and a muslin?? OMG!

  13. 13.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Romney’s book tour ran from early March to late May of this year, and took him to bookstores, universities, conferences and private groups around the country. Their giant purchases helped his book, No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, debut on top of the New York Times best-seller list, though with an asterisk indicating bulk purchases.

    There’s a really *simple* answer to this: don’t count bulk purchases when computing bestsellers. Boom. Instant crash in the wingnut welfare NYT bestseller bullshit.

  16. 16.

    Cat Lady

    I know a lot of folks here don’t like Gail Collins, (I do) but if Mitt is the nominee, she’ll be mentioning the dog on the station wagon roof in every column. She has reserved a special place in her little piece of NYT real estate to stick it to Mittens – not that it makes any difference to the teatards – but no one deserves it more. He’ll lose Massachusetts 90% to 10%. He’s like Giuliani – to know him is to hate him. The Republican primaries are going to be awesome. We’re going to need a bigger popcorn bowl.

  17. 17.

    asiangrrlMN

    @Mark S.: Yes. Come on! That’s an easy one. The Mittster is an idiot. But, he’s probably one of the brighter GOP candidates for prez in 2012. Which is just sad.

    @jeffreyw: Goddamn it, man. You are killing me. When I go visit ee in Chi-town, we’re going to your place for dinner.

  19. 19.

    mai naem

    I couldn’t care less about the Mittster. There is no way the Republican partay is going to have a Mormon candidate for president. No way. No how. Ain’t happenin’. They will have Kkkarl Paladino as their nominee before they have the Mittster.

  27. 27.

    Mark S.

    I guess it was a pooch punt that got returned 95 yards. Waaaaaaaaay too early for an onside. Lots of questionable coaching.

  29. 29.

    DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.

    Great catch. That is really interesting.

    It’s a smart move by Romney.

  30. 30.

    debbie

    Authors have done bulk buys for decades. Usually they purchase directly from the publisher (which aren’t included in bestseller lists), but sometimes they and organizations work out deals with bookstores. The NYT bestseller lists indicate this kind of transaction with a dagger by the title. I would think, though, that if a group was buying a large quantity, they’d get a better price from the publisher.

    “very hateful” e-mails

    Ironic that the creator of a hate-filled billboard would complain of hateful e-mails.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    @Martin:

    Probably. I can’t think of a single book an indy bookstore would order more than 100 of at a time, and, realistically, probably not more than 30 or so. (The 100 would be if you were going to have a popular author do a reading in your store.) You just need enough for a good display, if you’re really pimping the book or expecting big demand, and it is über-fast to get more copies.

    The article above seems to be talking about orders in the hundreds and even thousands for Romney’s book. Those would stick out like a sore thumb: “Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, State U. Young Republicans,” etc.

    ETA: I believe the Times gets reports (electronic or otherwise) from actual bookstores and chains, so it might be that everything that shows up in “Other” or “Miscellaneous” is so-called “bulk sales.”

  43. 43.

    NobodySpecial

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Hm. Maybe I’ll do a cross-country meet the BJers trip. There has to be money in that, amirite?

    Define ‘money’. I got some Euros for when things go tits up.

  48. 48.

    Wile E. Quixote

    @Moses2317:

    So Multiple Choice Mitt boosted his book sales through the same pitiful methods as were used by the Scientologists with Dianetics. Yet further proof that conservative ideas are not really popular out of the wingnut welfare circuit.

    A friend of mine worked at an independent bookstore in the early 1980s when Battlefield Earth was released. There was an office of the CoS down the street and one of the Scientologists came in one day and asked what would happen, hypothetically speaking, if a bunch of people bought a book, no titles mentioned of course, and then waited a few weeks and returned it. Would this help the sales figures and push the book onto the bestseller list.

    Bruce explained that no, it wouldn’t, because in order for a book to be counted as a bestseller you had to, you know, sell it, and if you sold it and someone returned it in a few weeks it wasn’t really a sale now, was it. Then he told the manager of the store about his conversation and they decided not to stock any more of L. Ron Hubbard’s books because they didn’t want to end up with a bunch of returned copies.

  49. 49.

    KCinDC

    For those saying that Romney’s Mormonism dooms his chances of being the Republican nominee, it doesn’t seem to be hurting Glenn Beck’s career as a televangelist/propagandist/gold scammer.

  55. 55.

    Belvoir

    Reading the NYT Book Review on paper for years and years, the right-wing books always always have that dagger indicating bulk sales. And then end up at Costco or Wal-Mart for a buck, or on Amazon for a penny.

    Why this isn’t a scandal proper journalists don’t cover, I will never know. (Hello NYT? What’s in it for you to keep this scam going?) Because it’s been going on for years and years. “Anne Coulter, #1 NYT Best Selling Author”! Do you think anyone shells out $25 for that shit in hardback? All of them pull this fakery, it has a long history.

    There was an apochryphal story of Joe Kennedy warehousing tons of JFK’s book when he was Senator to make it a best seller. I sort of believe it. Even the most ardent FOX News fan won’t be spending $25 to read loads of triple-spaced wide margin shit he’s already heard.

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