Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You cannot shame the shameless.

In my day, never was longer.

Consistently wrong since 2002

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

I really should read my own blog.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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Dead Man Talking

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Not looking good for multiple choice Mitt:

Tomorrow Mitt Romney ventures straight into the lion’s den — Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of Jonathan Cohn, where he will deliver a health care speech attempting to explain the unexplainable. Just as Luke Skywalker was bound to seek out and confront Darth Vader, Romney must confront Cohn. If Romney winds up bloodied, one hand sliced off and clinging to a weathervane with the other, he’ll have done better than I expect.

Romney’s “Address To Jonathan Cohn And Fellow Ann Arborites”* will no doubt emphasize his federalist position. At the state level, the individual mandate is a humane, cost-effective tool for rationalizing the health care market. At the federal level, it is the greatest threat to freedom in American history. That is Romney’s stance.

Unfortunately, some evidence is emerging that this was not Romney’s stance before. Bluemassgroup has dug up this 1994 article in TNR, in which Romney told our John Judis that he would support a national health care plan that included an individual mandate.

What was mainstream conservative in 1994 is Kenyan socialism today. Mr. Overton, your window is broken.

Reader Interactions

112Comments

  1. 1.

    General Stuck

    unspoofable clowns. The whole lot of them. But one will get 45 percent of the vote for showing up with a pulse. Scary.

  2. 2.

    chopper

    no, i want every state to have a mandate but the federal government having one, even though it has the same effect (better even, since it wouldn’t take 15 fuckin years), is totes horrible. cause federalism.

    that’s a hard hill to climb. i just don’t think mitt has the chops to pull it off, but anything’s possible.

  3. 3.

    JCT

    Poor Mitt, hopeless pandering and flip-flopping like a fish will leave you disoriented and not very credible.

    Good luck selling what is left of your soul to appease the idiot Teabaggers.

  5. 5.

    Baud

    To be fair to Romney, when he pushed through the individual mandate in Massachusetts, he wasn’t black.

  6. 6.

    Mark S.

    Shit, I’m starting to rethink my position that Mitt will win the nomination. Is there anything he won’t twist himself into knots in order to pander to an audience?

  7. 7.

    SpotWeld

    I really really don’t want to see the fanboy gushing The Michigan Review is going right now.

  10. 10.

    dmsilev

    Let’s meet Romney half-way. What if the federal government mandates that states institute a mandate? Would that be OK?

  12. 12.

    Dick Weathers

    Great, in the building I work in no less. This dickshit is going to make parking a greater bitch than it already is at the hospital. Lost my vote fucker!

  13. 13.

    JCT

    @Mark S.: I had thought so, too — but he is going to be repeatedly savaged throughout the primaries, the fruit is hanging way too low. The irony that Romneycare is actually a good thing is just proof of how demented the whole situation has become.

    And I always imagine him all tied up like a pretzel too, but I like “multiple-choice Mitt”.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    @Mark S.:

    Is there anything he won’t twist himself into knots in order to pander to an audience?

    I believe he remains unwaveringly in favor of strapping dogs to the roofs of station wagons.

  18. 18.

    Lavocat

    So long as he concentrates more on his perfect hair and less on substance, he should do just fine.

  19. 19.

    Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)

    It’s looking more and more like Bachmann can win.

    Newt can’t win with 3 wives. Trump is a buffoon. Mitt is multiple choice on abortion. TPaw is human sominex. Huck won’t run. Daniels is an arab. Ron Paul is on heroin.

    That leaves Bachmann.

  23. 23.

    JonF

    So, I guess in 6 months he’ll give another speech contradicting everything he’ll say?

  24. 24.

    anna missed

    Yeah well he might find some sympathy there in MI. Didn’t one of the first instances of domestic terrorism (as we know it today) happen in Bath MI in 1921. Where some disgruntled anti-tax nut blew up a school and killed 40 or so children. Seems like everyday we move closer and closer to seeing that guy as a patriot.

  25. 25.

    Hal

    Jesus in magic underwear, Mitt. You want to be President so bad you’ll do just about anything, won’t you. Ahhh, if only there was no Youtube.

  28. 28.

    Violet

    @Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!):

    Trump is a buffoon.

    I saw a “Trump 2012” yard sign in my neighborhood last week and this morning I saw a “Trump 2012” bumper sticker on a vehicle backing out of a driveway in my neighborhood. There’s still some Trumpmentum out there.

    What about Palin. Trump makes her look sane. Remember, she’ll run “if there’s no one else.” It’s kind of looking like that right now.

  29. 29.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @piratedan:

    Mitt is like that clingy date, “I’ll be whatever you want me to be, just like me, tell me that you like me

    You want me to suck off all yer friends? Okay. Psst, I have a surprise for you later. *whispers* I’m wearing magic underwear.

  31. 31.

    Hunter Gathers

    The brokered GOP convention in Tampa next year is going to be the greatest reality show in history.

    I’m pretty sure I will have seen it’s kind before, but at least this time around the narration won’t be in German.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!):

    Daniels is an arab.

    Nikki Haley managed to win the governor’s race in South Carolina, and she’s Indian (Sikh), which most rednecks would consider “Arab.” I don’t think it would be quite as much of a handicap as you think, especially since he has that reassuringly WASP-y name.

    He’ll still lose, because he’s an empty suit who’s closely tied to Bush, but the Arab thing won’t factor in much.

  33. 33.

    fhtagn

    @Mnemosyne:

    Haley may once have been a Sikh, but she magically discovered Christianity at the start of her big-time political ambitions.

    Still, I don’t think Mitch Bin Daniels will suffer much from being an Arab.

  34. 34.

    Funkhauser

    What was mainstream conservative in 1994 2004 is Kenyan socialism today.

    Fixed that for you.

  36. 36.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Mnemosyne: And poor Pyruish Bobby Jindal, chopped liver. I wonder if Mitt can get Michael Vick to do his commercials? OOPs? They both got dog problems.

  37. 37.

    Jeffro

    @Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!):
    I am starting to think of the inevitable wacky, attempt-to-please/appease-all-our-bases pairing that we’re likely to get.

    1) Daniels/Bachman, or maybe
    2) Bachman/Daniels

    POP.CORN.

  42. 42.

    fasteddie9318

    That primary is such a fucked-up trainwreck that I keep thinking some Saintly Very Serious and Deep Thinking Republican is going to orchestrate a last-minute swoop in to save the party from itself. Problem is, I can’t for the life of me figure out who that could be.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @fhtagn:

    Mitch Daniels is a Christian, too, and he didn’t even have to convert. (His paternal grandparents were Syrian Christians who immigrated here). So between that and his all-American name, I don’t think he’ll have too much ethnic trouble with Republicans.

  45. 45.

    fhtagn

    @Mnemosyne:

    Absolutely. He can just explain that he handled the budget for George W. “fiscally conservative” Bush, and that should erase any unjustifiable stigma attached to his ancestry.

  46. 46.

    fasteddie9318

    The only reason Daniels’ ethnicity won’t matter is because he’s going to get creamed anyway. If there was a serious 2 person race between him and, say, Gingrich or Bachmann, it’d be a lead-pipe cinch that stories about his “close ties” to pro-Arab organizations (say, didn’t he get a prestigious award from one of them?) would start coming out, and, hey, he is an Arab? Well, shee-it, we ain’t votin’ fer one a them people.

  47. 47.

    Cat Lady

    @Mnemosyne:
    =
    Nikki Haley’s fuckable. Daniels is a midget with hairplugs. One of these things is not like the other, in teatardland.

  48. 48.

    The Dangerman

    I’m still calling Pawlenty, but Chris Christie may be the one that gets the call to take one for the team. Two Buck Huck isn’t running. All the other choices are fatally flawed. Daniels turned a surplus into a disaster. Bottom line, someone from their side is going to have to step up to get their ass kicked; assuming Christie wants to run in 2016 or beyond, it goes back to Pawlenty.

  50. 50.

    Joe Lisboa

    Yeah well he [Romney) might find some sympathy there in MI.

    Well, his daddy was governor here for a spell. But the folks who remember that are likely prone to pull the Repub lever regardless. Also, too: his daddy was a Mexican immigrant. No really! Look it up.

  51. 51.

    Bob Loblaw

    I think it’s kind of adorable how inexplicably scared you all are of Mitch Fucking Daniels that you keep resorting to race baiting.

    It’s Mitch Daniels. I really don’t think you have to keep crying Arab in the hopes some tea partier is listening somewhere.

  52. 52.

    Uloborus

    I’m going to throw out a guess I haven’t heard from anyone else yet.

    The ACA is built off of the idea that the mandate creates a power structure to enact a metric butt ton of cost controls and industry reform efforts. You can’t really do that at the state level even if you want to. Therefor, Romneycare Good, Obamacare Threat To (profits) Freedom.

    But you know, the more clearly he explains it the less of a winner it becomes, so he’s trying to be coy.

  54. 54.

    Joe Lisboa

    (first fat man)

    How DARE you sully (heh) the memory of President Taft, good sir.

  55. 55.

    Hal

    Nikki Haley managed to win the governor’s race in South Carolina, and she’s Indian (Sikh), which most rednecks would consider “Arab.”

    Haley also doesn’t appear even remotely Indian. And, her Dem opponent still managed to get 47% of the popular vote in South Carolina. Maybe I’m not familiar enough with SC politics, but that seems pretty good to me. Am I way off?

  57. 57.

    scav

    It’s practically getting to be a near-perfect planned experiment as to which of their prejudices will [prove] expendable when pulling their eventual candidate out of the hat.

  58. 58.

    Uloborus

    @Bob Loblaw:
    Throw them a LITTLE slack. The GOP has been so openly racist lately that it’s really easy for people to assume that’s their central motivation. And it’s been so offensively, disgustingly racist that it’s easy for people to get emotionally wrapped up in complaining about it.

  59. 59.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Bob Loblaw: Yeah, I’m a little tired of the race stuff too. Unfortunately, with the Obots it’s a feature, not a bug.

  61. 61.

    Hal

    I don’t know about Christie… Is the country ready for yet another “historical” candidacy?

    (first fat man)

    I’m really shocked this doesn’t come up more with regard to Christie.

    So, serious question. Isn’t Christie too fat to run? Keep in mind I say this as a fat guy. But the health issue would be a huge (no pun intended) question. I mean, my Doctor seems disappointed every time my Diabetes test comes back negative. “Oh negative. Well, it’ll happen one day!” Thanks Doc.

    People in this country have a real issue with weight, and Christie is easily well over 100 pounds overweight. I don’t people will want to see him sweating his way through the primaries, and there will be plenty of questions about his blood pressure, etc. He might be the first President whose Cholesterol levels would be of national interest.

  64. 64.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Hal:

    Isn’t Christie too fat to run?

    Nah, he just runs slow and has to take a lot of water breaks.

  67. 67.

    Danny

    @Bob Loblaw:

    If you really want to see some action, check out the comments section on the Fox article about the First Lady inviting Common to the White House. They are blocking every 3d comment for using the N-word. The rest just think the president is being generally unpatriotic, uppity, having 10 car wrecks on the White House lawn or eating KFC and sippin grape drank. Oh and they keep saying he’s “anti-white” for some reason…

  68. 68.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @handy:

    Well isn’t that why everyone hates Obama?

    Who hates Obama? No one I’ve seen here except maybe one or two of the rightwingers.

    Can we ever match the love and dedication of the Obots? Of course not, loving is what they do. But we appreciate what we can.

  69. 69.

    Uloborus

    @flukebucket:
    He has the kind of vast popular appeal and charisma you find in garden slugs. Only the Pundit class actually likes him. Plus, he’s been humiliated in a top-level political showdown by the Democrats once already. It’s much like why Dick Cheney ain’t a viable candidate.

    EDIT – @Just Some Fuckhead:
    May I point out that the conversation was not about you or anyone who posts here, but the GOP primary voting base for whom racism is an established issue?

  71. 71.

    Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)

    @Hal: IOKIYAR

    Well, that’s the liburel media for you. They can never stop calling Michael Moore fat, they could never stop making fun of Hillary’s hips and ankles, but republicans (newt, Christie, Trump, McCain) never have to worry about being a fat.

  73. 73.

    The Dangerman

    @Hal:

    I don’t people will want to see him sweating his way through the primaries…

    Well, my presumption was that he wouldn’t run, but would get drafted at the convention if Pawlenty can’t be the man for some reason; I don’t see any of Romney, Daniels, Bachmann, Palin, Trump, Gingrich, Santorum, or anybody else that has come out of that clown car has a chance in hell of winning their nomination, let alone the general. Yes, I’m forgetting Hucks, but I just don’t think he’s running. I was shocked last week when I heard him claim that even Reagan couldn’t win the nomination in today’s Republican party.

  74. 74.

    Danny

    What about Bob McDonell? He’s said he won’t run, but he keeps coming up in discussions as a running mate, and if the field is wide open…

  76. 76.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Uloborus:

    May I point out that the conversation was not about you or anyone who posts here, but the GOP primary voting base for whom racism is an established issue?

    You are the folks that were trying to decide if they looked Arab or Indian enough. Not the GOP.

  80. 80.

    Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)

    @handy: The party of racial resentment simply isn’t inclusive.

    In a poll released today, 52 percent of registered republicans still don’t believe Obama was born in the US.

    http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/05/10/birther_poll_more_than_half_of_republican_voters_still_doubt_pre.html

    After everything that has occurred during the past 10 days, if the majority of republicans still cling to birtherism, which is completely rooted in race, then I can only conclude that they won’t be receptive of Mitch Daniels (especially after the under the radar robo calls, push polls, and email chain letters his opponents will produce).

  81. 81.

    cbear

    @Hal:

    Christie is easily well over 100 pounds overweight.

    I like fat people, especially fat goopers, they’re easily distracted.

    Christie: “Under my plan Social Security is going to be….
    Obama: “Say Chris, do you smell bacon?
    Christie: Where? What?

  82. 82.

    Uloborus

    @Just Some Fuckhead:
    …no. The discussion was whether the GOP voting base is racist enough that being associated with the Arab/Muslim/They Can’t Tell The Difference world is enough to doom a candidate by itself. Personally, I think they’re vastly overestimating the racism of the Republican base. But since said base has been going on national television and explaining that Islam is an inherently evil and extremist religion that is not actually a religion but a political force that wants to destroy… well, you get the idea. The idea that xenophobia is a powerful motivating force in the Republican base has easily enough evidence to at least justify their discussing how it might apply here.

  83. 83.

    Suffern ACE

    @Just Some Fuckhead: With all the liberal glee that some candidate or another might lose based on race or religion, one might almost think that a segment of liberals want straight white protestants to be in charge of everything, too…but it’s not really worth brining that up.

  84. 84.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @Suffern ACE:

    With all the liberal glee that some candidate or another might lose based on race or religion, one might almost think that a segment of liberals want straight white protestants to be in charge of everything, too…but it’s not really worth brining that up.

    I get it. You get it. Bob got it. Two of ’em are still struggling with it.

  86. 86.

    Jeffro

    @Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!): They’ll embrace Daniels as some sort of descendant of heroes…his parents were Christians in Syria, right? That’s about as ethnic as they can handle. It’ll practically make them feel, y’know, all multicultural-friendly and stuff.

    O/T but here’s a heart-stopper from WaPo’s piece today about Gingrich’s +/-:

    Through intellect and ambition, Gingrich has kept himself in the middle of public policy debates on health care, education, energy and foreign affairs. “Newt’s been the Republican Party’s main idea man for close to a generation,” said Terry Holt, a Republican strategist who closely observed Gin grich as speaker. “This is a guy who brings unlimited energy and creative thinking to a race that needs new ideas.”

    What’s great is it works as both a Gingrich ad and an anti-Gingrich ad =)

  87. 87.

    handy

    @Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!):

    In a poll released today, 52 percent of registered republicans still don’t believe Obama was born in the US.

    How many of these people also believed Bill Clinton was a Soviet agent? Probably not as many, but this wasn’t an uncommon meme in the circles I hung in during the ’90s.

    Let’s not forget also in the 2004 election, John Kerry had the distinction of being someone much worse than a Soviet agent or Soshulist Muslim–he was French.

    So you’re right, Republicans are definitely not the inclusive party, if you’re a particular type of person. We call that type of person a Democrat.

  88. 88.

    Evolved Deep Southerner

    Holy Shit. When I started reading this, I thought you were talking about Jonathan Krohn, that really strange kid that spoke at CPAC. And I was thinking “Man, I guess that talk would be impressive to a dumbass conservative, but was it really enough to make him a 12-year-old power broker in the party? Shit, they’d better wait until his voice changes first and sees what his facial hair is going to do.”

  89. 89.

    Uloborus

    @Just Some Fuckhead:
    So a discussion of the political effect of racism when racism is an ongoing, sometimes front-page-news, and not even hidden element of the opposition’s politics automatically makes the person discussing it racist?

    Eesh. Okay, well, no arguing with that logic. There’s not much you can say to it when Limbaugh uses it either.

  93. 93.

    Bob Loblaw

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Um, no. I don’t think they’re being genuinely racist (ok, Hal saying that Nikki Haley was just the right shade of brown to succeed was racist). I think they’re somehow genuinely intimidated by Mitch Daniels, which is even more ridiculous.

    You don’t need to be a party to racially undermining Mitch Daniels’ currently nonexistent candidacy. You really don’t.

  94. 94.

    Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)

    @handy: but it’s much more than just creating a caricature.

    Nixon formed and specifically ran on the southern strategy of racial resentment.

    And it became their foundation.

    Reagan ran on his welfare queen myth. He infamously started his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi, where civil rights workers where killed.

    The willie horton commercials, the jesse helms commercials vs Harvey Gant.

    They tried to blame the collapse of wall street on black home ownership.

    etc. etc.

  96. 96.

    Hal

    @Bob Loblaw

    Um, no. I don’t think they’re being genuinely racist (ok, Hal saying that Nikki Haley was just the right shade of brown to succeed was racist).

    Yawn, asshole. What did I actually write?

    Haley also doesn’t appear even remotely Indian.

    Wait. On second thought, that’s exactly what I meant. The party of monkey dolls, fried chicken “welfare dollars”, Willie Horton, and the Southern Strategy is perfectly willing to vote for a minority who doesn’t look like one, or who completely distances himself from other minorities, or who loves to talk about just how bad affirmative action is to poor, helpless white men in America.

  98. 98.

    handy

    @Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!):

    I’m not denying the identity politics. In fact, I think the entire GOP strategy boils down to: our opponent is not an American, an “other.”

    But I think you’re missing a blindspot if you think Goopers aren’t paying attention to the ethnic shifts that are happening in this country. I mean, we’re having this discussion right now because you are suggesting race is a problem for Nikkie Haley, when in fact she won an election in a solid red state.

    70 million people voted for Obama in ’08–with only 43% of the white vote. This isn’t going unnoticed. And when the right kind of dark-skinned person comes along you better believe wingnuts will vote for that person.

  99. 99.

    Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)

    @Bob Loblaw: palin’s groupies say the same thing: “blah, blah blah, you’re afraid of her”

    the fact is the gop base is full of people like this

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRq6Y4NmB6U&feature=related

    but continue your naivete and think the party of Nixon, Reagan, Atwater, Rove, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Trentt Lott, Pat Buchanan, Palin, Trump, Beck, Rush, Peter King, and pam geller are Arab friendly.

  101. 101.

    Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)

    @handy: if they’re paying attention to ethnic shifts then why did engage in all the race bashing before the election: amend the constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, anchor babies, park51 mosque, seal the borders!, headless people in Arizona ads, killing the Dream Act in the lame duck session (171 of 179 republicans voted against the act in the House), birtherism.

    Oh, they’ve noticed the shift, but their response has been to increase turn out of their core constituency groups.

  102. 102.

    General Stuck

    @handy:

    This isn’t going unnoticed. And when the right kind of dark-skinned person comes along you better believe wingnuts will vote for that person

    A lot of them will, a fair number won’t due to race over ideology, but it is not a fair comparison comparing state office with the highest federal office, and shades of color toward the dark end of the spectrum matter to folks like these.

    You can take this to the bank, the GOP will not nominate for president anything other than a white Christian, OR MAYBE, a White Morman, but that is not likely, at least for the time being. There is always room for someone of color to arrive that has the exceptional smarts and pol talent of an Obama, but with a different world view that is conservative, but that is almost as unlikely as a ticking time bomb argument for torture. And even then, that person cannot be black. Just not going to happen in this country. It was nothing less than a perfect storm of GOP fail and someone like Obama coming along that was a minor miracle to elect the first black man, and he is a democrat.

    Otherwise, this is an ugly thread that reminds me of wingnut blogs screaming it’s racist to call a racist a racist. Sad shit, really.

  104. 104.

    Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)

    @Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!):

    I should also add Peter King’s muslim witch hunt and the sharia law bull shit.

    That’s not how you make in roads into changing ethnic demos, that’s how you scare the shit of the gop base to squeeze every last vote of a declining demo.

  106. 106.

    General Stuck

    @General Stuck:

    I will make an addendum to my above comment. There was a point in time, in the 2000 election, where the one black republican who could’ve been elected president, with a lot of dem votes, and that was Colin Powell, but not in today’s atmosphere of tea bag purity after George Bush destroyed the vaunted Conservative Movement, or it destroyed itself, and we have a GOP fractured with the energy of haters rising to the top of things for them.

  107. 107.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Well, reasonable people can disagree reasonably. I’m sure we can all agree one on thing: It’s really fucking annoying to try to shut someone down or score cheap debate points by calling everyone racists.

  110. 110.

    pattonbt

    I think race means less in electoral strategy to the R base than most people suspect. Sure, a huge chunk of the base may be full-on, blatant racists/religionists and the elite class will use that as a nice weapon (against the D’s and their own if need be), but they are tribal first and foremost.

    The R base will vote for whoever they think can beat Obama and fellate the old white man power structure properly. And if that turns out to be a 97 year old, fat, balding, 3’2″ Cherokee hermaphrodite who speaks in tongues, so be it. As long as they follow the right script, the base will eagerly fall in line.

    Hell, they would probably see having a minority on the top of the ticket as double plus good. First, they’d believe that having a minority at the lead would somehow prove they are not racists (see the election of known stone cold idiot Michael Steele as RNC chair after Obama’s election “see we can elect blacks too!”). And second, having a minority rail against affirmative action, big government and “the other” let’s them say “see, even the darky knows all that stuff is bad!”.

    As long as the candidate bows to the right people and policy (and knows their place) then all sins of non-whiteness/christian-ness can and will be forgiven.

  111. 111.

    pattonbt

    Maybe I can be more succinct. Republican base primary voting priority:

    1) Is an R
    2) Is an R who is not a “RINO”,
    3) Spews full time crazy hate against D’s,
    4) Fellate’s the old white man power structure,
    5) Can win the election,
    6) Gives enough lip service to Christianity,
    7) Race.

    Sure, in their day to day lives many may be bigots and they may love them some dog whistles, but winning is more important. And as I said, supporting a non-white candidate helps them white-wash any accusations of racism.

  112. 112.

    Captain Howdy

    Romney’s master plan for health care reform is indistinguishable from the Republican opposition to ObamaCare (see Demint, e.g.).

    I don’t think Mitt’s flippity-floppity vis-a-vis Massachusetts is going to be the campaign enema that pundits are predicting, however. Because that narrative has emerged and is gaining traction, however, it will taint every analysis like a shart-stain on Chris Matthews’ underoos.

    But Mittens should be able to withstand this tempest. His defense is coherent: it’s his position that states should have sovereignty over their health-care systems. His Massachusetts dealie has something else besides the individual mandate in common with ObamaCare: it is probably the best deal — from the point of view of a Teatarded governor in a dark blue state — that could have been struck in librul Taxachusettes.

    I say he weathers his flip-flop, eventually wins the Republican nomination (if not him, who?), and then is destroyed like Mamet destroys dialog in the general election.

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