Here’s what the Republican establishment would like us to think about Trump:
“The media made him, the media kept him, the media kept promoting him,” said Stuart Spencer, a former political strategist for Ronald Reagan. Speaking of the proliferation of news outlets interested in politics, Mr. Spencer, 84 and admittedly fascinated by the new landscape, lamented, “There’s no referee anymore to evaluate what are serious issues and what are serious candidates.”
Usually, a “media creation” is a candidate who gets a whole bunch of press but isn’t that popular with voters. That’s not Trump, though it makes a better narrative for the establishment to forget that Trump polled pretty well at the top of his bubble. The Trump boom, which was preceded by a Palin boom, was a pretty solid indication that a good portion of the Republican base wants a non-serious candidate. The question is which one of these clowns will stick around and deliver. My money is on Bachmann.
Pancake
Keep on dreamin’, kiddo. With the latest Gallup showing that Obama is back polling where he was pre-Osama killing, even those clowns will be contenders. Hell, the way Obama’s looking lately, even another Bush could beat the twit.
cmorenc
@mistermix:
It’s going to be verrrry interesting to see how Bachman does in Iowa compared to her fellow “serious” Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty, given that party caucus participants tends to skew heavier towards activists and ideologues than the general electorate or even their own party as a whole. Who’s then becomes the “serious” candidate if Bachman does better? I suppose the “serious” answer (or the answer for those who prefer a different “serious” answer) is that this year, Iowa counts much less, New Hampshire counts much more, wait until then to see valid demonstrations of who’s “serious” and who’s not.
Chris
Just like George Bush was a liberal, but only after he’d cost them the 2008 election, Donald Trump is now a creature of the media, which is to say the liberals, but only after his poll numbers failed to bring on anyone but the 27%ers. Soon as the base has a new idol, every one of them will be that exceptional 27%er who never supported Trump.
MikeBoyScout
Damn!
Foiled by the liberal media again!
JGabriel
mistermix @ top:
Bachmann/Palin Overdrive 2012. Takin’ care of business. Everyday.
They’re a no-brainer!
.
steviez314
B-b-b-baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
gene108
Michelle Bachman doesn’t bother me.
The people in MN-6, who keep voting her into office are the ones we need to be worried about.
stuckinred
@Pancake: Late taping of Hee-Haw today?
JGabriel
Pancake:
Someone’s delivery is falling a little flat, Pancake.
.
Sly
@Pancake:
I’d certainly vote for Jay Bush of Bush’s Original Baked Beans. They’re delicious.
Chris
This line at the end of the article was just precious:
Somehow, I doubt if that “where you were in the past” line would apply to Obama’s supposed birth certificate or radical sympathies. Or, for that matter, anyone but a conservative.
SFAW
Fixed
arguingwithsignposts
@Pancake: Pancake is back!
SFAW
mistermix –
Gotta wait ’til summer for the savior-waiting, I thunk.
Violet
It’s totally going to be Bachmann. I caught about five minutes of Limbaugh’s program yesterday. He was trashing Newt for trashing the Ryan plan and defending Bachmann and talking her up to his listeners as someone who supports the right things and is s real conservative.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Chris: That anybody would quote swinger, self-admitted dirty trickster, founder of Citizens United Not Timid (of Supreme Court fame), loathsome human being Roger Stone in an article about media malfeasance is the atomic bomb that broke the proverbial camel’s back.
SFAW
Comrade Javamanphil –
But, as they say, how do you really feel?
Chris
And remember, this is for posterity, so – be honest.
SensesFail
Trump: “Meatloaf, should I run for President?”
Meatloaf: “Absolutely!”
The clown car just won’t be the same without Trump in it.
JGabriel
@Comrade Javamanphil: Citizens United (of SCOTUS fame) and Citizens United Not Timid are different organizations. The similarity of their names engendered a trademark dispute between them, so the confusion is understandable.
Other than that, everything else you said about Stone is 100% accurate, if a bit mild.
.
Comrade Javamanphil
@JGabriel: I will despise him slightly less accordingly.
And as to how I feel? Like it’s much too early to want a scotch as badly as I do.
low-tech cyclist
@Violet:
Any idea what the Big Fat Idiot is saying about Pawlenty?
If he’s throwing his weight behind just Bachmann, then I’d have to agree with you, she’ll be the candidate the Teabaggers rally behind, especially since it’s starting to look pretty clear that Palin’s sitting this one out.
But if Rush is saying good things about multiple candidates still, then it’s far from a done deal.
Ash Can
He should know, that’s for sure. And I think the reporter got the bit about him “lamenting” wrong. Spencer and the mob he was affiliated with sold an affable elderly huckster to the American people as an actual US president, and did such a good job of it that many of those people still think he was an unusually good president. If there had been any competent “referees to evaluate what are serious issues and what are serious candidates” in the media then, they’d never have been able to pull off their scam.
drew42
Not sure I’m following your logic on this one.
@mistermix:
But isn’t that the result of the “media creation”? He wasn’t popular with Republican voters before the media blitz. But after several weeks of wall-to-wall coverage about that awesome Trump, a significant chunk of voters thought he was awesome, as well. After all, everyone in the media said he was!
And I don’t think that necessarily indicates a big chunk of Republican voters are crazy/stupid (but there are plenty of other reasons to think they are). If we currently had a Republican President, and the media spent weeks talking up an otherwise ridiculous potential Democratic candidate, we’d see his/her numbers rise as well.
Ash Can
@Violet: Limbaugh backed Romney the last time, for all the good it did either him or Romney. Despite all the kowtowing and ring-kissing that Republican leaders do to him, he doesn’t have a good track record of king-making. He doesn’t have enough listeners to influence the primaries to that extent.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@gene108: Because without a district full of lunatics to support her, Bachmann would simply be another lunatic.
The lunatics are truly trying to take over the asylum.
Kane
It seems to me that the republican voters desire a candidate who is willing to attack. We witnessed this play out in the 2010 mid-term election where the candidates who attacked loudest and most often were often considered to be the most suitable and genuine conservatives. Those who refrained from the attacks, were often deemed as RINOs.
One thing that Trump, Palin and Bachmann all appear to have in common is that their approval ratings among republican voters have a tendency to grow most when they are in attack mode against President Obama.
It seems to matter little to the republican voter that these individuals are often ill-informed and that they shamelessly makes things up in their attacks. And the lack of knowledge and political experience of these candidates matters little as well. What matters above all else is the constant personal attacks on President Obama. This is what the republican voter apparently wants and demands of their candidates. Those unwilling to play along continue to have difficulty in gaining traction.
In large measure, these are the same people who wore band-aids at the 2004 Republican presidential convention to mock and to put into question John Kerry’s war wounds. The very same people who developed an industry of conspiracy theories surrounding Bill and Hillary Clinton, accusing them of everything from murder to operating a drug cartel. The same people who were willing to go along with the birther nonsense. The politics of personal destruction is what they crave.
Shalimar
When I was growing up in the mid-80s, my dad was a newspaper editor. And they used to get letters every week from this woman who attended all the school board and commission meetings to complain about weird issues and also ran for County Commission several times unsuccessfully. This woman is who I always think about when I see Michele Bachmann speak. The difference being that 30 years ago, everyone considered this woman to be a local nuisance; whereas Bachmann is being talked about as a presidential candidate. It boggles the mind how far into loony land Republican leaders have allowed their party to drift that they would take people like her seriously. You’re supposed to con the rubes, not let them take over.
Kane
There have always been those certain individuals in society who stood on a neighborhood street corner waving a sign and proclaiming to anyone within shouting distance an assortment of conspiracy theories and warnings that the end of the world was near. Most of us would give nothing more than a passing glance to these sad individuals of society as we continued on with our daily lives.
Today, such individuals are no longer standing on the nearby street corner. Instead, they are found flourishing on the cable news programs and talk-radio. They are given prime op-ed space, reality shows and book deals, and every utterance is given daily media coverage as if what they are saying has some great significance and meaning in our lives.
Rather than condemning and pointing out the obvious insanity and hatred and bigotry that these individuals espouse, the media all too often portrays these individuals as heroic and fascinating, offering them up as credible politicians and presidential hopefuls. The media should have long ago exposed these individuals for what they are and what they stand for and who they represent. Instead, much of the media has provided them with an endless forum and catered to them and made them famous while the public has to suffer their public folly.
Amir_Khalid
It’s a town full of losers, Trump’s pulling out of there to win. — At any rate, that’s how he chose to spin it.
The Tea Party tendency’s energy was useful in campaigning, but they are disruptive and a clear danger to the Republican party. They have been proven themselves frighteningly inept at legislating, and too easily bamboozled by the White House.
It looks like the moneyed, establishment side of the party is choosing to sit the 2012 presidential campaign out, beyond a token participation, so as to let the crazies discredit themselves in an embarrassing campaign that ends in humiliating defeat. Then, once the rambunctious toddlers have gone home, the party’s adults can take charge again and restore order.
There’ll be a non-crazy, moderate sacrificial lamb (or two) running, who will lose the nomination to a Tea Party candidate, who will then get crushed by Obama in November. And from 2013 onward the official Republican line will be: “Tea Party? What Tea Party?”
danimal
Unless the GOP establishment finds some way, any way, of corralling the wild horses that they have unleashed, Bachmann will have an interesting glide path to the nomination. She speaks for teh crazy, she’s purty, and she raises a metric ton of cash. Think Palin without the baggage, and you’ve got Michele! To be sure, she has baggage, but most Murkins haven’t really been exposed to her ridiculous ramblings yet. The GOP’s Goldwater moment awaits.
Popcorn futures continue to go up.
jrg
@Pancake: Yes, genius. That’s why the Republican who polls highest (Huckabee) announced the other day that he’s not running.
The Republican field is packed right now with serious candidates. I’ll bet Obama is sweating his balls off over Newt Gingrich.
Svensker
I’m starting to think that Huntsman might actually have a chance.
Chris
@Amir_Khalid:
If it goes down that way, they might even hold up the teabaggers as an example of the dangers of populism. Their anti-bailout statements will be inflated and held up as evidence of an irrational anti-Wall Street, ergo anti-capitalist rage. Very Serious People will shake their heads and say that we really need to start listening to the Galtian crowd again.
Cat Lady
@Kane:
This. The Tea Party is and only ever has been the basest of the Republican base who have longed for their fear and resentments to be fully and loudly articulated, and Koch money and Armey’s org skills have been able to manipulate them into supporting candidates who walk right up to or over the line. That’s all they want. The failure of the media to point out that Tea Party policies only benefit billionaires is the real shame of this whole sad phenomenon.
Rathskeller
@Kane:
I strongly agree with this. The GOP voter base is angry and scared. Things are not the way they’re supposed to be, there’s a fucking black man as president and they want someone as mad as they are to goddamn fix it right now. Anyone who can fulminate along with their raging id and their simplistic hulk-smash solutions gets their instant support. This makes me like Bachmann a lot in several GOP primaries.
The countervailing pressure comes from the fact that they are not all of the 27%. As soon as the speaker is shown to be irresponsible and foolish, like Trump, they drop in support, even among the GOP but especially among the swing voters.
4tehlulz
@Svensker:
If he wins Nevada, he’ll survive long enough to get crushed on Super Tuesday.
I don’t see a route for him unless Mitt decides that he doesn’t want to deal with this shit.
Daddy-O
“…the Republican base wants a non-serious candidate.”
Truth. Gotta get THAT message out, stat.
Waldo
I’m thinking the GOP power brokers aren’t going to stand around and watch Bachmann stumble her way to the nomination. She could do more damage to the party than any candidate since Hoover. It’s what the ’64 election would have been like if the GOP had nominated a transgendered, brain-damaged Barry Goldwater.
Geeno
Huntsman isn’t even running yet, is he?
kd bart
There were ghosts in the eyes of all the candidates the Republicans sent away.
Admiral_Komack
@Sly:
OK.
Do you have the secret recipe?
If so, this is the dog talking, and Jay will catch you; he ALWAYS does.
scav
This, to me, is a killer give-away. They can’t evaluate situations themselves. They not only are comfortable thinking of all this as a game, they’re looking for the big daddy with the whistle to explain things to them so they know what to think, how to think, and what to do. EEEn-ter-est-ing, vedddy veddy EEEnteresting.
Because, as best I can tell, the problem with serious issues at this exact moment is that there are too many lounging about the shattered and cratered landscape — we have a bloody embarrassment of choices and what are these refereeless loons coming up with?
“Mommy Mommy! Look ad da pwetty pebble!” against the background of the Grand Canyon is pretty much the sum of it.
“Yes dear, I’m sure it’s a magic pebble too.”
merrinc
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Understood on the need for single malt medication. I was wondering a couple months ago if Stone’s filthy group was tied to the SCOTUS decision and spent quite a bit of time with teh Google. What I learned made me want to scrub my soul and then move to another country. I’d call Stone scum of the of the earth but that would be too complimentary.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
there were ghosts in the eyes
of all the blue dogs you sent away
they haunt this dusty beach road
in the skeleton frames of government chevrolets
Jay in Oregon
@scav:
Exactly. Mr. Spencer, here’s a hint as to the serious issues:
• The concentration of wealth in a dwindling percentage of the population
• The fall in real wages coupled with the rise of food and energy prices
• The dwindling of a financial safety net as more people reach retirement age
• The fact that unemployment hovers upwards of 9% and shows no sign of going down any time soon
• The spiraling cost of medical care
Here’s a hint as to the non-serious issues:
• The skin color of the President of the United States
• What a large segment of the racist fuckwads in our country think of the skin color of the President of the United States
• The Amero, the Jewish banking conspiracy, the NAFTA superhighway, George Soros, the Gnomes of Zurich, the EBEs, or whatever bullshit Glenn Beck is peddling this week.
Annelid Gustator
Ambassador Hunstman has no chance.
Prez. Obama says, “I like Mr. Huntsman very much. When he was working for me he did a good job advancing the American agenda in China with the strategies and tools I provided him. Maybe he isn’t the ‘vision’ candidate among the field, but he’s a dedicated family man and Bishop in the Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints. He told me about the Book of Mormon, and I find his faith inspirational, if not quite expressed the same way as my Christian values.”
Done.
Amir_Khalid
@Annelid Gustator: Truly, Barack Obama is a master of Death by Nice.
Annelid Gustator
@Amir_Khalid: Indeed, if he wants to be a little nicer than that, he can. Let Secretary Clinton really push in the knife… I hate the impulse towards “if it annoys mine enemies, do it” but that’d be sweet.
Tom Q
@merrinc: I had the misfortune of knowing Roger Stone in high school, and I can assure you we all thought he was a jackass then. But even I’ve been surprised by the depths of his depravity.
I’m in tune with alot of folk here (including the original post): the press is in fact trying their best to tamp down the GOP’s tea-party id — assuring us that someone vanilla like Daniels or Romney or Pawlenty will win the nomination in the end. I don’t believe that’ll happen. I think 2012 will be something like Peak Wingnut — that the Gingrich/Bachman/Palin wing is feeling divinely driven, determined to make their loathing of Obama the dominant (if not sole) issue of the election. The results of the ’10 Senate primaries suggest their power can’t be ignored. I’m having a hard time deciding who the cnadidate will be, but my guess is it’s someone more crazy than un-crazy.
WereBear
Good call. It is my own weapon of choice.
hamletta
As is mine…on which of these loons will be the first to bite the head off a chicken.