I’m sure this isn’t just happening in Iowa:
Representatives for leading social conservative groups in Iowa held a secret meeting Monday as part of an effort with one main goal: find and support a Republican presidential candidate who can stop Mitt Romney in Iowa.
The idea: avoid splintering the conservative vote in the state by rallying around one GOP rival who could win Iowa’s Jan. 3 caucus and then challenge Romney in New Hampshire and the other early voting states.
Many social conservatives and other religious leaders in the state have openly labeled the former Massachusetts governor as a “flip-flopper,” a criticism the campaign frequently beats back, while others have seen Romney’s Mormon faith as an issue. And many of them have openly hoped for someone to emerge as a viable alternative to the former Massachusetts governor.
The most ridiculous thing about that lame smear peace by Ben Smith and JMart a while back, when they insisted that the Obama campaign pointing out Romney is weird is somehow an attack on his Mormonism, was that anyone with half a brain realizes the Obama team would never have to touch the Mormon issue. The religious nuts in the GOP will make sure everyone knows Romney is in a cult and wears funny underpants. The Obama team just needs to sit aside and watch.
AA+ Bonds
One hopes they’ll manage to ratfuck themselves. If it hasn’t been coordinated in advance, the evident Rove/Koch split over Romney could kneecap the Republicans going into the general.
Let’s just hope they both get out there and spend spend spend in Iowa/NH, because the Republican backroom dealers usually figure out how to short-circuit their own primary voters by South Carolina.
That’s the primary that actually decides who will be their candidate, through a careful combination of subtle, careful bigotry and overt, savage bigotry.
JFitz
Hey John, wayyy OT but, I live in Tucson and we just hired Rich Rodriquez as head coach at UA. and well I was wondering what you think of him?
AA+ Bonds
(Let’s try to keep this thread on the topic of Mitt Romney? For once?)
trollhattan
Wow, next thing you know they’ll put Willard on double-secret probation. These clowns are reaping the “rewards” of their own successes. Hopefully we’ve not yet become a nation of idiots and enough voters will see through the curtains.
Emma
The most ridiculous thing about that lame smear peace by Ben Smith and JMart a while back, when they insisted that the Obama campaign pointing out Romney is weird is somehow an attack on his Mormonism, was that anyone with half a brain realizes the Obama team would never have to touch the Mormon issue.
They throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
The Other Chuck
and find a way to most effectively splinter the REPUBLICAN vote instead! Congraturation! A winner is you!
TenguPhule
Well there’s your problem.
There are no brains to be found there.
AA+ Bonds
[Please note that the President’s campaign depends on blogs like Balloon Juice doing the work on Romney given the huge amount of material we have to use, and if we fail, we fail his campaign]
JFitz
@AA+ Bonds: You’re right, sorry, I’ll put it in an email
TenguPhule
Once again, the most optimal conclusion to the Republican Primaries is a mass murder/suicide.
AA+ Bonds
@JFitz:
Well I imagine we’ll get an open thread pretty soon here :D That wasn’t directed at you.
Soonergrunt
Just so long as Romney doesn’t win New Hampshire. He gave up on Iowa long ago, and has spent his time and energy in NH, knowing that he cannot win South Carolina, either.
So here’s hoping he comes in close second in NH, and goes to SC badly wounded so that one of the nuts is strong for the season.
The longer that people in the center look at Republican front runners, the worse they look. Exposure to Republicans is the best advertising the Obama campaign can buy.
BGinCHI
The GOP field has nothing. Nothing but batshit crazy and out of touch.
What I want to know is how the shit on these coattails will smear the rest of the GOP candidates down the ticket.
We need sanity at all levels, not just in the WH.
Guster
Bachmann is coming back. She’s got everything. I don’t know why she’s not still leading the field.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt:
One should ask Rudy 9iu11iani how that worked out for him.
Morbo
And yet everyone calls out our dear old MC as bigoted against Mormons whenever she points this same fact out.
shortstop
Mitt, the two of us need look no more. We both found what we were looking for.
Violet
@BGinCHI:
I hope it smears Republicans down to local city council and school board levels. They are batshit crazy.
The idea that the “conservatives” are terrified of milquetoast Mitt Romney is hilarious. They’re worse than the Soviets with their purity purges. What a bunch of idiots.
shortstop
@Yutsano: Rudy didn’t have the POWERHOUSE OF KELLY AYOTTE!
Sorry. In a silly mood.
trollhattan
@Guster:
Wow, if Bachmann comes back than “jwest” will be able to show up here as well. Double win.
feebog
Romney still polls better in New Hampshire than his nationwide poll numbers. Iowa is anyones guess, it depends on who turns out. I would not be surprised to see Ron Paul win it over Gingrich and Romney by a small margin, with Bachman limping in at fourth place. I think Perry and Cain Cain are yesterday’s news and they will be done after Iowa.
If Romney makes a strong showing in New Hampshire (defined as 40% or better), then he can get through So. Carolina. The big contest will be Florida at the end of January. Keep in mind though that this will all be media driven, the actual number of delegates alloted, due to 50% penalty for holding their primaries before Feb. 6, is miniscule.
MikeJ
If they do take Romney down I’m sure politico will tell us it’s because Democrats are so bigoted they didn’t show up to vote for him because he’s Mormon.
Hill Dweller
We are a nation of morons. Consequently, Romney, who lies with impunity and makes a cardboard cutout look spontaneous, becoming the next President is a pretty good bet.
Veritas
The Evangelicals are no longer in control.
BGinCHI
Why don’t the GOP candidates just form a corporation and then run against Obama together?
It would limit their liability and allow them to spend like drunken sailors.
What should they call it?
KG
@Soonergrunt: Romney should win NH and NV, IA and SC could be split between two other candidates. That makes Florida pivotal (especially since it looks like it’ll be going before Nevada) out of the four early states. But then the run of February primaries help Romney: Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, Arizona, Michigan. This thing could be over by March 1, or it could get very messy.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
What I personally find hilarious is that this comes after months of concern-tolling around Liberals leaving Obama, esp. with the silly Nader/West primary “challenge”.
I’ll be curious to see if this bears any fruit, because if you’d asked me 20 years ago if a political party would risk self-immolation in this fashion, I’d have laughed in your face. This isn’t like the Clinton/Obama fight, where we’ve got people who know what the score is no matter how nasty it gets — these fools are for real.
Yutsano
@Veritas:
The Evangelicals are half of the crazy in the Tea Party. Or you’re just being deliberately obtuse.
MattF
I’m still taken aback by that flat-out lying TV ad that Romney released.
I know, I know… “whatever it takes” and all that… but I’d bet someone on Romney’s staff said ‘maybe that’s not a great idea’, and so it had to be Romney himself who decided to do it.
Rabble Arouser
@JFitz: You mean Rich Roriguez. There’s no “D” in his name. Have fun getting walloped by everybody that counts for the next three-four seasons.
shortstop
@MikeJ: Well, is he a Mormon? And will we vote for him? Huh? Huh? Got you there.
Gilles de Rais
These poor dumb backwards Christofascist dupes don’t understand the nature of the party they’ve been fellating for 32 years; the decision’s been made for them. Romney will be the candidate, and all the tantrums in the world won’t change that.
Soonergrunt
@KG: Obviously I’m hoping for ‘very messy’. Like I said, give me Romney losing a close second in New Hampshire so that he’s wounded enough to not lock the nomination, but not so bad that he drops out.
Ideally, he spends a LOT of donor money, limps to the convention, and has to fight with somebody who is completely unpalatable to the non-crazy 73%
Veritas
@Yutsano:
Evangelicals are NOT the Tea Party, we are fiscal conservatives first and foremost. As I said the Jesus People had their day in ’00 and ’04. They’re over.
MikeJ
@Yutsano: I’m still not convinced they have as much voting power as they claim. They hated McCain with a fiery passion and he still steamrolled them. Yes, the crazy people in the Republican party have gotten even louder, but I’m not sure there are really more of them.
Romney better hope for high turnout. That will bring out the Republican voters who are low info enough to not hate him yet and see him as the relatively sane white guy on the ballot. Low turnout means a higher percentage of the insane voting.
BGinCHI
@Veritas: Then I assume you are for letting the Bush tax cuts expire.
shortstop
@BGinCHI: I assume DougJ has the day off.
Veritas
@BGinCHI:
No I’m for cutting wasteful spending (ex. Solyndra).
Sal
Please oh lord let it be Frothy Mix Ricky!
Waldo
Mittster.
They’ve come to snuff the Mittster.
That’s the headline you wanted. OK, now I feel better.
Schlemizel
Here is hoping they have success in Iowa & Millard Witt finishes second in NH to someone not the chosen one in Iowa. That way they can break out the long knives in NC. Few things would make me happier in the spring of ’12 than wingnuts spilling wingnut blood across the electoral map, reinforcing the notion that Republicans are all batshit crazy.
BGinCHI
@Veritas: Farm subsidies? Defense?
Maybe you could also explain how trickle down economics works. Please do so with some historical examples. And charts.
The Dangerman
The Power Brokers have called it for Romney; who gives a shit what the Rubes think?
Gingrich had a nice, if short, run as the top not-ROM, but he’s gonna take a hit on immigration.
Cris (without an H)
Previous campaigns have shown Obama to be a political aikido master. Hope he has the discipline to keep it up.
KG
@Soonergrunt: Part of me really wants to see a brokered convention… partly because it’d be a shitshow, partly because I’d love to see the media freak out about it for three days straight, and partly because with everything else we’ve seen since ’92 or so, it’s the only thing missing.
If Paul wins Iowa, Romney takes NH and NV, Gingrich wins SC, and Florida ends up being a close race, then all bets are off.
cckids
@MattF:
I’m not sure, his staff just may be that clueless; on Morning Joe this a.m., the entire panel was pretty outraged by the ad, Joe especially called it a sleazy lie & a huge mistake for Romney. A Politico rep was there & said after the debate, the Romney camp was “thrilled” by the reaction they were getting to the ad, & kept saying that the press had “taken the bait”. That, of course, confused anyone with a thinking brain. They (the Romneyites) seem to believe that because people are talking about him in context with President Obama, he is rising above the primary fight.
In truth, people are just getting solid confirmation that he is as much of an amoral, lying sleazeball as their gut instincts have always told them he was.
Mike E
@BGinCHI:
Frackwater
Gex
@BGinCHI: Citizens United.
Violet
@Veritas:
Uh huh. So Ron Paul’s the Tea Party darling, right? Oh, wait…
@Soonergrunt:
Sarah Palin rides to the rescue at a brokered convention. Her fans are already writing the story.
Turgidson
@Yutsano:
I thought Rudy’s firewall was Florida. Which was way too late since the rest of the clown car had run him over by then after others had won or finished strong in the earlier states. I don’t remember him contesting NH as fiercely as Mittens and Walnuts did – maybe taking comfort in the 6-month old polls showing that he and Hillary were inevitable.
Judas Escargot
@KG:
This isn’t 1996, or even 2004: There’s been a perceptible “hardening” in the NH Republicans since 2008, and Newt’s Speakership is a recent memory to someone over 55: To some of them, he now just seems to have been ahead of his time. (WARNING: All evidence I have is anecdotal. But lately I’ve learned to trust what I hear and see more than what I read when I have a choice… better predictive value).
They are also are smart enough to realize that Obamacare basically is Romneycare writ large.
If Newt can keep from imploding (and can fend off the inevitable attacks) between now and the primary, IMO he has a better chance in NH than most seem to think. These are still New Hampshirites, and they’ll vote for whomever they damned well please.
SC will go to Cain or Newt. FL will be Romney’s Last Stand, where his team and supporters pull out all the stops and try to beat not-Romney once and for all (ie what Bush basically did to McCain in SC in 2000). If he doesn’t win FL, Romney’s campaign withers and dies there like Giuliani’s did in 2008.
After that? No guesses. I’ve read about the possibility of a brokered GOP convention in several different places today. Would their base accept that?
Gilles de Rais
@BGinCHI: You’re arguing with an evangelical; only difference is that his Gawd is not that of the Bible, but of Reagan’s Randian vision for a two-class America composed of rulers and those who serve them on their knees.
You’ll no more get a sane response out of the lunatic known as “veritas” than you would out of a snake handler in the throes of glossolalia.
EDIT: Veritas doesn’t know this, but he will be one of the servants. Another expendable pawn for those in charge. I wish I could see the look on his face when he finds out.
Jay in Oregon
@Veritas:
Not bad, but you let your troll colors show with the Solyndra comment.
Amir Khalid
@Morbo:
She said that Mitt Romney being Mormon was all it would take to put Republicans off nominating him. When people were pleading with Chris Christie to run, she said the same thing about Christie’s big tummy. Well, we won’t know now about Christie. But being Mormon kept neither Mitt nor his dad from being elected governor. It wasn’t being a Mormon that scuttled George Romney’s presidential candidacy back in 1968, but his position on the Vietnam war.
There were, and still are, plenty of reasons other than his Mormon faith not to like Mitt for president. And for all we know, it might yet be those other reasons that prove decisive against Mitt this time out.
danimal
Ron Paul will win Iowa handily. The unRomneys (Newt, Cain, Michelle!, Santorum, etc) will not let their votes go to another unRomney, and they all figure they will live another day and take out Paul at a later time. Be ready for tactical voting in Iowa leading to a Paul boomlet. Hopefully this will cause a massive fustercluck of the nomination process and a conservative third party emerging from the loser of the Paul v unRomney battle.
Violet
@BGinCHI:
Crazicorp.
KG
@Turgidson: Rudy’s big mistake was thinking you could survive winning less than 10% in IA/NH/SC. To have a later firewall primary, you have to at least be marginally competitive in at least one of those first three states. Strategic thinking can be hard sometimes though.
AA+ Bonds
I would be surprised if Ron Paul won anything other than his seat in Crazyhole, Texas
Gromitt Gunn
@25: Konfederated Klown Kar, LLC
HRA
Absolutely, John. I know there are a significant amount of people out there focusing on Romney’s religion as a deterrent to casting a vote for him. They keep it within their own inner circle of friends and relatives. Ask them if they have looked up Mormonism and you’ll get a snappy reply of “It’s not Christian and that’s all I have to know.” Oh, yes, they do vote.
AA+ Bonds
@KG:
According to history, if you win South Carolina’s primary, you get the Republican candidacy; if you lose South Carolina’s primary, you will not get the Republican candidacy.
We have yet to see any exceptions to these rules.
That’s why the Rovian Republicans try to make sure they’ve circumvented the primary process by SC: because if SC were a truly open race, the Republicans would always have an unelectable candidate.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Veritas:
Oh, wait. You’re serious. Let me laugh even harder.
BGinCHI
@Gex: Or Dumbfucks United by Dollars.
Yutsano
@AA+ Bonds:
Which he announced he’s not running for re-election there. So one way or another Paul will be retired.
Turgidson
@Soonergrunt:
Huntsman is our best friend in your scenario. Despite polling only slightly above cancer even in NH, he’s spending his dad’s money like there’s no tomorrow and it seems like most of the focus is on letting people know just how much of a phony snake oil salesman Romney is. He could be some weird mirror image of what Gephardt was to Dean in 04 Iowa – the kamikaze who takes a bite out of the frontrunner.
I am almost 100% convinced at this point that Huntsman thinks the country is better off with Obama at the helm for another 4 years than anyone in the clown car, including Romney – maybe especially Romney. That, and he still has the 2016 dream and knows his best shot is for the GOP to nominate Barry Goldwater 2 – Electric Boogaloo.
And he’s also probably bitter that not only does he have to ride in the clown car, but they duct taped his mouth and threw him in the trunk with Ron Paul.
Hunter Gathers
Evidently, eating mac and cheese on Thanksgiving makes you black, according to Pat Robertson.
I look forward to having teabaggers give me that nervous look before they cross the street to avoid me. Hopefully, they won’t ask how my college education was funded.
AA+ Bonds
@KG:
SC has always gone to the eventual Republican candidate since the primary first occurred thirty-odd years ago.
AA+ Bonds
@Yutsano:
Oh thank God. That, I didn’t know. I guess he figures his kid in the Senate can do more damage than he ever could, and the Pauls are all about doing damage to American governance.
Paul in KY
@BGinCHI: SPECTRE or maybe KAOS. Might have to pay for the rights to those names.
AA+ Bonds
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
He has a point, evident from how the WSJ/Fox are attacking the President over
1) stimulus spending
2) unions(!)
3) regulation
this cycle. It would be pretty easy to use gays and abortion, but they’ve calculated that this won’t work for them anymore with Republicans (and looking at the numbers, they’re right).
They know that if the Clinton-era anti-ATF attacks were going to work, Holder would be out of a job by now (and it didn’t work on Reno back then either). They’re sticking to fiscal issues with a reactionary twist, like attacking the Department of Energy for promoting solar panel companies.
BGinCHI
@Paul in KY: Already owned by the Koch Bros, I assume.
Paul in KY
@Gromitt Gunn: I think they would want a No Liability Company. Liked your name.
AA+ Bonds
@Turgidson:
I think John Huntsman wants a semi-permanent position with the Serious Business crew from the Village, popping up on CNN to explain that global warming is real and that the only way to fix it is by mass deregulation of industry. Soon “Huntsman” will be uttered in the same hushed, reverent tones as “Brooks” or “Friedman”. And then every liberal will wonder why the guy seemed so great in 2011 (hint: it’s because none of them have been to his website and read his actual positions on issues.)
He’s a non-issue. Focus on Romney.
Paul in KY
@BGinCHI: Yup, you’re probably right. How about ACME? There’s a company with a product line that seems to work about as well as Republican governance.
AA+ Bonds
@Amir Khalid:
In 1968? Come on.
It definitely had to do with him being a Mormon. Nominating a Jew, a Mormon, anything like that would have been suicide in 1968 and they knew it. Primaries didn’t decide candidacies back then (and honestly, for the Republicans, they don’t decide them now.)
Don’t get me wrong, G. Romney also said a ton of stupid shit on the campaign trail. But there’s no way they would have let him take the convention even if his performance had been flawless.
shortstop
@AA+ Bonds: I’ve yet to meet a liberal who thinks that of Huntsman. “Not as openly crazy/unashamedly mean/gleefuly ignorant as the rest of them, and occasionally gets a policy prescription right, even if for the wrong reasons” is not really a synonym for “great.”
Alex S.
I hear that Palin has found the target of her endorsement and it’s probably Newt Gingrich. It’s no wonder, because Grifterella knows a true master when she sees one.
Chris
Would that happen to be the Council for National Policy?
Back in 2008, these same guys all got together to discuss the possibility of running someone on a third party ticket in the event that a pro-choicer (Giuliani) got the nomination.
Turgidson
@AA+ Bonds:
Could be – I can definitely see him doing the Villager version of what Huck did on Fox after 08 – keep a public platform and flirt with a future run if he looks viable (not bloody likely).
I’m just saying, his savaging of Romney in NH could reap benefits. And I agree re: the issues. Fiscally he’s as much of a regressive lunatic as anyone up there besides maybe Ron Paul. He’s considerably less insane than the rest of the clown car, but that’s like being a less-bad strain of the plague. It’s still the fucking plague.
AA+ Bonds
@shortstop:
I’d bet money that an analysis of liberal opinion writing on the Republican race would find far, far more tepid cheering for Huntsman than any criticism of his right-wing positions. That’s what he’s counting on to fill his pockets for the next couple decades. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have responded to his rock-bottom poll numbers by doubling down on iconoclastic rhetoric that further alienates Republicans. My guess is that he’s had a few choice cocktail conversations with people like David Brooks and Erskine Bowles. He knows he’s taken care of.
So, shortstop, what do you think of Mitt Romney?
KG
@Judas Escargot: I think the base wouldn’t mind a brokered convention (one more chance for all those potential candidates who passed up running, ie Palin, Christie, Daniels, et al). The establishment would be scared shitless of such an outcome because they would have no way of controlling the convention (as it stands now, the presumptive nominee gets to create the show, no presumptive nominee means a shit show of epic proportions as everyone fights for the right to give candidacy speeches).
KG
According to wikipedia (I know, I know), Reagan won South Carolina in ’76, but I’m not sure if that was the same situation then.
And up until a few years ago, if you didn’t win Iowa you couldn’t win the nomination; and before that, if you didn’t win NH you couldn’t win the nomination.
Paul in KY
@AA+ Bonds: I’m not sure anyone played up his Mormoness back then. Probably would have if he had gotten closer to nomination territory.
Could be wrong, but I think the ‘brainwashed’ comments put 2 torpedos in the side pretty quickly.
Turgidson
@shortstop:
Right. I’ve met moderates and independents who think Huntsman is the best thing ever. But they’re mostly people who have historically been Republican-leaning but aren’t totally blind to how batshit the party is becoming and really, really want a sane Republican to vote for.
In my anecdotal experience, they’re the type who voted Bush in 2000, saw how much of a bungler Bush was by the 2004 election and didn’t want to vote for him but ended every sentence criticizing him with “but Kerry would be even worse!” without ever explaining why other than that he’s a Democrat and blah blah blah LIBERAL!!!. At least a couple of these people voted fucking Libertarian. Idiots.
Scott P.
@AA+ Bonds:
The rules have changed, since the Republican primaries are no longer winner take all. The only thing that can derail a candidacy now is the money drying up, and Romney can self-finance, at least as long as he thinks he has a chance.
Mike E
@AA+ Bonds:
Yep, the thot of the 1st Hanukkah in the WH, or Dianetics Day ceremony w/Tom Cruise and John Travolta…that would make Evangelicals lose control of, umm, something
shortstop
@AA+ Bonds:
Maybe so, but “tepid cheering” comes a lot closer to my definition of their view than to your original assertion that they think he’s “great.” And I don’t think the rest of your analysis about where he’ll end up is off at all.
@Turgidson: Yep. They have just enough sight to recognize the batshittery, but not enough honesty, accountability or self-awareness to admit that no Eisenhower-era Republican is coming to save them from it, or that they’re continuing to enable it with their party loyalty. So they pretend Huntsman is something he ain’t.
Judas Escargot
@shortstop:
FTFY.
The independents: What they say they want, they already have, or would get if they voted for mainline Democrats.
Tribalism. It sucks.
Turgidson
@shortstop:
Indeed. And no matter what, their view of the Democrats will always be some bullshit caricature based on 1972, so they’ll find reasons not to just be honest and admit that in today’s world, they’re fucking Democrats or should at least vote for them if they want to live in a sane world.
OK, sorry AA+ Bonds. Back to Romney. He sucks ass.
Chris
@Turgidson:
@shortstop:
I feel like you just described the majority view among swing voters (except that they don’t never vote Democrat, just rarely).
It goes 1) they elect Republicans, 2) they spend years and years watching the country unravel, 3) the economy finally goes so far in the shitter that they’re willing to hold their noses and vote Democrat (Clinton 1992 and Obama 2008), but 4) quickly recoil in horror because the Democrats running the country are just such Democrats, and 5) sweep the country out from underneath them just two years later in the midterms (1994 Gingrich revolution, 2010 teabaggers).
Suffern ACE
@Chris: Yep. Like my Anti-Democrat but Independent Aunt, who watches Hannity, and is pissed that Republicans want to mess with social security. “I didn’t vote for that!”. As long as SHE doesn’t have to vote for or be represented by a Dem, she’s just fine. She’s relying on other people’s Dem Reps to protect her shit. If the Dems fall into the minority, she blames them for allowing the Republican bills to pass that she doesn’t like. But yeah, she’s independent.
Frankensteinbeck
@Morbo:
You misunderstand. MC is called out for being bigoted because she reduces almost all conflicts to a battle between ethnicities or religions, presents each side as if it were one unified thing containing no individuals, and then cheers the destruction of the evil white Christian. Merely thinking Romney’s Mormonism is an issue would not make her a bigot by itself.
MC is called out for being an idiot for lecturing people about Romney’s Mormonism being an issue when everyone already knows it’s an issue, and the question is ‘how big?’
Chris
@Suffern ACE:
Yeah, I think a lot of straight-ticket Republican voters think like that when considering issues that they don’t actually agree with Repubs on. Sure, we need Social Security and Medicare and access to abortions, those things can’t be abolished, but that’ll never really happen… and in the meantime, you’re sticking it to loony libs!
Turgidson
@Chris:
Yeah, that’s probably more or less it. The people I’ve experienced this with tend to be people whose parents were center to center-right and fundamentally sane, but have some perpetual aborrance of dirty fucking hippies that caused them to reflexively hate the Democrats. This ethos got passed on to their kids, who may be somewhat more liberal but for some reason can’t let go of this hangup either.
And then I know a fair number of Gen X’ers who have a soft spot for Reagan even as they acknowledge that the imprint he left on his party and the country has been ruinous. But they still hold onto their GOP loyalty. Basically they’re American Andrew Sullivans I guess.
rikryah
FINALLY
no more beating around the bush. the media has been pretending since forever and a day, all sorts of reasons why Willard isn’t doing well and can’t break out of the pack.
plain and simple, it’s religious bigotry. the Holy Rollers are religious bigots and ARE NOT going to fall in line behind a man that they believe belongs to a CULT.
there.
I said it.
it’s the elephant in the room, and the MSM doesn’t want to call the GOP base what they are: RELIGIOUS BIGOTS.
shortstop
@rikryah: I actually think it’s more than that. Politicians are always being accused of flip-flopping and tailoring the comment to the moment and the audience, but Willard takes that shit to a whole new level. He doesn’t ooze insincerity; he’s the Victoria Falls of it. They think they can’t trust him politically because they can’t trust him politically. There is literally no policy question that he hasn’t 180ed on at least twice. He’s a patently obvious weasel no matter where you sit on the political spectrum.
So you have the GOP’s Mormon haters and you have the conservative-on-social-issues RINO haters. There’s major, major crossover between those audiences, to be sure, but the point is that they have a couple of major reasons to violently oppose this guy.
I’m enjoying the GOP freakout.
eyelessgame
NotNotRomney has three problems, and I honestly don’t know which one is the biggest one with the R base, since I find I cannot think like them right now:
– he is of the magic underwear
– he flipflops like unto the beached fish
– he is Not Really A Conservative (cf. Romneycare, Taxachusettts, et al)
I don’t really know which one it is that keeps them away. The Rs I know (high school acquaintances on facebook) mostly prefer someone else, or are still not paying attention much, but they seem pretty tepid in their preferences so far. They haven’t gotten a coordinated message of why they hate him yet.
Anne Laurie
@Turgidson:
Seconded.
There’s no fight worse than a family fight. As it’s been explained to me, there was a split between two Mormon cousinships — one branch split for Mexico so the men wouldn’t have to give up their lazy polygamist ways, then ran back across the border when it looked like the successful Revolutionaries would take away their status as rich hidalgos. The other branch sucked it up & made the necessary compromises to stay part of the United States. Willard’s granpa was in the Cut&Run Party, and Huntsman’s in the Stay&Deal Stake. I am sure these stories will be brought up at various Thanksgivings tables, but probably not Willard’s…
Concern Troll Is Concerned!!!
@AA+ Bonds:
Are you serious? Lighten the eff up, man. It’s a blog, not a Poli Sci 200 discussion group. Good lord…
Anne Laurie
@Alex S.:
If so, then it means Palin has decided she hates the GOP Permanent Party even more than she loves her grift. Palin & Gingrich are competing for the same shelf space in the Wingnut Welfare Wurlitzer Walmart — they’re the mirror-image halfs of the GOP’s nutball shock troops (rural/urbane, reality tv/powerpoint lecture, ‘authentic’-semiliterate/ ‘intellectual’-gasbag). And if Newt is the GOP nominee, not only does he lose to President Obama by about 300 electoral votes, his race destroys what little credibility the GOP brand still retains. Sarah’s not S-M-R-T “innalek-tual” like Newt, but she has an ex-beauty-pagent-contendor’s eye for the things that will destroy an opponent’s chances.
Sly
@Guster:
Except a dick. No dick, no Republican Nomination for President of the United States.
pseudonymous in nc
The GOP delegates are going to be divvied out in a more proportional way this time, right? So while the first primaries may reduce the field, there’s not going to be a knockout victory either for Romney or Generic Not-Romney.
lol
I think people are really underestimating the effect of fewer winner-take-all primaries this time around.
If the GOP had in 2008 the rules they have today, Romney would’ve been able to force a brokered convention.
Romney still has the edge in that he can afford to play the long game and has a few firewall states to fall back on. But he’s going to be hard pressed to close the door when he can’t break 50%.
lol
I’m wondering who’s going to run some “Would it change your vote if you knew Mitt Romney has a second wife in Mexico?” robocalls in South Carolina.
Cat Lady
Anyone who compares the goopers lining up behind McCain as the model for goopers lining up behind Mitt needs to be reminded of what Palin did for that ticket. McCain was threatened with a brokered convention by the party insiders and forced to pick Palin instead of Lieberman or Ridge like he wanted. Romney isn’t McCain, and no one but Palin or NotMitt will do for the teatards. I think we’re going to a brokered convention.