Following up on Zandar’s post on polling, I just want to add that my favorite graph just keeps getting worse. And there’s this:
Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question.
Not to go all Tom Friedman in a cab, but I was at a Super Bowl party last night with some friends who aren’t much interested in politics. The only political remark of the night happened when they sang America the Beautiful, and it was a pretty negative review of Romney’s performance in Florida.
dmsilev
To know him is to loathe him. And it should be interesting to see how Mitt “let the auto companies go bankrupt” Romney does when the Clown Cavalcade hits the Midwest.
Villago Delenda Est
Romney doesn’t come across as human.
He also lies like a dog.
Lee
Mitt is getting really close to 27%. Which means it will probably bounce up a bit after hitting the bottom.
Hell even Bush bounced off the bottom and Mitt can’t actually be worse than Bush….right?
dmsilev
@Villago Delenda Est:
Strapped to the roof of a station wagon, you mean?
beltane
@Lee: I dunno. There were a lot of people out there who imagined they’d like to have a beer with Bush. I mean, other than the war criminal stuff, he’d probably be OK to watch a football game with. Romney doesn’t even have that type of an appeal. Is there anyone at all who’d like to have a beer and watch a football game with Mitt Romney?
Comrade Javamanphil
@Villago Delenda Est: He lies worse than Trump’s hair.
schrodinger's cat
How come his wife or one of his sons have told him not to sing? He is awful and can’t carry a tune, why is he embarrassing himself in public?
Comrade Mary
@schrodinger’s cat: Terminal narcissism.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane:
Probably not, I think Romney reminds people of their boss. The unlikeable kind.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat:
He’s just so patriotic. Cannot help breaking out in song.
ETA: And this is a great country. Even if it’s coming to abhor him. (Make that, especially …)
scav
@Comrade Mary: Plus a cheap and easy PR attempt to bolster the appearance of being human. Doing something badly is almost as good as looking up with a wide-eyed ingenue glance. Supposed to bring out the protective instinct no doubt.
JCT
@Comrade Mary: The raison d’etre for his entire campaign as far as I can see.
Napoleon
@scav:
I think that is why he does it.
Steve
I have not heard Romney’s performance. Now that I know about it, I can’t bring myself to click. I have a feeling that it’s better left to my imagination.
For bonus points, compare the political implications of Romney’s bad singing performance with Obama’s infamous attempt to bowl.
Dave
I think the big takeaway is that Romney cannot crack 50% in any contest thus far. In Nevada, which is chock-a-block full of Mormons, he doesn’t crack 50%. And this is running against a prude, a nutcase and a narcissist.
How the Hell is he supposed to go up against Obama?
Lee
@beltane:
Not anyone human (maybe robots). Good point.
Lee
@Dave:
I’ve wondered about that as well. The Republicans like to point to Paul and say “unelectable”. Have they looked at Romney? He is going to melt down in a debate the first time Obama points to his flip flops. He barely contained it during a Foxnews interview.
schrodinger's cat
The best rendition of America the Beautiful, that I have ever heard was by the Marine Corps band in Washington DC. Romney’s version will probably make them cry.
scav
It is oddly amusing to remember that 51% is a mandate, winning without breaking 50% is winning by a wide margin and governing with 50% approval is cause for concern in the next election. New Math, New-ew-ew Math, It’s so simple, so Very Simple.
Redshift
@Steve: It’s not horrible to listen to, it’s just garden-variety “can’t quite carry a tune and doesn’t realize until it’s too late that he’s not going to be able to hit that high note.” The thing that makes it cringeworthy is that he’s standing up in front of a crowd with a microphone. My first thought was that if he’d just gotten everyone to sing along and sung with them without the mic, it would have been fine, but I guess he needed it to be all about him.
JGabriel
beltane:
… An angry drunk who’d sworn off alcohol to become an angry dry drunk. People imagine many weird and unlikely things.
.
Villago Delenda Est
@Lee:
I can’t imagine Bender having a beer with Romney.
jrg
In Bangalore?
Villago Delenda Est
@scav:
Villager logic, distilled.
Violet
He’s just so fake. People are picking up on it, even if they can’t explain it. He isn’t authentic and it puts people off. Then if he does make a gaffe it’s amplified because people don’t like or trust him to begin with.
Birthmarker
All of the above is true. But yet where is the consistent coherent Dem message?
Yutsano
@Lee:
Ahh…searching for the all-elusive Bender vote.
EDIT: Curse you Villago! :)
JGabriel
Lee:
ME! Can you imagine the comic possibilities?
Me neither, it has to be lived. So yeah, I would definitely go for that. Unless I was told I couldn’t write about it or mock it, because then there’s no point.
.
schrodinger's cat
@JGabriel: You should live blog it! BTW can he drink a beer? I thought alcohol was a no-no for Mormons.
JGabriel
@schrodinger’s cat:
Even more fun. We could spike his nonalcoholic beer with grain.
.
Ken
The only political remark of the night happened when they sang America the Beautiful, and it was a pretty negative review of Romney’s performance in Florida.
We got a few comments after the Chrysler commercial with Clint Eastwood (“halftime in America”). As dmsilev @1 said, people remember Romney’s “Let Detroit go bankrupt,” and it’s hard for a Republican to get to 270 without a chunk of the upper midwest.
zed
@Villago Delenda Est:
I can totally see Bender having a beer with Romney. He’s a perfect mark!
Phil Perspective
@schrodinger’s cat: It is a no-no. So is caffeine!!
ET
That old saying “familiarity breeds contempt” seems to be true. At least with Mitt.
Zifnab
I’ll take “John Kerry if he was a Republican” for $100 Alex.
I’m looking forward to talking to Republicans in ’14 getting a cleaner look at Romney’s record once the Presidential bullshitting is over with and having them say, “Who would have guessed that under all the phoney baloney, he was just another run of the mill Republican? I would have actually voted for that guy.” :-p
Martin
I know people are worried about Obama’s approval, but I’m trying to find a case where the incumbent had a higher approval than his challengers’s favorability and lost, and I can’t find one. In fact, I can’t even find a single case where a nominee had below 50% favorability. By comparison, both Kerry and Gore’s approvals were in the mid 50s at the time of the election.
I think this is at least part of where the CW about approval having to be above 50% comes from for an incumbent to win re-election. There’s an assumption that the challenger will at least be in positive territory on their favorability, and Mitt is somewhere in the -15 to -20 range right now, which as far as I can tell is completely unprecedented.
Obama’s approval may only be around 50% but his favorability is quite a bit higher, which suggests that he has room to grow yet on approval.
rikryah
He is a phony piece of plastic and it oozes from every pore of his being.
pk
@beltane:
I’d have a beer with him. In fact I’d get him drunk just to see if he becomes more human and then put it up utube. I wonder what a drunk Mitt Romney would be like?
Martin
@pk: I’d guess Mitt would be a grabby drunk. Once those inhibitions fall off, I’m getting they’d fall off big.
feebog
I know the comparison has been made countless times, but it really does not wash. Kerry came across as aloof and somewhat detached. But he had a story, as a war hero and then a protestor against the war that belied his demeanor somewhat.
The Romneytron 3000 strikes most people as inauthentic and brittle. There is no back story to counter the image. While Kerry was getting his ass shot off in Viet Nam, Mittens was living in a mansion in France, on a mission to convert all those catholics. And when Kerry came home to protest that same war, Romney was gearing up to make millions at Bain Capital.
While I see why people want to make the comparison, I think it is a stretch. Kerry’s “flip flopping” issue was centered on the Iraq war vote; Romney has more flip flops then Imelda Marcos had shoes.
Yutsano
@Martin: Mormons are actually really fun people drunk. It’s just getting them to cross that temptation line that’s the tricky part.
Martin
@Yutsano: Enabler! Enabler!
Yutsano
@Martin: Why do I hear that in a Dalek voice? :)
Legalize
@Lee:
I think they call that a “dead cat” bounce.
Hungry Joe
We’ve all known people who have trouble picking up on and transmitting social cues (this may be somewhere within the realm of autism), but they tend to gravitate to societal slots where they don’t have to interact with others very much. Romney has put himself in a position that demands he connect with a lot of strangers, every day, in front of a lot of other strangers (not to mention cameras). Watching him struggle — he’s simply incapable of pulling it off — is jarring, unsettling, unnerving … creepy is the word I’m looking for. Creepy.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle:
Isn’t that the last refuge of a scoundrel?
Tom Q
@Martin: The slowly-coming-around economy has been the only drag on Obama’s approval ratings. If the kind of employment numbers we saw last month — or even just the previous months — continue, Obama’s job approvals will start floating to match his favorability numbers (as happened with Reagan in ’84). I continue to believe this election will be a strong Obama win, not based simply on his opponent’s weakness, but on his own solid record, which will be apparent to all once the singular drag of the 2011 economic slippage makes its way out of the body politic.
elmo
@scav:
…that only a Gooper can do it!
Thanks a bunch. Now I’ve got that damn song stuck in my head all day.
“…and so you’ve got thirteen tens and you take away seven and that leaves five! well, six, actually, but the idea is the important thing…”
ericblair
@Hungry Joe:
I understand this, but I’m not getting the Aspie/autism spectrum vibe off of Rmoney. Maybe off of Ron Paul, but not the R-bot. He seems to just be the enormously entitled rich guy who’s used to being surrounded by yes-men and his family and that’s about it, and is still rather puzzled about how to talk to the riff-raff when it’s not about ordering them to get him another brandy.
Plus, the guy’s a constant bullshitter. Aspies can lie, but I don’t think they’ll tend to bullshit like that and just tell people whatever they want to hear regardless of truth: it’s more usual to blurt out awkward truths than making shit up for social gain.
Catsy
@beltane:
This. This is the point I’ve been hammering at for months now.
Whatever ill you might speak of Shrub the Younger, AKA He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-By-Republicans, he at least had a certain kind of lowbrow, regular-guy charisma. Set aside the fact that he came from money and that his aw-shucks act was exactly that–the fact is, he had an ability to connect with “regular folk” and make them feel like he was one of the guys. He could fake it well enough, and deep down on some level he probably really did feel like “one of the guys”. It was a huge asset to him, because up to a certain point it crossed party lines.
Hell, he’d probably be a lot of fun to sit down and roast a bowl and watch a movie with. Aside from, you know, being a compulsive liar and loathsome war criminal.
But Romney? The guy has none of that. No personal charm. No ability to relate to proles. Transparently fake. He doesn’t come across as a guy you’d have a beer with, he comes across as the douchebag in a suit who fired you from your last job and laughed with the other suits once the door hit you on the ass.
And Newt has even less appeal.
The reality at this point is that the GOP is fucked for this election, and it’s too late for anyone else to swoop in and save the day. It’s going to be Romney, Gingrich or Santorum–in decreasing order of likeliness and increasing order of devastating damage done to the GOP brand. They can’t win without flipping a whole lot of states that none of these three clowns can win, and which they’d need a fired-up and inspired base to even make a contest. And they don’t even have that.
Yes, a lot could change before November, but at this point I’m feeling pretty good about this. We’re going to win–our efforts will determine just how crushing of a win that is and how much down-ticket effect we can translate that into.
Jeff Fecke
Easily the best use of Romney’s singing was Colbert, who used it as the patriotic music in his salute to the 22 people/organizations who’ve pumped $67 million into SuperPAC ads. It was perfect, and brilliant, and devastating, like most of what Colbert does.
Bill Murray
Robot who would have a beer with Rmoney
Tik Tok — from John Sladek’s novel of the same name. Tok Tok kills people, gets rich partially off health care privatization, and becomes VP while in prison. f that doesn’t say republican hero nothing does.
Ro-Man from the film Robot Monster — MST3K experiment 107
Maria — from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
Skippy, the propellerized robot dog from The Tick cartoon series
Robots who would not to be around Rmoney
Dorfl — the Golem in Terry Pratchett’s Feet of Clay
Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
smintheus
The favorability/unfavorability lines on that TPM graph don’t appear to be entirely honest. To judge by the points they have plotted, it looks like Romney’s rise in unfavorability was more rapid than they indicate…and has also peaked and perhaps even slightly declined(for the moment). Again, it looks like Romney’s drop in favorability has bottomed out (for the moment).
As the track record shows, TPM’s horserace analysis is governed by wishful thinking as much as anything else.
xian
@feebog: it’s not just the flip-floppery (where I agree that Romney is the actual think Kerry was accused of being): it’s also the aloof, can’t-connect, bubble-of-privilage, lack of a common touch, country-club demeanor.
xian
@Yutsano: yeah, so don’t invite two when you go fishing
schrodinger's cat
@Jeff Fecke: That’s where I saw it, Mitt’s singing, I mean.
Tractarian
@feebog:
Sheeit, Romney has more flip flops then Imelda Marcos had flip-flops!
Tractarian
@scav:
C’mon now people. Surely we can parse the difference between primary performance and general election prospects?
A history lesson. In 2008, Obama got:
33% in FL primary. Won FL in the general.
38% in MA primary. Won MA in the general.
40% in NY primary. Won NY in the general.
43% in CA primary. Won CA in the general.
I can go on…. 45% in OH, 45% in PA, 40% in RI. Won all of those in November.
To sum up: you do not need 50% in any one primary to be a strong contender for the general election!
Intercalation
@smintheus: Not sure where you’re getting that. The line looks like some sort of curve-fit, and it looks more or less accurate when I squint at it.
mdblanche
@Yutsano: The joke’s on Mitt. Bender’s a non-voting felon.
MCA
@Tractarian: General point taken. Let’s not ignore, however, the facts that Obama (a) was not the presumptive nominee since long before the primary season – in fact, was considered a long shot coming in, and (b) was in a race against a legitimate Presidential contender in HRC, rather than having the thrice-married, first sitting Speaker of the House to ever be censured for ethics violations as the most credible challenger. To expect higher results in early contests for Romney, who’s been selling himself for 7 years now and has been identified as the party’s choice since the day Mitch Daniels decided not to run, is not unjustified.
Bill Murray
@Yutsano: The first joke I learned when I moved to Utah
How do you keep a Mormon returned missionary from drinking all your beer?
Invite a second returned missionary