Here I was doing some research about George Romney and his conflict with Barry Goldwater and the wingnuts of his day, when I looked up and mistermix had posted the Daisy Ad. With the Arizona and Michigan primaries next in line, Mittens may have a hard time explaining away his father’s refusal to support Goldwater in 1964 in Arizona while singing his father’s praises in Michigan.
So I was reading a 11-29-1966 New York Times article about the Romney/Goldwater feud (ROMNEY ATTACKED GOLDWATER RACE AS KEYED TO SOUTH; Letter to Defeated Nominee Gave Governor’s Reason…) and how Romney broke with Goldwater over the issues of Civil Rights, extremism and Republican values (according to some reports George Romney, with young Mitt in tow, walked out of the ’64 GOP Convention–during Goldwater’s speech–to protest the removal of a strong Civil Rights plank to the Party Platform).
In the article, I came across the two paragraphs cited above. Of course 27% would the number of Republicans who would not support any candidate who did not endorse Goldwater’s platform of crazy.
Not only is Mittens having a hard time getting the 27% to like him, he must also live in fear that some of them will remember just how much they hate his father. This should make the back and forth of the Republican campaign between Michigan and Arizona a land mine for Mitt as he tries to balance an embrace of the crazy while avoiding an embrace of their attacks on his dad. It will be sad to see him embrace the crazy and kick his dad to the curb, but that is what I expect him to do. George Romney deserves a better son.
Cheers
abo gato
hahahahahahahaha…….the 27 % lives on forever……what are they? Zombies???
David Fud
Not only that, here I was thinking that the 27%ers were a modern artifact. Clearly, that is not the case. They have been with us for quite some time. What a bizarre magic number, that 27. It seems like it should be associated with the apocalypse or something.
scav
Well, that should put paid to the quaint hope that all we have to do is sit pretty and outlive them. Zombies it is.
Baud
So they were aware of all Internet traditions even back in
19641966. Impressive.arguingwithsignposts
Is there an official name for the
TheoryLaw of the 27 percent?Yutsano
@Baud: There may be reasons for this. After all Matt Smith messed around with the moon landing and all.
Spaghetti Lee
That’s…kinda creepy. Who says numerology is just bunk? I also didn’t know Human Events was that old.
geg6
THIS.
George Romney deserved a better son. Sadly, he got Mittens.
And I’m off to have a great Valetine’s dinner at one of the best restaurants and wine cellars in Pennsylvania.
Yutsano
@geg6: I’d choose to be jealous, but I hate Valentine’s Day with the fire of a thousand suns. Having said that, I hope you and John have a wonderful eve!
Martin
@arguingwithsignposts: The Crazification Factor
rikyrah
27
27
27
is there something in numerology about 27 being the sign of the devil?
Martin
Hey, how come we never printed “You Kill Obama and WE WILL BURN SHIT DOWN” t-shirts? Seriously, John Rogers nailed that back in 2005. He deserves residuals.
gex
@rikyrah: It’s 3^3. Trinities everywhere man.
Linda Featheringill
Well, 27 is three cubed. FWIW.
I’m beginning to wonder whether that number is hardwired into the makeup of the species [homo sapiens sapiens].
I also wonder how many crazy movements in history actually had the support of only 27% of the population but that segment was well organized. Hmmmmm.
But then the Nazis came to power with 37% of the vote. Theory doesn’t work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933 [and other sources, which also gave the 37% figure.]
Mike G
The Repuke political nepotism machine produces demonstrably inferior copies —
George > Willard Romney
George HW Bush > Chimp.
Suffern ACE
@gex: It’s factors equal the sum of its numerals. And it is a perfect cube, so it is beloved by all squares everywhere and is the reason the benefits of the harmony of the spheres seldom occur naturally.
gex
@Linda Featheringill: I think 10% just plain evil folks isn’t out of consideration. The old school “both sides do it” people.
@Suffern ACE: Now that you mention it, it is a really nice number. I’m sad the crazies get it.
WaterGirl
I think this falls under election 2012, so I hope it’s not too far OT.
Democracy for America (DFA) is holding their Grassroots All-Stars contest. To reach the final round contestants must be in the Top Ten by noon PST on February 14. The winner will receive money, fundraising help, and volunteer hours from DFA, as well as national exposure.
We have a really good progressive Democrat, David Gill, running for U.S. House in IL-13, and I’d like to see him get this support. He’s one of the good guys, but the DNC seems to be behind another candidate, because they think the other candidate will play ball with them and compromise more, rather than standing up for what is right.
David Gill has a great chance of winning in November – he has run twice against Tim Johnson (R-evil), and has a lot of support and name recognition, and now that they have redistricted he has a really good chance of winning.
We need about 500 votes for David Gill to reach the Top Ten.
If you want to help, please go to the DFA’s Grassroots All-Stars web site and vote for David Gill.
You get to vote for 3 candidates – and I’m not sure who my other 2 votes should be for. Any ideas?
MonkeyBoy
A lot of the time statistics and even polling data is just made up.
If people would readily believe that 1/4 of some population hold some position then you could just make up a 25% figure. However that looks too contrived. When people are asked to pick a random number within a range (and want it to look random) they usually avoid multiples of 5 and 2 – asking people to pick a number between 1 and 10 gives 3 and 7 as the most common choices.
So one guess is that 27% might just be 25% diddled to make it look more random.
arguingwithsignposts
@rikyrah: 999
Roger Moore
Maybe Mitt can posthumously baptize his dad as a Goldwaterite. If he baptize his father-in-law into something he disagreed with, why not his dad, too?
JoyfulA
The more I read about George Romney, the more I like him. He may have been the last best hope for the GOP.
Too bad he isn’t still around to straighten out his son.
David Fud
@Linda Featheringill: Maybe because crazification is localized in a population. Maybe it is 37% in Germany, or was before WWII killed the crazy off.
starscream
Zombies that can breed, to keep up with population growth.
kvenlander
@JoyfulA: Well don’t get too carried away with George Romney. I gather he was also regarded as a lightweight, a business guy who decided he could make it in politics too (sound familiar?)
Eugene McCarthy remarked that in Romney’s case “a light rinse would have been sufficient” after Romney said he’d been brainwashed by the brass on a trip to Vietnam…
But to his credit, he was for civil rights and had a hell of a time with his party and his church because of it. Unfortunately his son took that as a lesson that strong convictions and acting on them consistently are Bad for an aspiring politician.
Mark
Romney should be asked if he feels the present-day Republican party is more reflective of Goldwater’s views or his father’s.
James King
It seems that Mitt has inherited his father’s uncanny knack at losing primary campaigns.
Gin & Tonic
At the time I opened this thread, it had 27 responses. So I’m going to go ahead and spoil that.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
you know, i bet if you invented a way to travel through time, before your invention was practical, or even safe to experiment with, i bet you would need to invent the baader-meinhof phenomena
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
you know, i bet if you invented a way to travel through time, before your invention was practical, or even safe to experiment with, i bet you would need to invent the baader-meinhof phenomena
chopper
years ago, back in college i had a full-page bit i ripped out of Lumpen that was a numerology-style paranoid poster about the number 33, including all sorts of stuff like 33 being the age jesus was when he died, 1333 being the first year of the black death, 33 1/3 rpm, etc etc.
now it’s 27. it’s fuckin everywhere. i wouldn’t be surprised if you went back and watched all the old episodes of Lost and saw ’27’ everywhere. shit, it’s there on the blast door!
mch
Yes, George Romney deserves a better son. Well said.
gene108
@kvenlander:
What choice does any Republican office holder have, with regards to the Presidential nomination?
None of them can run on their records, because in order to govern you have to do “icky stuff” like raise taxes or pass legislation that increased spending somewhere or adequately fund schools or increase access to health care.
In a rational Party, Romney’s healthcare reform in Massachusetts should’ve been a winning issue for him in 2008 because it addresses a problem in America, without the “dread” specter of single payer/socialized medicine.
Republicans are no long rational. They refuse to acknowledge problems exist, such as healthcare, and if they do acknowledge it they have one solution: Deregulate more and let the free market sort it out.
I still remember Huckabee having to run away from his record of improving education in Arkansas because he raised taxes to do it. Never mind he did it because of a state Supreme Court ruling that required equal funding, the point is in the “good old days” governors could run on positive accomplishments like improved education in their state.
Santorum, for example, isn’t running on a damn thing he did when he was in Congress. He’s getting attention because he’ll do the most to ban abortion and make sure the 10 Commandments appear in every school, courthouse and public building in the country.
There’s not a lot anyone can do about the lack of principles Republican candidates have, because the Republican Party requires homage to a strict ideology to become President that no one can adhere to, when they actually try to govern.
different-church-lady
That really just isn’t possible — this has got to be a “Plate of Shrimp” moment run amok.
different-church-lady
@MonkeyBoy: So basically you’re going with the Great Trigonometric Survey theory.
tom
The funny thing is that today, Barry Goldwater would be run out of his own party.
Scott P.
666 upside-down is 999. And 9+9+9 = 27. And 999 was Herman Cain’s crazy tax plan. It all hangs together. Now I need to put on my tinfoil hat.
Ben
Ah, the Crazification Factor:
From one of my all-time favorite blog posts:
http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/10/lunch-discussions-145-crazification.html