I saw this:
And all I could think of was this:
Question: are YouTube videos like this one fair game or will these attacks backfire, just as the attacks on private equity have? Probably above my pay grade, but I look forward to seeing it discussed on the Sunday shows.
Culture of Truth
“It’s quiet. Too quiet.”
burnspbesq
It’s tempting to just shrug and say “politics is a contact sport.” Given the stakes, running a clean but losing campaign is not a viable option.
And if anyone doubts that, I think I can convince you in six words.
“Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown.”
Hill Dweller
Check out the look on the African-American kids’ faces during Romney’s visit to the school in Philly this afternoon. They know a fraud when they see one.
To make matters worse, Willard cited some horseshit study that claimed class size was irrelevant to grades. Thankfully, a teacher was there to smack him down on camera.
SiubhanDuinne
Rmoney makes quiet push for black/Hispanic/female/young voters.
I wish he’d make up his mind.
Oh. Wait ….
PeakVT
I think that is an excellent way to for Mitt to burn money.
SiubhanDuinne
@Hill Dweller:
Have a link?
burnspbesq
I think it’s really a shame that the Justice Department couldn’t see its way to giving the Unabomber a furlough so he could attend his 50-year class reunion at Harvard. But he got listed in the directory.
http://bostinno.com/2012/05/24/how-the-unabomber-celebrates-harvards-50th-reunion/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: martin Bashir is showing the chip as a type
Just Some Fuckhead
The good news is Romney can prolly call ’em all in one afternoon. Lessee, there’s Ron Christie..
David Koch
that’s a misprint. he meant “blah” voters.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Uh. I may have to wait. Staying in a hotel with no MSNBC, and can’t find on the iPad.
freelancer
In west Philadelphia born and raised
On the playground was where I spent most of my days
Chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool
And all shootin some b-ball outside of school
When a couple of guys
Who were up to no good
Startin making trouble in my neighborhood
Hill Dweller
@SiubhanDuinne: There are quite a few here: http://theobamadiary.com/2012/05/24/more-mitt-mania/#comments
David Koch
I like Joe Piscopo’s version:
♫♫♫
side by side, you are my amigo, negro.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpnxd_parodie-eddie-murphy-joe-piscopo_fun
David Koch
some more detail have been released. Romney is appointing Donald Trump as his ambassador to the blah community.
RalfW
Really? We’re throwing in the towel this early, giving up Bain because the GOP has been playing the Village and the MSM?
To hell with that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@RalfW: I couldn’t tell if that was post-punk brodersnark
Villago Delenda Est
I have no idea what the robot (he’s not life-like enough to be an android) is trying to accomplish here, aside from giving us all more stuff to snark about.
mds
Mitt Romney: Considering Black People Uncursed Since 1978.
David Koch
Self described “Independent Democrat” Cory B00ker says it nauseates him.
Alison
Yeah, I don’t know that the “attacks” (which is too strong a term for just saying “hey, these shitty practices are shitty”, IMO) on private equity have backfired in any real sense. I don’t think they’ve proven some silver bullet necessarily, but rather they’ve just sort of landed in the middle – and the more the Obama team uses specific data and all those videos of people who had their lives ruined, the more I think it’ll tilt the scales a bit our way.
Yutsano
@RalfW: It’s DougJ, I’d bet a cold frosty refreshing beverage that line about private equity is pure snark.
Anoniminous
The RomneyBot experimental AA Interface and Communication module fails in Alpha Field Test.
danielx
Quiet push? That’s like a quiet push onto the subway tracks, or what?
Brachiator
I got no problem with Mittens trying to court black voters. I don’t think that he will succeed. And I could use a good laugh.
@mds:
There are still “mainstream” American religious groups that push a variation of this, so the Mormons were vile, but not entirely atypical.
Villago Delenda Est
The fact that the usual vermin of the Village are saying that the “private equity” attacks have “backfired” means nothing real, other than they are desperate to prolong the illusion of a horse race as long as they possibly can.
The fact of the matter is, going after Bain is working, because OvenMitt has BRILLIANTLY made his “job creation” ability the centerpiece of his campaign, and his record at Bain is thus fertile ground for Obama to plow and harvest. The fact that it’s hurting Rmoney also causes the vermin of the Village pain, because it damages their self-serving narative.
beltane
Pathetic. I am this close to missing Rick Santorum.
Hill Dweller
@mds:
That should be shouted from the roof tops. He was riding around France selling a religion that didn’t allow black people. Hell, a lot of stuff about his religion should be widely known.
Obama has had his religion scrutinized for years. It’s only fair that Romney face a fraction of that scrutiny.
David Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
speaking of which, his guest, Krystal Ball looks smokin’ hawt in that outfit.
Hill Dweller
The Bain attacks haven’t backfired. The media whining tells me it is working. If anything, the Dems who whined about them will pay the price. The Obama campaign will continue to use them until the election
Furthermore, Maddow rightly pointed out tonight that despite claiming they wanted to talk about the economy, the Willard camp have been trying to change the subject to education in the last couple of days.
Conversely, Obama has been more than happy to talk about the economy, and pummel Romney for his policy proposals.
feebog
So the Romneybot 2.0 is going to be reprogrammed to be more “appealing” to the black proles. Good luck with that. Rachel Maddow had an interesting segment tonight about the possible referendum in Maryland regarding gay marriage. The legislature has already passed it into law, but it could be subject to a referendum in November.
When polled in March, Maryland residents favored the law by 8%, a pretty good margin. PPP polled again in May, and the margin is now 15%. But here is the kicker, blacks were a -17 in the March poll, they are now +21, an astounding 38 point swing in two months. It is obvious who and what is driving the increase in those numbers. African Americans hold Barak Obama in high esteem. They are not going to drop off the bandwagon at this point. In fact, I would be surprised if Obama doesn’t get a higher percentage of the AA vote this time around. Disclaimer, these numbers are from memory, but I think they are accurate.
DougJ, Head of Infidelity
@Yutsano:
Me?
Montana
You are quick to conclude the ads on Bain have backfired. You seem to be stuck in nano-second, instant response world. Take a breath, this has not played out yet.
David Koch
@feebog:
Tis can’t be true. Elite whites on homogeneous liberal blogs have repeatedly told me that black metrosexual Abe Lincoln has lost the ‘hood vote.
Martin
Ooh! Victory!
Pauly is running for supervisor here, which generated a collective “Da fuck?! Hell no!”, and this video should be enough to convince you. The key to dealing with local races when your bazillionaire neighbors have their Bentley parked on the scale is to get national attention, and we did! It’s been ramping up at LATimes, but TPM is an important get.
Martin
@Montana: Agreed. This is just laying the foundation.
Francisco The Man
Dudes and Ladies! This is DougJ. He’s trolling you. He doesn’t seriously believe that “attacks on private equity” have backfired.
C’mon, DougJ. It’s just mean to troll your own readers. Hilarious yes, but a little mean.
DCLaw1
Here’s why I still think this election is Obama’s to lose. Elections are a product of “fundamentals,” but they are also emotional events. In both of the last two elections in which the encumbent lost amidst a struggling economy (Carter, Bush Sr.), the candidate who prevailed resonated emotionally with voters. That is, they were not elected based on some wooden sense of their “competence.”
Reagan had sunny optimism and humor (contrasted with what people saw as Carter’s pessimism) and Clinton, of course, felt everyone’s pain and could empathize with the working class (contrasted with the blue-blooded and out of touch Bush Sr.). Romney has exactly zero emotional resonance, and certainly none that fills a void left by Obama. Instead, he has an awe-shucks aura of managerial competence. Unless the economy is in nose-dive, that’s probably not enough to earn him victory over a personally likable incumbent.
But it will be uncomfortably close.
burnspbesq
@Martin:
Man … why does it not surprise me that she’s from Villa Park?
DCLaw1
Here’s why I still think this election is Obama’s to lose. Elections are a product of “fundamentals,” but they are also emotional events. In both of the last two elections in which the encumbent lost amidst a struggling economy (Carter, Bush Sr.), the candidate who prevailed resonated emotionally with voters. That is, they were not elected based on some wooden sense of their “competence.”
Reagan had sunny optimism and humor (contrasted with what people saw as Carter’s pessimism) and Clinton, of course, felt everyone’s pain and could empathize with the working class (contrasted with the blue-blooded and out of touch Bush Sr.). Romney has exactly zero emotional resonance, and certainly none that fills a void left by Obama. Instead, he has an awe-shucks aura of managerial competence. Unless the economy is in nose-dive, that’s probably not enough to earn him victory over a personally likable incumbent.
But it will be uncomfortably close.
burnspbesq
@Martin:
Man … why does it not surprise me that she’s from Villa Park?
TheMightyTrowel
“When he visited a classroom where the kids in the elementary school choir were standing, swaying and clapping to the beat of Kirk Franklin’s “I Smile,” Romney appeared charmed but did not dance with them. Rather, he tapped one of his toes slightly and bobbed his head, but did not catch the rhythm..”
Fucking A Romney-Bot. That’s in a WAPO news blog.
Hill Dweller
@TheMightyTrowel: During a roundtable with teachers that his campaign set up, Willard cited a wingnut think tank’s bogus study of large class sizes, claiming it had no adverse effect on test scores. A teacher essentially asked him if he was f’n crazy…on camera.
They are not a competent campaign, but the media is doing all their work for them. As Maddow pointed out tonight, Romney makes gaffes daily, but the media either doesn’t cover it or it doesn’t fit their narrative. He is every bit as gaffe prone as Biden, but the media pushes a very different narrative for the VP.
lacp
@Anoniminous: “Supping, melanin-enhanced humanoids? I want to become lower with you male siblings and female siblings. Can you entrench those psychopathic rhythms? I have not been rebooted for them…”
jonas
@DCLaw1: I think the charisma thing is a bit overrated. Anyone could have beaten Carter in 80, especially after the hostage crisis and the rescue debacle. Reagan did it while also being all sunny and making Carter look dour and meek, so it was chalked up to that. Bush Sr. did strike people as “out of touch,” but he had also royally pissed off the GOP base with his tax hikes, and many stayed home in disgust or went over to Ross Perot. It was Perot’s third-party run splitting the conservative vote, rather than Clinton’s connection with voters, that really won in 92. Recall that Clinton and the Dems got creamed less than two years later in the infamous 94 midterms.
I’ve been surprised at how quickly the right wing has coalesced around Romney. He’s an empty suit, but he’s an empty suit running against Obama, and that’s enough for a lot of people. I don’t think Obama’s as vulnerable as Carter, but at least at this point in the game, I sense that there’s a pretty significant intensity gap between conservative and more moderate and progressive voters. Obama’s got to close that and close it soon.
SiubhanDuinne
Saw my best friend from high school the other day — I’m talking someone I met in 1957 — and was
pleasantly surprisedthrilled to discover that she’s a big Obama supporter. She comes from a traditional midwest solid Republican family, and now lives in Arizona, so I (a) feared the worst and (b) was prepared to avoid any political conversation for the duration of my visit. But it turns out that our friendship is even more durable than I would have guessed. Nice gift.amk
Gotta love the clueless mehmney advisers. What next, wade into communities that lost jobs due to bain ?
lacp
@jonas: I agree with everything you say except your conclusion. Barring a European economic collapse or some really unforeseen disaster, I think the President is going to beat Willard like a rented red-headed step-mule.
amk
Got anything to back that ‘sense’ of yours ? Look at IA crowd today for Obama and then read bolton’s pathetic plea for mehmney in the same IA today.
lacp
@amk: Bolton should have threatened them with a missile strike.
amk
bain attacks have backfired ? Tell that to axelrod since he seems to be continuing these ‘attacks’.
What a stupid reading of the optics by simply swallowing the msm narratives, doug.
Odie Hugh Manatee
You’re really into self abuse, eh?
Suffern ACE
@amk: Oh God, “imagine what this country would have been like after 9/11 if Al Gore had been president.” Bolton asked while admitting Romney was a less than perfect candidate. Yeah. I’ve spent 12 years imaging that and at every point, I come to the same conclusion: a lot fucking better than it is right now.
Djur
Chilly slabs of disdain like this is why I keep coming back to this fucking blog. Bravo. Especially the ‘Sunday shows’ bit — a cruel twist of the knife.
Djur
Chilly slabs of disdain like this is why I keep coming back to this fucking blog. Bravo. Especially the ‘Sunday shows’ bit — a cruel twist of the knife.
Villago Delenda Est
@amk:
Doug was being very dryly snarky here.
Mocking the morons of the Village is a pastime we both share, and he was cranking the mock up to 11 with those lines.
Calouste
@Suffern ACE:
Odds on that 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if Gore had been president.
Baud
The only fair criticism of Romney is questioning whether his tax cuts are big enough.
Bobby Thomson
The dude came right out and told you he’d be posting nothing but troll posts until November, and you actually took that backfire shit seriously?
Baud
@Bobby Thomson: DougJ is just that good.
Chet
I dunno how quiet a “quiet push” is supposed to be, but I guarantee it won’t be quiet enough for the, y’know, actual 25% base.
xian
@RalfW: you have been trolled.
one thing I loved about the Obama campaign in ’08 was their ability to rise above the beltway cocktail party chatter and focus on actual results.
xian
@amk: amazed at the faulty snarkmeters in the comments here
Sullivan Hyde
Not convinced the attacks on PE have actually backfired, other than in media narrative. My guess is those ads are still effective as fuck
J R
@Brachiator: A family member married a GA peach, and during the parties and get-togethers someone in the GA group asked a family friend “How do you keep them out of your church (Methodist) back home?”
I’m glad it wasn’t me they asked, I had a beard at the time so maybe they ID’ed me a maybe not a churchgoer. And who knows how “They” kept them out down in GA!? Just a cold shoulder I hope, followed by word of mouth in the black community, but…
I knew then that integration was so far only a tenth of a millemeter deep. Maybe it isn’t like that any more, this was 20 years ago.
negative 1
@Sullivan Hyde: Yeah, I agree. In what way did they backfire? They’ve destroyed the ‘private equity = smart manager of all things’ narrative that republicans love so much (see Forbes, Steve and Trump, Donald). Yeah plenty of people have lined up to defend Romney, but since that’s the only platform he’s got, of course they will. For that matter, it’s like 1/3 of the typical repub playbook (social issues, uh-oh the browns being the other 2/3) so why would people have thought that repubs would have conceded the point without argument?
The other question about media narratives is this – by attacking any particular thing, has Obama really alienated anyone who would have voted for him anyway? It seems to me that anyone in finance/ anyone who wants to be in finance LONG ago checked the R on the voter card.
AA+ Bonds
@negative 1:
He hasn’t alienated anyone but the fact that you’re asking in response to a sarcastic post means the ratfuck worked
Ego te absolvo, go forth and sin no more