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You are here: Home / Coffee is for Closers

Coffee is for Closers

by $8 blue check mistermix|  May 30, 20128:30 am| 98 Comments

This post is in: DC Press Corpse

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Josh Marshall on why Romney is sticking with Trump:

My best guess is that they didn’t figure Trump would continue to be so nuts when they scheduled the mega-blowout fundraiser. And now that they’re here, they’re just figuring, whatever, let’s just get through tonight and it’ll be behind us.

The alternative is some high profile rebuke of Trump which is probably too frightening a prospect for the campaign.

The implicit assumption here is that Romney’s people don’t want anything to do with birtherism. I think that’s wrong – they want to send a clear signal to the 27% that they’re not quite satisfied with the kerning on Obama’s birth certificate, and what better way to do it than what happened yesterday. Granted, it would have been better if Donald had kept a bit lower profile, but these guys know their docile media. Here’s the Times:

That and other statements left the Romney campaign to fend off questions about the candidate’s views on that long-discredited accusation and whether he was willing to tolerate extreme views for his own political gain.

And the Post:

The provocative real estate magnate used the spotlight to promote his long-debunked contention that Obama was born in a foreign country. Romney aides admitted that this was an unhelpful distraction. At a moment when they wanted to put the president on the defensive, it was Romney who found himself in that position, leaving it to his aides to assert that he disagrees with Trump — while Obama’s aides said his refusal to publicly condemn his surrogate showed poor moral leadership.

When the DC media can say that it’s not true that Obama was born in a foreign country, and when someone in the press has the guts to ask Romney the obvious question “Do you think President Obama was born in Kenya?”, then I’ll think that the Romney campaign has a problem on their hands. I’m not holding my breath — my only hope is that some local TV reporter gets a one-on-one with Romney and asks him that question, and that he bobbles it in a way that makes him look as bad as he should for giving Trump any oxygen.

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Reader Interactions

98Comments

  1. 1.

    Bulworth

    May 30, 2012 at 8:39 am

    Isn’t the media in fact saying that the birtherism claim is not true? “long-debunked”, “long-discredited”, etc?

  2. 2.

    Marc

    May 30, 2012 at 8:40 am

    Those statements look devastating to me – the entire tone of the articles is that birtherism is nutty, and that engaging with a birther discredits Romney. What else could you want?

  3. 3.

    rlrr

    May 30, 2012 at 8:49 am

    Good thing Romney is a Republican, otherwise he would be held accountable for flirting with such nuttiness…

  4. 4.

    Linda Featheringill

    May 30, 2012 at 8:50 am

    Sometimes I think the Jehovah’s Witness folks have a point: Maybe participating in political activity is beneath the dignity of children of God.

    What a clown show. Geez.

  5. 5.

    Hal

    May 30, 2012 at 8:51 am

    What slays me in all of this is the fealty Romney has towards Trump. Trump is a clown who only appears when he wants ratings. There must be a new edition of Celebrity Apprentice coming out soon.

    Once again, Romney shows how if you’re rich, he’s your guy. He is so in love with the 1% and the corporation, he just can’t bring himself to do anything more than mildly distance himself from Chump.

    Sorry, but the last person I want as President is someone who can’t even stand up to Donald Trump.

  6. 6.

    mistermix

    May 30, 2012 at 8:55 am

    @Marc:
    @Bulworth:

    I guess I’m hard to please. I want them to say that birtherism is false, full stop, and to ask Romney directly about it instead of setting for quotes from his aides.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    May 30, 2012 at 8:56 am

    It’s not just inconvenient for Romney to have to deny that he’s a birther, it’s a sign of incompetence. And I think the constant drip-drip-drip of Romney’s dishonesty, cowardice, and managerial incompetence has a long-term effect. It doesn’t show up in the horse-race narrative, ‘Let’s you and him fight’ media coverage but it’s there. This is what Presidential campaigns are really about– how does the candidate handle a big job? And Romney is floundering.

  8. 8.

    Mino

    May 30, 2012 at 8:57 am

    Cripes. Even Republicans must be beginning to see the lack of spine and cowardice in Romney. I’d be embarrassed to vote for such a person.

    And that is saying a lot for one who votes Dem.

  9. 9.

    The Other Bob

    May 30, 2012 at 8:57 am

    @Bulworth:

    Isn’t the media in fact saying that the birtherism claim is not true? “long-debunked”, “long-discredited”, etc?

    Now? Once in a awhile. It has only taken 4 years for a few to get around to it.

  10. 10.

    rlrr

    May 30, 2012 at 8:57 am

    @mistermix:

    Your’re asking journalists to do actual journalism…

  11. 11.

    Suffern ACE

    May 30, 2012 at 8:59 am

    @mistermix: Rimney doesn’t answer press questions that way, iirc from a few weeks ago. He doesn’t give press conferences and doesn’t respond to questions shouted at him from the pool. The only way to get that question to him would be to ask him, idk, two weeks from now. Which would be kind of late for trump questions.

  12. 12.

    David

    May 30, 2012 at 9:00 am

    Perhaps Romney is picking a fight with the press — he wants the press to start needling him about his surrogates. Then he can be a victim a la Gingrich and Palin.

  13. 13.

    Ash Can

    May 30, 2012 at 9:00 am

    “Unhelpful distraction,” my ass. Romney and his campaign are embracing the birtherism. Why else would they have made the WTF move of publicizing Romney’s birth certificate at the same time? Now, I can buy that there are people involved in the campaign who genuinely believe this is a bad idea, and were the source of the “unhelpful distraction” comment. But they’re evidently not the ones running the show, at least not at this point.

    So which group is going to get publicly invited onto Mitt’s bandwagon next? The flat-earthers? The American Nazis? The KKK? Come on, Mitt. Trump’s a tough act to follow.

  14. 14.

    jibeaux

    May 30, 2012 at 9:02 am

    Obama’s aides said his refusal to publicly condemn his surrogate showed poor moral leadership.

    I’d have gone with “showed his complete absence of balls”, but I defer to their judgment on word choice.

  15. 15.

    rlrr

    May 30, 2012 at 9:06 am

    @Ash Can:

    Maybe Romney can seek David Duke’s support. I’m sure they agree on at least 50.1% of the issues…

  16. 16.

    rlrr

    May 30, 2012 at 9:07 am

    @Ash Can:

    It’s a rather transparent attempt to appeal to the 27% while trying to seem reasonable to the rest of the country.

  17. 17.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 30, 2012 at 9:08 am

    Rmoney will continue to say “I believe Barack Obama was born in the United States” and the problem will continue to be the weasel word “believe”, which implies that he’s not certain, which is a dog whistle to the crazies who still do not trust him fully.

    He cannot alienate the crazies in any way…they will rise in revolt in Tampa if he does. They are CRAZY. That’s the whole point.

    He’s a craven coward. He is utterly unfit for any public office.

  18. 18.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 9:11 am

    @MattF:

    I completely agree with you. This is devastating information about Romney’s character. He let that rich clown set him up for a lasting impression of his cowardice and his ruthlessness — that he has no integrity or honor that he will uphold in the face of a short term gain. There is no amount of money that Trump can give him that will pay for what he has lost here, in my opinion. Nothing.
    And again, as is typical of Romney’s style — another unforced error.

  19. 19.

    eric

    May 30, 2012 at 9:14 am

    You liberals dont get it….Romney is speaking up for the common man, the little guy out there who is getting the shaft while moochers get government handouts. why is it that Americans can’t see Obama’s REAL birth certificate? it can be encased in glass just like the Declaration of Independence (though, in this case, we would insist that the REAL document be under the glass) so that all Americans can see to satisfy themselves that they are voting consistent with the constitution. We are asking for nothing less than confirmation that we are not all violating the Constitution when (or if) we vote for Barack Hussein Obama. But you liberals would not understand the real Constitution, with all of your fancy amendments and whatnot.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 30, 2012 at 9:15 am

    @jibeaux:

    Along those lines, I’d like DNA testing done on all of his alleged “sons” to determine who the actual father is.

    Because a ballless wonder like Rmoney couldn’t have fathered them.

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    May 30, 2012 at 9:17 am

    @eric:

    Ah, the Poe’s Law is strong with this one.

  22. 22.

    eric

    May 30, 2012 at 9:17 am

    @Elie: to be honest, Romney is gonna see nearly $2 billion used by the GOP and its PACs to define Obama’s “lack” of character. So, a dinner with Trump is not gonna compete with that in terms of long term resonance. it is going to get ugly

  23. 23.

    Comrade Jake

    May 30, 2012 at 9:25 am

    FoxNation is still running with the “Trump Knocks Wolf Blitzer Into Next Week” headline:

    http://nation.foxnews.com/

    Sure, the whole concept has been discredited by CNN, NBC, you name it. As for Fox? Not so much really.

  24. 24.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    May 30, 2012 at 9:25 am

    Memory hole.

    A lot of Romney’s problems have been finding their way there recently.

  25. 25.

    Todd

    May 30, 2012 at 9:25 am

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    You’re right about the word “believe”. I also go nuts when I hear people say they “believe” in evolution, when the correct statement is that evolution is fact which comports with measurable science.

  26. 26.

    Hill Dweller

    May 30, 2012 at 9:25 am

    @eric:

    to be honest, Romney is gonna see nearly $2 billion used by the GOP and its PACs to define Obama’s “lack” of character. So, a dinner with Trump is not gonna compete with that in terms of long term resonance. it is going to get ugly

    I would hope this sort of onslaught from anonymous billionaires would turn the country against them, but we have arguably the most ignorant electorate in recorded human history.

  27. 27.

    4tehlulz

    May 30, 2012 at 9:26 am

    Has anyone found anything about this fundraiser? I can’t find any reports about what actually was said.

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    May 30, 2012 at 9:29 am

    Why does Mitt Romney hate Amercia? [sic].

  29. 29.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 9:29 am

    Well, I suppose that there is always some sort of justification for looking like a bootlicker to a fat cheecked combover king. Only the deluded think that Romney looks good after this but those are the same people who would sell out their mothers for a buck and call that a good business decision. What is the old saying, cream and what always float to the surface?

  30. 30.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    May 30, 2012 at 9:30 am

    That’s alright, the wingers can go ahead with the attacks based on lies and racism, of ‘birtherism’. Obama, he got this, not deterred one iota from those in the MSM and dem establishment exhibiting the galloping vapors, over a democrat who uses the truth to bludgeon a white rich guy without mercy, and is anything but “wimpish”. Certainly uppity though.

    Obama Campaign Mounts New Assault on Romney’s Record as Massachusetts Governor

    And Jake Tappers idea of Obama “under water” approval rating.

    Americans overwhelmingly say Mitt Romney as president would do more than Barack Obama to advance the interests of financial institutions and the wealthy, and by a narrower margin see Obama as better for the middle class. But when it comes to the best champion for “you and your family” or small businesses, the two run evenly – marking the closeness of their contest overall.

    That’s right, Obama doing poorly with promoting the interests of the wealthy, and running even with helping “you and your family”, Clearly ‘underwater’, if you lurves you some rich people.

    Democrats have to fight the republicans, as well as the corporate media, a corporate media blinkered by upscale filters.

  31. 31.

    Nylund

    May 30, 2012 at 9:33 am

    whether he was willing to tolerate extreme views for his own political gain.

    I don’t think there are any limits to what Romney would do for political gain short of renouncing his Mormon faith.

    But even if birtherism hinders his political gain, I don’t think Romney is a big enough mensch to renounce any of it.

  32. 32.

    rlrr

    May 30, 2012 at 9:33 am

    @dmsilev:

    Makes me wonder if Romney’s campaign off-shored its iPhone development…

  33. 33.

    Punchy

    May 30, 2012 at 9:34 am

    WOW. Something completely fabricated, such as “born in Kenya!”, is now a “discredited accusation”. Not a lie. Never, ever call a lie a lie. I bet someone has been taken out of context! A misspoken utterance! But nobody lied!

  34. 34.

    japa21

    May 30, 2012 at 9:35 am

    @jibeaux:

    I’d have gone with “showed his complete absence of balls”, but I defer to their judgment on word choice.

    I just have a hunch that everything is building to that point. Romney has consistently shown that he can not stand up to anybody, whether it is some woman calling Obama a traitor, to the people at the debate who booed a soldier, to Trump, to anybody. His total risk averseness will come into play.

    Pretty soon you will see clips of him dodging questions that show he is unable to take any chances and it will be finished off with a statement that he wouldn’t take over Bain Capital unless he had a guarantee that if anything went wrong he would not be held accountable.

    Then the question will be asked, “If he can’t stand up for himself, how can you expect him to stand up for you?”

  35. 35.

    eric

    May 30, 2012 at 9:37 am

    @Hill Dweller: one would hope, but having “elected” W twice, and given Rand Paul’s presence in the Senate, I am verrrrrrrrrrrrrry confident that a non-negligible portion of the population will see the spending as a good thing as the means of getting the blah kenyan usurper.

  36. 36.

    chopper

    May 30, 2012 at 9:40 am

    it would have been better if Donald had kept a bit lower profile

    lolwut?

  37. 37.

    redshirt

    May 30, 2012 at 9:41 am

    I laugh at it all, but then worry that I still live too much in a “fact based reality”, and that’s not where America’s at anymore, and so it’s me that’s out of touch. The MSM will do everything they can to ensure Rmoney is given the very best chance to win. Repukes across the nation will try their very best to prevent folks for voting for Obama. That this is election is even discussably close is ludicrous, and yet here we are – another fight for the fate of the world.

  38. 38.

    chopper

    May 30, 2012 at 9:43 am

    @MattF:

    totes incompetent. romney keeps saying he wants to talk economy, but he sits there and lets trump bloviate in front of the cameras about kenyan birthplaces and shit only to feebly tell the media after the fact that he’d rather talk about something else.

    you know mittens, part of being president is actually managing situations. if you can’t tell the guy campaigning with you to put a fuckin cork in it, how are you going to deal with russia?

  39. 39.

    amk

    May 30, 2012 at 9:44 am

    More importantly, on the night he clinches the nomination, mittbot chooses not to address the American people, but meets with racist, rich birthers. Shows where the scum’s true loyalty lies.

  40. 40.

    SatanicPanic

    May 30, 2012 at 9:46 am

    @Punchy:

    But nobody lied!

    They have the same disease as history textbook writers- things happen, but no one makes them happen, even the bad people who just happen to be on the scene when bad things happen.

  41. 41.

    Napoleon

    May 30, 2012 at 9:46 am

    @japa21:

    Then the question will be asked, “If he can’t stand up for himself, how can you expect him to stand up for you?”

    This is Josh Marshall’s bitch slap theory of politics.

  42. 42.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    May 30, 2012 at 9:46 am

    Meanwhile, back at the Citizens United front, with the usual rich guy fussing over how much it will take to buy the coming election.

    This is what democrats are now up against, with the only real question being whether the wingnuts over reach, (which they always do), and how many billions it takes.

    “Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives — including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress,” Politico reports.

    I just hope you folks that still watch television don’t develop a Valium deficiency, nor decide to stop sniffing glue, as your boob tubes run wall to wall with “the N-CLANG has got to go”

    But they aren’t stopping with just advertising.

    That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states… Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections — twice what they had been expected to commit.” Alexander Burns: “Democrats have been raising the alarm about outside spending for some time and clearly have reason to be afraid. It’s anyone’s guess how heavily all that money will influence the election: these groups are not all equally effective or equally committed to the same set of message points.”

    My own sense of this insanity, is that it will either work to buy the election for the KOCH Bros, or become a complete disaster for them. There is something about creating a separate shadow party, with even more money than the real party and its candidate, that just screams out, ‘Republican Clusterfuck”. We saw a little of it during the primary, but we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

    Oh, and cherry on top

    Senate Democrats Outspent 3 to 1 on Ads by Super-Pacs

    Circus Clowns, we need mo Circus Clowns.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    May 30, 2012 at 9:48 am

    It’s a lot worse than “born in Kenya.”
    They say he forged a birth certificate, submitted false information to a newspaper in order to gain citizenship and threatened and then coerced witnesses. Obama is a lawyer, and they claim he defrauded however many courts the lunatic birthers entered, I don’t know, ten?
    They’ve questioned his parentage (his father is not his father) and defamed his dead mother and his grandparents, who they insist were in on the scheme. His mother, of course, cannot defend herself, because she’s dead.
    It’s a complete and total character assassination, of not just Obama, but of his entire family.
    Donald Trump endorses all this, and so does Mitt Romney.
    The only person in the country who had the spine to call Trump out on all this was….Jerry Seinfeld. That’s the part that absolutely amazes me.

  44. 44.

    4tehlulz

    May 30, 2012 at 9:50 am

    Newt Gingrich informs us that birtherism is not racist.

  45. 45.

    EconWatcher

    May 30, 2012 at 9:50 am

    When Trump was in the primaries, for the longest time I actually thought he was a Democrat who was just clowning to make the Republicans look bad. I really did.

    Remember that physicist years ago who wrote a spoof article to make fun of Po-Mo types, and actually got it published in their journal, Social Text? I thought Trump was pulling something like that, because I wasn’t aware of him having any particular political affiliation in the past, and his performance was so transparently clownish, it could not possibly be for real. Sadly, no.

    It really marks a new low when the Republican nominee is paying court to this kind of buffoon.

  46. 46.

    amk

    May 30, 2012 at 9:52 am

    @japa21: This. Tweeted.

    Romney has consistently shown that he can not stand up to anybody, whether it is some woman calling Obama a traitor, to the people at the debate who booed a soldier, to Trump, to anybody.

  47. 47.

    Hoodie

    May 30, 2012 at 9:52 am

    In wingnut world, continuing to cozy up to the birthers is a sign of balls, not lack thereof. These things are tribal markers and, the more outrageous and clearly false, the better, because that removes any ambiguity about whether this is a real belief or just a giant f.u. to Obama, liberals and the liberal media. The Romney campaign is banking on the passivity and situational ethics of the press, but it wouldn’t matter if they went all out and label this as pure lunacy, because that just reinforces the 27% mentality. The drill is “Sure, Trump is a lunatic, but he’s our lunatic and he flies around in a jet with his name on it, you don’t, so there!” In addition, Romney was not kidding about the 50.1% stuff; he does not want to throw away any birther votes, cause he’s going to need them all. The calculus is that’s a net positive for him, even if he loses a few independents because of it.

    More importantly, it seems to be an attempt to get a rise out of liberals and the Obama campaign and make them react emotionally. This birther shit is the right wing’s shitty idea of a joke, and their “jokes” are invariably racist, along the lines of the witch doctor and watermelon photoshops. Not sure there’s much to be done about it, it’s a reflection of the fact that there are a lot of people in this country with a fucked up sense of humor. Instead of umbrage and making Romney morally responsible for Trump, however, play on the fact that Trump is using Romney to continue to get attention. Run against Trump, not Romney, ask the question “who exactly is running for president? Romney or Donald Trump? Is Donald Trump Mitt’s running mate?” This would be a variation of what killed McCain in having Palin as a running mate. Obama got to run against Palin, who most folks know is a joke, making McCain look like the pathetic old fart that he is. Running against Trump shows Romney for the pathetic pandering whore that he is.

  48. 48.

    Mino

    May 30, 2012 at 9:52 am

    @Kay: I think they are operating on the critical mass theory–when a lie is repeated ad infinitum, folks give up on refuting it.

  49. 49.

    Kay

    May 30, 2012 at 9:52 am

    Romney aides admitted that this was an unhelpful distraction.

    Blah, blah, blah. It’s Trump, not Romney.

    Still making excuses for birthers, three years out. Media are complicit in this, and they know it.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    May 30, 2012 at 9:54 am

    @Mino:

    It’s absolutely outrageous, and it should never have been excused or promoted, and it was.

    Can you imagine if Obama was standing next to someone who had called Romney’s mother a liar and a criminal? Because that’s what they’re saying.

  51. 51.

    redshirt

    May 30, 2012 at 9:57 am

    @Mino: Also the “muddy the waters” theory, also the “Where there’s smoke there’s fire” theory.

    Throw out enough shit – even if it’s 100% false – and at least 27% of the folks will believe it wholeheartedly, with another percentage buying in enough.

    It’s madness.

  52. 52.

    Redshift

    May 30, 2012 at 10:00 am

    The clip of Romney spinelessly trying to pretend that Trump is just like some random low-level supporter, and then declaring that he’ll associate with anyone to win is pretty devastating. It may not have played anywhere but MSNBC last night, but I expect it will resurface later.

  53. 53.

    4tehlulz

    May 30, 2012 at 10:05 am

    This is what they’re going with:

    Appearing on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd this morning, Mitt Romney’s press secretary Andrea Saul claimed that birther Donald Trump attending a fundraiser with the Republican presidential nominee is on par with comedian Bill Maher donating $1 million to President Obama’s campaign.
    …
    “The Obama campaign refuses to denounce Bill Maher when he said extremely hateful things,” Saul said. “So you’re going to see things on both sides of the aisle, you know, as [Obama press secretary] Jay Carney said, you can’t be responsible for everything your supporters say.”

    But…is our press learning?

    “The big difference between Bill Maher and Donald Trump, though,” Todd noted, “is that the president is not sharing a stage with Bill Maher.”

    When the bullshit is so thick that even Chuck Todd calls you out, you need to dial it back a bit.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    May 30, 2012 at 10:06 am

    “My bigger concern is not positive reinforcement for the birthers, but rather positive reinforcement for a guy who loves the spotlight and probably will come out and crap all over Romney just to get attention for himself in a couple months,” she said.

    That’s a Republican strategist. Her “bigger concern” is for Mitt Romney.

    They don’t care that Romney obviously is spineless, as he has proven time and time again. They care that he now appears spineless. And, apparently, he’s helpless to stop it.

    They’re fine with this person being President.

  55. 55.

    dmsilev

    May 30, 2012 at 10:08 am

    @4tehlulz: Also, I believe that Maher donated a million dollars to a Democratic SuperPAC, not to the Obama campaign per se. So, by RomneyRules, that means that every assholish thing that has ever come out of the mouth of every GOP billionaire superPAC funder is fair game.

    Or, since RomneyRules start with IOKIYAR, maybe not.

  56. 56.

    Redshift

    May 30, 2012 at 10:08 am

    @Hoodie: Fine, but you can’t win an election with just the wingnuts. The fact that Romney still has to pander to people who are *definitely not going to vote for Obama* to the detriment of his image with all other voters is not good. Is anyone still talking about a ‘pivot to the center’ now?

  57. 57.

    rlrr

    May 30, 2012 at 10:09 am

    “I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.”
    — Hunter S. Thompson

  58. 58.

    Ash Can

    May 30, 2012 at 10:19 am

    @Kay: “To hell with the country; we’re trying to win an election, for Pete’s sake.”

  59. 59.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    May 30, 2012 at 10:21 am

    @dmsilev:

    Or, since RomneyRules start with IOKIYAR, maybe not.

    I’d be surprised if Romney holding Trump close, will not cost him a single vote. It will not change the mind of any GOP base voter, and most folks who are marginally swing voters, will just file it under, ‘oh, those silly republicans, and their frat boy goofing on Obama again” And will not process it as what it is , racist and xenophobic. It likely won’t create many votes from those Obama voters in 08, but if it causes a single vote lost for those searching for subliminal reasons to not vote for Obama, then it will be worth it, in conjunction with the extra cash that Trump can trump up.

    On the other hand, democrats or Obama stroking the Mexican angle for the Romney’s, to do a turnabout is fair play, would be received by white voting America as unpatriotic, and clearly beyond the pale. Life ain’t fair, and double for republicans behaving badly, and getting away with it.

  60. 60.

    SiubhanDuinne

    May 30, 2012 at 10:26 am

    @4tehlulz:

    Appearing on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd this morning, Mitt Romney’s press secretary Andrea Saul claimed that birther Donald Trump attending a fundraiser with the Republican presidential nominee is on par with comedian Bill Maher donating $1 million to President Obama’s campaign.

    This is obviously from the Rmoney daily memo. John Sununu said exactly the same thing to Soledad O’Brian on CNN this morning.

  61. 61.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 10:26 am

    @amk:

    True dat. As I said.. character always is revealed. There is a reason that this looser has so many unforced errors and they all begin with his rotten core. He can’t hire enough help or buy enough billionaires to blot that out. He is a stone looser through and through.

  62. 62.

    Hoodie

    May 30, 2012 at 10:27 am

    @Redshift: Yeah, but it’s not just about the wingnuts, it’s about dominance and chest-bumping on the playground. That plays with a larger public, who tend to operate on heuristics that are more based on personality than policy. Whoever looks weak loses, irrespective of the substance of the confrontation. You don’t win by expressing moral outrage in response to a taunt, even if it’s completely justified. That is especially the case with the shitty, servile press we have these days. The birther thing is a bully move that belongs to Trump, so you make Romney look like a weakling hanger-on to Trump the bully. You know, like the guys that handed Mitt the scissors. Mitt is a wimp, not because he won’t denounce Trump, but because he has anything to do with him at all.

  63. 63.

    Daulnay

    May 30, 2012 at 10:29 am

    Maybe Romney really isn’t that much of a politician. If he thinks like a business elitist, he may not really see any problem in embracing The Donald. As a fellow businessman and member of the 1%, Trump is clearly someone who deserves respect, however nutty his political ideas may be.

  64. 64.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 10:30 am

    @Redshift:

    He can’t. Obama is there. He can’t articulate any policy that is centrist without forcing the perception of his ideas being “me too”, to Obama’s. He literally has no place to go but to the crazy right. Obama has him cornered for right now and I am not sure what his escape strategy could be. And the last two weeks were spent talking about Bain capital. Another bad message.

  65. 65.

    Amir Khalid

    May 30, 2012 at 10:30 am

    It seems that not a week goes by in this presidential campaign without something happening that diminishes Mitt as a person, never mind as a candidate. And now here he is, clinging to Trump like a timid child to mother’s skirt. I simply don’t understand why he thinks he needs to stay on the good side of a walking embarrassment like Trump. The support of the other billionaires, let alone of the Teabagger base, is surely not contingent on that.

  66. 66.

    Cargo

    May 30, 2012 at 10:41 am

    good gravy, it’s not even June yet, can you imagine what October’s going to be like?

  67. 67.

    4tehlulz

    May 30, 2012 at 10:51 am

    @Cargo: I intend to be drunk between October 1 and mid-November.

    Yes, Republican Mitt Romney appears eligible to be president, according to a copy of Romney’s birth certificate released to Reuters by his campaign. Willard Mitt Romney, the certificate says, was born in Detroit on March 12, 1947.

  68. 68.

    Zach

    May 30, 2012 at 10:53 am

    Because he’s trolling. Mitt releasing his certificate was icing on the cake. The whole point of trolling is to waste someone’s time by getting them to argue with you either because you dislike them or just because you enjoy being a jerk. It worked: many hours were spent by the Obama campaign on this nonsense, and it was the main campaign story in the news media for something like 3 days. That’s a large percentage of the total number of days left before the election spent on a non-issue that will change few minds. Given that Romney’s campaigning on pretty much no concrete proposals other than taking away healthcare from the poor and middle class to pay for tax cuts for the rich, every day spent on Trump rather than debating Romney’s policy proposals or whether we need another CEO/President is a win for Romney.

  69. 69.

    Cacti

    May 30, 2012 at 11:01 am

    @japa21:

    I just have a hunch that everything is building to that point. Romney has consistently shown that he can not stand up to anybody, whether it is some woman calling Obama a traitor, to the people at the debate who booed a soldier, to Trump

    …To Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut.

    Rmoney is desperate to grab the brass ring. The inmates would be in full control of the assylum if he was elected.

  70. 70.

    4tehlulz

    May 30, 2012 at 11:01 am

    @Zach: That would make him a skilled politician.

    No one would ever accuse Mitt of being a skilled politician.

  71. 71.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 11:08 am

    @Zach:

    I disagree. This man needs to make himself appear stronger and more positive. These distractions don’t help make that argument, but instead make him look ever weaker and beholding to his rich owners. He might be doing this by design, as you say. If that is true he and his campaign team are pretty stupid because Romney is not improving the perception that swing voters are going to have of him.. Sure, the knuckle draggers on the right lap it up. But those are not the people that he has to focus on…

  72. 72.

    Zach

    May 30, 2012 at 11:14 am

    @Elie: “This man needs to make himself appear stronger and more positive.”

    I think he needs to hope the economy gets worse and that he can capitalize on whatever mistakes or modest scandals happen between now and the election. That or watch tape of George Bush in 2000 and learn how to run on tax cuts for the rich without sounding like Scrooge McDuck.

  73. 73.

    Cacti

    May 30, 2012 at 11:18 am

    @Elie:

    I disagree. This man needs to make himself appear stronger and more positive. These distractions don’t help make that argument, but instead make him look ever weaker and beholding to his rich owners.

    I’m not an unbiased observer of course, but if the point of this Romney/Trump exercise was a good cop/bad cop routine, it only works if Romney comes off as a decisive “good cop”.

    In reality, Trump sounds like the one who should be running for President. He’s firm in his (erroneous) views, and not afraid to go out and joust with the media about it. Romney comes off sounding like the guy who would need to consult his advisors before telling you that the sky is blue.

  74. 74.

    Zach

    May 30, 2012 at 11:20 am

    For what it’s worth, I think Obama’s campaign should’ve been silent on the Trump fundraiser to a man (send out fundraising requests talking about it, though) except for a one-sentence statement from Obama along the lines of: “I’m not concerned that Donald Trump is raising money for Mitt Romney, but I am concerned that Mitt Romney thinks that businessmen like Donald Trump, Mitt Romney and George W. Bush and are the most qualified people to run the country and that Mitt Romney’s number one priority is trillions of dollars in tax cuts for people born into wealth like Donald Trump, Mitt Romney and George W. Bush.”

  75. 75.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 11:20 am

    @Zach:

    In the meantime while waiting and doing what he can (along with his Repub lawmakers) to make the economy worse, he still manages to make unforced error after unforced error, making himself smaller and meaner at each turn. That is going to work for him, you think. And, the incredible negative crap against Obama — the birtherism, the insults, and very little positive messaging from his own team, set up a win for this bottom feeder? By the election, his rot will be so deep that body parts will be falling off in festering slime. Sorry. I don’t think he can overcome that.

  76. 76.

    Maude

    May 30, 2012 at 11:21 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    Romney doesn’t know what he is doing. He is grasping at straws.

  77. 77.

    Cacti

    May 30, 2012 at 11:23 am

    @Zach:

    For what it’s worth, I think Obama’s campaign should’ve been silent on the Trump fundraiser to a man (send out fundraising requests talking about it, though)

    Quietly letting the Repubs slander you and acting like you’re above such trifles is a losing strategy.

    See: Kerry, John 2004

  78. 78.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 11:29 am

    @Zach:

    Are you kidding? Team O must take every opportunity to highlight Romney’s weakness and lack of character. Every.damned.time. And fortunately, Romney gives them plenty to work with. What a rube! All the money in the world and he can’t figure out he is being pwned! His team if for shit. Also.

  79. 79.

    amk

    May 30, 2012 at 11:34 am

    @Elie: +1. Obama can walk and chew gum at the same time. zach’s concerns are duly noted.

  80. 80.

    Brachiator

    May 30, 2012 at 11:36 am

    @mistermix:

    I guess I’m hard to please. I want them to say that birtherism is false, full stop, and to ask Romney directly about it instead of setting for quotes from his aides.

    Has Romney ever said, birterism is nuts, full stop, and that Obama is a real American, etc.?

    As you and others have noted, keeping this stuff alive satisfies the core of lunatics and racists that cling to variations of the lie that Obama is not really the president, or secretly hates all white people, etc. No one in the GOP has ever tried to shut this stuff down, because it obviously works for them.

    The media doesn’t care, any more than they care whether a candidate believes in psychics, UFOs, creationism or Bigfoot.

  81. 81.

    Zach

    May 30, 2012 at 11:48 am

    @amk: I’m not saying I’d ignore it entirely–just that I’d exploit it to redirect to the bigger issue which is that you could replace Mitt Romney with George Bush or Donald Trump and they’d be saying the exact same things. I think that the week-plus-long conversation about whether or not running Bain would make Romney a good President was a lot more effective at showing people that Romney would be a President with the wrong priorities than talking about him raising money with a clown. For most people, politics is clownish and more nonsense isn’t a big deal.

    However, it’d be different if people were talking about Trump’s antics as being vile and racist, which they are, rather than just clownish. Between Trump and the secret blogger panel alone, Mitt Romney’s personally engaged with a number of people who’ve made indefensibly racist comments in the past few years.

  82. 82.

    dww44

    May 30, 2012 at 11:50 am

    @Mino: Never underestimate the ability of Republicans to find a reason to vote for whoever proudly wears the label. They will always find a way. That’s my experience in this Red State. I knew folks in 2008 who voted for the GOP ticket, because they had never voted for a Democrat, nationally anyways, in their lives. These folks were in their late 40’s or so, were educated in the post integration private school system that sprung up in these parts, and their world view tend to be very narrowly constricted. They have no ability to view any Democrat with any sort of equanimity. I must confess I’m rapidly becoming that way about them.

  83. 83.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 11:51 am

    @Brachiator:

    They gotta fill the time, man. Gotta fill the time. They got nothing else. What? — talk about Romney’s brave deeds in the service? His great plan to fix the economy (beyond give rich people more breaks)? Romney’s plan for what, exactly? This is less a real “strategy” than a time filler to keep the knuckle dragging orks from completely losing interest. He has no position to the center that he can move into. Why? Obama has that already. Can’t talk about foreign policy. Why? What would he do different and that whole Osama Bin Laden thing keeps popping up. All he has is to pray and do what he can to ruin the economy and fill the other time space with filler crap. Otherwise, folks will talk about the dog on the roof and his other buffonery. Better to let other buffons like Trump be his proxy.

  84. 84.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 11:58 am

    @dww44:

    They are killing the clock on a running play with their own team. They have to win over the swing vote. They are the deciders and every minute he wastes with this shit instead of building his rep and cred, is a net wasted opportunity. The orks will be there… he doesnt have to play to them. Yet, he and his team keep going there.

  85. 85.

    Brachiator

    May 30, 2012 at 12:09 pm

    MSNBC goes full both sides do it:

    Romney’s birth certificate evokes his father’s controversy
    __
    George Romney faced his own ‘birther’ issue in 1968 presidential race

    They note all those bad Democrats who supposedly tried to make a big deal about George Romney’s father having been born in Mexico.

    They even post up a graphic of Mitt’s Certificate of Live Birth.

    @Elie:

    They gotta fill the time, man. Gotta fill the time. They got nothing else.

    Very true. Very true.

  86. 86.

    redshirt

    May 30, 2012 at 12:11 pm

    @Brachiator: Not sure about that. Can you imagine if a Presidential candidate didn’t believe in…. GASP!…. God? 24/7 Shriekfest on the TV.

  87. 87.

    catclub

    May 30, 2012 at 12:20 pm

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: Speaking of the memory hole. Tax forms from eleven years back. Not in evidence on one side.

    Swiss and Caymans bank accounts.

  88. 88.

    Zach

    May 30, 2012 at 12:22 pm

    @Brachiator:

    They note all those bad Democrats who supposedly tried to make a big deal about George Romney’s father having been born in Mexico.
    They even post up a graphic of Mitt’s Certificate of Live Birth.

    Because everyone made a fuss about John McCain being born in the Panama Canal Zone. It wasn’t at all necessary, but Congress even passed a resolution confirming that citizenship-by-blood still counts as natural born. The absolute non-story over McCain’s citizenship is where all debate over Obama’s birth should end because it’s simple, racist nonsense.

    I remember when this all started and Obama’s campaign quickly released some form of his birth certificate. I took out my own Hawaiian birth certificate and went, “Well I guess that’s all there is to that… it’s practically identical.”

  89. 89.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 12:31 pm

    @catclub:

    Oh that’s coming, for sure. You don’t unload your whole armory in the first week of a war ..

    Right now Team O is setting up the shots and painting a picture that will make this stuff stick. Corey the meathead helped Obama a lot by revealing how corrupting Bain’s influence is. Romney had no defense and no explanation. Instead of truly exploiting Corey’s gaffe, the gaffe actually serves to distract from a higher level opportunity to make Bain and by extension, Romney look honorable.
    And the next week, Romney instead of building his own rep and cred is laying down with the rich racist dogs and doing nothing to put teflon on his own hide. And if past performance predicts future, he will do it again and again.

  90. 90.

    danielx

    May 30, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    That and other statements left the Romney campaign to fend off questions about the candidate’s views on that long-discredited accusation and whether he was willing to tolerate extreme views for his own political gain.

    Long-discredited? With whom, pray tell? It ain’t discredited with a substantial portion of the Republican base, I can tell you. Here in my fair state of Indiana there are a large number of voters who still/always believe that Obama is a Kenyan imposter. Granted, it’s Indiana and dumb fucks are pretty thick upon the ground – after all, my fellow citizens elected Mitch Daniels. Twice. Leaving the questionable thinking capacity of my fellow Hoosiers aside, they wouldn’t believe Obama was born in the U.S. if Jesus showed up and said so – unless they heard a Limbaugh broadcast saying he agreed with the Savior. Any “proof” to the contrary is and would be dismissed as some kind of liberalsocialistcommie plot, and yes, I’ve heard those three words strung together in just that fashion and spoken in all seriousness by people who you’d think would know better. Back home again….

  91. 91.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    @Zach:

    And why do people completely forget that even if Obama WAS born in Kenya — his mother was an American, so he is STILL an American!!!!!

  92. 92.

    Elie

    May 30, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    @danielx:

    They don’t matter. They were never going to vote for Obama anyway. Wasting time reconvincing them is strategically stupid for Romney unless he is just filling slow time. They can’t help him. Stupid strategy from his team IMHO.

  93. 93.

    pat

    May 30, 2012 at 1:59 pm

    None of this will matter in November if Florida and a couple of other states (Wisconsin, maybe) can keep enough people from voting who would have voted for Obama. The way to steal an election is not one “fraudulent” vote at a time, but to run the election and control the voting machines. That’s what really worries me.

    Oh, and spend quadrillions of dollars smearing the president in order to get the knuckledraggers out to the polls.

    Mittens has one thing right: This is the most important election this century. If the Republicans can win this with these tactics and this kind of money, they win the brass ring for the foreseeable future.

    Shudder.

  94. 94.

    Zach

    May 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm

    @Elie: I am pretty sure this is true for Obama because of his birth year and how long his mother lived in the States, but the specific rules on this have varied a lot over the years. Citizenship is a very tricky problem and it’s very important because different types of citizens are treated differently in the legal system… almost-Supreme-Court-nominee Diane Wood studied this issue and had a good talk on it broadcast on NPR at some point.

  95. 95.

    LanceThruster

    May 30, 2012 at 3:23 pm

    Glob help me, how I hate Mitt Rmoney.

  96. 96.

    Raya

    May 30, 2012 at 3:25 pm

    @eric: Alas, Eric. You seem to have missed the point that even if Obama was born outside the US, he would still be a natural-born American citizen since his mother was indisputably an American-born citizen, and under U.S. law, any child of an American-born citizen is automatically a natural-born citizen. (That’s why Romney Sr. could run for President despite being born in Mexico, and John McCain could run for President despite being born in the PCZ.)

    So unless you are contesting Stanley Ann Dunham’s birth certificate as well, it doesn’t actually matter what the President’s birth certificate says: you’re not violating any aspect of the Constitution by voting for him.

    I’m sure you must be relieved to have that cleared up for you. Now you can cast your vote for Obama with a clean conscience!

  97. 97.

    Kane

    May 30, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    Forget asking Romney the “Do you think President Obama was born in Kenya” question. It’s that line of questioning that has enabled Republicans to hem and haw for years on the issue, offering the disingenuous and insincere response of “I take the President at his word.”

    Instead, the obvious question to ask Romney is, Don’t you feel uncomfortable with associating with the racist attacks of birtherism?

  98. 98.

    David Koch

    May 30, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    If I was Trump, I be worried.

    Obama’s gangland thugs in Chicago have a history of bumping off patriots like Andrew Breitbart when they get too close to the truth.

    Obama is worse than Al Capone.

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