I firmly believe that the number one qualification for being RNC Chairdouche is a spectacular lack of self-awareness bordering on non-sentience. Reince Priebus may be the most successful person in that regard to ever hold the position.
RNC Chair Reince Priebus framed the election in drastic terms Sunday morning, saying that another Obama term could put an ‘end to our way of life’ and that “liberty and freedom” are at stake in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”
“The fact is, it’s not a question of whether can Mitt Romney win,” Priebus said. “The statement is, Mitt Romney has to win for the sake of the very idea of America. Mitt Romney has to win for liberty and freedom. We have to put an end to this Barack Obama presidency before it puts an end to our way of life in America.”
Yeah, let the connotations of that sink in for a while complete with the lengths you think some of Priebus’s fellow Republicans would go to in order to “end” the Obama presidency, then grok this.
“This president has already shown that he’s not who he said he was. He claimed he was gonna bring everyone together, he was gonna be this uniter. He’s been the most divisive, nasty, negative campaigner that this country’s ever seen. He’s not running any positive ads at all.”
The temporal paradoxes that Priebus creates eating breakfast in the morning should have destroyed the Earth a thousand times over, except they keep getting sucked into the void that is his own self-obliviousness.
MonkeyBoy
I think this is just a bit of Rovian jujitsu to make all out lying personal attacks on Obama ok because “he started it”.
JPL
The local fox news had a box with Libyan elections showing a completed veiled burqa with just eye slits. Very scary! When they showed actual voters in line though, you saw head scarfs.
Fox news whether local or national is awful.
Priebus by saying the President is gonna steal our liberties isn’t being negative at all. Yeah, right.
SiubhanDuinne
When this dude first got the top job at the RNC, someone brilliantly noted that the consonants in his name, in order, spell: RNC PR BS.
bago
I love the smell of billionaires whining in the morning. It smells like victory.
Smiling Mortician
I do like the way Rachel Maddow can’t keep herself from laughing every time she says his name. I’ll bet that stings.
maya
It’s a great GOP stradgety from a great GOP stradgetister – [Reince & Repeat]: Mitt’s The Uni-Fier and Savior of RWay O’Life
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Desperation is never pretty.
JPL
@MonkReyBoy: Romney said the same thing when asked about his campaigners interrupting Presidential speeches. We can send our bus and honk cuz he does it but he doesn’t. Of course, the media will call them liars.
Betty
I was forced to watch about 15 minutes of Fox News yesterday- Mike Huckabee and Allen West. So many lies in such a short time- it was flabbergasting- and then the stunningly dishonest ad from Americans for Prosperity came on. When will the real media start to seriously call these people out?
PeakVT
He claimed he was gonna bring everyone together, he was gonna be this uniter.
It’s hard to bring people together when all 27% of them do is give you the finger.
mellowjohn
@Betty: rhetorical question, right?
Weaselone
Fortunately, the space-time continuum appears more robust than Doc Brown lead me to believe.
I think you bolded the wrong portion of the quote. Nearly every politician smears the opponent as the worstest, most horriblest campaigner ever and oh please kiss the booboo and vote for me to sooth my hurt fee-fees. It’s the next sentence that is a bald, easily disprovable lie that even a Fox propagandist should have the integrity to jump on.
Rommie
And that blinding projection lights up the Large Magellanic Cloud.
I swear, all that Horribly Near Nation-Wrecking guy has to do in the debates is say Why? after each Mittens volley of BS, and watch as Romney ties himself into an ever-smaller pretzel.
beltane
@Smiling Mortician: His name always makes me think of some type of crotch-related fungal infection. Perfect name for a Republican really.
Haydnseek
@Betty: Uh, Betty? This IS the “real media.” The networks are hopeless, CNN would love to be Fox News but doesn’t have the balls, and MSNBC is a voice in the wilderness that is becoming increasingly faint as its ratings decline (along with CNN). I agree with you in principle, but I’m VERY pessimistic with regard to the media in general. The constant bleating from planet wingnut about the “liberal media” has done its job over the decades. Why no pushback? Because the media isn’t anything like liberal and never was.
MattF
Claiming your opponents do the things you’ve been doing all along is so very Rovian and so very cute & all that… but I don’t think Priebus has the balls to really pull it off. And if the Villagers will now use Priebus’ inanities to claim that ‘class warfare’ is one of those things that both sides do… I say ‘Bring it on’.
jeffreyw
Before this RNC gig he was a weather reader on TV. He was let go after the animal rights folks complained that he abused a coyote.
p.a.
ifwhen the polls start getting ugly for Herr Romney, imagine what the spew from the right then. Obama as World Enemy.doofus
@MonkeyBoy: Yep. A simple laying of the “both sides do it” foundation for the fall when it is wall to wall Citizen’s United funded negative ads.
RSA
Taken together with recent news that focus group voters simply don’t believe that Republicans are as crazy as they sound, and risking Godwinizing this thread, I really think the general Republican strategy can be described as “The Very Large Lie”.
Kane
Jonathan Chait recently pointed out a story in the Weekly Standard written by Peter Berkowitz shortly after Obama won the 2008 election. The story listed seven things Obama could do to prove that he actually was the bipartisan figure he presented himself to be. Obama fulfilled virtually all of Weekly Standard’s criteria for bipartisanship. And yet, by August of 2009, Berkowitz was accusing President Obama of having pulled a “bait and switch” because Obama signed the economic stimulus.
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/04/why-did-obamas-bipartisanship-fail.html
Villago Delenda Est
He’s been smoking that high grade teabagger tea, that Rinse has.
Does the DEA know about it?
gnomedad
He’s just parroting what the 27-percenters see as self-evident: Obama and teh libruls are evil, evil, EVIL! It’s a chicken-and-egg paradox, really.
Lather, Reince, repeat.
arguingwithsignposts
I, for one, wish Obama’s re-election would spell an end to their way of life, the entitled GOP pricks.
Xecky Gilchrist
Obama isn’t the one I remember promising to be a uniter, not a divider.
gnomedad
Ye canna’ mix matter and antimatter cold!
xian
@PeakVT: uniter, wasn’t that Bush’s line?
Chris
@JPL:
When I studied abroad in Cairo, I saw less burqas than I expected, but also less western style women’s clothing. The default setting in those countries seems to be women wearing regular headscarves, with women going the full western route and the full Saudi/Taliban route being minorities.
Baud
@PeakVT:
This exactly. The GOP’s view is that they have no responsibility to fulfill their end of the supposed bargain, and that’s IOKIYAR.
Hill Dweller
@RSA:
We have the most ignorant electorate in human history. Couple that with the media, who abdicated their responsibilities decades ago, and you get the shit we’re in now.
This must be what the Romans felt like.
russ
Per John Stewart, “It’s supposed to taste like a shit sandwich”.
General Stuck
This is bullshit, of course, but I just listened to an Obama stump speech on POTUS XM, and I can see where the nutters are coming from. The entire speech was a catcalling out the wingnuts for all their crappola the past decade, from the Bush tax cuts for the rich, to Iraq and Afghanistan, to the medicare prescription bill, ALL OF IT UNPAID FOR. You want to see how a democrat should be talking right now, listen to O on the campaign trail, and unlike the republicans, all of it is basic historical fact. Fuck dubious motherfuckers like Rence, or princess, or whatever the little shit weasel calls his sorry self. Between Ann Romney using the “k” word for what Obama is doing to Mitt in normal political campaigns, and the subliminal messaging throughout the GOP and its leaders, as some kind of sideways call for violent methods. It would not be completely out of bounds to wonder if they aren’t hoping a little to incite such violence to beat Obama, from the knuckle dragging wing of their party. I hate these fuckers more with each passing day.
Joey Maloney
@Betty:
Never. Does never work for you?
gene108
Barack Hussein Obama is a very divisive President. The country is more polarized because of him.
I do not think any true American will surrender their liberty, the way liberals want us to, in order to unite this country.
Capitulation to the Obama regime – as Rush so rightly pointed out, a regime like his name sake Saddam Hussein or Nicolae Ceauşescu that rules through fear and intimidation – will never happen, despite all the Lefty whining about “why can’t we all just get along”.
The best thing to do would be to elect a uniter as President; clearly Obama cannot and will not be a uniter.
I don’t think Mitt Romney will unite people.
I think you need a true uniter, who understands American principals and principles, such as Jim DeMint, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Tom Coburn, or zombie Jesse Helms or zombie Strom Thurmon or zombie Ronald Reagan.
AnonPhenom
Shorter RNC PR BS: Hey teabaggers, if you “want your country back”, you’re gonna have to let this guy you think is a religious cult member be the President.
Goobers choice.
Chris
New troll?
MattF
@Chris: I think the reference at the end to ‘zombie Ronald Reagan’ as a true uniter is a bit of a giveaway.
different-church-lady
The reason nobody pays any attention to what he says is because they keep getting hung up at, “Wait… his name is what? Reince Priebus? How do you even pronounce that?”
Joey Maloney
@gene108:
You had me going there for a minute. Golf clap.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: If you are referring to gene108, then, no. Also, recalibrate your snark-meter.
different-church-lady
@gene108:
4 out of 10 — as parody it’s extremely accurate, but there needs to be more glimmers of humor.Strike that — somehow I overlooked the zombie part.
Cap'n Magic
Fixid.
General Stuck
@different-church-lady:
You pronounce it – right wing asshole, and let the pearl clutchers sort it out.
feebog
I love to ask the wingnuts the following question: What freedoms exactly has Obama taken from you? The freedom of political speech? you are engaging in that right now. The freedom to keep and bear arms? When did the ATF show up at your door looking for your Glock? The freedom to move around the country freely? How was that vacation to Vermont you just took?
I could go on ad infinitum, but it really is simple. The 27% simply parrot back what they heard on Faux Noose or Limbaugh that day and expect the rest of us to consider that an argument. Pitiful.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, the final sentence was all tell, tell, tell. You read through it, and it’s a prime example of Poe’s Law, until Gene gives us a tell that blares like a klaxon.
JPL
Was he asked why he felt like that? What is about the current President that he finds so scary? Any chance that he was asked what democracy means or how about fascism? I bet he has the second answer down pat
different-church-lady
@feebog: The freedom of not having a Democratic president who’s also black.
Oh, and maybe the freedom of not having any protections from health insurance companies if you can afford it, and the freedom of not having someone else pay for your health insurance if you can’t.
Chris
@Omnes Omnibus:
I stand corrected.
dead existentialist
@gene108: Ha ha, pretty good. I thought I was reading Bill Kristol there for a second.
Villago Delenda Est
@feebog:
“He’s near.”
There’s your answer.
different-church-lady
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think you’ve gotten your supplier/user relationship backwards there.
amk
Typical rethug tactic of falsely accusing the dems of doing things that they themselves do it blatantly. As long as the americans don’t realize that their real enemy is their media, they will be more likely be ruled by the thugs.
Calouste
@different-church-lady:
Pronounced Rainhart Preeboos. And if that sounds like the name of a German staff officer in a WWII movie, well yes.
Roger Moore
@feebog:
The freedom to run the country as they see fit without being interfered with by those people. If they’re not in control, their freedom is destroyed.
different-church-lady
@SiubhanDuinne: I’d like to solve the puzzle, Pat.
JohnK
Politfact has not reported anything said by Reince Priebus as being anything but false. How is that lawyer legal profession-ABA ethics thing supposed to work?
Corner Stone
@Chris:
“The gentleman will observe regular order and sit down! The gentleman will sit! The gentleman is correct in sitting!”
askew
It looks like the Dems on the Sunday shows showed up to fight this morning:
Boudica
@feebog: I believe that vacation was taken in Branson, MO, not the socialist haven of Vermont…..
Ash Can
@JPL: The guy was on Fox News. They don’t ask questions like that.
gbear
@Cap’n Magic: Nice projection there bud. Of course, RT Rybak didn’t actually say those words. RNC PR BS is on record as actually saying that bullshit. Both sides didn’t do it.
Edit: My snark meter may have failed me on that comment. If so, apologies.
maya
@Hill Dweller:
Give the Romans some slack. They had lead in their water. Hummm. Maybe AlQaeda has successfully poisoned our reservoirs after all.
Ash Can
@JohnK: When you’ve lost even Politifact…
4tehlulz
Herr Priebus is objectively pro-assassination.
Villago Delenda Est
@different-church-lady:
“High grade” only refers to the potency.
I’m not sure Rinse is the supplier, he definitely seems to have the ni*CLANG* munchies, though, which is a characteristic of teabagger shit from its inception shortly after 8PM PST on 4 November 2008.
amk
@JohnK: Looks like truth and this smarmy scum haven’t met.
Cantrip
This is a serious question, perhaps I don’t see it because I live in the liberal enclave of Seattle, but even my life-long repub family in MO are getting their info about this election on the net and not from the dying ‘major media’.
So what does it matter what the propogandists on Fox spew… No one I know is even watching!
Villago Delenda Est
@askew:
His most recent slogan, on Friday, when he deigned to take a break from the “Romney Olympics” to address the press, was “Putting Jobs First”. Yes. Putting them on a boat to Asia, basically.
piratedan
guess we’re only a month or two away from ole Rinsy calling out “will no one rid us of this meddlesome dictator?” and Sistah Sarah putting a surveyor’s symbol over the WH.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cantrip:
Of Cantrips and Crowes fame?
FAUX noise is broadcast over every damn treadmill in this country, on a 24/7 basis.
Davis X. Machina
@General Stuck: Are you sure it’s not pronounced “Throat-warbler Mangrove”?
GregB
The country needs a uniter who isn’t mean or negative.
We need Chris Christie and Allen West with a side of Michelle Bachmann and Joe Walsh.
JPL
@Ash Can: Well to be honest MSNBC won’t ask questions like that.
pk
Or to put it more simply the white guy has to be in-charge even though he is a piece of shit.
Cacti
I like how this election cycle, the names of the Repubs sound like cartoonish rich pricks.
Willard Mitt Romney and Reince Priebus?
I wonder if Snotley Q. Trustfund can be reached for comment.
Roger Moore
@GregB:
FTFY
Baud
@askew:
Oh, that’s just them being divisive, nasty, and negative again.
Cantrip
@Villago Delenda Est: No, the old D&D cantrips… Minor spells :D. Thanks for the info… My gym usually does ESPN.
Cantrip
@Villago Delenda Est: No, the old D&D cantrips… Minor spells :D. Thanks for the info… My gym usually does ESPN.
Corner Stone
@Cantrip:
It’s on everywhere. It’s on in lobby areas, it’s on in kitchen break rooms of businesses, it’s just pervasive.
And what I notice is that there’s a mix of people. Some are apolitical or disengaged, some would rather watch anything than FNC and some are avid Fox true believers.
And it’s those core of true believers that are the most dedicated. Because every time I change the channel in a break room, when I come back it’s on FNC again.
NotMax
Priebus could have saved himself a lot of energy and verbiage by just coming out and calling Obama “Uppity.”
Maude
Listening to Republicans makes me dream of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Redshift
@Kane: Of course. To be bipartisan, it’s not enough to do everything they want, you also have to do nothing you want. Otherwise, you’re being a vicious partisan.
Roger Moore
@Maude:
I’ve stopped limiting myself to thinking about the spontaneous kind. I know that makes me a bad person.
Southern Beale
This is not a whiff of desperation, it’s an overwhelming CLOUD.
They’re gonna lose and they know it. Fearmonger, much?
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
In fairness those are exactly the same thing. Remember, what Conservatives want is defined as the opposite of what Liberals want, updated as necessary. That automatically makes anything the Liberals do viciously partisan, because the Conservatives are guaranteed to hate it.
Southern Beale
In other news, if you’re a geek like me you will be fascinated with SCOTUS Blog’s detailed account of the announcement of the ACA ruling, and how/why CNN and FOX got it wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cantrip:
Your gym is obviously a Stalinist cell!
dp
@MonkeyBoy: I’ll give him this: telling the truth about Republicans is pretty nasty.
gene108
@GregB:
Bachmann’s gotten more dangerous, since her run for President. She’s more refined at spewing out the crazy.
Saw are on C-SPAN and she’s good at staying on message.
Whatever her handlers told her during her campaign, she’s actually paid attention.
gene108
@Cantrip:
Old? Did 4E or 5E get rid of them?
grandpa john
@Villago Delenda Est:
well the “our way of life” is talking about the 1%
Southern Beale
This kind of hysterical talk on Fox News Sunday tells me the RNC is really worried about flogging the base to the polls. I think Romney’s flip-flopping and being a Mormon and being the architect of healthcare reform are negatives that really have depressed enthusiasm in their base.
Jay in Oregon
@Southern Beale:
I thought it was fascinating as well.
The interesting parts were that the decision to describe the ruling as striking down the individual mandate was based on a sloppy reading of the SUMMARY. In essence, the summary said “We do not find that the argument that the Commerce Clause supports the creation of an individual mandate holds up; however, we do find that the creation of an individual mandate is in line with Congress’s power to tax” and the CNN and Fox News analysts *koff* got as far as the first part and yelled “STOP THE PRESSES!”
The rest of it was due to a mix of technical errors—the SCOTUS website that was to publish the ruling collapsed under the load, meaning most people were relying on wire services and news outlets—and an extremely efficient delivery mechanism at CNN pushing the incorrect reporting so far that it took them longer to figure out what happened.
SCOTUSblog did really good work in reading and understanding what the ruling actually said, and in dissecting the aftermath of the incorrect reporting; I find it funny that some of the comments said “Stop trying to spin this; CNN said it’s unconstitutional? I’m done with this site!”
I wasn’t aware of SCOTUSblog before this, but I’ll remember them the next time I want to see quality analysis of Supreme Court goings-on.
Jay in Oregon
@gene108:
4th Edition D&D preserves cantrips for wizards, but not for any other class.
The next edition isn’t done yet, but the sample characters they’ve made available for playtesting have cantrip-like minor abilities.
Maude
@Jay in Oregon:
Before the MCA about military trials was passed during the Bush Admin, there was a Supremes opinion made. I emailed and asked if the MCA, not yet passed would make the Supremes opinion moot. I got back an answer saying yes.
That’s what happened.
HRA
@Southern Beale:
“This is not a whiff of desperation, it’s an overwhelming CLOUD.
They’re gonna lose and they know it. Fearmonger, much?”
That’s exactly what I got out of reading what Rinse said on Faux. You can smell the fear and the desperation.
sublime33
I am so disappointed with Obama. Rush, Sean, O’Reilly and the rest of the FOX crew really, REALLY tried to be nice to Obama but he just had no interest in being friendly. Unlike Bill Clinton, who, oh wait, they fanned the flames to impeachment him. So who is it who is divisive again?
Redshift
@Southern Beale: Bookmarked. I’ll have to look there and see if they have any analysis of the legal basis for the ruling on Medicaid, because that one makes no sense to me.
Patricia Kayden
I guess Obama’s negative ads are hitting the Repubs upside their heads, so they’re whining and squeaming in pain.
Good work, President O.
lamh35
I remember all the hooting and hollering in 2008 when Obama and McCain did that religous forum thingy with that Rick Warren guy.
What I’m wondering is will there be that forum again this year? And if so, I would love to see Romney answer questions from an evangelical preacher and try to NOT mention his Mormonism.
scav
@HRA:
GOP 2012
Grand Old Panic
And, while I’m at it:
Grotesquely Overstated Predictions
Genuinely Obscene Positions
lamh35
Ok, now knowing her history with Genie and Clarence Thomas, I’m inclined to believe those who say that Thomas is the leak
What in holy hell is the point of leaking stuff like this? Who does it help? Regardless of his ideology, if I was Justice Roberts, I’d be throughly PO’d.
Discord at Supreme Court is deep, and personal
jprfrog
These guys project better than an I-Max.
Baud
@lamh35:
You know what I love about that story…
It’s a story about discord and it’s not about Democrats.
Yippee!
texascowgirl
@askew: I like that O’Malley guy.
Linda Featheringill
Why are the Republicans suddenly afraid?
Their chances of winning back the White House are not much worse than they were 2 or 3 weeks ago. Wha hoppen?
Was the SCOTUS thing that big a deal?
Baud
@Linda Featheringill:
I don’t know if they are suddenly afraid, but I think the health care decision dispirited their base, especially because one of their own (Roberts) was the key vote.
I also think they realize the Bain attacks are working.
PeakVT
@GregB: Christie would never fit in a Maserati.
gbear
@lamh35: That CBS clip was painful to watch. The court was covered in strictly political consevative-vs-liberals terms. Not once did any kind of legal argument enter into her report. I quit watching with about a minute left. I didn’t want to be there when they went back to the god-awful Bob Schieffer.
I agree that this has probably been an eye opener for Roberts. He must be pissed off.
Frankensteinbeck
@feebog:
I have put a lot of thought into the ‘What freedoms are you losing?’ question, and I’m pretty sure of my answer now. Their perception is twisted, but not made up from scratch. If you bedrock believe that the president is not legitimate, then every time he accomplishes anything you’ve been disenchfranchised, your liberty and freedom of self-government stolen. Now, of you apply this to the original post, they’re terrified that their liberty will be lost forever – that is, if Obama wins reelection the Republican party is fucked and conservatives will never have another shot.
Hill Dweller
The GOAT wins his 17th slam and takes over #1 in the world just a month from his 31st birthday.
Bex
@gene108: This is snark, right?
karen
@HRA:
You do know that when rabid animals are scared, that’s when they bite right? Boner actually said that except for Romney’s friends and family, they’ll be voting against Obama (paraphrasing) and that they couldn’t make them love Romney. They know they have the short straw.
BUT
*They’re suppressing any Democratic votes they can.
*They have tons and tons of money to change independent voter’s minds.
*They have the media on their side except for MSNBC.
*They’ve bought off the Supreme Court except for the one ACA decision.
*Firebaggers and PUMAs have already decided they won’t vote or will vote third party to teach the Dems a lesson like they did in 2010.
AND
*When you have money bundlers like Harvey Weinstein saying that the big money Dems aren’t giving as much because they feel that they don’t need to because you can throw all the money in the world at it but if you have a bomb (he’s using movies as an example) you can’t sell it.
AND
*You have the Koch brothers holding $50K per person fundraisers in the Hamptons.How the fuck can we compete when the only big money Dem that contributed a decent amount is Bill Maher?
If we lose it will be for the above reasons. But what makes me the most angry are the overconfidence of the rich liberals who aren’t giving when they can and the Firebaggers and PUMAs. It’s one thing if we lose because of what our enemies do. But if it’s because of what our “friends” won’t do then that is UNFORGIVABLE.
Linnaeus
@Hill Dweller:
He does love those grass courts.
Linda Featheringill
@Frankensteinbeck:
Interesting point. And they might be right. According to your analysis, the Republicans are more aware of reality than I gave them credit for.
Joey Maloney
@Frankensteinbeck: You’re overthinking it. It’s racism. Conscious or not, acknowledged or not, it’s just racism.
Yutsano
@karen: They don’t have his back. They never have. They only bought into the wave election to “make history” and look good to other liberal friends. But it wasn’t real support.
Hill Dweller
@Linnaeus: Fed’s played well enough to win a few more Slams the last couple of years, but always threw in WTF match along the way and got bounced. It is good to see him win.
bemused
@Baud:
“Sources” said if Roberts had been with the liberal position in the first place, that would have been one thing but switching position relatively late in the game infuriated conservatives. Would they really have been less infuriated if Roberts had held the same position from the start? I’m skeptical.
Haydnseek
@Cacti: Reince Priebus. Perfect name for a Star Wars villain. Other than that, I’ve got nothing better to say. Excellent thread. Carry on…
Heliopause
It’s likely that the country will put an end to itself by narrowly voting for Obama in November, in which case I don’t expect the GOP to say, “shucks, we really did get a little too extreme,” I expect them to get even nuttier. We’ll be pining for the days when Reince Priebus was saying stuff as moderate and level-headed as the above. In 2017 President Hillary is going to have to seriously consider turning those mythical internment camps into reality in order to house the thousands of burgeoning militias and right-wing death squads. John Carpenter will complete his trilogy by releasing Escape From Idaho in 2020. The Obama years will look like salad days by comparison.
Baud
@bemused:
I agree. The “switch” is just salt in the wound.
Roger Moore
@Linda Featheringill:
I think it’s a bigger deal than people realize. They’d probably rather repeal all of the ACA, but they’re afraid that repealing the popular parts will lose them votes. They were hoping the Supreme Court would do their dirty work for them by ruling the mandate unconstitutional and the rest of it unseverable. When the Court didn’t do their dirty work for them, they’re left in the position of either having to undo the popular parts of the bill and take the political heat for it or let the whole thing stay, giving the Democrats a short-term and long-term win.
Also, too, this gives Obama an obvious big, positive point to use in his campaign. Ads touting the popular provisions of ACA that the Republicans are threatening to undo should provide a nice contrast between the two parties.
Davis X. Machina
@Heliopause:They’re too damn fat, and too damned lazy. There’s the odd McVeigh out there — always was, always will be — but as for the rest, who ever stormed the castle with a pitchfork in one hand and a remote in the other?
quannlace
The very second the election is called, they’ll be shrieking ‘Voter Fraud’ and demanding an armed insurection to ‘take back our country.’
Yutsano
@quannlace: Quick! To the Rascals! We gotta storm Washington! Right after Judge Judy is over…
hueyplong
They call him “Reince Priebus” because “Major Strasser” was taken and modern copyright laws are a b1tch.
rikyrah
@Linda Featheringill:
they had banked the rest of their entire campaign on saying that the President had wasted his political capital on something that was unconstitutional, when he could have been about ‘fixing the economy’.
now that it’s CONSTITUTIONAL (bitches, call it whatever you want)
he didn’t waste his time.
not only that, but Willard has no fucking leg on which to stand.
they have nothing to ‘ replace’ OBAMACARE with if they repeal it. …and they’re being asked THAT pesky question that they hate
” what about the 30 million uninsured in this country that will be covered by Obamacare”
trollhattan
@Linda Featheringill:
My sense is yes, especially on the heels of Obama’s immigration strategy. I presume both parties expected ACA to be overturned and were surprised by the result. While the Republicans were “robbed” of their “So, what has he accomplished in four years?” strategy the Dems found it easy to pivot from “See, they really do want you to die” to “Okay, that’s a win for healthcare and a win for the American people.”
The Republicans are still hitting ctrl+alt+delete and jabbering talking points to fill dead air while they reboot.
jake the snake
@gene108: zat you DougJ?
Not up to your usual standards.
Mino
@trollhattan: It also gives voters a reason to vote Dem down ticket if they want to keep it. Win, win,.
bemused
@Baud:
Yes, it’s hard to imagine them not freaking out and labeling him a coward either way.
Ben Cisco
Betterified.
Rhoda
The Republicans are massively outspending the President and his Superpac, Priorities USA already. As a result, after another luke-warm jobs report Rasmussen has the President’s approval rating at 50% today.
My theory is that they’ve spent their wad: they have called Barack Obama a failure since 2009 and named him a commie and everything else under the sun. They have nothing new. Meanwhile, the Republicans nominated a vulture capitalist (Thank you Rick Perry for putting it out there; that will hopefully be an ad in September) and the more voters meet this man the more repelled they are. The Boehner comment that he can’t make you love Mitt Romney towards but you hate Obama and so does everyone else; a comment directed at a SUPPORTER in WV this weekend encapsulates this. I don’t believe that the voter suppression tactics they’re trying will be enough to decide the election and that is what’s leading to the carping we’ve heard lately. Their candidate is not only unappealing; but his team is making stupid mistakes that feed the memes out there and it’s infuriating the party as they try to make this close enough to steal.
Heliopause
@Davis X. Machina:
I hope you’re right, then maybe we can instead spend that money on Ryancare Health Retreats. I figure barracks for 30 million “patients” will be just about right.
Chris
@Davis X. Machina:
This. Every time something in me says “civil war around the corner,” I remember just what a bunch of lazy, entitled fucks they are. The notion that these people could start a war should be terrifying, but in context ends up just being pathetic in a hilarity inducing way.
Yutsano
@Rhoda:
Rasmussen is a notorious GOP outlier polling outfit. If they have him at 50% he’s actually closer to 53-55.
sublime33
@rikyrah:
Their next proposal is to nullify Obamacare, then require proof of insurance before you can vote.
gene108
@Bex:
Not snark.
I am 100% serious in my belief that zombie Reagan is needed to save this country, along with zombie Tip O’Neal.
gene108
@Roger Moore:
Further more, it gives Obama an actual tangible big fucking accompolishment to point to, when he Democrats controlled Congress and the White House.
It’ll help him in 2012, but the real kicker is in 2014 and 2016, as Obamacare becomes accepted and people aren’t as scared about losing jobs or losing coverage, etc. as they are now and they’ll realize, who they have to thank for it and who wanted to gut the whole thing and keep us in the “bad old days” before Obamacare.
You can’t govern with your core philosophy being government is bad and expect to produce results most people like.
Obamacare will be the chickens coming home to roost for Republicans in 2014 and 2016.
The real question is how nasty will they be in defense of whatever power they have, because nastiness is all they have right now.
MattF
@gene108: If zombie Reagan needs financial advice, the NYT is on it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/business/mutfund/estate-planning-for-the-savvy-zombie-essay.html?ref=mutfund
Chris
@gene108:
Big Fucking Accomplishment indeed. Probably the biggest liberal advance this country has seen since LBJ.
karen
@Heliopause:
I figure the attempts on Obama’s life will increase drastically. Because that will be the only recourse they have left.
AxelFoley
@Hill Dweller:
Since when did Michael Jordan play tennis, and how did he turn back time 18 years?
ReMarksDC
I see ads here in DC, safe Obama country, because Virginia is in play and Obama runs positive ads, especially in support of women. It is entirely personal–son of a single mom, father of two daughters–that is entirely consistent with the message: women doing the same work should receive the same pay as men doing the same work. Maybe I’m tuning them out, but I can’t recall a positive Republican ad.