According to the NYTimes, George “Dubya” Bush is going to poke his head out of his secure location and predict… well, six more weeks of heavy weather for Romney, from the sound of it:
For the first time since leaving office three and a half years ago, Mr. Bush is advancing a variety of ideas about how to jump-start economic growth by restructuring taxes, expanding trade, encouraging innovation, fixing immigration and overhauling Social Security. He wrote the foreword for the book, a collection of essays from an array of economists, including five Nobel Prize winners, and he proposes a national goal of expanding the economy by 4 percent a year on a sustained basis.
“The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs,” to be unveiled by the former president in Dallas on Tuesday and published by Crown Business, is neither campaign template nor partisan screed. It is a wonky paean to free enterprise.
It is also the next step in a gradual return to the public stage by a president who has largely remained out of the limelight since turning over the White House to President Obama….
Leaving aside, for the moment, snark about how we’d only be sure Bush wrote the foreword if it were in crayon, I misdoubt the patented Romney “Etch-A-Sketch” campaign really wants to change the subject on the bobblehead shows from his personal financial shenanigans at Bain to the GOP’s vastly larger financial shenanigans during the Cheney Regency. Sure, last time you trusted us we blew up the financial world, but this time, our figurehead CEO is an experienced professional at blowing up other peoples’ financial worlds! — there’s an ad campaign for the OFA scriveners to dream about.
Okay, maybe the individual essays in this “wonky paean” actually have useful information…
… The ideas in the book include lowering corporate tax rates, shifting away from taxing income to taxing consumption and property, promoting innovation by letting professors keep gains from their research, expanding free-trade pacts with Japan and other countries, refocusing immigration policy to recruit more high-skill workers, and expanding the work force by lowering payroll taxes on employees with children.
A goal of 4 percent growth would be ambitious for a country whose annual growth has averaged 3.2 percent since 1948 and is currently below 2 percent. But the difference would have a huge impact; had the country’s economy grown 4 percent a year since 1948, it would be 50 percent larger today. Higher growth would help reduce debt by producing more tax revenue…
And if only the power of postive economic thinking allowed me to wish myself eight inches taller, it would have a “huge impact” on improving my height-to-weight ratio. But that’s not gonna happen, either, and it’s not for lack of wishing.
Apart from the determined ignoring of reality, what’s on the agenda for the end of the weekend?
cathyx
See, George has been doin’ some thinkerin’ while he’s been holed up at the ranch.
Trentrunner
So Dubya is gonna show up on our media this week. To talk about the economy. Really?
And is Jeffrey Dahmer available for successful dinner party tips?
Richard Shindledecker
The ranch was gone the minute the prop had worn out it’s life – Laura likes the view from the condo in Dullness. No way Mr 27% is gonna help the Mittster.
Brian R.
I bet the Romney campaign is thrilled about this.
c u n d gulag
FSM,
It’s like Bill Kristol was President for 8 years – instead of Dick Cheney.
This is the political equivalent of “Mario Mendoza’s Guide to Hitting Great in MLB!”
Or, Dick, “Dr. Strangeglove” Stuart’s guide to great perfect fielding.”
OY!
aretino
How do you retire retroactively? Is there some secret Etch-a-Sketch you have to shake? I bet you $10,000 there is.
scav
My Little Pony Taxbreak.
RSA
@scav: I was gonna say that. Or rather…
That would pay for a lot of ponies.
dmsilev
OK, so we have
(1) Lowering corporate taxes: Standard GOP dogma
(2) Moving from income to sales taxes, which is of course hugely regressive
(3) I’m not sure what this means. Right now, most universities are happy to patent work that comes out of their labs and typically the professor gets some chunk of any licensing fees.
(4) Free trade. More standard GOP dogma
(5) Immigration. Assuming the one-sentence summary is an accurate summation, this sounds like “let software companies import hordes of cheap H1B workers”.
(6) The timescale on that one needs to be rethought, unless they are planning on endorsing Gingrich’s “let the 12-year-olds earn their keep” platform.
Not really all that much which can be distinguished from standard GOP dogma.
Violet
Sorry, I guess I just Godwined the thread.
JPL
Regressive taxation is always a winner for the top 1%…
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Trentrunner:
I was gonna go with “Newt Gingrich giving advice on how to have a successful marriage,” but that works too.
BGinCHI
As an English Prof (and Shakespeare scholar), I applaud the idea that Professors ought to be able to “keep the gains from their research.”
If this had already been the law I would literally have dozens of more dollars than I have now. Dozens.
Think of the economy I could have stimulated.
Mino
The gifts just keep coming.
scav
My other favorite echos involve the 4% Solution reverb off the 7% Solution which brings up Drugs more than No Shit Sherlock in this particular instance. There’s also the 9-9-9 vibe, only Shrub apparently couldnl’t find his other hand to make up the difference. Must have been hidden in (his own?) pocket (with the adept members of his team, it’s usually hidden in other peoples pockets).
runt
If I was a Very Serious Economist who was writing an essay for a book on the economy, I know I would want Dubya to write the foreword. He lends the whole thing such an air of gravitas.
By the way, has Bush considered the possibility of resigning retroactively in January 2001? It would do wonders for his reputation.
Ash Can
So W’s coming out of hibernation to talk about how to improve the economy. What could possibly go wrong?
jurassicpork
On the campaign trail, no one can hear you lie.
quannlace
Even Sherlock Holmes ‘Seven Percent Solution’ at least had some cocaine in it.
*****************
Oy, Dubya. Couldn’t you have stayed home and gotten into the grandchildren business like your dad? But no, you’ve got to play the ‘elder statesman’ and pretend you’ve got something worthwhile to say. Well, sorry, you don’t! And certainly nothing to deserve the price of a book. Can you, and Cheney, just go away and leave us and America alone?
TheMightyTrowel
@BGinCHI: dude. i am an archaeologist. the only thing that has kept me alive this last decade is that all the cursed mummies
and haunted pirate treasure reverts to the landowner, the government and the university.
El Cid
I look forward to George W. Bush Jr. saying “wonky paean.”
Fleshy
I eagerly await Dubya’s books on natural disaster preparedness, military strategy, deficit reduction and averting major terrorist attacks.
Southern Beale
Our Galtian Overlords.
Mother Jones’ list of the Koch Brothers’ million dollar club is a handy-dandy boycott list.
Linda Featheringill
Hey, he wants to come out and play. Can’t blame him for that. Won’t the Republicans be thrilled?
Speaking of Republicans from the previous administration, Rove hasn’t come up with a good counter punch to Obama’s Bain attacks. Why not? It’s making me nervous.
Possible reasons why not:
1. He has nothing. But that hasn’t stopped him before.
2. He has something devastating but is waiting for the the right moment to make it public. Maybe.
3. He does not have a passionate desire to help Romney.
Others?
WereBear
@Linda Featheringill: 4. He is desperately trying to come up with something, but his brain is locking up, because his whole life, money has trumped everything.
And now, it’s the enemy.
eohippus
“refocusing immigration policy to recruit more high-skill workers” Hell Yes! It’s not like we can educate our own people. That could take years. The invisible hand dictates a return on investment ASAP; long term infrastructural development is for suckers.
MikeJ
@c u n d gulag: I think it’s more like a book that says, “You know what would make you a great baseball player? You just go out there on the field and hit .400 every year. If every member of the Red Sox had hit .400 since 1948 Yawkey Way would be paved with gold bars.”
Haydnseek
@Trentrunner: Thanks. That was funnier than what I was going to say….
Mike in NC
Today Dubya’s parents appeared on the cover of the worthless “Parade” magazine that comes with many Sunday newspapers. G. H. W. Bush: 88 years old and not a single gray hair on his head. Hilarious. Hopefully before the bastard dies he’ll offer the country and the world an apology for his vile offspring and all the misery they wrought.
trollhattan
Sweet leaping Ronnie Reagan on a kangaroo, I had to read this on top of this morning’s sage advice in our dead tree paper for saving California’s economy from…wait for it…Arthur Laffer. Yes, it includes tax cuts for the wealthy, to keep them from leaving. [edit: yes, via the ever-so-popular flat tax.]
If they’re all gone, how the hell is the local Maserati dealership keeping their doors open? EZ financing?
Richard Shindledecker
They can’t leave us alone because they own us – we are the children of their war crimes – I know – I can’t get used to it either and it hurts.
Violet
@WereBear: Does Rove like Romney? Or is there some animosity there? Rove may have little interest in ruining what’s left of his reputation by jumping into the sinking SS Thurston Howell III.
Haydnseek
@c u n d gulag: Gulag! Nice Dick Stuart reference. I remember him well, and always loved that nickname. This thread could get good…
lamh35
Obama:”We won’t be apologizing”
POTUS is owning the attacks and is not backing down. Seems GOP should have listened when Biden said Obama’s got a “spine of steel”
Roger Moore
I could get behind that, as long as “property” includes all forms of wealth (including stuff stashed overseas) rather than just real property. I can even believe that a wealth tax would help to speed our economic growth.
hueyplong
First Cheney, now Bush. Can Rumsfeld be far behind?
Violet
@hueyplong: You forgot Condi. She got a mention this week.
Roger Moore
@hueyplong:
I’m waiting for Zombie Reagan to say that the secret to unlocking our economic growth is “Brainssss”.
Haydnseek
@efgoldman: Yep. I remember all those guys. Fan of Kluszewski, since he was one of the original Los Angeles Angels (not of Anaheim.) My baseball fanatic dad had it right, though. If you can swing the bat, they’ll find a way to get you in the lineup…
hueyplong
Surely Breitbart’s dim-witted followers have some birthy birther goodness in reserve so as to smite the evil Chicago machine’s politics of personal destruction.
scav
@lamh35: grin
Violet
@lamh35:
Obama:
Heh. That’s that Midwestern reserve and understatement. Coastal elites may not get it, but everyone else knows exactly what he means.
Get used to it Romney. It’s not stopping.
Citizen_X
Growth barely hit 4% a couple of times in Bush’s reign, and was usually below that. So what’s his excuse?
Violet
@Citizen_X: Why you bringing facts into this? George W. Bush don’t need any stinkin’ facts.
The Other Chuck
Let’s just call it “The 1% Solution”. Serve the 1%, give them everything they want, and FREE MARKET PONIES FOR ALL.
Walker
@dmsilev:
Exactly. Where the hell is W getting the impression that professors cannot profit from their research? It is standard practice these days for engineering profs to have side companies.
There are even clear rules in professor contracts about how much work they are allowed to spend with their side company each week, as well as restrictions on using university services for these companies.
Haydnseek
@lamh35: Shorter Rmoney: “Anderson! Anderson!”
WereBear
It seems to me that if Rove could turn this around he would. For years he relied on momentum; he gets the first dirty trick in and then the other side is fighting uphill. But the Obama team has turned that around.
Because the key to Rove is that he’s not a Scion, like W; family money and connections have always bailed out Bush the Junior. He’s not a thug, like Cheney, who will shoot you in the face and make you apologize. He’s not a fellow frat boy, like HeckuvaJob Brownie or “Scooter” Libby.
He’s only a hired gun. Even with the Republican tolerance for screwups, he has to be approaching his sell-by date.
Xecky Gilchrist
I have a couple of teabagger friends on Facebook (all middle-aged and older, white beneficiaries of inherited wealth, natch) who this week were circulating a picture of Dubya and sighing “now there was a commander in chief.”
Surprisingly, even some of the people in the teabagger group that originated it were saying “are you fucking kidding me? That guy spun a war up out of nothing and killed tons of soldiers for no reason!”
Whoever is thinking it’s time to send in the Bushies to help Romney is either deluded or working for Obama.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Citizen_X: So what’s his excuse?
He didn’t have total control over all three branches of government the entire time he was in office, therefore the Democrats ruined everything.
trollhattan
@Violet:
Just speculatin’, I think Rove’s in the game this go-round to pad his wallet (and seems to be doing rather well) but once his boy Perry cratered he shifted his focus to ’16. I simply can’t envision Willard and Turdblossom being buds.
MikeJ
@Xecky Gilchrist:
This is their excuse for how Reagan fucked things up too. I always like to remind them that when Clinton was in office he forced the Republicans to back down after they shut down the government. Reagan must have been a spineless wimp compared to a tough macho guy like Clinton.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mike in NC: I haven’t bought an actual dead tree newspaper in, probably, five years. Maybe longer. I had no idea that terrible old Parade Magazine was still around.
NotMax
Just sitting here recalling the (literally) dozens of times “W” stated in addresses and responses that he and his policies would absolutely, positively, come hell or high water, focused on it like a laser, cross his heart, for sure, cut the deficit by 50% by the end of his second term.
His track record with that pesky % sign is not, shall we say, meritorious.
And take note that he’s still harrumphing about what I have always referred to as ‘scare and pare’ – his so-called “plan” for Social Security and revoking the bulk of the New Deal.
StonyPillow
I for one welcome the reintroduction of George W. Bush into the public eye.
And BTW, the Real Man of Genius has every bit as much skill with a calculator as he did managing the economy (possibly these skills are interrelated). An additional 0.8% growth in the economy over 63 years would result in a total 65% plus increase, not 50%. Close enough, Mr. Gasoline Barbeque Starter.
JGabriel
I like the delusional thinking here that the Nobel prize winners will give Bush credibility, rather than the more likely outcome of them losing credibility for having their names associated with Bush.
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robertdsc-PowerBook
Fixed for extra-seekrit Mooslimness. Step it up, Mr. President.
Geoduck
@trollhattan:
“His boy Perry”? The general consensus is that Rove and Perry despise each other, from back in GWB’s governor days.
Violet
@trollhattan:
Interesting. I’d forgotten that Perry was his boy. Maybe Rove knows a little something about Mitt’s tax returns. Perry said this during the primaries:
It’s such a pointed and specific statement, I’ve been wondering if Perry had any info. Maybe it’s Rove who has it. And if so, Rove’s comments on Fox this morning are even more interesting. He just commented on how it was “gutter politics” but said nothing about the actual substance.
WereBear
If Romney’s campaign starts to crater, won’t that have an unavoidable effect down-ticket?
Of course, if that happens, they will distance themselves from Romney, which won’t be hard to do, since the Teahadists and Xantians were never enthused anyway. They will paint Romney as a sekrit-Liberal and suck up the deluded; but how do you persuade those swing voters?
They love to be with the winner. When the head of your ticket is getting attacked by their own, that doesn’t smell like victory.
Violet
@Geoduck: Wait, so Rove didn’t work for Perry? Hmm….Who was Rove working for during the primaries?
Mike G
Having Chimp write the foreword to a book on economic growth is like having Charles Manson write the intro to a compendium of forensic psychiatrists’ analyses of the Manson Family.
But anything that reminds the public of that walking disaster of Repuke malgovernance can’t be good for Rmoney.
Violet
@WereBear: It’s going to depend how it works out. If Romney were to step down, say, now or next week “because his wife’s health has taken a turn for the worse” or something, they’d have a little time to find a white knight to run instead of Romney. Maybe they could take a Jeb Bush or a Chris Christie into it. They’d have to strong arm the Santorum and Paul supporters though.
If Romney is mortally wounded but still makes it to and through the convention, it definitely could hurt the downticket races.
TenguPhule
Was the 4% solution cocaine or heroin?
Its been awhile since I read Holmes.
Kyle
@WereBear:
With enough luck, by the end of the campaign the Tealiban and Christofascists will be portraying Rmoney as a secret Mormon plot to help Mooslim Obama destroy Xtianity.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Violet:
Steve Schmidt (the man who has seen 23 years of tax returns) said that Romney should NOT release them, as it would be too “damaging” to him. You know by that comment that they are absolutely and utterly toxic. Romney is hiding something big and damaging. We need to keep his feet to the fire.
WereBear
@TenguPhule: 7% cocaine.
But only when he was bored. As soon as a body turned up, he was fine again.
Amir Khalid
One sense of the word “wonky”, the one intended here, is of course “pertaining to wonks”. Another sense of the word, maybe not much used in America, is something like “haywire”; e.g. one might complain that a gadget has “gone wonky”, meaning that it’s no longer working (quite) right.
I couldn’t help but think of this other sense in relation to something associated with George Walker Bush.
WereBear
@Violet: Woooo. I haz a happy. Because there ain’t no way Mr. I-have-always-had-my-way is bailing out so soon.
gnomedad
@runt:
Translated from sarcasm, that’s a damned good question.
Roger Moore
@Citizen_X:
It was all the Democrats’ fault for blocking his programs. If he had been free to implement everything the economists are suggesting, we’d all have ponies.
Jennifer
From Sadly, No! several weeks ago:
I said:
So for $24.95, Bush will “share” his prescription for economic growth with us?
Why didn’t he bother sharing it for the eight years he was president?
and Surreal American responded:
There’s some good work upthread, but none, I think, to top this.
JGabriel
Litlebritdifrnt:
Link? I’d like to see that article.
.
Amir Khalid
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Schmidt actually said “damaging”? Referring to the very tax returns at issue, which he has actually seen? If they have video, all Team Obama needs to do now is publicize that quote. This would be a good time to bring out the tube of Glee hand cream (to rub one’s hands with, of course).
Ash Can
@Violet: If he were to actually step down, the GOP would of course have no choice but to draft someone else (or maybe even bite the bullet on Ron Paul). I think Romney is way too pig-headed to drop out of the race, though, and I do believe he’ll stay on through anything and everything short of the RNC cutting the brake cables on his fleet of Cadillacs. His response to everything is most likely to be “Fuck you; I’m the candidate, do as I say.” I’d say also that if I were a Republican I wouldn’t be too happy with the current situation, but chances are that if I were a Republican I’d be sufficiently deluded that I’d have no grasp of the gravity of the situation.
Geoduck
@Violet:
Romney, although how official it all was/is, I’m not sure.
JPL
@JGabriel:
Six month ago on MSNBC
link
Litlebritdifrnt
Partial link via TPM will get the video as soon as I can
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/13/romney-s-tax-returns.html
JPL
John Kerry should issue a statement for the morning news stating how appalled he is that the Romney campaign mentions his tax returns. He at that point should tell Romney to make public as many years as he has.
dogwood
Romney’s refusal to release tax returns is going to continue to cause him problems. Soon he will roll out a VP. Will we only see one year of returns from this candidate? Will Willard try to tell us that he didn’t ask for more than one year?
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
Yee ha! Back to the good old days of ponies and unicorns!
Randy P
I’m in New York for a few hours, and when I hit New York, I usually like to hit Greenwich Village and the Strand bookstore.
So at the Strand, I just picked up a copy of Al Franken’s 2006 book The Truth in the $1 bin. And flipping through it, the basic message seems to be a really hopeful one, that the wingnuts are on the way out.
Franken is a brilliant guy and a person I admire a lot for many reasons. Does anyone know if he’s still singing this hopeful tune? I haven’t really heard much about him or from him since he won his Senate seat.
scav
@dogwood: Better still, maybe someone should remind them that bowing to pressure and revealing who the VP choice is shows a lack of guts and shouldn’t be caved in to. It’s his VP and far too complex an issue for us to understand.
Mino
Side benefit–McCain will be absent from my Sunday mornings for the foreseeable future.
JGabriel
@JPL: Thanks. I was familiar with that one already. Schmidt doesn’t say there that it would damaging for Romney to release his returns, just that it would “disadvantage himself”.
@Litlebritdifrnt: Thanks. That doesn’t actually have Schmidt saying it would be damaging either.
Sorry if I seem to be picky about this, I just think it should be pretty big news if Schmidt literally called Romney’s returns damaging, and I don’t think he’s quite crossed that line yet — though I may be wrong, which is why I’m looking for confirmation.
.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Can’t find the video but there is this with direct quotes
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/13/romney-s-tax-returns.html
MattR
@JPL: I wonder how Glenn Kessler will evaluate the Romney camp’s claims that Kerry only released two years worth of returns when he ran for President. Technically, it is 100% true. But it also ignores the fact that Kerry had previously released the prior 18 years (not sure of the exact number) to the press duringhis tenure as Senator. So maybe One Pinocchio.
Roger Moore
@dogwood:
He’ll try to distract us from the issue by releasing all of his VP’s tax records since the dawn of time and pretending that’s good enough.
JPL
@MattR: Of course because Kessler’s job is to make Mr. Mitt sound good even though it might be murky.
ploeg
@dmsilev:
I’m guessing that what it means is that there’s too much money going to benefit the looters who attend the universities and not enough going to the professor and administration officials who make the money.
lgerard
Thank god lowering corporate tax rates is one of the “solutions”
but where is “tort reform”?
/
kdaug
Hot and sour chicken soup with rice, Udon noodles, way too much garlic, ginger, and jalapenos, served with lime juice, cillantro, and tortillia chips crumbled on top.
Smells good, another 2 hours or so in the crockpot and nom-noms commence.
Tony J
@Violet:
This is what baffles me about the GOP strategy for 2012, and why I’m waiting for another shoe to drop out of nowhere.
Romney’s been running for President for a long time, the GOP Establishment must have known all about Bain and the fatal weakness it represents to his candidacy and to the very concept of a “CEO President”, but they still backed him through the Primaries when Perry and Gingrich were bringing it up and did their bit to squelch that line of attack. Could they seriously believe that the Democrats wouldn’t make an issue out of it when Romney became the candidate, or that the MSM could stop it becoming a story if they did?
The only thing that makes any sense to me at all is that the GOP don’t think they have a cat in hell’s chance of beating Obama no matter who they run, and the decision was taken to let Romney be this election’s sacrificial lamb because every other option was worse, he wanted it so much, and no one actually likes him enough to talk him out of it. Concentrate time and money on downticket races so they can sandbag a second Obama term at State and Congressional level and plan for 2016.
But even with that said, why throw their backing behind a candidate whose inevitable destruction shines a bright light upon the arrogance, casual illegality and overwhelming greed of the class that same GOP Establishment is part of? Why put up a fellow plutocrat with a shiny glass jaw when they could have “had a conversation” with Mitt and let the representative of another wing of the Party take the fall instead?
Baffling, but what do I know?
scav
@ploeg: I think more nailing the[ir] point home that Universities should be profit-making centers and wean them still further from the pubic education role. Next move would obviously be including the standard all patents belong to the hiring entity upon payment of $1 clause in contracts. Get rid of all the depts not pulling their weight as measured by return on patents.
ETA [clairification]
WereBear
Haven’t we been doing W’s “ideas” for forty years now, faster and faster as time goes on?
How long does this effect take to kick in? Does it have a half-life like uranium-238?
Ash Can
@Tony J: Maybe at least some of them really are that delusional.
Phil Perspective
@Violet: You do know that both Turdblossom and Willard are Mormons, right? And Mormons are a tight-knit bunch.
NonyNony
@Linda Featheringill:
Why? Rove is not a supergenius. He has built this supergenius mythology around himself mostly because liberals and the press refuse to believe that George W Bush was a brilliant political campaigner.
Rove’s great “genius” was that he was willing to go lower than anyone before him had ever gone. The Obama team knows his playbook and have figured out how to counter it. To make a completely tasteless analogy, Rove’s tactics worked because nobody expected them, kind of like the 9/11 attackers tactics worked because nobody expected them. The 9/11 attackers’ tactics are voided by a sturdy lock on the cockpit door and a change in procedure that says “don’t negotiate with hijackers anymore, no matter what they threaten”. Rove’s tactics are voided by being thoroughly prepared on the substantive weaknesses of his candidate and being willing to hit fast and hard and NOT care when the punditocracy says you’re being mean.
Essentially Rove doesn’t expect Democrats to fight back effectively, and his tactics don’t work if he can’t maintain the upper hand in the media narrative.
slightly_peeved
@efgoldman:
In some parts of Oz, that would be “harden up, princess.”
scav
@scav: Actually, it even plays into their idee fixe that everything can and should be patented — DNA, idea of point and click, mouthfeel, blah blah blah. Nothing in their eyes should in the pubic domain: it was the govt death panels they objected not, not the HMO ones in the least.
JGabriel
__
__
Romney campaign puts out a cheesy new ad with sinister background hum, accusing Obama of … wait for it … negative advertising!
Raises whinging to a whole new level, I tell ya.
.
WereBear
That’s what all the practice has been for! It’s a lot of hard work to believe that many contradictory and impossible things.
And besides, who else are they going to run? Romney crushed the rest of the clown car. Christie is hopeless; he’s obnoxious, untelegenic, and losing support in his own home state. Jeb Bush has the last name of Bush; even the Tea Party is pissed at W, still. Pawlenty let a bridge fall down and killed people; Huckabee let a murderer who came to Jesus out and he killed people; Huntsman speaks Chinese and worked for Obama.
Romney has a ton of money and photographs well. He IS their last, best, hope.
Roger Moore
@Tony J:
Might I suggest another alternative: there is no longer a small group of behind the scenes leaders in the GOP who can arrange things like the Presidential nomination. The success of the Teabaggers in winning primaries against establishment Republicans should be all the proof anyone needs of that. It wasn’t so much fear of Obama that chased the establishment candidates other than Romney out of the race; it was the fear that they’d have to spend so much effort catering to the wingnuts that they’d never be able to win the general. And my gut feeling is that the Republican establishment will back Romney up to, and perhaps slightly beyond, the point that he’s clearly beyond help in the election.
honus
@Haydnseek:Don’t be too tough on him. The guy could hit. He had over 100 RBI three times, including twice for the Sawx.
Violet
@Phil Perspective: Rove’s a Mormon? I did not know that. Rove’s on his third wife:
How does he get to do that and still be a Mormon?
NotMax
@WereBear
The Great Whitebread Hope?
Ruckus
Semi OT
On a facebook page I frequent a member posted a pic of w and laura. There are over 40,000 responses and of the first 20 I saw they are all positive and most say that bush was a great pres, did what needed to be done and that they liked them as pres and first lady.
I’ve just confirmed that a good portion of this country is completely fucking crazy, delusional and stupid to a level I didn’t think was possible for someone to be and still be breathing.
JGabriel
__
__
Violet:
Tradition.
.
Southern Beale
Devastating takedown of Romney’s record in Bloomberg:
Geoduck
@Violet:
He appears to give weasel answers about whether he’s even a practicing Christian, but he’s definitely NOT Mormon.
Amir Khalid
@Tony J:
“Another wing of the party” was being represented by kooks (Bachmann, Paul) a dimwit (Perry), a creepy wowser (Santorum) and a clown (Cain). There was another moderate-ish plutocrat ex-governor, Huntsman, but he was a nobody to the voters. And all the “credible” contenders (Jeb of Florida, Chris Creosote of Jersey, little Mitch of Indiana etc.) were sitting 2012 out. So the not-Romney pickings were always slim. As awful as he has been, Mitt was the least bad candidate in an amazingly shitty field. Any of the rest would have been an even greater embarrassment to the party.
Linda Featheringill
BTW, SEC filings regarding purchase of Stericycle [November 1999] have Romney’s signature, listed as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer for Bain.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/15/1110199/-If-Romney-Wasn-t-at-Bain-from-1999-to-2002-He-Forgot-to-Tell-Stericycle
Roger Moore
@NonyNony:
The key is to fight back by making counter-accusations rather than just trying to refute the constant stream of Rovian bullshit. You can’t fight BS with facts; that just keeps people talking about it. You can only fight BS by getting people to talk about something else. That means coming up with your own counter-attack. Obviously it helps in this case that Obama’s counter-attack is based on actual facts and stuff, since that makes people less prone to be distracted from it by the next shiny object, but the key thing is to give the media a new thing to talk about.
Violet
@Roger Moore: Is Romney’s team going to kidnap a young blonde woman or release a bunch of sharks just offshore a popular beach area? They need something.
Tony J
@Ash Can:
They all have to be delusional, or at least a controlling majority of them are. Yeah, that combination managed to get a dradft-dodging serial business failure like Dubya close enough to elected to be selected, but this is a different world.
I still have trouble wrapping my head around the concept of the GOP picking and backing and protecting a candidate that would – not could, but would – be shot to pieces and rendered into spare parts before they’ve even had their Convention.
I knew they were dickheads, I didn’t know they were stupid dickheads.
Tonal Crow
BREAKING! Adolph Hitler just retroactively absolved himself of responsibility for the Holocaust by retroactively committing suicide in 1920 after retroactively resurrecting himself from the ruins of his Berlin bunker LIVE ON CNN!
Roger Moore
@Violet:
Team Romney is going to wait for official marching orders from the big man himself before they do anything. So far his main response has been to act offended, so the team response is to act offended. Nobody wants to show any initiative because outshining the boss is a major faux pas.
@Tony J:
Which of the available alternatives do you think would have done any better? If all the candidates are worthless, that’s a problem with the field.
BGinCHI
@Tonal Crow: Was that while he was just “winding down” National Socialism?
feebog
@ Tony J:
I think that makes a lot of sense. The problem is with your theory in the second sentence. If rMoney truly implodes the Republican base may not show up at the polls. The House suddenly becomes vulnerable to a Democratic counter-insurgence. Senate seats like North Dakota and Wisconson, seats Republicans are counting on to take gain a majority, suddenly slip away. Think what the next two years could bring if Obama wins and both houses swing back to the Democrats. Especially if Harry Reid grows a pair and gets rid of the filibuster.
patrick II
Tbogg has a great reaction shot of Obama to Romney’s demand for an apology.
SiubhanDuinne
@kdaug:
There’s no such thing.
Violet
@Roger Moore: Well, yes, of course. But they’re probably trying to come up with ideas on the chance that Mitt eventually asks for suggestions. They do need a distraction. A lot of blonde girls among those Mormons. Maybe they could get one to volunteer to be “kidnapped”.
SiubhanDuinne
@kdaug:
There’s no such thing.
NonyNony
@Tony J:
Look, they didn’t know he’d be this bad at this. He’d had experience campaigning and being governor. And most important of all – he’s incredibly rich. We are talking about a group of people who believe, at their core, that rich people are rich because they are smarter than other people. The idea that Romney might be rich because he got seed money from his dad to build a company and then picked a lot of low-hanging fruit to suck dry doesn’t matter. He’s rich, therefore he’s smart.
And to be honest, GOP voters fell into the same damn trap that Democratic voters fell into in 2004. They looked at the candidates in front of them and instead of evaluating them based on a criteria of ‘which one will I feel the most passionate about supporting’, they evaluated them on a criteria of ‘which one can we get independent voters to vote for’. This is a terrible criterion to use for selecting a candidate, as it turns out. Independents turn out to vote for winners, and if Republicans aren’t excited about their candidate, he doesn’t look like a winner. So why would the Independents want to vote for him?
Better to pick a candidate who represents your core values and you can get fired up about voting for than to pick a candidate based on some mythical idea of what independent voters will vote for. Especially when they’re so insufficiently vetted that you don’t know their actual weaknesses yet.
Roger Moore
@Violet:
I think they’ll be too busy dodging flying pigs while ice skating in Hell to be actually offering any suggestions.
BGinCHI
@Violet: I fully expect the GOP to invade whatever island is next to Grenada tomorrow. The one with all the sheep.
Patricia Kayden
@Tony J: Well, what you say is probably true, but there are some Repubs who think Romney could win or they wouldn’t be spending so much $$$ propping up his campaign. I live in MD, which is not a swing state, but I’ve been subjected to scores of anti-Obama ads. Interestingly enough, I’ve NEVER seen a pro-Romney ad. NEVER. Just a bunch of ads about how Obama is the worst thing to walk this earth, etc. So SOMEONE thinks Romney has a good chance to win or they wouldn’t be wasting so much money (probably be billions by the time this is all over) to get him in the White House.
Anne Laurie
@Phil Perspective:
Really? I can’t find a reference for this, although some atheists thought he was a “friend of Hitch“…
Violet
@NonyNony: And a presidential campaign is kind of like a big tanker, as Obama used to say about the economy. It can’t turn on a dime, in the sense that if all the advisers are thinking one way about things, are experienced in thinking that way–say, that Democrats are wimps and won’t fight back–they simply don’t know how to respond when things change. They will try to change, but all of them have to adjust, and in that sense they’re like the proverbial tanker. Very slow to shift.
So they signed up to support Romney, who’s not a great candidate, but they didn’t think Obama was that good. After all, he was spoon-fed the election last time, what with the First Black President thing and the W economic fuckup thing. They were prepared for a Kerry type campaign. Obama’s different and they just can’t adjust.
Tony J
@Roger Moore:
It’s not that I think any of the other Clown Car passengers would have stood a chance of winning, and they all had their obvious weaknesses that the Obama campaign would have exploited to torpedo them – but Romney embodies a particular faction of the GOP (money, heritage, legacy) that will now take the blame for, at the very least, an electoral pummeling at the Presidential level.
Why did the ‘Big Money, Blue Blood’ faction of the GOP elect to take the hit by backing Romney, knowing that he had this baggage, when they could have sat back and let one of the other factions in their coalition put up their candidate to be blamed instead?
dogwood
Rove grew up in Utah, I believe, and his family background might very well be Mormon. However, Karl is not a practicing Mormon.
Anne Laurie
@Violet:
A bad person would suggest that Romney’s handlers will encourage Ann to go swimming at the beach during the Tampa convention… just after they’ve released a batch of sharks.
But I don’t want DougJ to think I’m crowding his Moore Award territory.
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
Rove’s Wikipedia article does not mention his religious affiliation, if any.
Violet
@Anne Laurie: If Mitt leaves the campaign, it’ll be because of “Ann’s health”. She’ll be the fall woman for whatever they decide to do.
SiubhanDuinne
Okay, this troubles me a lot. Someone on my Facebook, a huge Obot, is posting a story that in 1968 Romney was the driver of a car that was in an accident and killed a passenger. Funniest thing, though, there’s no way to verify this story and the local police are supposed to have said that after a certain (unspecified) number of years all the records are destroyed. The FB item says “All of the paperwork surrounding this incident has been destroyed, and there is no hard evidence.”
I don’t think it happened, and much as I loathe Mitt, I hope it’s not true. Assuming it isn’t true, what bothers me enormously is that Obama supporters would think this kind of story would be effective and, in fact, wouldn’t backfire most unpleasantly.
Has anyone heard anything like this? I think I’m going to Unfriend/Unlike this particular site, but (again on the assumption this is a made-up story) is there any way to nip this in the bud? All we need is for our team to be throwing around accusations of wrongful death and official coverups.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Guess I should have Googled first. Apparently he was indeed in a fatal accident in France and was badly injured, but also apparently the other driver (a priest FWIW) was at fault.
I still don’t like the slimy insinuations from the FB poster.
Roger Moore
@Tony J:
Two points:
1) I’m probably giving the Republican base an undeserved break by saying this is a problem with the field. It’s a problem with the field because the insane base scared away anyone who had a decent shot in the general. So yeah, the field is terrible, but that’s ultimately the base’s fault.
2) It’s not just the blue blood wing that backed Romney. He was the pretty much unanimous choice of the rump sane wing of the party, with the majority of crazies splitting too many ways to push any one candidate across the line. And nobody was willing to attack as hard as Obama is doing because they still have some belief in Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment.
Besides, seriously, do you think any of the insane candidates would have done any better? Would Newt have survived the attacks on his ethics? Would Ron Paul have survived the questions about his racist newsletters? Would Rick Perry have survived the accusations of drug addiction? Would Santorum have survived with people knowing what a truly deluded religious nut he is? Every single Republican candidate had at least one skeleton in his or her closet big enough to sink a campaign. You can bet that Obama knows them all.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
If I am not mistaken, this happened in France, and the person in Mitt’s car who died was with the Mormon mission there. To my recollection Mitt was not held to blame for the crash.
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne:
I found this on CNN, written by Jessica Ravitz:
Other stuff elsewhere from sites of unknown quality about how it’s Romney’s fault and was covered up.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
Say so on Facebook. I think you’re right that we don’t need this kind of thing. If you know the facts and they don’t support you, don’t try to make nasty insinuations. You’ll just look like an idiot or worse when somebody else finds the facts and publicizes them. And if the facts are available with a simple Google search, ignorance is not an excuse.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Mitt was declared dead by a medical professional at the time. He has joked about that happening on occasion.
Yutsano
@Violet: I think this line of questioning is a fool’s errand. There are many other reasons to dislike Willard, digging up an old accident that the details are shaky on seems petty at this stage. I bet the Obama team doesn’t even come close to touching this one.
Violet
@Yutsano: Rumors about candidates that are unsupported by facts will always be out there. The best you can do is to point out that they aren’t factual. People will choose to believe what they want to believe, like birthers.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
Already did. As, I’m pleased to say, did a great many others who follow that particular poster.
Southern Beale
We’ve got our vacation booked! Driving from San Fran to Portland, Ore. at the end of the summer. Cannot wait!!!
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
@Violet:
@NotMax:
@Yutsano:
I did finally think to Google this story. Had never heard it before. There are so many good reasons to oppose Mitt, but this really doesn’t seem to be anything but a tragic long-ago event that could happen to anyone, not a scandal or a hush-hush coverup story.
Anne Laurie
@Violet:
Yeah, but, true story: Early in Mitt’s gubernatorial campaign, his handlers had to dissuade him from telling people “Ann thinks the dry air in Salt Lake City is better for her MS, but nobody runs for President as the Governor of Utah.”
Which, of course, was one of the early warning signs of how creepy Willard is. But it indicated his priorities: Nothing gets between Mitt and his rightful throne in the Oval Office.
They roll out the “Ann’s health” excuse, even if the poor woman is in a coma in the ICU, somebody being paid for the job will plaster video of that press conference all over Youtube… and Tampa.
Which makes it even harder for Willard to swallow his ego, and frankly makes whichever sacrificial ox they lead out at the convention look even more “Best of Losers”.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
Good for you. I want to attack Romney as much as the next guy, but using this kind of thinly sourced crap is a waste of time when there’s plenty of juicy real stuff to get him for.
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Precisely.
That it occurred is unequivocally true, but there has never been anything even remotely insidious or blameworthy about it, and that remains so.
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
@NotMax:
Thanks.
dogwood
@Roger Moore:
I beg to differ here. Newt was far more brutal in the primaries than Obama is being now. I saw the lengthy video “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” and it was devastating. Republicans knew this was an issue and they ignored it. Gazillionaires knew this was an issue and they still ponied up big bucks for Mitt and his superpacs. I guess they believed if they could get rid of the Bain stuff by carpetbombing Newt with negative ads. they could do the same with POTUS. We’ll see how that works out in November.
SRW1
@Mike in NC:
I fault Barbara. All the way.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m guessing another reason it’s coming up is that people are remembering the fatal car accident that Laura Bush caused when she was a teenager and are conflating the two.
But I agree that there’s no point in bringing up an incident where all of the evidence points to Mitt being one of the multiple victims of an accident caused by someone else. I guess you could make some kind of argument that a young, inexperienced driver shouldn’t have taken the wheel in a foreign country, but that would be pretty weak.
TenguPhule
They don’t believe in education, birth control, evolution or global climate destability. They do believe in abstinence only, killing doctors, wall street ethics and survival of the richest.
What more hints did you need?