One more for the road….
I think this is correct — Romney doesn’t want to go Full Metal Birther on Obama but he has to at least pretend that he will in order to keep the nuts happy.
What Romney is really doing — as I’ve been saying for days — is trying to placate his rabid base, and also his big donors, who may be zillionaires but are still angry old white male cranks who constantly watch Fox News just like all the other angry old white male cranks in America.
The base and the donors just can’t believe that all these timeworn lines of attack are unpersuasive to swing voters — Valerie Jarrett and Fast and Furious make their blood boil, so surely the rest of the public must feel the same way, right? The public just doesn’t know! It’s because Obama wasn’t vetted! The lie-beral media didn’t do its job four years ago!
The Republican primaries had a definite “Quien es mas macho” vibe — that’s why Mitt frequently trailed luminaries like Herman Cain and Donald Trump. The base wants the kind of winger who’s built to last, you fuck with him he’ll put his foot in your ass, so Mitt has to talk a tough game.
I doubt he has the balls to go through with much of it.
Comrade Javamanphil
Maybe you didn’t intend to but this sounds like you are giving Romney the benefit of the doubt with regards to his intentions. Just like I hear so often: He’s not really a rabid conservative and he’ll govern moderately if elected.
I object. Assumes facts not in evidence.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Is it Ricketts? The Chicago founder of Ameri-Trade who totally has no connection with lovable losers’ baseball team he bought for his adult children?
I was clicking through to the weather channel about an hour ago, and some fourteen year old looking wing nut was trying to sell the “Why should Romney release he tax returns when Obama hasn’t released his college transcripts?” I don’t know if tote-baggers and indies can/will pick up on the racist subtext of that, but this winger and his ilk are really too dumb to know how dumb they sound to people who don’t think Saddam hid the WMDs in the desert and Sarah Palin would totally win 48 states if she wasn’t such a devoted mother. “Epistemic closure”, and whatnot. Tamron Hall laughed in his face.
beltane
@Comrade Javamanphil: It’s entirely possible that Romney is reticent about going Full Metal Birther, not because he is an honorable man, but because he is aware that by doing so he would look like a desperate idiot to non-teabaggers, i.e. normal people.
jl
This comment was for the wrong thread…
So, replaced it with thanks to DougJ for providing more good news of Romney/GOP panic desperation and fail.
And looks like confusion and division too. Oh Boy!
taylormattd
Doug, was Freddie not enough? You had to invite another Naderite to post here? Is there a quota to fill or something?
SteveM
Thanks for the link (again), Doug — but I think you wanted this one.
Punchy
Did you just drop a Geto Boys ref? Does Romney also plan to beat ya momma’s ass then go get a six-pack?
PeakVT
Who knows what Romney wants. All I know is he is doing a shitty job of doing whatever it takes to win.
NonyNony
First, your link is wrong – this is the one I think you meant.
Second of all – I’m not buying it. Not completely.
This actually seems much more like another “I know you are but what am I” attack from Romney. “Obama is the real liar!”, “Obama is the one with the funny singing voice!”, “Obama is the one with the shady past!”.
It isn’t that Romney is doing this to placate his base, it’s because he’s run out of ideas. His “positives” have turned to negatives right before his eyes and he hasn’t figured out a way to make it back. So his team is resorting to “no, YOU’RE the poopyhead” tactics. And this is just another version of that.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, if Romney wants to release his college transcripts and application as well. In as far as his application consists of more than his name, date of birth and a big fat check from his dad.
Liberty60
Romney may not have the balls, but he also doesn’t have the scruples not to.
I am imagining Mitt in McCain’s famous moment where he corrected that woman who was saying Obama was a muslim. I bet a week’s pay Mitt would have silently grinned through the whole thing.
Face
Is Jim Cantore’s son now writing for Red State?
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ricketts, Adelson, Trump, the aspirin-knees guy whose name escapes me…so much money, so much privilege, so much crazy.
Bubblegum Tate
@Punchy:
NWA–“Gangsta, Gangsta”
jl
” I doubt he has the balls to go through with much of it. ”
And, Romney may sense the implications of having to go through debates with Obama, and his veep nom with Biden.
Nasty campaign focused on personal history mud fights coupled with lackluster debate performances would be very not good way to enter last phase of campaign.
Edit: Am assuming the Romney does not believe that Obama will be pushover in debates. I think Romney is such bigot on so many issues, but I also think he has not drunk the kool aid to the extent that the crazy GOP base has.
Face
Just in time for Sheriff Arpaio to declare the transcripts fradulent because, well, shut up, that’s why
scav
OT of Deary Deary Dear. How quickly cute little toddlers grow up and impose their first enforcement action: Consumer Watchdog Fines Capital One for Deceptive Credit Card Practices
I know, I know, never enough to please some, but a good (dare we say Capital?) first (#1?) steps for a toddler.
srv
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why can’t you liberals understand that Mitt is just a victim of a non-flat Tax Code. Probably designed to screw his chances in 2012, just like the Batman movie.
The Ancient Randonneur
Mitt Romney is John McCain without the je ne sais quoi.
NickM
But Obama’s campaign is more like
Left-right-left-right – you’re toothless
and then you say, “goddamn they ruthless.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@shortstop: Trump and his birtherism actually interest me. He was a late adopter, as I recall he kind of revived a dead myth, more because it was the only way he could get attention once he had to admit he couldn’t run for president, than because he actually care about/believed in it. I swear I will give a hundred dollars to the preferred charity of any non-MSNBC TeeVee journamalist who challenged Fernstrom or any other Romney surrogate who challenge the “decent man’s” affiliation with the short fingered, possum-headed vulgarian birther.
@jl: I don’t think Willard thinks Obama will be a pushover, but Willard does believe in Willard’s superiority to everyone else, I think it’s the only thing he really does believe in. I don’t think he’ll be able to control his condescension. To Obama, and to the moderators.
ploeg
Mitt Romney is not a lose-with-grace-and-dignity sort of guy. If Mitt thinks that Obama is playing him dirty, Mitt will head the ship straight into the sewer, and Mitt seems to be fairly easy to convince that Obama is playing him dirty.
jl
@ploeg:
I think it is simpler:
” Mitt Romney is not a lose-with-grace-and-dignity sort of guy.
If Mitt thinks that Obama is playing him dirty,Mitt will head the ship straight into the sewer,and Mitt seems to be fairly easy to convince that Obama is playing him dirty.“jl
@The Ancient Randonneur:
” Mitt Romney is John McCain without the je ne sais quoi. ”
You mean Romney can remember how many mansions he owns? Probably so.
Lurking Canadian
Mitt seems to be fairly easy to convince that Obama is playing him dirty.
Mitt seems to be convinced that Obama is playing dirty simply by playing. Anything short of rolling over and showing his belly is “playing dirty”.
El Cid
The ‘base’ just wants people who act like they’re tough bad-asses. They don’t care whether or not they’re actually bad-ass.
George W. Bush Jr. as bad-ass? Get real. Laughable. But as a tough-talkin’ nit-wit, that was good enough. Biggest terror attack ever takes place on his watch, and all he has to say is ‘dead or alive’ and ‘withus or agin’us’ and he’s a bad-ass. Wears his spandex and rides his mountain bike and falls off repeatedly, but gets all snippy at the debates, and he’s a bad-ass. So on and so forth.
Also, Ann Romney’s Horse Hangs Out With Assholes. (H/T Charles Pierce.)
I am become Elmer J. Fudd, miwwionaire of wurlds. I own a mansion and a yacht.
Maybe even better, this comment on the post carrying Braddock’s ire to its proper, higher degree of snoot:
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row…
Violet
Romney’s not the muscle. He hires people to be the muscle. In the business world it can all be done under the table. Notsomuch in politics where he’s got to be out there on the stump every day (unless he’s taking yet another vacation, in yet another summer home).
So it’s not that he doesn’t have the stomach for it. He just has no experience with it and leaves that kind of thing to The Help. Now he has to make a decision and that’s not working very well.
pseudonymous in nc
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s a shibboleth.
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
To wit, Romney firing his debate coach after the coach got credit for improving Romney debate performance.
burnspbesq
This is who the wingnuts really wanted as the nominee.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/50252_78345906867_2363995_n.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roland-the-Headless-Thompson-gunner/78345906867&h=284&w=200&sz=18&tbnid=nda2-K4ZkPwUyM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=65&prev=/search%3Fq%3Droland%2Bthe%2Bheadless%2Bthompson%2Bgunner%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=roland+the+headless+thompson+gunner&usg=__2QRbbRFmHlYfVaxI9V0zWqfPN94=&docid=kXqn16fUCO6YlM&sa=X&ei=9Q8HUK_PNomW2QW2obAC&ved=0CGYQ9QEwBQ&dur=3213
Violet
@Lurking Canadian: The wingnuts pretty much think President Obama is dirty because his skin is dark and therefore not clean.
Villago Delenda Est
The Rethuglican base is not sane.
That’s the bottom line.
jl
@burnspbesq:
He would have done very well in the GOP primary debates.
An opportunity lost. We missed you, Roland.
DougJ
@SteveM:
Thanks, fixed it.
shortstop
@Calouste: What?! I missed this.
Nutella
@Calouste:
Which makes me wonder who’s going to coach him for the debates with Obama. He got rid of the guy who was really good so he’s going to have to use someone not only less competent but also desperate enough to work for a guy who’ll fire him for doing well.
El Cid
@jl:
I bet he sure as hell remembers his badass California mansion with the Bond-villain car elevator.
Why is that not in an ad yet? C’mon — a car elevator?
Nobody’s going to watch that and do the stereotypical ‘This is just class envy, I too would like to be successful one day as the American dream promises…’
No, even that type will look at that and go, ‘Well, um, that’s a bit tacky.’
Now, if it were all NASCAR painted and shuffled around American muscle cars and Romney was an affable type with a larger-than-life personality who might be inviting viewers in like some cable channel series like Jay Leno, who has an enormous collection of cars, but also works on them and started out as a regular guy, it’d be different.
Or if he was an over-the-top showoff rap star (more so than ‘who let the dogs out’ awkwardness) doing it partly for the obvious mo money mo money image, it would also work somewhat, showing off for MTV’s cribs.
Instead you might as well put Romney in the chair with the white long-haired cat and gloves riding his Bentley’s
I thought that Romney would have done better than all of this had he, instead of playing down his wealth and speaking modestly, he transformed himself into some big-talkin’ big-gold-balls arrogant Republican bragging about his money, sort of a Donald Trump with human hair and controlled speech patterns.
‘Me? Rich? Darn right, mother fucker. Here, let me buy you a golden chalice to let your tears drip into, seeing as how you’re not the big success I am. Scared? I thought you’d be.’ The evil, Spock’s beard universe version of Thurston Howell the Third.
Make the ‘$10,000? $10,000? Would you like to bet $10,000?’ [into just the beginning]
Fucking hand out $1,000 bills with his signature and ‘Vote Mitt and You’ll Be Earning These Yourself’ on the campaign trail just to look like a bad-ass. The Confederate base would eat that up.
No, instead Romney’s the uptight boss who is screwing over your pay & benefits this year and always looks like he thinks you just farted in the elevator, or maybe just that you peasants always smell that way to him anyway.
Calouste
@shortstop:
CNN Report
El Cid
@Nutella: Yeah, but that idiot coach obviously didn’t get a contract before giving Romney those valuable tips.
So having done his job and given Romney what he wanted, it’s time to boot that coach before he starts to demand higher pay.
He outsourced his debate coach to save money.
Mike in NC
From the article:
Maybe because it was beneath Lee Atwater’s dignity.
jl
@El Cid: All the GOP candidates had to find a way to go gonzo apeshit crazy during the primary. Romney went with what he had, as in, I pay every dollar I owe in taxes and a not a dime more!.
Now he has to live with it.
Zach
Isn’t it a pretty solid indictment of the efficiency of markets that folks who will argue tooth and nail that society fairly values their labor at tens of thousands of dollars an hour spend any time at all watching Fox News?
Villago Delenda Est
@NonyNony:
“Obama is a ni*CLANG*! Obama is a ni*CLANG*!”
“What did Rmoney say?”
“I think he said Obama is near.”
Zach
@NonyNony: Has anyone made a video combining a supercut of Romney’s favorite response (Obama’s the one with the real war on women! Obama’s the real outsourcer in chief!) and a bunch of 8-year-olds running around yelling “I know you are but what am I?”
mai naem
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There was an Undercover Boss with the Ricketts family and the Cubs. The son who was undercover literally got fired from the janitorial job. Anyhoo, what was disgusting was at the end when one of the guys got a new annual award for employee of the year for $1000. That’s it. $1000. I would be willing to bet that each of the owners’ daily lifestyle cost is more $1000. One guy got a weeks vacation during spring training in AZ with his daughter. Probably comp’d by some hotel in AZ no doubt. One got a paid internship in the Cubs front office because he was graduating from college. Wow!!! I just started watching UB and of the ones I’ve watched the Cubs’ one gave the lowest value “gifts” to their employees.
Also too, I think SNL should have a running skit with Romney as the boss in UB episodes. There’s so much potential here.
El Cid
@mai naem: When I watched U.B. I was always hopeful, especially in some of the UK and Australian versions, but when the boss experiences some of the real shit the employees put up with and the real hardships they’re confronting.
But in the end the grand gesture is to give them a vacation or something, because, well, god-damn, you don’t think they’re going to set some expensive precedent just for some TV show, do you?
Imagine if they gave the guy more than $1,000. Wouldn’t that suggest he deserved even more? And that maybe someone else did, too?
What, do you think he’s made of money? Well, he might be, but that’s irrelevant, what’s important is shut up.
Ash Can
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m all for Obama releasing his college transcripts. But only if Mitt releases his too, so they can be compared side-by-side. Ditto for the wives.
Mark
Doug
Nice NWA quote.
But would the base vote for Eazy-E?
Turgidson
Romney’s a cornered, wounded animal at the moment. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he unleashes wingnut fury. If he thinks that’s what he needs to do to win, he’ll do it. He may not be foaming at the mouth like Michele or Santorum, etc. but he’s definitely enough of an entitled dick to take the low road if he must.
Mercifully for the nation and the world, I don’t think bringing up Rev. Wright and Rezko again is going to change enough people’s minds to make a difference.
EconWatcher
@Mike in NC:
Maybe some other folks don’t, but I give Atwater credit for his conversion when he was dying. He knew he’d done wrong, and said so. That’s worth something.
Ash Can
@Liberty60: Funny you should mention that. I just spotted a headline/brief blurb on TPM about some woman calling Obama a monster and Romney telling her that’s not the way he’d put it. Since I’m on the FYiPad, it would take me forever to post a link, but the story’s there.
John Dillinger
It needs to be remembered that if Romney has to feed the base red meat, if not personally then by surrogates, the media could likely cover that at the expense of Mittens coverage.
Niques
@Zach: I think video of Romney with a child-like voice dubbed in using his very words. Like the Subway commercials.
Ash Can
@El Cid: LOL! I’m sure one Kenneth J. Braddick is delighted with the extra publicity he’s managed to garner for himself and his site. And his sport.
Turgidson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If McCain couldn’t keep his contempt under wraps (refusing to shake hands, “that one”) it might be hopeless for Romney. McCain’s a hothead and an asshole, but he has about 5x the self-awareness of Romney, and he couldn’t help himself.
Heck, Bush spent one of his debates with Kerry furiously rolling his eyes whenever Kerry was answering a question. And Bush, for all his millions of fuckups and faults, was pretty disciplined in the campaign setting.
So yeah. Romney won’t go the niCLANG route, but he might drop a handkerchief on the ground expecting Obama to rush over to pick it up. (ok ok, he won’t do that either) I do think, at least once, he’ll say something so smugly condescending that even Glenn fucking Kessler might notice.
James E. Powell
Unless something big thing happens, and it can, I see this election as a replay of Clinton-Dole. But unlike Dole, who was okay with losing, Romney will not go down gently.
This is his one and only chance to be president. Since he was born rich, he gets no satisfaction from being rich. Things like dressage horses and car elevators are as ordinary to him as Big Mac is to ordinary people. He has to be somebody important and honored by the public. If he loses this election, he will be a nobody to history and to most Americans. To the right-wingers, he will be Tony Romo fumbling the snap.
These factors mean that Romney’s campaign, along with those ‘independent’ campaigns financed by billionaires, will be touched by the darker angels of their nature.
SFAW
@NickM:
Nice Loudon Wainwright ref
SFAW
@Mark:
No, he’s too West Coast-y.
Ghostface, on the otha hand …
SFAW
@El Cid:
Actually, he had Sununununu “offshore” the debate coach. Of course, Sununununu took him literally, so the (former) debate coach now has the same accommodations as Osama.
El Cid
@Turgidson:
When these types of uptight super-elites decide to let it rip, it comes out as “unleash Chang“.
Well, you know those weird conspiratorial third-world Muslims with their primitive tribal warrior tales and all, swinging around swords at public events and such.
Personally, I was very disappointed with the reason behind the story, because I had hoped it would be the Bush elite establishment’s version of a sophistiated dick joke — like, you know, ‘don’t make me unleash Chang’ as a typically non-contextual macho taunt just implying that one’s male sex organ is huge and powerful and dangerous, despite the fact that it would be weird to talk about exposing oneself at a tennis court as a strategy for victory. I guess you could possibly prompt a forfeit if the opponent just says ‘fuck it’ and leaves.
Villago Delenda Est
@EconWatcher:
I question his sincerity, at all times, even on his deathbed.
A leopard cannot change his spots.
Atwater was utter scum until he was consigned to oblivion.
JR in WV
I don’t think you can be a cruel N*zi bastard all your life, and make everything OK by confessing to all the evil you did on your death-bed.
All you do is let everyone they should put p–ing on your grave on their bucket list.
Being evil is something that strips your humanity away forever. There is no way to be evil, totally evil, and get over it nearly instantly just before you check out.
So if there is an afterlife, Lee is burning. I’m doubting there is an afterlife, but if there is…
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@El Cid: I think it’s a lot simpler than that. Through the 50s, the conservative Republicans kept talking about unleashing Chiang Kai-Shek from Taiwan to take back mainland China from the Reds.
I don’t know when the Bushies started this “Mystical Warrior” stuff.
Haydnseek
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I can’t wait for the debates. Mittens is going to get his ass handed to him, and his people know it. All the Citizens United money and voter suppression bullshit in the world won’t help. Healthcare, Bain Capital, you name it. There is no issue upon which Mittens can make his stand. The economy and jobs? Mittens is Bush all over again. It will be a bloodbath, and the blood won’t be Obamas.
Haydnseek
@jl: We miss Roland, but we miss Warren even more…
AA+ Bonds
The problem is that this is a response to the Obama campaign reviving the Bain story
And the Obama campaign didn’t plan that; it was handed to them
So what exactly is going to allow Romney’s campaign to revive these narratives
Haydnseek
@Mark: Nah, their base is more Laz-E-Boy…
LanceThruster
I’ll bet you $10,000 right now that you’re correct.
Joel
And battling Obama is hazardous to your health
So put a quarter in your ass ’cause you played yourself
El Cid
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason: No, no, that’s not the sole referent. There really was a famous ancient Chinese warrior named (in the most common transliteration) Chang.
As many times as Bush Sr. had to hear Bircherite nuts venting about how the US ‘lost’ China to some fantasies of letting Chiang Kai Shek ‘really’ fight, he would have been using that version of it sarcastically — I’d bet you.
But I don’t think even Bush Sr. would be pulling a reference out to a sarcastic mocking of Bircherite theories of Chiang Kai Shek to taunt his tennis rivals, much less do so as a solemn invocation of lingering bitterness over the 1949 revolutionary victory.
And especially not with his kids. Even if the story began as Bush Sr. mocking the Bircherite China fantasies, I’m sure he would have adopted a more comprehensible story to his kids.
Now, though, I’m sure if you were to have pointed out to Jeb that he was praising OMG a MUSLIN KILLAR he’d stop using the weirdo tale.
Sammy
When is Mitt going to tell us what he wants to do as President?
Yutsano
@Sammy: You have to elect him first. Then he’ll tell you his plans. And not a second before prole.