I came into 2012 quite pessimistic. The economy was weak, most liberals I knew were committed to voting for Obama, but less enthusiastic than in 2008, while on the other side, the right-wingers were virtually bouncing off the walls with manic energy borne of hatred of Obama. Weak economy + enthusiasm gap = problems for Obama.
And obviously, this was the Romney calculus as well. Make the election a referendum on Obama, sit back, and profit.
But I think neither I, nor they, realized what a God-awful politician Mitt is. Now, there are a lot of skills that make for a good politician, of course. And it isn’t all about being personable. But you do need to make a connection.
Nixon was a miserable SOB, but had a long, extraordinary career because even though no one could ever imagine having a beer with the guy, there were a lot of people who identified with him. He was a surly, angry, insecure jerk, which made him a perfect standard bearer for a movement based on resentment.
GW Bush was an arrogant frat boy, but somehow managed to convey the impression that he’d be a nice guy to have a beer with. And unquestionably, a lot of people felt he had their interests at heart.
But Romney. He’s just devoid of a personal touch. He’s not really angry either. I mean, why would be he be? You don’t want to have a beer with him, nor can anyone see him as their standard bearer for some sort of resentment based crusade.
Romney could, I guess, have run as a genuine technocrat… but of course you can’t in today’s GOP since actual facts and logic are anathema.
Romney’s one option would have been to glom onto some sort of genuine populist Veep. But no, he goes for Ryan. Just a mind-boggling choice. Here is a guy who reinforces every negative image for Romney. He’s an “ideas guy,” whose main idea seems to be that if we just make life miserable enough for everyone good things will happen. A guy whose entire worldview is based around that idea that the poor are poor and the middle class is falling behind because, you know, they are lazy. Now, yes, he argues that most American are lazy, not because they are inherently lazy, but because the government makes them lazy, or something. But I don’t know, that just doesn’t seem like a plausible campaign theme, does it?
The Romney/Ryan line is, basically, “It isn’t all your fault you’re lazy, but you are lazy, and we’re gonna get you off your lazy, fat asses whether you like it or not.” Hmmm. Winner?
And how did Ryan come to this sophisticated worldview? Well, it isn’t just reading Ayn Rand. It also involves lots of cozy dinners with fellow right-wing cranks drinking $350 bottles of wine.
That’s the image of Ryan we need to keep front and center. Him, sitting there, whining about how liberals are mean to millionaires while plotting ways to fuck the poor, drinking bottles of wine that each cost more than many Americans take home in a week. Heartless. Out-of-touch. Self-righteous. And cruel.
This is a really a ticket of paired sociopaths. Completely devoid of any empathy for the rest of us. It isn’t that they can’t feel other people’s pain. Rather, they think pain is good for us, and they are going to provide it whether we like it or not.
Violet
Posted this in the previous thread, but it’s a better fit here.
Did Ryan engage in insider trading?
PDFs of Ryan’s financial disclosure forms at the link.
(h/t GOS)
ETA: It wasn’t illegal when he did it. President Obama signed the STOCK Act and such a thing is now illegal.
Todd
FTFY
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: Insider trading is not illegal? Didn’t Martha Stewart go to jail for that? Or are the rules different for Congress Critters?
Comrade Jake
Don’t forget about their rather extreme views on women’s rights:
SenyorDave
I want to see the Youtube video of Ryans joking about the 71-year who interrupted his talk being wrestled to the gound by security. “I hope he’s taking his blood pressure meds”, Ryan joked. Thet MF seems to be devoid of any human emotion. Maybe some independent group can make a campaign using the video (and possibly juxtapose it with the pictures showing “man of the pople” Paul Ryand sipping glasses containing $350 per bottle wine.
God, I don’t like Romney, but I loathe Ryan.
gex
I just love the attitude that it is beyond the pale for a citizen to wonder if their government is being purchased by lobbyists.
Fuck her? Fuck you guys for breaking the country for your insecure, tiny-penised, need to have more than everyone else.
Anya
WIth all that’s at stake, I don’t understand any liberal who’s not enthusiastic about this election.
Gus
I think Romney voters are likely to hear “everyone but you is lazy, especially those blahs.”
The Other Chuck
@schrodinger’s cat: Simply put, the rules are different. Supposedly *were*, and now fixed, but we all know the score don’t we?
BGinCHI
No, Bernard, I don’t think that’s quite right.
It’s “they’re lazy and you’re struggling because of it.” They want to blame the ills of our society and our economy on a generalized moral failure of “those people.”
It’s a thin, pathetic argument since, as you say in my quote above, it really is, statistically, poor whites who soak up a lot of the public assistance in this country. But ideology is a bitch.
Todd
“making tough choices”=”making choices that benefit you at the expense of people who never did anything to you”
lamh35
so ever since the ryan pick was announced I’ve been thinking hat the debate between VP Biden & Ryan could be epic. this is a very interesting read on Biden vs Ryan that kinda supports the possible epic-ness of it all
Joe Biden vs. Paul Ryan: Smart vs. Dumb Visions for America
JCT
Great post. And I agree with SenorDave, Ryan is basically pond scum. What a nasty unattractive ticket. Hmmm, looks like they represent their nutcase constituency to a “T”. So to speak.
BruinKid
So I had been arguing with a Ron Paul fan about the wealthy in this country, and I thought he had given up after I showed him that the Koch brothers aren’t neocons like he thought they were, and that they ARE the epitome of Ron Paul capitalism.
So then I come back this morning to find he’s put up like 9 separate responses, linking to various stuff from Murray Rothbard, whom I had not heard of until very recently. Looked over his Wiki bio briefly, anyone know the skinny on this guy?
He also linked the Wiki page for “voluntary society”, which is what he advocates, which I find funny because the page doesn’t list a single actual example in real life where such a society can exist for a sustained period of time.
Because of how much their ideologies are wed to each other, I think we should continue to hammer on both the Ayn Rand and Ron Paul folks. If you show one ideology is a crock of shit, it’ll expose the other ideology as a crock of shit as well. I mean, on economic policy, isn’t Paul Ryan just like Ron Paul, except with more military spending?
Origuy
@schrodinger’s cat:
They were until this April. As Violet said, the STOCK Act:
lamh35
@SenyorDave: been looking or the link to that video. does anyone have a good one? I’d like to post it to my FB page
Davis X. Machina
If you believe that money is virtue, it’s the perfect ticket — Romney has more money than God, and Ryan has dedicated his life to the service of it, and people who have it.
This is the logical end of a long process.
All competing models for the GOP that have been trotted out in the recent past — McCain 1.0’s national-greatness conservatism, Cheney’ international big-swinging-Dick-ism, Christian dominionism, even racial herrenvolk democracy, all couldn’t hold a candle, in the end, to simple, filthy lucre.
Because these two will take your pension, even if you do pray to the right God the right way.
They’ll starve your granny, even if she’s the Last Surviving Confederate Widow.
They’ll keep your kids from going to college, even if the kid’s as white as the late, lamented Greenland ice cap.
It’s all based on a wallet biopsy.
Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing
Violet
@SenyorDave: @lamh35:
Here’s the YouTube of it.
MattR
@Violet: That looks like a perfect summary of the Republican platform. Why fix America’s problems when you can profit off of them?
Brachiator
@Bernard Finel:
Nixon had shrewd political instincts and a strong sense of survival. He was distrusted by the GOP Establishment and yet prevailed over them and got people to vote for him. And until he was undone by Watergate, he channeled his anger and insecurity, and kept the depth of his creepiness hidden from the public.
I don’t think that anyone ever voted for him because they “identified with him.”
This is meaningless and an abuse of pop pyschology. I can understand it as a poster comment; not so much as front pager punditry.
But the more important thing is that the GOP is pushing the fantasy of competence, not empathy. If you miss this, you will end up underestimating Romney’s strategy.
NotMax
Must comment on this tripe:
Helen Gahagan Douglas smear campaign in 1950.
Loss in California gubernatorial race in 1962.
Operation Menu (secret bombing of Laos and Cambodia in ’69-’70 (and falsification of documents related to the operations, lying to Congress, and subverting the military – see Sen. Proxmire and Senate Armed Service Committee hearings, 1972).
Christmas bombing in Viet Nam, 1972 (deemed by columnist James Reston as “war by tantrum”).
Watergate and resignation in disgrace in 1974.
Not by any stretch of any sentient being’s imagination “extraordinary.”
gex
@BruinKid: Voluntary society, huh? So the poor people can just opt out and not have to be wage slaves for his luxuries? Can they just clear some land and subsistence farm to get off the government teat? Or do these guys forget there was voluntary society here, until white guys came, killed it all, and defined property rights as “All this belongs to white Christian men.”
These guys think history started yesterday.
BGinCHI
@Brachiator: More “the trains will run on time and you will do what you are told” and less “identify with me I’m ideal.”
Agreed.
Skippy-san
That’s the image of Ryan we need to keep front and center. Him, sitting there, whining about how liberals are mean to millionaires while plotting ways to fuck the poor, drinking bottles of wine that each cost more than many Americans take home in a week. Heartless. Out-of-touch. Self-righteous. And cruel.
I think that captures what so many people miss about Ryan. In previous times before this last decade, the GOP had to hide their true intentions. So they came up with euphemisms. Ryan on the other hand comes right out and says, “Fuck most Americans”-but tries to pretend he is some sort of nice guy while sticking the shiv in.
He is truly an evil man, who as Shakespeare said: ” The Devil can quote scripture for his purpose.”
f space that
Basically he’s just a dick.
ChicagoThug
Speaking of transparent douche bags. Seems to me this Bernard Finel only says whatever he thinks will get the most clicks. Maybe he’s Greenwald? Someone known for doing that and hiding behind sockpuppet accounts on various boards.
Since Cole seems to be (literally) in love with him it’s definitely feasable.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
I can’t help but notice that Taco has been conspicuously AWOL since Romney started getting presented to the public.
I guess the Romney ticket isn’t so bad after all. hehe.
gex
I have been desperately trying to teach people that modern market economies require unemployment. Why? Because it is stupid to hate the unemployed (even if they ARE lazy) when there simply are fewer jobs than workers. Wouldn’t we want the laziest people to not be paid for working less than someone else?
The working poor are described, by economists, using the term “the social utility of poverty.” Unemployment levels are essentially a Fed policy used to manage wages and inflation.
If some people HAVE to be unemployed for the GREATEST SYSTEM EVAH!!!!! to work, why such contempt for the people who make it work? If they all got jobs, would people refuse to bitch about inflation? No.
They would like all the undesirables to disappear, even though they would just have to become the next group of undesirables because there HAS to be someone at the bottom.
Violet
Romney too exhausted to campaign in Florida:
I get rearranging some things due to the new VP and new schedule but his campaign is so off the rails. What spokesman for a campaign says their candidate is “exhausted”?
different-church-lady
Fixed that for you.
PeakVT
Romney and Ryan are worse people than Nixon and Agnew and, more importantly, have worse policies. Scary.
NancyDarling
@BruinKid: All I know is that his books are as semen stained as “Atlas Shrugged” h/t to Sarah Proud and Tall.
I suppose he might be considered the thinking teenager’s Ayn Rand by some.
BGinCHI
@Violet:
A fired one.
danah gaz (fka gaz)
@Violet: “What spokesman for a campaign says their candidate is “exhausted”?”
Can’t they just plug him into the wall for a few hours?
JCT
@Violet: I can’t even remember Gramps McCain pulling the exhausted card. By, I hope Romney doesn’t sleep through those 3 AM phone calls. Looks like having to “work” a bit wears him out.
Brave, Brave Sir Romney is scared of the seniors down in FL. Given all of the headlines in the FL newspapers this weekend it’s hard to blame him…
Roger Moore
@Davis X. Machina:
Yeah, but if you believe money is virtue, you were already going to be voting for Rmoney anyway, so Ryan doesn’t do anything for the ticket. All he does is double down on the scariest and otherwise least believable parts of Romney’s platform.
NancyDarling
@Violet: It’s kinda like jet lag was responsible for his fiasco in London. Rmoney needs to ask Hillary what she eats for breakfast. Sometimes she looks tired, but as near as I can tell, she’s always on her game
Mark S.
I don’t know, Nixonland makes the argument that Nixon’s “outsider” pose did appeal to a lot of people, especially people who thought the Establishment consisted of a bunch of elitist assholes. They identified with Nixon a lot more that they did with Adlai Stevenson or the Kennedys.
RyanayR
Actually, Hunter S Thompson commented during the 1972 election year that he actually enjoyed his time interviewing Nixon, wherein they discussed football. To all people to be biased coming into an interview, Hunter S conceded that Nixon could be personable.
Also, there are many reason why people can’t imagine having a beer with Romney; probably most importantly over all, is that he can’t drink beer because he is a devout Mormon.
JCJ
@lamh35:
I saw the video you are after yesterday where he jokes about the guy taking his blood pressure medications but I can’t find it right now. This one is a pretty good substitute. I stole it from a diary at the GOS…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glzma7r-BOI&feature=player_embedded
Violet
@JCT: I thought about those 3 a.m. phone calls too, when I read it. That was a good ad from Hillary–everyone still remembers it four years later.
Linda Featheringill
I was quite pessimistic in 2011 when Obama announced he would run for reelection. I was sad, really. Hated to see my man go through all that just to lose the election.
But like you, I perked up. The first bit of cheer came from right wingers who assumed that everybody hated Obama. Little did they know.
Then the RW was happy because the economy was going to tank bigtime and Obama wouldn’t have a chance.
One day I realized that the RW expected an easy contest. They never considered the possibility that Team Obama would fight like hell even if they lost. Obama might be beaten but not defeated easily.
Then I got a good look at the Republican candidates. Hee-hee.
MazeDancer
@Violet: @BGinCHI:
Too exhausted??
There’s a good 3 AM phone call response…
What kind of angry senior optics were they expecting that Romney cancels a trip to the one state he must carry in order to reach 270?
So couldn’t believe this wasn’t satire when read it on Twitter had to Google News search. Still cannot believe it. Not going to Florida??
Nemo_N
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer giving the Ryan sales pitch right now, going as far as to say that Palin wasn’t that bad of a choice; it was all the economic collapse fault you see, Sarah was fine.
cathyx
We all know that it’s the democrats who are the lazy people and that’s why they’re poor. If you’re a republican and you’re poor, it’s because the lazy democrats are making you poor.
TR
@NotMax:
Winning a California Senate seat at the age of 37, after just two terms in the House, and then being elected vice president at the age of 39, winning a second term there, losing a squeaker of a presidential contest and then coming back eight years later to win it all, and then get re-elected as president in a landslide?
The man was scum, but yes, in political terms, those are extraordinary accomplishments.
Also extraordinary: resigning in disgrace.
Ben Franklin
@Roger Moore:
you were already going to be voting for Rmoney
I’ve really been scratching my head on what this brings. I think the only benefit is it reanimates the Tea Party. The activism goes viral because they now have a reason to gin up the sound machine, other than ABO.
TR
They meant that in the sense of “blowing smoke out of his ass.”
scav
@Violet: Couldn’t even come up with the excuse that he’s intensively practicing being next to the phone for that all-important 3 a.m. call?
gypsy howell
He’s too fucking tired to campaign? Gosh, I hope he won’t be too fucking tired to answer the dreaded “3 am phone call.”
What level of ineptitude does your campaign have to have to actually ADMIT you’re too tired for the job?
salacious crumb
One reasons liberals may not be as thrilled to vote for Obama is because their patriotism is doubted when they question Obama’s policies, especially foreign. They are called racist, minority haters and basically put in the same league as Mittens and Hitler.
Todd
@Violet:
From a non-ideological perspective, that’s a shitty thing to do to the poor local saps who were tasked with setting up the Florida events.
gypsy howell
@scav:
Haha- Balloon Juice mind meld
LanceThruster
As an atheist, I wish I coud make this a referendum on Mormonism too, but I guess that’s not kosher. The details I read on the ex-mormon boards are pretty damning and essentially reinforce what I already know or have learned about their power structure. Scary and soulless true believers.
Mitt thinks he’ll live forever in a celestial kingdom in eternal marriage on his own planet, yet he can’t see beyond his own selfish needs and will crap on anyone else he feels like to obtain them.
He’s the stereotypical example of those wanting power so desperately being the very ones who should be kept as far away from the reins of power as possible.
Please Glob, make it so (through your instruments, the voice of the people becaue you seem to sit on the sidelines as we suffer the foolishness of your believers).
Violet
@MazeDancer:
He’s not avoiding Florida altogether. From the same link:
That’s what’s so terrible about the “exhaustion” statement. He’s in the freaking state. He’s cancelling one stop. The spokesman could say “scheduling conflict due to new VP announcement” or some crap like that and no one would have paid any attention to it. But no, they say “exhaustion” and call his health and fitness for office into question. Terrible, terrible campaign.
different-church-lady
@NotMax:
Do not be confused by the common use of “extraordinary” as a superlative. In the sense of “out of the ordinary” his career fit the word quite well.
scav
@gypsy howell: ahh yes. I went for black coffee today, did I get it right?
TK421
I bet Mitt Romney is so devoid of empathy that he would order missiles fired at innocent people, and if any of them are killed he’d just stamp “militant” on their file and forget about it.
shortstop
I had TOTALLY forgotten about the $350 bottles of wine…and the menacing, pottymouthed lobbyist. Thank you for reminding America of this incident.
mamayaga
@schrodinger’s cat: Insider trading is one of several laws that Congresscreeps do/did exempt themselves from. As I recall, they are also not subject to anti-discrimination employment laws. They fully earn all the contempt we feel for them.
Emma Anne
I think likeability is a much bigger factor in presidential elections than it is given credit for. Or maybe I mean charisma? It is hard to measure, and people retcon losing candidates to be worse than they were (and winning candidates to be better). But even accounting for that, it seems like the more likable/charismatic/compelling candidate for president nearly always wins.
Obama had the advantage over McCain
Bush had the advantage over Kerry*
Bush had the advantage over Gore*
Clinton had the advantage over Dole
Clinton had the advantage over Bush 1
Bush 1 and Dukakis were probably tied
Reagan had the advantage over Mondale
Reagan had the advantage over Carter
Carter had the advantage over Ford
and that is as far back as I remember.
* not for me, because I kind of like geeky introverts, but plainly for the electorate
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@BGinCHI:
So we’re back to the good old ‘Crabs in a Bucket’ theory for working-class GOP voters.
LanceThruster
Along the lines of Mitt’s fecklessness, JFK went out of his way to assure voters he was not the Pope’s puppet, but Mitt is literally ruled by the LDS president/prophet.
JGabriel
__
__
Bernard Finel:
I think I disagree. There is one constituency that shares Romney’s concerns and sees him as a standard bearer for their anger and resentment: Very Rich Conservatives and the financial elite.
.
Roger Moore
@RyanayR:
That might explain why Mitt isn’t having a beer with you, but I’ve known plenty of Mormons who wouldn’t object to me having a beer while they had their beverage of choice. I don’t get that vibe from Mitt; he seems like the kind of person who will say you can’t have a beer even though you don’t share his religion. That’s what makes him such an asshole.
LanceThruster
@TK421:
Or if they were undoubtedly friendlies, praise them for their (forced) self-sacrifice, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.
He’s like the cartoon villianous miscreants on the series LEXX.
NotMax
@TR
Contrary to the front-page assertion, he did not have an “extraordinary career.”
The Senate seat? Won by using anti-communist smear techniques.
Vice-president? Riding on Eisenhower’s popularity; chosen as a sop to the McCarthyite wing.
President in ’68? Backlash against Johnson/Humphrey and the ‘dirty hippie’ anti-war movement, plus the presence of Wallace on the ticket. Nixon won with a 43.4% of the vote and with a scant 500,000 vote advantage.
None of those offices attained by merit, achievement or demonstrated capability as opposed to naked opportunism. Which does not make them extraordinary, IMHO.
MazeDancer
@Violet:
Thanks for clarification. And you’re right – totally makes it worse that he’s in the state and can’t show up. A zillion fine ways they could have gotten out of that. Exhaustion in the land of senior citizens isn’t a good one.
Roger Moore
@TR:
Even more extraordinary: managing to come back as a kind of elder statesman despite having resigned in disgrace.
LanceThruster
@Roger Moore:
I think it was someone in here who told me this joke –
Q: How do you keep your Mormon friend from drinking all your beer on a fishing trip.
A: Invite a second Mormon.
Randy P
@salacious crumb: That isn’t happening on my planet.
earl-of-scruggs
As Paul Ryan says, some people are “makers” and some are “takers.” And we have too many “takers” nowadays. A quick survey of today’s demographic landscape reveals who the “takers” are: young people, old people, anyone who makes under 500,000 a year, anyone who will ever lose a job, or will ever need healthcare they can’t pay for out of pocket, or who can’t save enough money to get through 30+ years post retirement, or who can’t afford private school, or who wimpily relies on police and firefighters to police the streets and fight fires, anyone who buys a house or has a kid without being 100% ironclad certain they will always have plenty of money to support same, anyone who gets an education they can’t pay for out of pocket, anyone who foolishly takes a job that doesn’t pay well (teachers, social workers, etc.) any non-moneyed person who breaks a law, any non-moneyed person who is accused of breaking the law, anyone who ever runs into any kind of trouble without having a huge cushion of money to get through it (talking to you, flood-wildfire-industrial accident victims), anyone who depends on roads to stay intact and bridges to stay upright, anyone who lazily expects the FDA to keep food poison-free and the EPA to keep the air breathable, anyone who gets a credit card balance they can’t pay off at a moment’s notice, anyone who expects an employer to abide by a contract or act with any kind of fairness, anyone who relies on ‘wages’ for income, anyone who relies on anyone else for anything ever.
Mike in NC
Fixed
This is dogma for every asshole right wing pundit (George Will, Cal Thomas, Krauthammer, etc.) whose every other column is all about bashing “government dependency” and urging people to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
shortstop
@Roger Moore: Maybe not. I think he’d heartily, and obviously insincerely, endorse your choice to have a beer. Then he’d order a Sierra Mist and sit there chuckling fakely and making ultra-awkward small talk during your little social hour. You’d end up “remembering” an appointment and leaving half the beer as you rushed out.
Roger Moore
@TR:
That’s interesting, because Star Trek TOS taught me that androids blow smoke out of their ears when they’re overloaded.
bemused
If MItt is exhausted, how the hell does Gov Christie think he can physically handle a grueling presidential campaign in four years?
Cacti
Ryan also used his father’s Social Security survivor’s benefits to pay his way through school.
Another IGMFY Republican who climbed up the ladder that others put in place, then decided he should pull it up behind him.
mamayaga
@TR:
Extraordinary in that modern Republicans don’t do disgrace. Whatever bad thing they’ve done, it’s your fault.
Cacti
@bemused:
Mitt’s “exhaustion” is also a handy reminder that he’s 65 years old, rather than the 50-something he tries to portray.
Shawn in ShowMe
@MazeDancer:
Mitt asked the Obama campaign to please stop competing so hard, announced his VP during Saturday morning cartoons, cancelled all of his Sunday appearances except for the 60 minutes fluff piece and was too tuckered out to talk to Florida seniors about Medicare. Maybe we should send him a get well card? I’m kinda busy right now so I’ll send him one on November 7.
Brachiator
@Mark S.:
RE: I don’t think that anyone ever voted for him because they “identified with him.”
Adlai Stevenson was the original egghead, and could not counter America’s strain of anti-intellectualism. And Stevenson ran against Dwight D. Eisenhower, not Nixon.
Kennedy beat Nixon. People were charmed by Kennedy and turned off by Nixon. Again, identification was not a large issue. The issue of the Kennedy’s is also complicated by the fact that they were wealthy but as Irish Americans often had to battle against the WASP Establishment.
Nixonland is a good book, but overpraised and more revisionist than revelatory in a number of places.
And Romney is another fish altogether. Trying to weave some path from Nixon to Romney is creative, but doesn’t work. I certainly don’t know what makes Romney tick. He clearly wants to be president, but instead of Nixon’s quirky drive, he seems bloodless. Nixon was a bit of a lone wolf, and spent much of his early political career as bagman to California moneyed insterests. Romney may have been an outsider as a Mormon, but was a well connected son of a respected politician.
Both are odd ducks, but of very different feathering.
danielx
I don’t know about sociopathic, but completely lacking in empathy?
Yep. Guilty.
It’s a point I’ve been hammering for weeks. Romney is unable to even imitate empathy with the average voter. Just about every recent President, with one glaring exemption, has or had this ability. Obama, for certain. W, absolutely. Clinton could say he felt your pain and make you feel it for at least five minutes.
Now the next guy back, Bush I, did not, and he paid for it. Reagan and even Jimmy Carter had that same sense, and even Nixon was able to channel a lot of resentment, because he had many resentments. People understood his code words, i.e.; effete liberals = dirty fucking hippies.
What has Willard ever had to be resentful about aside from the capital gains rate not being lowered to 0?
Ryan is the same way, if not as well to do. Or comfortable, as old money types say.
Mike in NC
@Roger Moore:
Nixon was, and remains, a beloved figure among the Villagers.
The so-called “enthusiasm gap” among voters is also a Village construct, with little basis in reality.
moops
You don’t have to be constantly baffled by Mitt Romney and the GOP.
1) they actually think that Ryan’s Budget is a winner. They did in 2010, and they still do. They think the Dems have framed it badly and they just need to explain it better. They think the electorate is very dumb. So, they give Ryan a huge stage.
2) Romney knows he can’t win. Everything they had planned to talk about during the campaign has become toxic and his campaign ideas are not focus grouping well. The ship is going down and he needs someone to take the heat with him when it does, so he’s putting the libertarian Tea Party golden boy up there with him to take the scorn. The plutocrats want their party back in their hands and the Tea Party needs to be discredited now. They didn’t run a presidential candidate, but now they can pick one as VP
3) less likely, but would be fun to see. At the convention they let their nut jobs run wild and put Ryan at the top of the ticket. multiply the effect of 2.
bemused
@Cacti:
Mitt is a clean living, supposedly physically active 65. I think Christie even though only 50, would be panting walking two blocks at best. I don’t think Christie would make it through a pres campaign without a big health issue or two.
Chris T.
@Mike in NC: While they love to talk about “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps”, they hate to acknowledge that this physical impossibility still requires having boots … and, for that matter, even feet.
@danielx: I thought “effete elite” was code for “gay”.
NotMax
@ different-church-lady
Have to disagree. “Out of the ordinary” does not apply when talking about the man’s career. Nixon’s political career demonstrated again and again that his methods and actions were ordinary, common and run of the mill for him.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@LanceThruster:
It’s way too easy to imagine Romney and Ryan saluting each other with “I Worship the Shadow…”
LanceThruster
@Roger Moore:
I guess I’ll have to be the one putting in a good word for Nixon. It is likely he was the victim of ballot stuffing in his first run but was supposedly concerned over the damage to the presidency if he contested it. It may not have been enough vote fraud to turn the tide, but at least puts some of the dirty tricks into perspective.
“You gotta swallow this one,” says a Republican hack in Oliver Stone’s Nixon, referring to the 1960 election, in which John F. Kennedy prevailed. “They stole it fair and square.”
I myself wish I would have gone down to San Clemente and tried to chat him on the beach as it is said he was wont to do at times. I am aware of the ills wrought at the hands of Tricky Dick during his administration, but the man would be grist for the mill by teabaggers in this day and age because of many of the, shall we say, progressive outcomes of his presidency.
Cacti
@bemused:
Even so, I don’t mind mentioning that Mitt would be the 4th oldest man to enter office at the time of innauguration.
And of the three that were older, one died within 30 days of innauguration, and another experienced dementia onset during his time in office.
Catsy
@moops:
…you know, I could almost see that happening. It would avoid one of the big disadvantages of changing nominees at the convention, which is the lack of fundraising and infrastructure–it’d be the same people, just switching the content a little. FSM does not love me that much.
Which is, incidentally, what I said about the possibility of Romney picking Ryan. So take that for whatever it’s worth.
NotMax
@Lance Thruster
Lexx: But I’m hungry, Mitt.
Romney: Okay, you can go ahead and eat California and New York.
LanceThruster
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Absolutely. What really cements the image for me is the massive collateral damage that the villians wreaked on others without a trace of concern or empathy. For that matter, more often than not, the wholesale destruction and suffering was the intended outcome in the first place.
I would also compare Mittens to Master Shake of ATHF, who is the epitomy of the modern Rethuglican; equal parts of ignorance and arrogance.
LanceThruster
@NotMax:
xD
NotMax
Oliver Stone? Pfeh.
Having been around and aware at the time, the accepted reason then for not contesting the presumed ballot trickery in the Chicago environs by the Ds was that it would have brought out the equally egregious ballot trickery the Rs engaged in in downstate Illinois.
WereBear
It’s my take that Mitt was TOLD he was going to be President. His destiny or whatever. Mormons are always used to being told what to do.
Because he doesn’t like any of it. He hates campaigning, he doesn’t seem to understand politics, and he acts like most of us have cooties.
The one thing he has is competitiveness; and it’s expressed in changing the rules when a recently gravid daughter-in-law beat him in a race.
It’s only in a rigged game that those are winner qualities. At this point, I think Mitt would love to just throw in the towel.
bemused
@Cacti:
I fervently hope Obama prevails and we won’t find out Mitt’s too old to last in the job and the creepy Randian Ryan ends up POTUS. Too horrible to imagine.
moops
and if Obama wins, not only will this be the last we every hear of Romney, it will also be the end of the Ryan Budget. It might also be the end of Ryan.
shortstop
@LanceThruster:
Meh. This is the official, Nixon-as-selfless-pillar-of-virtue line. The real story is more complicated than an Oliver Stone script.
shortstop
@moops: The third baseman and I were discussing this last night. Ordinarily, we’d assume that anyone who ran twice and got trounced each time would, you know, go away. But Mitt is so, SO tone deaf, and so, SO convinced that he’s entitled to this thing he wants, that we can almost see him trying again. He wouldn’t make it past the first two primaries, though.
Smiling Mortician
@shortstop: I can’t really see this happening. Pretty sure the big-money guys won’t touch him again, so unless he’s worth way more than what he says he is and is willing to spend it all on another run . . . I don’t think so.
SatanicPanic
@moops: I’m inclined to go with 2- Mitt is tired of campaigning, believes the peasants don’t deserve him, and just wants to send his whole party down in flames. The problem is that I don’t think Mitt is capable of anything that clever (which is not saying much about a strategy of burning down the party by nominating Ryan). I suspect Mitt is as deeply glib as he appears to be.
Rick Taylor
@BruinKid:
Oh my! Yes I remember Murray Rothbard back from my younger days when I was briefly a Libertarian.
Back then, Libertarians tended to be divided between idealistic philosophic Libertarians who didn’t hesitate to take the ideas to their logical conclusion and argue there should be no limitations on immigration and taxes were slavery even when they went to support a standing army, and those who probably should have just been socially liberal Republicans.
Murray Rothbard was definitely in the idealist camp. An intellectual and a bit of a nerd, I can’t help but remember him fondly, even as I now believe his views were horribly naive and misguided. I remember attending a talk on the status of native Americans in the early United States. I’ve forgotten most of it, but he said he went in without preconceptions, and was just horrified at the awful way the United States had acted regarding them, definitely not in keeping with Libertarian principles.
Bernard Finel
@Brachiator: Actually, the very first listed textbook characteristic of “Antisocial personality disorder” commonly sociopathology is “1.Callous unconcern for the feelings of others” according to the WHO.
Romney and Ryan’s lack of empathy is a form of sociopathology.
Not all sociopaths kill. But they act in callous disregard to others. What better definition of R&R is there?
shortstop
@Smiling Mortician: Right, they won’t and he isn’t, which is why I think he’ll get about as far as Quayle did in 2000. But I can truly see him being clueless enough to announce.
ETA: I’m very sad that he isn’t squandering the worthless sons’ inheritance this time around. That would be the icing on the cake of his loss.
Bernard Finel
@ChicagoThug: Is it really your impression of my posts thus far that I am just out to get clicks by, what, pandering to the readers? Color me amused by the characterization.
JCJ
@Cacti:
Precisely. I paid for college with those same survivor benefits. That is why even though I should be firmly in the R column by demographics I despise every wretched breath that they take in to their greedy lungs. How someone like Ryan can be where he is today and want to deny others similar benefits (or even quite different benefits) is disgusting.
Brachiator
@Bernard Finel:
Reading a definition from a textbook is not the same thing as a qualified therapist making a diagnosis. It’s even more pointless than a politician with a medical degree making a diagnosis of Terry Schiavo from an image on a tv screen.
I know that throwing around a label of a sociopath is fun, convenient, and a handy way to label Republicans, but it is not a substitute for informed political commentary.
BTW, a therapist has recently knocked the boneheaded labelling of fictional characters as sociopaths, indicating how much a part of the zeitgeist this kind of thing has become.
Now if you were serious that Romney, Ryan and most Republicans were sociopaths, shouldn’t you be calling for them to be institutionalized for the protection of the public?
If you and other folks want to call these dopes sociopaths, go right ahead, but don’t pretend that it is anything other than a metaphor for behavior or beliefs that you dislike.
LanceThruster
@shortstop:
I read the same Slate piece in looking up the history and agree it’s as much myth as anything, but was referring more to his perception of being cheated as a catalyst for a lot of his paranoia. His war on drugs was deluded and still has a powerful negative impact today (seized asset forfeiture, loss of Constitutional rights, etc.) but as the link I provided stated, 2/3 of the funds at the time were designated for rehab programs. I can’t see any of the law and order types today channeling the funds to anything but their private prison buddies and a more bullying and draconian police state.
LanceThruster
@JCJ:
x2.
My dad was a widower and I rec’d Social Security death benefits through most of college. It really, really helped.
shortstop
@LanceThruster: That “I’ve been robbed!” mentality about the 1960 election fed into his paranoia and bitterness, but really it was just a piece in his long string of grievances along those lines. He considered himself perpetually oppressed and couldn’t stop congratulating himself for rising above what he thought was the outrageous fortune constantly coming his way. At no time was there any recognition that his problems could be at least partly self-inflicted. Six Crises (which, by the way, he was always forcing bored staff to read) offers a lot of insight into this lifelong victim-to-hero mentality.
No argument that he’d be considered a full-on RINO today.
different-church-lady
@Bernard Finel:
Well, are you?
different-church-lady
@different-church-lady: Wait, cancel that — I thought it said chicks, not clicks.
feebog
Nixon would be a footnote in history as a two time Presidential loser if Bobby Kennedy had not been assasinated.
Joel
@salacious crumb: God, if that isn’t the epitome of WATB posting, I don’t know what is.
Joel
@salacious crumb: God, if that isn’t the epitome of WATB posting, I don’t know what is.
karen marie
@Cacti: The Ryan family construction business flourished because the work it did, “from 1910 until the rural interstate Highway System was completed 60 years later, was mostly Highway construction.”
mclaren
@schrodinger’s cat:
Ah, yes. The rules are different from congresscritters. Until very recently, it was perfectly legal to do insider trading on knowledge picked up from briefings or other government info if you’re in the house of representatives or the senate.
In fact, congress just passed a law called the STOCK act that makes it illegal. Think about that. They had to pass a law. To make insider trading illegal for members of congress.
Since the STOCK act was only passed late last year, and since Paul Ryan engaged in insider trading in 2008, yes, Ryan’s insider trading was perfectly legal. And he cannot be prosecuted for it.
Once again, the crimes that people like you or I get sent to prison for aren’t crimes at all if people in congress commit them.
mclaren
The software seems to have eaten my post so I’ll try again.
Why doesn’t anyone in the media cut to the chase and just point out that these people are high-functioning socoipaths?
You’re the only person, Bernard, I’ve seen who comes right out and makes the logical conclusion in public: yes, these people are sociopaths. They’re high-functioning sociopaths, so unlike Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy, instead of raping and murdering people, Ryan and Romney fire people and destroy their lives slowly and delectate in their suffering as they lose their health insurance, become sick and homeless, and die. Romney has even said it: “I like being able to fire people…”
Check the PCL-R. Out of 20 traits on the Hare sociopathy checklist, how many does Romney fit?
glib and superficial charm – check!
grandiose (exaggeratedly high) estimation of self – check!
need for stimulation – check! (if he didn’t he’d just stay home and watch TV instead of running for president)
pathological lying – check!
cunning and manipulativeness – check!
lack of remorse or guilt – check!
shallow affect (superficial emotional responsiveness) – check!
callousness and lack of empathy – check!
parasitic lifestyle – check!
poor behavioral controls – check!
sexual promiscuity – nope
early behavior problems – check! (high school bullying)
lack of realistic long-term goals – check!
impulsivity – check!
irresponsibility – check!
failure to accept responsibility for own actions – check!
many short-term marital relationships (nope)
juvenile delinquency – no info here. I’m betting lots of dead pets covered up.
revocation of conditional release (only applies to blue-collar criminals, not white-collar criminals like Mitt)
criminal versatility – check! Mitt has found of ways to bend the law to the breaking point and make money, many many millions of dollars worth of moolah. Remember that Mitt was involved in that huge Marriott International abusive tax shelter scandal as well as hiding his money offshore to avoid taxes as well as illegally lying about when he left Bain Capital. Multiple financial crimes here, exceptional criminal versatility.
I make it 17 out of 20 traits. Bingo. Classic sociopath.
mclaren
@gex:
Yes, modern market ©®apitali$m requires unemployment, but not for the reasons you state. Karl Marx explained it perfectly in the 1840s. The “reserve army of the unemployed” as Marx put it in Das Kapital serve the dual purpose of forcing wages down, which makes it possible for ©®apitali$ts to accumulate ©®apital because otherwise they’d have to pay decent wages and kowtow to unions instead of breaking the unions by hiring desperate unemployed scabs and underpaying ’em with the threat “there’s 100 people applying for this job, so take this pay or get out and let the next guy in line take this job,” but the unemployed also serve a crucial purpose of social control. The people who run ©®apitali$t societies use the homeless & unemployed as a bludgeon to club everyone else with threats like “Fuck me or you’re fired.” Or “Work this weekend with no pay or you’re fired.” Or “Work 10 hour shifts in this toxic gas filled environment or you’re fired.” Etc.
shep
@Brachiator: Your “therapist” has it exactly backwards.
“Sociopath” typically refers to Anti-social Personality Disorder, (ASPD) which is a disorder defined by specific behaviors that, like all DSM disorders, make one socially dysfunctional in the sense that you: 1) run afoul of the criminal justice system, 2) can’t hold a job and/or 3) can’t maintain normal social relationships (spouse, friend, relative, etc.).
Psychopathy refers to a certain type of personality characterized particularly by lack of sympathy (empathy is the actual knowing of other’s emotions, which is impossible) for the suffering of others, particularly when caused by the psychopath, and a complete lack of remorse for same. Psychopaths, unlike sociopaths, can be highly functional in society (particularly in business and politics), being the practiced, remorseless liars they typically are.
These terms are totally fucked, in terms of popular understanding, but they do have actual meanings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy