• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

This really is a full service blog.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

I really should read my own blog.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

T R E 4 5 O N

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The revolution will be supervised.

Bark louder, little dog.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: “Payback”?

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: “Payback”?

by Anne Laurie|  August 29, 20127:49 pm| 29 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Republican Venality, Assholes

FacebookTweetEmail

Like a toxic rain on polluted soil, the RNC is bringing all sorts of teratogenic invertebrates wriggling to the surface. Mark Warren, at Esquire, chats with Roger Stone:

TAMPA, Fla. — Just as this thing was becoming no fun, bless my soul, the last of the great ratfkers arrived. You can have your Republican pieties, because Roger Stone is here, and he is being Roger Stone all over the place. Dead-eyed and dapper, so much history in one three-button seersucker suit (“Hard to find the three-button,” he says) and a thick head of hair implants the color of straw, the Nixon aide and life-long juvenile delinquent made the rounds in the Republican hall on Tuesday night. There are bullet-headed hoards here this week, walking with their chests out, who think they know something of politics, even of hardball, and I saw many of them breeze right by this man without a glance. Fools. A walking master class in the dark arts of political castration (just ask Eliot Spitzer), Stone is here this week “observing.”

He is actually on a mission for former New Mexico governor and Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who is now the Libertarian standard-bearer. He says that Johnson will likely be on the ballot in all fifty states, and is polling in the high single digits in enough of them to actually factor in the outcome of the election.

“Johnson is polling at 9 percent in Arizona [according to PPP], and it’s all gonna come out of Romney’s hide, and he’s at 6 percent in Wisconsin (according to the Reason poll), which is all out of Obama’s hide. I am helping Gary figure out where to put his emphasis.” He points toward the convention floor. “Snubbing Ron Paul’s people today, and not counting their votes, was just magical, wonderful for us,” he says beaming, arms spread wide as if to say come to papa. “A bunch of people are gonna leave here very angry. To not announce Ron Paul’s total from the chair is an insult. He won those delegates, he’s entitled to — shall we say — be defeated gracefully. They are angry, and we are going to pick up those people.”…

Why wouldn’t Ron Paul let you into his speech?

“Because Ron would like to hand the franchise off to Rand. The Pauls are about money. They raised $47 million, and at least 5 of it was spent on the campaign. And a lot of the rest of it went into the pockets of Rand Paul family members and other hangers-on. It’s a great franchise, so we’re gonna try to hand the franchise to the idiot son. It’s not going to work, because when this is over, I think Johnson will have greater cachet…

“There’s going to be dissatisfaction with Mitt Romney at the end of this convention. So there’s an opportunity. I really think that in six swing states, Johnson’s going to determine who wins this race. In Oregon and Colorado, where they have marijuana on the ballot, in New Mexico, quite obviously, in New Hampshire, in Nevada, in Iowa — it’s enough to make all the difference. Plus, that doesn’t even speak to the fact that Romney leads Obama by one point in Florida today, and Johnson’s getting 2.3 percent of the vote. It’s not a lot of votes, but it’s enough.

“So the party’s going to regret not allowing Johnson into the debates. All the national chairman had to do was pick up the phone to CNN and say, What are you doing, this guy’s a reputable candidate, why isn’t he being allowed? But they didn’t give us the time of day. And in politics, payback’s are a bitch.”

I assume the Obama campaign has all available watchful eyes on Wisconsin, and I pray to Coyote the Trickster God that the Paulites aren’t sufficiently enamoured of Rand “Idiot Son” Paul to let Mr. Stone distract them from doing maximum damage to the coronation hopes of King Willard.

Speaking of skin-crawling bloodsuckers, Dennis G’s old nemesis Ralph Reed has fastened his lamprey mouthparts firmly into the Romney campaign’s treasure sacks, per Joe Hagan at NYMag:

Ralph Reed is definitely back. Six years ago, the eternally smooth-skinned and exquisitely coiffed Georgia Republican was tainted by dubious dealings with the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. But at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, Reed appeared reborn, embraced with open arms at Grover Norquist’s First National Center Right Meeting — a kind of right-wing revival tent featuring conservative grand dame Phyllis Schlafly and Steven Law, president of Super-PAC American Crossroads.

Resplendent in a green plaid jacket and pink tie, Reed described his plans for registering over 9 million evangelicals in the coming weeks. He’s also aiming robocalls and door-knockers at nearly 2 million evangelical households in Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia….

Further excerpts withheld for the sake of those who may still be eating or anticipating their dinners, but it’s well worth reading the whole thing to see just how corrupt and incestuous the remnant Republican “establishment” has really become.
***********

Apart from viewing the antics in Tampa (with revulsion and scorn), what’s on the agenda for the evening?

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Greatest Post Title Ever
Next Post: RNC Open Thread, Lyin’ Paul Ryan Edition »

Reader Interactions

29Comments

  1. 1.

    Lord Jesus Perm

    August 29, 2012 at 7:54 pm

    Apart from viewing the antics in Tampa (with revulsion and scorn), what’s on the agenda for the evening?

    Taking a hammer drill to my skull so I won’t have to listen to the RNC on TV while my wife watches.

  2. 2.

    Violet

    August 29, 2012 at 7:58 pm

    Said this in the previous thread, but it’s a better fit here. Local wingnut radio talk show guy said about last night’s convention that it was, “a bunch of people you never heard of, Ann Romney and a fat guy. Ann Romney and a fat guy! What’s wrong with Ron Paul?” And then went on a five minute tear about why couldn’t they reach out to Ron Paul. His voters represent a helluva lot more votes than the demo-filler folks they’re having talk at the convention, and it’s a major fail that they couldn’t at least allow Ron Paul to speak. “What would be so bad about allowing Paul to speak? Yeah, so they don’t agree on everything. Let him talk!” Etc. Etc.

    I’ve listened to this guy for awhile off and on and never pegged him to be a Ron Paul supporter at all. No idea what’s up with all that. Loved that he referred to Chris Christie as “a fat guy”.

  3. 3.

    Roger Moore

    August 29, 2012 at 8:00 pm

    Is it any wonder that the Republicans have let Ralph Reed back into the fold? This is the party that was perfectly happy to rehabilitate Richard Nixon and turn over the reigns of power to his cronies during the Cheney Regency. Reed is small potatoes.

  4. 4.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    August 29, 2012 at 8:04 pm

    I know I am a Brit and shouldn’t say but honestly if I hear American Exceptionalism again this week I am going to vomit.

  5. 5.

    Bobby Thomson

    August 29, 2012 at 8:04 pm

    Stone’s whole purpose has been to tell tales out of school about who’s been getting their freak on at swingers clubs and such. I don’t see him bringing much to the presidential race.

  6. 6.

    Cassidy

    August 29, 2012 at 8:06 pm

    Green and pink? I used to think Reed was in the close by not with that kind of poor fashion sense.

  7. 7.

    Chris

    August 29, 2012 at 8:14 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Well, Mister Brit, I’m an American, and I concur wholeheartedly.

  8. 8.

    Violet

    August 29, 2012 at 8:16 pm

    Hmmm….

    A gun belonging to a member of Mitt Romney’s U.S. Secret Service detail was found unattended in the bathroom of the candidate’s charter plane Wednesday afternoon. The Republican nominee was traveling from Tampa, Fla., site of his party’s convention, to Indianapolis, Ind., for a speech.
    __
    The weapon, presumably left behind in the bathroom by accident, was discovered by a CBS News/National Journal reporter, who alerted a flight attendant about the gun. A member of the Secret Service on board the plane was informed and retrieved the gun.

    This sort of thing doesn’t increase confidence in the Secret Service.

  9. 9.

    Josie

    August 29, 2012 at 8:18 pm

    Good grief! These people really are zombies! You think they have been passed over, died, found criminally liable, whatever, and they just keep reappearing. Will we ever escape their evil clutches, or does the struggle just keep going on forever? I would love to see at least one of them totally rejected and defeated before I die.

  10. 10.

    Linda Featheringill

    August 29, 2012 at 8:19 pm

    Ralph Reed, with his eternal youth, is a real “Picture of Dorian Gray.”

    What a toad! Always has been. Yuck.

  11. 11.

    Suzan

    August 29, 2012 at 8:38 pm

    Why would Johnson take all six points from Obama in Wisconsin? Maybe I missed something. Help me out?

  12. 12.

    Lurker

    August 29, 2012 at 8:39 pm

    @Josie:

    Will we ever escape their evil clutches, or does the struggle just keep going on forever?

    The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, so keep fighting.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    August 29, 2012 at 8:51 pm

    @Suzan:

    Why would Johnson take all six points from Obama in Wisconsin?

    Because he says so, that’s why. My impression is that third party candidates like Johnson generally do a lot better in early polls than they do in the election. In the polls, they’ll frequently pull in a few undecideds and some voters who weakly favor one candidate or the other. As the election gets closer, those undecided and weakly favoring voters wind up picking sides, and usually not the third party candidates they mentioned to the pollsters. Talk about how important they can be as a spoiler is just third party spin.

  14. 14.

    Amanda in the South Bay

    August 29, 2012 at 8:55 pm

    No one is mentioning Obama on Reddit?

  15. 15.

    Tom Q

    August 29, 2012 at 9:12 pm

    Just wanted to say that, when I was 15 years old — in the summer of ’67 — I was in a drama workshop, in which Roger Stone was also a participant. This was in my pre-political (otherwise known as teenage) period, so I had no quarrel with his opinions/stances. But it’s worth noting that everyone in the group thought he was a major-league asshole.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 29, 2012 at 9:17 pm

    There are bullet-headed hoards here this week

    I’m pretty sure Mark Warren means “bullet-headed hordes.”

  17. 17.

    Maude

    August 29, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    Are they hoarding their monies?

  18. 18.

    danielx

    August 29, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    Ralph Reed is definitely back.

    In one of those comebacks for which Washington is so justly famous…grifter gonna grift.

  19. 19.

    jheartney

    August 29, 2012 at 9:33 pm

    Reed described his plans for registering over 9 million evangelicals in the coming weeks.

    Speaking as someone who’s been doing voter reg recently, I’m dubious about how much success this grifter will have reaching his goal. Getting registrations is a slow, labor-intensive process, and you don’t build up the organization for doing it overnight. I suspect Mr. Reed is more about taking Adelson money than he is about fulfilling on these ambitious promises.

  20. 20.

    Frankensteinbeck

    August 29, 2012 at 9:37 pm

    @Suzan:
    This is what political insiders call a ‘lie’. As @Roger Moore notes it is essential for these third parties to talk themselves up, but it is also essential that they claim to be something other than the disaffected rump of one party. Like the Tea Party, the Libertarians have to show evidence that they are a true movement of independent idealists. This is done by another process political insiders call ‘making shit up’.

  21. 21.

    russell

    August 29, 2012 at 9:43 pm

    The Pauls are about money.

    LOL. The penny drops.

    Stone’s whole purpose has been to tell tales out of school about who’s been getting their freak on at swingers clubs and such. I don’t see him bringing much to the presidential race.

    I guess it depends on who’s getting their freak on, and what particular freak is being gotten on.

  22. 22.

    Yutsano

    August 29, 2012 at 10:01 pm

    @russell: I hate to break roger’s heart, but Oregon is nowhere near a swing state. All hail the People’s Republic of Portlandia!!

  23. 23.

    sb

    August 29, 2012 at 10:25 pm

    Apart from viewing the antics in Tampa (with revulsion and scorn), what’s on the agenda for the evening?

    Not viewing the antics in Tampa. Beach, walk the rescue, hug the wife and kid, grade papers, bed.

    Paul Ryan? Who’s he?

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    August 29, 2012 at 10:29 pm

    Watching Arsenic and Old Lace. The extra frisson is that I am imagining all the dumbass Republicans being buried in some old ladies’ cellar.

    Or is it that GOP ideas are as nutty as a crazy uncle who imagines himself to be Teddy Roosevelt?

  25. 25.

    AA+ Bonds

    August 29, 2012 at 10:42 pm

    Resplendent in a green plaid jacket and pink tie,

    *sad trombone*

  26. 26.

    AA+ Bonds

    August 29, 2012 at 10:46 pm

    spending a little time this evening revving up the Paulsters elsewhere, why did the Republicans cheat the Ron Paul majority, he shoulda been VP, etc. I suggest everyone follow suit, great fun

  27. 27.

    Roy G.

    August 29, 2012 at 11:32 pm

    I’d like to share what I posted on teh FB earlier:

    Just got back from our first parents meeting at our son’s elementary school, Buena Vista, on Valencia in the Mission (ed: SF); bilingual, multicultural, tolerant of all family types, focused on the importance of learning facts, building community and mutual respect and understanding – in other words, the complete opposite of what is being preached at the Republican National Convention.

  28. 28.

    1badbaba3

    August 30, 2012 at 12:04 am

    “Idiot son”? That’s a might harsh. And more than a little hurtful.

    How’s about tube steak?

    Fart sniffing reprobate?

    Shit-talking crypto-nazi?

  29. 29.

    Tata

    August 30, 2012 at 11:32 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    And “payback’s” should be a simple plural.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

Fundraising 2023-24

Wis*Dems Supreme Court + SD-8

Recent Comments

  • Another Scott on War for Ukraine Day 393: Zelenskyy Goes to Kherson! (Mar 23, 2023 @ 10:17pm)
  • oldster on War for Ukraine Day 393: Zelenskyy Goes to Kherson! (Mar 23, 2023 @ 10:16pm)
  • trollhattan on Happy Diversions: Respite Open Thread (Mar 23, 2023 @ 10:16pm)
  • TriassicSands on No Cake for Me Today Open Thread (Mar 23, 2023 @ 10:14pm)
  • Adam L Silverman on War for Ukraine Day 393: Zelenskyy Goes to Kherson! (Mar 23, 2023 @ 10:14pm)

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Classified Documents: A Primer
State & Local Elections Discussion

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Twitter / Spoutible

Balloon Juice (Spoutible)
WaterGirl (Spoutible)
TaMara (Spoutible)
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
ActualCitizensUnited

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!