Jon Chait at NYMag thinks that “Romney’s Playing Field [Has] Narrowed“:
Mitt Romney’s team announced [Thursday] night, in the immediate wake of the Democratic convention, that it was unleashing a massive swing-state ad blitz. Since the announcement came well before the lousy jobs report, and even before the mixed reviews for Obama’s speech, it ought to be seen as an attempt to give Republicans a reason for enthusiasm. A closer look suggests more reason for GOP concern.
Romney is targeting eight states: Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Hampshire. No Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania. This is surely not because Romney is husbanding scarce cash. Campaign aides also told Fox News yesterday that they basically have so much money they have to come up with ways to get it out the door, Brewster’s Millions–style, before election day….
The reason this looks worrisome for Romney is that he’s pursuing an electoral-college strategy that requires him nearly to run the table of competitive states. The states where Romney is not competing (and which aren’t obviously Republican, either) add up to 247 electoral votes. The eight states where Romney is competing add up to a neat 100 electoral votes, of which Romney needs 79 and Obama just 23. If you play with the electoral possibilities, you can see that this would mean Obama could win with Florida alone or Ohio plus a small state or Virginia plus a couple small states, and so on…
I guess there’s so much Kochsucker money looking for a hole to be poured down that our local Dishonest Yapper troll’s pay must’ve risen from a nickel to a dime per comment, which would explain his groundhog-like reemergence from well-deserved obscurity…
Yutsano
The other theory is they’re abandoning Willard and focusing on the House and Senate. Of course there is zero chance of a veto-proof majority in either body so it’s still pretty much a waste of money. Not to mention the freshmen teabaggers haven’t done bupkess for constituent services either, which can make or break a Congresscritter.
freelancer
He’s got to sweep that entire group to pass 270. He’s gotta go 8 for 8 to win.
And given the Electoral Arithmetic as it stands now, He likely loses Colorado, Virginia, and is very possible he stands to lose Ohio, Nevada, and Iowa.
Villago Delenda Est
I don’t think any of the Rmoney morons realize that buying up every friggin’ second of air time is going to turn even Rethug voters against him.
He should ask California Governor Whitman and US Senator Fiorina how well that worked for them in 2010.
These guys are seriously clueless about electoral reality. So are their big bucks asshole patrons.
KG
@freelancer: He’s not looking good in Nevada, either
freelancer
@KG:
I typed Virginia twice, I meant Nevada.
Peter
This campaign has scored so many own goals and made their own jobs so unnecessarily difficult that I sometimes wonder if they’re actually throwing the election. And why.
Yutsano
@freelancer: He’s way behind in New Hampshire as well. And funnily enough even GEORGIA is softening a bit.
Spaghetti Lee
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, the rest of the country isn’t California, but there’s also the fact that Romney’s somehow even worse than those two.
I’m not worried about the EC, mostly. Obama won 365 EC votes and he’d have to go something like 0 for 6 on Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, etc. to lose that, and that just doesn’t seem likely. What I’d really like to avoid is a win the EC/lose the popular vote situation. If you think the teabaggers have been ‘delegitimizing’ him before…
Spaghetti Lee
@Yutsano:
I think Georgia’s gonna become a swing state pretty quickly. Parts of Suburban Atlanta are really diverse and not ‘Confederate’ in any cultural way, and those are the fastest-growing parts of the state. I’ve also seen polls that say Rombot is really underperforming in Tennessee, although I don’t know what the story is there.
Needless to say, if the GOP has to start juggling Texas, Georgia, Arizona, they’re doomed. Doomed. I wonder if that’s why they’re putting so much effort into gaining institutional control in the Midwest-trying to make a ‘new’ GOP base. We don’t seem to be buying it for the most part. Every year Michigan and Pennsylvania get talked up as the big swing states, but it’s looking like the Dem will take them both for the 6th straight election.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
Well knowing Mitt and his tone-deafness, he’ll probably stump there singing “Marching through Georgia“.
FWIW, here’s my soft prediction for the EC.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Spaghetti Lee:
No, but it will be. If the Rethugs follow the path they’re on, it’ll be just like here in CA.
ETA: I don’t know if anyone else noticed who was the chair of the CA delegation at the RNC(well at least announcing the votes for CA), it was Pete fucking Wilson. Talk about Hispanic outreach.
kindness
Can’t ever happen but I sure wish we could get rid of the Electoral College altogether. The presidency should be a national popular vote with every citizen’s vote counting equally. It’ll never happen.
Yutsano
@freelancer: I only disagree on North Carolina, the Nebraska split (I predict he takes Omaha like last time) and possibly Missouri. But yeah, Willard has way too much territory to make up there.
Hill Dweller
I realize some of the speech reviews are media “balance” after hammering Willard and Ryan. That was predictable. They were going to criticize regardless of the speech’s effectiveness.
Obama is also held to his own insanely high standard. The man is the Hendrix of speech giving. It was still a better speech than anything at the wingnuts’ shindig last week, although not in his personal top 5.
But the really annoying part for me is these are the same people that have been shrugging and saying “good speaker, but…” or “just words…” after every one of Obama’s great speeches for the last 5+ years. Now it’s a national emergency.
As for the speech, it was pretty obvious Obama wasn’t comfortable giving a workman like speech. They were going for tone, but Obama has always had a rhythm to his speeches, which he didn’t find until about a third of the way through last night. I don’t know if that was intentional, or Obama sensing it was flat early and stopped worrying about tone. Whatever the case, he was great for the second half of the speech, and closed beautifully.
freelancer
@Yutsano:
I don’t think the NE 2nd district will do that again. I mean, I was over the moon that my vote had an electoral impact, but I just can’t see it again. I hope I’m wrong, I really do.
? Martin
@Spaghetti Lee:
It will be this year. 2010 CA-Gov spending was 1/6th of total US presidential spending in 2008. That was just for governor. It was crushing. It pissed EVERYBODY off.
But the GOP is missing another angle of diminishing returns on their money. Dems are expected to see lower turnout this year. There’s only expected to be about 6 points of swing among undecideds, but Dems are expecting about that same amount in suppressed turnout. In the GOPs efforts to win over those 6% of undecideds, they might just end up waking up the 6% of Dems who weren’t going to vote with all of those shitty ads.
That’s kind of what happened here in 2010. Brown won by a larger than expected margin mainly because Dem turnout was higher than expected. And why not – by the election everyone wanted to vote if only to guarantee that the fucking ads would stop.
notjonathon
It’s possible that Rove is just taking his billionaires for a sustained ride–the long con, you might call it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if most of that money is being funneled through CR LLC or somesuch corporate entity, and in the process is having a major percentage shaved off. If so, what a delicious irony.
We should certainly let a rumor to that effect echo back to Richard Rainwater.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s a pretty good indication of how shitty the Repugs are here, Pete “Prop 187” Wilson. It actually could have been worse, it could have been Bob Dornan .
Cain
I expect that Romney will be spending so much money that the wall to wall ads are going to just piss people off. Even worse, it’s also pretty likely that he’ll make a couple of gaffes on the way.
But what they won’t have is a good ground game, and that is where Obama is going to excel. He’ll be putting his money on ads sure, but he’s going to be investing a lot on the ground game to negate the tv ads.
I don’t think Romney knows how to run a ground campaign. It’s easier to run the ads, but I don’t think he has a knack to inspire volunteers to go all out.
I finally found some guy on my way to work putting out his Romney signs. Nobody else for miles has it except for him. (nobody has Obama signs either, but there is a lot of Obama bumper stickers)
I’d like to see Obama clean Romney’s clock repeatedly. Even more, I would like to see the make up of congress change. We really need to figure out how to take back the House and get a veto proof majority in the Senate. Get that, and we can finally move this country forward.
askew
On a random note, is Paul Ryan’s wife doing any solo campaigning or interviews? Jill Biden was doing solo events in 2008 post-convention. With the Romneys taking vacation and doing fewer events and interviews, it would really help their campaign if they could use Ryan’s wife as another surrogate. She has to be better at it then Ann Romney has been.
@Cain:
There should be plenty of Mormons to volunteer for Romney’s campaign. He is the first Mormon presidential nominee and that should fire them up to do GOTV.
CarolDuhart2
@freelancer: I think you’ve gotten it about right-but Mitt is so demotivating I expect that by the middle of next month we’ll see a few “sleeper” states that may tip to Obama just because of low Republican turnout. North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri I pick as sleepers. Of course, if Obama is close enough for vote-counters to have to stay up late in these states, he’s already got 270. But still….
balconesfault
I’m hoping that all that spending has some economic stimulus effect in those states!
? Martin
@askew:
GOTV isn’t going to help the GOP all that much. They’re already going to get pretty close to as much turnout as they can expect. They need to win independents, which Mormons won’t help much all that much with, and they need to ensure that Dems don’t turn out, which they’re mostly legislating.
The GOPs problem here is that all the have is base, and that base is relatively small. They’ve been cranking the volume up to 11 to keep that base turning out, but the base is also dying off each year.
The Dems have it relatively easy by comparison. Their only limitation is GOTV. They don’t need to convince any new voters. None. It’s all turnout. It’s all ground game here. Kay is going to win or lose this election for Obama (no pressure, dear).
Anne Laurie
@askew:
Janna Ryan is not only a tax lawyer, she’s a professional tax law lobbyist. Not sure she’s really a better surrogate than professional Mormon Wife Ann Romney, just on optics.
Of course I also got a Marilyn Quayle vibe from her during the RNC convention, but that may just be that I have a long memory and a strong bias…
? Martin
@balconesfault: Nope. It’s just account changing. Nothing gets produced. No jobs from it. Nothing consumed. It’s really a gigantic waste of money.
balconesfault
@notjonathon: The more public appearances I’ve seen from Rove, the more I’m convinced that the long con describes his game perfectly. Whether turdblossom is a boy genius at electoral politics or not is irrelevant – clearly he’s a genius at grifting.
Pavonis
By all accounts the Obama ground game is much more organized than Romney’s since the Obama campaign has been investing there rather than in all TV ads. I really think interaction with volunteers is going to be more effective than extra ads, especially since the point of diminishing returns was reached long ago.
I’m autistic (though high-functioning) and realize that phone-banking just isn’t for me. And I won’t be able to do anything in-person until October. So I’ve maxed out my donation to the Obama campaign instead. I feel better about the investment knowing that a large chunk is going to support the ground game rather than more attack ads of questionable efficiency. If I was on the other side, I’d worry that the all-attack-ad, all-the-time strategy is just a waste of money.
BillinGlendaleCA
@The prophet Nostradumbass:Is B-1 Bob still with us?
Steve
@Anne Laurie: What’s a Marilyn Quayle vibe? All I remember about her is that she was smart.
Anne Laurie
@Steve: I’m gonna quote myself, because it’s late & I’m tired:
“… There was an audience-reaction shot during Eastwood’s performance, and I got a weird flash of deja vu. Janna Ryan looked like the photo-negative version of Marilyn Quayle at the 1988 RNC —an icy blond in a white-trimmed black outfit echoing an icy brunette in a black-trimmed white suit, both with the same dead eyes & piranha smiles. And she’s got the background to match, as another fiercely ambitious lawyer from a ‘good family’ embracing a 1950s-era public image as the Happy Homemaker. (One important factor that’s not parallel: Paul Ryan got a big jump on his career ambitions when he married the multi-millionaire daughter of a state-level powerful political family. Forty years ago, Marilyn Quayle was the hypergamist, marrying the good-looking but unambitious son of a very rich & ambitiously powerful family.)
In fact, both Anne Romney and Janna Ryan seem like weirdly blurred imitations of Barbara Bush and Mrs. Quayle. The thing is, while the originals were rather defiantly promoted as ‘old-fashioned’ back in the 1980s, today’s versions just seem grotesquely out of date… Marilyn Quayle was a proudly vocal standard-bearer in the Schafly-era “feminist backlash”, when rightwing women made a point of “renouncing” their own hard-earned achievements (Quayle bragged that she’d had her first child induced early so she’d be able to take the bar exam on schedule) because being a wife, a mom, and a homemaker were more important, to her fundamentalist God as well as her husband’s political ambitions. It’s early days, but while there’s been a certain amount of style-section hoopla about how Janna knows “being with her children while they’re young is just too precious to waste”, even the lady-gushers acknowledge that she had a real-world career before those babies emerged, and she’ll have an active membership in the tax bar association once the kids are no longer adorable full-time props.
It’s one more facet of this year’s angry, off-putting Repub messaging—Gordon Gekko as Miss Havisham.”
Marilyn was “the smart one” in that relationship, but being smarter than Dan Quayle wouldn’t challenge your average sixth-grader. She was also fiercely ambitious, nasty to everyone who she didn’t plan to use in the next 15 minutes, and a virulent Evangelical follower of a particularly small-minded apocalyptic sect.
Don’t know how much Janna actually resembles her, but I’m sure hoping we don’t have to find out, either.
amk
@? Martin:
FU. (since Kay is too gentle and polished to say it)
MikeJ
@? Martin:
People who make commercials have to eat too. The only spots I ever did were things like local car dealers and the voiceover in the donut on national spots.
Things get produced. Commercials. Stuff that exists in limited quantities is consumed. Airtime.
You actually could make an argument that it will harm the economy. The waterbed store isn’t going to be able to buy ads if all the avails are filled, and will thus be unable to inform consumers of the advantages of their products and their low, low prices.
raven
Where’s that automatic morning thread?
Josh G.
Political TV ads are a plague upon informed democracy. I hope that before too much longer the trend of cord-cutting and delivery of TV shows over the Internet will put an end to them.
I’m not sure if there is any effective way to measure this, but I’d be willing to bet that the demographics of TV ad viewership are considerably older than for the population as a whole. Older people are more likely to sit in front of the TV for hours on end, while younger people tend to focus on specific shows. And younger people are increasingly likely to get those shows from sources with reduced or no advertising (Netflix, torrents, etc.) or at least to use DVRs to skip the ads.
Maude
@raven:
Morning. Are you about to take your walk?
raven
@Maude: Not on the weekend. I load the pups up and we go to the farmer’s market. The princess is about to hit the road to see her elderly aunt up in Rustburg, VA so if football and dogs here.
Maude
@raven:
Sounds like a good day ahead.
raven
@Maude: What you up to?
jonas
I’m not in marketing, but is there any solid research that shows that these massive ad buys really move the needle much? Is there really an untapped audience of ardent TV viewers out there going “Gosh, I’m really not sure whether or not Obama deserves another term, but I’m sure television will help me decide!” Or do they just hope that bashing Obama just sort of becomes the vague background noise in people’s lives in key swing states? I think most people just tune this crap out and change the channel.
JPL
@jonas: IMO, racist, bigoted ads help get the base to the polls. Prepare for an barrage of the gays are…, democrats want grandma to die….welfare queens are freeloaders…etc.
I hope that I’m wrong.
gvg
What are the laws about unspent cash? These new superpacs? Do they have to give it back? Are they allowed to give or support to other candidates? They aren’t supposed to coordinate with the campaigns……other than that what are the laws? Do managers like Rove get to keep the unspent cash? Or save it till the next election?
Somebodies going to have to study after the fact if it helps or hurts to have uncoordinated pacs as allies. I’m not real clear what comes from Romney and what from a supporting pac but I think that some of the time it could work out more like “with friends like these who needs enemies” in that some planned campaign strategies could get blown up by a supporting pac. Romney isn’t the only one with super pac support.
I had been reading that Romney had Romney that couldn’t be used till after the official nomination. That his fewer number but very rich supporters had maxed their primary contribution, then given for the actual election and that money had to wait till after the convention. Which means now he can suddenly spend a lot more, and it’s likely to seem like a flash flood to the voters…….
What are the laws about transferring left over money to other candidates?
hep kitty
What did ABL do to Jesse Jackson?? I understand he is in the hospital
hep kitty
If you love me, tweet me
@cassandra_pony
hep kitty
oops, that must have been JJ Jr / sorry ABL, but I wouldn’t put it past ya!
hep kitty
oops, I just saw your comment. Sounds like you guys are already up and at ’em this morning. That is if you are EST, which I think you are.
WereBear
Why am I completely and utterly UNsurprised by that? :)
Campaign money is like antibiotics; you’ll die without it. But too much upsets the organism and has less than healthful effects.
Anya
Last night I was listening to a podcast of the Majority Report with Sam Seder (husband is out of town on a work weekend retreat and I couldn’t sleep). Boy, he’s the king of firebaggers. His whole show was about “Obama will sell us out,” “he will dismantle social security and medicare. He said so himself in his speech.” Next week he’s going to fill in for Chris Hayes so expect more of that.
EconWatcher
Anne Laurie, I sau this with love, the way you do with a friend who’s lost her way: Feeding a troll is bad. But specifically giving a shout-out to a troll on the front page is like giving the troll a five-year free supply of Alpo. I can’t recall ever seeing it done before, and it is extremely unwise.
hep kitty
@Anya: Used to love Sam Seder but have not heard him in a while so I did not know this. I guess that is why he has not advanced further. I really loved the guy cuz I used to listen to him on the way to my radiation appt’s back when he had a show on Air Ameria- kinda sticks in my mind. I believe he is on Ring of Fire with Mike Pappantonio and RFK Jr
Of course, all that was when Bush was still in office. Rachel still had her own show back then.
Dennis SGMM
@Anya:
You should just pass over Seder.
bemused
@Anya:
That’s disappointing to read. I used to enjoy Sam years ago when he was on Air America but haven’t followed him since. After Bush was out and Obama was in, Sam and others didn’t want to see any differences. I don’t understand where they are coming from/
hep kitty
BTW repubs can shove the debt clock up their collective hoo-hoos. Why didn’t we see the fucking debt clock all over the fucking place when Bush was still president. I remember seeing that MF whirling along back then, just like it is now
Donut
The people funding Romney’s increasingly quixotic adventure, not to mention the entire conservative astro-turf apparatus, are a bunch of suckers, if you ask me. I hope they are feeling panicked and anxious about their “risk management” choices from 2010 to the present date. .
The so-called Job Creator class’ “objectivist” emotional immaturity may be boundless, but it’s looking to at least be containable. I hope.
It has tried to be thrifty. It took its last big tax cut, agreed to by Obama, ironically, and invested it in completely wrecking the President politically, slandering him personally, and tanking the economy. Job Creation is supposed to be their forté, but it ain’t happening, and people are maybe catching on to it. I wish we would hear a wee bit more from the Democratic mesaging on this specific point, that we have already had 11 years of the tax cuts Romney proposes to make even deeper, and where are the jobs, where are the jobs, etc.
Anyway, I don’t think we are anywhere near safe yet, but I’d be feeling a bit antsy by now, were I a Koch brother, a Sheldon Adelson, et al.
Dennis SGMM
@hep kitty:
They are selective with their concern about the debt. They are even more selective about remembering how it came to be. They have completely forgotten that they passed Medicare Part D without funding it and they’ve completely forgotten that they started two wars and then said “Charge it.”
Anya
@hep kitty: He was terrible on his take. He even had Andy Kindler (some comedian I guess) pretending to be a mindless Obamabot just repeating “hope and change,” “obama has a plan,” and mindless shit like that.
@Dennis SGMM: After listening to him last night, you couldn’t pay me to listen to him again. Any suggestions for good liberal podcasts?
grandpa john
I think that Virgil Goode making the ballot in VA probably finished Mitt in VA. Maybe some one will now poll VA with his nme in play along with Mitt and Obama so we can see the reality of how VA really stands rather than horse race bullshit
Baud
@Anya:
Thanks. I’ve added Seder to my Feel Free to Ignore list. It’s quite a long list now.
Donut
@hep kitty:
Rachel’s Air America shows were both pretty awesome. The format of version 2.0 pretty much laid the foundation for her TeeVee show. Anyway, she is great on screen, but she is just as entertaining in radio.
Dennis SGMM
@Donut:
Human nature being what it is, I’m looking forward to the tell-all books from SuperPAC insiders describing the ways in which the people running them found ways to spend money on themselves.
Dennis SGMM
@Anya:
No help here. The only podcasts I listen to are from the BBC.
BillinGlendaleCA
@grandpa john: Rachel had about a month old PPP poll that included Goode on the show yesterday. I think it had the Pres. in the mid 40’s, Dubya Mitt at 22 and Goode at 9.
hep kitty
@grandpa john: That name reminds me of something out of a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Spaghetti Lee:
Call it the “Mormon Factor”. Just like Obama may have had a larger popular vote margin, and possibly won a couple more close states if he had been “one of us” during the 2008 cycle, RobMe will probably either lose, or make some states closer because he isn’t a Christian, or at least the kind of Christian these people recognize.
Has any extensive written analysis been done on this? I would like to read it, if it has.
ETA: With that in mind, you have to wonder just how completely lost some of the Wing Nuts must feel if on the one hand they see the KenyanMuslim as not legitimate but are not thrilled about voting for a guy that looks like them but belongs to what many of the Chrisitianists consider a cult. Maybe some of the other members of our commentariat who reside in red states can shed some light on this subject.
Anya
@bemused: I don’t want to belabor the point but he was awful. His whole assessment about the reaction of the crowd to Obama’s speech was condescending. He kept pushing the point that both Obama and Biden were promising to implement the Simpson Bowles. He argued that both Romney and Obama were leading us to the same place but it was a matter of degrees. But what offended me the most was the comedian pretending to be an obot.
bemused
@Donut:
I loved her radio show. She’s great on both tv and radio but each format has it’s own personality. I still miss Rachel on the radio.
hep kitty
They never eat those damned pastries in the center of the table on Up w/ Chris Hayes. Just take them away of your not gonna eat ’em, making me hungry. I’d like to see one of those giant muffins with a big ole bite taken out of it and then put back in the basket.
bemused
@Anya:
Oh, I believe you. I’m a little shocked how he could have deteriorated that much not that he’s alone.
grandpa john
@Hill Dweller:
the only “blah” reviews I have seen are from the morons who always find fault with everything he does.Remember Clinton’s speech was “too Long” for These ADD afflicted fucking idiots who think it has to be bleeding to be good with out realizing that the whole convention was wonderfully choreographed even the speeches and who gave them. When your paycheck depends on finding fault, you can be sure that these media whores will find fault.
five main speakers, each of which had a specific point to make in their speeches and each did so eloquently. Planning and organization, Even the other speakers we chosen to appeal appeal to specific target groups the REpubs should try that sometimes at their convention Fuck the pundits, talk to the 99 % that were the targets for the speechs and see what they think. because you will never learn anything of substances listening to the media ass holes who are too stupid to even play checkers much less understand chess.
burnspbesq
Congrats to the US under-20 women’s national soccer team. WORLD CHAMPIONS!
Davis X. Machina
In small states you literally run out of media that can be bought. Snowe’s campaigns in Maine were already running into this problem a dozen years ago. I wonder if this is a problem in Nevada. (NH is mostly the Boston media market, which is both large and expensive)
Davis X. Machina
@Anya:
It’s not ‘condescending’ when you’re right. Seder is more progressive than you, for all possible values of ‘progressive’.
Donut
@The Ancient Randonneur:
It would (or maybe will – quite possibly someone else has already thought of this) make an interesting demographic study to look at voting patterns in the most heavily fundamentalist and evangelical Protestant counties in the country after this election. I would like to know if negative search engine phrases about Romney and Mormonism will spike and be shown to reveal (possibly) voting patterns, as did negative searches about Obama in the 2008 race:
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/how-racist-are-we-ask-google/
Disclaimer: I am not nearly schooled well enough to evaluate Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s paper, just saying it is super interesting.
bemused
I’ve been watching some of the convention speeches again or catching up on the bits I’ve missed. It’s abundantly clear how much genuine heart and soul was expressed by so many speakers.
FlipYrWhig
@Anya: Obama and Biden weren’t promising to implement Simpson-Bowles wholesale, but to move forward on deficit reduction in accordance with the _principles_ of Simpson-Bowles. That doesn’t mean much, or seem very threatening, to me.
@grandpa john: I remember that Big Media was disappointed in Obama’s inaugural address too. Too downbeat, they said. Too much emphasis on how things are going to be difficult.
Anya
@bemused: I blame Bush and the dem establishment’s collaboration with Bush. They’ve made a lot of progressives cynical and hardcore doom and gloom. They just expect their side to be sellouts like they were on 01 to 03.
@Davis X. Machina: What do you know about my values?
mai naem
@Anya: Marc Maron(he used to have the Mark and Mark show on Air America at the end). I also will listen to reruns of Stephanie Miller and Bill Press Shows on their podcasts.
I don’t mean to sound like a chicken little but I find people on BJ to be overly confident of an Obama win. There is no freaking guarantee and you’ve got Woodward and Barofsky’s books coming out which are supposed to hurt Obama. I take my liberal but no political junkie sister as my barometer because she talks to a lot of people in her job and she thinks there’s a 50/50 possibility that Obama’s going to lose. She says a lot of people she talks to blame Obama for the economy and the HC law is still unpopular.
Davis X. Machina
@Anya:
Whatever they are, they’re less truly progressive than Sam Seder’s. Because he is Sam Seder, and you most definitely are not. It’s his job…
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig:
One wonders how they would have dealt with covering certain British leaders in the summer and fall of 1940.
brendan sexton
@Spaghetti Lee: Texas?? i think we’re wishfully thinking ourselves out of the park, there. Georgia also, if you ask me.
i do think the political landscape has shifted greatly from four years ago or even two. and part of the reason is that the wingers and even the lamestream Repuulicans have underperformed terribly. the do-nothingness of this Congress has become a basic, ground level fact of political discussion across the whole country.
and as someone noted above, the tea-baggers have never cared much about constituent services, either, ignoring the old axiom that ‘all politics is local.’
i don’t think the Dems will capture both houses plus the WH, but i think the Republicans have hurt themselves–for good reason–these last couple of years.
i know it is maddening that there are still a lot of people out there who think the Pres is not American, or who believe Obamacare will turn us communist, and so on. And it is very hard to talk climate science with someone who believes the earth is 6,000 years old. and sometimes i am tempted to despair. BUT, most Americans do not believe man walked with dinosaurs or that the earth is flat or that NASA’s climate science has been bought and paid for by a cabal of climate scientist goons.
So, i have hope, and am all for hope, but let us not kid ourselves, either. Texas is more likely to secede than to vote for obama.
Anya
@mai naem: You can get a full podcast of the Stephanie Miller show but I’ll try Bill Press.
Where does your sister live? Also, too, what damaging stuff could these books contain? Obama admin has been scandal free so far to the point that the Issa’s witch hunt didn’t get him anywhere.
Linda Featheringill
@mai naem: #76
It looks to me that there are several locations [lots?] where it all depends on voter turnout. And GOTV depends on maintaining the effort for two more months. If we can keep on keeping on, Obama has a really decent chance of winning and maybe even winning big. If we give up and sit down, the race is lost.
Maybe I’m wrong. I frequently am. But I’m cautiously optimistic about this.
grandpa john
@Josh G.: And I expect that the effectiveness of all those ads is a lot lower than the media people selling them would have you believe since most people either ign ore them or turn them off. seeing the same ad run 4 or 5 times an hour does not tend to increase attentiveness to the subject matter
Anya
@Davis X. Machina: whatever dude
Not Sure
I think if I felt good that I had the election in the bag, I’d next want a full-on goal-line defense of the Senate. You want the White House because Scalia is now 76 years old and Ginsburg isn’t going to live forever. If we win, we can break the back of the conservative bloc in the SCOTUS, and that’s worth more than some short-term legislative advantage by a long shot. Just find some 48 year old state attorney general (New York produces nice ones) to fill Fat Tony’s seat once they’ve removed his bloated carcass from it.
bemused
@Anya:
Thom Hartmann and Randi Rhodes are good. Both of them also have terrific links on their websites on the topics they cover in each day’s show.
Shawn in ShowMe
@bemused:
Janeane Garofalo would have broken Seder over her knee if he would pulled that Naderite bullhockey when she was around. In fact, if she wasn’t paired with him on the show, Seder probably wouldn’t have landed the Air America gig in the first place.
gene108
@Dennis SGMM:
You win the internets today, sir, first thing in the morning!
Good job old chap.
bemused
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Ha, ha, Janeane is a tiny but tough chick.
Suffern Ace
@Davis X. Machina: And things turned out…to be difficult. It’s almost as if he was talking about reality.
Sure we’d all prefer an upbeat conversation about how everything was great. It’s like my conversations with my boss at year end. I’d prefer it if my boss told me that the company did well and that I was therefore going to get a big raise and bonus. I’d love to have a conversation like that every day, actually. But those aren’t the times we live in.
I think sometimes even the north Koreans realize that things suck even though Dear Leader tells them otherwise. Our press corps – not so much. They want us to be fed a bunch of bull.
grandpa john
@BillinGlendaleCA: These are the kind of things that piss me off. Now the MSM and the polling organization both know of his actions, yet in order to keep VA close and in a horse race, there is virtually no mention of how he may affect the race and no polling to verify if he will have an affect.
Davis X. Machina
They’ve got the right idea, those cunning North Koreans, but their execution is sorely lacking. Instead of kidnapping actresses they need to chloroform Ryan Seacrest and Luke Russert and bundle them into unmarked aircraft.
Shawn in ShowMe
@mai naem:
Overconfidence is overrated, it’s action that’s matters. The base is fired up and ready to go. And a big thank you to Mitt for pissing us off, as if we needed any more motivation.
amk
@Davis X. Machina: way to go godwin.
mai naem
@Anya: There’s Harry Shearer’s Le Show. AZ but through her job she runs to people from the midwest all the time.
@Linda Featheringill: Yes, GOTV and voter suppression is going to be massively important.
Donut
@Suffern Ace:
I thought Obama was pretty damn smart to employ (*gasp*) a big helping of candor in his speech Thursday and remind people that he never sugar-coated jack-shit about the pace of change and how hard it would be. The bulk of the traditional media would prefer people not really think about that; they’ve complained and whined how unsexy this campaign is, but they share culpability for this environment we find ourselves in where the President basically has to have Bill Clinton and Michelle make his best cases for him, lest he come off as too defensive.
The best he can do is say, “I told you fuckers this was hard work, and I’m still willing to do it, but y’all can let me go if you think the alternative is so awesome.”
I thought that was effective, damn effective, myself.
jurassicpork
If you’ve ever wondered what got me into political blogging almost eight years ago and what keeps me in the game, here’s the story.
grandpa john
@Davis X. Machina: unadulterated bullshit, what he is pushing isn’t progressive
and it can still be condescending even if he was right (he’s not
Donut
@Davis X. Machina:
Pretty much lock, stock and barrel opposed to rendition, but I almost think I would suspend that conviction if Russert were to be sent to a CIA black site in Kazakhstan or some shit like that.
Shawn in ShowMe
@grandpa john:
The MSM articles describing the Virgil Goode effect have already been written and approved. But for reasons you’ve already cited, they’ll remain locked away in the file cabinet until 2-3 weeks before the election. Until then, enjoy Howard Fineman and Chuck Todd’s concern trolling.
Liquid
Anne, you always brighten my day with your vicious rhetoric!
WereBear
@Donut: As frustrating as the pace of change can be, I think of it kind of like the weather.
You don’t want a political system to be freakishly sensitive to small changes. Or we would have never gotten rid of George W. Bush and his kind of governance. We are still in that process.
The wingers revamped themselves after their Goldwater debacle, and have chipped away at democracy for almost fifty years. They peaked with W; and we all saw what their success looks like.
Likewise, it took decades of Boom and Bust for the crisis to reach a terribly low depth with the Great Depression; and make FDR possible.
I’m currently reading an interesting book about the William Morris Agency; talent agency to the stars. But the early days of Mr. Morris are a microcosm of what our economy used to be like: and that would be UGLY. Over and over, Mr. Morris starts a promising new business; and have the Silver Panic of 1893 or the like smash it to pieces. Every couple of years with the boom and bust!
One had to be both stubborn and lucky, repeatedly, to keep one’s head above water. Much less become a success.
So I think President Obama is simply being honest about the effort and timespan required; this is the road for grownups to take. Which is perhaps why Wingers are so petulant, pissy, and pouty. They are never the most mature people in the room.
grandpa john
@Anya: Hey Anna He, like the might Oz knows all, can’t you tell from his posts?
i find that big media seems to be disapointed in every thing
that any Dem does or says.
O road to third world status is being paved by the big urmedia just as much as by the republicans
Suffern Ace
@Donut: Or just stand up there and promise 750,000 jobs a month and $1.20 gas to the rubes. And a plan to get those Russians to bow down before us. Because what we really need is a crazy nut who makes us feel good.
notjonathon
@Donut: So did I.
Joel
Here’s the thing, Obama’s got the ground game going. Lets keep it up.
rlrr
@kindness:
I bet if Obama wins the EC but loses the popular vote, there will suddenly be a call to get rid of the EC (from the same people who thought the EC was good idea back in 2000).
Randy P
I am feeling confident about Obama. I wouldn’t say he’s got it in the bag. But I know he’s got the organization to fight the big money. He’s one of the best campaigners we’ve ever had (Bill Clinton had this reputation too, didn’t he?). He has an outstanding machine in place. They’ll do their job.
The big money worries me in the downstream races. When both sides are relatively unknown, a negative campaign and dirty tricks can have a huge effect on an election, especially a House election. I’ve got some hopes that those wingnuts who have been in the House and had a chance to expose their true colors to the voters will go down. But there’s a whole new crop with all that PAC money.
@jurassicpork: Not following any of your troll linkies today, and no I can’t say I’ve ever wondered anything about you.
And now I’ve fed the troll despite all my pleas with other people not to.
Poopyman
@(Respondents to DXM): Attention, all personnel! Please reset your snarkmeters ASAP!
grandpa john
@mai naem: The thing to remember as many seem not to remember is that the outcome is based on electoral votes not these silly popular vote”Horse Race” polls that the MSM push to keep the race to appear close
if they can manipulate the numbers to make it appear close, they then can profit from ad sells, and have something for their useless idiot news people to drone on and on about going from one contrived drama to another, all to try to increase ratings so they can charge more for the ads they sell.
It is grifting at its finest, and the media whores are experts at it.
Catsy
@askew:
Because there’s nothing the average person likes better than to have Mormons (or anyone else known for door-to-door evangelism) come knocking. That’ll go over well.
Suffern Ace
@rlrr: My likely scenario is that he does win both, but because his margin will be smaller, we will be told by the usual suspects that the win doesn’t count. It’s not the right kind of win.
Matt McIrvin
@freelancer:
I don’t think so, not quite. He’s probably got NC and Indiana, in addition to all the states McCain won in 2008. He gets to 270 if he holds those and flips Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and one smaller state.
If he loses Virginia, he most likely has to flip three smaller states instead of one, though Colorado and Wisconsin (where he’s mysteriously not concentrating funds) could get it with two. If he loses Ohio or Florida, he has to sweep most of the remaining contested states, which starts to look really unlikely. If he loses two of the big three, he goes home.
The only really plausible-looking Romney-win scenarios have him sweeping Florida, Ohio and Virginia, which is already a tall order.
WereBear
As a novelist, I’ve found it useful to remember the First Rule of Villainy:
Evil sows the seeds of its own destruction.
Esoterically speaking, it cannot help but do so; it is a destructive force, and cannot generate anything.
So what we are seeing with Mitt Romney is the Death Spiral of Wingnuttery; as they seek ever more pure lunacy, the appeal of their candidates, their policies, and their philosophies diminish among those with a working brain.
No matter how our Wingnut acquaintances, friends, and relatives seem like well-rounded and mature people, I’ve come to understand they are NOT. They have some fundamental issue they have never come to grips with, and seek refuge in denial, projection, and other Freudian insights.
Sadly for any democracy, there are a LOT of damaged people out there.
rlrr
@Suffern Ace:
Exactly, we already heard that that 2008…
scav
@Poopyman: Oh good, I thought I was the only one that had the invisible irony/snark tag light on.
Schlemizel
@askew: I have been wondering about that “mormon factor”. I remember reading during the primaries that there was a very quiet effort to use LDS members as foot soldiers. What I have gleaned from the dozen or so Mormons I have had long-term interactions with is they will turn out if the church tells them to.
They could, at least in theory, give Willard a formidable ground force. Would they be well used & effective? That would be a very big question since they are not trained so who leads them. Also, what would voters reaction be if it was discovered that the church was so heavily involved in his campaign?
grandpa john
@Donut: This
Obama never intended to give a Clinton style speech, these GD pundits are useless idiots most must have IQ’s of 70 or less.
Most of them must think that Obama is as scatterbrained as the GOP. This convention was highly planned and organized.
Each of the 5 main speakers as well as the lesser speakers had a main theme to cover and a designated audience that they were speaking to. Gee, what a novel idea, speaking to the various groups that make up the 99% instead of speaking to the 1%.
Donut
@Suffern Ace:
Yup. I agree. It may not be for others, but it’s a an easy contrast for us to see – Obama being realistic, grown up, vs Romney’s pie-in-the-sky conservative macro-econ fairies sprinkling us with non-union jobs and cheap fuel and fresh apple pies baked in Ann Romney’s uterus. In a few spots in his speech Obama was screamingly low-key in drawing the choice. I think it has thrown so,e for a loop because they expected or wanted him to be more forceful in directly rebutting Romney – but he didn’t have to do that. Clinton and even Biden had already nailed the Romney to the wall. Barack’s job was to point at said wall and basically say, “yeah, so…any questions about this?”
Liquid
@rlrr:
Aye, and if my Grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon.
Donut
@grandpa john:
David Axelrod, David Plouffe and their client leave pretty much nothing to chance.
Some people talk about how lucky they are all the time, but they make their own fortunes by planning to seize upon every option.
grandpa john
@Matt McIrvin:
With Goode now on the ballot in VA , this is almost a certainity
Matt McIrvin
If he loses two of the big three, he goes home.
Actually, I guess there is a scenario in which Romney loses Ohio and Virginia, but wins by getting Florida, all of the other contested states in the list, and Wisconsin.
But that’s not going to happen; if Romney wins all those states, likely his national standing has improved enough that he’s winning Ohio and Virginia too.
grandpa john
@Schlemizel: The kind of on the ground effort that Obama has cannot be established overnight or even in a few months, but needs years to be at its best
ChrisNYC
@Suffern Ace: Yes, but I’m thinking the ‘problem’ will be not the margin but the ‘smallness’ of the campaign. Not an accident that Mitt’s decided to go with ‘my policies are secret and have no place in any discussion of this election.’ Like the lady said in the Wire — “You cannot lose if you do not play.”
Dennis SGMM
Me? I thought Obama’s convention speech was a model of self-control. It must be frustrating beyond words to be trying to create a sustainable recovery and to have your efforts stymied by idiots, ideologues, and cowards.
Schlemizel
@Randy P: Thats not fair! I have often wondered when reading a porkie post “WTF is wrong with this clown?” or “How does someone live this long & remain this stupid?”
But other than that, no I don’t wonder about him.
Matt McIrvin
@grandpa john: I really don’t think Virgil Goode will be an issue. Historically, you have to have Florida 2000 levels of closeness, or a major campaign like Perot’s, before this kind of thing makes any difference. People may say they’re going to support minor third-party candidates early in a campaign, but they usually get rounding-error levels of support on the big day.
I’d bet on Obama carrying Virginia (though I wouldn’t bet a lot). But it’s not going to be because of Virgil Goode, it’ll be because Obama held his 2008 coalition.
Schlemizel
@grandpa john: Yeah, thats why I wonder how effective they can be. But, OTOH, they have thousands of people already walking the streets, knocking on doors and selling bullshit wholesale. They have the weapon but the question is can they use it?
grandpa john
@Donut: Yeah wasn’t that convention amazing; Run by adults for adults and with an adult theme
Suffern Ace
@Dennis SGMM: He’s got poise and patience in spades. Clearly it’s just a cover. He’s really thin skinned, dontchaknow.
gene108
@WereBear:
How many decades of strikes had unions been waging, before FDR took office?
FDR embraced an already active labor movement. He did not spear head the calls for an 8 hour work day or the minimum wage.
Politicians aren’t harbingers of change, they are the folks, who pick up what grassroots groups have been trying to accomplish and push it over the finish line.
Donut
@Schlemizel:
Kind of like how North Korea has a nuclear arsenal but can’t figure out how to actually get it airborne and deliver the payload?
Anyway, last I recall reading, the population percentage that self-IDs as Mormon is under 2%. Dunno if that’s enough people to make for an effective infantry.
grandpa john
@Dennis SGMM: he was speaking to the adults in the crowd, not the juvenile press corp
Dennis SGMM
@gene108:
This. And they can’t make us better as individuals or as a nation. They can appeal to the best within ourselves, but if people choose not to listen then they will remain the same.
Donut
@grandpa john:
I really thought it was outstanding. As an undergrad I did a little bit of research on presidential campaigns, and have lived through a few now. FWIW, I can’t recall one on the Dem side that was done better. With the exception of inviting Archbishop Dolan to pray, it was basically without a major flaw.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dennis SGMM:
What makes this comment funnier than all other comments?
grandpa john
@Matt McIrvin: That’s what I meant it will make a difference in Va and its 13 EV which could be enough to hit 270,
I wasn’t Clear,but no, outside of Va. Goode will have no effect, but hey ,picking off one swing state at a time is good
IowaOldLady
All I can do is hope the campaign spending stimulates our economy because it’s going to be painful.
Matt McIrvin
@grandpa john: Yeah, I don’t think Virgil Goode will even make a significant difference in Virginia. The white conservatives there are primarily motivated at this point by burning hate of Obama; they’re not going to do anything that could get him reelected.
grandpa john
If Goode picks up 4-5% or more of the vote in VA, most of which would be reps, it will make a big difference there
Dennis SGMM
@SiubhanDuinne:
Every 16 years, when the stars are just right, I’m able to pun.
GregB
IN 2008 NH women gave President Obama a 23% edge over McCain.
The state has been pounded pretty hard by a tea-bagger House who have been drumming the anti-abortion, anti-gay agenda.
We just had a Republican sheriff candidate declare that he’d shoot a doctor performing an abortion on sight.
Silver has NH ticking, and ticking upward towards President. Now an 83% chance of his winning.
Romney is still spending here and it is wasted Rmoney.
grandpa john
@Donut: I am 75, The first election and conventions I can vaguely remembe was 1948 an d we listened on radio, no TV. First TV was Nixon- Kennedy in 1960 but I remember little of these conventions But none of them through the years were ever as well organized and planned from beginning to end as the last 2 Dem conventions. and the last 2 rep conventions are examples of some of the worst.
Schlemizel
@Donut:
Maybe I’m just “lucky” but I see them around my neighborhood too often. That sort of surprised me at first since we have about 33% African American residents but maybe its part of their outreach.
I busted a hump in ’04 with Moveons ground game. One of the hardest things was to get people to agree to door knock & then to actually show up when they did promise. The Mormons wouldn’t have that issue to deal with. But I love your analogy (from your lips to His Noodley Appendages).
In 04 I spent election day door knocking at specific houses in two marginally R districts with about 2 dozen volunteers. Kerry carried the state (he was going to anyway). But the cool thing was we flipped to state senate seats blue! Lost them both in 10 sadly but that just reinforces how much we need more ground troops.
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
Damn, it’d be nice to have a real “New South.” There were hopes of one twice in our history, and both times it turned out to be a false hope as the old guard with the old ideologies reasserted itself.
Just One More Canuck
@mai naem: Bob Woodward? Didn’t he used to be someone?
EriktheRed
You talking about a poster on here?
grandpa john
@Dennis SGMM:
QUOTATION: People start parades-politicians just get out in front and act like they’re leading.
ATTRIBUTION: Dana Gillman Rinehart
Gwangung
@gene108:
Ding ding ding!
Which is why the fire baggers are all wet in their criticism of Obama. H can directly make changes around the edges, but continued change needs grass roots change….a foundation for further change. And that simply hasn’t been done yet, and has even been disdained.
Bigger, broader foundation for change, or else it will be short lived.
Villago Delenda Est
@EriktheRed:
Yes, the primordial slime that goes at the moment by the handle “Honest Observation”.
This creature has been here off and on for over a year, under various nyms, pushing first Pawlenty and then getting fully on the Rmoney Fail Train at the start of the actual primary season.
xian
@freelancer: you forgot Poland!
grandpa john
@Schlemizel: And we need to correct something that has long been a fault of Democrats, that is off year election passiveness and more attention to state and local elections, something that Dean went after.
Also I live in SC, deep south, stronghold of Southern Baptist, who maintain that Mormonism is a cult.. It will be interesting to see if they really do vote for Rmoney or if in the privacy of the voting both they vote for some one else, do not vote for anyone, or just stay home.
Chris
@Gwangung:
Yep.
As mentioned above – unions and populist activists and other groups like that were around for decades before the New Deal pushing for change. Ditto movement conservatives going back to Goldwater at least. What’s our equivalent right now? Is there one?
WereBear
It’s a process. I see where we are now as a second Civil War. The first one did the brute lifting from slavery to acknowledged humanity; now we are going for the full understanding, and will make progress.
It will never be eradicated, because it’s the nature of damaged psyches to look for someone to oppress to make themselves feel better. But at least we can get a civilized consensus that this is a stupid approach to life.
maya
@IowaOldLady:
You expecting the likes of Karl Rove and his dance partner to be vacationing in Iowa any time soon?
gogol's wife
@Anya:
I think he’s snarking. Not sure though.
Schlemizel
@grandpa john: (please stay home . . . please stay home . . . please stay home)
That would be so great, it might tip a bunch of house races & a senate seat or two (I know I’m dreaming but I’m old & don’t think I have enough time left to wait much longer to see the wingnut drown in their own tears & this country return to the land of opportunity for everyone it was supposed to be)
grandpa john
@WereBear: It will happen probably not in my lifetime, I am 75, but it will happen as the Latino population here continues to grow and increase. Even here in the small 5000 population town I live in and other small towns and villages all through our rural areas, there has been a large influx of Latino’s in the last 5-10 years and this is happening all through the south, NC is even now becoming a purple state
IowaOldLady
@maya: Now that would be painful.
Evolving Deep Southerner
College football open thread. Can we have one?
grandpa john
@Schlemizel: you must be like me I am 75 and can remember an entirely different south in some ways in others it is just like it was and is no better. I find that average folk here are less racist than when I grew up, they seemed to have accepted segregation and moved on with their lives, the politicians not so much because it is the dog whistles to the crowd who did not accept it that keeps getting the DeMints and Grahams elected .
Back when I was young, it was the conservative
Dems who were the racists,Today its the same type people and politicians , but now the have changed party to be repubs
trollhattan
@Dennis SGMM:
A truly vile pun. [golf clap]
trollhattan
@WereBear:
If it’s the death spiral I fear there’s infinite altitude for them to plummet. This is the same party that “seriously” considered nominating Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, Cain, and a series of parasitic insects in the desperate search for “anybody but Romney.”
No, I fear the true believers have enough party clout to insist they didn’t run far enough right–at least through 2014. Ultimately, it will be their financiers who decide.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@grandpa john:
You got that right. Same exact people, just with a different letter after their names.
CarolDuhart2
@grandpa john: My guess is that a lot of them will stay home and just not vote, especially in states like South Carolina. Romney just isn’t inspiring enough. And they can justify this by thinking that even if Obama wins, he’s going to be gone in 4 years. Why not just wait him out and see if someone more acceptable comes along in 16?
Frankensteinbeck
@gvg:
They can do whatever they want with the money with absolutely zero accountability, including pay the faithful, hard working PAC operator ten million of Adelson’s dollars and then spend another fifty million buying diamond encrusted gold statues for his house.
Chris
@grandpa john:
I love the fact that conservative propagandists will actually deny that it ever happened and pull the “party of Lincoln, the Dems were always the real racists” shit. Everyone knows who they’re voting for and why, shitheads…
Dennis SGMM
@trollhattan:
Someone hadda’ do it.
CarolDuhart2
@Frankensteinbeck: Which is what I suspect is going to happen. Fleecing billionaires who are clueless about politics is inevitable in a political entity that doesn’t have to meet real world metrics. A real political campaign has to deliver votes and ultimately victory. SuperPacs don’t have to produce tangible results-all they can do is commercials, commercials, commercials. So I suspect a lot of barely okay commercials done as cheaply as possible in places that are foregone conclusions. And the operators vacuum up the rest of the cash into perks and fees.
ellennelle
heh heh. so, all monied up and no independents to sway it seems. aaaaw.
reminds me of the old furry freak brothers’ wisdom:
times of dope and no money are better than times of money and no dope!
WereBear
@CarolDuhart2: Live by the Big Con… die by it.
grandpa john
@CarolDuhart2: I am a Methodist although raised as a Baptist, but even in our church there are many who consider Mormonism a cult. One whose father converted to Mormonism and He is 100% in his cult belief, has almost no contact with his father because of this
CarolDuhart2
@CarolDuhart2: If I’m right, expect crappy commercials in places that are foregone around October 15th. Once it’s clear that the results are more or less baked in the cake, then it’s resume polishing time and pocket stuffing time. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see them pop up in expensive but hopeless places like California and New York and Texas. Can stuff the pocket that way, charging outrageous “consultant” fees off the top.
Democrats should remember this. It was one of the major complaints about Democratic strategists from Kos and Howard Dean. Strategists would place ads and get part of the ad money based on how many ads they placed. It got so bad that perfectly winnable races were lost because all that was done was place ads. The ground game atrophied badly, Democratic parties lost. Only the consultants got rich.
Romney’s campaign seems to consist of these “consultants” and his strategy reflects likewise. He won by bombing his ill-financed and hapless opponents with negative ads which were largely true anyway. But he never created enough outreach during his primary, and little ground game.
Remember too that early voting this time is a factor that those old (70 plus) and out of touch billionaires don’t really get. Once enough people have voted, commercials aren’t going to do much unless its to work on getting people to the polls. If/when the Romney “consultants” get the numbers, it will be going through the motions time for them.
sparrow
@Liquid: The greek version of that: If my grandmother had balls, she’d be my grandfather.
priscianusjr
@notjonathon:
priscianusjr
@sparrow: