(Tony Auth via GoComics.com)
__
The Republicans are complaining that, as Jon Chait put it in NYMag, “pollsters and the news are conspiring to re-elect President Obama”. Professor Krugman has a theory about why (leaving aside the effect of huffing epistemic-closure fumes) the Greedy Old Pols might be spinning so busily:
Convention season has been brutal for the Romney campaign. Romney has trailed Obama, not by a lot but significantly, for months; the RNC was supposed to bounce him into the lead. Instead, Romney didn’t get a bounce — but Obama did. It’s far from over, but at this point Obama is the clear favorite to win.
Those are the facts. So why is the Romney campaign spinning furiously in an attempt to deny them? Well, I have a theory; it’s obvious, but I haven’t seen it elsewhere. It’s about the money…
Bear in mind that Romney’s one big advantage is a huge pile of cash. Much of this pile comes from committed right-wing zealots, like the Koch brothers. But a good chunk comes from business interests, Wall Street in particular, that historically try to buy influence with whoever they think will win. They like Romney better than Obama — he doesn’t look at them funny — but they’ve placed a very big bet on the Republicans this time compared with previous occasions, and they have to be feeling nervous.
If they come to the conclusion that they invested in a loser, they will try to cover their position by rushing a lot of cash to Obama in the final weeks of the campaign. And that will blunt the one big advantage Romney still has.
So the Romney campaign has to do all it can to obscure and deny reality, lest perceptions that their candidate is a lemon turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I guess it’s time to start tracking Maureen Dowd columns and Politico stories about Wall Street machers who have been seized with a road-to-Damascus conversion on the benefits of Keynesian economics…
***********
Apart from following the circus parade with a broom and a dungcart, what’s on the agenda for today?
raven
We’ll be ignoring what day it is too.
Todd
Not sleeping for shit. Wife is off on a two week jaunt to Australia/New Zealand, and I’m bummed.
PeakVT
Such a juvenile cartoon. I love it.
If you thought it was hot this summer, it was, except in the southeast.
SFAW
“GOP Productivity”?
I’ve never heard willful destruction called “productivity” before. But then again, back in the day (as you whippersnappers say), the behavior of the Rethugs in Congress would have been called “treason”, whereas now it’s left unchallenged. So I guess I got a thing or two to learn.
Maybe the Rethugs been listening to Jerry to much: “The sky was yellow and the sun was blue.”
Schlemizel
This cartoon feeds my darker side. My darker side says we would actually be better off (short-term) with a President Willard Rmoney. If he won the deficit would suddenly be under control with a couple of tax cuts and the gutting of some social programs. This would be followed by a stimulus program (under some BS new name) that would drop a couple of trillion dollars into roads and infrastructure employing hundreds of thousands.
Employment would rise rapidly and the economy would get humming again. Being white, male, over the age of 55 and currently employed all I’d sacrifice is YOUR social security and medicare, my grandkids education and the future of the country and planet.
If we reelect our President and can’t flip the house I am afraid we’ll have 4 years like the last 2.
NotMax
Things looking dimmer and grimmer for a certain loony lady from Minnesota:
Poll: Bachmann in danger
hep kitty
@NotMax: I wonder if anybody has heard about an overall post-convention bump for Dem candidates?
EconWatcher
@Schlemizel:
And if we lose the Senate, the next four years will be worse than the last two. For example, I doubt that the Senate would approve any Obama nominee to the Supreme Court. There is no precedent for that level of obstruction, but they would do it.
Overall, though, I’ve been thinking how lucky America was that Obama came along when he did. Hillary would have beaten McCain, but the freak-out would have been just as bad, and I’m pretty sure she would have handled it a lot worse. I doubt she would have even attempted universal health care.
Remember those bite-sized “micro-policies” that Clinton did once the Republicans took Congress? The kinds of things that sounded good but were so small-scale they were basically meaningless? We would have seen a lot of that, and a bigger and earlier cave on austerity, I think. Lots of triangulating and short-term tactics.
The only thing that saved this country was the preternatural calm and long view of one Barack Obama.
I know there’s a lot of Clinton love right now, and I loved his speech as much as anybody. But you have to forget a lot to remember that administration fondly. Like Dick Morris. And Marc Rich.
@VividBlueDotty
@LOLGOP seems to be considering taking the day off from GOP bashing for the day. Will be interesting to see if they do it and if so, what kind of stuff they tweet instead.
Drive-by Nomad
Are you better off than you were eleven years ago?
PeakVT
@hep kitty: Here’s some generic Congressional vote polling. The latest is a Ras poll from 9/3 to 9/9 which shows a small margin for the Dems. Links to polling for previous cycles are at the bottom.
R-Jud
Waiting to give a workshop. Exec just came over and began talking about how 9/11 was an inside job involving Jews.
I believe I’ll make my excuses after my session and not stay for lunch.
@VividBlueDotty
@R-Jud: Horrifying. I don’t know how you kept your cool.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Oh, please. She was “in danger” four years ago, with a lot of support/interest for the Dem running against her. How’d that turn out? And in 2010, she smoked the field.
Look, if a CD elects a nut case once, they (maybe) can be excused. But three times? As (I think) James Bond used to say (more-or-less): One time is happenstance, two times is coincidence, three times is enemy action. Perhaps MN-6 should move to Tejas.
bjacques
On this date in 1297, William Wallace beat the English at the battle of Stirling. FREEDOM!!!!
Also, too, that cartoon reminds me…I got my job through the National Lampoon!
A friend of mine on Facebook is a 9/11 Truther and she’s lately been having it out with adherents of a *rival* 9/11 conspiracy theory.
cmorenc
@PeakVT:
Living in central North Carolina, it was merely ordinary broiling, steaming mid-90s day after most days from mid-June through Labor Day hot.
BruceFromOhio
Just like they complained about Bush in 2004, I reckon.
Oh, wait …
SFAW
Apropos of nothing in particular:
Apparently ABL or someone is posting vids of Cole taking Tunch for a walk. Shows why Tunch is in such great shape. Not quite as fast as a Paul Ryan marathon, but close.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POS3JM5R_l0
cmorenc
@EconWatcher:
The Hillary of 2012 (and the Bill as well) seem to have improved and become more wisely tempered in Obama’s fold and with the wisdom of age. If she runs in 2016, it will be as a much better, sager candidate than in 2008. OTOH if she lets the likes of Mark Penn within miles of her campaign organization, I take back everything I’ve just said.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think that money issue is why the sudden gasp of horror from the Republican and their flailing. The grifters need the Wall Street love offering to tide them over to 2010.
TS
@NotMax:
It seems the law of diminishing returns – as demonstrated in California – is now in play in relation to what money can buy at election time.
Phylllis
@bjacques: I de-activated my Facebook account over the weekend. Missed it for about five minutes.
BruceFromOhio
@SFAW: Actually, it was the lead character Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger who spoke that line.
Bond: “I think you made your point, Goldfinger. Thank you for the demonstration.”
Goldfinger: “Choose your next witticism carefully, Mr. Bond. It may be your last.”
LGRooney
Gaming the ref has worked very well for them in the past given that the same cash that rules the elections rules the boardrooms governing the corporations of which newspapers are now a part. So, the pansies in the press have always asked how far when bending over.
Now, they realize that, no matter how far it is, it’s never enough and they are going after the duplicity and vagueness of the GOP platform, albeit with kid gloves. But, it’s a start!
aimai
@Schlemizel:
We won’t have gridlock but we won’t get the deficit under control or anything else. They will simply cut all social spending: they will raid SS and turn it over to the market, they will borrow the 1 trillion dollars that would be required to let the oldest SS holders “keep” their “government subsidies” and force all younger workers to trust wall street to hold their money. We will have a runaway train without any brakes instead of a train which is occasionally stalled by millionaires and billionaires refusing to pay their fares to corrupt conductors who refuse to let the train move between stops for the rest of us.
aimai
JPL
The NY Times has an oped on the Bush administration lack of reaction to warnings about an imminent attack on US soil from Osama.
link
I’m shocked..just shocked to learn how inept the previous administration was.
aimai
@R-Jud:
I’m going to put this here. A military wife I “know” on the internet asserts as common knowledge that the tumors her husband is being diagnosed with, and that other vets they know (Iraq and Afghanistan) are all coming down with was the result of THE WMD which were found in Iraq but mysteriously not reported. They were, according to her, what was burned in the large open trashheaps.
I’m reporting this here only because it serves to show that there are always new sources of misinformation bubbling along at the bottom levels of our society. She offered this information, in an entirely different discussion, to combat liberal lies about how “there were no WMD.”
Because of site rules about “no politics” I couldn’t explain to her that Chemical Weapons and our own Depleted Uranium and Toxic Wastes were just as dangerous as WMD, more likely to be burnt in open pits, and in any event the liklihood of the WMD being found during 8 years of Bush’s control of the war without anyone displaying them as proof was nil.
aimai
The Red Pen
Apparently, Rush Limbaugh went on a furious rant yesterday, pushing the claim that the polls are biased. Freepers reported that his voice was shaking with anger.
I think it fear.
1badbaba3
I love the smell of GOP productivity in the morning. Smells like elephant dung, and despairation.
SFAW
@BruceFromOhio:
Bruce –
Thanks for the help/correction.
I think it plays better with Bond saying it, but I try not to argue with reality. (Shakes fist at sky.)
bjacques
@Phylllis: It’s too late for me. I’m hooked.
Our dollars are ten of theirs because our hearts are pure. Seriously, despite its at times dispiriting lack of organization, the Democratic Party has always been able to get more out of every dollar spent. We also tend to have more and better volunteers and to be able to get more effort out of them. It also helps that the campaign has good leaders who actually care about winning, as opposed to a stiff like Mark Penn, Lanny Davis or James Carville, who only cares about having a ready market for his “expertise” and whose fee is the campaign’s biggest single expense.
PurpleGirl
@NotMax: This would be good. It’s time for her to have a job change.
Mino
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/11/1130302/-Major-French-newspaper-to-billionaire-Fxxk-off-you-rich-bastard
“France’s most important left-wing newspaper, Libération, has affronted the country’s wealthiest man, Bernard Arnault, said to be worth about $41 billion, with a front-page take-down for his announcement that he would seek double French/Belgian nationality. This after Hollande announced tax increases on the job creators obscenely wealthy as a means of reducing the French national debt and allowing the government to stimulate the economy by creating new jobs, including a promise to hire 60,000 teachers. Arnault responded by announcing that he will soon be filing suit against the paper.”
Phylllis
@bjacques: I think it was easy for me because I’d already unsubscribed from the feed of 98% of my friends/family anyway.
Kirbster
If voters haven’t learned from the 2010 elections that a vote for Republicans is a vote for gridlock, sabotage, and destruction, I’m not sure there is any hope for this country. The Teahouse of Terror and its good buddies in the Senate have done everything in their power to delay, dilute, and poison necessary legislation to get us out of this recession. They’ve crashed our credit rating, held up non-controversial treaties, and wasted everybody’s time and money on pointless symbolic votes on social issues and attempts to repeal the ACA and consumer financial protection.
Chyron HR
@The Red Pen:
Well, sure. They polled the American people, who have a clear anti-Romney bias.
1badbaba3
@1badbaba3: And mendacity. Don’t forget mendacity.
@SFAW: She was fine for both sides as long as she did the garden variety wingnut thing. But when she started to go the full Mccarthy, that may have been a bridge too far. Given the fact that lawbreakers like Diaper Vitter, and Mark “Appalachian Trail” Sanford got full GOP cover for their stupidity, the smackdown of her by Mccain and others perhaps says they think she has jumped the proverbial shark. Personally I think it’s been all downhill since the corndog incident.
@SFAW: Can’t be Tunch. You would need a crane or 100 Nubian slaves involved in the moving of the bulk. Accept no substitutes.
Todd
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/10/1129956/-Mark-Halperin-rips-Romney-and-his-troubles
When you’ve lost Halperin…
Schlemizel
@aimai: Thats 100% true but my SS & Medicare will be safe & I’ll be dead before the worst damage they are doing really brings the house down so there is little down side for me!!!! And it is all about me after all.
That part of the post was snark but I do worry about the future with a GOP house and President Obama. The GOPs only goal the last 4 years has been to destroy our President with no regard to the damage they are doing to this country. I know we recovered after the Civil War but I have no idea how despite reading on the subject and the damage done still haunts the nation. This current Civil Cold War could be worse in the long run
raven
@Schlemizel: such a worrywart you are
Ed in NJ
@SFAW:
That’s a pretty strong response to something you don’t know what you are talking about. Redistricting in Minn. forced Bachmann to run in a district she no longer lives in to avoid running against a popular Dem in her own district. There are no residency requirements in Minn.
So while I assume when all is said and done she will be re-elected, mostly due to the national money that will come in if she is truly in peril, you cannot compare this election to past results because it is not the same electorate this time around.
SFAW
@1badbaba3:
Well, the blah tail kinda gave it away, eh? But think of it as an allegory. No, a metaphor. No, what’s that word … a palindrome? No, the palindrome would be “Notlob”. Whatever.
Jay in Oregon
@The Red Pen:
I suppose it’s too much to hope for that all of that spittle-flecked rage does the poor dear in, and sooner rather than later.
Bless his heart.
The Bobs
Haven’t many of the financial bigwigs typically given to both sides, guaranteeing them their influence. This time they went all in with Romney. If they lose, they are fucked.
SFAW
@Ed in NJ:
Sounds like I fit right in with the BJ commentariat, hunh? And it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done it, and been wrong to boot.
But, still, let’s wait to see what happens in November. I will be quite happy if the results prove me wrong, believe me.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Romney has always surrounded himself by yes men. He’s the decider and he’s decided he should be winning.
Schlemizel
@raven: yes, sadly, I always expect the worst and am rarely disappointed.
In Jr. High School a friend nicknamed me ‘Eyeore’ but having never read Pooh I didn’t catch the meaning until I read it to my kids. I admit it, it fits
Svensker
@SFAW:
That’s hilarious. Yet intriguing as a new way of dust mopping the floor…
Todd
@The Bobs:
It would be fun to think that they may be calling OFA to give checks and risk being told “we’ll get back with you on November 8”.
Sad But True
Not sure if this is old news, but this is just too perfect:
from http://espn.go.com/boston/ncb/story/_/id/8365046/ncb-report-says-harvard-kyle-casey-withdraw-miss-season-due-cheating-scandal
SFAW
@Sad But True:
Slightly old.
However, no surprise to the Techies. (I’m kidding – just a little Cantab rivalry rearing its ugly head.)
Jamey
No time to read others’ comments; just here to say that the problem facing the GOP is that there’s a conspiracy of VOTERS who are trying to reelect President Obama.
SFAW
@Jamey:
Thanks FSM the Rethugs in PA, FLA, OH, and the rest are doing their utmost to nip that conspiracy in the bud by weeding out the insufficiently-right-thinking.
schrodinger's cat
I love the taste of wingnut tears in the morning.
artem1s
@Schlemizel:
true that. but I think one lesson we might learn from the last civil war is that pushing the conflict down the road does not make it go away or make it easier when the fighting finally breaks out.
priscianusjr
I am not persuaded by Krugman’s argument. First of all, when people are losing in a heated contest, it’s normal for them to deny it — to the public and, if possible, to themselves. Does anybody expect Romney to come out with something like, “After considerable thought I’ve come to the conclusion that my campaign is going nowhere, so you might as well vote for the other guy or at least stay home on Election Day.”
In other words, there’s no mystery to Romney’s refusal to admit that he’s not doing well.
Second of all, Wall Street. The idea that Wall Street is dependent on Romney’s self-characterization of how he’s doing is ridiculous. They can read the polls like everybody else.
The great thing is, if the Wall Streeters do start giving to Obama, well, he can use the money, but the beauty of it is, he don’t owe them NOTHIN’. It’s more like he will graciously deign to take their money, for the privilege of being allowed to endorse his platform.
But I think it’s far more likely that Wall Street and the rest of the oligarchical scum will pour more of their money into CONGRESSIONAL races in a last-ditch attempt to save capitalism from the maniacal socialist.
Krugman is a brilliant thinker, a great economist and an excellent writer, but as usual he has a curious deficit when it comes to politics.
jim filyaw
re: wall street money
“when we hang the last bourgeoisie, some capitalist will be there to sell us the rope.” lenin
Rathskeller
At redstate.com right now, three of the ten front-page stories concern polling.
it’s a temporary bounce, and Bill Clinton made it happen.
it’s a temporary bounce, and give money to Romney right now.
Nate Silver received secret info from Obama campaign, so he is forever tainted.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
“Notlob” is not a palindrome. You must be thinking of “Taco cat”.
BruceFromOhio
@Kirbster: The result of a decade of Rovian politics writ large: if you can’t a) bend a process to your own political gain, then b) break it so no one else can use it, meanwhile c) attack, attack, attack.
The Bush regime perfected this in 2002-2004 (for example, see Justice, Department of), and it will take decades to repair the damage done by the also-too crew.
Joel
@raven: Don’t worry, with OBL dead, I think the wingnut christmas era is over.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@The Red Pen:
Here’s the weird thing: YTF would Rush Limbaugh be afraid???
If there’s a second Obama term, he’ll still be rich beyond the dreams of avarice (worst-case, a few less percent to keep after taxes… still in the millions). His health care situation won’t change one bit. It’s not like Obama’s going to have him hauled off to Gitmo. He’ll still have his Cuban cigars, his German Mercedes and his Dominican rentboys. And he of all people should know that his radio show benefits more when he’s the disloyal opposition.
Maybe the old grifter’s a true believer, after all…
Rathskeller
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Blame epistemic closure. Yesterday Rush said ““How long do we have, folks? I know people who think 18 months before a real United States economic collapse.” That does sound like a true believer. He also predicted the end of the GOP if Obama wins.
But in addition to this, Rush has been opposed to Romney before the nomination, and clearly different aspects of Romney’s campaign have annoyed the fuck out of him (Andrea Saul’s defense of Romney care, response to SC immigration ruling, etc). This half-assed campaign has to be jumping on his last nerve.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
No, I’m thinking of “Notlob”, or, more properly, I guess, “notloB”.
Teh Google is your friend! Try it and see!
SW
I say pollsters and the press (media) are conspiring to make the race look close because all the money spent on it goes to them. They are both the arsonists and the fire department.
danielx
@SFAW:
Like Cole would ever get Tunch into one of those harnesses without being slashed to ribbons by a raging furball of claws and teeth.
TenguPhule
You’re not supposed to talk about the 2013 surprise.
Matt McIrvin
@The Red Pen: Why would Rush Limbaugh be afraid? President Obama is the best thing that ever happened to him. He knows his fans are scared, though.
Matt McIrvin
@Rathskeller: It probably is a temporary bounce. So? Obama will still be ahead when it’s over.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemizel:
It’s something I’ve speculated about myself, that what we have here is a simple hostage situation and in the short term (and the short term alone), the optimal strategy is to just give into the hostage-takers’ demands.
But it assumes two things. First, that Romney would actually be competent enough to manage this. Second, that he’d have GWB/Cheney-level control over the Tea Party true believers in Congress who would otherwise block this from happening.
The first might be true. I’m not so sure about the second. I think the true believers have run away with the party. Romney can’t even distance himself from them in his general-election rhetoric.
priscianusjr
@Rathskeller:
Barney
If no-one has pointed this out yet, you’ve got to see this:
RedState: Quote a FactChecker Earn a Ban
It’s a proposal, by a moderator there. And so far, they seem to think it would be Good Thing, overall. Facts? RedState don’t need no stinkin’ facts. Facts have a liberal bias, and that’s official, at the site of CNN commentator Erick Erickson. Facts are the enemy of all that is Republican.
xian
It’s funny to compare Redstate (and, to be fair, GOS) with my two favorite commentariats, B-J and politicalwire. The latter two are almost as completely lib/Dem as Redstate is nutter/Rep but as long as wingnuts don’t troll or spam or sockpuppet, we’re happy to debate their b.s.
Over on Redstate, in freeperville, etc., you are banned simply for not coming from the same point of view as the tribe, no matter how reasonable…so I suppose really subtle concern trolling would be the only way to go?