It should come as no surprise that the same people who deny global warming and evolution are whining about “skewed polling” and “Democrat-heavy polling models” even though there’s no incentive for pollsters to get polling wrong.
Here’s my simple and obvious prediction: After Romney loses even though the “unskewed” polls showed him winning, the birthers will become “pollers”. There will be a massive hunt for voter fraud, accompanied by pictures of blahs and browns lined up to vote. Some white guy somewhere will have been kept from voting by the Black Panthers or La Raza, and his story will light up Town Hall, Red State and Fox Nation. It will go on for months, get lots of attention, and a new Orly Taitz will rise to lead them.
Schlemizel
I’ll go further and bet you the sun will appear in the Eastern sky tomorrow morning and by evening it will be disappearing in the Western horizon.
8-{D
Culture of Truth
“How did Romney lose?”
He didn’t! Ah sweet, fake reality.
dr. bloor
Exactly. Doctor the data, and the use it to claim the actual results of the election are illegitimate.
Baud
Once Obama is a lame duck, the Republican Party will have lost its guiding principle of defeating Obama. Who knows where they go from there? I suspect, however, that the crazies will have greater difficulty getting media exposure on Fox and other right-wing media.
Hill Dweller
Benen pointed out Fox & Friends is getting in on the conspiracy theory despite Fox’s polls showing the same Obama lead and Rove talking about Romney winning without Ohio.
Captain Haddock
Color me (no pun intended) optimistic, but I see the RW noise machine losing its power. Sure, it can get the diehard followers all juiced up, but it doesn’t seem to resonate in the MSM like it did before. People are getting sick of it – they’ve played the same hand too many times before and its just not “fun” anymore.
Ironically, I wouldn’t know what these idiots were up to without coming to left-leaning blogs to read about it. So, unless you are tuned in to blogs or Fox, this crap is going right by you.
Bill in Section 147
Grift meet Opportunity. Obama creates job again.
Forum Transmitted Disease
The old one hasn’t been deported yet, and this is the land of the comeback, after all.
owlbear1
Cha-Ching!
kindness
See and I’m more concerned with the TeaHaddists who plan on going to the polls and challenging everyone else (who they feel may vote for a Democrat). Yesterday there was good data from Kay as to what our rights are if challenged.
I think it would do the progressives out here in the States a world of good if a Cliff Notes about challenging poll watchers is put out there. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that we need to protect the integrity of the vote from those that would take it away from us.
ding dong
They’re going to be looking for anything to impeach Obama for. Anything.
MattF
Certainly possible, but why didn’t it happen in 2008? More likely, I think, 1) Romney-the-RINO, who, e.g., never ‘unleashed’ Ryan, 2) Romney-the-incompetent, last man standing after the Republican primaries 3) Various conspiracies, including media, pollsters, and unnamable dark forces. And, needless to say, no mention of the fact that Obama is a far better candidate than Rmny.
kd bart
Lather Rinse Repeat
jibeaux
The thing about conspiracy theories is that they’re self-reinforcing. Try to dispute them, and you’re just further evidence of how deep the cover-up goes. So I think the narrative will play out as: the pollsters were biased towards Democrats, they manipulated the data and made it seem like it was game over, so Republicans stayed home and because of THAT Romney lost — the polls created a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s really the perfect wingnut fairy tale.
HelloRochester
Yup.
Alex S.
You’re probably right. Lately, I’ve been wondering if my prediction of a 54%-45% Obama victory was a little bit on the low side. If Karl Rove withdraws his money from the Romney campaign, things can get bad pretty fast. And the debates will not help Romney.
BGinCHI
The only flaw with this argument is that they won’t be wailing about Romney losing because they know damn well he’s a shit candidate and a terrible person. No mourning for him.
What they will do, if there is any justice left in this world, is descend on Reince Priebus and tear him limb from limb.
Then of course they’ll go on enjoying the benefits of government in the form of the ACA, Medicare, SS, roads, clean air, and so on.
gussie
‘A New Orly Taitz’ should be a new category. I’m afraid it will be seeing a lot of use.
kd bart
#1 Principle of Right Wing Politics: Always keep the rubes frothy and angry about something. If they’re not frothy and angry about something, they may begin to notice that you’re screwing them over.
Dennis SGMM
@Baud:
Not so fast there, partner. Since the days of St. Ronnie the Republican party has become incurious to the point of being comatose. The crazies provide them with simplistic solutions and loads of rhetoric. The party has become so intellectually lazy, and so comfortable with their laziness, that it would take a generation to turn it around. Fox is in a symbiotic relationship with the Republicans and it will show them the same solicitude no matter how batshit crazy they become.
GregB
If his serial ineptitude is any guide, Romney will appoint Orly Taitz to lead his post election voter fraud effort.
Donut
Dude, don’t you remember from the meme from the summer, the conservative bench is super-way-mega-deep. Look at the awe-inspiring group they have showed off to ‘Merica this election season: Ryan, Christie, Scott Walker, uh…some other 60-ish white guys, and then how about that Ann Romney, ya know, woo! Vaginas, we love you!
Who needs Orly? You’re focused in the wrong places. The GOP Is positioned to reign for decades, just as soon as they stop failing real conservatism, and really put it into practice.
Zombie Reagan in ’16.
Chris
@MattF:
And the evil elites of the Republican Party, secretly agents of the liberal conspiracy, who sabotaged the primaries to foist one of their own on the party instead of a True Salt Of The Earth Teabagger. (Worked with McCain).
drj
Seriously, that prediction was just too easy.
floridafrog
Our handy election lawyers are training volunteers to be effective poll watchers and we will try to put one in every precinct. At a minimum we will have one in every precinct with significant minority presence.
General Stuck
Poor dears, they know not what they wank. The deal is you call a bunch of people and ask them questions about politics, and you ask them what party they Identify with currently. To do it any other way would be ‘fixing’ the poll. And nearly every poll out there is reporting huge swings of those polled to say they ID with democrats, save for Rasmussen and the new Potemkin polls the nutters are creating with the desired results.
At first, I thought it was just a minor uptick favorable to dems, that happens from time to time, but it is sustained and really off the normal charts when voters get scared by GOP candidate excesses.
We are seeing 11 or 12 point swings toward dems right now. And though early, that is fully consistent with a real time political shift, possibly of the tectonic variety. Time will tell, but all this does not surprise me given the recent candor of republicans telling us what they are really for, without the Luntzian bullshit wordsmithing to wiggle sideways that they do usually do.
But nutters ought to worry past Romney, and hope this is not what it kinda looks like, a congealing national consensus that the GOP is FUBAR.
Baud
@Dennis SGMM:
I guess it depends on how broad your definition of “crazies” is. My guess is that the dominant face of the GOP on right-wing media post 2012 will be the “serious fiscal conservative” rather than the tea party, birthers, etc.
Steve M.
@Baud:
I disagree. The plan will be to make the second term a carbon copy of the first term: thwart Obama, attack him, then win big in the midterms running on his “failed agenda.” And then look toward 2016 and try to consolidate the gains by finally getting the all-GOP government they lost in 2006.
I think demographics and the diminishing appeal of wingnut craziness may make this impossible. But they’ll try, because that’s what they do.
bemused
Republicans are so tiresome….we’ve been living with toddlers having tantrums for decades.
1badbaba3
Remember, these are the people that still give Cheney a pass on 9-11. That give KBR a pass for zapping 13 soldiers in the showers. OUR soldiers. Fuck them and fuck their wingnut tears.
Goddammit, why the hell can’t Obama get those FEMA death camps up and running? Worst Hitler impression evah.
Bubblegum Tate
I can’t help but note that these people think polls showing Obama ahead are clearly part of an elaborate plot to suppress voting, but actual voter suppression done by them is not voter suppression.
JGabriel
__
__
Baud:
The Crazies(tm) will not have greater difficulty getting media exposure on Fox; the people who own and run Fox, Murdoch and Ailes in particular, are fully fledged members of The Crazies(tm) themselves.
.
Culture of Truth
It didn’t happen in 2008 because the whole county was reeling from a massive economic crisis, Obama was the overwhelming favorite, and McCain practically conceded the election.
3.5 years later Obama has beaten them consistently, including this year’s crushing defeat at the Supreme Court, and it looks like he will win again despite objective economic factors that tell them they should be winning, which is making them crazy.
quannlace
Oh, but that’s so 2008. They need to come up with something new.
They can’t do the ‘White People’s Guilt.’ If that had been true, the fact that we’d given Obama his four years would have been enough. Guilt assuaged ! We’re free to vote for who we want.
I can’t tell what the ‘skewed polls’ effect is supposed to be. Are they magicaly hypnotizing people to vote for Obama? Or do they depress Republicans so much they stay home on Election day?
jeffreyw
Sooner or later, in every comment thread that discusses the crazy, someone will mention Orly Taitz. I call it jeffrey’s law.
Roger Moore
@dr. bloor:
Doctored data is helpful, but not necessary, in claiming the election is illegitimate. They only need one person who claims to be a Republican who was kept away from the polls and they’ll feel the whole thing was rigged. ACORN, NBPP, etc.
beltane
@ding dong: And if they lose the House, something that is not outside the realm of possibility, they will be left impotent with no recourse other than to dial up the crazy to heretofore unknown levels.
dr. bloor
@BGinCHI:
The thing is, they’re not trying to explain the loss, they’re aiming to delegitimize the Dem administration.
Schlemizel
@Steve M.:
They will try because its all they have.
The toe tag reads:
Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt
Violet
I hope Obama wins big a massively large margin, and his coattails are so long he drags a bunch of Dems in races all across the country across the finish line with him. It can happen.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Baud: Four years of wall-to-wall obstructionism. You don’t think they’re going to stop just because we won an election, do you?
General Stuck
@jeffreyw:
I second that emotion, let it be written – Jeffrey’s Law.
MikeJ
@JGabriel:
The crazies are already complaining that Fox isn’t “conservative” enough. Fox will do what it takes to keep from losing the only people who watch them.
Valdivia
Too bad they got rid of ACORN since they can’t blame it on them like they did last time eh?
dmsilev
So, I understand that the ‘Unskewed’ thing is mainly an exercise in wishful thinking. What strikes me about it, though, is that it’s not even vaguely internally consistent. The whole “idea” of it is that Rasmussen has The One True Partisan Weighting, and all other polls need to be “adjusted” to fit, and that once you do that Romney is up by something like 6 or 7 points.
If that’s the case, however, why isn’t Rasmussen showing Romney up by 6 or 7 points? All of the Rasmussen tracking polls show a tied race plus/minus a couple of points.
I know, I know, there we go with that whole “logic” thing again.
TomInCO
@Baud: Once they are no longer able to defeat him at the polls, they will scream “impeach!” 24/7…
Baud
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
No, but they’ll have to think about the open election in 2016, when they won’t be able to run directly against Obama and when their base will be even smaller than it is now.
amk
rachel maddow nails the batshitcrazy goin’ batshittercrazier.
Dennis SGMM
@Baud:
That could be. It’s certain in any case that they won’t actually reexamine any of their ideas because they’re incapable of introspection. The notion of putting old ideas in a new wrapper certainly fits the Republican methodology to a T.
blingee
or not.
SatanicPanic
@Captain Haddock: Obama, Pelosi, et al. have ushered in the New Liberal Era with the ACA. I don’t think I’m being overly optimistic either. When people start whining “the government blah blah blah” and the response is “I have health insurance now, fool. The government saved my life”- that’s curtains for the conservative era. If we can replace Scalia and Thomas on the court then it’s a done deal for the next 20-30 years.
David Hunt
I can see all that you predicted happening as if I’m already there. It’s like watching a car stuck on train tracks as the train approaches unable to stop. Unfortunately, I see the whole thing as a best case scenario since its prerequisite is an Obama victory…
Scratch that. If Romney wins, (a frightening prospect but possible) that will be proof that the polling was skewed due to a massive conspiracy leading to a massive effort to purge voting fraud from our elections. “Voting fraud” being defined as voting for someone who isn’t Republican.
libarbarian
My God. What is the tactical benefit to this approach?
I suppose it could be that they think that bad polls will demotivate their base and that this kind of reality-warping will re-energize them and motivate them to vote, but what if voters get MORE complacent when they think their side is already going to win?
Is there a motivating intelligence to this, or is it really just a case of affirmation seeking?
The Red Pen
The more-charitable wingnuts are simply claiming that the pollsters are using “2008 models” that won’t apply in 2012 because this guy they know who voted for Obama because he’s black isn’t going to do that again.
Interestingly, in the last week, Freepers have declared that the “communists” have taken control of:
* Rasmussen
* Newsmax
* Fox News
* Bill Kristol
* Ann Coulter
* Politico
* Drudge
* The Orbital Mind-Control Lasers
scav
It’s the telecoms being in the bag for Obama. They’re rerouting calls from non-partisan polling outfits and connecting them to known Obama supporters. Only purely chicken-entrail Bible-approved and morally pure polls based exclusively on Smoke-signalling are immune to the effect.
1badbaba3
@Schlemizel: Ah, the golden age of television comedy. Sweet.
gnomedad
If I could wave a wand and immunize the populace to one logical fallacy, it would be nutpicking in all its manifestations. In a country of 300 million people, almost any crazy thing you can imagine has been done by someone or said by someone, somewhere. If you are pre-convinced of just about anything, proof by anecdote is a snap. Closely related is the denunciation game; e.g., why won’t Obama denounce “Piss Christ”, etc.
mcd410x
GOP conspiracies always, always paint the Republicans as completely impotent. It’s funnier than hell.
Chris
@libarbarian:
Please do recall the foundation upon which all wingnut beliefs are built;
“It’s not our fault. If something’s going wrong, it’s because someone’s plotting against us. Find that someone, blame them and hope the public goes with it.”
Hal
My money is on Victoria Jackson. Or Michelle Bachman if she’s actually out of a job this time.
BGinCHI
@dr. bloor: I really don’t think there is much left for them on that score. People are getting tired of that, or they wouldn’t be voting for Dems.
Obstruction isn’t a political strategy with a long-term future.
gnomedad
@The Red Pen:
WTF, are you serious? I mean, orbital mind-control lasers, sure, but …
Linda Featheringill
@Violet:
There are hopeful signs. I noted yesterday or the day before that people over 65 are almost even for and against Obama. Also, white males are still breaking Republican but by only 3 or 4 points, as opposed to 20 or so previously. These new “converts” might be amenable to looking at the records of representatives and actually vote for the other person.
catclub
@JGabriel: I still hope Obama thanks Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes for growing such shitty candidates in the Fox hothouse, in his victory speech. And they both stroke out from it.
cmorenc
We on the progressive side need to be aware of the risk of becoming caged inside our own information bubble: e.g. DKos and Balloon Juice on the web and MSNBC on tv. To be sure, the factual domain presented in our sources is far better grounded in objective reality; the problem isn’t that we’re being fed and uncritically swallowing a stream of “truthy” junk the way those inside the right wing bubble are. However, it would be good to keep in mind that many of our sources are also cheerleaders as much or more than objective information-presenters (e.g. Martin Bashir and Al Sharpton on MSNBC), and this is even partly true of even the very best of the best progressive sources, Rachael Maddow.
The problem for us here is to not lose sight that the majority of Americans do not share, or only very partially share, our perspective on reality of the American political, economic, and cultural landscape (if only they did, progressive candidates would be winning election after election by landslide margins across most of the country). It is indeed a good development that Fox is being increasingly seen for what it is (a GOP propaganda outlet rather than objective news source) by the non-GOP p[artisan portion of the population, but it’s necessary to also recognize that many non-progressives who’ve come to this realization about Fox are also skeptical of the progressive bubble as well (MSNBC). In other words, be careful to not mistake our own progressive-friendly media and internet space for the broader landscape of public opinion, even the portion skeptically outside the Fox bubble.
qwerty42
@Baud:
Well, darn. No more tricorn hats?
Violet
One difference is that I think President Obama realized after the debt negotiations that the Republicans are going to be obstructionists for obstruction’s sake and to try to destroy him. He changed his tactics and he’s not going to take any crap from the GOP reps anymore. I don’t think they realize what a world of hurt they’ve got coming in this next Congressional session if Obama wins, as I hope he does.
Geeno
As George Carlin said in his weatherman routine: “Tonight’s forecast: dark. Continued dark through most of this evening turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Where did they go from 1996? Impeach, impeach, impeach! It doesn’t matter if there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of a conviction.
Over what, specifically, I’m not sure, if Fast and Furious, Solyndra and birtherism are the best they can come up with. They could attack him from the left and take up drone assassinations and wiretapping, which would actually be interesting, but they won’t do that. But if they want to, they’ll come up with something.
That’s provided they retain control of the House, which is not certain.
Brandon
I think mistermix has got it wrong this time. This is just classic right wing bullying to get pollsters to put their thumbs on their own polls. They figured that it worked for decades with the media proper, so why not the pollsters themselves. Once the election is over they will move on to their new shiny.
Tractarian
You know what? I’m totally fine with that. It’ll give them something to do while the grown-ups in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress make and execute laws for the next 2-4 years.
Amir Khalid
@Donut:
I don’t know how confident the Republicans are in their bench for 2016, given that it consists of politicians who lacked the guts to face a Democratic incumbent facing a weak economy with high employment. But since you say Chris Christie is on it, I will admit that it must be a strong bench.
The Red Pen
@gnomedad:
I am. Every single thing I listed (OK, I added the OMCL) has been declared in the thrall of liberals because it has criticized the Romney campaign.
Wingnut orthodoxy not only says that the polls are skewed, but that there is a massive conspiracy to demotivate Republicans so that they won’t bother to hold their nose and vote for Obama-in-magic-underpants (Romney).
I read this stuff everyday, so I forget that it’s not established wisdom for everybody.
General Stuck
@cmorenc:
We are discussing current trends in polling, not retail politics. Polling that is not a perfect measuring stick by any means, but that is driven by data of what voters have rolling around in their noggins. I don’t think it is so much them climbing on board the hippy wagon, so much as the scales possibly falling away in their calculations of what the republican party wants. The “47 percent” nonsense spewed by Romney was political self immolation, but it was also accurate to the GOP mentality as aspired for policy by their leaders. If it is a political awakening by a sizable number of swing voters, and maybe even some soft republicans, that is huge. And long the fuck overdue.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (Mumphrey, et al.)
I’d like to believe you’re wrong about this, but I fear that you’re right. Republicans will not accept this election as legitimate if–as seems likely–President Obama wins. I don’t think there will be any way for them to overturn the election, or even fail creditably; but they’ll just turn to fucking the country sideways in their rage and seething resentment.
I can hear it all already: The pollsters were all in the tank for Obama. The press was in the tank for Obama. Needless to say, blacks voted for Obama overwhelmingly because they’re all racist. The Democrats jiggered with the votes after they were cast. There was widespread voter fraud all over the country, with hundreds of thousands or even millions of dead people voting…
It all gets so wearisome. Just once, one lousy time, I’d like to see Republicans lose with a little grace. But, no. They’ll whine and screech and wail and weep and blame everybody but themselves. This is how little children behave when they lose. This is how little children behave when they don’t get their way all the time about everything. Every time something thwarts their wishes, however picayune they may be, it’s the greatest outrage, the foulest injustice the world hasa ever known. It’s sad that the political party that Abraham Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens and Charles SUmner helped get off the ground has become a refuge for three year olds living in wrinkly, paunchy, balding middle-aged bodies.
1badbaba3
@Hal: Jeez, would it not be the coolest thing if batshit Bachmann, zombie-eyed Ayn Ryan, giant douchecanoe Joe Walsh, and traitorous scumbag Allen “put my black ass in th stockade” West all lose?
The scramble for limited wingnut welfare will be vicious. Say, maybe there’s a reality show in the works.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Baud:
Sure they will. A O’Malley/Patrick/Clinton presidency would be a continuation of the liberal policies that have bankrupted this country!
catclub
@Violet: “I don’t think they realize what a world of hurt they’ve got coming in this next Congressional session if Obama wins”
And they will never feel a thing from Obama.
He may do the angry black man after he is no longer president,
but not a minute sooner.
Matt McIrvin
…If they get control of the Senate, which currently seems against the odds, there’s the option of attempting to foment a war with Iran and/or Syria over Obama’s objection.
I actually worried post-2010 that Congress might attempt to formally declare war for the first time since 1942 (and for the first time ever without presidential request), and dare Obama to veto it. But with Obama reelected and term-limited, the political stakes for him are lower, which makes it less of a threat.
Mr Stagger Lee
@MikeJ: I got a feeling there may be a WorldNutDaily or a Glenn Beck Network on the horizon
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Dennis SGMM:
Not only that, but they’ve become cosummate victims. When they lose–as I believe they will–they’ll whine about it on Fox and any other outlet that will have them for four years about how the bad, bad Democrats so viciously wronged them.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Dennis SGMM:
Not only that, but they’ve become cosummate victims. When they lose–as I believe they will–they’ll whine about it on Fox and any other outlet that will have them for four years about how the bad, bad Democrats so viciously wronged them.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
The Senate voted for a non-binding resolution on Saturday that expressed their belief that Iran shouldn’t be allowed to get a nuke and that “containment is not an option” (apparently, “all options are on the table” doesn’t mean what English-speaking people think it means).
Forum Transmitted Disease
Several of you on the thread have mentioned this, but it bears repeating: the wingnuts are starting to turn on Fox for being insufficiently faithful to the party line.
I think Fox will end up the biggest loser in 2012, when the teabillys turn on it en masse for not defeating the Kenyan Mau Mau menace.
The Red Pen
@cmorenc:
Aside from keeping an eye on Red State or what’s trending on Free Republic, we can inoculate ourselves by taking the polling seriously.
A lot of Freepers are predicting a Romney landslide because who could possibly not hate Obama? I mean, they hated him before it was cool, and now everyone has seen how terrible he is, right? According to them, “everyone” wants Obamacare repealed and several dozen countries invaded, and the Likud party given official representation in Congress and welfare ended and Social Security turned into coupons and so forth. Everyone!
Well, the polls tell us otherwise. Sometimes they also knock left-wing ideas off the list of things “everyone wants.” We need to accept that.
Baud
@Shawn in ShowMe:
But that’s a generic argument they levy against any Democrat – it’s not Obama specific, which is what the Romney campaign currently is.
Roger Moore
@The Red Pen:
I think it would be more accurate to say that the Democrats have used the Orbital Mind Control Lasers to take over Big Media. Which is odd, because I thought Big Media was almost automatically controlled by the Democrats anyway.
Ash Can
That’s more like it.
The Red Pen
@Roger Moore:
It’s not automatic, but there’s a +4 to control.
The Red Pen
You know what’s really fun? Reading wingnut predictions from the past. Guess when this comment was made?
It was 2006.
gwangung
Repeated for emphasis.
But…do you know what would help that? Grassroots work to persuade that majority of Americans that progressive ideas are better.
Stop pinning homes on political leaders to implement progressive ideas. Work on the grassroots so that the politicians are FORCED to implement them.
Roger Moore
@libarbarian:
What makes you think that this is designed for tactical benefit? The wingnuts are in serious denial about both the current election and the bigger picture of their place in American politics. This kind of thing lets them avoid confronting the unpleasant reality that they’re going to have to change their ideology if they want to remain relevant as a national party. It probably hurts them tactically and strategically, but they’re still doing it to protect their feelings.
J R in WV
If it is true that a large swing in people self-reporting as Democrats is taking place, I think it means people have noticed that Republicans have spent the past 4 years acting like traitors – doing their best to hurt America in order to be able to attack President Obama for not being able to heal the wounds inflicted – by Republicans.
It’s hard to run as the party of American Patriotism after spending 4 years trying to keep the government from solving the economic crisis! People could be put to work fixing the infrastructure of America the day after the inauguration – if Republicans and bluedog Democrats weren’t doing their best to obstruct the repair of the nation.
I have to admit it helps that Senator Mitch making a speech about his only priority for the next 4 years was to make sure that the
niggerKenyan was a one-term president helps with this picture a whole lot. He pleads guilty before committing the crime!Now all we have to do is overcome the attempts at vote-rigging and make it an honest election. Although if the reports of a massive swing to the Democratic Party are true, it will not be possible for them to steal enough votes (and keep enough Democratic voters from voting) to swing things their way.
If ordinary white folks with driver’s licenses are all going to vote for the Kenyan – “That One!” as McCain said – they won’t be able to do a damn thing about it. They can keep the brown and black people from voting, but if they lose all the white women and half the white men, they are well and truly screwed.
And it couldn’t happen to a better bunch of hateful racist America-haters.
I’ve always wondered about people running for government office who claim the don’t believe in government. Why would anyone vote for someone who doesn’t believe in Democracy? It’s like electing Stalin, even after he talks about his plan for genocide by famine!
These right wing crazies actually and obviously hate America, as it exists today. They hate the new immigrants who are bringing in new thoughts and ideas, and providing us with the scientists, doctors and engineers we need for an expanding country.
They hate the freedoms we have worked to establish, to marry the people we love, to live the ways we want to live, to worship the ways we want to worship. Because they’re different from the ways the right-wing fundamentalists want us to live, they hate everything about the modern and successful America.
They hate modern medicine, because Doctors can cure things without prayer. They hate vaccinations, because they protect people from ancient plague scourges – without prayer. They abuse their children to keep them ignorant, because education liberates people from superstition.
They are completely un-American in every way, and the fact that any of them can be elected still stuns me every time I think about it. But Reality has a liberal bias, and everyone doesn’t believe in Facts, do they? Slogans and empty falsehoods feel better to a sizable proportion of the adult population, who then vote against their own best interests.
FSM help us!
Jay C
@ding dong:
Impeachment? SRSLY?
On what grounds? Unlike our 42nd President, the current incumbent keeps his finances open, and his zipper closed. There aren’t many issues to go after Obama on that aren’t dismissible as utter bullshit – or purely political matters.
Not that I wouldn’t like to see them try, though: even if the GOP does manage to hold the House for the next Congress (and will still contain a non-trivial bloc of teahadists/wingnuts), I think a reversion to the sort of Clinton-era scandalmongering and government-by-investigation will finally destroy whatever shreds of credibility Congressional Republicans might retain after their sorry record in the 112th, and lead to a 113th Congress about 60+% Democratic. After all, impeachment as a political ploy worked out so well for them in 1998…
1badbaba3
@J R in WV: Can we get an “Amen”? Yes, indeed.
The Red Pen
@Jay C:
On the grounds of shut up.
Have you had any exposure to the people we’re talking about?
danimal
Since this post mentions global warming, I’ll share my epiphany.
Conservatives believe global warming is a conspiracy to enrich climate scientists with those sweet, sweet research contract dollars.
Conservatives believe that we can’t take action on global warming because we don’t understand it. We need more time to study the problem.
Climate scientists conduct studies on global warming.
Do you see the logic error, from a conservative perspective?
Gawd, these people are morans. Or, alternatively, they’re in on the grift.
Patricia Kayden
“and a new Orly Taitz will rise to lead them.”
Lead them where? Hopefully, somewhere outside of the US borders. They’re not going to win if they keep going to the hard right. And nominating people who insult almost 1/2 of the population as lazy moochers.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Brandon:
If that’s the case, then they’ve read the situation wrong. It worked on the media because it was accompanied by hordes of screaming wingnuts flooding various editors with “I’ll cancel my subscription and never place another classified ad in your *librul* publication”. The pollsters are service contractors providing a service. The only pushback they’ll get will be from the people writing their checks and I just don’t see how the classic right wing bullying tactics can be *effectively* brought to bear. Apples and oranges.
But yeah, that’s what it sounds like.
ThresherK
I’m taking bets on when “La Leche League” will being confused with La Raza on the other side of the aisle.
Lurking Canadian
@Linda Featheringill: I’ve seen this sort of polling, too. It’s baffling. If senior citizens are close, and white men are close…who the hell is still leaning Romney? Why isn’t the national poll looking like 73% Obama by now? It looks like Romney only has Filthy Rich Dudes and racists left in his corner.
El Cid
I see a new ’90s-style militia / ‘patriot’ / armed loony movement.
var
Well, at least we have something to look forward to. The next thing will be a conservative boycott of polls, which will make polls meaningless. You won’t be able to tell if the D is winning or not because the sample will be missing the Rs that refused to participate.
tamied
@J R in WV: Bravo!
Rorgg
Is it just me? This seems to be a refinement of the 2008 Hillary “If you turn your heads and squint hard enough, it kinda looks like we’re only barely losing!” Delegate spin.
Gravenstone
@dmsilev: Taken to its logical extension, what’s going to happen with “Unskewed Polls” when they apply the Rasmussen distribution to Rasmussen himself during the last 2-3 weeks of the campaign? That being the time when Ras historically reverts to more neutral samples in order to maintain the appearance of being “impartial”.
Luther Brixton
@Captain Haddock:
I’ll bet many people felt the same way about the rightwing after McCarthyism crashed & burned. ‘How could such a desperate & despicable movement based on lies, intimidation, and fear continue?’
How? It’s their religion.
The Goldwater movement crashed & burned in 1964 – and they grew stronger with Nixon and the Southern Strategy. The Nixon conservatives crashed & burned with Watergate – they came back with Reagan and the New World Order. George W Bush & the rise of FOX Corp believed after impeaching Clinton on bogus nonsense with the full support of the US media that they were now invincible. They no longer needed any pretense of truth, integrity, or ethics – they could create their own reality. They crashed & burned (taking the economy and America’s standing in the world with them).
Now, 4 years later, they’re still smouldering from the collosal clusterfvck of the “New American Century”.
But they’ll be back.
It’s a religion that won’t die until all humankind has gone.
And then the cockroaches will begin all over again..
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Yeats said it best: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
I think it takes too much energy to maintain the sort of low-grade revolution you’re suggesting, mistermix… the conservatives are collectively too old and stupid to make a viable go of such an effort.
At least, goddamnit, that’s what I hope….
Joel
@cmorenc: I think it’s worth keeping a finger on the pulse of Google News; an unbiased aggregator, with the exception of media outlets using SEO to bump their stories to the top. It gives me a sense of what people are talking about, whether I like it or not. Of course, B-J is usually on top of that, too, except for the fact that some things are discussed with far too much credulousness (like the “stench” and “gilligan” parody piece).
Joel
@cmorenc: I think it’s worth keeping a finger on the pulse of Google News; an unbiased aggregator, with the exception of media outlets using SEO to bump their stories to the top. It gives me a sense of what people are talking about, whether I like it or not. Of course, B-J is usually on top of that, too, except for the fact that some things are discussed with far too much credulousness (like the “stench” and “gilligan” parody piece).
Joel
@Amir Khalid: Fantastic.
Howlin Wolfe
So much butt hurt, so little time.
LD50
@dmsilev: Rasmussen isn’t conservative enough!
LD50
@Brandon: except the polling firms have a huge financial motivation to actually be, you know, right. That’s why even Rasmussen even starts scooting toward reality in the last 1-2 weeks of the elections.
ThresherK
@Gravenstone: That bit, about how Ras goes from out in the woods on Labor Day to “in the neighborhood of real pollsters” on Halloween?
Football coaches call it “closing speed”.
BobZ
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.) – I don’t think it’s going to be a low-grade rebellion. Judging from the level of hatred I see on the Republican fringes down here in Georgia, I’d say there’s a 50:50 chance of armed insurrection if/when Obama wins. I don’t see anyone on the Republican side, wing-nut or not, trying to reign in these guys.
Michael
I wonder if the GOP is kicking themselves for killing ACORN. It’s gonna take work to build up a new phony bogeyman…