Boom goes the dynamite.
The Platonic ideal of an anti-Romney “47%” advertisement.
by DougJ| 192 Comments
This post is in: Election 2012
Boom goes the dynamite.
The Platonic ideal of an anti-Romney “47%” advertisement.
Comments are closed.
[…] via DougJ { 0 comments } Metavirus filed this under: 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Stupidity, The 47%, Video […]
shortstop
I notice they linger extra long on the lazy, mooching veterans.
The Bobs
Wicked good. The Republicans see politics as war, Obama gets that.
biscuits
Yay!
Afferent Input
@shortstop:
I noticed that too. Get a job, ya losers!
MattF
It’s special, the way Mitt sounds like he means it.
Napoleon
I saw this on my TV first yesterday or maybe the day before. Some of these ads are going to hurt. SecretMuslimKenyan already is up a bit on Mitt hear in Ohio and you now have to wonder if stuff like this is simply going to put Obama comfortably ahead.
the Conster
The poor Obama oppo staff must have just thrown up their hands in frustration and started packing their belongings.
Twilight Jack
Obama doesn’t even have to show up for the first debate. He can just send this ad and play it in response to everything Romney says.
gogol's wife
It is beautiful because it is true. No distortion, no spin needed. Beautiful.
MikeJ
Crowds at Romney photo ops are yelling at him to get tough and attack Obama. The LA Times points out that Romney is now just trying not to look like a dick and Obama is hammering him and still appears more statesmanlike.
the Conster
Also, too, this, because Mitt IS Lucille Bluth.
rlrr
@MikeJ:
Romney is now just trying not to look like a dick and Obama is hammering him and still appears more statesmanlike.
That strategy worked so well for Mike Dukakis…
? Martin
Yeah, another home run. Just as devastating as the ‘America the Beautiful’ ad.
anibundel
Have you seen the DNC’s take down of the “Mr Rogers” style video Romney did yesterday?
Brutal.
shortstop
@the Conster: Oh, my god! He totally is. Hilarious.
ericblair
I’m starting to worry about what kind of catastrophic failure Romney’s working himself up to in the last days of the campaign. At this rate, he’s going to manage to decapitate himself with a teleprompter, leading to a meltdown of his plutonium power core and causing a radioactive cloud over seven states.
beltane
All those douchebags who paid $50,000 a head to hear Romney speak at that fundraiser ended up giving Obama the biggest single donation a presidential candidate has received in modern history. They unintentionally provided a service to their country, probably the only thing they’ve ever done for this country their whole lives.
eemom
@gogol’s wife:
Exactly.
Any yet you have emmessemm fuckwits, like even the liberal Greg Sargent, describing it as “brutal.” Interesting.
Forum Transmitted Disease
The lead pipe’s coming out, Republicans. It’s gonna hurt. A lot. But you still haven’t seen what “Chicago-style politics” is all about. We’ve got more.
shortstop
@MikeJ: So sweet. I’m thinking Ann’s going to have a few more tasty outbursts, too. So hard for the old girl to hear “no” from anyone, especially people of our station.
Brian R.
These ads are great.
And for all the warning about how the deluge of SuperPAC ads would destroy Obama, I actually think they’re going to continue to sink Romney.
Just yesterday, I was watching cable and there was a measured, calm Obama ad — the one about China and the tire tariffs, which has some small-bore facts and figures and quotes. It was immediately followed by a pro-Romney PAC ad that had all the visual charm and audio subtlety of a ShamWow ad. “ATTENTION ALL PATRIOTS! ATTENTION ALL TEA PARTY MEMBERS!” “Sign this petition to get rid of the worst president ever and we’ll send you these free Romney bumper stickers!!!!” etc etc.
I’m biased, but the contrast was striking. And if I were on the fence, I have to think the smooth ads of the president would’ve been a lot more appealing than the screaming used-car-salesman ads of the Republican PACs
Twilight Jack
@anibundel: Link?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster: Oh man, Jessica Walters could make maybe the greatest ratfuck Romney endorsement this side of Steven Colbert.
@MikeJ:
He was still trotting out the ‘apologize for America’ crap just a couple days ago. I know I’m biased, but I gotta think that just looks weird and petulant to everyone who isn’t a commited Fox watcher. And you’d think even Willard would have noticed by now it isn’t really working.
Raven
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Fuckin A right, no prisoners!
dmsilev
Isn’t it kind of unfair to Romney to quote his actual words in an ad against him?
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
That’s the Harry Truman thing: “I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”
ETA: We kept thinking that Obama was going to be the new FDR, but I think he’s actually the new Harry Truman. I can live with that.
Brian R.
@eemom:
The truth hurts. Simple as that.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I guess you play the hand you’ve got. He’s got nothin’.
Baud
Romney needs to release all his tax returns so people wills stop talking about the 47% speech.
Violet
SO GOOD. Love the Obama team. LOVE THEM. Time to beat the Republicans into dust. Start with Romney, move downticket. All of them. Boot on the neck. Grind them into dust. Dustbin of history, bitches.
amcoco
Finally glad to see something that includes what I see as the most important comment Romney made – “people who think they’re ENTITLED [venom dripping] to health care, to FOOD, to HOUSING.” Yeah, those lazy moochers who think starvation and sleeping on a park bench are such a bad thing….
zattarra
I’m still amazed we’re less than 6 weeks out and the Obama campaign hasn’t had to bring out any of the big guns yet. I’ve been confident for months now that the Obama campaign is sitting on Mitt’s tax returns and just waiting for the right moment to have them leaked to the news. And yet they haven’t needed to.
Remember in August there were some quotes from people talking about “if I were the Romeny people and I knew what they were sitting on in Chicago I wouldn’t sleep at night?” Anyone think we’ve seen that stuff yet (OK, it’s possible the Obama folks had the 47% video and not Mitt’s returns but I don’t think they did).
ranchandsyrup
@the Conster: Holy crap! Spot on Conster. Well done.
Yutsano
@Baud: He can’t do that. He’s running for President for Pete’s sake!
(Shut up Dad!!)
The Ancient Randonneur
David Corn has another Romney video up at Mother Jones:
Additional confirmation that most of the money Mitt made as an adult was on the backs of American workers.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zattarra:
Is there any legal way for them to have those returns?
wrb
NO FOOD FOR VETS!
MattF
@Brian R.: Well, if the CEO of the Republican Party wants to come off as Craaaazy Eddie, that’s his privilege. Craaazy Eddie’s little secret, though, was that he wasn’t actually crazy. I’m not sure Republicans get that particular joke.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@dmsilev: Yep. It was unfair to bring up his attack on an Student when he was in high school. It was unfair to talk about an event with a family dog 30 years ago. It was unfair to bring up stuff he did at Bain ten years ago. Unfair to bring up stuff from his time as governor. Unfair to bring up stuff he said a few months ago.
pillsy
@eemom:
I don’t have a problem with describing the ad as “brutal”. Brutal honesty is a thing, after all, and if ads are still having any effect at this point in the cycle, that one is going to leave a fucking mark.
amk
mittbot committing harakiri in his own
swordwords. Brilliant ad. Talk about ‘context’. Is chucky toady boy shitting bricks ?comrade scott's agenda of rage
For all of Obama’s misguided “let’s try to negotiate with the nutjobs” tactics for a fair chunk of his term, it’s easy to overlook that his campaign in 08 and now, is Teh Awesome. It’s hard hitting, pulls no punches aka so unlike anything I’ve seen from a Democratic presidential candidate since, oh, LBJ in 64. Certainly nothing like what I’ve seen as an adult starting with the 1980 campaign.
This is the standard, template if you will, that Dems all over the country should be using from now until the Repups go the way of the Whigs.
? Martin
According to TPM, BLS revised their March 2012 employment figures (apparently what they use for annual rates) upward by ⅓ of a million jobs – 450K private sector. I think that pushes march’s unemployment rate down to 7.9% and assuming that revision propagates forward (unsure) probably puts the current rate at 7.8%.
And new unemployment claims dropped again. Another hopeful sign.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mnemosyne:
__
More like the Harry Truman LP played in reverse: he unsigns Taft-Hartly, winds down the Korean War, ends his term as popular as FDR, and leaves the GOP in shambles.
__
Speaking of Taft-Hartly, is there any chance that the NFL referee lockout ends up being a symbolic turning point in US labor relations, like Reagan firing the air traffic controllors, only in the reverse direction? Or is it not that big a deal? I’m wondering if the idea of greedy idiot manager/owners try to fuck over the employees who add value to their enterprise but end up stepping on their own dicks instead has any legs to it.
SatanicPanic
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Yeah, you don’t hear Obambi being thrown around so much anymore.
Culture of Truth
These leaked videos are pretty big. We still don’t know where they came from. I wonder if the campaign had any advance notice.
In any case, I’m currently reading an article about how the Romneys won’t be paying any estate taxes either, in case you had any doubts.
J. Michael Neal
@eemom:
It is brutal. It’s understated, it’s fair and it’s effective. And it’s brutal.
A stiletto can be just as brutal as a hammer.
chopper
@The Ancient Randonneur:
mitt’s going to get in front of this one. maybe he’ll change his slogan to ‘baby don’t fear the reaper’.
? Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sure. Mitt freely gave them up to the McCain campaign in 2008. They could have been leaked from the campaign.
kvenlander
But but but, NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING.
I think Big O is spinning up Romney for the debates. They are getting under his skin with a wirebrush so that one little poke from The Prez will set him off. One can dream.
You know how in the beginning of debates the candidates greet each other? I want Obama to whisper “you will be remembered as the Republican Mondale” to Romney ;-)
Felinious Wench
OT, but funny…
I occasionally stop by the local Casa De Taco house for breakfast. The morning patrons are mostly conservative right-wing men discussing hunting, football, and Rush Limbaugh. But it’s the best breakfast tacos around, so I persevere.
They were in full rant this morning; spectacular froth. One of them walks in to join the others, and was asked “who you votin’ for?” “Obama.” Silence. “I like his wife. She hates white people.”
Ha ha. Funny joke. Laughter.
On my way out, I stopped by and said “Well, guys, sorry I left my Obama t-shirt at home. You’re going to have a long month. And by the way, that statement about Michelle Obama was ignorant.” The guy looked at me and said “Oh no, honey, I wasn’t kidding. I hate white people. I’m voting for Obama.”
It was a surreal moment for all of us.
dmsilev
Also, too, this is “throw them an anvil” campaigning in its finest form.
It’d be nice if the Obama camp felt confident enough to start running ads like this in places like Arizona, which are vanishingly unlikely to be the deciding state in the Presidential race but have Senate races that are close enough to warrant giving a helpful nudge.
PurpleGirl
There was a story this morning on NY1 about the different ad rates paid by President Obama’s re-election committee and the Romney PACs. (The story used numbers from Ohio.) Obama’s committee was charged something like $125 per minute because he is the incumbent and it was the official committee. The Romney PACs get charged many hundreds more — I think they said something in the area of $900 per minute because they weren’t the official Romney committee.
(I tried to find the story on the NY1 web site — to confirm the rates — but they’ve changed some video policy and I couldn’t get the story I think it was to play.)
chopper
@kvenlander:
i don’t think romney is going to ‘go off’ in the debates. he will get flustered and petulant tho. obama of course will be obama, which will make mittens look like even more of a d-bag.
expect plenty of obama pointing out that mittens’ budget has no real numbers in it. also too, medicare.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop:
That, right there, is fucking killer.
Compare and contrast with Mittens “No ‘Nam for me, thanks, I’m needed in Paris” and his five chickenhawk spawns.
A veteran who votes for Rmoney is a buddy fucker. No two ways about it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Culture of Truth: These leaked videos are pretty big. We still don’t know where they came from. I wonder if the campaign had any advance notice
I’d be willing to bet ten thousand dollars they did. If my memory’s right, those welfare ads were starting hit home for a lot of anxious, middle class whites. My guess is Plouffe met Corn for a quiet drink a couple weeks ago, “Oh, David, is that your envelope? Why, no, I didn’t bring it in, I’m quite sure you did….”
General Stuck
@The Ancient Randonneur:
Getting ready to post that. I guess now Romney will claim he is just another struggling family farmer.
FormerSwingVoter
@Brian R.:
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed this! A bunch of the national Romney PAC ads actually resemble scams – they are more like the BUY THESE RARE GOLD COINS ads than actual political ads. It’s bizarre.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mnemosyne: There are some interesting parallels, probably worthy of some analysis.
Truman desegregated the armed forces. FDR, BTW, refused to.
Obama ended DADT and allowed gays to serve.
Truman tried, and succeeded, in stopping the nation from sliding back into recession following the end of WWII.
Obama tried, and succeeded, in stopping the nation from sliding into a new Great Depression following the end of Greenspan’s bubble economy.
Truman won re-election in the face of overwhelming and united do-nothing stonewalling Republican opposition. His opponents were given false confidence by reliance on an old and outdated polling methodology.
Obama looks on course to repeat exactly that same feat.
Interesting at first glance, anyway.
Culture of Truth
Wait until she finds out somebody spilled the beans on the Ann and Mitt Romney 1995 Family Trust
Ksmiami
@Culture of Truth: Ding ding ding the Bloomberg article about the dig it strategy rt?
Sparrowgal
@anibundel: Didn’t catch this…do you remember where you saw it?
scav
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Much as I had to grit my teeth and endure the seeming compromise years, they did somehow provide a solid base for for the hard-punching now — that aura of reasonable, measured and calm jumping up and down on vulnerable body parts is a hard one to pull off.
Hill Dweller
Willard continues to F everything up. Benen pointed out Willard held an event at American Spring Wire to bash Obama on China. Turns out the company complained to the Obama administration in 2009 about China flooding the US market with products sold below value. After conducting an investigation for the better part of the year, the International Trade Administration(part of Commerce Dept.) announced a counter-dumping duty on Chinese steel wire and a countervailing duty to counter subsidized goods from other countries.
US Customs also suspended liquidation of merchandise from China, and “require cash deposits equal to the estimated amount by which the normal value exceeds the U.S. price”.
Also too, Willard attacked Obama for doing it.
Raven
@PurpleGirl: With more control over campaign cash, Obama gets more discounts on advertising
“The difference in ad rates alone could end up being very important,” said Michael Franz, an associate professor at Bowdoin College and a co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks and analyzes political ad spending. “It’s a critical issue in determining how far each side’s money goes. It looks to be a huge benefit for Obama in the long run.”
kvenlander
@chopper: Yeah, I think you’re right… but flustered and petulant is good enough for me on national teevee, especially with Obama’s supernatural and positive calm for contrast.
PeakVT
@PurpleGirl: 5-6x is the difference stated here.
hueyplong
mitt’s going to get in front of this one. maybe he’ll change his slogan to ‘baby don’t fear the reaper’.
—-
If that happens and things otherwise follow form, Mitt’s campaign will get an angry communication from Blue Oyster Cult demanding that they’ve got no permission to use their music in any way.
Villago Delenda Est
BTW, I can’t access the uncensored, NSFW Samuel L. ad.
The server is saturated.
WAKE THE FUCK UP!
Comrade Mary
That is a killer ad. I love it.
And Doug, here’s a Cheery present for you.
shortstop
@chopper: Right — flustered, petulant and prone to corny jokes followed by smirks at the points he thinks he just scored. And he’ll do that thing where the super-tiny part of his consciousness that can very occasionally read signs of disapproval in others’ expressions/body language causes him to keep keep keep talking talking talking, trailing off lamely when he really should decisively wrap up the sentence and move on.
jibeaux
@Felinious Wench: I wonder if it’s too late to start a “Michelle murdered Barack’s Mom!” conspiracy theory.
ranchandsyrup
@Felinious Wench: Ummmm VICTORY?
Fwiffo
The people in the cave are among the 47%?
Villago Delenda Est
@Raven:
The TV stations are grifting the living fuck out of the Koch Brothers and the other Citizens United assholes.
They fucking deserve it, too.
Culture of Truth
@Ksmiami: Technically called an “intentionally defective grantor trust.” Which I believe may also be Romney’s secret service code name.
shortstop
@FormerSwingVoter: Speaking of bumper stickers, in both 2008 and this year I’ve made the requisite contribution for a magnetic Obama-Biden bumper sticker (and given plenty more, pals, so don’t call me a cheapass), and said bumper sticker has never materialized. I’m thinking of withholding my vote for Obama over this, except for the “thinking of withholding my vote for Obama” part.
Mike E
@shortstop: And much like Toni Braxton after her bankruptcy, watch The Good Wife start wearing moar leather, and less, if’n ya know what I mean.
Raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Ha! Xin Loi mofos! I wonder if the supremes will come out somehow and say “see, Citizens United didn’t matter”?
jibeaux
Oh, and another PA voter ID ruling could come out today.
FormerSwingVoter
@? Martin: Is there a link to that adjustment anywhere? I’ve seen a couple mentions on twitter and no one will link. It’s getting very frustrating.
Cassidy
@Felinious Wench: If you’re anywhere near San Antonio, I understand. The whole time I was stationed there I kept sayin’ it would be so nice but for all the damn white people.
LD50
@Baud: Except the tax returns are probably far worse than the 47% speech.
catclub
@SatanicPanic: Well, Bambi did grow up to be the top Buck in the forest.
quannlace
See, he’s really a farmer. He’s just like plain folks!
chopper
@catclub:
strapping, even.
Joel
I think that ad, combined with Obama’s pitch and this one from a user submission to a Moveon contest… well, they nail it.
catclub
@kvenlander: Tell Romney he was brainwashed by the far right loons.
Has the added note of comparison to his father.
Raven
@catclub: I thought Bambi was a Doe?
jibeaux
@hueyplong: They get a lot of those. They should just go ahead and switch to Nearer My God To Thee, which is after all in the public domain.
catclub
@Raven: Nope.
Know your Disney!
the Conster
@The Ancient Randonneur:
The first thing I thought of when I read that was “you know what else is harvested? Organs!” Then bodysnatchers came to mind with Mitt as the soulless parasitic simulacrum coming for the 47% in their sleep.
burnspbesq
@Culture of Truth:
Link, por favor.
Original Lee
@Brian R.: Romney’s base is suspicious of smooth.
To them, smooth screams “I’m better than you.”
However, I think the undecideds and the independents tend to see smooth as competent. Hopefully they like voting for competent.
eemom
@pillsy:
@J. Michael Neal:
I get that, and it’s a minor quibble — but I still think the point that bears emphasis is Mrs. Gogol’s — i.e., that it’s nothing more than the simple unvarnished truth — and that it would behoove a journalist to make THAT point,rather than using a term like “brutal” that focuses more on the tactic.
Whatev. Arglebargle.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: I’m still surprised that when she started that “Obambi and the Dominatrix” stuff, no one went in to MoDo’s office and said “we were thinking you might enjoy a sabbatical with the book review”. I emailed her several times, never heard back. I actually have had several big feet respond, if not in depth.
El Cid
None of those people look Indian enough. I asked Scott Brown.
Ming
What I love is how the camera lingers on the vet while R-money is saying “think they’re ENTITLED to HEALTH CARE…”
Yeah, you fucking douchebag, maybe someone who has risked their life for our country IS entitled to health care.
The juxtaposition is not entirely fair, really, because I doubt Mitt was thinking of vets when he said that. At the same time, that’s sort of the point — Mitt just characterizes the great unwashed as undeserving, and doesn’t think about who is really in the 47%, or why they are there. Live by the broad brush, die by the broad brush.
Raven
@catclub: I guess that’s why they called Flutie Bambi when Ditka scared him!
PurpleGirl
@Raven: Thanks for the link. In the third graph, the story has the ad rates I remembered from the NY1 story. (In one Ohio ad buy slated to run just before the election, for example, Obama is paying $125 for a spot that is costing a conservative super PAC $900.)
@PeakVT: Thanks for this link, too.
curiousleo
This DNC ad playing off Romney’s most recent ad just shreds him. Harsh doesn’t cover it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnR_BcvkuzY
shortstop
@jibeaux: Snap!
Another Halocene Human
@Felinious Wench: If white people have to call themselves “white people” instead of “the silent majority” and “real Americans” then we’re winning.
Fuck yeah.
Chinn Romney
Very strong. I’d be worried about overplaying the hand, of going to the well once too often. But Mitt, bless him, will helpfully provide completely new material in a few days. He’s been pretty reliable that way.
Baud
@curiousleo:
Steve Benen had a post up earlier about Romney’s new ad, where he quotes his colleague’s observation:
Another Halocene Human
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Raised in (genteel) poverty, formidable wife.
ETA: unless I’m confusing Harry’s S’s wife with his mom. Whoopsie.
Er… disreputable middle name?
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck: I think the xenomorphs followed a similar strategy with the human colonists in _Aliens_.
the Conster
@curiousleo:
Kimmel covered that same ad last night. Mittens is a daily national punch line. By the time the debate comes around, everyone will imagine him with a red rubber nose and sad clown makeup.
quannlace
Very elegant yet powerful ad.
I’m glad to see the Obama ads diverging from the usual kind of political commercials.
You know \, it starts out the music of doom, showing your opponent in grainy shots and intoning how he screwed things up. Then cut to our candidatte, cue up the happy, happy music and sunlit shots of him shaking everyday Joe’s hands and kissing babies.
Southern Beale
OMFG. Romney has completely lost it:
This from the party that just voted against the veterans jobs bill, by a man who campaigned FOR the draft then hid out the war in a French castle. What a fucking turd.
danimal
A Brutal ad. As in brutally effective.
What I’m looking for now is ad buys in IN and AZ. Obama doesn’t need these states at all and hasn’t been a player in them to date. If he advertises in these states, it’a a sure sign Obama thinks he has this thing locked up and that he’s trying to boost the Senate chances of Donelly and Carmona.
Also, too McCaskill in Missouri. Maybe even North Dakota (it’s cheap advertising).
r€nato
I really enjoyed pointing out to my GOP parents that Romney considers them moochers (they are retired and pay no income tax), while I am an Obama supporter who is part of the 53%.
The last straw for them was Mitt’s awful comments on the occasion of the assassination of the US ambassador in Libya. They’ve both said they just might vote Obama. Not because they support him, they are betting that his 2nd term will be a disaster and guarantee GOP victory in 2016.
This election is all but done. Mitt-dissing has become the new sport among Republicans, surpassing even Obama-dissing. Mitt will be remembered by history as the worst major party candidate since Dukakis. After this November, his name will never be mentioned again by dedicated Goopers without being immediately followed by a grimace or spitting on the ground.
Another Halocene Human
@Culture of Truth: I googled that and the first ten links said Obama’s taking aim at IDGTs in 2013.
The REAL reason Mitt Romney is running for office… and why Ann is so peeved at You People.
Culture of Truth
Yes, more wars. That will prevent soldier suicides.
Another Halocene Human
@shortstop: It took weeks for mine to arrive. Shoulda ordered a month earlier. Sigh. But I have them now!!
curiousleo
@the Conster: Did you watch the DNC ad riffing off that Mitt ad? The intersperse clips from the new Mitt ad with other clips of Mitt. Almost made me feel sorry for the dude it was that brutal.
If you haven’t watched the DNC ad, go watch it. It’s gonna leave a permanent mark. It hits all the marks–the $10,000 bet, the likes to fire people line, the 47%. All of it.
Felinious Wench
@Cassidy:
I’m in Sugar Land, outskirts of Houston. Very diverse area, but white conservatives are still in power here. However, the area I live in is something of a Democratic enclave…my neighbors are lesbians, black, Asians, and a dash of liberal whites. Obama stickers abound.
This guy is a maintenance guy who works for the rich white families in the neighborhood next to the taco house. It’s probably the most conservative part of the city. I totally understand why he said that.
Another Halocene Human
@quannlace:
Yeah, a tax farmer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Southern Beale: Jesus. I’m a firm believer in the “Don’t blame the help” theory of politics. Willard’s campaign is a dick because Willard is a dick, but I wonder who’s whispering in his ear that always digging to find a lower road is the way to victory. Stevens? Fernstrom? Tagg? Lady McAnn?
Gin & Tonic
Coming in 115 comments down, I’m sure nobody will read this but Bloomberg has a great article about another tax-avoidance scheme of Willard’s.
Q. Q. Moar
Here’s the Samuel L. Jackson video.
Culture of Truth
Did the VC take over any French Chateaux? I don’t THINK so.
Legalize
@Baud:
Tweety was beside himself about this last night. He was flabbergasted that Willard was basically making an ad for Obama, i.e. we both want to help people. Well if you say that, then you’re making the election a “choice” election, and playing right into Team O’s hands! The Willard ad 100% set up the new Obama / DNC ad by begging the question – who would you chose on this issue?
The Willard campaign is just terrible.
Rafer Janders
God, I love this ad.
But then again, I won’t be happy until Romney and Ryan are curled up on the floor, knees clutched to chests, tears streaming down their cheeks while they whimper and beg to please just make the attack ads stop….
shortstop
@r€nato: That’s a point that hasn’t gotten any play, but we’ve mentioned it in this 53% household. Romney managed to insult pretty much the entire country by calling anyone getting government benefits a worthless layabout AND pretending that the legion income taxpaying (at a far higher rate than you, Mitt, you asshole) Obama supporters don’t exist. The only reason anyone would support the black guy is because they want free stuff. It couldn’t have anything to do with the GOP’s universally abysmal proposals in foreign and domestic policy.
Cassidy
@Felinious Wench: Didn’t get the chance to go to Houston, although I did sample your rush hour traffic once.
shortstop
@Another Halocene Human: This was June! I’m just sayin’!
Cassidy
@Rafer Janders: The TPM EV breakdown is interesting. Most of the “swing states” are already colored blue and the “leaning Romney” ones are states that shouldn’t even be in question.
jwb
@Culture of Truth: That video had been out for weeks—or actually little snippets of it had—so at that level I don’t think they were the work of the Obama campaign. I think the video was early on recognized as highly damaging, however, which is why an effort was made to control the viral spread so that it was better timed.
Felinious Wench
@Cassidy:
Hopefully it was in the middle of August and your AC was out. That’s the true Houstonian traffic experience.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@r€nato:
And as Larison has been pointing out for days now in some very trenchant posts over at AmerConMag, courtesy of Romney’s Nixonian attempt to be all things to all people one audience at a time, every GOP faction has ammunition to tie Romney to the other folks they disagree with the most in their own movement. Romney’s failure isn’t an orphan, it has everybody’s DNA baked in. And the GOPers are setting up for their own circular firing squad by digging World War One style entrenchments and laying in a stock of shells for the heavy artillery duels that are sure to come.
? Martin
@FormerSwingVoter: Here.
Raven
@Culture of Truth: Ho was a baker in Paris!
Rafer Janders
You can survive a lot in politics — but one thing you can’t survive is becoming a figure of fun. Of your very name prompting jokes, derision, contempt. And I’m afraid that Romney has gotten himself to that point.
It’s Ok if people think you’re evil — hey, Dick Cheney made a career of it. But it’s not Ok if people think you’re a clown.
Mnemosyne
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Just this morning, G said to me, “I keep reading these links that I agree with, and they’re to American Conservative! WTF is going on?”
r€nato
@shortstop: Well, I think a number of semi-informed Republicans (like my folks) are very susceptible to the well-worn notion that Shiftless, Lazy Colored Folks Are Mooching Your Hard-Earned Tax Money.
They need to have pointed out to them that they just might be part of that 47% Mitt was talking about. It’s a small step for you and I to make that connection, but for them it would never occur to them that some politician might actually be calling *them* moochers.
And it’s pretty hard to deny, once they’ve had it pointed out to them. There’s no context that makes his comments any less damning. “If you don’t pay any income tax, you’re a moocher just like all those ni-CLANG on welfare.”
If your friendly neighborhood Republican can handle having that pointed out to them without splattering gray matter on your shirt, you could always follow up with taking it a step further by noting that it’s been Republican policy since the Days of Hallowed St. Reagan that everybody’s taxes needed to be lowered, all the time. “So now,” you may ask your Republican friend/acquaintance, “Romney is saying we need to actually *increase* income taxes on the middle class, working class, seniors and the poor while giving income tax cuts to the wealthy.”
Has anyone asked Grover Norquist what he thinks of Romney’s 47% remarks? He’s been remarkably silent on this, it seems to me.
Fuck ALL the chickens! (né Studly Pantload, t.e.u.u.)
@eemom:
Elegant and brutal need not be mutually exclusive.
jwb
@shortstop: I’ve had the same problem with the vapor magnetic bumpersticker. I’ve had to resort to the 2008 version.
Rafer Janders
While I set up a beach chair and mix myself a drink with a little umbrella in it and get ready to watch. You can’t buy this kind of entertainment.
I tell you what, the week after the election, my media consumption will be all Fox and The Corner, all the time.
Culture of Truth
@Raven: That’s a tough racket. No wonder he went back home.
Mnemosyne
@Raven:
I thought you were kidding, but I looked it up in Wikipedia. Anthony Bourdain always says you should never get into a fight with a baker, because they will beat you down with the huge arms they develop with all of the kneading.
amk
looks like mittbot’s 47% ‘comment’ was only an encore.
PreservedKillick
@Rafer Janders:
I was having dinner in Deep Red Connecticut a couple of days ago. That may sound like an Oxymoron, but trust me – very real. Entitled, in the sense of “I inherited mummy’s horse farm, just a small place, few hundred acres.” You know, what entitled *used* to mean. Horse people. Polo.
Very republican.
So, here I am at dinner and the next table over was a rather boisterous bunch, and the talk got around to Romney. Around it went, person after person “I’ve voted republican since the Gipper and I am sorry, but Romney is a MO-RON and I don’t vote MO-RON.(sic)”. Like so. Active, obvious derision. From a bunch of people who might have known the guy in prep school – or attended that 50K a plate fund raiser.
Not good for Romney. Not good *at all*.
On a similar topic, yard signs are pretty big around me (in Massachusetts), but yard sign theft – in my town anyway – is just not a thing. Everyone knows everyone and you’d get nailed for it, even if you were enough of a jerk to steal on in the first place.
Scott Brown signs seem to be coming down.
And the few Romney signs are long, long gone.
Something’s in this.
shortstop
@r€nato:
Indeed, the apparent prevalence of that view is what made me grossly underestimate the negative reaction to the fundraiser video. I am delighted to be wrong.
Xecky Gilchrist
I haven’t seen anything from the Romney camp yet whining about how this is all out of context and deliberately misinterpreted yet.
You know, from the people whose convention was all about “We Built This.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@PreservedKillick: There’s a little cluster of Republican supporters near my house, four houses, I think. One Romney sign has come down–theft, wind, I don’t know– and hasn’t been replaced in over a week. Another has a sign out by the street for our wingnut ‘critter, the Rommey sign is leaning against the garage wall. Not polling data, but something I’m watching as the season rolls on
kvenlander
At this point, I’m starting to cry for mercy. I have work to do for Pete’s sake, but I can’t stop watching this slow moving train wreck.
Halp, I need an intervention!
Raven
@Mnemosyne: Actually he worked at Escoffier’s in Pareee and was a baker in Boston. Dude was amazing.
FormerSwingVoter
@? Martin: Awesome, thanks! This is getting way less press than it should be.
Jay in Oregon
@FormerSwingVoter:
I wouldn’t be surprised to find payday loan companies, gold bugs, and scam artists to be contributing cash to Romney. Anything to make their action legal.
? Martin
@PreservedKillick: My dog is almost visibly depressed that I won’t let him pee on any of the yard signs around me. He was allowed to tag every single Yes on Prop 8 sign we could find, as well as the McCain ones. There’s just nothing for him this year.
? Martin
@FormerSwingVoter: Well, I’m not entirely sure how to interpret it. The adjustment might only apply to March and already be baked in for future months. In that case, it’s not such a big deal as it shows unemployment went up more than a little bit and job growth since March was pretty lackluster.
OTOH, it could be a systematic undercounting which would carry forward. Not sure. And since this is just a preliminary adjustment, with the real number not due until Feb, BLS may not say much more about it.
Triassic Sands
When someone tells me they aren’t going to vote, because the two parties are identical, I honestly have to think their non-voting is, in the end, probably a good thing, since anyone that stupid really shouldn’t be allowed to drive, have kids, own guns, or vote. Breathing is optional.
Now, if only they would also give up the other things on the list…
Mnemosyne
@Raven:
If Woodrow Wilson hadn’t been a damn racist and been willing to support Mihn in his early efforts to get the French to leave peacefully, there wouldn’t have been a Vietnam War. Jackass.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
That’s weird — I just got mine (and my “Fired Up! Ready to Go!”) t-shirt in the mail. But I ordered mine from the store, like, 2 days before they had the special offer.
@jwb:
Wait, I was supposed to take the Obama magnet off my car after the 2008 election? Why does no one tell me these things?
jwb
@shortstop: I remember back earlier this summer when Democratic strategists were complaining that they couldn’t run against GOP policy proposals because when the plans of attack were tested before focus groups, the groups would not believe that these were actually the GOP policy proposals. I think one thing that happend with that video is that hearing Romney say those things burst that bubble and suddenly a lot of people who had been kind of Romney supporters because of social issues now had reason to to look at things like the Ryan budget in a new light. That’s one reason I think that video has also had a devastating effect on races downticket.
Ed Drone
@Chinn Romney:
As I said ‘tother day, Romney is the only politician I know who needs a “cut man” when he shadow-boxes.
Ed
jwb
@Mnemosyne: I didn’t want it to fade, so it’s been hanging out in the garage decorating the freezer.
amk
@jwb: friggin’ overton’s window. how does it work ?
FormerSwingVoter
@jwb: I also seem to recall something from earlier in the summer where Obama strategists were salivating over the stuff their oppo team had on R-Money. Makes me wonder who’s feeding Mother Jones.
Raven
@Mnemosyne: “You can’t look up a dead horses ass”, my old man always said!
PreservedKillick
@FormerSwingVoter:
Makes me wonder if they’ve even used any of it.
Yet.
Frankensteinbeck
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Misguided? I think it was absolute genius, possibly the fabled ’11-dimensional chess’. He goaded his already whiny enemies into public insanity, established a public reputation as a reasonable guy that slaps down the primary GOP tactic of villainization, shepherded great legislation through a senate clusterfucked by whiny blue dogs and that racist supreme god of all assholes Mitch McConnell, and breezed us through hostage crisis after hostage crisis while the Tea Party controlled the House. All of that is directly and deliberately because he played the negotiation game.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@amk: Oh he was just misstating.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@Raven: I for one would tune into a myth busters devoted to that statement.
Gindy51
I live in SE IN a very conservative area (German Catholics), no Romney signs anywhere. Saw one bumper sticker on some white fart’s Buick drop top. Had to laugh at him, in fact we all did… all the same age as he is and in better economic straights (we’re solidly 5%-ers from WAY the hell back.) We were chanting OBAMA, OBAMA at the light. Next day, bumper sticker was GONE from the car. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
amk
@Frankensteinbeck: what you said.
Joel
As I said before, I was mad by then
It took two or three cops to pull me off of him
But that’s the story y’all of a republican
acting like a ******* and getting stomped by an african
lyrics slightly modified…
Lojasmo
@eemom:
Brutality and beauty are not mutually exclusive.
eemom
There are a suprisingly large number of Romtron signs and stickers in my part of NoVA given its demographics. I have a theory that the ‘tards just made a big push to get them out, because they started appearing right after the convention.
Finally got MY yard signs today, yee haw!
Raven
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: He was an old sailor, he said a lot of stuff that might not pass myth busters. His WWI Destroyer probably wasn’t a “bucket of bolts” and Dugout Doug may not have gotten the Medal of Honor for desertion.
Napoleon
@Raven:
Dugout Doug should have been shot for his performance at the beginning of WW II, not to mention the Korean War.
Raven
@Napoleon: Well there you have it, my old man wasn’t always wrong!
dance around in your bones
@The Ancient Randonneur:
It’s the ‘harvesting’ thing – Job Creators, how do they work?
Fucking hell.
piratedan
@Villago Delenda Est: you should see the Carmona ads for Senate in AZ, he calls Flake out on every single anti-Vet vote and anti-EMS vote post 9/11. It’s beeyoutifull.
Napoleon
@Raven:
He is hardly alone in his dislike for McCarther. About a year ago I read Halberstam’s book on the Korean War and McCarther and his staff’s criminal incompetence (if you want to call it that, more accurate would be that they were blind with racism) is stunningly appalling. But then, anyone who knew his record in the Philippines should have seen it coming.
Dennis SGMM
@Mnemosyne:
And if Truman hadn’t rebuffed Minh five times when Minh was trying to dissuade him from giving Vietnam back to the French there wouldn’t have been a Vietnam war either.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was that the French had no one on hand in Vietnam to do law enforcement so they had the British release captured Japanese troops and put them in as the police until the French could bring in their own people.
Raven
@Napoleon: “The Coldest Winter” and the son-of-a-bitch never spent one night there. My old man was part of the liberation of the Philippines and the Battle for Corregidor.
Rafer Janders
@jwb:
It’s a problem I run into all the time — when I accurately describe Republican policy positions, or things that Republicans have said, to my more apolitical friends, they often accuse me of exaggerating for effect, because they refuse to believe that anyone in American political life could be that cartoonishly evil.
dance around in your bones
@Q. Q. Moar:
that is fucking brilliant.
“Wake the FUCK UP!”
Raven
@Dennis SGMM: Ever see The Anderson Platoon by Pierre Schoendorffe, a Dein Bien Phu vet. This version is not narrated by him like the original but it’s still pretty good.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@MattF: From the Crazy Eddie wikipedia entry:
@hueyplong:
I know a couple of those guys, actually. I’d be burning up the wires so fast….
The Lodger
@dance around in your bones:
It’s the ‘harvesting’ thing
Soylent Green is people, my friend.
Cliff in NH
Other People’s Money (1991)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7rvupKipmY
They even built the stage and everything.
It’s totally about Bain.
moops
IF there is any more big ammunition why don’t we see it rolling out now ? Why hold dry powder this close ? If you drive the polls further apart things work better, but it takes a week or two for a poll to show any effect. There are not that many weeks left.
LanceThruster
@SatanicPanic:
The cartoon short “Bambi vs. Godzilla” needs to be reworked with that new dynamic in mind.
xD
dance around in your bones
@The Lodger:
Brings up To Serve Man, no?
“It’s a cookbook!”
J R in WV
I still have “Veterans for Obama” stickers on my Ford F-350, and on the VW Jetta.
In 5 years (I put them on while the primaries were still going on) I have two instances of people disapproving – a biker in Arizona passed the VW and gave us a thumbs down. More recently we were on a weekend trip in Ohio and a rich-looking old white guy in a Chrysler New Yorker did much the same. Less polite than the biker, really.
Fukimall. Crush them at the polls!!
maryQ
Daisies, bitches.
mclaren
I’m not voting for Obama — I’ll be writing in Elizabeth Warren this November. But even so, have to love watching the Republican vermin get stomped like cockroaches this way.
It’s just a shame that voting Democratic will get us Paul Ryan’s policies 12 years from now.
Another Halocene Human
@shortstop: Oh. Ruh-roh. The ether fairies ate your decals, it seems.