Chris Christie thinks the debates will turn the race “upside down” (via) even though the rest of the campaign surrogates were spending their time telling the world how little debates matter. Christie also thinks the polls are unskewed, and that Todd Akin should be thrown under the bus.
This blundering fool is the just the first one at head of the herd. The next few weeks are going to be fun as we see other loyal Republicans line up to throw Romney under the bus.
jurassicpork
Haven’t had much time for blogging since last weekend, so these are your tweets o’ the week, courtesy of Pottersville.
Ash Can
Unless Christie learns how NOT to be a loose cannon between now and 2016, he can forget about being a serious presidential contender. He could very well end up as the GOP’s Ross Perot.
debit
@jurassicpork: Do you even read anything here, or do you just blogwhore and run?
On topic: I have put in a truly awesome supply of popcorn for the first debate and simply cannot wait. I know, I know, it’s bad to be overconfident, but I predict we’ll see massive amounts of flop sweat and fail from Romney.
aimai
Cokie Roberts was being interviewed on NPR this morning and she and Steve Inskeep or whoever it was were just kind of stunned by Christie and others’ raising of the bar for Romney. They were actually flabberghasted. Because you know what really matters to these fake pundits? Whether they can offer an inexact parallel to a previous political event. But since they are also committed to an overall policy of obfuscation and denial about the nature of Politics and of specifically American politics, they can’t offer any honest appraisal of why Romney’s people might be stabbing him in the back.
Cokie, for instance, reached all the way back to discussing the Carter/Reagan debate (without noting for the audience that George Will both prepped Reagan and commented on his Debate) and told us that the debate was a game changer for Reagan because before that the white blue collar workers in a “Reagan Democrat” stronghold in Pennsylvania felt uncomfortable voting for Reagan but afterwards they felt comfortable voting for him so they did. Guess it was his affability and not his coded racism? Cokie didn’t bother to give us an explanation for why she didn’t interview any black Philadelphians, or inquire as to why she felt it necessary to append “White” to her voting sample if she wasn’t going to figure out why it mattered.
aimai
Xecky Gilchrist
@aimai: Because you know what really matters to these fake pundits? Whether they can offer an inexact parallel to a previous political event.
Beautifully put. I’ve always thought of them as screenwriters who can’t do anything but remakes (or sometimes a sequel.)
MattF
I’d thought that Christie was smarter than that. The notion of a “smart Republican” should have set off the smoke alarm.
Nancy Darling
@aimai: Coded racism? There was nothing coded about the things Reagan said and did in that campaign. Everything was ALL CAPS and loud screaming. He couldn’t get away with it today.
See? We are making progress.
debit
Oh, by the way, thanks for the earworm. It’s going to be in my head all freaking day.
NickM
@aimai: I heard the same bit. My impression was that things are so desparate, to keep the troops and money from deserting, the Romney campaign is spinning the debates as the biggest, bestest reboot of all time. But your analysis, which I hadn’t considered, could also be right.
aimai
@Nancy Darling:
What are you talking about? I’m in MA. The screaming racism of Scott Brown is pretty, well, screaming.
@Xecky Gilchrist:
And Xecky your metaphor is a great one. You definitely get a “glory days” /old barfly sense of screen writer brag about Peggy Noonan and each one of these commentators. Which leads as well to an imagine of political pundit types (and I include Bob Shrum et al in this category) as people who have a giant mental campaign book of the details of all previous campaigns and who assume that each new campaign must fit the mold. That’s why you get these weird assertions that “this is a base election” or “this is a change election” as though those terms had any reality to them like the phrase “this thing is blue.”
aimai
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Christie needs to stop eating the spoiled, week old doughnuts. That bread mold can have hallucinogenic qualities.
Nancy Darling
@aimai: Has anything been as bad as “young bucks and t-bone steaks”? I admit, I am not up to speed on what Scott Brown has been saying.
Wag
Mitt has an afternoon campaign appearance at a museum about 100 yards from my office. Apparently the building owner has hired security to make sure our patient parking lot doesn’t fill with people attending the rally.
I can’t wait for the CF this afternoon.
Quincy
@Ash Can: The media and the husk of the Republican establishment like him so he won’t be marginalized. But he really sounds like he doesn’t care about insulting everybody, and comsiders popping off to be part of his shtick. He won’t survive the 2016 primary in a party with so many loyalty pledges without some top notch handlers.
Derelict
Now, now–please have some sympathy for the Villagers like Cokie and teh Shrumster. They’re very, very hard put to make it seem like Romney and Ryan have anything like substance about them. And Romney’s continued self-destruction every time he opens his mouth is just tearing them apart.
So, as Romney continues to fall in the polls, it becomes impossible for Cokie and the Villagers to maintain the only frame of reference they have, which is the horse-race metaphor. Without it, they’re just lost. And, far worse for them, that black guy looks like he might be around for another four years!
Linda Featheringill
Not possible for Obama to have a bad debate. On his worst days, he is “lackluster but adequate.”
I also think it’s highly unlikely that anything will come up during the debate that is truly a surprise to Obama. His team has already covered gotcha questions and unsubstantiated accusations and honest questions about his successes and failures over the past 3+ years.
debbie
Between Romney and McCain campaigns, there’s been an unbelievable amount of backstabbing and finger pointing. It seems to have started earlier this time than before. At this rate, it could very well start before the Iowa caucuses in 2016.
Did this kind of thing also happen after Democrat losses? I can’t think of any.
Professor
Have these pundits forgotten when the president went into the Republican congressional den and ate their lunch and took away their pocket money too, also? They went crying home to mum and vowed never to invite him back!
Linda Featheringill
@Nancy Darling:
I haven’t heard of anti-black racism from Scott but his anti-Indian racism is blatant and deep and disgusting. He apparently considers American Indians fair game for any and all of his games.
Team Scott is playing the part of a bully. They’re trying to humiliate Warren, which is hard to do.
peach flavored shampoo
Fixed.
Marc
@Wag: If it’s as well attended as other Romney rallies, your building owner could have saved the money.
gnomedad
I don’t know that I’ll watch the debates live. I just can’t stand to listen to the GOP talking points any more, even if it gives Obama a boost.
gnomedad
@Linda Featheringill:
Hahaha, excellent observation! Thank you, Tea Party, Fox News, etc.
amk
10 million donors, baybee.
amk
@Linda Featheringill:
You’d have if brown were black. He is a racist punk, alright,
Balconesfault
@gnomedad: Last night listening to a local wingnut AM show host while running errands … a caller declared:
“If Mitt’s staff would just bring aboard Limbaugh and Hannity and Boortz and incorporate all the great arguments these guys keep making it would completely destroy Obama.”
I would SOOOO love to see Mitt spend the rest of the campaign speaking to the 27-percenters. That’s all kinds of awesome.
Elie
Christie like much of the Republican future leadership bench, has personality and or psych issues. The whole party needs to be fixed from the ground up. I do not see any of them as capable of sustaining the scrutiny or evidencing the maturity or competence to become President.
jonas
I don’t expect Obama to simply roll Romney in the debates — Romney’s not stupid and can speak well. But Romney’s disadvantage is that, as they say, when you tell the truth, you only have to remember one thing; when you lie, you have to remember dozens of things. Romney’s debate prep has got to consist entirely of remembering which whoppers he’s told in which context so he doesn’t get completely caught out contradicting himself in every single response he gives. Also, I really, really hope he tries to deliver a bunch of “zingers” because he would truly, truly make a huge ass of himself trying to appear all witty and cool next to Barack Obama.
Chyron HR
He then proceeded to tell us how Mitt will become the prince of a town called DC.
MattF
@Balconesfault: I do wonder if the debate ‘zingers’ will be references that only a dittohead would get. Considering that Mitt doesn’t see any problem with getting his socioeconomic theories from the WSJ editorial page, I wouldn’t be too surprised.
gbear
@amk: Yay. I was in the 9,999,900’s. I made my second donation last weekend.
I’d bet that 99% of Romney’s money comes from less than 100 donors.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@jonas:
I’ve been assaulted by this meme for almost a week now, and I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.
I watched every single GOP primary debate. (Yes, there is probably something wrong with me). Romney’s debate performance never impressed me. He ranged from ‘bungling’ to ‘well at least he didn’t embarrass himself’. Newt seemed to have won most of them, in hindsight.
I also watched him debate Kennedy in 1994, and Shannon O’Brien in 2002. In 1994 he came off as sleazy, dishonest and petulant. In 2002 he came off as bullying, slick and petulant. And both times he had a much friendlier media, and less oppo against him (few blogs and no twitter back then).
IMO he’ll do what Scott Brown’s been doing, and go negative to get the base riled up on emotional/tribal issues. Hence the ‘zingers’.
PurpleGirl
@jonas: This is a good point. He has to remember so many different things, he can fall over his own feet and be tongued tied.
Ryan C
@Chyron HR: He didn’t say the election would get flipped turned upside down.
Frankensteinbeck
@Professor:
The really fascinating thing was, he was predicting all of this at the time. He gave them a lecture that pandering to the crazies and misrepresenting basic legislation as Armageddon would leave them unable to back down, married to those extreme stances and forced to keep feeding the crazies ever-bloodier meat.
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
I recall Romney being embarrassed and losing every debate except one – and he fired that debate coach.
The Moar You Know
The used car salesman I dealt with last week was also not stupid and can speak quite well. In addition, he thinks it’s a bad idea to kill all government spending, and thinks a small tax hike wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Advantage: used car salesman.
In addition, the used car salesman didn’t try to bet me $10,000 as to whether the car my wife was looking at would be something she’d like or not, nor did he ask if the cookies we ate afterwards were store bought.
Advantage: used car salesman.
One thing the used car salesman didn’t do was to ask how much income I made, and then write me off as a useless moocher because I’m one of the 47% who get a refund for overpaying my income tax. Nor did he make an unfunny joke, laugh nervously, and silently look around the room to make sure that everyone was paying attention to him.
Advantage: used car salesman.
I was also struck at how the car salesman’s wife didn’t come out and tell me that I had “all that I needed to know” about the used car we were looking at, nor did she demand that I sign the contract because her husband is such a good and devout Mormon. Fact is, I don’t know what religious denomination my used car salesman is, because neither one of us considered it an important or relevant issue.
So, if you gotta vote Republican, I urge you to vote for Used Car Salesman, Carmax, Kearny Mesa, CA – he’s a pretty good guy.
Matt McIrvin
@debbie: Democrats are famous for the circular firing squad following any kind of defeat. The left vs. the DLC, cultural liberals vs. labor liberals, “identity politics” vs. economic appeals, etc., etc., etc. Especially in the world of punditry.
There’s definitely some schadenfreude in seeing the Republicans finally get a taste of it. Up to now, they’ve been much better at keeping people in line.
Tonybrown74
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
This!
Every. Single. Word.
Anoniminous
Using the tag line “No News is Good News for Conservatives” …
Not finding polling evidence the House is going to flip. The only hopeful sign I could find is a Gallup Poll:
Poll was taken Sept. 6 – 9.
Naturally Democrats are more likely to push for, what would be, a Democratic controlled House.
It makes sense to me Dems will pick-up House seats. At the moment, though, I can’t find any hard evidence enough House seats for control to be switched.
Gravie
I was forced to listen to Chris Christie bloviating about the debates on CNN this morning while I was waiting for a doctor’s appointment. (And why in hell would a doctor’s office want to subject innocent people to the blood-pressure-detonating blather of CNN? But I digress.) I just kept muttering “bullsh–” under my breath and by the time I was called, more than a few of the nice folks in the waiting area were eyeing me warily.
Joel
@Anoniminous: Keep an eye on Sam Wang’s blog. He’s the guy who is running the numbers on the house. Unfortunately, his old house data is currently.. well, old.
District level polling should be filtering in soon.
jonas
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: I agree that Romney’s biggest challenge, aside from “don’t forget which lies when” is “don’t look like a smug, petulant asshole.” That’s a tough one for Romney, which is why I think any attempt to “zing” Obama is simply going to backfire. But Romney can also bring the “I’m a competent businessman” schtick when he needs to and Democrats shouldn’t assume that that turns off every voter, even if we see it for the thinly veiled bullshit that it is.
Anoniminous
@Joel:
There’s not enough ‘Value Received’ by national polling firms for ‘Value Spent.’ So we’ll have to catch the dribs and drabs from state news organizations.
I’m guessing we won’t have the data required for a firm conclusion until the latter part of this month.
(T minus 36 days and counting.)
Jay in Oregon
If he means the same sense as a finely-tuned sports car bursting through the safety rail and plummeting into a ravine, I would agree.