(Tom Toles via GoComics.Com)
__
Politico says the Hofstra debate helped at least one of those undecided questioners make up her mind:
Susan Katz, who asked GOP nominee Mitt Romney how he would operate differently than former President George W. Bush, said Wednesday she is going to vote for President Barack Obama…
“I was disappointed that the governor chose to first rebut what the president had been saying prior to my question being addressed to him,” Katz said. “That seems to be his style. I found that disappointing. I thought the governor did a good job of laying out some ways he would function differently than President Bush had. Basically, throughout the night, I found it disconcerting that the governor needed to control things. That was a problem for me, and that was evident in the way he first answered my question.”
Before answering her question, Romney addressed a point Obama had made about contraceptives. Katz said she thought Obama was someone “who listens instead of speaks.”…
My emphasis. Was Ms. Katz offended that Romney found it more important to keep arguing with the other man on the stage than to pay attention to her question? Or did it seem (maybe subconsciously) that Romney looked at her, saw “woman”, and assumed that she’d only be interested in “women’s issues”?
I’m not sure how many men — especially white men from ‘comfortable’ economic circumstances — realize how sensitive women are to the pseudo-alpha-male Mad-Men masculine style that Amy Sullivan in TNR refers to as “Mitt the Jerk“:
… Mitt the Man gets his way by talking over you and not stopping until you give in so he can make his point. Which he may have forgotten by then, because getting his way was the point.
Mitt the Man can go from charming to testy in two seconds flat because while he has tolerated you as a female colleague, he will not allow you to disrespect him and his authoritah!
Mitt the Man is not self-aware enough to realize that he can be easily goaded and that you are pushing his buttons.
Mitt the Man feels sorry for you as a single parent and your sure-to-be-screwed-up kids.
Mitt the Man cannot help but disappoint you because his chivalry is all about saying the right thing as opposed to doing the right thing….
If last week’s polls were correct that President Obama’s huge edge with women was eroding, I’d argue that it may have seemed from the first debate that he had stopped listening to what “his” voters wanted. Women (yes, and other not-really-minorities, not to mention anyone who works a service job) are hypersensitive about being ignored by the big, rich, powerful, important (mostly) men who run the world. During the Hofstra debate, the President made it clear that he was listening to the questioners — and to the female moderator — even when his reponses were, in political terms, less than fully responsive. I think this was every bit as important, for the purposes of the evening, as the genuine gains for women he could claim during his tenure.
If perceptions are 90% of politics, then Mitt Romney was every privileged jerk who’s ever snapped an unreasonable demand at the lowly secretary or security guard or retail clerk without so much as looking us in the eye. It may give the daddy-seeking authoritarians a thrill up their legs to be treated like that, but when our crappy little individual votes are all the power we’ve got to affect how our lives and the world will be run over the next four years, some of us want the common courtesy of being acknowledged as fellow humans.
raven
You better be careful, Taaaagggggg may be coming after you.
TR
I’m starting to understand why Mitt confuses corporations and people — he thinks they’re both soulless vessels for his will.
boss bitch
Women moving to Romney? I don’t think so. Flat out false. Also heard Hispanics in FL were moving to Romney also. Yeah Right. LOL!!!
The O camp hasn’t ignored women during this campaign at all. Ever. They know what women want.
geg6
Excellent catch there, Anne Laurie. Since I refuse to click on Politico, I have no idea what the rest of the article says, but I think the part you highlight is very relevant and your analysis is spot on.
I hope Obama also caught this and remembers this for the next debate. Even though it won’t be a town hall style debate, he needs to remember to talk to us, to listen to what the former Chester Arthur White House correspondent, Bob Schieffer, asks and then look directly at the camera and answer the question.
I know that Nate Silver says that the third debate usually has little to no effect on the race, but I think it’s best that Obama treat as just as important as he did this last one.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
Good post. Very good.
Rita R.
Mika is making a cogent, extended argument today on Morning Joe for the first time that I’ve ever seen. Talking about women’s issues, and how Romney lied about the binder story, and more. And it is fascinating to watch the amused disdain being shown to her, not only by Joe Scarborough, but by Mark Halperin.
raven
@Rita R.: She should slap both of those punks and walk off.
geg6
@Rita R.:
Well, in their defense, that’s the same way I look at Mika.
raven
@geg6: Hard to argue with that!
Rita R.
@geg6:
As do I usually. But I was actually impressed, and kind of shocked, today. Thing is, she has set herself up to be treated like that by acting like a combination of the Morning Joe sex kitten and mommy who scolds the boys.
Linda
Here’s what’s interesting to me in the “women’s vote” blahblahblah: somehow, all the Smart People believe that access to contraceptives and abortion are petty issues in women’s lives as compared to, the federal deficit. But that’s a crock; everyday women’s lives get derailed when they get pregnant with a child they can’t feed, or whose appearance makes it hard/impossible to continue their education. Conservatives acknowledge this when they rail against teen pregnancy, but it’s framed in arguments for chastity instead of fertility control, and it’s not ackowledged at all as an issue in women over 20. We as a society have an easy time understanding fertility as a poverty issuee in economically developing countries, but are reluctant to see the same thing in our own society, when it’s right in front of our eyes. Why is that?
raven
@Rita R.: This says it all for me.
aimai
Scary and sad diary up at Kos (I think) about watching the debate with a bunch of stone republicans from Nevada. They basically are so primed with Glen Beckery and Fox Newsery that they can’t hear or see anything the President says as other than a lie. They believe everything: that he’s a secret Muslim wearing a secret Moooooslim ring, that he wants to flood the country with illegals to bring about Sharia law, and that his mother wasnt’ “hard working.” We’ve known that fox produced this bizarro world but they have bought it: hook line and sinker. So they don’t “see” or “hear” the same debate we do.
aimai
Rita R.
@raven:
Yep. When I saw that pic, it made me believe that image of her is intentional. I’ve got to think her “people” wouldn’t have allowed it otherwise.
raven
@Rita R.: Has to be, that’s just an example of the cheesecake she puts out on the promo shots on the show.
kay
@boss bitch:
Some of them will move to Romney. If they usually vote GOP they’ll end up there.
I personally think the whole Riddle of the Undecided Voter could be 90% solved with one more question “who do you usually end up with, the Republican or the Democrat?”
People may not declare a Party but they always lean Left or Right, whether they recognize that themselves or not.
I would even take it one step further. If they tell you out front about that one time they voted for the Democrat, they’re telling you about an exception from what is their “norm”. They need some super-duper Democrat or catastrophic event to move. They can call themselves anything they like but they’re probably voting GOP.
SFAW
@raven:
For those of us that don’t get out of our
Mommy’sown basement very often: is that a picture of Joe and Mika? Or some other two “hotties”?dr. bloor
@raven: Guess she hasn’t heard that old story about an intern…
aimai
Here’s the link to the diary. It was actually a think progress piece of reporting:
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/17/1030281/romney-debate-watch-party/
raven
@SFAW: It’s Mika on a desk in a short black dress and spiked heels doing a gymnastics move while dumb ass sits in a chair at looks into the camera.
eat Or are those the famous “come fuck me pumps”?
Scott
I was watching the debate with my wife and when Mitt was talking the stuff about “binders full of women” went right over my head. I also nodded affirmatively when he described how he arranged flextime for his female chief of staff so she could get home to cook and take care of the kids. Well, that was one place where my wife took notice and had her hackles raised. She thought that was pretty condescending and I didn’t even notice.
On the other hand, when Romney turned to Obama and said “I still talking!”, I immediately could feel my alpha male reaction. I’m pretty sure Obama suppressed that. I would I had a few choice four letter words burst out and stood toe-to-toe with him.
SFAW
@aimai:
Yeah, that Nevada thing would have been hilarious, if it weren’t so scary.
Living in a fairly liberal state, it’s sometimes (relatively) easy to forget that there are a bunch of morons out there, and they all vote Rethug. (Well, it WOULD be easy, if I didn’t read blogs, etc.)
I just wish that Cyril Kornbluth had been wrong about all this.
Paul
@aimai:
This explains one of the reasons why the regime in the old Soviet Union held on to power for so long. The state owned media helped create their own reality, kind of like FoxNews today. There are people that will believe what they are told.
Warren Terra
@raven:
The whole business where cable news shows have men of various physical appearances and ages in suits, paired with young, beautiful women with elaborately prepared hair and extensive workout regimes wearing short skirts says everything you need to know about the medium. It’s worst on Fox News, but you do see it elsewhere. That picture is one example.
I realize these people are mostly essentially actors, not picked for their deep scholarship, rich life experience, or unique insights. Thus, it’s not hard to find beautiful people to do the job. Still it’s only the women who have to be beautiful, and only the women that have to dress provocatively.
PreservedKillick
@Paul:
They’d argue MSNBC does the same. To some extent, perhaps a large extent, they do.
This is not any kind of a new phenomenom ins US politics, except maybe in its ubiquity. Examples abound: Drew Pearson, Westbrook Pegler, etc.
I am not entirely sure, however, that we’ve seen coordinated lying and shape shifting at such a scale before,nor the construction of “candidates” for office that are basically nothing more than cardboard cutouts designed to appeal the correct segment of the voting populace, insulating those candidates from all possible contact with the public or the press – and the willingness of the press to cooperate with all of that, since it makes for a good “story”. This is a nifty Republican innovation, but if it works I’d expect the democrats to follow.
That is what worries me. We’ve managed to decimate our free press and haven’t entirely replaced them with credible and effective online media. We’ve removed our guardrails, if you will. And it may take truly disastrous results for us to realize what we’ve done.
BruceFromOhio
As a white male in comfortable economic circumstances, I can only base my realization of how sensitive women are to such people on what the women in my life care to say about such people. There’s one thing we clearly agree on, and that is the “pseudo-alpha-male Mad-Men masculine style” generally depicts a raging asshole.
@Linda:
Because America still clings to the Puritanical ideals of outdated gender identities and the morality that supposedly accompanies it, hence the insistence of “abstinence-only” sex education in public high school by social conservatives. Until a community squarely confronts the morality issue, our “reluctance” will persist.
SFAW
@raven:
Thanks. I have often – well, not recently, otherwise Mrs. SFAW might be puttin’ a hurtin’ on me – heard the term “FMPs” and “CMF pumps”, but never really understood what style of shoe they are/were. You have provided me an invaluable service by ‘splaining it for me.
Paul
@PreservedKillick:
I’m sure they would. The difference is that at least when it comes to news, MSNBC reports the news while FoxNews has a clear GOP bias in its news. Just yesterday FoxNews on its news headline went after moderator Candee Crowley.
Furthermore, Joe Scarborough/Mark Halperin. Case closed.
Laura
Mitt is a jerk, I’d like to think both women and men realize that.
But that lady’s answer is the actual f’n problem. Instead of talking about the substance of what they said, she’s all, “Oh, he seemed more controlling, I don’t like that….”
UGHHHHHHHH
HRA
It’s more than sad to realize we have citizens who seem to not be correctly educated in this country, who cannot come to fair conclusions, and harbor resentments over all that is right and proper.
I have never adhered to voting party line. I vote for the person. This year will be the first time I will pull the lever for party no matter who is on the ticket. I am totally disgusted with the R part of our election system and the reasons are more than many. If I had been still unsure of pulling the D, the latest machinations and ugliness portrayed by the Romneys set it in concrete.
jrg
That’s what bothers me about Romney. He strikes me as being a very smart man, but the dangerous, arrogant kind of smart. The kind of smart that doesn’t know what it doesn’t know, and won’t take the advice of “lesser” people who might happen to know what they’re talking about.
Cmm
I find that picture really gross and demeaning for the suggestions of the underlying narrative as much as for the inappropriate cheesecake. With the way both are posed, it looks like Joe is a serious guy focused on something other than Mika, whereas she is looking at him as she strikes this ludicrous pose. Like he is here to do a serious show about issues and she is there because she has a crush on him and wishes he would notice her. All her focus is on her appearance and whether Joe pays any attention to her. No room for Serious Thoughts with all those distractions in her pretty little head.
My agenda for today, errands, catching up on another couple of episodes of Walking Dead, and napping in preparation for my shift tonight. My weekends run from 8AM on Tuesdays til 1100 PM on Thursdays, which tends to limit their potential for fun and frolic.
Crossed my big agenda item off my “weekend” to do list yesterday-my partner and I went and voted. Good to have that done with.
R. Porrofatto
Apropos to any talk of Romney’s “binders full of women” is Romney’s response to Rick Perry regarding his using a company that employed undocumented immigrant workers: “I said, for Pete’s sake, I can’t have illegals: I’m running for office!”
This construction works for practically every position he currently holds, or doesn’t:
“I said, for Pete’s sake, I need to have binders full of women: I’m running for office!”
“I said, for Pete’s sake, I’ve got to pretend I’m a moderate: I’m running for office!”
“I said, for Pete’s sake, I can’t tell the truth: I’m running for office!”
Kirbster
I’m glad that Susan Katz has finally made up her mind to vote for Obama. How she missed the other thousand and one red flags Mitt has sent up throughout the campaign, yet been engaged enough to get herself invited to the town hall “debate”, is a real mystery. Apparently, she has to feel personally dissed before things register with her.
kay
@Laura:
But you get a hint on where she’s leaning from the question itself, don’t you?
She doesn’t like Bush. She needed reassurance to vote for the Republican on policy and then Romney’s manner put her off.
The (alleged) fabulous salesman blew the sale because he’s personally unappealing.
Jay C
@Kirbster:
From the accounts I read, whoever organized the Hofstra debate made a point to fill the audience (and take their questions) only from self-proclaimed “undecided voters”: though I don;t know exactly what methods they used to scare up these rare creatures. Even in populous Long Island, I’m surprised they could find as many as 80 sentient beings who were 1) Registered, 2) Likely and 3) still uncommitted at this point. Oh, and 4) doing nothing else on a Monday night.
But so they did: it was only the Republicans who seemed to have trouble finding a sentient being to show up….
aimai
@Laura:
I agree with you Laura. You’d have to know how the questions were framed, though, to see whether she actually intends to vote largely on a feeling rather than on the facts. What they should really do is present the viewers with a bullet point list of the two party platforms before the debate with a notation as to which things each candidate has agreed to abide by at their own convetions. Only people who have sat through a detailed presentation of the platforms should be permitted to see the debate and afterwards they should have to go through a short quiz to determine which of the two candidates more closely adhered to their party platform and in what ways they deviated–deceptively or honestly?
aimai
The Red Pen
I think I’ve found the most vile right-wing article of the day and I’ve just gotten started. It’s an article on “Lifesite News” that purports to be about a new class of sexual predators. I suspect the author needs to be on some kind of watch list because he (of course it’s a “he”) starts with this:
Creepy.
So who are these new sexual predators?
Got it?
It’s an article slamming people looking for egg donors as sexual predators. Seriously. Here’s a link to a Google search that will take you to the page, if you dare: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Alifesitenews.com+predators
The Fat Kate Middleton
Thanks for this wonderful post, Anne. You’ve helped me articulate exactly what impresses me most about Obama (and impressed me yesterday, when I met him). It’s that extraordinary ability to offer you his full and focused attention, to listen carefully to what you are saying. It was remarkable to me how he managed to convey his respect and gratitude to each volunteer who met with him, and to make us feel how important our efforts have been to him. Each of us was given only a minute or two with him, but each of us felt what you have just described: He listened to us.
Mark S.
Where did the term alpha male come from? The first I remember hearing it was when Gore switched to wearing earth tones or some shit. But the term sounds like some ev psych bullshit to me.
Out here in Real America, the term we use for alpha males is “douchebags.”
jurassicpork
I think the one who most perfectly described Romney was Charles Pierce, who said that when Romney gets testy, he has on his face that “flog the butler look.” Indeed, as I’ve pointed out several times, the only times Romney shows emotion is when he’s challenged on his lies. This is actually quite common with right wingers, people who feel threatened when you merely challenge them on their “facts.” The hallowed American tradition of political debate, to them, has become a threat that must be eradicated at all costs. Of course, the MSM is largely to blame because right wing nut jobs like Romney have gotten coddled by not being challenged all that often. Look at what’s been happening to Soledad O’Brien with John Sununu, who’s been letting his misogynist freak flag fly.
Anyway, several of you have pulled through for us but we still need a few more.
Felinious Wench
Amen, sister. If I sniff that out, I’m not wasting my time with the asshole creating the stench.
No way women flip towards Romney. Absolutely no way.
arguingwithsignposts
I’m sorry, but if you are an “undecided” voter at this point in this presidential election, you are an idiot. Full stop.
JoyceH
I just posted feedback to Morning Joe on why Mika was right and Joe was wrong. EVERY man around that table was so dismissive about the issue – what’s the big deal about getting a ‘few details’ wrong?
What’s the BIG DEAL?! The big deal is that the new description of what really happened and how those binders were really created nails Romney as that familiar figure in business – The Guy Who Takes Credit For Other People’s Work.
Everyone who’s ever been in the work force knows that guy – and we all HATE him.
As soon as I heard the story of how MassGAP created those binders on their own initiative and gave them to the Romney team without prompting, I flashed back to a huge project I once did and got zero credit for while my boss took the public bows for it – twenty-five years ago and I’m mad about it all over again.
Emma
@SFAW: I just wish that Cyril Kornbluth had been wrong about all this.
Gawd. Did you have to bring that into my mind this early?
bemused
@Scott:
Oh yes, we women can detect a dismissive male tone in a nanosecond. We have lifelong experience. I don’t think men, even the most evolved, know how often we want to slap them silly.
Joe in response to Mika this morning when talking about the Romney/women issue, “whatever”. I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a guy say that.
dr. bloor
@raven: In addition to sitting Presidents, TAAAGGGG also seems to have a penchant for going after the dying..
Dick Romney has raised a Mini-Dick. Nature or nurture? You make the call.
jeffreyw
Binder reviews at Amazon.
Southern Beale
I can’t believe those salacious covers didn’t save them …. Newsweek print edition going bye-bye.
jibeaux
I heard it said in several places that Mitt “flip-flopped” on contraception, and believe me this is no defense of Mitt Romney but this is one thing he didn’t flip flop on at all. He used very carefully chosen words like “use” and “access”, but at no point did he say that he supported health insurers having to cover it or employers not being able to veto your contraception. It was weaselly as all fuck, but I’m not as stupid as he thinks I am.
The sentence that stood out to me — the binders thing went right past — was to the effect of how he was going to get employers so desperate for good employees, they’d even be willing to hire women, even with their zany demands that they can’t work until 8:00 at night. Another thing that stood out to me was this idea that flex time is a concession to women in particular, as opposed to something that might be welcomed by, I dunno, PARENTS.
sharl
An excellent post, Anne Laurie.
And that photo of Mika on the desk that raven linked to – wow! I was aware of the basic host/
sex kitten & doormatco-host dynamic for that show that Rita R. noted, but that photo – presumably a non-photoshopped pose by Mika – brings it home.I wonder what kind of conversations take place between Mika and dear ol’ dad Zbigniew regarding her “career”? (Or maybe it has become one of those uncomfortable no-go areas for discussion at this point.)
Hal
Ahhh, the undecided voter. Like a little kid playing the “I have secret, guess what it is game…” in which you spend a few minutes trying to guess, and then give up to move on to other things. At which point the little kid says “Wait, I’ll tell you!.”
Undecideds are children looking for five extra minutes of undivided attention.
lacp
@dr. bloor: A real charmer.
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: Sure, but as a candidate would you be willing to write off the idiots at this point in the campaign and put everything into your GOTV? In any case, the indecision is almost certainly a sign of something else: a sense that things are not right in the world, but not enough time in the day to pick apart the news and so most uncertain about the best way forward. I have to think that Susan Katz fell into this category, and if you treated her as an idiot, you’d end up doing exactly what the Mittwit did in the debate.
Baud
@jwb:
I agree with you. I think we underestimate the amount of noise and misinformation that exists in the world.
jibeaux
@dr. bloor: Funny thing about that is, I automatically want to take a swing at people named “Tagg” 24/7, under any circumstances. I mean, it’s a name that if you gave it to the stuck-up rich villain who always wears ski clothes in an ’80s comedy they would say it was over the top.
arguingwithsignposts
@jwb: Fortunately, I am not a candidate for office. I’m glad the Obama team is trying to convince these idiots who to vote for.
As for “not enough time in the day” excuse, that’s bullshit. Despite what manic progressives say, the difference between Romney and Obama is as wide as the ocean is deep. If someone cannot figure that out from reading a single page of a web site, they are an idiot. As for the manic progressives/Ron Paul glibertarians – they are idiots, too – but I repeat myself.
arguingwithsignposts
@Baud: No. It’s not. All you have to ask is what do you value most and vote accordingly. The O and R position pages, or the D and R platforms, are enough to make a decision, even with all the PR speak they use.
And then, if you want to go further, there are plenty of helpful places on the internets. It wouldn’t take hours.
RandyH
Did others notice during the debate when the Latina woman asked Romney what he would do about immigrants who are “productive members of society but don’t have Green Cards?” (her words)
Romney talked down to her, changing his tone and simplifying his vocabulary, as though she was a little girl in kindergarten or maybe like he’s talking to a lip-reading deaf person. She was obviously an educated person and spoke English just fine, but with an accent. Probably because he was dealing with an ethnic person, he felt it appropriate to speak down to her as he did. His response to the question was also pretty bad, including calling the people in question “undocumented illegals,” but it was the shift in tone that was so offensive.
I heard that he had gotten some coaching on how to treat the carbon-based lifeforms when they asked him questions during the Townhall debate, but this was overkill.
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: I think you misjudge how much time it takes to see the yawning gap. Imagine yourself with maybe 5-10 minutes every other day where you actually have time to pay close attention. And you are probably very tired even then. The rest of the time you are taking in the political mediascape in a most distracted fashion. Our media is designed to confuse such voters and convince them that we live in a center right nation where both sides do it, yadda, yadda, yadda..
Baud
@arguingwithsignposts:
I wish it worked that way, but it just doesn’t. Think of the narrow world of liberal blogs, and how many fights we get into about whether and how much to support the Democratic Party. These undecided voters are a million times removed from that. I’m not trying to make excuses for them – I just think it’s the reality of the world we live in and we have to deal with it.
chopper
and the ‘binders’ statement is just his version of ‘hey, some of my best friends are women’.
add in the terrible romneyesque wording as well as the fact that the whole story is a lie, and it’s the meme that keeps on giving.
Trinity
Well stated Anne! Great post.
SBJules
It is also a Mormon thing with Mitt. In the Church, men hold the Priesthood; are considered the head of the family(yes,there are problems with abuse in families in the church) Men are the final authorities. I used to know a number of men like Mitt before I left the Church.
chopper
@jibeaux:
i know. i have a totally flexible schedule which is great cause i take care of the kid all the time, take care of the house and make dinner every night. don’t have any ladybits tho.
i still laugh at his intro to that pile of bullshit, ‘if we’re going to have women in the workforce…’ like if we’re going to forward with this cockamamie scheme we need to have a few things straight here.
Baud
@chopper:
LOL. It’s so crazy, it just might work!
Svensker
@aimai: I saw that, too. How can you possibly break through that?
slightly_peeved
@JoyceH:
To me, it’s just the perfect awfulness that his response to a question about equal pay is to take credit for the work of a group of women. There’s something almost artistic in its lack of self-awareness.
Svensker
@boss bitch:
That could be. Florida Cubans don’t consider themselves related to “illegals” and tend to be very right wing.
Elizabelle
@jrg:
The Donald Rumsfeld type? The Richard B. Cheney, operating behind folksy GWBush, type?
We’ve SEEN that movie, non-critical thinking voters! And it stole your popcorn on the way out of the theatre.
Randy P
@Mark S.: I think it’s been standard terminology for describing animal behavior for many years. Wolf packs, horses, gorilla tribes, etc. It just got extended to humans at some point, suggesting the same kind of tribal dynamics, that some male has to be “alpha” which gives him access to the females.
I’ve also heard the term “alpha geek” which is kind of funny and ironic, yet makes perfect sense. It’s just that dominance rituals in geek culture are a little different than in biker bars.
Paula68154
Last Saturday my niece sent me a text which made me laugh. “Shhhhhh I think I am a democrat. Don’t tell anyone. I’m volunteering at OFA on Monday.” She is a Texan. I called her and told her that her secret is safe with me. She said that she had a lot of respect for me for standing up to the rest of my Texas family (the men) all these years.
So last night her mother, my sister, called me. She has always voted R. She was a single issue voter and that issue was pro-life, so I never debated her on anything bc well you just can’t challenge an emotional/religious held view.
Anyway, she said that she is voting Obama. Why? Contraceptives. “What idiot would not give contraceptives to poor women?” As we spoke she had a revelation: she had always voted the way her husbands did. She never got the facts on her own. She is still pro-life but it is no longer the only issue.
I asked her a sensitive question. We were raised baptist, and like all baptists we were taught that Mormonism is a cult. She and my other sisters sent her kids to private baptist schools and they were taught the same. I had long ago stopped being a “baptist” for numerous reasons but one of them was their condemnation of Mormons.
So I asked how she felt about the church now saying that Mormonism is no longer considered a cult. Her response: “I have a problem with that.” It’s not that she ever believed that. There was a time when we were very young that my parents tried out Mormonism. As a 5 year old I remember liking it bc of family night. But one day the church asked for his tax returns, and with that my friends, it was over.
Her issue with the 180 turn was that she witnessed her church do something for obivious political reasons. So now she he questioning the leaders of her church. (There are biblical passages when church leaders conspired with political leaders.) Even Billy Graham.
kd bart
Caught DL Hughley on Lawrence O’Donnell’s Show, The Last Word,on MSNBC last night and he talked about the time he actually met Mitt Romney back in 2007 over at Jay Leno. Says he comes across as a salesman, a Mercedes salesman, to be exact. All slick and confident trying to sell you something.
Betsy
@Mark S.: You win my prize.
Elizabelle
@Southern Beale:
I’m fine with Newsweek going bye-bye, in print.
Tina Brown disgraced herself with that Niall Ferguson essay a few months ago.
She’ll still get eyeballs, on the web. Politico does.
Betsy
@kd bart: I was thinking several weeks ago, and have been saying ever since, that Mitt’s single skill is slick salesmanship. (Sorry for the sibilance.)
Now I’m noticing that OFA is putting out subtle, but distinct and deliberate, words to characterize Mitt as a salesman. “Slick,” “pitch,” and “close the deal” have all been used.
Has anyone else noticed this? It’s a great thing, in my view.
Elizabelle
@geg6:
Agree with you on clicking on Politico.
However.
This article yesterday on SuperPAC scammers targeting hardcore conservatives, especially Allen West supporters — who will apparently fall for anything — was worth every click.
Allen West plagued by scam PACs
PS: Kudos to whoever posted this story yesterday afternoon on Balloon Juice thread. Thank you!
Pongo
Not sure ‘hyper-sensitive’ is the best way to define the absolute awareness minorities and women have of their position relative to the power structure. In my experience, that term has always been used by those who are attempting to maintain the status quo as a way to dismiss real and valid concerns as emotional/hysterical reactions to imagined slights. If you can make the problem the perception of the one slighted, rather than the content of the slight itself, you no longer have a responsibility to address the actual issue.
Mitt did, indeed, relegate experienced, accomplished women to interchangeable pages in a dime-store binder. It is not necessary to be ‘hyper’ sensitive to recognize the same old dismissive, ‘good ol’ boy’, titan of industry BS this represents.
Matt McIrvin
@HRA:
We’ve gone through a long period in this country in which many Very Serious People told us that only tools vote a straight party ticket, “partisan polarization” was a bad thing, and a Very Serious Person would primarily consider the individual personalities of the candidates.
Meanwhile, one of our two parties gradually turned itself into a mechanism for disciplined party-line voting. Moderate Republicans are essentially gone, or where they still exist, the ones in legislatures still vote party-line whenever it really counts. I think that at this point, in the vast majority of cases, straight party-line voting is the only rational approach.
bjacques
@Svensker: Oh, those Florida Cubans…whatever will they do now that Cuba will soon make it much easier to leave the country?
@Paula98154:
Police dept to Mr.RedTexan: Sir, those calls for Obama…*they’re coming from inside the house*
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin:
You’ve had some really good points. Appreciated your take yesterday on not calling Congress out in debates.
RE party-line voting: you have just told a truth that totebagging SERIOUS media will not.
Parrot
Willard’s needing a refresher with Frank TJ Mackey: ‘respect the cock and tame the pussy’ and ‘how to fake like you are nice and caring person’ Perhaps, Dinesh D’Souza can send over his booklets from the Mackey Seminars?
SFAW
@Emma:
I’d offer you a cup of brain bleach, but I normally save that for things like contemplating Rush’s personal life, and other repulsive concepts/situations.
Kornbluth, although prescient and frightening, was not repulsive.
Rethugs, on the other hand …
Southern Beale
But Katherine Fenton, the woman who asked about the gender pay gap which resulted in Mitt’s “binders full of women” remark, is still undecided.
Sigh.
Elizabelle
@Emma:
I’d never heard of Cyril Kornbluth. Thank you.
Here’s a PDF of his short story, Marching Morons, for those of us just discovering him.
Amir Khalid
@Southern Beale:
@Elizabelle:
Tina Brown has never really found an answer to the question: Why Newsweek and not TIME? Newsweek has not had, in recent years, the resources to keep up with TIME. The editor before her — Jon Meacham, if I recall correctly — tried making Newsweek a wannabe Economist instead, which didn’t work because the real Economist was right there on the newsstands next to its (feeble) imitator. I think Brown was trying to distance Newsweek from straight-up news by making it more glossy mag-ish, in a Vanity Fair/Esquire vein. It hasn’t worked. The stunt cover stories have been known more for their attempts to shock (e.g. Photoshopping wrinkles to age Princess Diana to 50, just so the story could imagine her at William’s wedding) than for their journalism. Brown’s feeble defence of Niall Ferguson and his terrible cover story didn’t help convince anyone that Newsweek still cared about getting facts straight, the first and most basic requirement in reporting. The slow death of print news has a lot to do with it, of course, but I think what’s doing the most right now to kill Newsweek is misguided leadership.
Ajaye
@Elizabelle:
Cancelled my subscription (which I had held for 20 years at least) after within the span of a few issues it had cover stories on Palin, Nikki Hailey and yeah, then Palin again. Final straw kinda thing though was already turned off by the new flashy graphics, focus on pop culture and celebrity. Tina Brown truly ruined Newsweek and turned it into a middlebrow People Magazine. Awful.
I really liked Newsweek back in the day. I thought it allowed me to catch up on stuff and keep up on current events and I thought it brought much journalistic integrity to its mission.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@aimai:
FTFY.
Mnemosyne
@boss bitch:
Since the only place where it’s been claimed that Hispanics moved towards Romney is Florida and Cubans in Florida tend to be strong Republicans, I’m guessing it’s the same dynamic at work that I was already seeing — conservative voters moving themselves into the “likely voter” column after the first debate. So, IMO, that first debate didn’t really “change minds” and move voters from Obama to Romney. What it did was energize conservative voters who had been considering sitting the whole thing out.
Hopefully we can get the enthusiasm of those newly energized conservatives tamped back down again before 11/7.
@Randy P:
The funny part, of course, is that closer observation by animal behaviorists has revealed that the “alpha male” does not, in fact, get all of the action. I know that among chimpanzees, while the “alpha male” is battling the challengers to his position, the females are sneaking off into the bushes to mate with the “beta males,” who have been doing things like helping the females care for the baby chimps.
Animal behavior got way more interesting once the behaviorists started questioning our cultural assumptions about how things “must” be based on how we’ve structured our societies.
@Paula68154:
I hope I don’t sound condescending towards your sister, but it sounds like she’s finally had time to think things through and realize that the only way to reduce abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and the only realistic way to do that is through making contraception widely available. Wishin’ and hopin’ that people will stop having sex ain’t gonna cut it.
To me, those are the kind of “pro-life” people that you can actually work with and have conversations with, because they understand that prevention is the best way to reduce the abortion rate.
dance around in your bones
@SFAW:
For me, the original Fuck Me Pumps were from the John Waters film ‘Female Trouble’ but then they were called ‘cha-cha heels’.
Divine gets pretty pissed when she doesn’t get her cha-cha heels.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid:
Astute. Better analysis than we’re going to see in reams of MSM stories.
@Ajaye: I hear your pain! Ain’t that the truth.
I rather like that a cover on “there is an afterlife!” is one of this dying publication’s last print covers. Blackly funny. If I was Orson Welles today, I would work that into a movie scene.
ETA: And yeah, if I was Orson Welles today, that would be proof of an afterlife. Carry on.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@bjacques: FL Cubans will vote GOP except in Hialeah which has a huge majority of old retired Cubans who elect Raul Martinez every time. Raul, BTW, is a Democrat. Porque? Because everybody knows the Democrats care more for the old folks than the Rebugnicans. I lived there for 22 years and had always heard this. As for Miami-Dade County, it was usually run by Democrats as well, at least during those times when they were not under some indictment. The real tragedy down there was when we lost Dante Fascell, Claude Pepper and Larry Smith to the Repukes.
Drew
@Ronzoni Rigatoni: My grandparents and father immigrated from Cuba after the revolution. I live in Miami, and have voted for Obama twice. Have faith in my generation!