So, the whiny-ass crybaby GOP candidates are having a meeting Sunday — to which RNC Chair Rinses Repeatus is pointedly not invited — because the debates are unfair and mean, you guys!
Republican presidential campaigns are planning to gather in Washington, D.C., on Sunday evening to plot how to alter their party’s messy debate process — and how to remove power from the hands of the Republican National Committee.
[snip]“I think the bigger frustration you saw is that all those candidates onstage had prepared for a substantive debate. Everyone was ready to talk about trade policy and the debt and tax policies,” Rubio said on Fox News. “And we’re ready for that, everybody was. And then, you got questions that everyone got, which were clearly designed to get us to fight against each other or get us to say something embarrassing about us and then get us to react.”
Christ, what a shameless liar. Every one of them, including Rubio, responded to what substantive policy questions there were with bald-faced lies and airy dismissals of the accepted conventions of mathematics and accounting.
And does Rubio honestly expect anyone to believe he doesn’t thank sweet babby Jeebus for the question that gave him a chance to stick a shiv in Jeb? Please.
Perhaps they’ll issue a list of demands to ensure their continued participation, such as yoooodge and classy greenrooms and the right to submit campaign infomercials in lieu of appearing on stage for questions.
Jaysus Harold Christ, what a bunch of saggy-diapered, puling toddlers these people are. I doubt Hillary Clinton wanted to spend 11 hours being grilled by a committee of snarling partisan jackals, but she hitched up her pantyhose and went to Capitol Hill. Because that’s what grownup politicians do.
If these whiny-ass Republican crybabies can’t withstand the ferocious inquisition of CNBC’s Becky Quick, I’m pretty sure they’d go fetal and whimper into their binkies at the mere sight of Putin. What a bunch of craven, candy-ass, sniveling milksops.
Cermet
Well, at least we still have Lindsey Graham … don’t think he has similar issues. He, at least, appears to have a backbone.
SiubhanDuinne
It’s probably just camera angle or weird lighting, but Fiorina, Cruz and Christie all look like badly Photoshopped heads-on-bodies.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Cermet: He was drinking the night before, maybe that helped.
MomSense
I love this post so much, Betty.
Another Holocene Human
I will give Rubio this: he is exercising good lying chops right now. Which as we know can fool some of the people some of the time.
However, his past has so much shit in it, I don’t see how the Dems don’t blow him out of the water with attack ads in the general. Motherfucker had his hands on a party credit card and just cold paid for personal shit with it. Thousands of dollars worth. Sarah Palin without the word salad.
Another Holocene Human
@SiubhanDuinne: I know it’s hair dye, vanity, and self tanner, but Trump doesn’t look terribly like a human creature these days.
Another Holocene Human
@Cermet: If being terrified of monsters under the bed constitutes “having a backbone”.
(I guess it does among the conservative authoritarian set: Quick, I saw it move! Annihilate it!!!)
Nemo_N
A glimpse into the “progressive” and “inclusive” crowd:
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/steven-universe-fanartist-bullied-controversy/
Just a reminder that a good chunk of these “progressives” are just the same bullying assholes that have always been with us, they simply found a new vehicle that isn’t as busted (at least online) as christianity and conservativism in general.
If this is their idea of inclusiveness, they can take it and shove it intersectionally up their asses.
Amir Khalid
I wonder what sort of debate will come out of these deliberations. And what the candidates will do when they come out of it looking even more unpresidential than they do now.
henqiguai
So, not feeling a lot of charity toward our would-be betters, I’m thinking.
BillinGlendaleCA
They’re complaining about the debates on Morning Joe. Joe said the only moderator that didn’t suck was Anderson Cooper in the Dem debate. Hey Joe, maybe it’s because there are too many Rep candidates and they suck.
ETA: Ahhhh, Willie gets it.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: I’m hoping they overplay their hand, as Republicans are wont to do. They can’t seem to help it.
Betty Cracker
@BillinGlendaleCA: The notion that Democrats got nothing but softball questions while the Republicans got grilled is such a load of horseshit. I wonder if they even realize transcripts are available online.
OzarkHillbilly
C’mon Betty, stop beating around the Bush and tell us what you really think.
MomSense
There’s a story at usnews today about a merting between the big donors and the JEB? team to discuss polls, strategy, and some of the dirt they have on Rubio. Bush family always thinks they can win on their charm and noblesse but they always end up going with the dirt. Surprised they waited so long this time around.
Cervantes
@Nemo_N:
That’s quite a chip.
On your shoulder, I mean.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Heh, I think Betty means WATB.
Cervantes
The best kind.
Anyhow, Betty Cracker, if these clowns have earned nothing else, they’ve surely earned your invective!
Satby
I wish I knew why nice people I know support any of them. I realize that tribal identity is one reason, but the GOP is just batshit monsters at this point. I can’t understand how people could be that disengaged not to realize that, or be so adept at hiding their inner hatefulness if they do realize it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Who reads transcripts Betty? The only people who will know the truth are political junkies who watched both Dem and Repub debates. Most people are like me and didn’t bother watching either.
Joel
@Nemo_N: I might be inclined to agree, except that the example that you’re citing involves fans of a show made for children.
Cermet
@Another Holocene Human: what I meant (and you are absolutely correct on the ISIL thing) is he 1) admits to AGW as science fact and considers it a priority issue 2) believes in working with Demorats 3) Fully supported President’s Obama’s Supreme Court nominee’s getting a vote since that is the Senate’s job (and he voted yes, surprisingly, if memory serves.)
Finally, can’t recall him complaining about difficult questions – he’s a thug neo-warmonger, yes; and one who wants to bomb, bomb, bomb …
Nemo_N
@Cervantes:
By all means, keep enabling them.
@Satby:
For what I have seen, it’s mostly that they can’t believe someone can be that monstrous, and to even think such a thing about someone is the exclusive realm of extremists.
It’s politeness taken to a dangerous extreme.
Kay
Oh, good. I hope they spend the next 6 months bitching about media coverage of their stupid campaigns and whining about how no one understands how serious and substantive the GOP is.
Is someone stopping Marco Rubio from presenting his vision on trade? He’s supposed to be such a gifted politician. Surely he can figure out how to elevate the dialogue. That debate started with one of his fellow Republicans, John Kasich, attacking the rest of the Party for sounding stupid and insane. That is literally how it began. That had absolutely nothing to do with “the liberal media”. Kasich spent the week prior announcing he intended to “break thru” by focusing on the contrast between him and Trump/Carson.
Cervantes
@Nemo_N:
Enabling whom?
Another Holocene Human
@Satby: I know a lot of nice people with a lazy and/or selfish streak, and the GOP speaks to that in spades.
Sherparick
As has been increasingly noted in the more mainstream media (see Ms. Rampell’s column in the WaPo today) that lying by the Republican candidates is a feature, not a bug. After all, Republican media (Fox News, Conservative Talk Radio, and websites), have made BS and lying the to their audience there primary business plan the last 25 years because that is what the audience wants to hear, including sadly the business elite audience throughout much of the country and its retreat into religious know nothingism and Babbitry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babbitt_%28novel%29 They prefer lies and low taxes, since the lies help keep their taxes low.
Ajabu
I spent part of yesterday having a “freeze dance ” contest for Kindergartners.
When they were called out, they accepted the loss with far less crying & complaining and with far more graciousness than the pack of feral children currently running for POTUS on the Repuke side.
NorthLeft12
A rather apt description I think. How about;
Gotta admit Betty, your use of sniveling is sublime. That is one of my favourite words for describing odious politicians. Sort of says it all, doesn’t it?
Another Holocene Human
@Cermet: Oh, sure, and that is why he is dying on the vine as a GOP POTUS primary candidate.
The man does have political chops, as his last go-round getting reelected in SC proves. SC is dominated by the GOP. Graham gets suspected Democrats to vote for him in the primary to keep the crazy away (open primaries), and then again in the general. Dems are such a rump they can’t even put up real Senate candidates. The Dem who ran for Tim Scott’s seat was a plant put up by the SC Republican Party. He had a criminal record, was currently unemployed, and didn’t say much. Likely he was paid or promised to be paid….
bystander
I’m only looking forward to the next repub debate. Host Thomas Roberts, the Bert Parks of his generation, swimsuit competition, and then questions about their plans for whirled peas.
The best part is the entire nation is able to see what a bunch of whiners and lightweights these crackpots are. “We don’t suck, honest. These guys just make it look like we suck.”
Mudge
Seems to me that any breach between the candidates and the RNC gives Trump much more leeway to run as an independent.
MattF
The Republican candidates remind me of an old line about Kurt Waldheim– they don’t have spines, but they do have exoskeletons.
amk
But putin is their best bud they will have beer with. So everything is gonna be A ok. Morning in murka and all that crap.
Another Holocene Human
@Sherparick: The GOP has been like that since I can remember!
Maybe a decade plus of FOX News Channel has the media feeling they can mention it out loud–tit for tat. Back in the 1990s the media refused to acknowledge that the Republicans were lying. (Or any politician, really, except Algore and Bill Clinton, and Gore wasn’t even lying. Nobody called out Harkin with his ‘legalize woo’ bills. Instead he was a bipartisan hero, filed a bill with Orrin fucking Hatch, the rage monkey of the Senate.)
gene108
@Satby:
Reasons people vote Republican ( in no particular order of importance):
1. Tax cuts / Fear of tax hikes under Dems
2. Favorable treatment of their business under Republicans
3. Racism / Fear of the people in the world around them, i.e. Muslim terrorists are going to nuke bumfuck MS/AL/OK etc.
4. Anti-abortion, anti-homosexual agenda…. Religious Fundies
5. Gun-nuts who think Dems are for outright gun confiscation
6. IGMFY
You can be reasonable on a personal level, but have a strong attachment to one of the above attitudes that pushes you towards voting Republican
Baud
I hope they agree to do a town hall debate where they take questions from regular people.
All of whom would be armed of course.
MattF
@Baud: Do you mean ‘real’ people, real ‘people’, ‘real people’ , or actual human beings?
Nemo_N
@Joel:
And that makes it all nice and dandy, right?
Baud
@MattF:
I changed it.
NorthLeft12
@Ajabu: Uh-huh.
I believe that for a lot of the Republicans and their supporters, they equate rude, boorish, loud and insulting behavior as some kind of evidence of a person’s toughness and independence. Polite, gracious, gentle, and quiet behavior is seen as a sign of weakness and is expected in the lower classes [yeah, I know the US is a classless society….keep saying it and one day it might come true], not the rulers and movers and shakers.
Joel
@Nemo_N: It means that you’re comparing children to fully grown adults.
I thought that much was obvious.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: They won’t let the likes of us in so you can eliminate ‘actual humans’ from the list.
amk
paul ryan, the class suckup
HeartlandLiberal
OK, I just read my way down the front page of this blog for past 24 hours of postings, and seriously, people are ready to declare Rubio the eventual winner? Seriously?
If performance in polls have told me anything so far this cycle, it is that the core GOP voters are in massive rejection of the establishment candidates.
The GOP has become the party of neocons influenced by the philosophy of Leo Strauss, who advocated among other things, the right of the ruling class to employ “noble lies” to manipulate the masses. He envisioned conscious selection of candidates for public office being selected not because they were great leaders, but because they could be staged to appeal to the ignorant masses, win their votes, and then be controlled by the power elite, the philosopher kings, in effect, that Strauss envisioned pulling the strings of society.
Any of that sound vaguely familiar? G.W. Bush? Dick Cheney? Ring any bells.
Well, I think many of those manipulated masses have realized they have been manipulated. And that the elite and entrenched leadership of the GOP were just manipulating them when they kept appealing to their fundamentalist religion, anti-abortion sentiments, anti-gay, anti-Black, fear of “The Other.” They have realized that voting for the GOP establishment candidate was not getting the job done.
And in case you have not noticed, Trump and Carson between them share only one or two points shy of FIFTY PERCENT of the GOP electorate,.
And you are declaring Rubio the winner?
Jeebus.
Oh, well, I console myself that Hillary Clinton, the probably eventual candidate, although I will vote for Sanders in the primary, will snack on Rubio as the light snack that he is.
NorthLeft12
@bystander:
The only issue I would take with your comment is the “entire nation” part. Is there really a large audience for these debates or is it only people who are mostly committed to voting Republican already who are watching it?
The rest of the population [that actually cares about such things] picks up the summaries from their media of choice who may or may not tell them what actually happened or what it means. Dog knows that most people would blindly accept the stupidest [Mr. Carson please step forward] statement/explanation from these snake oil salesmen as fact anyway.
Nemo_N
@Joel:
These are not children, they are fucking grown-ups.
David Koch
Anyone who has ever watched Becky Quick and Carl Quintanilla on CNBC for 10 minutes knows they’re corporatist wingnuts. That’s what CNBC does. It’s not a consumer show, it’s a corporatist propaganda organ.
It’s a sad joke for the freaks running for president to complain that CNBC is liberal.
BillinGlendaleCA
@HeartlandLiberal:
Poll out today have it 56% between tRump and Carson.
Joe and Mika have mayor DeBlasio on, he endorsed HRC.
Betty Cracker
@HeartlandLiberal: Maybe you’re right and the GOP base rejection of neocon establishment candidates is for real this time. We’ll see.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Amazing.
In other news, I love Louisiana politics (TPM)
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s still to early for a poll that takes account of the CNBC debate, right?
Kay
@Ajabu:
Children should run all contests. They’re the “fair” police force. I love to listen to them when they’re making elaborate rules ‘o fairness agreements in their own world. They’ll agree to just about anything as long as it’s fair, but boy if it’s not, look out.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Last day of the poll was the night of the debate.
ETA: Trump 29%
Carson 27%
Bush 9%
Rubio 7%, IIRC.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks. I don’t expect Trump and Carson to move much, but I’ll be interested in seeing how Rubio and Bush move.
Cermet
@Another Holocene Human: Cruz scares me big time; he is the exact dead eye, nutcase running for President that S. King had in his Dead Pool novel. Graham, at least, appears sane … as warmongers go … . Still, you are right on about why he is loosing and always will.
Nemo_N
Chris Cuomo at CNN wondering if the republicans have a point regarding the media.
He also previously slobbered all over Paul Ryan.
The whole media bias is so GOP inside baseball (like light bulbs and UN plots) I’m not sure what the point of all of this is? Are they trying to work the referees?
Baud
@Kay:
They sound like communists to me.
gordon schumway
@Nemo_N: Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in you goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.
Patricia Kayden
After each of the Republican debates, the MSM picks a “winner”. First it was Trump, then it was Fiorina and now it’s Rubio. Rubio is just the current golden boy. A different winner will probably be crowned after the next debate.
Woodrowfan
@Cermet: he’s just one brown shirt away from being an open fascist. doesn’t need to change a thing about his rhetoric or policies, just a slight wardrobe change.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Rubio’s main attribute seems to be his ability to deliver a polished talking point, regardless of how false it is. He and Fiorina are the best at that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Yup, Joe tells me just like Obama.
Cervantes
@gordon schumway:
Those were the days.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
But Joe also said Obama was worse than Nixon. So that makes Rubio worse than Nixon, no?
Hurling Dervish
@Ajabu: yes but were the kindergarteners diverse? That’s the urgent question we progressives need to know. Or something. Ask Nemo.
Punchy
So they want nothing but questions on gays, guns, and goddamn HRC?
bystander
@NorthLeft12: I meant in the sense that anyone who wants to see can see. Krugman’s column today pretty much sizes up how the unwillingness to recognize the truth characterizes the repub voter.
I made the mistake of trying to read Brooks today. He begins, “So after all the meshugas…” at which point I stopped reading. Isn’t it actually “mishigas”, meaning troubles, and “meshuganas”, meaning crazies? Anyway, it was a good excuse to stop reading him.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: I shouldn’t ask because I hate Joe Scarborough but in what way is President Obama worse than President Nixon (apart from being Black)?
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
Only in a world of WATB middle-schoolers could the media and GOP voters conclude that it was Rubio who came out on top of that exchange rather than Jeb! – Jeb! made the rather salient point that Rubio had been neglectfully AWOL from the Senate for quite awhile – and Rubio’s mea culpa is that the only reason Jeb is criticizing him is because they’re running against each other and attacking him is a useful tactic. In other words, Rubio does a more polished version of the sort of verbal tap-dance countless snotty tweener-age kids have used against their parents when being nagged about putting away that iPhone and getting down to all that homework they’ve been neglecting.
We are well and truly fucked if any of these GOP candidates becomes President, on the grounds alone of how fecklessly irresponsible and wilfully mendacious every one of them is, completely aside even from how sociopathic and Koch-sucking their actual policies would be. Kasich is the only one of them with the slightest shred of integrity and sanity among them, and he stands the chance of a fart in the wind of getting the nomination.
skwerlhugger
” I doubt Hillary Clinton wanted to spend 11 hours being grilled by a committee of snarling partisan jackals, but she hitched up her pantyhose and went to Capitol Hill. Because that’s what grownup politicians do. ”
I’m going to vote for Sanders primary but was cringing about Clinton in November, reluctant to sit through another 8 years of derangement syndrome, until I saw a few highlights from her appearance. It’ll be fine, policy issues aside.
Elizabelle
Was listening to Morning Joke (I know) and Tom Brokaw was asked about Ben Carson and did not use the word “evangelical” or even touch on religion in his response. He said people like Carson because he’s impressively skilled and soft-spoken.
After that, Brokaw intoned that “the mood of the country” is that they don’t want experience in their candidates.
And I am sick that that comment goes unchallenged. Why are those other flunkies so lumbering they don’t pop up with: but the Democrats have three experienced candidates. (All three of them.)
It’s a reality show for Republicans, is Morning Joe. NBC programmed that.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
I don’t watch Joe either. I vaguely recall hearing about Nixon comparisons being trotted out in response to various faux scandals.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Well, yes. Rubio, like Obama, doesn’t have the experience to be President.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: Joe’s been strident and out of control all week when I’ve watched.
Means the Dems are doing well.
MattF
@Another Holocene Human: I guess it’s true that they’ve always been lying. But it does seem they’re more brazen about it now– and, in the current era, there’s the internet, which never forgets anything. I think the candidates who eagerly sign up to social media don’t quite realize the loss of control they suffer in doing so.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Republicans = The country.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: Their whining is so bad that even Ann Coulter called them out on it.
Cervantes
@MattF:
True for not only candidates.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: I have to bow down to y’all who torture yourself by watching Joe and “Shut the hell up,” Mika every day. Didn’t they extend that show one hour? Can’t do it. I avoid rightwing shows at all costs including changing my car service provider because the owners always played Fox News.
ThresherK (GPad)
Oooh, a players-only meeting!
That never reeks of desperation, does it?
Elizabelle
Joe talking about W and Ann Richards: “he cut her to little pieces.” He enunciates each word, slowly.
Really? I think Richards had the last laugh. Who is remembered for competence and acuity?
They’re talking about swagger and style now. Goddamn that we don’t have a morning show or any show that talks about issues in not a gotcha way. They could do longer human interest stories that show people caught up in the issues and make people think about solutions. They don’t.
It’s gossip and gotcha and Joe’s false memories.
MattF
@Baud: Me = Republicans = The country.
Snarki, child of Loki
@MattF: The Romney “post-truth” campaign of 2012 shifted the expected rhetoric into fantasy-land.
It got SO bad that the MSM started calling them on it, but now it’s “the new normal”.
Gin & Tonic
@Nemo_N: They’ve been working the refs for 50 years.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: I turned it off after DeBalsio, I couldn’t take much more of it.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: I websurf and have it on in the background. Prefer Joke still to the vacuity of the network morning shows.
Joe is such a liar.
It makes me laugh that Mika’s got her “Know your Value” initiative — sheer PR by NBC, I take it — when her value to that show is “beaten wife” and “cheerleader/scold who gets us to the news read and breaks.”
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid:
Exactly. These geniuses want to say whatever they’re going to say without being challenged and collectively pound on Hillary (ok, ok, AND Bernie) for two straight hours…that’s all well and good, but that ain’t gonna move anyone’s poll numbers between now and Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Trump, Carson, Rubio, and Cruz must be 110% in favor; everyone else, not so much.
Cervantes
@Patricia Kayden:
His last name contains too many vowels?
It starts and ends with vowels?
(Whereas Nixon is so good on this score that even his middle name, “Milhous,” avoided a suspicious, albeit more or less silent, terminal vowel.)
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Ouch.
Jeffro
@Sherparick:
I have become a pretty recent fan of her writing – she always seems to be on point without pretension.
Elizabelle
@Baud: It’s true.
Joe and crew are acting like the GOP primary IS the election. Too bad they have to cover the other side, from time to time, although Joe does so as derisively as possible.
You know they’re good with how the House of Reps is run: Speaker of the Republicans. The rest are cargo.
8:30 a: The Mummy, 1959, with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on TCM. Lotta Christopher Lee up today. And Val Lewton tonight.
Happy Halloween Eve, y’all.
NotMax
Tantrumocracy.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Yeah. I like Catherine Rampell and Jim Tankersley. They are good WaPost writers.
How was your evening with Bernie at GMU? So glad you went!
OzarkHillbilly
Science fiction is coming to a body near you as science fact:
The force awakens: tractor beam becomes a reality
It’s done with sound waves. Pretty cool.
Bobby Thomson
@Patricia Kayden:
No one has been able to withstand the media-created Kasich juggernaut since.
Jeffro
@Baud:
I have a funny feeling Carson’s campaign doesn’t have too much longer to run – not sure whether his campaign consultants’ high rate of self-enrichment, Mannatech, or general weirdness will be the main factor, but they all seem to be in play. And if the Establishment GOP’s ever going to get its act together, I think they’ll work all three of those angles to get him out first, then Trump (and not the other way around).
Baud
@Bobby Thomson:
Especially Kasich.
Bobby Thomson
@cmorenc:
Bullshit. He has none.
scav
Still trying to work out the GOP-Media spat, so many seem to be playing the card now. The newest pet-rock fad of the campaign-consultant crowd? Plays into the populist anti-“the system” anti-big-business current (without getting into the messy banking/finance end of things) and has dog-eared respectability (“the liberal media”). Plays well with the conspiracy crowd (“they’re all lying to you!” and “you have the secret knowledge gnosis!”) plus providing cover for not answering questions at all, lying, or explaining away comments that didn’t go over as well as one wanted. Generally, one doesn’t want to annoy the ones with the megaphone, but it’s certainly popular now.
Baud
@Jeffro:
I also can’t see how he lasts. But I just don’t know anymore.
Patricia Kayden
@Bobby Thomson: Well, if they’ve lost Ann Coulter, …..
Mike E
This feels like the balkanization of the GOP but for the life of me I can’t figure out who’s Tito.
raven
@scav: It’s bullshit and there is not one fucking thing abut it that is new.
MattF
@Bobby Thomson: Well… on a scale from minus infinity to plus infinity, he’s the least negative. Although it’s fair to note that some of them have wandered off into the complex plane…
Bobby Thomson
@Baud: And in each case, they picked the winner before the debate, not after.
Baud
@Bobby Thomson:
I’ve noticed that too.
tony in san diego
When was the last time they had a debate they liked? When was the last time a Republican said: That was a great debate?
MattF
@scav: What’s particularly irritating is that they all agree that the media is a liberal conspiracy. If only!
Elizabelle
@Cermet:
If I was a cartoonist, I would draw Ted Cruz as a Great White shark behind a podium. Dead eyes and sharp teeth.
Except I think too many in the GOP would find that a positive message. They want their shark. They want their destroyer.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
And a Happy All Hallow’s Eve Eve to you, too.
Some, um, different Christopher Lee.
MattF
@Elizabelle: What’s not often seen is that Cruz has a double-barrelled strategy– he plays political televangelist to the rubes and Harvard lawyer to the money guys. Clever.
scav
@raven: Not exactly new, no (see comment about plays to dog-eared respectability) but it’s suddenly become more of a hot-war it seems — and against players that theoretically / traditionally are are the same team. Have I ruled out collusion / Kabuki? nope. But there’s also the scrum between business-first republicans and the scat-throwing tea-bag insurgency over candidates to factor in.
NotMax
@NotMax
Link fail.
Christopher Lee fix
cmorenc
@Bobby Thomson:
Bobby, you ever heard of “damning with faint praise”? Well, my statement about Kasich is a textbook example. Saying that Kasich is the least bad of the candidates up on that stage is light-years from any recommendation.
Gin & Tonic
@MattF: Goldwater campaigned against the “Eastern Liberal Press” in 1964.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Yeah. The Harvard lawyer side has to be why he’s pulling in big bucks from the gazillionaires. A lot in energy and fossil fuels. Cruz is surprisingly and dismayingly well-funded.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle:
Yes, me too – very eye-opening. Unbelievable turnout and enthusiasm amongst the college students. The four students on the podium with Bernie each briefly told their stories, each motivated specifically by a particular issue (climate change, mass incarceration, etc). I’m convinced we will see some of them again in state/national politics – they were that committed, polished, and positive.
Listening to Bernie was a complete breath of fresh air. I mean, most Democrats these days know the score and talk pretty bluntly about banana Republicans, the Koch Brothers, income inequality, stagnant wages, some of the utter ridiculousness going on in this country. Bernie just flat out puts it out there: ‘yes, I am talking about redistributing income and wealth back to the people that created it, instead of letting the top .01% continue to siphon it off like they have for the past thirty years’; ‘no, as president, I will not accept that we have more people in prison than China, a country four times our size’. And so on.
He does a pretty good job of putting all these threads together, and of getting/keeping a crowd fired up, although after 7 years of listening to President Obama speak, I think we’re all a little spoiled – the bar has been pretty high on our side for quite a while there!
Anyway, I’m highly encouraged that he’s running, forcing these discussions out into the open, firing up the younger voters, and calling out Republican insanities in great detail. (Also very glad I brought my son – he’s now quite interested in this whole presidential race thingy, not bad for a 10-year-old!)
Cervantes
@tony in san diego:
On the other hand, can you imagine a meeting to which you would invite as feckless a character as the current head of the RNC?
JGabriel
Politico via Betty Cracker @ Top:
Why is it that Republicans keep wanting to take things from people who don’t have it?
They always want to tax the poor, who don’t have any money, they keep looking among themselves for ideas and substance they haven’t got, and now they want to take power from Reince Priebus, who doesn’t have any.
I mean, seriously, you can’t get blood from a sock puppet.
Germy Shoemangler
New York Magazine is analyzing the leaked powerpoint presentation from Jeb’s camp:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/bush-comeback-strategy-leaks-donors-eye-rubio.html
“Race will remain fluid for some time because… voters have A.D.D.”
The whole thing reads like it was written by our “Right To Rise” “Rise Above” character.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Legion of Doom open house?
Bobby Thomson
@cmorenc: No, I am aware of what you are doing. I just don’t see anything in Kasich to set him apart from the other reactionaries. Pataki is the only sane one, and he’s extremely conservative. The rest are all lunatics in their own way.
Jeffro
@MattF:
Yeah, and he’s even trying to out-Libertarian Rand Paul with his references to ending the tyranny of the Fed, ‘money backed by gold’, etc. He really only irritates his fellow GOP Senators (and understandably so) but for GOP audiences of many types and an increasing number of ‘money guys’ (as you noted), he just might be The One.
Knowing Cruz, he probably has a plan for bringing in those elusive Pataki voters, and possibly even…Jim Gilmore himself!!!
lol
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Well, that plus his wife is a known quantity on Wall Street.
Patricia Kayden
@Jeffro: It’s sad how the media blacks out Senator Sanders’ campaign events. They never cover his rallies despite the fact that he’s drawing record crowds..
Eric U.
@JGabriel: they tax the poor so that some of them are fooled into thinking that the republicans will lower their taxes. Pretty clever
Kay
@Baud:
They have a good gut for “fair”. They particularly object to collective punishments, because, duh, barred under the Geneva Conventions. Obviously unfair to any reasonable person.
Bobby Thomson
@NotMax: I raise you the blood of the Saxon men.
Baud
@Jeffro:
But he’s been in single digits also. How does he make his move?
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Not sure what that is — so … maybe?
lol
@HeartlandLiberal:
Carson doesn’t have a real campaign so much as a grifting operation. He’s riding an unexpected wave of popularity but his campaign is utterly unequipped to do anything with it except grift more money.
Trump is trying to run a campaign but I don’t think he knows what he’s doing. He’s going to lead the field right up until the caucuses start but I’m expecting him to have a Dean-style implosion once they do.
Rubio is well positioned to pick up little Jeb’s supporters and maybe some of the others. But that only gets him to about 20%. A lot of reporters are invested in the “Party Decides” theory of primaries so they’ll adjust and redefine who the establishment is picking and what the establishment even is to make it fit.
Incidentally, the “Rubio is the Republican John Edwards” framing Democrats have started pushing is super smart because it’s a good way to indirectly push the rumors swirling around him without being on the hook for actually citing them.
Cruz is the more natural home for a lot of Carson and Trump voters and he has a balanced donor base that’ll serve him well for the long haul. He’s definitely the one to watch.
Cervantes
@Jeffro:
Glad you went — and good job with that kid!
gene108
@Kay:
One of the hardest life lessons growing up is realizing the world is not fair.
From my experience, a lot of teenage angst / rebellion stems from coming to grips with this realization.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Yep. As someone noted yesterday, he makes DWS look competent.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
Except for the ones who are pure sociopathic bullies who believe only in the rule of the fist. At least, there were plenty of them when I was a kid.
Bobby Thomson
@lol:
Maybe not, but he’s found people who do. As I mentioned in a thread last night, he hired the guy who organized Iowa for Sant*rum and has a caucus chair in every Iowa county.
Cervantes
@Kay:
They should!
And the grown-ups who impose such things out of convenience should be ashamed of themselves!
NotMax
@Cervantes
Here ya go.
Germy Shoemangler
New York Magazine takes a look at the leaked powerpoint from Jeb’s campaign:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/bush-comeback-strategy-leaks-donors-eye-rubio.html
“Voters have A.D.D.”
Shows the contempt they have for citizens.
beltane
It’s rich that the Republicans are complaining about media bias. Without the gift of a biased media the GOP would control nothing but perhaps a few state legislatures in Wyoming, Utah, and the Deep South. The Republicans are ingrates.
Baud
@Germy Shoemangler:
And couties. Voters have lots and lots of couties.
Germy Shoemangler
@beltane: Agreed. They’ve had their own media empire for decades now. Not only faux nooz, but all the local and nationally-syndicated talk radio hate.
Germy Shoemangler
@Baud: “Contempt for the audience. That’s what killed Dennis Day.”
beltane
@Germy Shoemangler: Jeb’s campaign was counting on the voters having A.D.D., all the better to forget the failures of his brother’s administration.
debbie
@Germy Shoemangler:
PowerPoint is the scourge of civilization.
Rommie
The next debate is hosted by FOX Business and the Wall Street Journal. You’d expect softballs – but then, media egos are just as large as any other, so the “home” team might just go after them.
Germy Shoemangler
@debbie: Here’s a parody of powerpoint presentations, way back from 1943, before powerpoint was even invented:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1yc-19z14s
beltane
@Rommie: The panel of moderators could consist of Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter and they’d still complain of liberal media bias.
debbie
@Germy Shoemangler:
Oh, my, that clip brings back memories of horrible, horrible presentations at sales conferences.
debbie
@beltane:
Glenn Beck’s proposing a debate on his own special network. I don’t think many candidates would show up, considering what Beck has said about them.
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Thanks!
OzarkHillbilly
@Bobby Thomson: Kasich expanded Medicaid in his state because as he said, “When I get to the Pearly Gates, and St Peter asks me what I did for the poor, I want to have an answer.” (or something like that) That not only seperates him from every other Repub, it separates him from the GOP such that his campaign was dead before it began.
In almost every other way it is hard to differentiate him from the rest, but that one is a biggie.
Cervantes
@beltane:
Not because it’s true but because the complaint works for them — and for the people who own the corporate media.
Capri
@MomSense: Which makes them similar to all politicians ever. It’s a contact sport.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Lincoln at Gettysburg.
JimL
But Betty, tell us how you REALLY feel.
Applejinx
Huh. The fix is in, apparently.
I’m now imagining what it’d be like if THE LAST PLACE nominee throughout most of the process (not counting guys that drop out like Walker) becomes the Republican nominee. Because ‘or else!’. Watch the Bush clan go full horse’s head in your bed, effectively calling off the whole circus.
Watch this galvanize the already mistrustful wingnuts who run Trump/Carson as an independent ticket, accompanied with lots of blackshirt gunfire and American Somalia in action.
Final election result: Dem something like 60%, Independent 27%, Republican 13%.
I’d prefer to run Sanders against that, because he might be able to make that 27% a 25%, and in so doing, he’d be swaying some of the raving lunatics to policies that are just nicer to be a raving lunatic about. I’m not offended by a madman raving at me about free college education, or replacing all the highways with high speed capsule tubes a la Elon Musk at government expense to put people to work. I AM offended at a madman raving at me about throwing all the Mexican rapists out and making them build a wall on the border, or making every American open carry firearms at all times for FREEDUM.
If we do run Hillary and she blows out the election, my hope is simply that she recognizes the will of the electorate for a radical change in policy, and doesn’t conclude it’s about personality. Lefty Thatcher is probably putting it strongly (and a contradiction in terms to boot) but Hillary will only be a huge help to America if she’s consciously trying to out-Bernie Bernie. I’m hoping she’s watching (like a hawk?) what’s happening to Jeb. Everything Establishment is going up in flames right now and she needs to not just win the nomination power struggle, she needs to properly represent the American people. It’s still possible to come out on top of the horribly broken process and yet be a disaster.
Bernie’s a properly disruptive force and is still being blacked out by the media (did you know he’s having campaign events that continue to draw blockbuster crowds and inspire people? I’ve heard nothing through the MSM of this). Hillary can choose to ride that wave or she can also win through commanding the deteriorating, useless remains of our silly government in the manner to which they’ve become accustomed. And THAT is why the MSM kinda loves her: they can at least maintain the narrative, just with Judy beating up Punch for a change. The puppets are the same, only the script is altered. The MSM can totally embrace Hillary as the last valid establishment leader. They’ll be urging her to assume that mantle.
Fuck that, if you don’t mind my saying. I hope Hillary can aspire to higher than that. She’s not stupid.
Cervantes
@Applejinx:
As hopes go, this one’s truly forlorn.
Hoodie
Seems like all this whining about the CNBC moderators may have the effect of diluting any lift Rubio might have gotten from the debate. It makes it look like the debate was a waste of time and no one won because the moderators were so bad, kind of like bitching about the umps overshadows the actual plays in the game. That’s probably why all the other campaigns are playing along, and Rubio is an idiot for leading the charge. He should have been saying what a spirited debate it was and how great he did. These guys never learn anything from Trump.
tazj
@JGabriel: Rubio had his chance to talk about tax policy. John Hardwood asked him about his plan, and he failed, miserably. I still can’t believe that people are ok with his plans for Social Security. He’s only going to change it for people under 40, maybe? This is perfectly fine because everyone will have plenty of time to save money they don’t have to someday live on cat food.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Gotta love that color scheme!
g
@Nemo_N: Such a pathetic post – you are all about “but look what HE’S doing, Mommy!”
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Read his notes on how/why he did that.
Jeffro
@Baud:
Well, he’s clearly doing his best to operate in all of the ‘lanes’ during this weird primary season – staying well-connected to his fundie and Tea Party bases while also raising a fair amount of big donor cash. He is making more inroads in other lanes as well (like with self-described Libertarians, as noted upthread).
Just like all the rest of them, they’ve been hoping that Trump and/or Carson will implode, while also hoping that the weaker Establishment players will drop out. If it comes down to Iowa-time and everyone’s still in, it’ll be tough – Cruz (just like Rubio, Christie, etc) will have to ramp up and really go after the leaders’ nonsensical policies. (Side note: as a fun mental exercise, picture Cruz going after Trump, calling him out as a closet liberal and friend of Planned Parenthood, etc. It’ll put the EP in EPIC!)
Jeffro
@beltane:
Yup.
I still don’t see how they’re supposed to have debates and not go after each other (and therefore, get anyone’s numbers to move). Like I said earlier, the main people who benefit from a “let’s-just-spend-two-hours-attacking-Hillary&Bernie” debate are Trump and Carson.
(And Hillary & Bernie, of course =)
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I did. So he’s basically just another bumbling executive.
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: Well, Peter Norvig is Director of Research at Google. This was an anti-PowerPoint exercise.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m not familiar with Norvig, but I knew it was anti-Powerpoint. Those fumbling remarks while trying to get the slideshow going could just as easily to anything A/V.
NorthLeft12
@Elizabelle: Wow, Tom Brokaw has sunk to new lows of right wingnuttery. I think talking heads on the evening news get a lot of credit for being fair, trustworthy, intelligent, and astute because they are photogenic, perceived as presenting the facts, likable, and smooth. When their true personas and beliefs begin to leak out, they get outed as the same flawed and biased people that the rest of the public is.
Mr. Carson is “impressively skilled”? Really? And how do his “skills” relate to him being a potential President?
Mr. Brokaw; Are you a fucking idiot? Or just a plain idiot?
JimV
Great rant. It has me cowering and I’m not even a Republican.
Applejinx
@Cervantes: So? I’m a Sandernista. Bernie WINNING was just as forlorn a hope. Hell, Obama winning was just as forlorn a hope.
I’m not joking, I think Hillary’s capable of carrying it off and being a genuinely transformative president, but what you must remember is that the agenda’s not really hers. It never is with Clintons. They aren’t ideologues, famously.
Bill and now Hillary are natural politicians of rare giftedness. Bill sincerely and accurately represented basically the 80s and 90s, and got a lot done which people at the time thought good. Hillary’s sincerely and accurately represented New York State, which basically means Wall St. I don’t think anybody’s going to claim she didn’t work hard to bring her people what they said they wanted, because that was her job and she’s spent years with one of the greatest people-pleasers ever, learning from him the ways of that force.
If Hillary really believes the mainstream establishment, the media, all the trappings of power from Bill’s reign are still the most important things in the world, she’s going to represent exactly that and it’d be a disaster.
But that’s assuming she’s learned nothing from her loss to Barack Obama while trying to wield that powerbase, it assumes she’s not watching the Jeb Bush follies and the rise of Trump and Sanders. I’m going to tell you that to Hillary, there is basically no difference between the Trump forces and the Sanders forces. Policywise there’s a universe of difference, but she’s not seeing it in terms of policy, policy is malleable to Clintons. She’s seeing it in terms of raw politics, as is Bill. To have this populist, ‘undisciplined’ outsider force taking over not only the Democrats but also the Republicans has to be telling both Clintons very loud and emphatic messages.
They’ve got to get in front of that wave. I don’t think they care very much what policies are being clamored for, they only see the groundswell of popular support, the political tide.
There’s a danger to that: much intra-BJ warfare’s been going on about how Obama’s supporting slavery by supporting Malaysia. I’m convinced it’s pure power politics and all about controlling the Malacca Strait and China’s access to the oceans. Hillary must surely understand all of this and would likely be an uberhawk over the same issues that have Obama endorsing a horrible trade deal: it can’t be about the trade, that’s crap and harming American workers, so there must be something else afoot and it’s got to be control of that stretch of water and alliance with the country that owns it. I guess Obama figures that’s a more pressing concern than passing a bad trade deal (plus, it IS propping up American IP interests, just for companies that aren’t technically loyal to the United States. It’s always possible for the American government to yank the chain on these companies, they’re out of control but don’t actually own militaries, they consider market power to trump geopolitical power and they’re seriously misguided)
Anyway, Hillary understands all this. It could be true, or I could be misreading it. Bernie hates the TPP, but he might not be thinking eleven-dimensional-chessly enough and Obama might be shrewder here. Hillary might well understand all this stuff and be prepared to rise to the occasion and continue the way Obama’s been going.
BUT, if Hillary truly believes that the American people want to throw away their advantages and focus entirely on more telegenic issues that’ll play on the nightly news, I think Hil would do just that to appease them. Possibly while sneakily doing stuff she thinks right, perhaps not even that if she concludes the risks are too great.
So I don’t think ‘Hillary out-Bernieing Bernie’ is a forlorn hope. If it represents the electorate, it’s almost a foregone conclusion. The question to be asking would be, is that right? I think there are plenty of Bernie issues where it would indeed be right. I also think the same ‘voice of the zeitgeist’ got us the 80s and 90s, and there were hidden externalities to those boom times that we’re still paying for.
We can have a Hillary who blindly pursues what she thinks will get her all the votes and the popular legacy. We sort of have that, like it or not. I think the first order of business is for her to abandon establishment politics and try to tap into the energies of Sanders and Trump. (she can’t tap Carson, because she’s genuinely waaaaay too experienced, though she can train herself into a soothing tone of voice and doubtless is working hard on doing exactly that. This is the woman who convincingly drops or retains Rs to suit her audience, she’s fucking good at this)
benw
Mrs. Cracker for next RNC debate moderator or GTFO.
Most of these assholes aren’t running for Prez’dint, they’re on extended publicity tours and they expect to be treated like the celebrities they are (in their heads).
rachel
I wonder if Republican candidates ever tried to throw off the yoke of the RNC back in the pre- Citizens United days. Does anybody know?
Bobby Thomson
@Germy Shoemangler: they’re not wrong.
Bobby Thomson
@Germy Shoemangler: Jeb doesn’t have talent.
JC
Now I see, the questions were bad. That’s why their answers kept veering off into substantial policy discussions instead of answering the questions asked.
Bobby Thomson
@OzarkHillbilly: he didn’t turn down free money. But he wants to abolish cabinet departments and pass a balanced budget amendment. He makes up for Medicaid with other lunacies. Sorry, even Bush is more lucid than Kasich.
Mark B.
I thought that letting the inmates running the asylum was just a figure of speech.
catclub
@Another Holocene Human:
Romney did the same thing – using his corporate power for personal gain, but has a phalanx of lawyers and accountants to cover up for him. Since Romney is part of the aristocracy, it is ok. Since Rubio is not ( or Palin) they are attacked more the same things.
catclub
@Applejinx:
House: 53% Democratic Votes, 47% GOP votes — Result: 240 GOP House members.
Paul in KY
@Sherparick: They just lie to the rubes and expect the rubes to never figure out that they are being lied to.
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: He did beat her, though. Gov. Richards had a chance to stick a fork in him & she couldn’t get it done.
Heliopause
The Apocalypse may be nigh but I’m going to have to agree with some (not all) of the GOP candidates complaints. Most of the questions asked of them were moronic and the moderators made complete asses of themselves. The questions were indeed “gotcha” questions, but of the type perfected by the late and unlamented Tim Russert. That type of “gotcha” serves a dual purpose that has nothing to do with getting at the truth. First, it is designed to make the questioner look good. Second, it is designed to be easily swatted away by any minimally competent politician. Note how easily that Trump, a political neophyte with no self-control, batted away the couple of “gotchas” slung at him. In addition to the dual purposes “gotcha” questions have an additional run-on effect; you can thereafter complain that the liberal media is out to get you, to general applause.
Karen
@NorthLeft12:
“Mr. Carson is “impressively skilled”? Really? And how do his “skills” relate to him being a potential President?”
I read into that totally differently.
Impressively skilled = articulate. Remember what everyone was saying about Obama when he was running in 2001-2008? I think that even though Carson is Christian who shares their values, people like Brokaw are SHOCKED that a black man can be a doctor. Or a lawyer.
If Carson starts to really pull ahead look at more backwards and borderline comments from the media. I know it sounds bad but in a way it’s amusing to see that a man could have all the schooling in the world, can be ultra-facist but STILL, at the end of the day, the media sees him as nothing but just another black man.
Karen
@Paul in KY:
“They just lie to the rubes and expect the rubes to never figure out that they are being lied to.”
The rubes have the need to be taken. The Republicans have been taken over by Barnum.
But by trying to keep the RNC out of it all, aren’t they admitting that they really aren’t Republicans and like Cruz, are trying to overthrow and replace the party?
Calouste
@Patricia Kayden:
FTFY.
Cervantes
@Applejinx:
Agree with you on some things, disagree on others.
Here’s an example of a “disagree”:
Not at all, not in my view — and Ted Kennedy might agree with me, if only he were still here.
Anyhow, thanks for the comment. You said a mouthful. We can discuss it in more detail, if you like.
kd bart
They want a debate moderated by the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. That’s not a debate. That’s Republican Gay Porn.