welp @nycsouthpaw pic.twitter.com/oyUkYi2hQV
— darth!™ (@darth) March 17, 2016
Because it’s never too late for dissecting the opposition. Michael Grunwald, who wrote that cover story (but not, he stresses, the original REPUBLICAN SAVIOR tag line), defends himself in Politico:
In February 2013, Senator Marco Rubio let me sit in on the politics course he taught part time at Florida International University. He knew I was writing a cover story about him for Time magazine, but he still gave his students a master class in self-promotion in my presence, explaining the machinations he had used to persuade his colleagues to elect him speaker of the Florida House of Representatives: “You raise money for them. You befriend them. You make sure your kids are friends with their kids. And then you cut the best deal you can.” He also candidly described how partisan redistricting had driven him and his caucus toward ideological extremes: “If you know the only way to lose your seat is to get out-conservatived in a primary, you’ll never let anyone get to your right.”…
… I thought Rubio made so much sense for the GOP in 2016; he was the quintessential modern Republican. He stood for almost everything Mitt Romney stood for—massive tax cuts, muscular foreign policy, social conservatism—but while Romney, a former Massachusetts moderate, spoke Republican as a second language, Rubio was fluent. The one issue where he strayed from orthodoxy was immigration, but the Republican National Committee’s “autopsy” after Romney’s defeat had urged the party to moderate its views on immigration to attract more Hispanics to the party. And what better messenger than a telegenic young Cuban-American with a beautiful family and an inspiring personal story, the son of a bartender and a maid with an amazing rap about the American Dream?…
Ultimately, though, Republican voters didn’t want a conservative version of Obama, another fresh-faced minority first-term senator who gave a great speech. They wanted an anti-Obama, a bombastic billionaire who wasn’t a politician, wasn’t no-drama, wasn’t interested in public policy, wasn’t going to improve Republican outreach to minorities, and definitely wasn’t a law professor or a community organizer. They didn’t want a new rock star with broad appeal. They wanted a rock thrower who reflected their anger…
I will miss Marco Rubio most of all for saying the smartest thing in this campaign: "Barack Obama knows exactly what he's doing."
— AlGiordano (@AlGiordano) March 16, 2016
Jeb Lund, in Rolling Stone, on the “Death of a Mannequin”:
…Better things were supposed to be in store for Marco Rubio. The people paid to tell you that couldn’t stop telling you.
He was young and good-looking and told inspiring stories that made the hairs stand on the backs of the necks of people who can be inspired by American conservatism. He stood a generation apart from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and he could deliver a new way forward, for the American people. He was the one candidate that the Beltway chattering classes knew the Democratic establishment most feared, and some Democrats agreed with them. He could make his voice warble when saying “America” emphatically…
The fatal streak running through the Rubio narrative was the same one that runs through so many conservative candidates. For someone bound by blood to the cult of the self-made entrepreneur as the only non-cop/soldier of any value as a citizen, Rubio merely spent two awkward belches in the private sector amid a career built on taxpayer dollars, donor largesse and patronage. He was a career politician and glad-hander calling out government cronyism with a sense of self-awareness so broken that he couldn’t weather the barest standards of his own ideology…
What the Rubio campaign needed everyone to forget was that — to anyone who doesn’t live off political news, to anyone not inured to the blocked toilet that is Florida politics — Marco Rubio sounded like either a moron or a crook.All that might have been enough to overlook if there had been any ideas behind Rubiomentum. But Rubio was a Reagan Republican in the same way that all other Republicans are Reagan Republicans: 95 percent of what he believes hasn’t been updated since 1981. As to the remaining five percent, any time something new came out of his mouth, half the journalists covering him wanted to run around to the side of the stage to catch a glimpse of the puppeteer from the Heritage Foundation with an arm shoulder-deep up his ass…
His announcement that his campaign was over could not have been more fitting for what his campaign represented: A passionate delivery of an old idea everyone had already memorized, delivered instead as news. A few people listening had red eyes, as some internal mechanism in Rubio yanked down a lever to the Emotionally Uplifting Twaddle setting.
“I ask the American people: Do not give in to the fear. Do not give in to the frustration,” he said. “We can disagree about public policy, we can disagree about it vibrantly, passionately. But we are a hopeful people, and we have every right to be hopeful.”…
It was a masterpiece of bullshit, combining the Rubio experience’s two true and constant outcomes: a text any follower could have reasonably assembled from the greatest hits, and one whose philosophical aspirations were invalidated by the person voicing them. Rubio’s rhetoric never tried to soar higher than when it was being undermined by everything else he campaigned on…
I love campaigns that are so disloyal that the Post Mortem is fully written an hour after the concession https://t.co/4tZZXHFA9Q
— Wyeth Ruthven (@wyethwire) March 16, 2016
From the Politico article:
… Rubio’s strategy was always an inside straight—overly reliant on a candidate’s ability to dominate free national media in order to outperform, outwit and eventually outlast a wide field of rivals. It was sketched out by an inner circle of advisers who believed they could eschew the very fundamentals of presidential campaigning because they had a candidate who transcended.
That’s exactly what happened in 2016; it just turned out Rubio wasn’t the one transcending…
…[W]hile other campaigns touted “shock and awe” fundraising networks and precise, psychographic analytics and voter targeting operations, Rubio’s tight-knit group of mostly 40-something bros believed wholeheartedly that they didn’t need a specific early-state win. They didn’t need a particular political base. They didn’t need to talk process. They didn’t need a ground game. They didn’t need to be the immediate front-runner. All they needed was Marco.
Their confidence bordered on arrogance. Sure, his closest advisers—campaign manager Terry Sullivan and media strategists Todd Harris and Heath Thompson—were right that their candidate was likable. He began the race as the second choice of many Republican primary voters. They just never figured out how to make voters embrace him as their first…
The campaign spared no expense in setting up events to be television-friendly. There were invariably press risers, tidy backdrops and television lighting to portray Rubio, quite literally, in the best imaginable light.
But one of the things Sullivan seemed least interested in was field offices. The campaign would force volunteers and supporters to pay for their own yard signs, posters and bumper stickers…
It’s not that Rubio’s team didn’t know the data science that powered Obama’s two campaigns or that studies showed that door knocks and personal phone calls are among the most effective means to get out the vote. It’s that they’re expensive and time-consuming. And Rubio’s team thought they had figured out a better way: targeting exactly their voters with pinpoint precision online, on TV and in the mail.
“It’s almost like they wanted to prove they could win without doing some of the stuff people have to do to win,” said one Rubio supporter very familiar with the campaign’s planning. “Were they just fucking lazy or arrogant?”
“Marco is convinced, and perhaps rightly so, that he has the skills to convince anyone,” said Dan Gelber, who served for eight years in the Florida Legislature with Rubio, including two as the Democratic counterpart when Rubio was GOP speaker. “He really believes that if you give him an audience, he can turn them to his way of thinking.”…
Marco Rubio has until May 6th to change his mind about running for Senate reelection. In this environment would anyone be shocked if he did?
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) March 17, 2016
Jonathan Chait, in NYMag — “The End of Marco Rubio’s Campaign Is a Dodged Bullet for America”:
… Rubio could only go so far because only Trump has found a way to break all the norms of American politics at no political cost to himself. Rubio ran a different strategy not for moral reasons but because he thought it would work. His plan was to fashion himself as the frontman for the Republican donor class. Rubio’s proposition to party insiders was that he could spare them from any serious reconsideration of party dogma — except, perhaps, on immigration reform, the one issue where Republican moneymen were happy to move to the center anyway. In place of substantive moderation, Rubio would use his modest upbringing and winning personality (and Rubio truly is likable) to sell old Republican wine in a new bottle. Rubio’s insider strategy conveyed many benefits on his campaign. He raised plenty of money, and overwhelmingly outspent Trump in Florida and elsewhere. Republican insiders showered him with understanding, supplying friendly spin to the media that allowed Rubio to portray a long series of defeats as proto-victories.
It was not only calculation, though, that shaped Rubio’s candidacy. His life has been defined by a fascination with wealth, bordering on worship. Rubio once told a roomful of rich businessmen that the inspiration for his politics came from driving around as a young boy and gawking at the homes of the rich. As a young politician he read Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s paean to the superiority of the rich, twice. He attached himself to wealthy patrons and moved between politics and lobbying throughout his career, seamlessly blending public service with moneymaking.
His willingness to eloquently champion the interests of the donor class enabled Rubio’s rapid ascent and defined his governing philosophy. In Florida, he proposed cutting property taxes, which fall on landowners, and replacing the revenue with higher sales taxes, which fall most heavily on the poor. His domestic agenda was defined by a tax cut twice the size of the one George W. Bush enacted. Like Bush, Rubio’s tax cut tacked on some small-change tax credits for low-income families, but the bulk of the money went to the top, with 40 percent of the cost of his plan accruing to the richest one percent. He wanted to deregulate the financial industry and eliminate Obamacare — which he repeatedly voted to eliminate without the necessity of a replacement. He refused to accept the legitimacy of climate science, even as his home city is literally disappearing slowly beneath his feet. One of the very few areas where Rubio claimed to stake out untraditional ground was in higher education — but even here, his policy turned out to be deregulating for-profit colleges, one of the shadiest of which had generously funded him…
Rubio’s conservative admirers bitterly observed that liberals mocked him because they deemed him a potent nominee. This was not wrong. Despite his inability to out-Trump Trump, who has captured his party’s id, Rubio has maintained high levels of favorability with moderate voters, especially Latinos. His substantive extremism would have proven a liability in a general-election campaign, but it was entirely plausible to believe that Rubio could have smuggled his right-wing policies past the electorate by running on cheerful slogans and a winning smile. The potential to do so is why Rubio may well find himself atop his party’s ticket in a future election. In the meantime, his failure is a bullet dodged.
.
Emma
That piojo malcriado couldn’t be president of a one-man ebay business, much less the United States
Patricia Kayden
“Ultimately, though, Republican voters didn’t want a conservative version of Obama”
Why anyone would compare President Obama to Robot Rubio is beyond me. Apart from the fact that they both served as Senators and are POCs, they have nothing in common at all. Rubio had nothing to offer the American people and couldn’t compete with the loudmouth bigot who came out of nowhere to sweep up gullible fascist voters. Perhaps there will be more of an appetite for a lightweight like Rubio among Conservatives in 2020.
Baud
Scott Walker may be thankful that he failed spectacularly so early in the process.
Soylent Green
Let’s dispel the notion that Baud doesn’t know what he is not doing.
goblue72
@Baud: America wasn’t going to elect a bald spot.
Baud
@goblue72: Then Rubio has no future.
Baud
@Soylent Green:
I know exactly who I’m doing.
jl
Two posts on national puppy day in a row?
gratuitous
Let’s see, Rubio failed because he was just too darned likable. No, he was like a conservative Obama. No, he was a career politician appealing to partisans who hate government and politics. No, he was Latino. No, he was too young. No, he was . . .
It’s the Rubio Rohrschach Test. What do you want to see in his failed campaign? There it is!
Baud
@jl: Haha. Win.
RedDirtGirl
And why the hell do people keep calling him good looking!?
Mnemosyne
The more time that goes on, the more I see that George W Bush was a really underrated candidate. He was a lousy president, but he knew how to get himself elected. He was pretty much the textbook example of the best campaigner not necessarily being the best president (to say the least).
And now that he’s been discarded by the Republicans, they’re struggling to get the new assholes elected because none of them have his skills. Couldn’t happen to a nicer group.
Roger Moore
@Patricia Kayden:
Because they don’t understand what made Obama win. They think he a lightweight who won because of charisma and ethnic background and ignore just how damn smart and capable he is or how he surrounded himself with other smart and capable people. People have underestimated him from day one, and they’re still paying the price.
Baud
@RedDirtGirl: Grading on a curve. Consider the field.
goblue72
@Baud: I don’t think Rubio has a future. Absent a motherboard upgrade.
Also too – I really should have said “America wasn’t going to elect a Baud spot.”
Because puns make America great again.
goblue72
@Roger Moore: The Negro certainly can’t be as capable or smart as the white race. The Hispanics can get close, but only the white ones.
Felonius Monk
@Baud:
But will you remember their name in the morning?
Villago Delenda Est
If Grunwald were smart (he’s not) he’d quietly retire and never be heard from again.
But like all Village Vermin, he’s a narcissist. He can’t help himself. It’s why they’re all so in love with The Donald. They recognize kin.
Kathleen
@Patricia Kayden: Yet another greatest hit from the beltway “Village People”.
Kathleen
@RedDirtGirl: I was thinking the same thing.
goblue72
@RedDirtGirl: Compared to the rest of the GOP field, he’s Channing Tatum.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: Hey, man, it’s national PUPPY day. Of course it gets two posts in a row!
Although admittedly the second puppy is very kickable to the curb…
NotMax
A
camelRubio is ahorsecandidate designed by a committee.Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Well, how can he possibly be all that smart? LOOK AT THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN, for the love of George Wallace…
piratedan
Marco Rubio and the stock footage candidacy, film at 11. It would be different if the GOP actually believed in governing, i.e. something to stand for, a set of principals but over the last 20 years, their policy is apparently condensed down to IGMFY.
jl
” They didn’t need to talk process. They didn’t need a ground game… seemed least interested in was field offices. The campaign would force volunteers and supporters to pay for their own yard signs, posters and bumper stickers… Rubio’s team thought they had figured out a better way: targeting exactly their voters with pinpoint precision online, on TV and in the mail.”
“Were they just fucking lazy or arrogant?”
Or grifting? Or prifting and prepping for future runs, unaware of how bad they would look? If it weren’t for Carson, maybe Rubio would have been anointed into the presidential primary grifting Hall of Fame along with Cain, Huck, Newt and other illustrious GOPers.
Rubio was the rich man’s pet candidate. If not conscious grifting, maybe he was so vain as to believe all the BS that gets said in those quiet meetings in the back rooms.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
I disagree. I think Rubio’s supporters make this comparison in the hopes of attracting the moderates who supported Obama. As though their just saying it makes it so.
Villago Delenda Est
@Soylent Green: Let’s dispel WITH the notion that Baud knows what he’s not doing.
You have to get the form down right to replicate Marco’s derp.
geg6
@RedDirtGirl:
I’m always puzzled by that, too. Granted, he’s not repugnant like Drumpf or Cruz. But he’s not good looking in my book. Average. He’s just average. But when you look at all the Villagers, who were the ones who have always had wet panties for him, you kinda get it. Based on what they see in the mirror and all around them, he’s an Adonis. They have very low standards.
Elie
Rubio is just boring. The term “bag of feathers” perfectly describes him. There is no fix — there is less there there than almost any other candidate. He should not have quit the senate — he will never get back there. He also strikes me as not liking to work too hard… has gotten away with slickness and glibness as being all that it takes. He doesn’t even seem to get what’s missing…..
LAO
@Baud: He’s no Justin Trudeau.
jl
@debbie: IIRC, a lot of stories from Obama’s early days on the campaign trail are about inspirational moments that occurred during the obscure and very non-glamorous local, small meeting grind of retail politics, and during the boring slog and hard work of GOTV and organization building.
Rubio wasn’t into that. He was into getting big bucks from money bags.
Sad plebes like HRC and Sanders maybe have to settle for doing that kind of thing. Not the super star GOPers.
GregB
I think it was during the Harriet Meiers nomination fiasco when there was some wing nut right after the announcement said he was going to have to wait to formulate his opinion until the next day after he got Rush Limbaugh’s take on it.
All I know is that I saw Robot Rubio as an astonishingly empty suit and a wonderful pull and talk doll full of doctrinaire conservative talking points and nary an original thought of his own.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: Actually appealing to the voters, as opposed to the big money guys? Gosh, that is plebian. It’s downright proletarian. Marco don’t do no workin’ in the cane fields shit. He’s far too good for that.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est:
” Although admittedly the second puppy is very kickable to the curb… ”
For shame. No place for comments like that on an almost top 10,000 gardening/dump cake/pet blog.
Should have a pic of Rubio climbing out of a billionaire’s treasure chest.
NotMax
@geg6
Will grant he’s telegenic from certain angles. Which is not interchangeable with good looking.
Would make a passably competent game show host. “I’d like to buy a vowel, Marco.”
Elie
@jl:
A lot of folks don’t understand the work it takes for a national (not local or state) run. You cannot be stupid about it — there is no forgiveness. I honestly have not seen a stupider group of candidates than what the Republicans have fielded this year…. so divorced from real understanding of means and ends that its hard to imagine how any could even dream of being the President over this country. I have no idea, for example, how Cruz thinks that he can win the Presidency with evangelicals and his smarmy affect…. I am still not convinced the Trump or his organization yet works that hard. Yes, I know he has won the primaries, but how much of that is just his audience “self deporting” to vote without much organization… Remember Carson? A brain surgeon who acted as though he could barely lick stamps!
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@gratuitous:
Don’t be silly. It’s because he wasn’t conservative enough. It’s always because they’re not conservative enough.
Renie
@RedDirtGirl: I guess he is compared to Trump and Cruz; but that’s a low bar to climb.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
The one truth that I’m finally beginning to accept because of the 2016 campaign?
That W was ‘ the smart one.’
Villago Delenda Est
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: Conservatism cannot fail. It can only be failed.
jeffreyw
The cartoon bubble should have been – “Hey, weren’t you Marco Rubio?”
BruceFromOhio
Only if you are mainlining Liquid Plumr AND can stagger into the voting booth on time.
Gin & Tonic
I see on the Google machine that Joe Garagiola has died. A shame, but a life long and well-lived.
geg6
@NotMax:
He always reminds me of “the best friend” in 1940s-50s movies. Some generically presentable guy who will never outshine Tab Hunter or Rock Hudson or whomever is the real star of the movie.
Felonius Monk
I’d like to say a kind word on behalf of Marco, but I can’t find one.
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
He’s a Black man named Barack HUSSEIN Obama that got himself ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
That he’s smarter than all of them put together is a given.
But, they will go to their graves fighting against that truth.
It tickles me.
Brachiator
So many pundits, bloviating.
Kochs, Republicans, Tea Partiers, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Rubio, not to praise him
I suppose there’s some Fox commentator spot or consultancy waiting for him. With a suitable software upgrade, they might even bring him out again for a future presidential run.
BruceFromOhio
@goblue72:
BAN PRE-SHREDDED CHEESE – MAKE AMERICA GRATE AGAIN
LAO
North Carolina Republicans covered themselves in glory today I see. Good on the Democratic Senators for walking out and refusing to vote. http://www.buzzfeed.com/dominicholden/north-carolina-lgbt-discrimintion#.ryep7mvM7
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
BWHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
I just love watching them rip each other apart.
debbie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Tough to tell who’s the bigger pig.
NotMax
@geg6
Maybe Jerry van Dyke?
(Not from the 40s, I know.)
Gin & Tonic
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Isn’t that like the world’s third-oldest joke?
SiubhanDuinne
@jl:
It’s just that important a holiday.
Ken
@gratuitous: What, you expect political analysts to be any better at “why he failed” than “why he will triumph”?
Germy
@geg6:
He reminded me of Tammany Young, the actor who always played the dim-witted caddy or assistant to W.C. Fields.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I know, it’s scary if you think about it too much. In the Three Stooges of the Bush family, W was Moe the whole time.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Bush only got elected by skulduggery the first time and by a squeaker margin the second time. But I think you’re right, anyway: going by the fundamentals, he should have gotten crushed both times.
SiubhanDuinne
@goblue72:
ABOLISH PRE-SHREDDED CHEESE!
MAKE AMERICA GRATE AGAIN.
(Not original, in case anyone was thinking of blaming me.)
jharp
“Rubio also candidly described how partisan redistricting had driven him and his caucus toward ideological extremes: “If you know the only way to lose your seat is to get out-conservatived in a primary, you’ll never let anyone get to your right.”…
To me that is exactly what finally brought on the destruction of the GOP.
Republicans had to move to the right to keep their jobs. And that ain’t where most voters are wanting us to be.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Elie:
They saw how successful Obama has been, and think “how hard can this be?”, having zero understanding of what it takes personally and professionally.
@Roger Moore:
all of this too.
Mike in NC
Rubio a moron or a crook? Why can’t he be both?
delk
@LAO: And one of the senators said, “I will be a homophobic bigot until the day that I die.”
Citizen_X
And their racism. And their ignorance. And their sadism.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
I kept telling people after the Bush/Gore debate that Dubya had an advantage. He was from the kind of patrician family that expects the oldest son to be the first to carry on the family business (plutocracy and oligarchy). So he had to work to overcome his limitations, and had the advantage of knowing that he had all the privileges of his class behind him.
Didn’t matter if Jeb were smarter on paper.
And you could see that for all his lack of curiosity, Dubya was comfortable in his own skin, and the people who voted for him recognized this and appreciated it.
Jeb! on the other hand, was so lacking in inner strength that he crumpled like a cheap geegaw the second that Trump sized him up and called him “weak” and “a loser.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Gin & Tonic:
I always liked Garagiola. Back when I used to watch the Today Show, he was one of the bright spots. Always came across as a mensch, the kind of guy you’d like to hang out and have a beer with. He should’ve run for president.
BruceFromOhio
@SiubhanDuinne: Bold, very bold. =)
raven
The white flight from the Democratic Party was because the fucking catholics couldn’t pray in public schools, had nothing to do with race. Tweety,
scav
If he’s good looking, it’s an utterly bland, generic, undifferentiated, lack-of-vital-character good looking. Exactly the opposite of those people whose faces etc should just not work and they are nevertheless magnetic. What’s the opposite of a jolie-laide? A beau-blah?
Germy
@Gin & Tonic:
I remember the night he guest hosted for Johnny Carson (guest host Talulah Bankhead!) and his guests were John Lennon and Paul McCartney, there to publicize their launch of Apple Records.
SiubhanDuinne
@BruceFromOhio:
I talic like I see ic.
raven
@Germy: He was a good guy and a terrible announcer.
MattF
I think Rubio failed because politics matters. All the consultants, all the money, all the tactical adages– none of that matters if you fail the politics final exam. Rubio tried to hide his real politics and smuggle in his right-wing extremism– and he failed. Compare Lil’ Marco with Ted Cruz– at least with Cruz, you know what you are getting politically.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven: I admire your fortitude in subjecting yourself to Tweety (and the Morning Morons). I confess that I also question your sanity.
Baud
@raven:
Oh why didn’t Tweety flee with the rest of them???
Mnemosyne
@raven:
Sorry, is that what Tweety is saying right now?
Brachiator
@geg6:
Ralph Bellamy in His Girl Friday.
raven
@Mnemosyne: Yup
NotMax
@Brachiator
Light bulb just illuminated over the head.
Huntz Hall.
Brachiator
Reports that Ken Howard, who starred in the tv show “The White Shadow,” has died at age 71.
A 50 year career, won a Tony and an Emmy.
Kyle
@gratuitous: I’ll give another reason it failed: He whined. He was such a spoiled whiner.
Thoughtful David
@Elie:
Dead on. I’m always puzzled when people want to compare him with Obama. Rubio never came across as any more than a total lightweight. He always looked like he was reciting some memorized lines someone had given him. Then Chris Crispy pointed it out hilariously.
I think that night was the end of his career, too. He still got some votes because there were some desperate Republicans looking to stop Trump, but he was just a zombie after Crispy had at him. It’s really hard for me to imagine anyone ever wanting to support him politically for anything. He better run to get his spot on Fox News now, before he’s totally forgotten.
Mike E
@Mnemosyne: Losing to a Bush is ignominy writ large.
LAO
@Kyle: yet, no one whines more than Trump.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
What has this country come to that a hard working sockpuppet of the 1% can’t get some love from even the GOP base.
Instead Dreamy Rubio, the subject oh so much punditry mancrush as the young and supple Paul Ryan before him, was spurned for voters who wanted direct rule by a plutocrat. Oh were oh were American have your surrogates gone?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
He was also the original singing Thomas Jefferson — he appeared in 1776 both on Broadway and in the movie version.
Miss Bianca
@Emma:
Hey, as the one-woman manager of an online hardware store, I *so* don’t resemble that remark!
ooh, maybe we could change places? Rubio could run my store into the ground and I could move to FL and become a Senator? Would I have to be a Republican? That would kind of kill the deal…
@Mnemosyne:
Hey, Hamilton Fan-Girl – don’t know if you saw this on a thread upstairs, but I have it on some authority that a “1776” fan might really dig “Hamilton”. Your thoughts? : )
Anoniminous
There was no way, in hell, the National Capitalist White People’s Party was going to nominate a brown skin for president in 2016.
Mandalay
@Kyle:
This, many times over. I never understood why the media portrayed him as upbeat and optimistic. He was perpetually telling us that the sky was falling, and disaster was just around the corner, with an expression on his face like he’d just caught his wife fucking the pool cleaner.
Ignoring his lack of ability and his extreme views, he was such a sour, miserable and depressing sack of shit. He took himself so seriously, but nobody else did.
gex
They planned to win via TV ads and mail? Holy shit. Political ad season has metastasized into something that is self defeating. The blanketing of ads at whatever price they pay isn’t worth it because it is so relentless everyone tunes it out. Or skips it on their DVRs. IF they even watch TV. To be honest, I have seen maybe a handful of ads, and I’m a middle aged person, not a youngster.
And mail? Hell that all goes straight into the recycle bin. I research my candidates online, I don’t read their mailers.
I guess these guys just felt like throwing money away. And they say they can spend their money better than government can. That all could have been put towards SNAP or pre-K programming.
Turgidson
@Patricia Kayden:
Same reason they thought putting Palin on the ticket was a brilliant idea after Hillary Clinton lost in 2008. Symbolism/tokenism over substance.
What I found astonishing was how often I found myself reading normally-sharp pundits and bloggers praising Rubio as a candidate in ways that seemed completely at odds with what I was seeing whenever I watched him at a debate or rally. “Good, even occasionally brilliant, speaker.” “Shows deep knowledge of issues [most commonly this was said re foreign policy], but he has to rein it in on the stump or in debates.” I read comments like that about Rubio more times than I can remember.
Why? All you had to do was watch him for five minutes to realize he was a total fucking clown. A “bag of feathers,” as Mr. Pierce came to call him. Did non-GOP and liberal pundits fall into the same trap they did with Paul “Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver” Ryan, assuming that there just had to be a “serious” Republican who knew what the fuck he was talking about on the budget and economy or in Rubio’s case, a candidate with any talent at all other than spewing hate and bullshit, and just ignoring how much of a braindead moron he actually was? Particularly on foreign policy – Rubio was an utterly clueless moron, who tried to lecture SOS Kerry that we weren’t going after ISIS (when we were) because we didn’t want to upset Iran. Which is just a breathtakingly idiotic thing to say. And that was just the tip of the neocon iceberg of dipshittery that was Marco’s foreign policy knowledge.
And did Villager and elite GOP types really think “well if that teleprompter-reading niCLANG Obama could do it, surely Marco will take the world by storm! A supposedly-telegenic young Republican talking about Reagan! He can’t lose!” Did they actually buy their own bullshit about Obama being an empty suit and assume they could replicate his success with a phony like Marco?
In any event, Little Marco got the humiliation he deserved. Sad! (not really)
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
He also played all the presidents, including Jefferson, in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The 1976 musical has an unfortunate pedigree:
geg6
@Brachiator:
Exactly!!!!!
Enhanced Voting Techinques
One does wonder is there something like this on some of these pundit’s hard drives;
Pulizer Prize Wining Reporter (breathlessly) “Governor Rubio, I am looking for an in-depth and probing article with you. I want to explore your career thoroughly”
Rubio (standing, dropping pants) “Oh, I am offering full discloser here”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: You’ve seen the pic of Daveed with Betty Buckley, right?
Miss Bianca
@scav:
Oh, oh, oh, for that question alone: “Congratulations, You May Already Have Won the Internet!”
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca: Here’s a little something that might whet your appetite for Hamilton while musing memories of 1776.
The Legacy of 1776: A Conversation with William Daniels and Lin-Manuel Miranda
SFAW
@Felonius Monk:
In the morning?!?! Hell, he doesn’t even remember their name now.
(Yes, I know it’s an old one.)
Anoniminous
Misread comment.
Meanwhile …
How about them Dodgers?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Miss Bianca: Dropped you a link upstairs.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Anoniminous: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, OTOH, ran for seven.
Anoniminous
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Misread the comment.
NotMax
Comic book/comic strip day begins on TCM right now.
Batman! Superman! Buck Rogers! Flash Gordon! The Phantom! Ace Drummond! Dick Tracy!
Grab your Jujubes, put up your feet and have fun ogling the primitive production values!
Turgidson
@Elie:
I think Little Marco was willing to work hard at kissing the asses of the right people to get promoted. Actually doing the job he was elected to do, nah.
Miss Bianca
@geg6:
Does this mean I can now write my very own sad-pundit-y Rubio article called “Who Mourns For Adonis?”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Anoniminous: Saw that after I posted. Unfortunately, I can’t edit my comments since the new design debuted, so we’re stuck with my clarification.
eemom
I am So. Very. Tired. of it all.
Each and every one of the verminous republican “candidates”, both has been and still is; their never-ending regurgitation of the same old threadbare lies; their hateful slandering of a President whose boots they are not fit to lick; the 24/7 tsunami of emmessemm bullshit that enables it all; and last but not least, awakening each day to the nightmarish reality of living in a country wherein millions of people would — really, actually, and in fact — vote for Donald Trump for president.
/picked the wrong lifetime to stop sniffing glue
SFAW
@Turgidson:
Not sure I get your drift. Could you be a little clearer, please?
But, yes, the ISIS/no-piss-off-Iran thing is pretty fucking ridiculous. (Sunni? Shia? How DO that work?)
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Mwah! : )
@Brachiator:
Squeak! Ooh ooh! Thanks!
Anoniminous
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
De nada.
piratedan
@raven: he always tried to personalize the game and keep it entertaining. For that, and his obvious love of the game and the doors it opened for him, always struck me as a guy who made the most of what he had and appreciated the game and the opportunity. For that, I thank him and for growing up and listening to his voice every saturday after the yard work was done…. it’s a sad day for many of us who shared their collective childhood with him.
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
Only if you get Shatner to read it for us.
Miss Bianca
@SFAW:
Now *that* I would pay good money to hear!
Turgidson
@SFAW:
I’ll do better next time. If anything, I went easy on Little Marco.
SFAW
@Germy:
I’m partial to Grady Sutton, meself. (Although he didn’t really play a “best friend” character.)
Sloane Ranger
@Turgidson: Yes. Haven’t you noticed that if a film or TV series is a big hit all the other networks come up with copies the following season?
To a Party obsessed with image a new show starring a young, good looking Hispanic running for President was bound to be as popular as last season’s hit show staring a young, good looking African-American seeking the same office.
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
How many quatloos?
chromeagnomen
@raven: seconded. the first announcer i loudly railed at during his broadcasts. hated him for ruining games single-handedly. his spawn were such as joe morgan and the execrable tim mcarver.
Miss Bianca
@SFAW:
All of them, Katie…
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I just did a reply there. Join our cult, we have cupcakes!
Mnemosyne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I just came from the other thread, so YES!
sm*t cl*de
“Rubio is a superficial and hopelessly corrupt individual who built his career from receiving favours from lobbyists, that’s why I picked him and promoted him as the man who’d save the Republican party.”
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
Aaand…at risk of redundancy…I’ll just repeat here what I said up above:
as a political theater geek, it does make me really happy to see America going gaga over a Broadway musical based on a…shall we say…revisionist vision of American history. Somewhere, I like to think, the ghosts of old Bert Brecht and Kurt Weill are grinning away thru’ a cloud of cigar smoke…
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Listening to the cast album will make you want to read the Ron Chernow book, and you will be astounded to see that, for the most part, all the facts are true, it’s just that the casting and the way of telling it is … reimagined.
And, as “Uncle Ron” says in the introduction of the book: “To reject Hamilton’s legacy is, in many ways, to reject the modern world.”
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Miss Bianca: Hah. Dropped you another link upstairs before seeing this.
I’ll also recommend the lyrics annotation at Genius.com which includes some discussions of where the play departs from history. And comments by the composer.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Hamilton would have been next in line after Monroe to enter the White House. History could have unfolded very differently.
Thymezone
I have never been able to process the idea that anyone would take the little punk, Rubio, seriously, for even one minute.
But then I remember that politics is just a complete shitshow, and I just say fuck it.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Oh, screaming awesome geek coolness!!
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Another Hamilton fan here . I can’t wait to see it .?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
You’re lucky — you get an open-ended run in Chicago. We’re only going to get 6 weeks here in LA. There may be blood shed with people trying to get tickets.
People I know say the theater it’s going to be at in Chicago is the same size as the Richard Rodgers, so you’ll be getting something pretty close to what they’re seeing in NYC.
RaflW
@gex: The inability to organize a realistic campaign is a sure sign of an inability to govern. Though, as said upthread, Dubya’s ability to campaign didn’t translate to an ability to govern.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: @rikyrah:
Shoot, I may have to go back to Chicago just to see it…and i ain’t been back in almost 20 years!
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
One of the things that comes across in Chernow’s book is that Hamilton was terrible at being in charge. He needed a strong boss like Washington to sit on him and always got in trouble when he didn’t have any oversight. He probably would have been a terrible president.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: Hamilton crashed the phones in Chicago, too.
(That’s one of my favorite bits from the Charlie Rose interview. “When did you know you had something special?” “When we crashed the phones at the Public.”)
RaflW
@Brachiator: I’ve seen 1776 on stage twice, including in the past few years at the highly regarded Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis – I had no idea of it’s flop status. My brother practically wore out the vinyl on his original cast album back in the late 70s.
My bro also loved the White Shadow. I liked it, but as the younger brother I of course had to watch whatever my brother wanted … only one TV back in those quaint days!
RIP, Ken Howard.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: I doubt he would have been elected. He does come across as rather erratic after Washington’s death.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: I think the flop Brachiator was referring to was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, not 1776 (which ran a long time and won the Tony for Best Musical).
RaflW
@Brachiator: I’m not sure what you were referencing with Bernstein and the flop?
ETA: Thanks, Matt! I tried googling but didn’t come up with that answer.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
It’s hard to say — election campaigns were pretty bruising in those days, so he may well have been able to get through the process if he’d been able to unite the Federalists behind him. But he probably wouldn’t have been a very good president — too hotheaded and prone to speak his mind, plus a little too trusting of his friends. There’s no evidence he ever engaged in speculation, but several of the friends he employed at Treasury were, and he stood by them anyway.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, it’s the uniting the Federalists part that I have doubts about. I doubt the Reynolds scandal would have been forgotten. Even without Hamilton stirring up shit, JQA only managed to get in because the D-R were also fracturing into factions.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I’m assuming you read the Chernow book, but I swear I heard the author’s palm hitting his forehead during the whole part where Hamilton was running around challenging people to fistfights and duels over the Jay treaty.
Villago Delenda Est
@delk: Speed the day.
Villago Delenda Est
@SFAW: “No no no! Jimmy Stewart for Governor! Ronald Reagan for best friend!” – attributed to Jack Warner
Paul in KY
@Elie: I wouldn’t call Der Trumpenfuhrer ‘stupid’. He’s very unconventional & reckless, but not stupid.
Paul in KY
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: That is a good one!!
Paul in KY
@Turgidson: They were just repeating the pro-Rubio talking points they knew they had to dispense.
J R in WV
@raven:
You know, that’s one of the most stupid lines in politics. I learned a little more about it though, and I now see where it can be thought of as a real thing.
While Protestants can pray at any time or moment, and it is impossible to stop a Protestant from praying at any time or place, Catholics apparently need a priest as an intercessor between the worshiper and their G-d. And of course in Catholic parochial schools, there are Masses and formal prayers celebrated all the time, on behalf of the student body and everyone else.
That isn’t allowed in public schools. The staff cannot lead the students in prayer, so, even though almost all students pray every day there is a maths exam, the intolerant bigots view the inability of staff to lea students in prayer as a “Ban on Prayer” in schools. Can’t be, of course, because of the First Amendment to the Constitution, but there it is. Their tortured mental process results in a TILT when teachers can’t tell students when and how to pray.
I remember getting a lot Southern Baptist praying in grade school 1955-61, because except for me everyone else in the building was a S. Baptist. It seemed so very strange to me, as I had at the time only attended Presbyterian church, which is not the same as Baptists… esp. Southern Baptists.
Bitter Scribe
Dear God but I am sick of this “Rubio as the Republican Obama” shit. To name the most obvious difference in their backgrounds: Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review and a lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago, while Rubio was an indifferent student who knocked around several bottom-rung schools before barely managing to graduate from the University of Florida.