Mitt Romney’s campaign took a hard line with the Spanish-language network Univision, making last-minute demands in the run-up to last week’s town hall that helped insure his success in the forum, sources familiar with the broadcast told BuzzFeed.
When the Republican took his place Wednesday night in the first of two back-to-back candidate forums televised on the mega-network, he was greeted by an adoring, raucous crowd that cheered his every word, and booed many of the moderators’ questions. The next night, President Obama was treated to stone cold silence from the audience as he was aggressively grilled on his lackluster immigration record.
[….]In any case, Romney’s team was allowed to bus in rowdy activists from around southern Florida in order to fill the extra seats at their town hall.
Reader Interactions
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TaMara (BHF)
Haa-haa! Lyin’? Check. Stealin’? Check. Cheatin’? Check.
This candidate has it all, doesn’t he?
RK
People don’t like a weasel. People don’t want to vote for a weasel. This is Romney’s problem.
Anya
I watched bits of it and I don’t think the President “was treated to stone cold silence from the audience.” Also, the president does very well answering tough questions. He doesn’t wimp out like Romney. So, I am not sure WTF is BuzzFeed talking about.
BarbCat
I watched the clips, and I was bewildered. Thanks for the inside scoop.
arguingwithsignposts
Yeah, EVERYBODY is talking about how awesome Romney was “winning” the Univision forum.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
When the debates take place, I wonder if they plan to stock the halls as well. If there’s one thing we learned from those primary debates about those crowds, it’s that they expect their red meat and will slit the throat of any sacred cow to get it.
mamayaga
According to this link, posted by gnomedad in the previous thread, Univision’s ground rules asked for the audience to hold applause, etc. Obama’s supporters complied; Romney’s did not.
The Ancient Randonneur
So you are a Joe Ely fan? Props to you. I’ve been a fan for over 30 years.
Romney is a thin-skinned patrician, and the secret Kenyan/Commie/Muslim is able to walk in front a crowd and answer a few questions. I am shocked I tells ya!
Arm The Homeless
Let ’em.
I am watching the GOP stock in FL drop like a rock. it’s going to be a tough race here, but I feel even more confident in a win in the state. OFA is in full swing here, but more importantly they are sending the canvassers out of our little island of blue into red, but poor counties, and not just those counties with high minority populations.
burnspbesq
@TaMara (BHF):
Listening to Led Zeppelin today?
DougJ
@The Ancient Randonneur:
I only know the Texas Tornadoes version. What a beautiful song.
redshirt
@burnspbesq: For me, every damn day. Best band of all time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
Maybe I’m getting to Pauline Kaelish, everyone I know agrees with me!, but I am genuinely baffled that Romney’s almost visible sense of “The rule don’t apply to me! I am Willard Romney!” entitlement isn’t off-putting to the white-working-class-males who are the only hope Willard ever had, and are pretty much the only reason Republicans are able to rewrite the rules so that Willard and his fellow Masters of the Universe can ignore them. Do the Howie Carr listeners who are afraid of the snooty lady perfesser from Harvard think Mike Bloomberg is hosting Manhattan fundraisers for Scottie Brown because of his deep concern for the middle class?
Also, too, I was in the car a lot this week, getting my political junkie fix (I am so sucked in already) on sat radio, and MSNBC was concern-trolling the hell out of “Obama’s lackluster record on immigration reform”. For fuck’s sake, he did what he could without Congress. If I were a billionaire, I think I’d buy up a bunch of air time and just run that Schoolhouse Rock how a bill becomes a law till you heard people on the bus and in the grocery store unconsciously humming the song.
schrodinger's cat
I saw somewhere that Romney is 40 points behind among Hispanics.
FlipYrWhig
“Lackluster” on immigration sounds unduly harsh.
TooManyJens
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, I don’t remember the exact numbers, but he’s underperforming relative to McCain/Palin. In a growing demographic where he needed to improve on them. Oops.
BGinCHI
If Obama is “lackluster” on immigration what does that make the Republicans?
Shit-stained? Covered in boils?
It’s relative and there is a context, dumb-fuck media dipshits.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:
Nobody likes Romney, but ‘the rules don’t apply to me’ is a sentiment a very large portion of the Republican base likes. It’s not a rational, issue thing. The GOP has cultivated the vote of the kind of assholes who go ballistic if a dog poops on their lawn, but never clean up after their own dog when they take it for a walk. Alcoholics, abusers, narcissists – they see this kind of behavior in GOP politicians and feel in their gut ‘That person is like me, and will make sure I get to be as big an asshole as I want.’
BarbCat
@The Ancient Randonneur: Saw him first in Austin in 1981, with Steve Ray Vaughn, followed by George Thoroughgood & the Delaware Destroyers. A night I will never forget.
jurassicpork
Top 10 Examples of How Hard the Campaign Trail is on Ann D. Romney.
Teddy's Person
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: This provides some insight to why people like Rmoney appeal to white-working-class-males.
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” ~ John Steinbeck
WereBear
This would be the “identity” school of voting, where you go for the candidate you most want to be like or date.
You’d think it would be the young hip guy the ladies find sexy (trust me, they do) but he’s black. So they go for the Sugar Daddy who can buy anything he wants!
Bort
The big story I saw from this whole thing was how orange Mitt looked. Congrats to the Romney campaign for winning the news cycle!
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@TooManyJens: They made a big show this week about how he’s trying to court Hispanic voters by appearing at the chamber of commerce and on Univision. It seemed kind of late to me. “now that I have the nomination, i’ll do outreach.”
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker: It does put them off. It just doesn’t put them off enough to overcome their animosity towards the black socialist foreigner democrat. They’ll always pick the asshole from their own tribe long before anyone from the other tribe.
TaMara (BHF)
Just got back from running a quick errand. In between the Democrat signs in my neighborhood (and one Romney sign) there is an orange Defeat Obama sign in a yard. Not elect Romney, no Romney visible anywhere, not even on their car, only that defeat BO sign. I think that says it all.
Chris
@Teddy’s Person:
The fact that there was never an official hereditary aristocracy in America like there was in Europe (even if in practice the plantation owners and robber barons often amounted to the same thing) meant that class conflict based theories were never going to appeal here to the extent that they did in Europe. Over here, the hereditary status thing was always race – and that puts a lot more people on “the right side of the tracks” than the aristocracy/third estate divide did in Europe. Toss in high levels of religious feelings and the attendant dislike for “godless” communism…
Hill Dweller
Even with a rigged forum, Romney still f’d it up by wearing enough spray tan/bronzer to make the hosts look like Scandinavians.
ding dong
Has Mittens ever done anything with success, completely honestly and ethically without help from his parents? I seriously doubt it. Not in church ,not the Olympics,not at Bain, not in school. Nowhere.
different-church-lady
Wow, he hit a hundred point bumper on the pinball table when he’s about 250k away from a free game.
So, now he’ll lose the Hispanic vote by 42 points, whereas before the forum he probably would have lost the Hispanic vote by, oh, I dunno, 42 points.
The Ancient Randonneur
@DougJ: Of course! I’d forgotten about that version of the song. Joe Ely, Texas Tornadoes all come from Texas. I’ll have to pull out the old TT and listen again.
Elisabeth
Romney also initially refused to come out when introduced because he’d only agreed to give the forum 35 minutes and the host was apparently early.
(FWIW, POTUS agreed to a full hour.)
General Stuck
OT
Ha ha ha. Po’ babies.
chopper
@Elisabeth:
he refused to come out until they rerecorded his intro.
my 3 year old throws less intense tantrums than this guy.
Ben Franklin
Over here, the hereditary status thing was always race
@Chris:
We have Royal Envy in the States, but take pride in our ‘Classless’ culture.
But then there’s that American Idol thing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
Yeah, my brain gets that it’s The Tribalism, but my gut keeps rolling its eyes and saying “Oh come on, they can not be that fucking stupid.”
Also, too, fuck Univision for letting Willard rewrite the rules.
xian
@Anya: buzzfeed is huffpo 2.0
xian
@schrodinger’s cat: and, I think, 60 points behind with Latinas.
Anoniminous
@Teddy’s Person:
There are a lot of reasons “S-word” never took root in the US. The Steinbeck quote is one. There was also the dwindling away to nothing of the ‘home-grown’ Left, the violent reaction by the Right and the Ruling Class, the milquetoast “Gomperized” Union movement, the gradual awakening to what the Bolshevik Dictatorship of the Proletariat meant in practice, and more interest in faction fighting than the nuts-and-bolts of building a political party are some others.
Chris
@Teddy’s Person:
Adding to this – I think the “failure of socialism in America” theme is a little overdone sometimes.
Yeah, our officially named Communist and Socialist parties didn’t get as far as they did in France or Italy. But between organized labor in the cities, rural populism W. J. Bryan or Huey Long style, and even the more moderate calls for reform and regulation, economic populism wasn’t exactly weak in the United States. And it ultimately effected a lot of changes in the system, even if that’s been written out of the history books today.
Even today class-consciousness isn’t gone – working-class whites are still more likely to vote Democrat than their middle and upper class counterparts, and have become more so since the movement conservative takeover of the party.
Elisabeth
@chopper:
Ahhh, thanks for the clarification.
General Stuck
Willard hasn’t gotten the memo yet, explaining the fact we live in a digital nano second world, where everything gets reported, including his hissy fit shenanigans for peeps to give him dear leader props.
Maybe Ryan could have showed up to calmly talk down to the messicans, and promise to put port-0-potties on the cattle trucks when their undocumented relatives are dumped south of the Rio Grande. Maybe put a voucher care spin on it to, to show how in the end, it is all for their own good.
JayJohnstone
So is this the one tactical advantage the Romney has been able to achieve the entire campaign? LOL!!!
You go Mitt. Maybe you will have another 1/2 of a sorta good day next month.
Matt McIrvin
This is the first I’ve heard anyone even say that Romney’s appearance was successful, or that Obama’s was unsuccessful. Maybe I’m too deep in the echo chamber.
Sly
@Frankensteinbeck:
You know that guy in the office who constantly tells everyone that the whole business would fall apart if not for them, but in any rationally run business would be the first one to be fired when cost-cutting was required? That’s the conservative base; deluded into believing they are the Truly Indispensable Men without whom the whole of civilization would crumble into ruin, when in reality they’re about as useless as tits on a bull.
Chris
@Sly:
In addition to agreeing with everything you just said, I am totally stealing that expression you capped off the paragraph with.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Mitt spent hours rehearsing:
“Las companias como Univision son personas tambien, mis amigos.”
Probably written on his hand.
quannlace
Romney campaign = Smoke and Mirrors
General Stuck
More news from The Drool Cup Society.
but but but
LOL, it is taking them a year to figure out these revelations from the post-mortem of last years debt ceiling deal. To which the Weekly Standard wizards ponder.
We Obots like to think of it as punked, pawned, bamboozled, fooled, etc etc… But you can call it what you want.
Gindy51
Once the fundies see these it will be all over but the crying:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Newnamenoah
Paul
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:
Amen. Where there’s the outrage to what Univision did? Why didn’t Univision at least make a statement to what happened? Instead we are finding out via unnamed sources.
Hill Dweller
@Matt McIrvin: It isn’t you. Obama was anything but unsuccessful.
The hosts were certainly harder on the President, and the audience’s questions were tougher, but he was very good. I got the impression the audience had more admiration for Obama after it was over because he handled the questions so well.
Both Ryan and Romney are frauds.
Hill Dweller
@General Stuck: Suckers.
WaterGirl
Wasn’t it Bill O’Reilly who had a pre-show tantrum on tape, where he screamed something like “Fuck it! Let’s do this.”
That’s what I have in my head as I read this story about Romney. What a fucking cheater. And I think Univision was absolutely wrong to let Romney get away with this. Wrong on both points : re-taping the intro and busing in outside people.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hill Dweller: It is always easier to be tough on someone who has an actual record than it is to be tough on someone who has only a bunch of vague campaign soundbites.
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
Watching Bill Maher from last night. It’s embarrassing as an American that Roger Hedgecock would have been mayor of a major American city (San Diego).
scav
Never confuse vacuous noise and staged volume for actual respect or results. The cheerleaders don’t actually win the game on their own.
J.D. Rhoades
The big story I saw from this whole thing was how orange Mitt looked.
My first thought was, “Jesus, the make up person must have a relative who’s a teacher or on disability or something. Because whoever he or she was, they really fucked Mitt over.” .
cat48
The president did well, as usual. His appt started at 2:10pm in the afternoon & I watched all of it. The audience seemed friendly & applauded well. Didn’t know he had FAILED until now. Jorge Ramos was aggressive but I wasn’t surprised by it. He seems to think a promise is a promise, regardless whether the global financial system is imploding or not. Obviously, the prez did not scare people enough when the first 6 months about the tenuous financial system; but he was buzy holding it up I guess…….
Coppins is a Stenographer for the Rombot Campaign if you hadn’t noticed by now!!
russell
bullies suck
Cmm
Here’s how successful the whole Univision thing was for Mitt: I am at the junkie level of following politics right now, and all I knew about was the bad makeup thing. I didn’t know it was an audience forum, thought it was just an interview. I didn’t know Obama did a corresponding appearance. I didn’t know Mitt was supposed to have been more “successful” based on audience response. All I knew about was the one rather hilarious picture. Until all the behind the music stuff dropped today, anyway. Good job, Mitt!
Maybe Obama got tougher questions also because those who were there to see him thought there was actually some use in interacting with him, whereas between the hopelessness of the campaign, the thorough disdain of the R’s in general for the Latino community, and the stacking of the audience, no one thought there was any point in asking tougher questions of Mitt? Or maybe they were afraid to try to talk because they were so close to busting up at the makeup job…
piratedan
@General Stuck: i thought that was in return for increased taxes on the wealthy a reduction in defense and some needed infrastructure spending but they chickened out… kind of like a quid pro quo of i’ll touch my sacred cow if you’ll touch yours… they chickened out
Keith G
Oooooh gosh.
A campaign pushed limits and violated (consequence-less) rules to make candidate look better. This story is of little interest and less outrage. It’s a dickish move, but you are likely to see worse behavior with city council races.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:
Tweety was on Hedgecock like a cheap suit, guffawing over the wingnut talking points and challenging him right and left. I kinda liked it.
cat48
Also, I forgot that Rombot also said ILLEGAL ALIENS at least once while on camera. His souped up audience might have liked that, but on twitter & the next day, offense at this was taken by Latinos. I’m sure he’ll get the Cuban vote, but the younger Cubans voted for Obama last time, as well as the Puerto Ricans. Last time I looked, Rombot was getting 30% of the Florida Latinos & the rest went to Obama.
His makeup & the slur is what I’ve read about Rombot so far.
General Stuck
@piratedan:
Well yea, they chickened out. What with Grover and his electoral meat cleaver lurking about. They thought in their 2010 magic bubble win of a mid term, they were both entitled to and certain the Kenyan Usurper would bow down under the GOP masser lash, and they could get what they wanted without giving up anything. Didn’t work out that way.
WhoopTDu
Well there was this mention from Sep 20.on Twitter
Ana Navarro @ananavarro
Did anyone else @Univision Forum notice moderators did intro twice? 1st mentioned Romney given 35 mins, Obama 1hr. 2nd time no mention. Humm
Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker
@trollhattan: If I had been following Tweety’s for a couple of years, I’d be his biggest fan. Even as probably the most prominent media figure to oppose the Iraq War, he was still such pathetic fanboy for the Flightsuit Dummy of Sunny Nobility. It’s funny to me to watch him slobber over Bill Clinton the way he slobbered over Dubya, remembering him all but sobbing on TeeVee over what That Man had done to the White House, “the PEOPLE’S HOUSE!” The name Tweety comes, not just from the hair that changes hues like 25 y.o hipster chick’s, but from the transformation he underwent with his rage-o-holism over the blow jobs (there was a Tweety and Sylvester cartoon in which a mad scientist transformed little Tweetybird into a giant hulking monster, for those who don’t know that factoid)
HRA
I just got this on Face Book and sent it on to my hometown blog for Obama.
Apologize if it was sent further up here.
http://www.politicususa.com/mitt-fit-romney-threw-temper-tantrum-forced-univision-re-tape-intro.html
Chris
@WaterGirl:
I’ve thrown tantrums like that, but usually at my computer or other machines. I try not to direct them at actual human beings who are probably doing their best to help me out.
IowaOldLady
By some definition of “success.”
He bussed in supporters and they cheered him.
Who’s fooling whom?
jeremy
@General Stuck: Well the president came out in 2011 and said there will be no endorsement of raising the retirement age or slashing benefits. He said it time and again but some people did not listen. Also the so called debt deal that Boehner walked out on had no cuts to Social Security benefits or Medicare benefits. Just cuts to payments to providers,cuts to defense, and other cuts.
Randy P
Anybody know where on Univision I might find coverage of the candidate forums and get a sample of Spanish comments? Not sure if my Spanish is up to it but I’m curious.
LanceThruster
@WereBear:
A female coworker likes Mitt a lot and when I elaborated on the things I thought were wrong with him, including making $25 million a year on investemnts alone and crying about his tax burden, she could only come up with, “You’re just jealous”.
Mark S.
Aside from the bronze skin, the only thing I read about the appearance was that Mitt refused 4 times to answer whether he would support the DREAM Act and that he would offer no details on what he would do about illegal immigration. I didn’t read anything about him hitting a home run.
Applejinx
@Gindy51: Gosh.
That must be just what it’s supposed to be- secret footage of Mormon rituals.
Because it’s amazingly, mind-rottingly boring with (to my mind) little offensive about it unless you get hives at ‘patriarchy’ or the idea of Jesus Sekrit Club with a pretend Jesus running through an elaborate series of code-signs.
In a white suit. Gotta wear the white suits, I guess.
If these people weren’t giving gays such expensive hell I’d totally be fine with letting them do their thing with their awesome voiceovers and fancy white suits. IF they weren’t doing political damage and harming people I like, where’s the harm in it?
I guess the fundies might get a little upset, though.
LD50
Wait, isn’t this the same appearance where Romney channeled Al Jolson?
LD50
So basically Romney bussed in a bunch of Miami Cubans to convince Hispanics that Hispanics love the Republican party.
General Stuck
@jeremy:
He’s been saying it since the beginning of time, or at least since his Allah powered manger floated the Indian Ocean on its way to Maui.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist and Fact Checker:
I can understand, sort of, why they caved, but I truly wish they had just carried on with the scheduled 35 minutes, Willard or no Willard. Maybe interview a chair or something.
cat48
http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/Politics/university-miami-romney-plays-room/story?id=17279286#.UF4Z4q7-mSo
Here’s a story at ABC Univision that is slightly different from Coppins.
Mark S.
@SiubhanDuinne:
They should have stood their ground. Willard would have looked like a complete jackass if he didn’t come out.
beth
Will they be able to pull this crap at the debates? As I remember, the audience usually follows the instructions to keep quiet during them. Will this be the year we hear “you lie” coming from the audience? Will the moderators be able to handle the crowd?
Frankensteinbeck
@jeremy:
This is the 11-dimensional chess in action. Obama offered the GOP a compromise that was exactly what they’d technically asked for, but rigged so they didn’t get what they really wanted. It would have been okay if they’d accepted it, but as predicted they refused and their tantrum made them look like such idiots he was able to secure better terms later. The man is an incredible negotiator, and step one is to create an illusion of friendliness and willingness to compromise.
Hal
@LanceThruster:
Wow. You actually know someone who likes Romney and doesn’t just hate Obama? You’re co-worker should be studied in a lab.
SectarianSofa
@TaMara (BHF):
Yeah, that’s how it is here in North-of-Dallas. I’ve seen Obama stickers on the cars, almost no Romney ones, but there is enough of the anti-Obama sentiment I’m probably not putting a sticker on my car this time around. In ’08, I got too many assholes playing games on the highway, and it feels worse this time around. Not as many Hummers driving around, but lots of people who wish they were driving them over people like me.
SectarianSofa
@TaMara (BHF):
Yeah, that’s how it is here in North-of-Dallas. I’ve seen Obama stickers on the cars, almost no Romney ones, but there is enough of the anti-Obama sentiment I’m probably not putting a sticker on my car this time around. In ’08, I got too many assholes playing games on the highway, and it feels worse this time around. Not as many Hummers driving around, but lots of people who wish they were driving them over people like me.
burnspbesq
@TaMara (BHF):
that makes about as much sense as a “Don’t Californicate Colorado” sign in the middle of Highlands Ranch.
dance around in your bones
@trollhattan:
I agree! Hedgecock is a dick, and Tweety handed it to him.
I know, because I lived in SD for many years, and Roger Hedgecock was always a dick.
(No offense to actual dicks, which I am kinda fond of).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@burnspbesq:
Apparently California is a socialist Hell Hole because we have Jerry Brown again. Must be wingnut code talking for not having a white majority.
Cmm
@beth:
I got to attend the 1992 VP debate at GA Tech. One thing I noticed then was that while Gore and Adm. stockdale’s (remember him?) supporters were quiet, Quayle’s were not and he would smile and encourage them when the camera was not on him.
Sparrowgal
@Or something like that.Suffern Ace: Coming to this thread pretty late, but I just wanted to say that I attended the Hofstra U. debate back in 2008, and tickets were apportioned to current students and staff by lottery. This year, as I understand it, the university president, professors and other staff have agreed to take themselves out of the running for primo tickets, and will watch at a campus simulcast in order to give students the maximum number of tickets. There’s no chance they will be running around looking for ‘fillers’!
As an alumnae, I’m trying to get tickets to this simulcast event again this year. In 2008, it was a blast…almost like watching the event at a house party. Unlike the student audience, which had to remain silent, we cut up, hissed, booed, cheered, and generally felt like we were part of history. Hopefully, I can attend again this year with my gang of Obamanaics, and we can scream and giggle at the big screen.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodinger’s cat: Exactly. Was this Univision audience packing supposed to change that? Just like he bussed in supporters for the NAACP presentation. Pathetic.
Brachiator
Much ado about nothing. As Rachel Maddow pointed out in a recent news cast, Univision made the most of their opportunit to get to interview Romney, knowing that campaign events the GOP will allow with Latino media is going to be rare.
And unlike the lame ass mainstream media, the Univision reporter asked tough follow up questions.
And all the available follow up indicates that Romney is not convincing Latinos that he is anything other than a useless gabacho.
Also, I imagine that desperate Romney supporters are over emphasizing the applause here to attempt to distract people from Ryan getting relentlessly booed during his recent speech to seniors.