Sorry for the absence today, had real life in the way of things.
Caught some of the debate, and thought Romney ended the campaign tonight. Newt is done.
This post is in: Election 2012, Open Threads
Sorry for the absence today, had real life in the way of things.
Caught some of the debate, and thought Romney ended the campaign tonight. Newt is done.
Comments are closed.
General Stuck
LOL, well that settles it then.
RalfW
Wow, I’ve been totally offline for about 5 hours, so I’m curious what happened.
And a bit sad, if true, that Newtie is toast. I thought we needed at least a 5th act of the clown show.
Sasha
Newt’s done, but his support will go to not-Romney before it goes to Romney. Wait for the news of the inevitable Santorum surge.
Waldo
Can’t believe I bet everything on moon futures. Damn.
Redshift
@Sasha:
Especially since Newt has now shown that it is possible to crash from frontrunner status and regain it, unlike all the clowns who came before him this fall.
Pavlov's Dog
It’s funny watching my 99% Republican friends realize that Mitt is their guy. Life has a way of delivering karma.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sasha: I agree Newt’s probably done, it was pretty much always matter of time, but I wonder if he’ll bow out or dig in. How crazy are the Adelson? Can they keep him in and swinging? I hate to think of Romney having only one front.
But hey, there’s a whole weekend for Newt to find the right dog whistle or Mitt to sing another love song for Citibank. Jamie Dimon called himself a victim of discrimination, maybe Mitt will get caught off guard and agree with him.
Cacti
GOP Inc has brought out every weapon in the arsenal to bury Gnewt.
The question remains…can Romney close the deal?
He’s really not very good at this politicking stuff.
General Stuck
Santorum is insane, even for the GOP at large. I have no idea what is going through the minds of our primary voting wingnuts. But if they end up with Mitt, it will take a dumptruck full of bitter pills for the whackjobs to pull the lever, and nominate Obama light.
Violet
I’m sad Newt did so poorly. I so hoped for a protracted slug-fest in the GOP.
Santorum really got to Mitt with the health care law attack. Mitt was not prepared for that. GOS has some great side-by-side photos of Rick/Mitt’s faces during that exchange.
Could Rick possibly get another not-Romney look? I doubt it, but he has been much stronger these last two debates. I guess he could be going for VP.
Mark S.
Conservatives Tend To Be Stupid and Racist, Study Finds
amk
Guess it’s rupaul’s chance to ‘surge’ now ?
General Stuck
Not to mention with Mitt going rambo on illegal immigrants and a guaranteed lackluster baby jeevus vote, he doesn’t have a chance against Obama. Newt has broken into a 9 point lead nationally, and Romney’s unfavorables are closing in on Newt levels for that important reading. Even among republicans, and especially with independent voters. Mitt’s electability claim he has been running on, I suspect is largely due to the general public not knowing as much about him as Newt. But we shall see.
piratedan
and now…. here’s a song for all those Republicans that are still wanting a choice that is different from the Romneybot3000 as we have a shoutout to The Donald…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yyRdBjVybk&feature=related
jl
What is this ‘real life’ thing Cole is talking about now?
Some new fantasy video game, or what?
Some one clue me in.
Edit: I worry about Cole, he’s lost in some fantasy land. Real Life? Cole, go out and buy some stupid expensive crud and watch TV before it’s too late.
DCLaw1
@Sasha:
I don’t think so, at least not in the numbers necessary to create a (yikes) Santorum Surge. I think it’s fall-in-line time for the GOP. They were briefly enticed by Gingrich’s promise of talking nasty to “that boy,” and now that he’s been neutered in debate by the guy everyone has assumed would be the nominee, they will revert to form and line up behind Romney.
Santorum may see a bit of a bump, but not nearly enough to keep him alive for long. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is a persistent enough bundle of sinew – with something to prove, too – that he’ll probably continue to be a nuisance to Romney for months.
hhex65
@Mark S.: that link does not go to The Onion!
Spaghetti Lee
I don’t know, I wouldn’t write the crazy fucker off completely.
Chris
@Violet:
I know it’s been said here many times, and mostly answered very well, but still the incredulous part of me wishes to say…
…how can you not be prepared for that? You’re running for President, on the ticket of the most right-wing Republican Party in almost a hundred years, with a socially and economically liberal record behind you. And this is your second time at this! You already went through all this just four years and one election cycle ago! While you should have been ready then, there’s absolutely no way you should be surprised or unprepared at any of it this time around!
Okay, rant over. DAMN.
General Stuck
Newt probably himself did poorly against Romney tonight, at least up to standard of his recent full auto attacks on Mitt. But Santorum destroyed Mitt on Romneycare, tying it to Obamacare. Where the dynamics of who benefits from that, who knows. But I wouldn’t say Mitt won the debate, he just didn’t lose it to Newt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Violet: I can’t see Santorum as Veep. I’d like to think his creepy pre-Reformation brand of Catholicism would turn off the indies. I also think he’s dumber than dirt and less charismatic.
cmorenc
Even if Mittens does obtain an insurmountable advantage over the rest of the GOP field coming out of Florida, Gingrich has succeeded in inflicting a lot of lasting damage on Romney’s prospects in the general election, and that doesn’t even count the significant unforced errors Romney has committed that are also hard to repair. Tons of viscerally potent material has been handed to the Obama campaign for use in the general election. Provided the gradual trajectory of economic recovery is sustained between now and November, Obama wins comfortably. If not, it’s still going to be nervously close, despite the damage inflicted on Romney.
jl
“Newt is done.”
No. It’s just a Newtonian quirk. It’s always the comeback that gives Newt a rush.
Great men of history are like that: quirky.
But what would Cole know? He is out of it from playing this ‘real life’ thing all the time, whatever it is.
DCLaw1
@Chris: This points to a broader parallel. What amazed me most tonight was not Romney’s strength on the counterattack, but how incredibly long it has taken him to get good at these debates. For so long, it was just boneheaded, self-inflicted wound after self-inflicted wound. Tonight, he mostly figured out how to get out of his own way (with a few exceptions) and how to throw an actual punch.
Incredible it’s taken this long. He is still fundamentally (as Newt would say) a weak candidate.
Fwiffo
I didn’t see it – did Newt really do that badly? It seemed like the only two moments people were blogging about where Mitt getting hammered over Romneycare and Mitt denying knowledge of his Spanish language ad that he approved.
Jennifer
@General Stuck: No shit. I had never paid close enough attention to tell just how nutso Frothy Mixture really is. I mean, I knew he was a religious wacko, but when he got into that shit tonight about how we need to police against Muslims taking over Honduras and Venezula and Cuba, I was thinking, “holy shit, how is that this guy isn’t institutionalized?” I mean, he’s just one bitter disappointment away from shooting up a post office.
Mike in NC
@Cacti:
Favorite philosopher Bob Dylan sez:
“He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?”
Martin
Don’t count him out. Santorum will bail first. Newt has free money coming his way and will pick up Santorum’s voters. There’s still a lot of races out there that Newt can win – big ones too.
Besides, what else is a grifter going to do but grift – he’s not getting out so long as there’s money out there.
BlueDWarrior
I think the question now isn’t “What’s wrong with Republicans and their party?” but “What isn’t wrong with Republicans and their party?”
They are seriously going to Nominate the very walking epitome of the soulless corporate automaton as their nominee, and I guess they are going to gleefully ride that bomb all the way until imapct.
Jay in Oregon
This was at the bottom of the 300+ comment debate thread so I rescued it.
Here’s a sample from a promotional movie coming out about Newt Gingrich’s plan for a moonbase:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEueJnsu80&skipcontrinter=1
eemom
i.e., dates with lovesick women who caught their first glimpse of The Full Cole the other night.
I hear the roads to West Virginia are jammed from all directions.
DCLaw1
@Martin: Here’s why I agree with Cole and others that Newt’s done. His rise in the first place was a fluke, not a feature, of his candidacy. Remember: after a string of boom and bust cycles, it became his turn. Then he collapsed because Romney savaged him through his SuperPAC in Iowa and he had no answer.
So Newt came back with a vengeance, going fully negative with the vulture capitalism ad. His numbers ticked up, but he clinched the deal with the purely fortuitous softball John King lobbed to him at the start of the SC debate about his ex. It played perfectly to Gingrich’s central strength: attacking the media and making himself a martyr. Immediate boost, but that was just as much a fluke as his initial spike.
Since then, over two Florida debates, he’s fallen flat. His numbers were trending down even before tonight. Now, with two lost debates in a row, he is back on the shelf as the implausible candidate he was from the start.
Now, that’s not to say he won’t prove a pain in Romney’s ass for weeks or months. He’s got an ax to grind for sure. But his chances at the nomination are over, bank on it.
Suffern ACE
Note to self: when you run for president in 2024, withhold your plans for the Venus colony until after the election.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jay in Oregon: RIchard Wolfe came right out on MSNBC and called Wolf Blitzer’s questions stupid. “How much time did we waste on moon-bases and who would make the best first lady?”
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
I don’t see why Newt would bail now before the South gets its say. There are an awful lot of delegates to be picked up in Dixie. King Ga-Newt might as well see if he can turn back the tide a time or two more.
General Stuck
@Jennifer:
That was a very weird diatribe, even for him, Santorum’s rant on South America and Obama letting the commie muslims take it over. Maybe gawd told him to mention it.
Martin
@Fwiffo:
Not really. It’s just that when Newt isn’t on full-bore offense, it looks like he’s doing poorly. And when Mitt is putting up any offense it looks like he’s wrecking the place.
These are both terrible candidates with terrible histories (of completely different kinds). In a ‘who’s the best’ race, yeah, things look bleak for Newt, as they started to look bleak for Hillary around this point. But in a ‘who’s the least worst’ race, which is really what Mitt/Newt are locked in, it can go back and forth like crazy because it’s all about risk exposure, and they both look risky.
magurakurin
@Violet:
spelling corrections…you know grammar nazi stuff.
no worries, mate.
cheers.
Chris
@Jennifer:
He said that? Doesn’t sound that different from when Bush said if we didn’t fight in Iraq the crazies would build a fundamentalist state from Spain to Indonesia. (The original Crazification Factor post, which I didn’t discover until a few days ago, tears into that delightfully…)
Which, I guess, only begs the question “how was George Bush not institutionalized?” For some reason, half the country seems to consider that stuff a plus.
flukebucket
The exchange of the night in my opinion was between Wolf and Ron Paul when Wolf sets up the scene, “You are in the White House. The phone rings. Fidel Castro is on the other line. What do you say to him?” and Paul says, “Oh I don’t know. Probably ask him why he called”. I laughed so god damn hard that I could not judge the audience reaction. It was wonderful. But I think Romney won the debate tonight. And I have always thought Romney would get the nomination. But this is fun to watch.
General Stuck
Well, I’m off to bed. Will Probably get nightmares from watching that chamber of horrors, aka Republican Debate.
Martin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The better question would have been to Newt: “Should you win the nomination and election, who do you plan to dump Callista for? Who would be our actual first lady?”
Because Seinfeld is the source of all wisdom:
Jennifer
@flukebucket: Fun? I found it horribly depressing. Seriously, we’re so fucked up as a country that one of the guys on stage was talking about a South American Caliphate…and somehow he’s not only managed to hang in there through 3 state primaries; he actually WON one of them.
As I said on the earlier thread, these debates are pretty much just proof that we’re over as a country. No nation could survive this level of nuclear stupid for long, and I’ve seen no signs that it’s tapering off. Sure, the crazies are probably going to lose – this time. But they won’t lose forever.
Lojasmo
Really? Has to be a troll.
WHO CARES. rombot or noot…toast to the Obama juggernaut.
A. Noot wins the primary or..
B. brokered convention.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Martin: Heh. Martin Bashir (I O’D’d on political TeeVee today, even tried to watch Dylan Ratigan. He is the one of the most incoherent people I’ve ever seen on TV. anyway…) MB was having some fun attributing to Newt the George Costanza Philosophy.
“Remember, Jerry, it’s not a lie, if YOU believe it!“
burnspbesq
@General Stuck:
He said what??? Hugo Chavez is a miserable piece of shit, but he is neither commie nor muslim.
Although it’s entirely possible that Santorum thinks Pakistan is right next to Paraguay.
Mike in NC
@Lojasmo:
David Gregory and Chris Matthews and the rest of the 1% Villagers care a lot because that’s their income stream. Otherwise they’d need to get real jobs.
We lived in the DC area from about 1990 to 2007 and it sucked to have to listen to those shitbird morons every day…
Ira-NY
Newt and Mitt were both miserable tonight.
The poor performance was much more damaging to Newt than Mitt. Doing well in debates is the oxygen Newt’s campaign lives on.
burnspbesq
Amazingly enough, there is a stinking rich captain of industry who is even more tone-deaf than Mitt Romney: Phil Knight.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7506640/joe-paterno-penn-state-nittany-lions-memorial-exposes-anger-firing
magurakurin
@burnspbesq: and as an aside, whatever Chavez is or is not, we won’t have him to kick around much longer. His doctors say his cancer is terminal and he isn’t going to make it through the year. I wonder who the next Latin American bogey man will be to take his place?
Martin
@Jennifer: But you can’t judge that way. Like I keep saying, you don’t win elections, you fail to lose them. The voters didn’t get to choose the assholes that ran, but they have to choose from them. My mom was so incensed by the current crop that she extended her vacation to avoid the Iowa caucus, and she was a state party delegate some number of years ago. In 2008, you can see her sitting up front in photos from no fewer than a dozen campaign events. She can’t bring herself to go to any this year.
And as much bullshit as is going around in ‘Oh, the economy is bad, Obama is likely to lose’, if anyone really thought that, you’d see much stronger GOP candidates out there. They’re all sitting it out for 2016. They don’t think Obama is an underdog. They think he’s going to kill them, and they’re simply not going to come out and play, leaving the field to 2008s wash-ups and whoever else is watching their biological clock tick away. And that’s who Republican voters get to choose from.
Now, their reasons for choosing as they do can be questioned, but it’s not much different from the discussions we have about who can best win, who has the longest coattails, who will energize the right, and so on. In many cases, the rational GOP voters are probably handicapping the race in favor of the lunatics, figuring that Romney could never beat Obama, but maybe Newt will rally the loons and make something happen. You always run the riskiest plays when you’re behind – that holds in politics as well.
Donut
I’m with Martin @ comment 28 …
As long as the G-Unit can spend other people’s money, he will stay the fuck in, and I don’t doubt that he will have that money to spend for some time to come.
He is narcissistic enough to believe he is truly necessary to this process, and he absolutely lives for the Big Stage.
He’s a Super Star. Newt. Mother. Fucking. Gingrich.
Martin
@magurakurin: Knowing Republicans, probably Angela Merkel.
Suffern ACE
@burnspbesq: It’s one of those things where the super catholics have been spending too much time with Pam Gellar and Newsmax. Amongst that set, it is common knowledge that the left wing governments that were elected a few years back were the result of a growing communism and since there were terrorist attacks against synagogues in Argentina a decade ago, the muslims are ramping up. If I recall correctly, there was an al Quaeda training camp imagined to be around Iguazu Falls.
burnspbesq
@magurakurin:
Correa or Morales, take your pick. A land-reformer or a debt-defaulter.
Mike
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That applies more to Romney. The man is the most compulsive liar I’ve ever seen, and he’s so good at it, he could definitely ace a polygraph.
Mark S.
Shit, I really wanted Newt to be the nominee. Guess that’s not happening.
Is it too late for a Santorum miracle?
cckids
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well yes, but Jesus, it is their 19th debate. Relevant questions have been asked & answered (or avoided) so many times by now. Moderators have to make some sort of attempt at getting a fresh look at these clowns. And God knows, getting tough or relevant is kind of off the table.
David Koch
Newt is leading nationally in Gallup and the new NBC/WSJ poll.
Suffern ACE
Honestly, watching the excerpts, I think Newt is tired. He’s been furiously campaigning for almost three weeks now without a break. The guy probably hasn’t worked more than 2 days in a row since 1998. Hence the state on the moon rambling.
burnspbesq
@Mark S.:
It’s never too late for a miracle. Are you sure that’s what you really want?
amk
@Martin: Amen.
burnspbesq
My favorite whine of the day: Lefty Driesell complaining that naming the court at the Comcast Center for Gary Williams is an insult to the guys who played for Lefty.
Lefty, I love you like kinfolks, but the hard truth is you had Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, and John Lucas at the same time and couldn’t win an NCAA championship. Gary won with Steve Blake and Lonny Baxter.
Chris
@Jennifer:
I had that “God, we’re FUCKED” epiphany moment years ago, when I read a poll that had half of Americans not believing in evolution (of ANY kind, including the God-ordained, “intelligent design” stealth creationism thing). Anyone trying to be a First World nation in the 21st century with such a shitty grasp of science is going to have some real problems.
Chris
@Martin:
Okay, half of it is that they don’t think they can win. The other half, IMO, is that they’re afraid they might. Whoever wins is going to be immediately pressed by the public to solve the economy, YESTERDAY. And the only remedies they have don’t work – the smart enough ones must realize that, even if they don’t care.
So they’re hoping Obama has a nice eight year run, fixes the economy like Clinton did, and leaves a nice happy country where they can run on empty patriotic platitudes again. Maybe. It’s been my theory for a while.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike: I’d say Willard knows he’s lying and doesn’t care cause he knows he can get away with it, and the end of his achieving the Presidency justifies any means to get there. Newt believes whatever spew he spits out.
Beneath the most superficial level, Newt and Willard really are a lot alike. Willard takes the flip-flop heat off Newt, who as recently as 2006, IIRC, was calling an individual mandate essential to any health insurance plan and you can pick almost any issue and find similar shifting ; and Newt takes the race-baiting demagogue heat off Willard, who from what I’ve seen never goes more than five minutes without implying Obama doesn’t really love/understand America. “He’s a nice man, just not one of us“
Mark S.
@burnspbesq:
I have faith that this country isn’t crazy enough to elect Rick Santorum. It is crazy enough to elect Mitt.
Jennifer
@Martin: Yeah, but: why is it that they all know already that they can’t beat Obama? The economy still stinks on ice; the last three years have been dreadful for probably 25% of us; there’s widespread and growing disgust with both government and questions of basic fairness and equality in the society – those things usually spell trouble for an incumbent. I submit that it’s that the Republican Party is so bereft of ideas that all they’ve got left is pandering to a shrinking base. And they’re one of only two parties voters can choose from, effectively.
It ain’t healthy, no matter how you slice it.
handy
@burnspbesq:
Nothing against Lefty. He had great success at UM, coached several players who would have solid NBA careers, and if it weren’t for the Len Bias thing might have even got that banner.
But naming the court after Gary Williams is a no-brainer.
David Koch
@Suffern ACE:
He’s also 69 years old, a hundred pounds overweight, and hasn’t exercised since playing dodge ball in high school in 1961.
Chris
@Jennifer:
It ain’t healthy, no matter how you slice it. But the “shrinking base” part does give some hope, maybe. If the country can hold out until then.
Martin
@Suffern ACE: Newt has been rambling about moon bases for decades. Rachel highlighted his plan to colonize the moon and use giant mirrors there to reflect sunlight back on US cities in order to combat crime. Compared to that, the crap he trotted out for the FL space vote was pretty rational.
I’m torn between Newt realizing that he can’t be 24/7 bombastic and win, so he’s trying to thread the needle between insane and sane, and that’s he’s cycling on and off his meds, without revealing to us which side of Newt is the off-his-meds side.
David Koch
Rotten kids.
Thousands camp out overnight in the cold to get tickets to see President speak.
http://theobamadiary.com/2012/01/26/hes-lost-the-youth-you-know-2/
JGabriel
@Chris:
Four years ago, RomneyCare was a market-oriented health care initiative that increased insurance coverage to near univeral level, and was widely praised by Republicans as the conservative alternate to the single-payer or public option programs Democrats were proposing.
Then the Democrats and Obama settled for national version of the market-oriented RomneyCare, and suddenly market-oriented became socia1ist take-over.
That’s why Romney wasn’t quite prepared. Part of him still wants to defend the market-oriented program everyone was praising four years ago instead of the identical commie, liberty-stealing, big government program Obama instituted.
Funny how that happens. It’s like everything a Democrat touches automatically becomes infected with liberal cooties in the GOP worldview.
.
Suffern ACE
@Martin: I had not heard that. Solving crime by never letting the sun go down? Or just heating the cities until they melted?
burnspbesq
@handy:
Agree. Enjoyed seeing us mess up the dedication night. There were probably a small number of brave DC-area Dookies in attendance. I wonder if they brought out the “Sweat, Gary, Sweat” chant.
Cassidy
Newt hasn’t made his nut yet. He ain’t givin’ up.
Hill Dweller
The Memphis Grizzlies are wearing the ugliest uniforms I’ve ever seen. I might just stay up to hear Barkley ridicule them after the game.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Geeze, Phil hasn’t been keeping up on the case, has he? Paterno may have reported it in a vague sort of way, but Paterno never bothered to follow up when no action was apparently taken. Sandusky still had keys to the Penn State facilities years after the first inklings of his alledged doings became known to Paterno.
There is no crime that the elite can commit that will get them into trouble, it seems.
Chris
@JGabriel:
Inability to use doublethink to the extent necessary to sustain a Republican primary (maybe)… You make a good point.
Martin
@Suffern ACE: WaPo has a nice rundown on his moon ideas.
The farmers in space idea must be hard for him to resist after the SOTU.
Triassic Sands
@Violet:
But, but, but…how could Newt have done poorly? He is, after all, the self-proclaimed World’s Greatest Debater (His CPU is modeled after a suped-up version of the Debatatron 9000 — reputedly a vastly more powerful descendent of HAL 9000 of 2001 fame. Yet, like his granddad, Newt is undoubtedly willing to kill everyone “on board” if he feels threatened.)
Jager
@David Koch: Damn, I bet Newton was pounded with that ball! Punched in the arm withthout mercy, snapped on his fat ass with wet towels in the locker room! Good times!
BGinCHI
I predict Romney will not win Super Tuesday, unless a 35% plurality is a win.
How will the GOP produce turnout in the general? Just defeating Obama ain’t gonna be enough. Not in the swing states.
The GOP is fucked.
burnspbesq
@Villago Delenda Est:
Phil’s been busy dreaming up the ugliest unis in the history of college basketball.
http://nikeinc.com/news/nike-launches-hyper-elite-platinum-basketball-uniforms#/gallery/6782
Yutsano
@Cassidy:
Let us never speak of this again.
Suffern ACE
@Martin: Jeebus. How did a bill to make the moon a state get 12 grown congressmen to put their names on it in 1981? (And why do I think it would get 50 now).
Hill Dweller
@burnspbesq: If you’re in front of a TV, turn it to TNT, and check out the Grizzlies’ uniforms. The Nike unis have nothin’ on them.
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
Sorry to see your boys got spanked by Zona tonight.
I’m tempted to go to the USC-Utah game on Saturday, just so I can say I was at the worst game in the history of Pac-10/12 basketball. The Galen Center may not be big enough to hold that much suck.
JGabriel
@Martin:
Would we? I doubt it. The current crop isn’t the result of good candidates sitting it out, but because the current GOP demands its candidates take so many contradictory and irrational positions that only a delusional lunatic or a lying sociopath can rise to the top.
I fully expect any “stronger” GOP candidates for the 2016 nomination will, in fact, fall apart under the glare of the national spotlight like Rick Perry.
.
amk
I’m looking at the rethugs’ ‘field’ now – two also-ran, drop-outs of 2008, one impeached speaker from nineties and an also-ran senator of 2006, who got walloped in his own state by 18 points.
So how is ‘Obama in trouble’ again?
handy
@burnspbesq:
You call it tone-deaf. I call it playing up the crowd. Either way it’s sad.
Cassidy
@Yutsano: You know, I honestly never understood the popularity of that phrase. First time I heard it was Stepbrothers, but then normal people started using it in serious conversation. I kept wondering if they had seen the movie and understood it wasn’t a drama.
Suffern ACE
@Cassidy: Used a banned word.
amk
Oral sex linked to throat cancer. You’ve been warned.
Even fukcing sex is not healthier anymore.
Friggin’ mayans are right. The end of the world is upon us.
Suffern ACE
@Cassidy: There are now 1,200 cas i nos in the US. We’re all Nathan Detroit now.
different-church-lady
What, again?
Yutsano
@burnspbesq:
It’s a relatively young team with a few good wins already. And a few WTF losses too. In other words, typical Coug athletics. :)
@Cassidy: It’s deliciously entendred, to use an interesting portmanteau.
different-church-lady
@jl:
Well son, back in the 19th century, before they invented the lightbulb or the horseless carriage, there were these things called “other people” who you’d sometimes go and visit in their native habitats…
Redshift
@JGabriel:
The FoF factor, in Krugman’s parlance — Fools or Frauds.
I don’t know, though. It’s possible there are some who are smoother at hiding it, like W. Certainly it seems telling that being a sitting or recent governor is historically one of the best positions for running for president, and the only one we had in this race was Pawlenty (and maybe Huntsman, for some values of ‘recent’.)
Suffern ACE
@different-church-lady: They used to complain about the new whale oil lamps the government was ramming down their throats. Candles may not have lasted as long but they were familiar. Then they sighed.
It’s wasn’t at all how it’s portrayed in the movies.
Sly
@Martin:
Who, exactly, is sitting out? If thus is their B-Team, who the fuck is on their A-Team?
Why is anyone making the assumption that this slate of Republican candidates, since the beginning, has not been the best the Republican Party has to offer? How has this slate of candidates been any worse than those we saw in 2008, 2000, and 1996?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JGabriel: I don’t know. Bob McDonnell from VA, I think he could be strong. Other than that I don’t see much of a bench, but who the hell had ever heard of that Obama guy at this point in 2004? I think the world had not yet heard of Jack Ryan’s fondness for S/M clubs
@Redshift: I think Pawlenty might be stronger than Hunstman if he lets go of his brief flirtation with being a tough guy
Redshift
@JGabriel:
Probably. Most of the current crop of governors look like they’re going to have their glorious conservative legacies repudiated by We the People. That kind of martyrdom may play great in the wingnutsphere, but I doubt it will have broader appeal in 2016.
Oddly enough, I think my governor, Bob McDonnell, could be a decent contender, as long as he can restrain the GOP legislature from doing anything too embarrassing in the next two years (which is probably one of the reasons he’s campaigning so hard for VP.)
priscianusjr
@Mark S.:
priscianusjr
@Jennifer:
Death Panel Truck
@amk: We were actually warned five years ago, when the story first broke. Check the date at your link.
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift: They had a bumper crop of new governors, too. I bet the master plan was for Scott Walker to exterminate public-sector unions and tighten restrictions on voting, then ride both those victories to national prominence. Thanks to the people of Wisconsin, that all went kablooie. Instead we’ve got retreads talking about moon bases, uppity darkies, and low tax rates for rich people. Whoop-de-doo.
MikeJ
@David Koch:
Wow. Never seen so many demoralized people. Looks like they’ll be staying home in November to teach the Dems a lesson.
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift: I think McDonnell has to be the #1 contender for the GOP in 2016, and if I were advising him I would be pleading with him to stay the hell away from the ticket in 2012 in order to shield him from the utter weirdness everyone is going to remember about this year.
Elizabelle
Uggie, dog star of “The Artist” to retire from films this year. He’s ten.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jan/26/uggie-the-dog-to-retire
Lance Boyle
Sure hope Cole is reaping the fruit of that subtle booty-call he sent out the other night–I don’t know of a more deserving brother.
Martin
@David Koch:
Aaaaand that’s why the GOP thinks they’re going to lose. You can’t fucking buy that, and the GOP has never and likely will never be able to get that kind of energy out of the public.
When I talk to people that age about Obama, they don’t seem to care about the economy. They care about the tenor of the country, and they desperately want the divisive bullshit to end. Not just in policy, but everywhere. They’re tired of the racist dog whistling. The blaming everything on gays and the poor and so on. They’re done. They don’t buy it, and they want it to end. Even the pretty strongly religious young people are in there – so the GOP isn’t even winning over the religious vote here. Obama is.
Got to get that vote out though.
Elizabelle
And in this corner, Professor Paul Krugman:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/krugman-jobs-jobs-and-cars.html?ref=opinion
Krugman made a good point about letting GM go down would have taken out a lot of the supplier chain Ford depends upon as well.
CarolDuhart2
@Jennifer: It might have been some opportunity for a sane opposition. But after four years of dogwhistles given to an increasingly brown electorate, no way does any Republican get a majority of an increasingly big minority vote. And there have been too many antics and threats by Congress-over the unemployment extension, the debt ceiling, whatever-for any rational voter to take them seriously as a steward of the economy.
And the candidates-message and messenger-are just terrible. Newt? Mitt? Ancient wheezing Ron Paul? Santorum who likes to worry about who’s sleeping with who? Nobody has a message or personality that says they give a damn about ordinary suffering Americans.
So Obama may win by default-the default of his opposition.
JGabriel
@Redshift:
I don’t think W hid it, he was simply lucky in his birth and successful in his courtier’s corrupt machinations.
W lost the first election but was installed in office by the GOP dominated Supreme Court, several of whom were appointed by his Daddy, and won the second election on the basis of people not wanting to switch horses during wartime — and, probably, fraud in OH, IA, NM, and NV.
.
liberal
Stanley Fish is a flaming a-hole. (And what else is not new under the sun.)
liberal
@Elizabelle:
Thanks for the link. For some reason I don’t see the link to his current column on his column page.
liberal
@Redshift:
As an observer in MD who reads about VA politics in the Post Metro section, that seems to be a big “if”.
Chris
@JGabriel:
Well, as Krugman points out, he won in 2000 because of fraud in Florida – e.g. a voter purge that misidentified a number of people as felons (most of them black), without whom Bush wouldn’t have gotten close enough to the White House for it even to be contested.
liberal
@General Stuck:
Would you really pick Newt over Man-on-Dog, Dog-on-Road?
Santorum, yes, he’s a far right wing asshole, a hypocrite on abortion, etc.
Newt, there’s a nontrivial risk he’d literally blow up the world.
Elizabelle
@liberal:
Good to hear, and I don’t see the link on Krug blog either. (Yet.) Maybe the Sudafed interfered.
Forgot about the NYTimes paywall. Will try to remember to put K-Thug columns up when they appear.
DFH no.6
I suspect that’s true, but damn I hope it’s not.
In order to vote for Newt in the (closed) primary on February 28th, my wife, my son, and I all just changed our registration to Republican here in the Land of AZ (yes, we are all waiting for someone to drop a house on Jan Brewer – or throw a bucket of water on her, whichever works).
I’m rooting for Newt to still be in it by then, though I believe he only has the most outside chance at the nomination.
Due to the economy, the media, and the feckless American electorate, Romney worries me in the general (Newt, of course would be destroyed).
And the first person to call me a “concern troll” can just imagine my intertube boot up their ass.
DFH no.6
@Cassidy:
The phrase “made his nut” (and its derivatives) has been around a long time.
It’s used by sales all the time – meaning selling enough to cover costs and start making commission – and in business in general to mean earning enough (in, say, a month or a quarter) to cover costs (including overhead) and begin making profit.
Still, and I may just be an old prude, but after 32 years in business I still cringe a little when I hear it.