Tag Archives: Rmoney

Posted on by

GOP Worried About Negative Tone – Seriously?

Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

They're worried about being too negative. Unless it's about the President - Image © 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

It seems the GOP establishment has started worrying that the race has gotten a bit too nasty. They’re worried they’re hurting their brand.

via 2012 election: GOP frets over nasty tenor of presidential race – POLITICO.com.

Whether or not the 2012 primaries are literally the most negative in memory, there’s no question that the race is taking a uniquely painful toll on the Republican field.
While the 2008 primaries were certainly divisive for a time, none of the candidates received the severe, lasting damage that surveys show for the 2012 field. The POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll published Monday placed three Republican candidates — Romney, Gingrich and Ron Paul — in horrendously negative territory among voters, with Santorum well on his way in the same direction.

Republican pollsters Ed Goeas and Brian Nienaber, who conducted the poll with the Democratic firm Lake Research, wrote in an analysis that their party’s candidates were essentially eating themselves alive.

Of course, that’s just within themselves. Questioning the President’s faith, insinuating that if he gets a second term we will see a nuclear detonation in the US, calling him the food stamp president, allowing birthers to continue their relentless pursuit of the futile, denigrating the poor – none of that is negative in their books. As long as they play nice with each other, they really don’t mind.

Hypocrites.

Posted on by

GOP Worried Santorum Will Sink Them

Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Is Santorum Sinking the GOP? - Image Copyright 2012 Leo Soderman - Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Watching the GOP start to tremble about a possible Santorum nomination is entertaining…

via The GOP’s Panic Over Rick Santorum – The Daily Beast.

For more than six months, worried conservative chieftains talked up the need to unite behind a single rightist candidate in order to block the potential victory of the “mushy moderate” from Massachusetts, Mitt Romney. Now, on the eve of crucial primaries in Michigan and Arizona, and with Super Tuesday looming just one week later, some of those same leaders speak privately of the need to unite behind that same, once-dreaded Romney in order to avert an even more dire disaster: the nomination of Rick Santorum.

For decades, the GOP has tried to nudge the country to the right. With the advent of the Tea Party, that nudge became a shove. But like the supertankers they dream of filling with Canadian tar sands oil, once that kind of movement is rolling, it’s really hard to slow it down, much less stop it. Enter Rick Santorum.

If they were really honest about it (I know, a stretch), they would admit that Santorum is simply saying out loud what they all think. But the problem is, what they think and what has a chance of winning an election are two totally different things. And what Santorum has been spewing for the last 6 weeks has been increasingly further from the mainstream. Make no mistake – Republicans want want Santorum says they want. But the more seasoned, savvy pols know that to get it, they have to win elections. And Santorum’s heavy-handed shift to the right – practically dragging the rest of the GOP with them – will alienate moderate, independent voters.

So now, as vehemently as the GOP establishment was against Romney, they are now starting to worry that Santorum will sink them. Of course, they can change tactics right up until the actual nomination. None of the delegates assigned during the primaries are binding – they can change their vote right before the convention vote.  But of course, Santorum would raise a stink that would fracture the Republican Party. But so will a Santorum win, as they see their chances of taking the White House go up in a puff of neo-papal smoke.

Posted on by

Another Town Mitt Won’t Be Popular In

He’s gonna have a hard time selling this one. When a wide swath of the center of the country has been revived due to the auto industry bailouts, trying to justify that they should have been allowed to go under is a tough sell. Just ask the folks in Kokomo, IN.

via Town says it owes its life to the auto bailout – Business – Autos – msnbc.com.

Flash forward. The U.S. auto industry has staged an amazing comeback, and the town’s largest employer, Chrysler, has pledged to invest nearly $1.3 billion into its plants here, added about 1,000 workers and helped boost Kokomo’s fortunes — it was honored in 2011 by the state chamber of commerce as Community of the Year.

But the resurrection of U.S. automakers has done little to resolve a deep political divide over the bailout. Democrats, led by President Barack Obama, call it an undeniable success. The Republican presidential candidates, most notably Mitt Romney, condemn it as government meddling, both unfair and unnecessary, and even some Indiana politicians agree.

To many folks in Kokomo, though, the political debate seems disconnected from this reality: Kokomo survives.

When the President took office in January of 2009, Republicans set in their minds that the number one goal was to oust him. They stood in his way at every opportunity. What they were counting on was him failing. And when 2010 rolled around, it looked like they had achieved their goal.

But then a funny thing happened. Things started looking better. To be honest, they started turning around six months after the President took office. But it was damned deep hole to dig out of. Now, unemployment continues to drop, the markets are higher than before he took office (nearly double), consumer confidence is back, and the auto industry is booming.

All of this in direct contrast to the bleak predictions of the right when he was elected. None of their fears have come true. So, they’ve got to ratchet it up a bit more, raise the fear level.  But with what? Now it’s religion and birth control. And education. All their regular complaints are gone. They can’t even use terrorism, as this President has seem more disruption of terrorist networks than his predecessor who preached about. Think Osama Bin Laden.

It’s gonna be tougher and tougher for Republicans to make a sensible case for their views. If current trends hold up (and there is every indication they will), by November, there will be less people unemployed than there were before the President was elected.

And the people of Kokomo like that just fine.

Posted on by

Mitt Inserts Foot In Mouth – Again

Over the weekend, Romney had a remarkable weekend of opening his mouth and letting stupid stuff come out. Not that this is any surprise. But at this point, he might be giving Joe Biden a run for his money…

On Friday, Romney talked, in Michigan, where he was willing to let the auto industry go belly up, about the fact that he likes cars. Has two of them. And then, he volunteered that his wife owns two Cadillacs. Apparently, it never dawned on the guy that the people he wants voting for him can’t afford one Cadillac.

So, on Sunday, he headed over to a NASCAR event – should be simple, right? Shake a few hands, smile a bunch, get out of town. Except, we’re talking about Romney.

No, when he was asked about NASCAR, he said he didn’t follow it as much as avid fans, but “I have some great friends that are NASCAR team owners”. Don’t we all?

He topped off the gaffe-fest when he walked by a bunch of NASCAR fans wearing plastic ponchos to ward off the rain. Via The Maddow Blog:

In case it seemed as if Romney’s NASCAR visit wasn’t awkward enough, this was pretty remarkable, too: ”The crowd initially booed Mr. Romney, who occasionally struck a discordant note, as when he approached a group of fans wearing plastic ponchos. ‘I like those fancy raincoats you bought,’ he said. ‘Really sprung for the big bucks.’”

Yup. He taunted NASCAR fans because they were wearing inexpensive ponchos. I guess they didn’t have enough corporate sponsorship for him.

You’d have thunk that by now, he would have clued into the whole idea that he’s sounding less like the average guy and more like the rich, self-entitled corporate raider he has always been. Not a very voter friendly persona. But what lies at the heart is simple.

He doesn’t see a difference.

To Romney, everyone is rich. Everyone has four cars. Everyone has investment income. It’s why he says things like “I’m not concerned about the very poor”. He thinks they have a safety net. He doesn’t realize the whole problem is that they’re in the safety net. If you need that safety net, something has already gone wrong.

He thinks corporations are people because he thinks like a corporation. Plain and simple. It’s why he can’t connect with people – he just doesn’t see the difference.

We’ll see more of these gaffes in the upcoming weeks. But if he keeps this up, he may give Santorum a real opening.