American Politics Thread 2014

powerful conservative images

the fun thing now is watching all the tales of further petty retributions leak out

yeah imagine how badly they'd fuck over someone who was in charge of a place where they actually needed votes to win

Gov McGreevey rather sleazily used coming out of the closet as a way to smother questions about favors for his boytoy (and skip outta Trenton).

but that scandal wasn't as fun bcz he was a thin Democrat

well he just resigned so no one cared to follow up

Also no one died

his problem is that the right wing of the republican party is against him and he won't get the nomination, right? am i wrong to suspect he would own in a presidential campaign though?

the right wing of the republican party was against john mccain and mitt romney

he won't get the nomination because he's an asshole and comes off like one not because of his politics or this scandal

who's gonna get the nomination though

I have no idea, but I expect the nominating process to be hilarious sad and scary (ie just like last time only moreso)

feel like it's gotta be a governor, no remaining party satraps in Congress that even want it afaict, and Rand Paul or Cruz will never make it

paul ryan has a good shot imho

Ryan/Palin ticket

*masturbates*

god why are you not permabanned

that would be blasphemy!

oh, you were talking to waterface, nvrmind

paul ryan has a good shot imho

― lag∞n

agree w/ this, dude is positioning for sure

the party loves him too, they totally lost their shit over him at the convention

plus those sad sad eyes, who can resist

gop loves guns and w/ paul ryan the gunshow is always in town

hey, you ladies get your tickets?

Josh Barro:

How did Christie not know? There were 117 days between when the Bridgegate story broke and when the governor learned that one of his Deputy Chiefs of Staff, Bridget Kelly, had called for the lane closures. One of his close confidants whom he just selected to run the New Jersey Republican Party, Bill Stepien, is also implicated. Despite the fact that increasing national attention was being paid to this story through the fall, Christie — who has a background as an aggressive prosecutor! — had no idea some of his closest allies were involved. Why was he so oblivious? Christie has been reduced to insisting that his staff has been out to control and lying to him about what they're doing. That's not an ideal talking point to have to lean on.

Why would Christie's appointees have thought this was a good idea? Politicians survive scandals of staff misbehavior all the time. But in this instance, the misbehavior was conducted on Christie's behalf, in order to execute a political strategy to benefit the governor. How did Christie create a culture in which his appointees in his administration and at the Port Authority would get together and assume this was something the governor would want them to do?

It begins:

KJL: What was your impression of Christie’s press conference?

HEWITT: That was one of the most fascinating, indeed riveting two hours in recent American political history. The comparisons to Nixon’s Checkers speech will arrive soon, and of course already have arrived vis-a-vis President Obama’s standard duck-cover-filibuster pressers. Authentic, transparent, unscripted and sincere. Very powerful.

lol yes the "Authentic, transparent, unscripted and sincere" Checkers speech

yeah christie didnt even use a teleprompter. white house or bust.

wait, the checkers speech was good? i thought it was considered despicable and self pitying, but i wasn't there... xpost

hewitt is amazing

"Nixon's speech was seen or heard by about 60 million Americans, including the largest television audience to that time, and led to an outpouring of public support. A huge majority of the millions of telegrams and phone calls received by the RNC and other political offices supported Nixon. He was retained on the ticket, which then swept to victory weeks later in November 1952. The Checkers speech was an early example of a politician using television to appeal directly to the electorate, but has since sometimes been mocked or denigrated. Checkers speech has come more generally to mean any emotional speech by a politician."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkers_speech

the Checkers speech was "good" in the sense that it rescued Nixon's political career

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh163n1lJ4M

and he managed to trick Ike into releasing HIS tax records, which resulted in Ike thinking Nixon was an untrustworthy louse

Ike was a little slow on the uptake there

man I don't know how Nixon comes off to people who didn't grow up on that shit but it's just SO fucking riveting to me, watching him in all his pathology

yep, easily the president with the most entertainment value, dude is just endlessly fascinating

yeah -- nixon is so deeply messed up and conflicted and sad and weird that he makes most of the nuts who came after him look downright boring by comparison. even oliver stone couldn't find very much interesting stuff going in in bush's head.

"in" Bush's head

with Nixon it's the self-pity, cold command, meanness, blubbering, inability to imagine life in anything but in campaign mode, and genuine intelligence that fascinate me, which is why no movie's ever nailed him.

reese witherspoon in 'election' comes closest.

thx now hearing Nixon saying "Fuck me Mr. McAllister"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qRZvlZZ0DY

^^ lousy fucking actor

delivered as if he's just noticed an old friend from Japan

Tracy Flick: You might think it upset me that Paul Metzler had decided to run against me, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was no competition for me, it was like apples and oranges. I had to work a little harder, that's all. You see, I believe in the voters. They understand that elections aren't just popularity contests. They know this country was built by people just like me who work very hard and don't have everything handed to them on a silver spoon. Not like some rich kids who everybody likes because their fathers own Metzler Cement and give them trucks on their 16th birthday and throw them big parties all the time. No, they don't ever have to work for anything. They think they can just, all of a sudden, one day out of the blue, waltz right in with no qualifications whatsoever and try to take away what other people have worked for VERY, VERY hard for their entire lives! No, didn't bother me at all!

^^ unmistakable from a Nixon-written caption about the California governor's race.

*indistinguishable, that is

man I don't know how Nixon comes off to people who didn't grow up on that shit but it's just SO fucking riveting to me, watching him in all his pathology

― combination hair (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, January 9, 2014 5:15 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

every time just... this guy was president?

“David and I were not friends in high school,” he said. “I was class president and an athlete. I don’t know what David was doing at that time.”

lol what a total douche

http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2014/01/contrite-christie-one-story-away-from-oblivion.html

Christie is totally flunking gym now....

Interesting.. some of these people are keeping quiet now, but I wonder if they can be 'persuaded' to come out with their version of events during the primaries/general, if not sooner.

Maddow promoted alt theory that traffic gate was aimed at dem senate prez seems as likely as mayor theory.