the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

Have you seen this guy at a press conference? Thanks, RNC.

What stops from accepting the Prez's remarks as political (i.e. making the GOP look even more intransigent and stupid) is his (public) commitment to shrinking the deficit.

is the slave thing gonna come back to haunt romney? i don't know the details. maybe he's right about the guard towers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-0imhVH4E0

So has Obama said anything about Neil Armstrong today? Cos the 1st moon landing was a huge success economically, culturally, and globally. It would be pretty stupid in the midst of "You didn't build that!" fever not to point out the best evidence ever that the government CAN do something right.

Maybe people don't want to hear about a government program that pays for itself two times over.

The Washington Post has long been known for its sycophantic coverage of the rich and powerful but it may have hit a new low today. The theme of an article on the presidential race was that Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, used the word "baseline" in a discussion of the budget with reporters. The reporter and/or editor was just incredibly impressed with this fact.

Real reporters might ask Ryan to identify some of the loopholes that he plans to close to make up for his tax cuts to the wealthy (e.g. mortgage interest deduction, deduction for employer provided health insurance etc.). A real reporter might also ask him to be more specific about the programs he plans to cut or eliminate over the next decade to meet his spending targets. And, they might ask him if he really intends to eliminate the whole federal government by 2040, except for Social Security, health care and the Defense Department as the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of his budget implies.

But hey, those would be questions raised by real reporters. The Post is just so awed by the fact that Ryan used the word "baseline," wow!

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/paul-ryan-said-qbaselineq-he-must-be-smart

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/back-to-baseline-cbo-report-makes-paul-ryan-wonky-on-campaign-trail/2012/08/24/a428416a-eda2-11e1-b09d-07d971dee30a_story.html

Has Obama ever, either in relation to a joke or not, played the racism card (NB I completely hate that phrase)? I can only think of Alan Keyes' plantation owners line, and iirc Obama's response was just to roll his damn eyes and check his watch.

i just can't get over this line from the slave labor video of romney:

“95% of life is set up for you if you were born in this country."

i mean there is dubya-level cluelessness and then there is...just off the charts fucking cluelessness.

Guy at the block party yesterday - the block's token hard-right Republican, every block in my very left hood has one - was going on and on at length about how global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps was not scientifically proven, because, you see, when an ice cube melts in a glass, the glass does not overflow. His inability to distinguish between a cube floating in a glass and towering glaciers is proof that science is very, very hard.

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Sea_Ice_Extent_L.gif

but ice has melted before so it's alright

AFAIK your friend is correct about the ice cube in a glass analogy, which comes down to the physics of displacement. The problem is with ice on land, eg in Greenland and Antarctica. Towering Antarctic glaciers sit on land that won't absorb them if they melt, which means that water will be running into the sea.

The problem with the melting Arctic ice is that water is darker than ice and therefore absorbs more light, producing heat. Warming the Arctic ocean has all sorts of bad effects including melting the Arctic permafrost (releasing trapped methane, a powerful greenhouse gas).

I can (well not really) comprehend climate change denial but what about like safe air and drinking water? Do they deny smog exists as well? Gah.

Chris Hayes' last show, with special guist Ta-Nehisi Coates, discussed The Race Card.

how is TNC on tv?

Not as persuasive, as you might expect.

Did Chris Hayes get canned or did he just get tired of waking up at butt o'clock on weekends?

Meanwhile, the previous governor of Florida:

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/former-gov-charlie-crist-heres-why-im-backing-barack-obama/1247631

lol, saw that coming

Chris Hayes' show is still on. xpost

I think he meant last as in most recent. Hayes' show is still probably the best political thing on tv.

I think climate change deniers simply deny the toxicity of stuff. Which stems, I imagine, from their inability to comprehend the scientific method. That is, little is absolutely definitive in the immutable sense, it is just hypothesis backed up by research and discovery. That is, can you prove, 100%, that smoking causes cancer? Well, no, because there's no way to prove someone wouldn't have gotten cancer if they didn't smoke. Then just apply that frustrating stance to pretty much everything. There is no absolute proof of evolution. There is no absolute proof of climate change. There is no proof that banning guns or legalizing drugs will make the streets safer. There is no absolute proof of anything, because there is no such thing as absolute proof. Circular logic madness, magnified by a strange correlation with faith and belief in God, which - thanks Descartes! - posits the ultimate utterly unprovable absolute proof.

most climate change denial these days seems to focus on human contribution to climate change and our supposed inability to do anything about it. like, the more influential and credible deniers seem generally willing to grant that climate change of some sort or other might be occurring - is always occurring! - but they insist that there's reason to attribute it to human activity, or to demand remedial legislation without being able to prove that it will actually improve the situation.

is there any reason these dudes deny any of this stuff beyond "it won't get mad max in my lifetime and i don't want o give up any of my wealth to stop it getting that way, i'm gonna get my kicks until the whole shithouse goes up in flames"?

There's also "Jesus won't let this happen"

THAT FUCKING JESUS

Pretty strong stuff!

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/chris-matthews-gop-priebus-race-card-birther-welfare.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

tpm summarizing Washington Post piece

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Mitt Romney barely leading Obama among registered voters nationwide, 47 percent to 46 percent. But while the horse race is a dead heat, Romney claims a clear advantage on the economy. Fifty-percent of voters trust Romney to handle the nation's economy, compared with 43 percent who prefer Obama. Voters are divided when it comes to confidence in Romney's ability to improve the nation's stagnant economy: 46 percent are confident that the economy would get back on track in a Romney presidency, compared with 52 percent who are not confident.

“It just seems funny the first joke he’s ever told in his life is about Obama’s birth certificate"

lol

among registered voters nationwide

not a partic useful metric

I'm always hearing that "likely voters" (as opposed to registered) tilts Republican...Anyway, I'm going to try to ignore polls until a week after the conventions end; they'll likely bounce up and down till then.

I watched Jeb Bush for a couple of minutes on one of the Sunday shows yesterday. I was wondering if he would have won going away. He definitely would have been a much better candidate than Romney--I'm not sure how that would have balanced with the baggage attached to his name (specifically as it relates to his brother, more generally in relation to the ruling dynasty problem).

it's true, but how you cut for "likely" is part of the dark arts of polling

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/making-the-election-about-race/

mitt going full willie horton

http://gawker.com/5938041/the-republican-convention-swag-bag-sucks

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17x7ugvo750a2jpg/xlarge.jpg

...is that a dildo?

One copy of BAYPOP magazine (sample copy from editor's note: "You may be wondering who the handsome man is on the cover of the magazine you are holding right now. Is he some rising star Senator or hopeful Congressman? A political pundit? A famous actor? Despite the fact that our cover model resembles Robert Redford in The Candidate, he is none of the above. Instead, he represent an ideal: the notion of The Young Delegate who is effecting political, social and economic change in Tampa Bay—and the rest of the country.")

OH REALLY.

from the NY Times piece:

The principle media consultant for the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, which will be running many of the anti-Obama ads over the next ten weeks, is Larry McCarthy, who produced the original Willie Horton ad.

ie, a legend

well at least we know Obama doesn't let ANYONE out of prison.

racist party runs racist campaign, film at 11

film probably not going to run at 11

Chait:

A Republican strategist said something interesting and revealing on Friday, though it largely escaped attention in the howling gusts of punditry over Mitt Romney’s birth certificate crack and a potential convention-altering hurricane. The subject was a Ron Brownstein story outlining the demographic hit rates each party requires to win in November. To squeak out a majority, Mitt Romney probably needs to win at least 61 percent of the white vote — a figure exceeding what George H.W. Bush commanded over Michael Dukakis in 1988. The Republican strategist told Brownstein, “This is the last time anyone will try to do this” — “this” being a near total reliance on white votes to win a presidential election.

James Polk!

The “2012 or never” hypothesis helps explain why a series of Republican candidates, first in the House and most recently at the presidential candidate level, have taken the politically risky step of openly declaring themselves for Paul Ryan’s radical blueprint. Romney’s campaign has been floating word of late that it sees a potential presidency as following the mold of James K. Polk — fulfilling dramatic policy change, and leaving after a single term. “Multiple senior Romney advisers assured me that they had had conversations with the candidate in which he conveyed a depth of conviction about the need to try to enact something like Ryan’s controversial budget and entitlement reforms,” reports the Huffington Post’s Jonathan Ward. “Romney, they said, was willing to count the cost politically in order to achieve it.” David Leonhardt floats a similar sketch, plausibly outlining how Romney could transform the shape of American government by using a Senate procedure that circumvents the filibuster to quickly lock in large regressive tax cuts and repeal of health insurance subsidies to tens of millions of Americans.

uh if obama doesnt win the election you could say the exact same thing about him and health care reform

And there ya go

http://gawker.com/5938164/sarah-palin-impersonating-porn-star-strips-for-rnc-delegates-at-gop+themed-club-in-tampa

To squeak out a majority, Mitt Romney probably needs to win at least 61 percent of the white vote — a figure exceeding what George H.W. Bush commanded over Michael Dukakis in 1988. The Republican strategist told Brownstein, “This is the last time anyone will try to do this” — “this” being a near total reliance on white votes to win a presidential election.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, August 27, 2012 12:36 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have a feeling theyll try to do this a couple more times

"The main people I'm seeing is Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.," Tiffany Mitchell, who checks IDs at the door, told the Tampa Bay Times. "They are dressed nicer, more conservative. Business casual for the men and Ann Taylor Loft for the women, for sure."

And there ya go

"you betchas" are $20 extra

by their ann taylor loft ye shall know them

They were batting around that white-vote figure on This Week, too--either creepy or pragmatic, depending upon your viewpoint. I think they had a lower figure than 61%--57% or something like that...maybe they adjusted downward, assuming Obama won't get the turnout that he did in '08 for his core voting blocks.

Another day...

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/08/gop_senate_candidate_likens_ra.html