Monday, November 19, 2012

George Will on Mitt Romney: "You have a political problem when the voters don't like you, but you've got a REAL problem when the voters think you don't like them."

Okay so here you have George Will, Bobby Jindal, and Newt Gingrich piling on Mitt Romney for not presenting the "right message" to the voters.

What was it Newt said? "If we can't offer a better future, that is believable, to more people, we're not going to win."

In my opinion that is what the Republican party is struggling with, how to present themselves as more palatable to the American people. But the problem is that what the voters heard, that turned them off so much, was NOT a poorly packaged message.  What they heard, that turned them off so much, was the unvarnished truth.

When Mitt Romney was caught on hidden camera saying that 47% of the American people would not vote for him because they were essentially people who wanted handouts, THAT was not a poorly worded stump speech, that was a conversation with a group of like minded supporters who thought EXACTLY the same way.

When Todd Akin suggested that if a woman were the victim of "legitimate rape" that she had "ways of shutting that whole thing down" to prevent pregnancy, he was in NO WAY hesitant in making that claim. It was clearly something that he firmly believed, and that he had undoubtedly repeated numerous times around like minded individuals.

And to that point when Georgia Rep. Paul Brown claimed that science was "lies straight from the pit of Hell," he said it with the religious fervor of a man who has heard and believed those words, undoubtedly delivered from the pulpit, virtually his entire life.

These Republicans were not guilty of saying something stupid that upset their constituents and drove away voters, they are were guilty of breaking the Republican 11th Commandment, "Never Tell the Truth."

As the GOP struggles to reinvent themselves, they are really struggling to think up more attractive and digestible lies to cover for their REAL agenda. And trust me, at least when it comes to their base, they KNOW their audience.

This from The American Prospect:

Clearly, the only explanation for all this delusion is that conservative media and campaign consultants, steeped in years of confidently lying about everything from global warming to the causes of the deficit, got a little too bold about their ability to create their own realities. The only question is whether conservatives will learn their lesson and exhibit more skepticism about their self-selected news media in the future. 

The answer is almost surely no, for a very good reason: Conservative credulousness is so baked into the culture of the right that it could well be considered a defining feature. This has been true for as long as movement conservatism as we know it has existed, and there’s no real reason to think conservatives are going to sharpen up about this now.

Have you ever wondered how somebody who was caught in as many lies as Mitt Romney, and Paul Ryan, could STILL manage to pull in 47% of the vote? Simple, because lying is really of little to no consequence to the base of the Republican party. In fact they seem to prefer it, and even respect those that are good at it.

Kind of explains why, for a brief time at least, Sarah Palin was so incredibly popular doesn't it?

It seems that the only real problem faced by the GOP is the allergic reaction to bullshit demonstrated by the Independents and Democrats. You know the people who think rather than believe, who depend on logic rather than faith, and who investigate rather than digest.

So really, it is ANY wonder that they are constantly attacking the public school system? If everybody were just as open to being lied to as the Republican voters, these guys could rule like kings!

16 comments:

  1. This "insulting the voter" didn't begin with this campaign era. They did it during ALL of GW's era..if you did not vote Repub you were "terrorist appeasers", anti-Christians, hate God, socialists, communists, Marxists, Stalinists, Facists, baby killers, traitors, seditionists..the list goes on and on.

    GW's apex blamed the workers who "did not budget well or live within their means" ----> caused the housing & economy collapse Wall Street choreographed lest we forget the outsourcing for tax benefits millions of job losses was blamed on greedy workers needing life sustaining salaries.

    The GOP claimed they were morally superior, protect America overlords, exclusive owners of family values, responsible & accountable . . .BUT if you voted Dem you clearly were not any of the above.




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  2. Anonymous3:10 PM

    I just caught myself being hypocritical, darn it: I look with complete disdain at those who watch the Fox channel, and believe all the obvious lies and distortions.

    To my way of thinking, that crap is as easily detectable as the ridiculous headlines on grocery store tabloids, like the National Enquirer, with such laughable items as how Elvis has been reincarnated as a sweet potato, in Fumduque, South Dakota.

    Enter the first episode of Oliver Stone's "Unknown History of the U.S." and I sat there, mouth dropped open, as I was shown how my entire schooling was essentially one long trail of propaganda bullshit.

    And I fell for it, hook line and sinker. I can claim being just a kid, as an excuse, but it isn't really: without preconceived notions to obscure my judgment, I was often better equipped than my parents and other adults, to sniff out a con job, when one came along.

    Not many people have Showtime, so will not be able to see this eye opening documentary...but do yourself a favor, and find some way of viewing it.

    An example of what you will learn: it wasn't the U.S. nor Britain that won World War II, but the RUSSIANS. 80% of the Nazi military push was aimed at Russia...so the Western Front allies had merely to overcome the remaining 20%

    There was NO WAY an American schoolkid in the mid 50's cold war era, was going to have THAT revealed to him!

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    1. There are those of us who were born/raised in the '50s well aware of the Russian's being the ones to take out the Nazis. It was their surge on Hitler's bunker that instigated his suicide. (some of us kids were being sent to Russia from their occupied territories.... to repopulate when Russia was paid to pull out of Austria...the US occupiers sold most of us to adoptions)

      My Am. military family makes no secret that the US has never won a war on foreign soil. Didn't win 'Nam, didn't win Korean War, didn't win WWII.

      Until a few years ago it was state secret that many millions of American troops were killed in WWII and another batch of millions who came home full blown junkies.

      (You can't reveal those numbers because it prevents deluded gungho patriots from enlisting)

      My Pentagon military relatives make no secret (around dinner table) that the US is a bunch of posers with loud toys in war zones....read Smedley Butler, the Marine's #1 hero, he'll say the same in his tomes.


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    2. By the way, if you are learning from Oliver Stone's documentary and relishing it...am pretty sure if you find a copy of The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932–1972 .... you'll be in your element & learn more about our nation than you'd think possible.

      Manchester was also a Marine.

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    3. Anonymous12:00 AM

      Errrr, YEAH!!! What planet does someone have to be on to be so self absorbed as to think the US (who entered the war TWO years after my country!!!) won it for everyone? Please! Don't blame education, blame yourself. Everyone knows Russia stopped the Eastern front and turned back the Germans and really to not know that...it makes me sick to my stomach that
      Millions of russkies died for people to remain happily ignorant. Now; what you have to remember is that there was a war in the pacific primarily against the Japanese. America played a big part in that win....but for the love of god do not make me sick to my stomach and forsake my country it's due in jointly (with NZ and other countries too) defeating the Japanese. Do yourself a favour and look into what other countries around the world went through in WW2. My country was in it from September 1939, as was Britain and NZ. I shouldn't have to remind anyone in America that your country stood by for TWO YEARS while millions died and suffered in Europe! Evil prevails when 'good' men do nothing. WW2 was one of the only wars ever fought actually worth fighting and your country sat it out, well aware of death camps and persecution and millions being slain. Oh yes. You have to own that as part of your history, and STOP distorting it to suit a valiant claim. No. No no. No no no.

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  3. angela3:28 PM

    How the rhetoric has changed after a big loss. Where were all of these pundits when the baggers were going crazy screamimg, pulling their underwear onto their heads and gobbling up paint chips? Answer . . some watched horrified, others watched gleefully. None came out and said stop the crazy.

    Ok maybe George Will was kind of a voice of reason sometimes, but Jindal was a bagger supreme who catcalled President Obama on the stimulus but presented huge checks to constituents with his name on them. So now Mittens is embarrassing them? Please.

    I don't trust these people any further than I can throw their bank accounts.

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  4. Anonymous3:35 PM

    It's Monday afternoon and I'm still waiting for the milkman to deliver.

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    1. Anonymous4:46 PM

      Milkman has arrived! See Halcro.

      Checks with cash back? OOOPS!

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  5. Thanks for the link to The AmSpec article.

    It included a link to one of the best essays I've read in a long time, written in The Baffler Newsletter by historian Rick Perlstein.

    It's fairly lengthy (I'm guessing it's around 6,000-7000 words), but the article gives some great historical insight from "our" perspective outside the right-wing bubble as to what has happened to the delivery of the "Conservative" messaging and its recipients over time, with the likes of our very own Granny Grifter. Sarah is simply following the step-by-step formula.

    The Long Con: Mail-Order Conservatism

    http://www.thebaffler.com/past/the_long_con

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  6. I think Jindal said it better. No one is going to vote for a candidate who doesn't like them.

    Mitt's 47% remark showed that he didn't like 47% of the voters.

    Add women, LGBT, Hispanic, etc. and you've lost.

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    1. Anonymous7:37 PM

      Plenty more of the 53% didn't like Mitt.

      The scary thing is that many of the 47% Mitt didn't like still voted for him anyway. Too stupid to know, or too gullible to figure it out.

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  7. Anonymous6:35 PM

    I don't think Mitt likes ANYone! Even Ann...anyone notice how he kisses her like its some old AUNT with bad breath?

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  8. Anonymous8:33 PM

    Thank you. You have nailed the heart of their problem. Go back to lying and dog whistles and hope to squeak in and bare your true colors OR keep telling the "truth" as you see it and lose for certain. I'll be interested to see where they land. I hope their confidence in the "truth" as they see it causes them to keep going unvarnished, so America can see the ugliness that lies at the center of their ideology.

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  9. Anita Winecooler8:47 PM

    The way I see it, and I may be wrong, but "those people" think we're all stupid and didn't see and hear them all support Romney and Dis Obama every chance they could.
    Romney, in the last gasps of the campaign, said he'd work with people from across the aisle and get America back to work. How is that possible? And who's fault is it? Romney, what's left of the GOP and the rwnj's they allowed to take over.

    Case in point. Orange man hints he'd work with Obama to avoid the fiscal cliff. Guess who he picked to overlook the process? Paul Ryan.

    This GOP "re-branding" takes more than words, I don't see how they can change quick enough to convince voters in the next cycle, no matter who the Democrats pick as a candidate.

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  10. Sharon11:04 PM

    We have one hope America...get out to vote in 2014, get rid of as many GOP we can. When they are out of power long enough, maybe the moderates like Jon Huntsman will come back. I didn't like everything he said but he was def the most sensible one in the primaries, that's why he didn't last. The old dinosaurs need to die out again...the evil Trinity of McConnell, Cantor and Boehner must go. Hopefully something will put McCain out of his misery along with his retard friend Lindsay. We all know that Robme's only goal was to fullfil his Mormon prophecy....maybe now he can relax and give speeches on how to rip off companies and put thousands out of work. My greatest hope is to read about one of the many lawsuits brought against him and Bain, maybe..just maybe there will be some provable crimes due to the spotlight of the campaign.

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  11. Buckeye Bitch3:52 PM

    Hey, George...we didn't just "think" he didn't like us, we KNEW. Hell, he told us so...when he thought we weren't listening!

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