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PoliGAF 2012 Community Thread |OT2| This thread title is now under military control

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A

AlteredBeast

Fork 'em, Sparky!
GhaleonEB said:
I wonder if he's just badly advised, or just not able to follow procedure well. I remember Obama's overseas tour meeting allied leaders, and it got wall to wall press coverage; he managed it without any major issues. I wouldn't classify anything Romney has done as major, but he seems to be getting tripped up on some fairly basic protocol stuff.
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I would kind of guarantee it at this point. This savvy businessman (his write up in the Atlantic, New Yorker or some other magazine about 6 months showed he was pretty good at balancing situations, weighing options and deciding favorably on many different things) has turned into a total dolt in almost every situation.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Diablos said:
7CBfA.png


Meh.

I know it's a rolling average but god damn. He needs to say at like 48-52 and trend upward heading into the fall.
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This was from three days ago. My response:

GhaleonEB said:
Swings like that have been pretty common with Gallup, and are often the result of an odd day in polling. Three days from now, that day will roll off and he'll be back to about even, as he has been.
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Today:

gallupchill.png


The day that caused the swing dropped off the three day average today. It will continue to bounce around, but any day there's a wild swing like that without a clear major event behind it is generally the result of a weird polling day. It's nothing to worry about or really even make note of. The longer term trends are more important.

AlteredBeast said:
I would kind of guarantee it at this point. This savvy businessman (his write up in the Atlantic, New Yorker or some other magazine about 6 months showed he was pretty good at balancing situations, weighing options and deciding favorably on many different things) has turned into a total dolt in almost every situation.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a bit baffling. He's clearly out of his area of expertise, and it's showing. You can overcome that with good advisers and tightly following procedure, but Romney is struggling a bit.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
vcassano1 said:
No, Romney is almost completely unable to understand his audience - you don't speak to Britain like that as an American president, it just isn't the way. In other countries that may be more appropriate but not Britain. He cannot grasp that. Plus he has not been consistently 'the boss' - he first sucks up with the Anglo-Saxon comments and the critiques of Obama's supposed coldness to Britain, then he scolds, then he pulls back. He is behaving unprofessionally and incoherently - he has no idea what he is doing or how he will come across.
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He's throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, no matter how contradictory or confusing it is. That's exactly how he's run his campaign against Obama and I'm not surprised his approach to foreign policy is any different.

To me this is the big reason why he has no chance of being elected president. It's hard to look at the differences between Obama and Romney when they're in similar positions, and not see Obama as the adult in the room. Romney is hobnobbing the British monarchy and then telling them to fuck off all in one day, then today Obama just convinced Putin to stop arming the Syrian military. The president is getting things done that are important and well, presidential. I can't see Romney doing that.

gcubed said:
I'm anxiously awaiting further trials in the Penn State scandal because Corbett's involvement is going completely un-reported. The guy is a grade A dipshit. too bad the democrats couldn't field a semi decent candidate.
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I hope Sestak gives it a go in 2014.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
TacticalFox88 said:
I heard the last debate is going to be purely foreign policy.


Dear lord, Romney is going to get ROASTED. Obama is pretty much untouchable there.
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"President Obama, your last response was just 3 minutes of you laughing, did you have anything to add to that?"

"Yes, more laughter. Ahahahahahhahahahahaha... Ah, christ."
 
S

speculawyer

Member
the GOP presidential candidate says that alleged Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes “shouldn’t have had any kind of weapons and bombs and other devices” that he did. Romney says this justifies current gun laws as strong enough: “It was illegal for him to have many of those things already, but he had them. So we can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. It won’t.”
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Really? What kind of bubble does he live in? He can't be bothered to read the news or have a clue about what the current laws are?

Does he know that he is running for president?
 
P

pigeon

Banned
GhaleonEB said:
I wonder if he's just badly advised, or just not able to follow procedure well. I remember Obama's overseas tour meeting allied leaders, and it got wall to wall press coverage; he managed it without any major issues. I wouldn't classify anything Romney has done as major, but he seems to be getting tripped up on some fairly basic protocol stuff.
Click to expand...

If you want to give Romney credit for some eight-dimensional tic-tac-toe, it's good for him with his base to piss off Europeans and talk down to them. I'm not sure you want to give him that much credit, though.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Learn2read said:
LOL
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I get the feeling that European conservatives like to distance themselves from and mock American conservatives. The American conservatives are just too much of an embarrassment and liability for the European market. The Americans deny climate change, hate beloved European healthcare systems, start pointless wars, and mock Europe all the time . . . why would they want to express solidarity with that?
 
T

TacticalFox88

Banned
Cyan said:
It's the old "celebrity" thing from four years ago. Pointless to bring it up now except to irritate people, of course, since the framing was that them libs only supported Obama because of his personality or charm and despite a total lack of experience. Now that he's been the President for four years, it's a completely empty frame.
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I never got the point of the "celebrity" jab.

He's the fucking PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!

By default he's the most well known celebrity in the country!
 
W

War Peaceman

You're a big guy.
pigeon said:
If you want to give Romney credit for some eight-dimensional tic-tac-toe, it's good for him with his base to piss off Europeans and talk down to them. I'm not sure you want to give him that much credit, though.
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Britain doesn't really count as European though - I doubt even the American right would say so.

speculawyer said:
I get the feeling that European conservatives like to distance themselves from and mock American conservatives. The American conservatives are just too much of an embarrassment and liability for the European market. The Americans deny climate change, hate beloved European healthcare systems, start pointless wars, and mock Europe all the time . . . why would they want to express solidarity with that?
Click to expand...

The British conservative party has cut (or allowed to lapse) a large amount of its ties with the Republican party, outside of William Hague and Michael Gove. It is difficult to say why though.
 
M

Miletius

Member
As amusing as these gaffes are they don't really amount to much in terms of electoral politics. General consensus is that "nobody" voting in the US election cares about foreign relations except when it pertains to their own special regional self interest (i.e. Cubans care about Cuba, Israelis care about Israel).

I guess over time the summation of these events may paint him as somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to FP, but that's a pretty minor handicap all things considered.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Miletius said:
As amusing as these gaffes are they don't really amount to much in terms of electoral politics. General consensus is that "nobody" voting in the US election cares about foreign relations except when it pertains to their own special regional self interest (i.e. Cubans care about Cuba, Israelis care about Israel).

I guess over time the summation of these events may paint him as somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to FP, but that's a pretty minor handicap all things considered.
Click to expand...

Romney was never going to win on foreign policy anyway. I don't think Obama needs to attack him much there anyway because no-one is going to vote for Romney because of FP
 
C

cartoon_soldier

Member
Miletius said:
As amusing as these gaffes are they don't really amount to much in terms of electoral politics. General consensus is that "nobody" voting in the US election cares about foreign relations except when it pertains to their own special regional self interest (i.e. Cubans care about Cuba, Israelis care about Israel).

I guess over time the summation of these events may paint him as somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to FP, but that's a pretty minor handicap all things considered.
Click to expand...

He is taking this tour to build up his FP credentials, gaffes don't help with that.
 
D

Dr. Pangloss

Member
speculawyer said:
I get the feeling that European conservatives like to distance themselves from and mock American conservatives. The American conservatives are just too much of an embarrassment and liability for the European market. The Americans deny climate change, hate beloved European healthcare systems, start pointless wars, and mock Europe all the time . . . why would they want to express solidarity with that?
Click to expand...

Why would the Republicans want to associate themselves with the failure that is the conservative party in the United Kingdom? Their economy is already worse than before Cameron took over. Though I can't wait to taste some of that austerity when Romney takes over. It's going to make the Obama years look like paradise in comparison.
 
K

Kosmo

Banned
Miletius said:
As amusing as these gaffes are they don't really amount to much in terms of electoral politics. General consensus is that "nobody" voting in the US election cares about foreign relations except when it pertains to their own special regional self interest (i.e. Cubans care about Cuba, Israelis care about Israel).

I guess over time the summation of these events may paint him as somewhat of a lightweight when it comes to FP, but that's a pretty minor handicap all things considered.
Click to expand...

No, don't you realize people are going to get into the voting booth and think "Shit, I can't vote for Romney, he mentioned the name of the head of MI6." One thing Americans don't give a shit about is disrespecting foreign leaders to a small degree. Now show them TOO much respect, and it's a perceived weakness.

Really, nothing that happened in the last month has moved the needle much on either side. Obama got a little traction with Bain, then Romney got a little traction with "You didn't build that" and we're right back where we started.
 
J

Jackson50

Member
GhaleonEB said:
I wonder if he's just badly advised, or just not able to follow procedure well. I remember Obama's overseas tour meeting allied leaders, and it got wall to wall press coverage; he managed it without any major issues. I wouldn't classify anything Romney has done as major, but he seems to be getting tripped up on some fairly basic protocol stuff.
Click to expand...
Nothing has been too egregious. But it undermines his foreign affairs agenda. If one of your primary criticisms of Obama is his neglect of traditional allies, it behooves you not to offend them. Even if the offenses are modest, it reduces the credibility of your critique. Further, it completely undermines the notion that Obama is a neophyte and inexperienced. Why they are attempting that strategy on an incumbent is bemusing. Nevertheless, don't commit the same errors you attribute to your opponent. I think it's glaringly obvious Romney is uncomfortable in this capacity. Unlike Obama, he's actually inexperienced and not especially knowledgeable on the topic.
GhaleonEB said:
Decent economic news today; jobless claims swung down, though seasonal factors are still a driver; the trend is encouraging, though. That was alongside some positive manufacturing data.
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Yeah. There's obviously some noise affecting the data. But the trend is positive. Moreover, tomorrow will be eventful with the first estimate of Q2 GDP.
 
S

Socreges

Banned
Just popping in to say that I'm finding Romney to be incredibly frustrating right now:

- trying to portray Obama as 'foreign' (to exploit his skin colour)
- running the manipulated quote into the ground ("he's saying that Steve Jobs didn't build Apple!")

Seriously, fuck that guy. I'm curious what Obama has done that's similar so far - anything quite as bad?
 
C

cartoon_soldier

Member
Socreges said:
Just popping in to say that I'm finding Romney to be incredibly frustrating right now:

- trying to portray Obama as 'foreign' (to exploit his skin colour)
- running the manipulated quote into the ground ("he's saying that Steve Jobs didn't build Apple!")

Seriously, fuck that guy. I'm curious what Obama has done that's similar so far - anything quite as bad?
Click to expand...

I think the worst thing with Obama is his ad saying Romney wants to ban all abortions even in the cases of rape and incest. It was based on the fact that Romney supported the life at conception bill during the primaries, but he has never explicitly stated that he wants to ban abortions in cases of rape and incest too.
 
E

el retorno

Member
Jackson50 said:
Putin's gained much notoriety over the years, so he's probably recognizable to many. But I doubt most people know of Ban Ki-moon or Hu Jintao. Rather, I'd include the Dalai Lama and Pope as prominent figures.
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I knew I was forgetting some.

I think Ban Ki Moon is a bit more well know in Europe and countries where the UN is active though
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Chait has a good take today:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/07/brits-hit-mitt-etiquette.html

In Romney’s defense, he is accustomed to dealing with an American press corps so used to his gaffes that he can’t get its attention unless he does something like declare that he’s not concerned about the tens of millions of Americans who, almost by definition, are most in need of concern. But this very hypersensitivity was the premise for Romney’s whole trip to London. The chosen message of the trip was supposed to have been a restoration of the “special relationship,” a goal that nestled comfortably into the general right-wing accusation that Obama spits in the faces of our friends even as he comforts our enemies. Romney’s plans to “abandon Mr Obama’s ‘Left-wing’ coolness towards London” was the theme of a story in the conservative Telegraph, which attracted attention for quoting an anonymous Romney adviser suggesting that Obama didn’t understand the “Anglo-Saxon heritage.”

The alleged, but never confirmed, source of this inflammatory quote is Nile Gardiner, who has largely devoted himself to ginning up precisely these sorts of pseudo-controversies against Obama. Here is Gardiner’s own master list of supposed Obama affronts, including such diplomatic crises as the returning of a Winston Churchill statue that was on loan, his anondyne remark that “we don’t have a stronger friend and strong ally than Nicolas Sarkozy,” and sending Gordon Brown a chintzy gift of 25 DVDs. The careful cultivation of these episodes is a large source of the perception that Obama has forsaken our ally — the perception Romney set out to exploit. Now Gardiner has seen his entire body of work of the last three and a half years go up in smoke as Romney commits a diplomatic atrocity that, meager though it may be, dwarfs DVD-gate and the other embers of controversy he has so dutifully fanned.

And Romney, who had been intending to display both his superior handling of the Anglo-American alliance in particular, and a firm grasp of international affairs in general, has instead bungled both goals. As a famous Londoner once wrote, “’tis the sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard.”
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F

Flying_Phoenix

Banned
Jackson50 said:
Putin's gained much notoriety over the years, so he's probably recognizable to many. But I doubt most people know of Ban Ki-moon or Hu Jintao. Rather, I'd include the Dalai Lama and Pope as prominent figures.
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People know what a Pope is or a Dalai Lama (well this is a bit of a stretch) or at the very least heard of the name. But they don't know WHO it is. If I were to ask someone the name of the Dalai Lama or possibly even the pope they wouldn't know (at least know which number he is).

el retorno de los sapos said:
Not in the US but I think their well know in the world. Nobody besides the Pope really has the same recognition as the PotUS though
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I doubt this is an American thing. Its probably a Western thing. Well Pope I'll give you in Catholic nations.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
People know what a Pope is or a Dalai Lama (well this is a bit of a stretch) or at the very least heard of the name. But they don't know WHO it is. If I were to ask someone the name of the Dalai Lama or possibly even the pope they wouldn't know (at least know which number he is).
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I think John Paul II was pretty damned famous, and most people knew his name. Benedict XVI not so much, I think. Then again, he hasn't been pope for nearly as long, so that's part of it.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
cartoon_soldier said:
I think the worst thing with Obama is his ad saying Romney wants to ban all abortions even in the cases of rape and incest. It was based on the fact that Romney supported the life at conception bill during the primaries, but he has never explicitly stated that he wants to ban abortions in cases of rape and incest too.
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Romney went on a TV show with Huckabee and endorsed one of those "Personhood" amendments that defines life at conception. These would effectively ban birth control that works by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting on a uterine wall.

So it is effectively true. Now perhaps you can say that Romney didn't really understand the full implications of that position but his camp has been asked many time to clarify exactly what his position is on abortion/personhood but they have decline to do so. So I don't think it is really unfair to present his position that way. He can certainly step forward and flip-flop on the position but he has not done so.


I think the implying he was a 'felon' was going too far . . . instead of saying he was a felon, I'd just say that he is lying now about having not did anything for Bain or Bain managed companies since 1999.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Dr. Pangloss said:
Why would the Republicans want to associate themselves with the failure that is the conservative party in the United Kingdom? Their economy is already worse than before Cameron took over. Though I can't wait to taste some of that austerity when Romney takes over. It's going to make the Obama years look like paradise in comparison.
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Republicans talk tough about the budget & deficits when they are out of office . . . but as soon as they are in office, they spend like crazy. There is simply no way to reconcile Romney's whining about the deficit, wanting to grow the military, and wanting to cut taxes.

On the campaign trail they promise bugetary magic but when they get control . . . well, in Dick Cheney's words "Reagan proved deficits don't matter."
 
L

Loudninja

Member
Another London Headache? Romney Fundraiser Raises Eyebrows
Barclays executives have donated over $1 million to Romney’s campaign, according to the Guardian, and many are expected to be in attendance at Thursday’s fundraiser, raising eyebrows on both sides of the pond.

Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond bowed out as host of Romney’s fundraiser after resigning in the wake of a scandal in which major banks colluded to artificially lower the London interbank offered rate (LIBOR), the rate at which banks loan to one another. Diamond has donated $2,500 to the Romney campaign.

Eighty-two other Barclays employees have donated to Romney, according to the Associated Press. Patrick Durkin, Barclays’ chief lobbyist in D.C., is a co-host and has raised more than $1 million for Romney.
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http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/mitt-romney-london-libor-barclays.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

Yep.
 
R

RDreamer

Member
speculawyer said:
I think the implying he was a 'felon' was going too far . . . instead of saying he was a felon, I'd just say that he is lying now about having not did anything for Bain or Bain managed companies since 1999.
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Cutter's quote wasn't implying he was a felon. Man, this is how good the Republican framing is sometimes... even you guys seem to follow it. She was emphasizing the other part of her sentence. She was implying the opposite, that he was lying to the American people, because he likely wouldn't commit a felony. That was the implication.

I'm trying to find the full quote now (as in the sentences before and after it), but I can't. Google just brings up the partial quote and republican outrage and democratic response from it. Bah...
 
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