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[pigeon]

Armbinder had an incisive analysis on why this matters.

Forget the 47 percent. Independents may not be as economically liberal as the folks allegedly portrayed by Romney, but they are absolutely scared to death of telling their neighbor that they voted for someone with such intolerant views. That is, the skin and packaging of a candidate does indeed matter to independents. Indies have very trigger-sensitive ears to hints of condescension. These are the types of people who decry divisive partisanship.

The only way that Romney’s strategists will try to salvage this video internally is to tell themselves that independents aren't going to vote for Romney anyway, and that this video might really rally some extreme elements of the conservative base. Or maybe, independents will say to themselves: "Damn it, you know what? He's right."

Good luck with that one.

http://theweek.com/article/index/233447/the-president-for-the-upper-half

 

[Black Mamba]

Honestly, this is the worst run campaign I've ever seen.

Yes, McCain's was bad, but in fairness to him, they simply panicked in time of crisis and had no idea how to handle it (and they had no idea Palin was so dumb). With the economic crisis, no Repub was going to win.

Romney, however, is highly intelligent and successful. This was an election year that a moderate Republican should have been able to beaten Obama with a reasonable campaign.

And yet, here we are.

 

[VPhys]

I was highly active in the GAF poli thread in 2008, but I haven't really visited the thread this time around… Until now. WOW at Romney's comment, what a major screwup that has definitely cost him some votes.

 

[Trouble]

I am going to savor Romney's bitter, graceless concession speech so much.

 

[AndresON777]

if a white woman dyes her hair black from one day to another and pretends to act hispanic is but is she fronting llooking like

a fine puerto rican?

dat booze

 

[Angry Fork]

Why do sociopaths want to be president if they have to deal with ordinary people's frustrations, questions, demands etc. during moments like this and any speech or interview.

 

[Black Mamba]

if a white woman dyes her hair black from one day to another and pretends to act hispanic is but is she fronting llooking like

a fine puerto rican?

dat booze

 

[ClassyPenguin]

if a white woman dyes her hair black from one day to another and pretends to act hispanic is but is she fronting llooking like

a fine puerto rican?

dat booze

wut?

 

[eBay Huckster]

drunk thread is leaking!

 

[speculawyer]

Damn it spec, never explain the joke!

NullPointer was able to link to the original but I couldn't do that. I figured that many people wouldn't get it, so I added that so they would get it even though having that there lessens it.

 

[Black Mamba]

drunk thread is leaking!

could be the Romney campaign trying out a new strategy.

I mean, it couldn't hurt if Mitt dyed his hair and acted puerto rican.

 

[eBay Huckster]

could be the Romney campaign trying out a new strategy.

I mean, it couldn't hurt if Mitt dyed his hair and acted puerto rican.

it might win him some votes in Jersey, at least

 

[Durask]

Why do sociopaths want to be president if they have to deal with ordinary people's frustrations, questions, demands etc. during moments like this and any speech or interview.

I don't think he is a sociopath.
Any high functioning sociopath worth his salt should be able to fake buckets of compassion for fellow man.

 

[Triple U]

Damn finally caught up to the rest of the thread....Romney is done at this point right? He looked horrible.

 

[speculawyer]

Damn finally caught up to the rest of the thread....Romney is done at this point right? He looked horrible.

He would need to pull an amazing debate performance and some serious crisis would need to occur for him to win.

He makes Biden look like someone who never says anything stupid.

 

[Diablos]

Yep.

Man, I thought McCain was bad.

Romney is probably worse than Dole at this point.

If Obama loses this election it's going to be due to states with GOP dominated legislatures pulling some shady shit at the 11th hour to invalidate votes.

 

[The Librarian]

He would need to pull an amazing debate performance and some serious crisis would need to occur for him to win.

He makes Biden look like someone who never says anything stupid.

Biden says things that are more inappropriate than stupid. But by extension, you can say the inappropriate things are stupid to say...

 

[PhoenixDark]

finally got around to reading the Michael Lewis piece in Vanity Fair. I saw Glenn Greenwald complaining about it on twitter a week ago but didn't look into it; I'll get his two cents later. Anyway, I thought it was fascinating. It's quite a glowing piece which I suppose could raise suspicion (after all you don't spend 8 months with the president and then release a scathing piece on him) but what I find interesting is how much of it seems to reinforce what most people say about Obama and how he operates: pragmatic, thoughtful, and lonely. His decision making progress is fascinating, and what I'd want in a president. Of course I'm also reminded of his paralysis when it comes to dealing with congress (both republicans and democrats) but that's a different story.

One of the things that struck out most to me, especially in light of the Libya situation right now, was this. In this part it describes a US pilot who crash landed in Libya during the bombing last year, and how he happened to be discovered by anti-Qaddafi fighters; initially they thought he was American, then French before finally managing to confirm he was American

On the drive to Benghazi, Bubaker sensed that Stark was both shocked and wary. At any rate, as much as Bubaker might have wanted to know more about why America was dropping bombs on Libya, Stark would not tell him. And so Bubaker put on some 80s music and changed the subject to something other than war. The first song that came on was Diana Ross and Lionel Richie singing “Endless Love.” “You know what,” said Bubaker. “This song reminds me of my second marriage.” They talked the rest of the way, says Bubaker, “and we didn’t mention anything of any military action.” He drove the “American pilot” back to the hotel and instructed the militia to surround the place. Even in Libya they understood the fickle nature of American public opinion. “I told them, ‘We have an American pilot here. If he gets caught or killed it’s the end of the mission. Make sure he is safe and sound.’” Bubaker then called his friend, the former staffer in the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, now removed to Washington, D.C.

It took a few hours for someone to come and fetch Stark. As he waited with Bubaker inside the hotel, word spread of this French pilot who had saved their lives. When they’d arrived at the hotel a man had handed Tyler Stark a rose, which the American found both strange and touching. Now women from across the city came with flowers to the front of the hotel. When Stark entered a room full of people they stood up and gave him a round of applause. “I’m not sure what I was expecting in Libya,” he says, “but I was not expecting a round of applause.”

Bubaker found doctors to treat Stark’s leg and one of the doctors had Skype on his iPod. Stark tried to call his base, but he couldn’t remember the country code for Britain, so he called the most useful phone number he could remember, his parents’.

At some point Bubaker turned to him and asked, “Do you know why you are in Libya?”

“I just have my orders,” said Stark.

“He didn’t know why he’d been sent,” says Bubaker. “So I showed him some video. Of kids being killed.”

2b tax dollars to save a million lives, no US casualties. I didn't support the intervention at the time but I can't deny the results were good. The right's anger over it is quite hilarious: to me, this is the definition of a conservative approach to a foreign policy mission.

 

[Dr. Pangloss]

My first reaction is that no shit less people are paying income taxes. Guess what we did for the last 10 years? Cut taxes and go through a recession. Can't tax what isn't there or what your party already took off the tax books. Republicans are complaining about people paying less taxes when all they've done is cut them. That's like the Terminator complaining about going after John Connor. "That's all he does."

Now this press conference was stupid. Should have handle it like Obama did Reverend Wright. Don't take questions. Craft a speech about what you meant. Say stuff about how sad it is that there are 23 million unemployed. How sad it is that 45 million are on SNAP. Go into how a vote for Romney will change all that. Don't let others define you. Change the narrative to your liking at all costs.

 

[Angry Fork]

I don't think he is a sociopath.
Any high functioning sociopath worth his salt should be able to fake buckets of compassion for fellow man.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Yep.

Man, I thought McCain was bad.

Romney is probably worse than Dole at this point.

If Obama loses this election it's going to be due to states with GOP dominated legislatures pulling some shady shit at the 11th hour to invalidate votes.

So he's going to win then.

 

[Diablos]

So he's going to win then.

He better fucking win.

What if Romney fires his staff at the last minute and all of the sudden makes a dramatic shift to the center during debates, catching Obama off guard and running away with a win?!?!?!

 

[Aaron Strife]

He better fucking win.

What if Romney fires his staff at the last minute and all of the sudden makes a dramatic shift to the center during debates, catching Obama off guard and running away with a win?!?!?!

What if Romney pulls off his skin suit at the debate and it turns out he's been Bill Clinton in disguise the whole time?

 

[Mgoblue201]

That should abolish the notion that Romney is a good guy who is simply at the mercy of terrible forces he can't control.

2) I have to agree with Charles Pierce about what this video is ultimately going to mean:

The only way that could conceivably work is if Romney is trying to increase voter turnout among his own base - a base that is already highly motivated by fear, and already believes the worst things about Obama. But as Romney said in the video, and as he is already quite aware, doing this will annihilate any chances he has to convince the small percentage of independents that are left to vote for him. And it could possibly convince the independents who are already in his corner to vote for Obama instead. Independents, I think, care more about optics than anything else, and they will not respond well to nativist attacks. Just as McCain before him, the deployment of ugly rhetoric will most likely signal the final throes of a dying campaign, not any specific shift in strategy. I think he almost has a better chance of simply waiting and hoping for an opportunity to turn his campaign around than going ugly.

 

[PhoenixDark]

In the press conference while explaining this comments, towards the end, Romney literally says "the president has his team, I have mine." He's not denying or backing down from anything, he basically just restated it. Obama's "team" are moochers, Romney's "team" are the makers. He's going to have to do a sit down interview with some non-Fox network between now and October, I don't see how he can avoid that. And when he does, he'll be pinned down.

He could have gotten away with saying 10-20% of the country are moochers imo. It would have had racial connotations and would be hard for Obama to run with. But that 47% he's aiming at is predominantly white, and a mixture of working poor and middle class.

This could very easily be one of the first questions Romney is asked at the debate. It'll likely sour the rest of the debate for him, and force him to be even more aggressive than he would have had to be regardless.

 

[Oblivion]

Has this been posted?

Scott Brown: I'm Going to Vote Against Raising Taxes by Voting to Raise Taxes

If the Dems can't win against shitheads like Brown, with the ammo they give them, they don't deserve to win.

 

[Rocket Scientist]

Whoa this thread exploded overnight... something big seems to have happened, but how the hell am I going to read 400 posts O_O

 

[polyh3dron]

Whoa this thread exploded overnight... something big seems to have happened, but how the hell am I going to read 400 posts O_O

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491819

 

[Rocket Scientist]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491819

Thanks!

 

[Black Mamba]

Sounds good. But then he can’t help but brag: “I keep my body fat between 6 and 8 percent,” he tells Allen.

Here’s who else maintains 6 to 8 percent body fat: Olympic 100-meter sprinters, that’s who. Also, world-class boxers, wrestlers, and marathoners, according to this study of elite American athletes. Top collegiate swimmers look pretty fit, right? Well, they average out at a plump 9.5 percent, at least according to another study. Positively porky, compared to Ryan. (For some perspective, the average man has body fat of 17 to 24 percent, and most women a bit more.)

If his claim is to be believed—a Ryan spokesman did not respond to questions—he’s more along the lines of Tour de France cyclists who also get down around 8 or 9 percent to prepare for major races. According to Iñigo San Millan, a veteran cycling physiologist who has worked with numerous Tour de France teams, the lowest body fat he’s ever measured on a cyclist was 8.3 percent. That’s at peak fitness, racing shape.

Ryan’s claim, in other words, puts him squarely in the company of elite athletes. (And also, freakily, with these guys.) But while Ryan is definitely skinny—he told Allen that he’s 6-foot-2 and weighs 163 pounds, and his suits flutter like a Christo project gone wrong—that might be a stretch. At anything less than 10 percent body fat, says Martin Rooney, a well-known trainer who works with NFL and MMA athletes, “a man with his shirt off is lean and shredded. Veins everywhere and really cut up. This is the model and bodybuilder look. So if he is saying he is 6 percent, he is shredded with a six-pack and should have no reason not to do photo shoots everywhere.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...cent_body_fat_.html?google_editors_picks=true

Ryan even lies about his body fat. Is there anything authentic about Eddie Munster at all? I hope this VP bid ends his political career.

 

[Rocket Scientist]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_...cent_body_fat_.html?google_editors_picks=true

Ryan even lies about his body fat. Is there anything authentic about Eddie Munster at all? I hope this VP bid ends his political career.

Why is he even getting into situations where he's talking about his body fat...? How difficult is it to stay on message when the economy is this bad? What the hell people.

 

[Zaptruder]

I love that Obama has paid for my home theatre in the past and will now pay for my new PC upgrade.

Socialism FTW!

Spoiler

Or bet money on intrade.

 

[strobogo]

What a weirdo. Every dude learns at a young age that when you exaggerate about yourself, you have to make it believable. Paul Ryan keeps going so far over the top. He's doing it wrong.


Paul Ryan's next quote: My penis is 3 feet long and I've slept with 123,000 women. At the same time.

 

[Black Mamba]

lol, this is kind of funny. SS claims it's one of theirs and he's just doing perimeter, but it sure looks hilarious.


Also, THIS IS JUST WHAT ROMNEY NEEDS /PD

 

[Amir0x]

Yep.

Man, I thought McCain was bad.

Romney is probably worse than Dole at this point.

If Obama loses this election it's going to be due to states with GOP dominated legislatures pulling some shady shit at the 11th hour to invalidate votes.

Well the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stuff on the voter ID is going to be decided soon. I'm fairly optimistic given the questions that were being asked by the justices, but even if not, I mean... Obama got Pennsylvania. like i said in 2008, it is me, Amir0x, who will deliver the state for the president single-handedly.

 

[Black Mamba]

New Romney video from the fundraiser:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukhFBJgrZxM

I'm torn by two perspectives in this regard. One is the one which I've had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. Now why do I say that? Some might say, well, let's let the Palestinians have the West Bank, and have security, and set up a separate nation for the Palestinians. And then come a couple of thorny questions. And I don't have a map here to look at the geography, but the border between Israel and the West Bank is obviously right there, right next to Tel Aviv, which is the financial capital, the industrial capital of Israel, the center of Israel. It's—what the border would be? Maybe seven miles from Tel Aviv to what would be the West Bank…The other side of the West Bank, the other side of what would be this new Palestinian state would either be Syria at one point, or Jordan. And of course the Iranians would want to do through the West Bank exactly what they did through Lebanon, what they did near Gaza. Which is that the Iranians would want to bring missiles and armament into the West Bank and potentially threaten Israel. So Israel of course would have to say, "That can't happen. We've got to keep the Iranians from bringing weaponry into the West Bank." Well, that means that—who? The Israelis are going to patrol the border between Jordan, Syria, and this new Palestinian nation? Well, the Palestinians would say, "Uh, no way! We're an independent country. You can't, you know, guard our border with other Arab nations." And now how about the airport? How about flying into this Palestinian nation? Are we gonna allow military aircraft to come in and weaponry to come in? And if not, who's going to keep it from coming in? Well, the Israelis. Well, the Palestinians are gonna say, "We're not an independent nation if Israel is able to come in and tell us what can land in our airport." These are problems—these are very hard to solve, all right? And I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say, "There's just no way." And so what you do is you say, "You move things along the best way you can." You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem. We live with that in China and Taiwan. All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it. We don't go to war to try and resolve it imminently. On the other hand, I got a call from a former secretary of state. I won't mention which one it was, but this individual said to me, you know, I think there's a prospect for a settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis after the Palestinian elections. I said, "Really?" And, you know, his answer was, "Yes, I think there's some prospect." And I didn't delve into it.

"The idea of pushing on the Israelis to give something up to get the Palestinians to act is the worst idea in the world."

eh, not seeing this one as so bad.

Iran:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5nptkXZ7UQ

If I were Iran, if I were Iran—a crazed fanatic, I'd say let's get a little fissile material to Hezbollah, have them carry it to Chicago or some other place, and then if anything goes wrong, or America starts acting up, we'll just say, "Guess what? Unless you stand down, why, we're going to let off a dirty bomb." I mean this is where we have—where America could be held up and blackmailed by Iran, by the mullahs, by crazy people. So we really don't have any option but to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.

Again, nothing to see here.

Obama's Foreign Policy:

The president's foreign policy, in my opinion, is formed in part by a perception he has that his magnetism, and his charm, and his persuasiveness is so compelling that he can sit down with people like Putin and Chávez and Ahmadinejad, and that they'll find that we're such wonderful people that they'll go on with us, and they'll stop doing bad things. And it's an extraordinarily naive perception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwxDNrEVEaY

Meh. mischaracterization, but nothing more.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics...t-video-israeli-palestinian-middle-east-peace

 

[Y2Kev]

I wonder if this will be nothing. He doesn't even seem to realize he's attacking his own deep south base, and most of them probably don't realize the government assistance they receive.

 

[Slime]

Boo. Fell for the "shocking" hype. Hope there's something else, and if there is, I wouldn't be against them holding it back until October.

 

[Aaron]

I wonder if this will be nothing. He doesn't even seem to realize he's attacking his own deep south base, and most of them probably don't realize the government assistance they receive.

If they haven't realized it by this point, I don't think a little thing like this will shake them out of their ignorance.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Honestly, this is the worst run campaign I've ever seen.

Yes, McCain's was bad, but in fairness to him, they simply panicked in time of crisis and had no idea how to handle it (and they had no idea Palin was so dumb). With the economic crisis, no Repub was going to win.

Romney, however, is highly intelligent and successful. This was an election year that a moderate Republican should have been able to beaten Obama with a reasonable campaign.

And yet, here we are.

I'm not sure what planet you guys live on who think "if only wed had a moderate we could beat Obama for sure yo!" . Sorry. No form of evidence even suggests otherwise. Obama was re elected the moment Osama was killed under his orders.

 

[Black Mamba]

2 I'm not sure what planet you guys live on who think "if only wed had a moderate we could beat Obama for sure yo!" . Sorry. No form of evidence even suggests otherwise. Obama's was re elected the moment Osama was killed under his orders.

I thought that back then, but the economy has been mediocre at best. Look at Romney's numbers before the RNC. Only down 1-2 points. Even in swing states it was like 1-3 or 4 points down at worst for him.

This was a very winnable election for Republicans if they could get a competent moderate up there. If Romney prior to all the horrible choices he made really came to light could be down 1-2 points, then a decent run Repub campaign wins,

 

[Jadedx]

I wonder if this will be nothing. He doesn't even seem to realize he's attacking his own deep south base, and most of them probably don't realize the government assistance they receive.

If you're a republican and not rich you are probably an idiot.

 

[matthewwhatever]

That should abolish the notion that Romney is a good guy who is simply at the mercy of terrible forces he can't control.

The only way that could conceivably work is if Romney is trying to increase voter turnout among his own base - a base that is already highly motivated by fear, and already believes the worst things about Obama. But as Romney said in the video, and as he is already quite aware, doing this will annihilate any chances he has to convince the small percentage of independents that are left to vote for him. And it could possibly convince the independents who are already in his corner to vote for Obama instead. Independents, I think, care more about optics than anything else, and they will not respond well to nativist attacks. Just as McCain before him, the deployment of ugly rhetoric will most likely signal the final throes of a dying campaign, not any specific shift in strategy. I think he almost has a better chance of simply waiting and hoping for an opportunity to turn his campaign around than going ugly.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think going nuclear negative will work for Romney. I just don't see what other option he has. Waiting and hoping won't cut it, because that doesn't change anything about the race -- plus it's hard to imagine that GOP supporters who still want him to win would abide that kind of thing. (I mean, if it was your guy, would you want to sit around and hope something happens?) At this point, he can't possibly try and turn his campaign into a bright, sunny positive one. All that's left, then, is for them to double-down on stupid and make it as negative as possible in the hopes they can provoke...something. I don't know what (maybe some kind of race riot?), but their only hope right now is that they cause something spectacularly terrible, and it doesn't rebound back on them.

 

[Black Mamba]

oh by the way, I forgot to mention I was told by an elderly gentleman (whom I've known a long time) that I need to go see 2016 because it shows Obama for who he really is.

I just kept my mouth shut and played dumb, of course (OH I DON'T FOLLOW POLITICS LOL). I most certainly did not need to get into this conversation. Guess they exist in California, too!

On the plus side, he did tell me he thought Obama would win because Romney's foot is in his mouth.

 

[thefro]

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week...tion-on-iran-should-not-be-ruled-out-1.453917

Do you support the two-state solution? Do you think that a Palestinian state should be established?

“I believe in a two-state solution which suggests there will be two states, including a Jewish state. I respect Israel’s right to remain a Jewish state. The question is not whether the people of the region believe that there should be a Palestinian state. The question is if they believe there should be an Israeli state, a Jewish state.”

Compare that to the video...

"I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes, committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel, and these thorny issues, and I say there's just no way. And so what you do is you say, "You move things along the best way you can." You hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize that this is going to remain an unsolved problem. We live with that in China and Taiwan. All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it. We don't go to war to try and resolve it imminently."

.

It's not a huge deal, but it doesn't help Romney.

 

[Slime]

This'll probably reinforce the idea of Romney being an untrustworthy tool for some undecideds, and fire up some people on the right because he's casting doubt on the intentions of the scary Muslinz.

 

[Plinko]

LOL at Foxnews.com. Not one single mention of this entire thing.

Fair and balanced, ladies and gentlemen. I wonder if they'll all flat out ignore it.

 

[Salvor.Hardin]

Again, nothing to see here.

Obama's Foreign Policy:

To be fair to Obama, after he called Medvedev, the Russians did somehow miraculously not veto the Libya related UN resolution that allowed the US to help.

 

[Mario]

By "we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it" I assume Romney means the US "lives with it", and he isn't showing any empathy for those Israelis and Palestinians involved who are living in hatred and fear, poor conditions, or, indeed, dying.

 

[Black Mamba]

By "we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live with it" I assume Romney means the US "lives with it", and he isn't showing any empathy for those Israelis and Palestinians involved who are living in hatred and fear, poor conditions, or, indeed, dying.

well, he is addressing the US perspective. I don't think empathy was needed, there.

Again, he's basically described US policy for some time now. I actually don't find anything bad about what he says there at all.

In fact, I'm actually surprised he has the understanding of the situation that he does. While not complex, it's far from the stupidity I expected.

I can't believe I'm defending Mitt. But really, it's much ado about nothing with this one.