2012 Primary – RichWatch!

How The Republican Party (and its supporters), Not Mitt Romney, Lost The Otherwise Winnable 2012 Election

2012 should have been a Republican victory election year.

The Democratic incumbent, while personally popular, supported a list of widely unpopular positions including his signature name-bearing achievement that passed through bipartisan opposition with 1 deciding senatorial vote and was noted to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court but ruled as constitutional under the grounds that the Administration was lying about it the whole time (the Supreme Court ruled that the cornerstone rule in “Obamacare” that forced citizens to buy a product from a corporation was clearly illegal, but that calling the mandate’s punishment for disobeying it a “tax” was clearly within allowable bounds. Thus, the Obama administration, who had argued that the mandate is not a tax, won the case under the ruling that they were lying and it in fact is a tax).

Twas Systemic Idiocy that Lost the Race

Individual Republicans are just as astute and capable as anyone else, but the Republican party and conservative base as a collective is a band of absolute clueless self destructive idiots.

In no better way has this been on display more radically than the primary for both the 2008 and 2012 elections in where the party did everything possible to bludgeon themselves into a position of weakness and frailty before facing a far more prepared and expert opponent.

This is because Republicans generally are arrogant and clueless to social realities outside their analytical bubbles.

When facing an opponent with the power, organization, media attention, name recognition, financing, bully pulpit, and experience of having already won a presidential campaign – there ain’t no time for dickin around. In an election with no incumbent President or Vice President, such as 2008, the primary to choose a nominee for president can afford a more diverse group of contenders that include longshot candidates, since both political parties are going through the process. However, in an election to unseat an incumbent president or sitting vice president of the opposing party, there is no room for error, time wasting or to indulge longshot candidates or abstract party platforms.

Because of its sheer arrogance and stupidity, an active minority within the Republican party did all of the above and more and lost the election for themselves like the bag of tools they are.

Here are 5 reasons how this group of powerful morons worked hard to accomplish this feat of foolishness and snatch failure from the jaws of victory…

SQUANDERING PRECIOUS PRIMARY TIME ON CANDIDATES WITH NO CHANCE OF WINNING

The rules of history, present electoral climate, and logical analysis reveal that the most likely path to the presidency is from a Governor and secondly, a popular Senator. The path to the presidency from the House of Representatives or from the Private Sector with no political experience is at such longshot odds to make it virtually non-existent.

Thus, logic dictates that the only candidates with a serious chance to win in 2012 and thus the only candidates worthy of serious consideration from voters were:

-Jon Huntsman (former Utah Governor & Obama’s Ambassador to China)
-Mitt Romney (former Massachusetts Governor)
-Tim Pawlenty (former Minnesota Governor)
-Rick Perry (sitting Texas Governor)

The entire primary should have been between these 4 men, alone.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer would have been welcomed as well until their inevitable exit to seek the nomination of other loser parties after failing to gain any traction. Johnson went on to gain a typical less-than-1% of the vote as the Losertarian Party nominee and Roemer was the nominee of the Reform Party, which got something like 2 dozen votes or so.

Yet the news articles, media interview clips and headlines and most importantly – the debate stages – were also polluted with the likes of the following no-chancers:

-Ron Paul (U.S. Representative from Texas who never won a single primary state in any of his 3 presidential runs)
-Michelle Bachmann (U.S. Representative, Minnesota)
-Newt Gingrich (former polarizing U.S. House Speaker who hadn’t held political office since resigning from the House amidst controversy in the 1990s)
-Rick Santorum (former Pennsylvania Senator who lost his 2006 reelection by 18 points and had remained out of political office since)
-Herman Cain (Businessman founder of a regional pizza chain with no political experience)

These 5 candidates should not have run for president in that cycle as they were all vanity candidacies with little shot at the nomination and sure-fire losers in the general election. Although it is the right of any naturally born American citizen over the age of 30 to run for the office of President, it is the collective duty of the citizens that make up the grassroots activists, party leadership and voters themselves to not reward vanity candidacies and instead limit their support to the candidates whom most articulate their beliefs from within the realm of possibility to win, especially in an election against a powerful incumbent.

Instead, for an entire year, these individuals ate up the headlines with reality show style snipes at each other and mostly toward their eventual nominee they would all switch to tacitly supporting.

An entire. friggin. year…

A STUPIDLY LONG PRIMARY WITH AN ABSURD AMOUNT OF USELESS DEBATES

The time for a long primary season to give lesser funded candidates a chance to be heard and considered was 2008 while the Democrats did the same. The 2012 election however, was against a sitting president, which means every single day that the Republicans spent arguing amongst themselves was another day the Democrat had to argue to the American people, for himself and his brand, and against the Republican party. So that means there was a competition to be held in where a lead-up to that competition had one unified force attacking the other side and that other side attacking itself for that same period.

In order to win the 2012 election, the mathematically most-electable candidates needed to have been isolated early in the primary, condensed to a micro period of campaigning to make their case to the public and then boiled down to the one amongst them with the most amount of financing, support, organization, and adherence to party principals in where he should have been fast-tracked to the nomination with a maximum of 7 debates within a maximum period of 9 months (the length of time to gestate a baby should not be exceeded by the length of time to choose a politician you like best from a group of other politicians).

Instead, idiots that they are, the republican party and conservative base sought to achieve the exact opposite: to prevent a “coronation” of their inevitable nominee.

Thanks to RNC Chairman Michael Steele, the Republican primary lasted a grueling year of wasteful and expensive destructive in-fighting with a total of 20 divisive, destructive and ultimately Republican brand-damaging debates.

The first Republican primary debate occurred in May 2011 and the last didn’t happen until February 2012. The nominee wasn’t chosen until another 3 months afterward when on May 29th 2012, Mitt Romney finally crossed the threshold of 1,144 delegates – the number needed to win the GOP nomination. That means that the Republican party had no nominee to face Barack Obama until 5 months and 6 days before election day. But what is worse is that Romney’s campaigning to the public was constricted beyond even that minuscule amount of time because the official nomination for a presidential nominee (freeing up funds that nominee is allowed to spend on their campaign) doesn’t happen until the parties convention and that didn’t happen until August 28, 2012.

That means that Republicans spent 1 entire year wasting time and millions of dollars and resources attacking their own nominee for president, while that nominee had only 2 months and 6 days to spend their resources and targeted messaging attacking the incumbent Democratic president.

The usage of this time is clear: Republicans irresponsibly and stupidly misused the year+ of time in choosing their nominee while that nominee, Mitt Romney, used his 2 months and 6 days spectacularly well. Finally allowed to speak directly to the American people and his opponent, he unequivocally destroyed President Obama in the first debate to epic degrees. He performed similarly on-point in the second debate which was derailed not by Romney’s misstep but by the unprecedented overstep of the debate moderator Candy Crowley’s fraudulent bail-out of Obama amidst Romney calling him out on a major point of dishonesty. He continued strong on the campaign trail and in interviews, remaining cool and in command through and beyond the 3rd and final Presidential debate – which was considered a draw only because most of the points Romney was so presciently correct on didn’t reveal themselves until months later when it was too late.

The Republicans were already facing an uphill battle to unseat Barack Obama and giving Mitt Romney 2 months in which to do it was hard enough, but they needed to send him into that battle strengthened and with power behind him and instead pushed him out there politically broken and bruised to where the mostly uninterested voting majority defaulted to the popular meme about the media on this candidate peddled by the Democrats, their supportive media surrogates, and the Republican primary contestants for the previous year whom had all said Romney was an uncaring out of touch plutocrat who doesn’t care about the poor. Thus, by the time Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Candy hit, the anchor tied around the GOP nominee by his own party was barely too much to overcome.

But why?… Why would Republicans be so irresponsibly stupid as to try so hard to destroy their leading standard bearer?

The following reason is why…

OBSESSIVE “NOT CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH” WITCH HUNTING

Instead of following the William F Buckley rule of choosing “the most conservative candidate who can win”, idiot Republicans sought to choose “the most conservative candidate”, arrogantly expecting the whole winning thing to just fall into place somehow afterward. This is mathematically stupid because the majority of voters do not identify as “conservatives” they identify as “moderates”.

But what is worse is that Romney not only was the most electable candidate in 2012, but he was also the most conservative option.

In 2008 Romney was the “conservative alternative” to the establishment choice of the more moderate John McCain. McCain’s team smeared Romney as a “flip-flopper” and that was the big charge against him (because he dared to join conservatives on the issue of abortion, going from supporting abortion rights in the 90s to becoming pro-life as Massachusetts Governor) but his social, foreign, or economic conservatism was not in question in 2008. National Review lauded him as such, Laura Ingraham introduced him as “the conservatives conservative”, conservative businessman Herman Cain endorsed him, Rick Santorum introduced him at a rally as the only choice for a conservative candidate and Romneys conservative approach to Governing the 2nd most liberal state in the union (after Vermont) was praised as an example of how he was able to change minds and bring people towards the right.

Yet in 2012, these same sources dubiously decided that Romney was not conservative enough despite none of his positions from 2008 having changed at all. Suddenly Romney was being mocked instead of lauded for saying his tax cutting, government shrinking stewardship of Massachusetts was “severely conservative”, conservative magazines and talk radio were skeptical of him, and people like Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich who all endorsed “Romney the conservative” in 2008 were impossibly running against him because he wasn’t a real conservative.

The smears stuck with the ignorant Republican base who bought the smears, seemingly coming from a consensus in Right-wing media, dragging out the primary a half year longer than it needed to be. The self destructive part of this insanity was that the Republican “conservative alternatives” to Romney were anything but. In the 2012 election, the candidates deemed more conservative than Mitt Romney were:

-Newt Gingrich: A twice divorced liberal Republican.

-Rick Perry: A career politician governing the countries 2nd most Conservative state (after Oklahoma) with tax hikes, and a liberal record on illegal immigration.

-Rick Santorum: A former pro-abortion rights politician turned pro-life Statist who consistently supported and voted for big government and the welfare state in the senate including debt ceiling increases, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, long lists of wasteful spending including funding the infamous “bridge to no where”, and supporting Arlen Spector (who later became a Democrat and became the deciding vote for Obamacare) over Pat Toomey (the conservative PA Senator who now resides in Arlen Spectors former seat after running again and winning the election after Santorum’s loss).

These 3 choices were what was falsely portrayed to the conservative base as being more solidly right-wing than one Mitt Romney: A Washington outsider family man without a shred of impropriety in his entire personal and public life who was a successful businessman that ran the nations 2nd most Leftist state conservatively, never supporting a tax increase, and is largely responsible for getting Scott Brown elected as Republican Massachusetts senator nearly exclusively so he could be the deciding vote against Obamacare.

And for all the conservative misinformation about Romney, it amounted to nothing but damage among moderates – not conservatives, thus losing the election. Romney was able to show conservatives he was and would be one of them, but the negative attacks against him proved to be too much for him to overcome among moderates – a destruction achieved with the help of his own party.

Despite a myth being propagated the day after election day (before total counts were tallied) claiming that 3 million conservatives stayed home – Romney won those votes in historic proportions.

In fact, Mitt Romney won more Conservative votes than Conservative demigod Ronald Reagan.

Reagan won a landslide in 1980 with an electorate that, according to exit polls, was 28% conservative.
Romney lost in 2012 with an electorate that was 35% conservative.
Reagan won 78% of conservatives.
Romney won 80% of conservatives.

Yet Reagan landslided to victory and Romney lost decisively. The difference between them is that Reagan won moderates.
Romney lost moderates by 16 points.

The reason Romney lost moderates? Because his brand was damaged by his own party.

Romney lost moderates and the election because of the conservative in-fighting by desperate less-conservative challengers that included liberal smears against him that his Republican opponents tarnished him with for a full year before the Democrats did…

ATTACKING THEIR EVENTUAL NOMINEE… FROM THE LEFT

When a candidate in a primary is on track to win and you don’t want them to, it is natural to pull out all the stops in order to defeat them; however, when squabbling within one political party, it is an insane and deranged tactic to confirm all the talking points of the opposing political party during your in-fighting.

The attacks against Mitt Romney by his fellow Republicans were straight out of the Democrats playbook…

Governor Tim Pawlenty led the way in using the Left’s talking point on the Massachusetts healthcare plan Romney presided over being identical to Obamacare, making the term “Obamneycare” go viral before gutlessly backing off that accusation and then joining the Romney campaign without ever explaining any evolution in thinking on the charge.

Governor Rick Perry used the Lefts talking points on Immigration to smear his own party with exactly the emotional appeal fallacies the left leverages on the issue. Championing push for in-state tuition for illegals in Texas, Perry said “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.” To which Romney shut down by noting “I think if you’re opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have a heart. It means that you have a heart and a brain.” A perfect shut down of this Leftist talking point – yet Conservative media analyzers lauded Perry from the Left over Romneys retort from the right.

Former Senator Rick Santorum attacked Romney from the Left on his wealth which Santorum claimed put him out of touch with blue collar families. Santorum attacked Romney for his financial success and his history in the business world, claiming that “America doesn’t need a CEO” (despite conservatives thinking that is exactly what the country needed). Santorum, who is nationally unpopular and has been out of elected office since losing his last election by 18 points, also brazenly attacked Romney as “unelectable” in debates, on Twitter, and through tv commercials attacking the Governor for being awesome in the private sector.

Once again, Romney had the perfect logical and conservative response, noting “If we become one of those societies that attacks success, one outcome is certain – there will be a lot less success.” But instead of lauding this advocacy of the foundation of their economic ideology, right-wing media praised the Leftist attack and buried or criticized Romney’s on-point rebuttal.

Newt Gingrich, the most liberal candidate in the primary, combined Perry and Santorums approaches and attacked Romney from the Left on both economics and immigration. Gingrich smeared Romney from the Left on his work as a businessman and specifically his time at Bain Capital, endorsing a Pro-Gingrich PAC produced documentary titled King of Bain which is a Michael Moore style production filled with emotional appeal fallacies and half truths. Gingrich claimed that Romney “looted” companies while at Bain, with no real deconstruction or argument whatsoever of the practices Bain Capital used while restructuring and turning profits from failing businesses.

Further attacking Romney for saying that he would not go rounding up families to deport them but would rather support legal policies that would cause some illegals to “self deport, Gingrich jumped on the Left-wing smear that this made Romney “anti-immigration”.

Yet again, Romney shut down his leftist attackers with conservative logic and accuracy in one of my favorite debate smackdowns in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFSf0H1gEE

It was obvious to any objective observer that Mitt Romney would and should be the 2012 nominee shortly after the primary season began. Not everyone had to like that, but the destructive tactics used against him weren’t necessary either ended up being total failures by failing in every area possible: They did not stop Romney from being the nominee, but did stop him from winning the election.

Way to go, idiots. It worked like a charm.

In other words: Mitt Romney won on the issues. The reason he lost the election were because Republicans Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum smeared him with Democratic talking points that stuck.

One shouldn’t expect this angle from their own side, but at least these attacks came from competitors of Romney’s for the nomination and thus conservative and center-right media figures could referee and point out their desperate and counterproductive tactics. Except, as alluded to earlier and covered in the next section: they emphatically didn’t.

A STUPIDLY DIVISIVE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA

Regardless of political persuasion, you can’t expect the average citizen to be doing independent research on political matters completely on their own. They turn to their like minded commentators for guidance and in the 2012 election primary, they were wildly misguided.

The top culprits smearing Romney in the 3 major markets of radio, print, and blogging were:

Mark Levin: talk radio show host who smeared Romney on the radio to his grassroots listeners.
Phillip Klein: columnist at the Washington Examiner who used foolish and cliche talking points in repeated attacks on Romney.
Erik Erikson: founder of RedState.com who perpetuated Romney smears online.

But really, no one else in conservative media helped all that much outside of the astute broadcasters on Salem Radio Network including Dennis Prager (who was fair, despite not initially supporting Romney), Michael Medved (who endorsed Romney early in the primary season) and Hugh Hewitt (a long time Romney supporter who none-the-less was fair to the entire field and refrained from smears and talking points).

With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Conclusion…

Mitt Romney was the best candidate Republicans had in decades and the party did everything possible to prevent him from winning the election. These conservative grass rooters succeeding in failing.

The Republican base lost the 2012 election. Not Mitt Romney.

How The Republican Party, Not Mitt Romney, Lost The Winnable 2012 Election

Individual Republicans are just as astute and capable as anyone else, but the Republican party and conservative base as a collective is a band of absolute clueless self destructive idiots.

This is because Republicans generally are arrogant and clueless to social realities outside their analytical bubbles.

In an election with no incumbent President or Vice President, such as 2008, the primary to choose a nominee for president can afford a more diverse group of contenders that include longshot candidates, since both political parties are going through the process. However, in an election to unseat an incumbent president or sitting vice president of the opposing party, there is no room for error, time wasting or to indulge longshot candidates or abstract party platforms. Because of its sheer arrogance and stupidity, an active minority within the Republican party did all of the above and more and lost the election for themselves like the bag of tools they are.

Here are 5 reasons how they worked hard to accomplish this feat of foolishness…

SQUANDERING PRECIOUS TIME ON CANDIDATES WITH NO CHANCE OF WINNING
The rules of history, present electoral climate, and logical analysis reveal that the most likely path to the presidency is from a Governor and secondly, a popular Senator. The path to the presidency from the House of Representatives or from the Private Sector with no political experience is at such longshot odds to make it virtually non-existent.

Thus, logic dictates that the only candidates with a serious chance to win in 2012 and thus the only candidates worthy of serious consideration from voters were:

-Jon Huntsman (former Utah Governor & Obama’s Ambassador to China)
-Mitt Romney (former Massachusetts Governor)
-Tim Pawlenty (former Minnesota Governor)
-Rick Perry (sitting Texas Governor)

The entire primary should have been between these 4 men, alone. Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson and former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer would have been welcomed as well until their inevitable exit to seek the nomination of other loser parties after failing to gain any traction (Johnson went on to gain a typical less-than-1% of the vote as the Losertarian Party nominee and Roemer was the nominee of the Reform Party, which got something like 2 dozen votes or so).

Yet the news articles, media interview clips and headlines and most importantly – the debate stages – were also polluted with the likes of the following no-chancers:

-Ron Paul (U.S. Representative from Texas who never won a single primary state in any of his 3 presidential runs)
-Michelle Bachmann (U.S. Representative, Minnesota)
-Newt Gingrich (former polarizing U.S. House Speaker who hadn’t held political office since resigning from the House amidst controversy in the 1990s)
-Rick Santorum (former Pennsylvania Senator who lost his 2006 reelection by 18 points and had remained out of politics since)
-Herman Cain (founder of a pizza chain with no political experience)

A STUPIDLY LONG PRIMARY WITH AN ABSURD AMOUNT OF DEBATES
The time for a long primary season to give lesser funded candidates a chance to be heard and considered was 2008 while the Democrats did the same. The 2012 election however, was against a sitting president, which means every single day that the Republicans spent arguing amongst themselves was another day the Democrat had to argue to the American people, for himself and his brand, and against the Republican party.

Instead, idiots that they are, the republican party and conservative base sought to achieve the exact opposite: to prevent a “coronation” of their inevitable nominee.

But why?… Why would Republicans be so irresponsibly stupid as to try so hard to destroy their leading standard bearer? The following reason is why…

OBSESSIVE “NOT CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH” WITCH HUNTING
Instead of following the William F Buckley rule of choosing “the most conservative candidate who can win”, idiot Republicans sought to choose “the most conservative candidate”, arrogantly expecting the whole winning thing to just fall into place somehow afterward. This is mathematically stupid because the majority of voters do not identify as “conservatives” they identify as “moderates”.

But what is worse is that Romney not only was the most electable candidate in 2012, but he was also the most conservative option.

In 2008 Romney was the “conservative alternative” to the establishment choice of the more moderate John McCain. McCain’s team smeared Romney as a “flip-flopper” and that was the big charge against him (because he dared to join conservatives on the issue of abortion, going from supporting abortion rights in the 90s to becoming pro-life as Massachusetts Governor) but his social, foreign, or economic conservatism was not in question in 2008. National Review lauded him as such, Laura Ingraham introduced him as “the conservatives conservative”, businessman Herman Cain endorsed him, Rick Santorum introduced him at a rally as the only choice for a conservative candidate and Romneys conservative approach to Governing the 2nd most liberal state in the union (after Vermont) was praised as an example of how he was able to change minds and bring people towards the right.

Yet in 2012, these same sources magically decided that Romney was not conservative enough despite none of his positions from 2008 having changed at all. Suddenly Romney was being mocked instead of lauded for saying his tax cutting, government shrinking stewardship of Massachusetts was “severely conservative”, conservative magazines and talk radio were skeptical of him, and people like Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich who all endorsed “Romney the conservative” in 2008 were impossibly running against him because he wasn’t a real conservative.

-Newt Gingrich: A twice divorced liberal Republican.
-Rick Perry: A career politician governing the countries 2nd most Conservative state (after Oklahoma) with tax hikes, and a liberal record on illegal immigration.
-Rick Santorum: A former pro-abortion rights politician turned pro-life statist who consistently supported and voted for big government and the welfare state in the senate including debt ceiling increases, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, funding the “bridge to no where”, and supporting Arlen Spector (who later became a Democrat and became the deciding vote for Obamacare) over Pat Toomey (the conservative PA senator who now resides in Arlen Spectors former seat).

Despite a myth being propagated the day after election day (before total counts were tallied) claiming that 3 million conservatives stayed home – Romney won those votes in historic proportions.

Romney won more conservatives than Conservative demigod Ronald Reagan.

Reagan won a landslide in 1980 with an electorate that was 28% conservative.
Romney lost in 2012 with an electorate that was 35% conservative.
Reagan won 78% of conservatives.
Romney won 80% of conservatives.

The difference is that Reagan won moderates.
Romney lost moderates by 16 points.

The reason Romney lost moderates? Because his brand was damaged by his own party. Romney lost moderates and the election because of the conservative in-fighting by desperate less-conservative challengers that included liberal smears against him that his Republican opponents tarnished him with for a full year before the Democrats did…

ATTACKING THEIR EVENTUAL NOMINEE…FROM THE LEFT
When a candidate in a primary is on track to win and you don’t want them to, it is natural to pull out all the stops in order to defeat them; however, when squabbling within one political party, it is an insane and deranged tactic to confirm all the talking points of the opposing political party during your in-fighting.

The attacks against Mitt Romney by his fellow Republicans were straight out of the Democrats playbook…

Governor Tim Pawlenty led the way in using the Left’s talking point on the Massachusetts healthcare plan Romney presided over being identical to Obamacare.

Newt Gingrich, the most liberal candidate in the primary, combined Perry and Santorums approaches and attacked Romney from the Left on both economics and immigration. Gingrich smeared Romney from the Left on his work as a businessman and specifically his time at Bain Capital, endorsing a Pro-Gingrich PAC produced documentary titled King of Bain which is a Michael Moore style production filled with emotional appeal fallacies and half truths. Attacking Romney for saying that he would not go rounding up families to deport them but would rather support legal policies that would cause some illegals to “self deport, Gingrich jumped on the Left-wing smear that this made Romney “anti-immigration”. Yet again, Romney shut down his leftist attackers with conservative logic and accuracy in one of my favorite debate smackdowns in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFSf0H1gEE

A STUPIDLY DIVISIVE CONSERVATIVE MEDIA
Regardless of political persuasion, you can’t expect the average citizen to be doing independent research on political matters completely on their own. They turn to their like minded commentators for guidance and they were wildly misguided.

The top culprits smearing Romney in the 3 major markets of radio, print, and blogging were:

With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?

Mitt Romney was the best candidate Republicans had in decades and the party did everything possible to prevent him from winning the election. These conservative grass rooters succeeding in failing.

The base lost the 2012 election. Not Mitt Romney.

Ideology means very little in elections

I’ve been saying this in various forms for over 10 years but John Ziegler has said it so well in this column that i’m angry at not articulating my own version better before he beat me to it. Regardless, he nails it in the following in his list of the Six Dirty Secrets of Presidential Politics in 2012.

Issues/Ideology Mean Very Little

Thanks to “dirty little secret” number one, I find it almost hilarious that so many political commentators still desperately hang on to the delusion that voters (at least the ones who matter) make their decisions the same way that said commentators do. This reminds of me of the identical fallacy which occurs when a woman interprets the actions of a man based on the erroneous belief that his brain works like hers does.

These ignorant voters don’t delve deeply into the candidates’ record/positions to decide which one is closest to their views. They have no real ideology. Instead, they make their choices based mostly on feeling, and often that doesn’t even mean a sense about each of the candidates.

Instead, these people tend to vote based on which decision will make them feel better about themselves. Ironically, that usually means which side will make these “stupid” people feel as if they have made the “smart” selection.

A glance at recent history proves this point. In 2008, there was no doubt that the media had convinced the “middle third” that Obama was the “wise” choice. In 2004, despite the media’s best efforts, the middle third felt like Bush 43 would keep us safer in a post-9/11 world. In 2000, there was no real sense as to which candidate was the “wise” option, and it basically ended in a tie. In 1996, thanks to the economy being good, they deemed Bill Clinton worthy of a second term. In 1992, thanks to a misperception of the economy, they simply felt like three straight Republican terms was enough.

Now, if one candidate is perceived as being ideologically outside the mainstream (which, thanks to a media-created matrix, can really happen only to Republicans), then that perception will very likely impact the way that the “middle third” decides which candidate is the “wise” pick. But this usually won’t be because of the candidate’s actual views, but instead because of the narrative that his or her ideology creates (for instance, Rick Santorum would get crushed not because most people disagree with him about gay rights, but rather because his misunderstood views on the issue would create the impression that he was outside the mainstream and therefore not the “wise” alternative).

The bottom line as this relates to 2012 is that the notion that Mitt Romney would be at a disadvantage against President Obama because he is supposedly a “right-leaning moderate” going up against a “left-leaning moderate” is just silly. As long as there is no conservative third-party candidate, Obama himself will single-handily produce a near-100% conservative voter turnout for Romney, regardless of how his ideology is perceived.

This is also why Newt Gingrich is so unelectable, especially against Obama. All these voters would ever really know about him is that he is a fat, old, angry white male, with two ex-wives, who resigned as speaker of the House because he got Clinton impeached while he himself was having an affair. Game, set, match.

Newt Gingrich brings down the Elephant-hizouse on Welfare remarks

“Only the elites despise earning money.”

I almost scurried away by just linking to this video in other places but that wouldn’t be fair. Since I’ve given Newt a lot of grief on this site, I should spotlight when he hits one out of the park. Here is former Speaker Gingrich’s response to Fox News analyst Juan Williams (the first time any of these debates has let a Democrat question the Republicans in a debate) on Obama as the “food-stamp president”:

This is a good exchange and illustrates what I’ve always said about Gingrich: he’s very smart, very sharp, has interesting ideas and can articulate them pretty well…and must never be a nominee for president. Well, shouldn’t this time, anyway. Not when there are better alternatives to deliver the same message. And not because he’s not those things I just mentioned, but because he needs to be in a position where he can be marketing and proclaiming ideas like this – not managing the country. The dude just doesnt have the diplomacy for the job that is required.

As Governor, Romney followed the Santorum doctrine on abortion

It’s another Republican primary debate tonight, this time in South Carolina…

Governor Mitt Romney has by far the highest performance in every answer he’s given, but all the others except Ron Paul (who has plateaued on how good or not he performs at these things) did exceptionally better than they have been in these things. Rick Perry would be the frontrunner right now if he was as smooth and competent 5 months ago as he was tonight.

Romney has never had a bad debate though. He has owned everyone who attempts to attack him in every one of these things and tonight had the closest call but he still won at the last second. What happened was that Rick Santorum complained about a commercial against him by a Pro-Romney PAC (Political Action Committee) and was whining to Romney about it being inaccurate. The reason it is “whining” and not a legitimate complaint is because Romney has nothing to do with the ad other than existing and being in this race for people to support. Candidates are not allowed to communicate with PAC’s. It would be illegal for Romney to tell any of the PAC’s supporting him “hey, don’t say this” or “hey, you know what you should say about Santorum?…”.

So the complaint from Santorum is stupid on its face but it gets better/worse: –actually, wait — before I tell you how it got better slash worse, I’ve got to point out that Newt Gingrich made this same whiny complaint to Romney in a previous debate and got the same 100% legitimate and accurate answer. Newt was mad over attack ads against him by Romney’s PAC, scolding Romney for not (illegally) telling the PAC to remove the ads. So what happens? Newt’s PAC releases a 28 minute documentary attacking Romney as an evil corporatist who – gasp – made MONEY (iknowright? hideous) while other people – doublegasp – failed to. The response was that it received 4 Pinochios from the same source Gingrich used to whine about the negative ads against him. Romney brought this up at the debate, calling the “documentary” the “biggest hoax since bigfoot” but failed to use the 4 Pinnochios fact. Okay, so back to Ricky Dicky Santoramos:

The ad misstated Santorums position on allowing felons the right to vote and he asked Romney if he believes felons should be allowed to vote. Romney does not even support PAC’s and neither do I (they only exist because of limits on money to candidates. if you remove those limits then candidates can run their OWN ads and be personally responsible for the content within them instead of PACs doing it), but he answered the question and said he does not believe violent felons should be allowed to vote. AH-HA! sez Le Santorum…because when Romney was governor in Massachusetts, the state had a law allowing felons to vote and Romney didn’t change it. So Santorum thinks he has a gotcha on Mitt and to me in the audience it appears that way as well… Except Mitt replies with his usual surgeon like precision and skill and casually diced that charge to peaces and threw it in the trash. The response: Romney had an 85% Democrat legislature that would not allow him to change that law so he picked his battles wisely and didnt press it in his short 4 year term as Governor – HOWEVER – long as you wanna bring up contradictory actions to ones beliefs – was it not you, Mr Santorum, who just minutes ago on this stage (this isn’t a quote, i’m role-playing Mitt while re-telling this story from a half hour ago) told us all that it was a noble thing you did in the senate by voting AGAINST a right-to-work law (that means that no one would be legally forced to join a Union to have a job) despite being pro right-to-work? The reason you said you voted against it despite supporting it was that your state voted against similar legislation so you wanted to accurately represent it as its Senator… okay. fine. so why are you being such a dumbass hypocrite and not applying that same standard to me, Mitt Motherfkkn Rom-nay, biatch? *applause*.

And the same goes for the rest of you conservative dopes that keep calling Romney such an untrustworthy flip-flopping unprincipled core-less manipulator because the dude, over time, came to YOUR position on abortion: the guy operated under the same philosophy Santorum did, but changed his mind IN YOUR FAVOR… Santorum believes in right-to-work laws but refused to vote for a national one because his state of Pennsylvania was against them. fine. Mitt Romney was personally pro-life his whole life, but thought he could reconcile that belief with keeping choice within the law and ran for senate in 94 (lost) and Governor in 2000whatever (won) on the promise to not change the current law on abortion. So the 2 men had the same principal. No excuses for you evangelical bigots who are looking for excuses to hate on Romney and call Rick Santorum your principalled savior of ideological purity. Romney did you one better though, because when legislation came to his desk as governor that would allow the destruction of embryos after conception, Romney was like “holy balls yu guyz. I can’t sign this thing… shits KRAZY, yo” (again, a paraphrase), rejected it, wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper explaining his official political position and how it reflects what was in his heart and mind but stays true to his promise to his state and thats the end of it. The floop is your problem with the guy?

1) You shouldn’t have one, cuz your argument essentially is “He kept a promise to the people who voted for him. He was persuaded to OUR position -AND – he didn’t further the advancement of abortion law in the most liberal state in the union”.

2) Who are you gonna vote for instead? Gingrich, who supported the same individual mandate on healthcare (for the nation, not just for 1 super liberal state) that Obama put into law and Romney never supported, ever? Rick Perry, who thinks you “have no heart” if you don’t give the children of illegal aliens special privileges such as college tuition? or Rick Santorum? – who is a hypocrite that defends his own history of voting in opposition to his stated political beliefs in order to accurately reflect and serve his constituency but attacks others for doing that exact same thing – but in a better way than he did.

Get with it, conservatives. The more you stupidly attack your best candidate, Mitt.0 Eagle-Claw Rombot the 2nd – the more smart people like me who are paying attention like him and realize how dumb you are.

Gringrich is in this Primary solely for himself at this point

I warned you people…

Gingrich’s party of one:

Yet Gingrich also pioneered the politics of personal destruction, as well as the politics of personal pique. Once again, he feels that his proper seat on Air Force One has been denied. So he attacks Romney from the right on abortion and from the left on Bain Capital. The only unifying principle — the only cause that is clearly served — is the emotional impulses of the man himself. He fights not for any brand of conservatism but for Newtism, which is more important to him than any party or ideology.

Gingrich recalls another impressive, flawed political figure. I have in mind a Southerner, attracted to big ideas, fascinated by management theories and scientific paradigms, prone to grandiosity and moralism, capable of both insight and bullying, leading through the cultivation of constant alarm. Al Gore was also transformed by defeat, which coincided with an “assault on reason,” a failure of “rational analysis” and the “shocking decay and degradation of our democracy.” The political failure of a figure so large required cosmic explanation. Gore’s opponents became “digital brown shirts” and “un-American” and a “renegade band of right-wing extremists” who had “betrayed the country.” Grievance merged with self-importance. It is easy to imagine Gore delivering Gingrich’s words: “If you want to smear people who are trying to think, fine.”

Newt Gingrich is becoming the Al Gore of the Republican Party — but with one large difference. By accepting the role of vindictive prophet, Gore appeals to a subset of the progressive coalition — the sort of people who find Keith Olbermann fair and balanced. (Gore, in fact, employs him.) Whatever Gore’s flaws, he is the leader of a cause.

It is currently difficult to discern any cause in the Gingrich campaign apart from Gingrich himself. He is the party of one — one world-historic leader, supported primarily by one billionaire. This is not a movement; it is the prosecution of a feud. Like Samson, Gingrich is willing to pull down the temple around him. But, in this case, it is not the Philistines who suffer. It is Republicans in the rubble.

GOP New Hampshire Debate

Live blogging the event….

Ron Paul notes that Santorum is a “big government conservative”. He is. (click for a long list of evidence).

Santorum is doing well. He is making me doubt the things i’ve bashed him for:

Lobbyist? He says he approached a local coal company to lobby for them specifically to defeat Cap & Trade.

Voted Most Corrupt? He says that’s a charge sent by a liberal organization every election cycle just to smear conservatives.

hmm… there could be truth to both of those. Got me wondering…

Yahoo! has this question:

UPDATE: they fixed it…

Moderator asks okay question that rests on stupid premise: “only 2 of you have served [in the military] – do you think that makes you better suited to be President?”. This is so stupid. Didn’t work for George Bush Sr – didn’t work for Bob Dole – didn’t work for John Kerry – didn’t work for John McCain and although G. Dubya won twice, it wasnt at all thanks to his ~~Air Force~~ Texas and Alabama Air National Guard service. this issue is a dud.

Ron Paul refines his “chickenhawk” argument against Gingrich so it sounds more sane: says that if you got multiple deferments when you had the chance to serve then you shouldn’t order anyone into war. that makes total sense but is a big difference from the chickenhawk argument which smears everyone who did not elect to join the military as having actively hid from it. That is stupid. Paul is doing really well tonight. I wish he ran this good a campaign in 2008 and/or performed this well in the 08 debates.

Newt says it is “inaccurate and false” that he asked for deferments. I don’t care cuz I’m more annoyed that he said “inaccurate AND false”. They mean the same thing, dude…

[commercial break]

Do states have the right to ban contraception? what in the what? — oh shit – Romney is voicing my exact reaction and chiding Stephonopolous for asking it. The question was based on a court case but still asked oddly. — NOW Stepho cuts to the chase and asks whether the Constitution has a “right to privacy”.

Ron Paul on the right of privacy in the Constitution: it pertains to your personal belongings and the state meddling with them with warrentless searches and whatnot.

Question from Yahoo asker: Since you’re against same sex marriage, what do you want gay people to do with their partners?

Gingrich: Favors hospital visitation rights, will and similar sensible laws. just quibbles over the word “marriage”

Huntsman: “Civil Unions are fair and I support them”. Doing well until he uses the old trope by saying he doesnt believe his marriage is affected by gay couples or same sex marriage or civil unions or idk what he;s referring to there but either way its stupid because no one has ever said gay relations of any kind affect their marriage. dumb thing to say.

Santorum: Let the states decide – but then stops himself and says there should be a singular Federal law so people arent married in one state and not married in another. derp? Then says “this is a state issue not a federal issue” – double-derp? Moderator asks what happens to same sex marriages if Santorum passes a law saying marriage is one man one woman – Santorum doesnt answer. just repeats that if the law passes it passes.

Romney: says its a “wonderful thing” for people to commit to each other long term but they don’t need to call it “marriage” and receive approval from the state that way and I bite my nails because I like Mitt and that is almost the right answer but only if he follows it up with “BUT, lets give le gayz more legal rights” like what Newt said. Thankfully he did go on and is talking about those rights right now as I type this: basically favors civil unions, legal partnerships, etc and just wants to preserve the word marriage. I don’t care about the word marriage but I dont have a problem with this traditionalist-but-non-hater position. whew! glad he got it right and remained the only candidate to avoid saying things that I would be embarrassed by if I were to publicly support.

Gingrich comes back and asks (openly, not to any individual) whether the Catholic church (he is a convert to Catholicism) should be forced out of the adoption business because they dont adopt out to same sex couples. gets applause.

Romney agree’s and notes that that is exactly what happened in Massachusetts by a court order he disagrees with.

Stepho beats the dead horse of Ron Paul running as a 3rd party candidate even though he says he doesnt want to and has never expressed interest in doing so. Paul gives the same answer as always: he’s not doing it and has no plans to do it but won’t promise not to do it.

Ron Paul says he’s doing well in the polls and says with a warm smile that he’s getting “closer to Mitt every day”. People laugh. its a nice/friendly moment.

Perry is asked if everyone on the stage should rule out a 3rd party bid. Perry doesnt answer and instead says anyone on the stage is better than Obama and then goes back to same sex marriage and says he wants a Constitutional amendment to define marriage.

Romney and Huntsman on when to leave Afghanistan: Huntsman says leave right away and dont invest another penny in that boondoggle. Romney says get em out soon but no hard date cuz you’ve got to asses the details as President first.

Perry says to send troops back into Iraq… when pressed: Perry says we need to because Iran will move in “literally at the speed of light”. Holy shit, those are fast Iranians…

[commercial]

Romney says that there are things Government can do to help the job market – like fix bridges n shit, but fundamentally government does not create jobs, it can only encourage the private sector.

I miss these two:

Romney: bring down taxes to be competitive with other nations and give relief to people who need it most and mostly hurt by the Obama economy, the middle class. Reduce rates. Reduce the amount of exemptions. Simplify the tax code and broaden the base — God damn you Republicans who don’t love this guy are stupid. He’s SO your best candidate in decades…

blah blah boring stuff – im checking twitter for a few minutes…

Huntsman vs Romney on China: Huntsman pulls the “i know Chinese” card and says a sentence to Romney in Mandarin and doesn’t explain what it means. SO. fucking. Douchey….

Huntsman says Romney wants a trade war with China. Romney says “nigga, the fuck you talkin bout?” (paraphrase) and does a thing with his hands saying he doesnt want a trade war but “we sell China *this much* [higher raised hand] – they sell us *this* much [much lower hand gesture] – who do you think doesnt want the trade war?” – bam.

[commercial break]

oh. that’s the end.

Well that was one of the best ones they’ve had. Everyone did very well.

Post debate commentary by ABC panel: Donna Brazil, former Gore campaign manager said that it was a good night for Democrats because no one attacked Mitt Romney. When everyone on the panel gave a hearty “wtf?” to that comment she explained that the weakest candidate is the one that no one attacks and that was Mitt Romney so Democrats are happy. Everyone reacted in unison with a “nooo. you don’t mean that” in the tone of when you say “aawww, c’mon” when an elderly great aunt says something controversial but you want to brush it off and ignore it instead of deal with it.

UPDATE: here’s an out-of-context recap, but the clips are not at all in chronological order.

Wanna Bet? Romney Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is While Perry Wimps Out.

Texas Governor makes a false claim and is called on it, but somehow the person who called him on it is the one whom pundits are saying made a “gaffe”.

In the 94q3542p59876394867th debate last night in Iowa, Texas Governor Rick Perry repeated a false attack against former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney that conservatives who dislike Romney for being too sensible just can’t stop lying about. Here is FactCheck.org‘s summary of it:

Perry once again falsely accused Romney of writing in his book “No Apology” that he wanted to impose his state’s health care plan at the federal level.

Perry: I read your first book, and it said in there that your mandate in Massachusetts, which should be the model for the country — and I know it came out of the reprint of the book, but, you know, I’m just saying, you were for individual mandates, my friend.

Romney: You know what, you’ve raised that before, Rick. And you’re simply wrong.

Perry refused an offer from Romney to bet $10,000 as to who was right. In fact, Perry is wrong and Romney is correct. As we have written a couple of times before, the book was revised and this line was removed: “We can accomplish the same thing for everyone in the country.” But the phrase “the same thing” refers to the goals of the state law: “portable, affordable health insurance,” not the controversial individual mandate or the entire law. Romney saw the Massachusetts plan as a potential model for other states, if they so choose, but not as a federal mandate.

So Romney “bet” Perry $10 thousand dollars over the issue and Perry declined. “Bet” is in quotations because there are two types of betting: 1) a gamble on what is only a possible outcome and 2) a challenge to a claim of fact. To Romney, it is the latter and to Perry it is the former. In other words: Perry would be gambling if he took the wager because he knows he might be wrong since he didn’t read the book and is only going on what his handlers keep giving him despite multiple news sources reporting that the shit just ain’t true. To Romney, there is no gamble because he wrote the book and knows Perry is saying something false.

So the reaction after this is that Perry is being a douche by not correcting the record AND not accepting $10,000 to his failing campaign just to prove what he keeps saying at these debates, right?

Nope: the media attack line is that Romney made a blunder by offering the bet.

Kathie Obradovich says that “Romney bet was one of his worst debate moments”

But Perry really made his mark when he successfully goaded Mitt Romney into one of the worst moments he’s had in a debate so far. Perry challenged Romney on a passage in his first book, claiming an early edition said the Massachusetts health-care program should be a model for the national plan.

Romney disputed the claim and when Perry persisted, he jokingly offered a $10,000 bet. Perry didn’t take the bet, but he won the point. Romney was casually offering the equivalent of about one-fifth of the average median income for an Iowa family. Romney’s privileged background was driven home later when the candidates were asked whether they’d ever had to cut costs in their own family budget.

“I didn’t grow up poor,” Romney said, and noted that if voters are looking for someone who did, they’ll have to vote for somebody else.

That line sounds rhetorical, but evidently there are a shit-ton of morons looking for someone who “grew up poor” to be their nominee.

This is not Romneys worst debate moment, it is everyone who thinks this is an issue at all whatsoever’s worst debate moment. Whether its the casual observer at home or the educated and experienced political pundit or anyone in between – they all have no excuse for not knowing better.

Ed Morrissey on Hot Air, a conservative blog, continues the Leftist stupidity:

Romney, however, made the gaffe of the evening when he attacked Rick Perry, of all people. Until now, Romney has been very careful not to punch below his class, but Perry got under his skin and Romney ended up going after Perry on Gardasil all over again. He didn’t do it well, either, and when Perry attacked Romney over statements in his book regarding health care, Romney tried to intimidate Perry by challenging him to bet $10,000 over the issue. If Romney wanted to make himself look rich, arrogant, and clueless, he could hardly have done a better job. When was the last time someone challenged you to a ridiculous bet in order to intimidate you out of an argument? For me, I think it was junior-high school.

What the hell? There is no one running for president that does not have $10,000 of disposable funds to risk, but as I said: If Perry actually read the book (which he didn’t) and it said what he claims it says (it doesn’t) then he’s not risking anything. So why is someone calling them on it a bad thing, again? Oh ya. Because Romney has made a lot of money in his life and is more of a millionaire than the other millionaires on the stage and that’s bad because not everyone in America has made millions so they don’t want to be reminded that the person who might lead their country was more successful than them. This is stupid with stupid sauce poured all over it.

At least one guy gets it:

You may not have heard: Romney laid down a bet with fellow candidate Rick Perry for a cool $10,000 (or what Newt probably spends on lunch every week) during a recent debate. Doesn’t Mitt know that candidates, no matter how successful they may be, must always act as if they mow their lawns and eat curly fries at diners on Friday nights. If not, the electorate will be deeply insulted.

This kind of rhetoric is nothing new for Republicans. During the 2008 primaries, Mike Huckabee noted that “Mitt Romney looks like the guy that fires you.” This assessment was backed up by then-candidate John McCain, who, we soon found out, understood as much about the economy as Meghan McCain.

If you get rich working in finance, there’s a good chance you did something wrong, right? And Mitt, well, Mitt is heartless. Mitt worked for Bain Capital. Mitt was part of the private equity firm that salvaged poorly run, bloated businesses — sometimes through “painful” cuts and firings. There are honorable ways of getting rich (peddling political influence and/or writing books), and then there’s the Wall Street way. Newt, no less of a flip-flopping careerist than Romney, sold his political connections for wealth rather than create any.

The only reason to criticize this moment is if one is trying to find a way to confirm what they already don’t like about Gov Romney.

If someone lies about you in public, you can only say “nuh uh” back and forth so many times until one side is willing to put something on the line to prove their case. Romney manned up and was right. Perry pussed out and was wrong.

There was nothing wrong with this debate moment.

Mitt Romney: The Zeppo Marx of the GOP primary?

David Brooks in the NY Times has an apt analogy on the presidential candidates that is right up my alley:

In the Marx Brothers movie that is the Republican presidential race, Mitt Romney is Zeppo. He doesn’t spin out one-liners. He’s not the rambunctious one. He’s just the earnest, good-looking guy who wants to be appreciated.

I became a Marx Brothers fan in middle school as part of a trend that my small group of friends fell into at the same time. Everyone wanted to think of themselves as Groucho, but we all knew the comedic values to the Italian wise cracker Chico and the silent miming of Harpo. Zeppo didn’t even really count in our minds, until one day when one of my friends said as much, noting that there is no reason for him to really even be there. Precocious little jerk that I was, I remember experiencing the “ah-ha” moment when I corrected them that Zeppo himself may not be important but “a” Zeppo is important. In fact – it’s crucial. I told them that for our purposes – everyone else is Zeppo. Meaning: because of the anchoring that the straight-man Zeppo provides, we have the liberty to run around being blunt to the point of rudeness (Chico), irresponsibly breaking things (Harpo) and making inappropriate sexual advances that are covered up by frank and stylized speech (Groucho).

For us – Zeppo was our teacher or parents or adults in general, slash, society at large.

For the Republican primary, it’s Zeppo takes the form of one Willard “Mitt” Romney.

But Romney continues to run an impressive presidential campaign. Last week, while the Twitterverse was entranced by Herman Cain, Romney delivered his most important speech yet. It was politically astute and substantively bold, a quality you don’t automatically associate with the Romney campaign. Romney grasped the toughest issue — how to reform entitlements to avoid a fiscal catastrophe — and he sketched out a sophisticated way to address it.

The speech was built around the theme that government should be simpler, smarter and smaller. First, he established his bona fides. Romney reminded his listeners that when he went to work at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, he inherited a $370 million deficit. He left behind a $100 million surplus that went into an endowment fund.

Then he argued that over the decades government has become bloated and lethargic. In World War II, the Navy commissioned 1,000 ships a year and had 1,000 employees in the purchasing department. Today, Romney said, we commission nine ships a year but have 24,000 employees in the department.

Romney then laid out a measured fiscal strategy, starting with a promise to bring federal spending down to 20 percent of gross domestic product, which is about the precrisis average. He then turned to entitlements.

In other words: While the wacky brothers make their mischief – the one who doesn’t appear as important on the surface and doesn’t get the fans of the genre excited is actually the rock that stabilizes the chaos.

John Huntsman Brings [awkward] Jokes and Cultural References to GOP Debate

Governor Huntsman is awesome at telling awkwardly delivered jokes at these GOP primary debates. He just told Governor Perry (Texas) that “Texas is not the gas capital of the country. Washington DC is”. Perry had no. freaking. clue. that that was a joke… I hope to get the video of this later. When you see Perry’s reaction shot you’ll know what I mean. dude did not catch the joke whatsoever. He thought it was a factual correction about natural gas. Reminded me of when Al Gore was on Oprah awhile ago and she asked him what his favorite cereal was and he thought he was being cute by saying “Oprah”… let that sink in for a second before I explain… Gore had thought she meant to ask his favorite “serial”, as in the old-timey name for a periodically broadcast program. oy.

But Huntsman has a less stiff background than Gore – played in a band, rides a motorcycle – that kinda nonsense – so idk why he doesn’t have a cooler presence than he does on TV.

This is the 3nd time a Huntsman joke to another debate participant fell flat* and the 2nd one to Perry. The first one was citing Mitt Romneys book “No Apologies” saying “I don’t know if that was by Curt Kobain or not”. -wtf? I later found out that Kobain had a song titled “all apologies”. The other was when he told Perry that Perry’s immigration stance “bordered on treason” with a smile. I was like wtf?? but read later on that it was an awkward reference to Perry calling something close to being treason earlier.
harr harr Huntsman.

Later in the debate Huntsman referenced businessman Hermain Cain’s 999 tax proposal (9% income tax, 9% sales tax & 9% business tax and NOTHING else) by saying at first he thought it was the price of a pizza. Get it!? Cain is the former CEO of Godfathers Pizza (a chain i’ve never heard of before this election) and $9.99 could be a pizza price! (in fact i read somewhere that it WAS a pizza price at Godfathers at some point while Cain was there). Oh Huntsman, you little scamp.

The only line that came close to Huntsmans chicanery was when Michelle Bachmann said of the 999 plan that the devil is in the details and to turn it upside down (which makes it 666, the mark of the beast). nice.

I like that they used the coffee table from The View for this one to make the tone more conversational and less “people standing at podiums”.

Beyond that, it’s kindov boring. Huntsmans bad lines were the highlight.