Needlenose

Unattributed photoshop, tip ‘o the Nose to Cannibal Buddy!

I wrote at my part-time gig elsewhere last week:

The frightening upshot of Mitt Romney’s clear path to the Republican nomination for the White House is that it might as well be the fall of 2012 right now.

Making full use of their respective, nearly limitless warchests, both the Romney and Obama campaigns will spend the next ten months carpet-bombing each other in the media in hopes of framing the presidential race in their favor.

Recognizing that the general election campaign was indeed about to begin, however mind-numbingly early, both sides spent the past few days test-driving their respective spins–specifically, with regard to Romney’s corporate-vampire past.  On Wednesday, Romney took this tack (via TPM):

QUESTIONER: Did you suggest that anyone who questions the policies and practices of Wall Street and financial institutions, anyone who has questions about the distribution of wealth and power in this country, is envious? Is it about jealousy, or fairness?

ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on 99 percent versus one percent, and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent, you have opened up a wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God.

Here, Mitt is betting on a long-recognized characteristic that has benefited Republicans: working-class voters can be coaxed into sympathy for policies that favor the wealthy because they personally aspire to be (or, at least, idly wish they were) wealthy themselves.

Obviously, Team Obama’s riposte sought to push a much different frame:

Our economic crisis and endemic income inequality were caused in large part by a few who put profits over people. Taking advantage of an uneven playing field, where there was one rulebook for those at the top and another for everyone else, Mitt Romney and his friends made money hand over fist while working families lost their grip on the middle-class lifestyle they earned.

Between now and November the American people will decide whether to respond to this crisis by electing a corporate raider who profited from – and promises to restore – the conditions that caused it…

Underneath this verbiage aimed at creating or destroying sympathy for the GOP economic agenda, there will be a more basic conflict at play: how good or bad the economy actually is as 2012 progresses, and whether voters think Romney has any real ability to make things better.

President Obama’s ability to influence the former is almost over, leaving the latter as the major issue to fight about.  An email from Obama strategist David Axelrod to Greg Sargent provides an interesting hint about this:

Last week [Romney] said “productivity equals income.”

But the point is, it hasn’t for the typical American worker over the last three decades, and, particularly, over the last decade.

This is the central challenge of our time, and he doesn’t get it.

That’s a surprisingly wonky way to define a “central challenge” for a political campaign, but there’s a reason for it.  The underlying message from Romney’s side is going to be, you may not like me or even think I’m ethical, but I know how the world of money works — and I can use that knowledge to get the economy going again.

Judging from Axelrod’s email, Team Obama has a different take.  They think Romney’s flat, obviously scripted rhetoric shows (and, more importantly, will continue to show voters) that he doesn’t really get how the economy works… which opens the door for all the suspicions about only being interested in enriching himself through a rigged system.

In short, Axelrod et al. think they can win the race by betting on Romney to expose himself as not much brighter than Rick Perry or Sarah Palin.  Might not be a bad plan.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake. Thanks to Greg Sargent for the shout-out!)

Now that Ron Paul is being taken semi-seriously by the Repug base, he is softening his crazy-ass positions to accommodate popular programs.   Quoth the Libertarian Loony:

“It’s not constitutional, but I wouldn’t put that on the list [of things to eliminate],” he said. “You know, if we want a perfectly free society, you can’t wave a wand and get everything you want. So you have to work our way out of this.”

This guy would get chewed up and spat out by Congress.  Hard to believe that he’s made it even this far!

I think McCain is onto something in predicting the rise of a third political party in the U.S.  I’ve been musing about the subject for several months now, and I reckon that neither party are providing the voters with what they are clearly clamoring for – an old school populist willing to tax wealthy individuals and corporations who is socially reactionary.  Basically a pre-Robert Kennedy Democrat (or a guy like Ahmadinejad).

Such a beast could never get a nomination from the socially progressive Democratic party of today nor the corporate tool Republican party, so only a third party is plausible.  I don’t think any serious politician has either gotten this realization yet.  But I don’t think it would be too late for a dark horse Southerner with good hair, a little charisma and the balls to step out on his own to enter and pull the win from Obama.  If I could venture a name, I’d say somebody like Mike Huckabee, but he’d have to do is drop his new-found Tea Party pandering and add ‘Government’ to his “God, Guns ‘n Gays’ talk.

Keep in mind I’m not advocating this in any shape manner or form, as I particularly hate social reactionaries.  I’m just sayin’.

*Update 3:26P PT* Rep. Joe Walsh doesn’t get it

Okay, it wasn’t exactly betting on the Cardinals to win the World Series when they were still 5 games short of a playoff spot in mid-September, I’ll admit that.  But I wrote elsewhere three weeks ago that Herman Cain’s rivals for the GOP presidential nomination were due to turn up the heat against him, and it should be clear now what I meant.  And to boot, I wasn’t far off the mark with my lame joke educated guess that the insinuations against him would be sexual in nature.

However, the surfacing of past sexual harassment complaints against Cain hasn’t hurt him in the polls yet, which has surprised a lot of folks (including me) because Cain’s initial support seemed so soft.  And perhaps I haven’t watched the Republican presidential contest closely enough — don’t blame me; I’ve always been squeamish about seeing car wrecks — but Cain hasn’t seemed to demonstrate the kind of extraordinary charisma or resonant message you’d think he would need for voters to rally around him.

Maybe it’s not about Cain, though.  It could just be that the ever-more-delusional right-wing base has decided that this moment is as good as any to make a firm stand against reality, once and for all.  Or perhaps Cain supporters’ instincts toward denial have been helped by the fact that the charges against him are still essentially anonymous, and therefore an abstraction.

The question now is, what (if any) shoe is going to drop next?  Longtime observers of the politics of personal destruction know that once the amorphous issue of “character” has been raised regarding a candidate, all sort of follow-up allegations suddenly are treated as newsworthy, even if by themselves they would have been ignored.  And if someone scheming against Cain gift-wrapped the harassment “scoop” for Politico without one or more sequels ready to be released, then Republican political campaigns really have declined in quality.

Or perhaps there is a slowly unspooling plan to put a face to the current allegations… preferably, from the standpoint of Cain’s rivals, one that not only can survive the inevitable blowback but also triggers the primordial fears (“He’s after our daughters!”) and resentments of the GOP electorate.

Failing that, the camps of Romney, Perry et al. will have to hope that Cain engages in current behavior that accomplishes the same goal.  And, frankly, given the elevated levels of hubris that may intoxicate an inexperienced candidate who begins to believe he’s invulnerable — to the point where he starts to boast about his alleged vulnerabilities — that might not be such a surprising development.  When you think you’re getting away with something, why not keep doing it?

(Adapted from a post at Firedoglake.)

With Halloween coming up on Monday, there’s going to be a lot of grown-ups attending masquerade parties this weekend. Which, unfortunately, has meant a lot of long, last-minute lines in crowded costume stores — including the one in Washington, D.C., where all the Republican presidential candidates went shopping earlier this week.

As you might expect, they all wanted to dress up as Ronald Reagan, but someone had already snatched that up before the GOP contenders got there… and things just got uglier as they all scrambled for other choices.

Michele Bachmann took the easiest route, deciding to go as Bat Boy.

Jon Huntsman settled for being the Invisible Man.  (Some thought Tim Pawlenty did, too, but it turned out he didn’t stay long enough to buy a costume.)

All of his fellow candidates wanted Ron Paul to be the Invisible Man, but he kept asking if he could be Ross Perot.  Amid all the crosstalk, he wound up as Perot’s crazy aunt in the basement.

Sarah Palin, who showed up even though she isn’t running, opted for Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.

Herman Cain decided to go as Sarah Palin, but people are just beginning to figure that out.

Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich both wanted to be Elmer Gantry, which resulted in a terrible fight where they tore the costume in half.  Perry completed his outfit with a cowboy get-up once worn by George Bush — and when he worried people might recognize it, he dyed a Jimmy Carter wig to put on top of it all.  Newt combined his half with a science-fiction robot costume.

Mitt Romney took the same concept way too far, stitching together pieces from so many different costumes that no one really knows who he’s trying to be.

(Adapted from a post at Firedoglake.  Tip of the ‘Nose to Green Boy for his suggestions!)

I have bad news for all of you election/schadenfreude junkies out there… like all good things, Newt Gingrich Humiliation Week is drawing to a close.  Yes, there may be a few last sparks from whatever Sunday talkfest Newt is gracing with his presence this weekend, and he’ll continue trudging through the small towns of New Hampshire and other early primary/caucus states next week.  Between the media’s gnat-like attention span and a presumed (if woefully late) improvement in message discipline by Gingrich and his press secretary, though, most of the fun probably has already been had.

The good news, however, is that starting Monday, it will be Tim Pawlenty‘s turn in the barrel… with Michelle Bachmann lining up a possible announcement toward the end of the week, and Jon Huntsman claiming dibs for sometime in June.

It’s downright considerate for the Republican presidential wannabes to present themselves to the public like this — one after the other, close together but evenly spaced like… um, well, like the revolving ducks in a shooting gallery.

Which probably isn’t how they envisioned it, of course.  Given the amount of hubris involved in thinking one has a shot at the White House, the candidates and their staffs likely imagine it as more like scheduling the big opening weekend of a Hollywood movie.  You know, the kind of thing where you want to have the spotlight of public attention all to yourself.

Unfortunately, running for the GOP presidential nod isn’t quite like that.  It means subjecting yourself to the crossfire of multiple litmus tests, struggling to differentiate yourself from your competitors even as you all pander to the same interest groups, practicing your dog-whistle techniques… in short, advertising your unlimited affection for the fiercest lunacies of your party’s base (a group with more collective resentments than common sense) while trying to simultaneously hide it from any sane voters who may be watching.

No wonder it goes so badly for so many of them.

(Cross-posted at Firedoglake.)

Some early reactions from various parties to the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death:

Sean Hannity, Fox News: “What we want to know here at Fox, is ‘Why did it take Obama three years to catch him?’”

Donald Trump: “”I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of him”

Tea Party Nation head & Birther Judson Phillips: “How do we know it’s really Osama Bin Laden?  We demand that he produce see long form death certificate!”

Apple Spokesperson Lynn Fox: “See?  We told you that retaining your locational information was a good thing!  Osama sure loved his iPhone!”

Got any more?

*Update 5/2/11* Checked out Redstaters.  In spite of their happiness in the killing of their great BugBear, they can’t help but throw in some spite, first with a slap at us for “the relentless drumbeat of “war crimes” for those who did so much of the long and lonely work to make this possible.”  Academic Elephant, the “war crimes” were perpetrated by Shrubya for invading a country in contravention of international law that had absolutely nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden (as well as war crimes shit like not protecting the Iraqi antiquities museum, National Library, letting folks raid uranium out of the Tuwaitha Reactor .  Dumbass.  His pal streiff can’t help himself, he has to take a swipe at Code Pink, whom, he presumes, will hold a “take back the night march’ some place to mourn his passing.”  Asshole.  streiff’s big fear now?  That Obama will use this as the justification to close down Guantanamo.  I guess streiff was too lazy or blinded by ideology to notice that Osama was located through classic intelligence work, not through another 100 waterboardings of  Khalid Shaikh Mohammed or Osama Bin Laden’s driver.

*Update 5/2/11, 5:10P* spoke with a reactionary co-worker, who echo’d streiff’s sentiments – he claimed that intelligence gleaned from Gitmo was responsible for locating Bin Laden.  I guess for conservatives, old-fashioned intelligence work just isn’t as sexy as waterboarding and ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’

*Update 5/4/11* Heh Fox had to find something to criticize.  Shep Smith floats a trial (leaden) balloon that Obama’s operation was illegal.  I thought reactionaries loved violent action and results by enemy means necessary?  I guess the Wrong Wing Wurlitzer is throwing shit on the wall looking for something that will stick to nay say Obama’s achievement.  There is always a backlash, this will just be hard for them to spin.

Peter Grier of the Christian Science Monitor muses that a Trump/Palin ticket could be the GOP ‘winning ticket’ in 2012, presumably with Trumpo the Magnificent appealing to the Looney Libertarian branch of the party with Palin appealing to the Gods, Guns & Gays crowd.

Great thinking, Peter, except that they’d probably kill each other in the argument over whether it would be Trump/Palin or Palin/Trump in 2012…

Still, a great opportunity to pull out the old ‘Superhero’ creation tool

After the Repug Congressional victories in 2010, lots of Dems figured Obama was going down in 2012.  Sure, things didn’t break well for the man and his party.  ”But it’s too soon to predict defeat…,” I’ve been telling my liberal buddies, “…let’s see what fur-balls get coughed up by the GOP for 2012!”  And here they are:

Donald Trump!

Does he really thing the GOP base is gonna vote for a loud-mouthed rich New Yorker with bad hair?  You suck as bad as your failed Atlantic City casino!

Mitt Romney

Even more ludicrous – no Fundee is gonna vote for a Mormon, and the Tea Baggers are bound to confuse RomneyCare with ObamaCare.

Sarah Palin

Sarah who?  Your wave crested years ago – that sucking sound you hear is the undertow carrying you back into the depths of political non-entity.

Mike Huckabee

Dude, you suck charisma from the room!

Michele Bachmann

At least Bat Boy was cute!  It never ceases to amaze me that you can keep get *anybody* to vote for you!