So says Romney partisan Jennifer Rubin:
Why has the Obama team been publicly wailing about losing out to Mitt Romney in the money race? Why would the president accuse his opponent of not merely being wrong or unqualified but criminal? After all, the polls are tied, so why so much worry in Obamaland?
Like a mystery novel, the answer is in front of our noses: The candidates are still tied in the polls.
Luckily, even a panicking President can still find time for golf.
Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh"
E-mail: Just use my moniker Patterico, followed by the @ symbol, followed by gmail.com
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I tried to put this up this morning but the Internet was out. Apologies for the silence so far today.
Patterico (feda6b) — 7/16/2012 @ 5:18 pmObama is turning the entire executive branch into a criminal enterprise.
He has gone from ordering Federal employees to not defend the law (DOMA), to not enforce the law (immigration), to break the law (welfare unreform).
Obama is the lawbreaker-in-chief.
Amphipolis (e01538) — 7/16/2012 @ 5:30 pmI don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.
We are still in a war…or some facsimile thereof.
Aside from that, is the president in a) denial about Romney being tied with him in most polls, or b) just that smug in July about taking it in November; or c) does he believe he just as to sit pretty until Bain buries Romney?
Dana (292dcf) — 7/16/2012 @ 5:33 pmHe says people succeed because of government-provided roads, schools, and police.
Well then I don’t get why long-time Democratic/liberal run inner cities fail so catastrophically, where businesses have to provide their own security and educate their own workforce. At least they have expensive, subsidized public transit and bike lanes.
Amphipolis (e01538) — 7/16/2012 @ 5:47 pmCheck out the historical re-elect numbers for incumbents who stand at less than 50% the June prior to election. HINT: almost never.
Ed from SFV (3b0f25) — 7/16/2012 @ 5:57 pm“If you got a business, you didn’t build it. Somebody else made it happen.”
– President Barack Hussein 0bama
Is anyone who frequents this blog surprised? He’s just revealing his core beliefs and most of us already know what he’s all about.
Colonel Haiku (ef9f3a) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:03 pmWell then I don’t get why long-time Democratic/liberal run inner cities fail so catastrophically, where businesses have to provide their own security and educate their own workforce. At least they have expensive, subsidized public transit and bike lanes.
Excellent point, Amphipolis. Electing liberal Democrats to run ANYTHING is a recipe for disaster. EPIC FAIL for decades now.
Colonel Haiku (ef9f3a) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:05 pmrubble all around
Colonel Haiku (ef9f3a) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:20 pmteh Big Brains in Chicago
work of genius?
I can smell flop sweat
Colonel Haiku (ef9f3a) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:22 pmand hear lib gnashing of teeth
from my veranda
One and he’s Done!
Colonel Haiku (ef9f3a) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:22 pmno gold watch… just a large, hand-held mirror to admire himself in.
Colonel Haiku (ef9f3a) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:24 pmTeh Bamster is just upset dat The Mittster taint sharin’ farin’ wit da campaign contributions.
Icy (c1b9a9) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:29 pm“I tried to put this up this morning but the Internet was out. Apologies for the silence so far today.”
– Patterico
I don’t think anyone is going to fault you for that. We all have a sense of how much you have on your plate.
Leviticus (102f62) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:38 pmFrankly Obama’s been showing signs of panic for a couple of months. So have the rest of the democrats, by the way. If you’ve watched how he operated he doesn’t do well under pressure. He’s a thin-skinned prima donna with a political glass jaw.
Like all bullies he’s fine when dealing with people who can’t hit back. Like the SCOTUS justices at the SOTU speech. When they can hit back he can’t take it. He lashes out. How did he react to Fox news? How did he react to that reporter who tried to question him at an event.
He totally loses his cool. The press likes to call him “no drama Obama” but he’s nothing if not a drama queen.
I think we’re probably going to see him fall apart in the next couple of months. Of course the press will say it’s because the mean racist Romney and the mean racist “rethuglicans” got all mean and racist on him. By doing mean racist things like, oh, talking about his abysmal record at home and abroad. By fielding a candidate other than McRino. Who doesn’t know it’s actually mean and racist to run like you intend to win, because only mean racists would do that to our historic First Black/Gay President. The GOP candidate is supposed to lose gracefully.
Which means Romney is also likely a homophobe. Just like all the members of the Jim Crow Fan Club who’d actually vote for him.
Seriously, what do you think it says that the Congressional Black Caucus had to send it’s members out to terrorized black voters by saying the “rethuglicans” want to reintroduce slavery and the “lynching tree?” How long, really, did anyone imagine these clowns could go without accusing Romney personally of committing crimes.
I didn’t see the “Romney’s a felonious forger think coming, though.
I expected the accusations to have something to do with how Romney when he wasn’t assaulting young suspected homosexuals with scissors in High School he raped young hispanic girls to break their wills and force them to accept their fate as barefoot and pregnant Mormon brides on his grandparents Mexican rape hacienda. I believe I mentioned it on a previous comment thread a couple of months back. I still do expect it, actually. The campaign’s still young.
Did I mention the two party system is also racist as it has a disparate impact on women and minorities? Like Obama and Elizabeth Warren (D-Taxagewea), two candidates who are running for office this year who are being disparately impacted on both counts?
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:44 pm“After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical… but it is often true.”
0 should have paid more attention to Mr. Spock.
htom (412a17) — 7/16/2012 @ 6:48 pmSteve57,
I’m having a hard time buying that he’s gone into panic mode when he’s taking a day off the campaign trail to golf. Couple that with the fact that his golfing foursome did not include anyone who might help him with a leg up in any swing states.
I’m going with delusional smugness.
Dana (292dcf) — 7/16/2012 @ 7:31 pmYou can be tied in the polls and still have reasons to worry. Notable in most polls is the softness of Obama’s support and the intensity of the Republican desire to replace Obama.
Rasmussen has Obama’s approval rating at 47-52, which isn’t great, but far worse is that the strongly disapprove number of 41%, compared to a strongly approve number of 26%. Almost half of Obama’s supporters are lukewarm, while nearly 80% of his detractors feel strongly about it.
So, on the surface it looks close, but it isn’t. Which is good because it’s also existential.
Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 7/16/2012 @ 7:37 pmDana–I firmly believe he exists somewhere on a plane above it all. He thought the economy would heal itself, that Guantanamo would close itself, that the Mideast warring factions would fall in love with him, and now he thinks that the election will win itself. He was wrong on the first three and hopefully he’ll be wrong on the fourth. More and more I realize that he thinks things just happen rather than that he/people must make things happen. It’s easy to just play golf if you’re that out of touch with reality. No worries.
elissa (a7a5f1) — 7/16/2012 @ 7:43 pmI do think plenty of other national Dems and his union/green special interest donors and his campaign staff are in full panic mode though.
elissa (a7a5f1) — 7/16/2012 @ 7:48 pmThere’s a lot of truth in what you say, Dana. I think it’s fair to say that the Democrats around Obama or down ticket are panicking. Which was the point about the CBC’s fear mongering tour of a couple of months back. They actually worry that Obama’s been such a flop that Democrats can’t take the black vote for granted as traditionally has been the case.
Obama in his delusional smugness may think he can give the back of his hand to black voters with such signs of disdain as coming out for gay marriage while black voters overwhelmingly oppose it, or promising to give work permits to millions of illegal aliens while black unemployment hovers at something close to 20%. And maybe he’s right that a lot of them will vote for him personally, but that doesn’t help out other dems. Not that Obama cares about anyone but himself. But that knowledge, as well as his lack of urgency (as typified by his frequent golf games) scare the dickens out of other dems as Obama cluelessly wanders through the china shop breaking everything in his path.
But while I agree that Obama hasn’t gone into full blown panic mode, I do stand by my observation that he has demonstrated increasing signs of panic. Every once in a while reality seems to break into his fantasy world and rattle him. And it shows. Then of course after that brief flash of panic, when he realizes he is in trouble and that nothing in his life has prepared him for it, he reverts to delusional smugness.
His default setting.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/16/2012 @ 7:51 pmMaybe we should expect a sudden “leak” of Romney’s tax returns a few weeks before the election if there’s anything that can be made to appear questionable…and there probably is. It wouldn’t exactly be a shock if the Obama WH/campaign has already accessed them.
I hope the Romneyites have anticipated such a possibility and have a nuclear response prepared. I get the impression they would be caught flat footed and would give some kind of mechanical response, like “This is not what the American people want to hear about” instead of the correct response like “These returns were illegally obtained and leaked by the Obama administration and once again demonstrates the criminal nature of this administration”. Preferably Romney himself would say it with some genuine anger.
Gerald A (b00ac1) — 7/16/2012 @ 7:53 pmI don’t know if food stamp’s panicking but I’m sure as hell not going to vote for him.
There I said it.
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 7/16/2012 @ 7:57 pmGeraldA–I prefer to think that Romney has located and will “leak” some of President Obama’s mysterious old college transcripts, writings, recommendation letters or entrance exams. Romney wants to be President much more than John McCain did. I think Mitt is willing to fight harder for it, and that he has a few tricks up his sleeve that he’s saving, for closer to November.
elissa (a7a5f1) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:00 pmElissa, that’s always been the case. Obama thinks he makes things happen just by giving a speech. I’m sure that in Obamaland he’s convinced that he healed US-Muslim relations with his Cairo speech. That he changed the political tone by giving a speech about raising the tone of political discourse. That he saved the economy just by talking about his economic vision. That he weaned us off of foreign oil by talking about alternative energy.
It would come as a shock to him to discover that US-Muslim relations are at a historic low, that the economy is in the toilet, that he’s lowered the level of political discourse, that we’re more dependent on foreign oil because of him, etc.
And he’d probably think you were lying. I’m sure he can deliver a speech about it.
But things are off his to-do list and off his radar screen as soon as he speechifies on the subject.
What do you mean he doesn’t realize he has to make things happen? Things happen as soon as he mouths aloud the words that somebody places on his teleprompter about them. He’s addressed it. His job is done.
Now let him eat his waffle.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:02 pm“If you got a business, you didn’t build it. Somebody else made it happen.”
Barack, that election, you didn’t win it. You had the media avoid vetting you and then slobber all over you, that was 15 points for an inexperienced, empty-suit, platitude machine right there. You had ACORN and the other fraudulent vote generators and military vote suppressors, call them 2%.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:08 pmThe Problem In A Nutshell: Annualized GDP Growth Of 1%; Annualized US Debt Growth of 21%
Obama sure didn’t build it. He destroyed it. All of it.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:11 pmSteve57, the Canadians say that US-Canada relations are at historic lows too.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:11 pm#23
I doubt it. I think that would be a risky move. Even if they can get them nobody in the undecided column would care about those things IMO. It might even motivate some disillusioned Dems who are ambivalent about voting to get out to the polls.
It’s also not Romney’s style. It’s clear they think have a real good shot at winning on the economy and Obamacare. And he is a devout Mormon after all.
Gerald A (b00ac1) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:12 pmdaley–how many fence sitters who own businesses or have family members who created/ran/run businesses do you think Barack lost with that one (even for him) unbelievably outlandish and insulting barb?
elissa (a7a5f1) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:15 pmLiberals have to steal the credit for other people’s accomplishments as they have none of their own. Running every city, county, state, and now nation that they’ve ever been put in charge of isn’t an accomplishment they really want to talk about. So they’d rather claim the accomplishments that belong to successful people.
It’s fitting, really, as it’s just another form of thievery that they commit. And by first stealing the credit for other people’s success due to their own hard work, they can move onto the real objective. Stealing the money.
And feeling good and justified when they do it. Because they’re owed the money for all the things they did to create that business that they had nothing to do with. Until they realized it was ripe for a good looting.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:18 pmSome of the words I type seem to be entering that alternate dimension that my dryer sends my socks off into.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:20 pmI think Dog is torn. On the one hand he is so certain of his magnificence that he’ll prove it so to his last breath; on the other he’s relieved to find himself star-crossed and looks forward to retirement.
Today we got more good news from Wall St. JPMorgan-Chase is now implicated in mispricing hundreds of billions(USD) in CDS. The watchdogs obviously knew since 2003 or so.
JPM is known bad actor in MFGlobal, PFG and CIO now, pillaging $10 Billion and now this.
The bond market is weeks from melt-down as the SEC, CIO, BBA and US Treasury are all fingered as thieves.
Anti-incumbent fury will surpass 2010. He’d better start worrying, more than taking Hispanic’s flatware and ducking the Brothers.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:21 pm“daley–how many fence sitters who own businesses or have family members who created/ran/run businesses do you think Barack lost with that one (even for him) unbelievably outlandish and insulting barb?”
elissa – It’s not just those people, Obama was demeaning the entire U.S. Roads and bridges don’t just appear out of the sky with a wave of the government’s hand. They are financed by taxes paid from the income of people with jobs or savings. I wonder if Obama knows where the electricity in the White House comes from. It doesn’t come from the government, or at least I don’t think it does. It comes from private businesses.
Roads and bridges would not even be built if there was not a demand because of commerce and because people wanted to move around. Obama has the equation backward.
People understand that they pay taxes to the government for essential services, mostly to their state and local governments. Complaints about federal government spending aren’t about bridges and roads. Those are a tiny fraction of overall spending. First Obama demeans the achievements of Americans and them he assumes you are dumb by presenting a false argument.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:33 pm________________________________________________
“If you got a business, you didn’t build it. Somebody else made it happen.”
Even for Obama that was an astonishingly ultra-liberal, super socialistic thing to say. So much so, I went back to re-read the passages above and below that sentence, thinking the full context may have been misconstrued.
There’s a tiny possibility that the “somebody else” was in reference to the creators of roads and highways — which people have to use to get to a business — and the speech writer got it all garbled. But given Obama’s overall record — given the significance of his embracing “goddamn America” rhetoric for almost 20 years — I don’t think Obama deserves that much benefit of the doubt.
If anything, that portion of the speech reflects his true, Bill-Ayers-draped colors, and if there was a mistake in its composition, it would be due to Obama and his writer inadvertently not camouflaging it to make it less blatantly Socialistic.
Mark (006b08) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:43 pmOf course, the liberals will say that a business succeeds because the government built roads and infrastructure.
But all businesses have those roads and infrastructure to use, and relatively few businesses succeed.
If you’ve got a business that’s successful, it is successful for one reason only: you’ve found a way to supply the public with a commodity it wants at a price it is willing to pay. The government didn’t do that, you did it.
Chuck Bartowski (99415f) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:47 pm==you didn’t build it. Somebody else made it happen.”==
Let’s all remember this line the next time Barack reminds us that HE got Osama Bin Laden.
elissa (a7a5f1) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:53 pm“Let’s all remember this line the next time Barack reminds us that HE got Osama Bin Laden.”
Double Heh!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:54 pmStarting with that assumption plus presenting false arguments has added up to election day success for democrats since the New Deal.
So while I hold a great deal against The Won, I can’t hold this against him. Look at his die hard supporters. He doesn’t need to assume they’re dumb. He can know it with a certainty.
He can call them xenophobic racists, and they’ll still vote for him. He can tell them to their face that they’re too stupid to succeed on their own, and they’ll agree with him. And thank him and the other democrats for affirmative action or whatever government program they attribute their success to.
Where he and other liberals make their mistake is by extrapolating from the fact that their own core constituencies own admission that they really are stupid racists who are too dumb to lead their own lives to conclude that all voters are too dumb to lead their own lives. And it’s a sign of even greater stupidity that those other voters haven’t been able to accept the fact they need the democrats and their nanny state to move in and make all the important decisions for them.
Remember that condescending add about the life of Julia? How Julia needs the benevolent hand of government in her life in the form of ObamaCare, as without it she’d never figure out how to obtain birth control or an abortion.
And Mitt Romney wants to take away her ObamaCare, thus punishing her by saddling her with a child. We all know that mean, racists, and especially mean Mormon racists, love punishing women with children. And they’d get away with it, too, if the Democrats weren’t there to protect vulnerable women from the evil rethuglicans.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:54 pmMost small b owners are republican. Years back the sba and the Irs asked party questions the Congress alarmed at the disparity killed the studies
Ericpwjohnson (e4e3a6) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:55 pm“So while I hold a great deal against The Won, I can’t hold this against him. Look at his die hard supporters. He doesn’t need to assume they’re dumb. He can know it with a certainty.”
Steve57 – I don’t think the point of the election is for Romney to win over Obama’s die hard supporters or for Obama to win over Romney’s die hard supporters so I fail to see the point of your rant.
If Obama is insulting a good chunk of undecided American voters, that’s a fail in my book.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/16/2012 @ 8:59 pmIt’s an ironic claim for liberals to make, Obama in particular, as right now a lot of business are failing due their idiotic infrastructure ideas.
You try getting traffic to your business when one of Obama’s Porkulus-funded road construction projects has torn up the street in front of the strip mall where your business is located. To the point where people can’t even get into the parking lot. Or where these genius pols have figured out that what their city needs is a light rail system. So they tear up the street in front of your shop.
And that street stays torn up as the make-work project that’s really a sop to the unions drags on for years. And your former customers get accustomed to the detours that route them away from the construction. And your business.
And now these genius lib pols want the business community to thank them for this nonsense.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:08 pmThis president is a triple bogey.
mg (44de53) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:09 pmI’ve played 1 round in the last 2 years, thanks to obamanomics.And f.u. obama you lazy piece of shit.
I have this idea for an ad:
(Obama [stock photo at golf course] looking towards green), voiceover, with subtitles: I HOPE I can make this shot.
Shift to:
(Obama handing golf club to caddie and being handed another by caddy) I think I’ll CHANGE clubs.
nk (875f57) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:12 pmHeh. Pretty good, nk.
Dana (292dcf) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:15 pmSteve57, I know someone in central Denver whose business is being impacted by a project on Broadway. Utter devastation to their business this year as the project is taking months, and completely blocking access to their business.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:21 pmI’m going with delusional smugness.
Comment by Dana — 7/16/2012 @ 7:31 pm
Yep.
Golfing while the US burns. I can’t wait till this [expletive deleted] is gone from that office.
no one you know (1b481d) — 7/17/2012 @ 3:54 amObama is employing his stock straw man.
He is arguing that his opponents do not acknowledge any role for or credit to government. No, that’s the view of his Occupy supporters, not of conservatives.
We can accept the legitimate role of the (primarily local) government institutions Obama cites, while decrying the spread of the illegitimate, corrupt, and unsustainable central socialist style government Obama advocates.
Even the necessary government roles Obama trumpets completely fail in historically Democratic areas. What we demand is good government, not no government.
Amphipolis (d3e04f) — 7/17/2012 @ 5:53 amObama cites the debt we owe to police – and the occupy protesters wonder when you should shoot a cop.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/alleged-flyer-at-occupy-phoenix-ponders-when-should-you-shoot-a-cop/
And, as a bonus, see the KILL COPS photos:
Amphipolis (d3e04f) — 7/17/2012 @ 6:40 amhttp://www.theblaze.com/stories/fu-the-police-occupiers-celebrate-4th-of-july-march-by-burning-american-flags-and-vandalizing-police-property/
It’s a common story. Like in real estate in general, the 3 keys to a lot of business types are location, location, location. Particularly in retail and restaurants, you need to be where the customers are. Then you’ll get traffic. I’ve seen countless restaurants, for instance, fail at the same locations. Because they’re not convenient.
Nothing turns your business location from desirable to inconvenient like a road or light rail project tearing up the road in front of your place. Particularly light rail, as often even when it is completed (if you can survive that long) the traffic never comes back. Because some cities will close the street to motor vehicle traffic.
A lot of customers just won’t walk out of their way to continue patronizing a business they used to be able to drive to. And the light rail won’t bring in customers because hardly anyone ever uses them. In most cities light rail is subsidized by the entire tax base, but used only by a small minority of people who have some sort of lobbying clout.
Talk about opportunity costs; that money could have done a lot more good for more people had it been spent on something else. Then the cherry on top is the havoc the project wreaks on local businesses. Even if they don’t go out of business entirely, they have to let workers go as they simply don’t have the business to justify employees.
It would be interesting to see a study (an honest one, if that’s possible) to see how many jobs have been lost due to Obama’s ARRA projects. I’m sure it is considerable. But we’ll never get an honest accounting from the Obama administration. The head of the CBO has stated they don’t ever attempt to count actual jobs “created.” They have a computer program with certain assumptions built in about the multiplier effect of stimulus spending. A modified version of the program that predicted how if the feds spend X amount of dollars, the government would create Y numbers of jobs. So they modified it to spit out how many jobs the government had created by spending all those billions of dollars.
In other words, garbage in, garbage out. They haven’t created the jobs they claim to. Which is why Obama wants to talk about his fictional “saved or created” number rather than the unemployment rate. And ARRA has contributed a lot to that unemployment rate.
But that’s cool with Obama because the only sure way he has to turn private sector workers into potential clients is to put them on food stamps and unemployment.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 7:45 amPower-Glutes Sullivan is now attacking Romney’s religion. Panic manifested and expressed in the form of hate.
Icy (c1b9a9) — 7/17/2012 @ 7:55 amIcy,
Attacks on Romney’s religion are a no-go and utterly hypocritical. Team Romney needs to bluntly point to Harry Reid and tell Obama camp/Sully etc. “This matters as much as it has mattered for Harry Reid” and shut it down immediately.
Dana (292dcf) — 7/17/2012 @ 8:29 am“True for thee, but not for me,” Dana. Reid’s Mormonism isn’t attacked because he’s an entrenched Democrat. Reid himself has said “I think it is much easier to be a good member of the Church and a Democrat than a good member of the Church and a Republican.” Politics before religion, or anything else — the hallmarks of a leftist.
Icy (c1b9a9) — 7/17/2012 @ 8:44 amdaleyrocks, the point of my rant is that insulting voters and presenting false arguments isn’t always a mistake. We know it consistently does work with the democratic party’s die hard supporters. Based upon the 2008 election we know that it can work even with the undecideds.
That’s how he got into office in the first place.
Basically the only reason many undecided voters call themselves independents is that they remain susceptible to the liberal bullying and fraud. Just not as consistently as liberal core constituencies. They don’t like being called racists, and they voted for King Putt once to prove that they aren’t.
Undecideds may not love Obama’s policies that made our bad situation worse at home and around the globe (and in some cases the situation wasn’t even bad until Obama got into office). In that sense they are different from liberal core constituencies who may not love Obama’s policies but only because they aren’t sufficiently leftist.
But independents can be herded to vote for Obama by the bullying. That the only reason they dislike his policies is that Obama’s black and they’re racists. It worked once.
Liberals don’t have a lot of tricks up their sleeves. Intimidation, fear mongering, and false arguments are pretty much it.
It’s a mistake for them to have no other tactics to win elections. And they may just go completely off the deep end this cycle. The signs are there.
But the point of my earlier rant is that those three tactics have worked for them in the past. And I expect it to work for them again in the future.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it won’t work this time; that it’s a mistake in 2012.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 8:47 amEarlier I quoted from a letter Benjamin Franklin wrote the London Times in 1766 on this thread about how LA County will pay for a four bedroom house if you qualify for the public assistance.
But that letter, On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor, also said quite a bit about what we’ve been discussing on this thread. Back then, they were abusing the producers of food, the farmers. Now “they,” the liberals, are abusing producers in general.
Progress. 250 years ago it was just farmers. Now everyone in the private sector is to be grudged the profits of honest labor.
Forward! As the socialists/the Obama campaign are inclined to say.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 9:10 am_______________________________________________
Basically the only reason many undecided voters call themselves independents is that they remain susceptible to the liberal bullying and fraud.
Many of them may also perceive themselves as being “centrists,” but that’s in the context of the mid-point of the socio-political spectrum having shifted leftward over the past several decades.
I was going over a poll taken recently by Pew Research, and based on their data, the overall mindset of a large portion of this country is quite liberal, if not leftwing. One glimpse of where we’re headed is evident in the example of the owner of this very blog being a supporter of same-sex marriage. Such shifts in opinion are not something I want to segregate or hold out as being somehow an “outlier.” That’s because I notice that when one major facet of a society becomes more liberal, it’s much easier for other aspects of that society to also shift left, including economics, etc.
Notice how the behavior of Bill Clinton in the White House several years ago now seems to be either far less shocking, or, worse, not shocking at all? IOW, the dumbing down associated with liberalism can be quite pernicious.
Based on such trends, we’re regrettably not all that different from, as one example, the French — who’ve recently decided that if it’s good enough for Greece, it’s good enough for them — if not Hugo-Chavez-ized Venezuelans.
This may not end too well.
Mark (006b08) — 7/17/2012 @ 9:34 am“That’s how he got into office in the first place.”
Steve57 – I disagree that’s how he got into office in the first place. The criminal lack of media vetting was a huge contributor. Even smart undecided voters I know were not willing to listen to arguments about what an empty suit, radical leftist he was because they were not seeing it confirmed anywhere publicly. Anybody willing to do the research could see that his favorite agenda items in the Illinois State Senate became the favorite agenda items of his presidency and from tacking left in the primaries to beat Hillary and to a pretend center position to beat McCain was complete posturing.
His background was largely suppressed in 2008 and his campaign tried to focus on vacuous platitudes about the future, apart from blaming Bush for the woes of the world. The 2012 campaign has been negative from the start.
I think you are presenting a false comparison.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/17/2012 @ 9:43 amI think you are presenting a
Don’t assume Obama needs actual votes to win reelection, that’s so yesterday.
But voting is useful, we have computers to keep track of the adverse behavior of pushy little people now, and these destructive insects will get a dose of social justice when the time comes.
ropelight (ab1ebe) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:19 amdaleyrocks, I think you’re discounting just how effective the constant accusations of racism are.
It’s proven to be an effective multi-use tool. By accusing Republicans of racism they keep a great number of black voters from even considering GOP candidates or ideas. It wasn’t new in 2008; in earlier contests democratic-affiliated groups printed campaign literature associating Republicans with burning black churches.
In 2008 it was a useful bludgeon to intimidate white voters to vote for Obama to prove they weren’t one of those racist Republicans.
No one conducts polls on this. At least not polls that are intended to inform the public of the results. But I know, having by told by very liberal black friends and co-workers, that self-appointed black leaders very effectively maintain the siege mentality among blacks. There are very few traitors from the cause; indeed, you only ever hear the concept of the “race traitor” openly discussed these days among blacks. Or epithets to that effect, like “Uncle Tom,” “house n****r, or “oreo.” This is why the CBC sent its members on its fear-mongering tour. Obama and the Democrats in general are in trouble with the voters, and they need every vote they can get.
Even black leaders like the head of the CBC have said if this were any other President they’d be marching on the WH in protest. That’s how much of a disaster he’s been. But it isn’t any other President. It’s the Historic First Black President, so they have to maintain the siege mentality to make sure that black voters turn out to support him. If they can’t whip up enthusiasm for Obama, then fear will do.
I also know that the accusations were effective on white voters as well. Particularly in concert with the fact that the media went along with the fraud and reported, as you put it, “simple platitudes” rather then vet him. Of course, my term for the simple platitudes would be false arguments.
But while the information about who Barack Obama really was and is was available to anyone who wished to look, the constant harangue from the media (and openly encouraged by the Obama administration) that the only reason whites wouldn’t vote for Obama was racism discouraged them from looking. Many people were convinced that if they even had the desire to dig into his background that would be evidence of their own racism. So they didn’t. They’ll vote for an empty suit to prove they’re not racist.
We’re not talking about people who are inclined to spend too much time learning about candidates or issues in any case. As Mark points out they consider themselves “centrists.” For most such people, that involves just splitting the difference. Which means moving ever leftward, just not as quickly as the true believers of the left.
And I think you forget just how nasty the 2008 election was. I find it remarkable that such a divisive political creature as Barack Obama could be sold to the public as a “uniter” who’d bring us together.
He couldn’t even unite the Democratic vote. He won the primary by less then a percentage point as I recall. Hillary! supporters still hate his guts. He didn’t help matters by accusing Billy Jeff of racism (yes, even then that was one of the few arrows in his quiver) and flipping off his primary opponents while pretending to be absent-mindedly scratching his head.
Every election Obama has been involved with has started off nasty and gotten worse. Of course, he tried to keep his hands clean and pretend he had nothing to do with it. But every once in a while the mask slips. That’s been happening more and more lately as he never had to run against his own record before.
I think the comparison is apt.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:34 am==Basically the only reason many undecided voters call themselves independents is that they remain susceptible to the liberal bullying and fraud.
Many of them may also perceive themselves as being “centrists,” but that’s in the context of the mid-point of the socio-political spectrum having shifted leftward over the past several decades==
For those who may think there are no real “independents” or “centrists” out there to be won or lost I beg to differ. I live in a centrist/independent congressional district — one that has been right leaning centrist for several decades– but each election seems to move a little farther left. The voters in the district for the most part are not sheep or lemmings. They are very involved and they contribute to campaigns. They very much lean toward the right when it comes to economic matters and free enterprise. They are “into” free speech issues. However they increasingly lean farther left on social issues though, and some of the language of the right turns them off. Every election the voters have to decide whether it’s the economic or national security or the social issues that weigh most heavily on their minds that year.
I’ve been around enough to know that my centrist district is different from many others. But there are surely others out in the land similar in composition to this one. For this reason I believe that what both the Obama and the Romney campaigns do, and how they present is still important. My sense is that in my district at least, the economic conditions, the rule of law, and righting and respecting the balance of power among the branches of government are predominant on voters’ minds right now and will influence their ballot box decision. Axelrod’s attacks on big bad business, his fomenting of class warfare, the insistence on tax increases, the gross misrepresentation of true economic conditions coupled with the obvious misuse/fraud of stimulus money are not playing well here. I agree with daley’s earler comment that “If Obama is insulting a good chunk of undecided American voters, that’s a fail in my book.”
elissa (9b41ee) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:41 am“daleyrocks, I think you’re discounting just how effective the constant accusations of racism are.”
I’m not, but how effective are they in the privacy of the voting booth. See “Bradley Effect.”
“And I think you forget just how nasty the 2008 election was. I find it remarkable that such a divisive political creature as Barack Obama could be sold to the public as a “uniter” who’d bring us together.”
Not really. Sure there nasty parts, but overall it was an aspirational, positive campaign. I think you are forgetting that. The real nastiness and divisiveness emerged the moment he took office and dropped the mask.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:57 amelissa, what do you think that comment by Obama last weekend indicates?
There are two kinds of people as far as big-government liberals are concerned. Those who’ve accepted the notion that they can’t succeed without government help at every step of the way. And are willing to acknowledge the debt they owe government. And those who are too stupid to realize they only succeeded due to government support, and are too stupid to acknowledge their debt to government.
Obama went on to say that entrepreneurs don’t succeed because they’re smarter or harder working than anyone else, or because of their own initiative. Implied of course is the notion that they’re not as smart as those who believe what he’s saying is true.
And that comment got cheers. He is insulting people, but among those he’s insulting are those in that audience who’ve accepted the fact of their own incompetence and ineptitude and consequently their lifelong dependence on others.
Of course, they don’t realize that. Just as many other people don’t realize he was insulting them along with business owners. There’s really not too much of a downside when the true magnitude of the insult flies right over the heads of a lot of the people being insulted.
As for your observations that centrists/independents in your area tend to be more fiscally conservative and socially liberal, I would say that supports the observations that I was making about them.
They are not dedicated socialists; unlike the core constituencies of the Democratic party they do not support these policies on principle.
But they are more susceptible to the bullying, fear-mongering, and false arguments than they’d like to admit. On economic issues it may seem worthwhile to spend time learning about them. The rubber obviously meets the road at some point. On other issues, where there is less of an obvious or immediate connection between cause and effect, not so much. Then over time the false arguments, or “vacuous platitudes” as daleyrocks puts it, has a cumulative effect. They’re never exposed to an actual counter-argument, but only the more or less obvious insinuation that whoever would make a counter-argument would only do so out of bigotry, mean-spiritedness, or hate.
Naturally, on such issues they drift ever leftward. And as the press proved during the 2008 election, many of them can be hurried along with sufficient pressure.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 11:17 amI think you should talk to a Hillary! supporter if you think the overall tone of the campaign was positive.
And no, I’m not forgetting the aspirational message. And for the most part Obama himself stayed on message, although he did slip enough times during the primary and general election campaigns to reveal he was personally a real piece of work. But a well-rehearsed, well-handled, well-telepromtered piece of work.
He had surrogates do the wet work. I just don’t distinguish between the candidate and the campaign. Either he was in charge of the campaign or he’s incompetent. Either one of those options should have been disqualifying.
But the empty, vague aspirational message was usually countered by the class warring, race baiting message. Sometimes it was subtle. Sometimes subtle like a brick but it was there.
Even at the time when he was promising to unite people and bring them together, he was clearly promising the kind of unity you find in a one-party state. The fact that he’s governed that way since taking office came as no surprise.
But you didn’t really need to dig into his background. You just needed to listen to what he was saying (often while giving his opponent the finger). Not just the aspirational, positive window dressing but also everything else. He told us what he’d turn out to be, if you listened to him.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 11:30 amI wrote a Letter to the Editor that was published Friday in the local rag, and I received an anonymous letter on Saturday. It computer printed by the local Democrap party, but addressed by some old fool who didn’t recopy the letter and put his name on it. Needless to say it was full of lies as it started out by claiming they were a Conservative Republican, but then quoted ever Democrap party talking point there is.
PCD (1d8b6d) — 7/17/2012 @ 11:39 am==They are not dedicated socialists; unlike the core constituencies of the Democratic party they do not support these policies on principle.
But they are more susceptible to the bullying, fear-mongering, and false arguments than they’d like to admit. On economic issues it may seem worthwhile to spend time learning about them. The rubber obviously meets the road at some point. On other issues, where there is less of an obvious or immediate connection between cause and effect, not so much. Then over time the false arguments, or “vacuous platitudes” as daleyrocks puts it, has a cumulative effect. They’re never exposed to an actual counter-argument, but only the more or less obvious insinuation that whoever would make a counter-argument would only do so out of bigotry, mean-spiritedness, or hate. Naturally, on such issues they drift ever leftward. And as the press proved during the 2008 election, many of them can be hurried along with sufficient pressure==
Steve57, I admire your obvious intelligence and frequently marvel at your knowledge on a wide range of topics. Sometimes, though there is a sense that you want to start an argument and for the life of me I can’t figure out why, or who it benefits. This is one of those times. In short, no, I don’t think my observations about my district do support your observations. Actually, it is clear to me that you do not recognize or understand the make-up of my congressional district at all. (Nor do I expect you to.)
One of the joys of reading and interacting with commenters on Patterico is learning from their experiences, pondering their observations, and gaining new insight about how people from other geographic and socio-economic areas of the USA approach the same issues– differently. I have learned much from the Cali guys and gals, from MD in Philly, from Dustin and DRJ who represent Texas, Galrud from up north, the Arizonans, the Virginians, and some of our frustrated Taxachusetts regulars, etc., etc. There is real complexity in crafting a national political campaign. It is not all one size fits all because not all Americans are one size fits all.
elissa (9b41ee) — 7/17/2012 @ 12:02 pm“I think you should talk to a Hillary! supporter if you think the overall tone of the campaign was positive.”
Steve57 – My focus was on the general election. Did you want to discuss the differences between the primary and general election campaigns between both parties or just one?
“He had surrogates do the wet work. I just don’t distinguish between the candidate and the campaign.”
“But you didn’t really need to dig into his background. You just needed to listen to what he was saying (often while giving his opponent the finger).”
Steve57 – There seems to be a conflict between the two immediately preceding statements. You suggest that all people needed to do was listen to what Obama was saying and that it was his surrogates who were doing the wet work. You are confirming what I said.
Think about how Obama was covered in the MSM, in orgasmic praise. Most viewers were only seeing a completely positive portrayal of Obama in edited media clips or analysis of his speeches. What outlets apart from Fox were presenting a balanced view? Seriously?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/17/2012 @ 12:02 pm“If you got a business, you didn’t build it. Somebody else made it happen.”
Steve57 – Still not seeing any network or major media coverage of that comment outside of Fox and ABC. CBS and NBC, the New York Times and Washington Post have not touched it. The MSM filtering effect continues that limits exposure of voters to the dark side of Obama.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/17/2012 @ 12:15 pmDaley- over at PowerLine they say Romney did a great speech today on this, and that the RNC has an ad out.
Perhaps Obama should be panicking:
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/17/2012 @ 12:34 pmhttp://dailycaller.com/2012/07/15/obamas-influential-communist-mentor/
Anyone paying attention knows that frank marshall davis was Obama’s mentor (per Obama himself) and a communist. This book has details. From excerpts that I’ve heard, there is very little that Obama has said that wasn’t first said by Marshall 60 years ago.
The one really does cater to our baser instincts, jealousy, covetousness, laziness, blame-shifting…
There is no coherent reasoning behind his presentation to the public, it’s all bait and switch
The coherency of his thinking is that he thinks he and his friends are superior to all and if only we gave them power over the world it would be a better place. We can’t make things happen, but they can, so why don’t we all smarten up and bow down…
If we had decent public education the last 50 years this guy would be laughed at.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/17/2012 @ 12:44 pmdaleyrocks, the MFM filtering does limit exposure to Obama’s dark side, perhaps, but it doesn’t eliminate it entirely. Nor did it in 2008.
Often the media fails to filter it effectively because they don’t see it, either. Just as Obama fails to realize it himself when he’s revealing it.
But it was there, nonetheless. The media though as like-thinking members of the group-think club wouldn’t notice when Obama said something that would be shocking to people who weren’t in the group-think club.
So it wouldn’t occur to them that when Barack Obama was talking about his bi-racial background and his unusual name as assets he was showing his dedication to identity politics and promising more of the same.
He was sold as post-racial and a uniter. But he couldn’t help but talk about his grandmother as a “typical white person” or take digs at people who wouldn’t vote for him because he didn’t look like those other presidents on dollar bills.
He was anything but post-racial; he was obsessed with race. But that slipped by the media censors.
How many times did he reveal his intention to indulge in class warfare, by promising things like raising the capital gains tax even if revenue went down as a result out of “fairness,” or promise to spread people’s wealth around? I lost track.
Those aren’t the only examples. I don’t see the contradiction between pointing out that he didn’t personally get blood on his hands by allowing his henchmen to do the really nasty work, and observing that despite that and quite unintentionally he revealed his true nature nonetheless.
And even during the campaign he employed his dishonest rhetorical techniques. Arguing for instance that everyone who was anyone working in the field under discussion (usually economics) agreed with him when they clearly didn’t. Or arguing against some strawman purported to be what others were saying, when no one was saying anything of the sort.
Of course it wasn’t just his speeches. It was his campaign website as well.
That he was a liar and a fraud was obvious even then. And you didn’t really need to know about his background; he was unintentionally revealing that fact in his own words at the time. Or often someone elses words scrolling across his teleprompter and on his website.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 1:04 pmIt is not all one size fits all because not all Americans are one size fits all.
— Well, there is Madonna.
Icy (c1b9a9) — 7/17/2012 @ 1:06 pmRidiculing Obama’s you didn’t build it speech.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/17/2012 @ 1:26 pmNo, elissa, you’re right. Which is why I’m not generalizing about all centrists/independents/undecideds in your district. Or even about your district at all.
I’m talking about a certain sort of centrist/undecided voter, which I think you can find in just about any part of the country. I’ve certainly run across them.
The economic conservative/social liberal who puts more time and effort into understanding economic issues but not much into social issues. Because the economy will have a direct effect on his or her life, while it’s difficult to see what effect changes in social policy will have.
Consequently while they can see whether or not the economic policy if having the desired effect based upon evidence in their own lives, the situation with social policies are far more ambiguous. As a result, if any false argument is destined to succeed it’s more likely the ones on social issues.
I think it’s fairly obvious that all the false arguments the media pushes have a decidedly leftist tilt. In neither case does the media give the counter-argument any serious coverage, if they even acknowledge their is a counter-argument. But only in the case of economic policy can you see the effects in any sort of discernable way. So the false argument fails under that circumstance more frequently.
The problem is that many centrists have to wait for a policy to fail and see the results before they can come up with an argument on their own. I think conservatives definitely have the advantage in that we have historical proof that the leftist policy is a bad idea and shouldn’t be implemented in the first place. Which is why I was quoting Ben Franklin earlier from his comments in 1766. Human nature just hasn’t changed in that time; what didn’t work then won’t work now.
I think a classic example of this sort of centrist would have been D.D. Eisenhower. He met with Krushchev on several occasions, and the Soviet premiere would harangue him on the virtues of communism and the evils of capitalism. On at least one occasion Eisenhower commented that it was hard to argue against that.
No, it isn’t. And an American President certainly ought to be able to make that argument. That Eisenhower couldn’t make it doesn’t mean there was no argument to be made. History proves that communism, like so much of leftist ideology, is based upon false premises and advanced using false arguments. But Eisenhower had never been exposed to the argument against communism, nor the argument for capitalism, and he apparently didn’t even know one already existed.
I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Ike. So I’m certainly not insulting him. But I also believe that many centrists are in the same boat. And the uncertainty they experience in these sorts of situations lead them to back down more easily than if they’re prepared to poke holes in the opposition’s case.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 1:34 pmComment by SPQR — 7/17/2012 @ 1:26 pm
That link is great, well done for someone to get on that.
But it just occurred to me that if you use the “libs always project” key to interpretation, his comment is perfectly rational.
He didn’t become a Leftist all on his own.
He didn’t win an Ill. state senate seat, he had people invalidate the signatures on his opponents forms.
He didn’t win a US senate seat, he had someone make sealed divorce proceeding of his opponent public, forcing him to drop out.
He didn’t win the US presidency, at least by being qualified.
He didn’t ruin the economy, it was GWB.
See, it makes sense, once you get the right frame of reference…
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/17/2012 @ 2:54 pm“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Dr. K says this about that:
“Spoken by a man who never created or ran so much as a candy store.
And it’s completely a straw man argument — as if conservatives and Republicans are arguing to disband the fire department and the police department so we can all do it individually on our own. The idea that infrastructure is necessary and good is as old as the republic. It’s older than that. The Romans had the Via Appia and that wasn’t exactly a new idea. And they had the sewers as well.
The question is: What do you do with the money once you build the infrastructure? You heard Obama talking about the moon shot. … in that speech. He went through a list of the great achievements that the government has done. The moon shot. Well, Obama’s the guy who shut down the moon program — manned space program so that today we have to outsource our access into space. For any American astronaut who wants to go to the space station we have to pay the Russians $50 million a shot.
He spoke about the invention of the Internet, which he neglected to say was the work of Al Gore. In fact, it wasn’t the government that invented it, in general, it was the Defense Department, a part of the government. And what has Obama done as he sprinkled billions of dollars on all the other departments in government? He shrunk the Defense Department and it’s now looking at draconian cuts.
This is a man that spent $1 trillion on stimulus and left not a residue. He could have, for example, done something about the electric grid. He did nothing on that. Instead he sprinkled the money on cronies, pie in the sky ideological fetishes, like solar panels and electric cars…. Money wasted, it’s water on the sand. He did not leave behind residue on all that, and yet he speaks of infrastructure.
All of us want infrastructure — but real infrastructure. And leave the rest of life to the private individual and the entrepreneur.”
Colonel Haiku (479309) — 7/17/2012 @ 3:46 pmStar of Pro-Obama Super PAC Ad Unloads: ‘Obama Is a Jerk, a Pantywaist, a Lightweight, a Blowhard’…
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/star-pro-obama-super-pac-ad-unleashed-obama-jerk-pantywaist-lightweight-blowhard_648688.html
Colonel Haiku (479309) — 7/17/2012 @ 3:47 pm“But independents can be herded to vote for Obama by the bullying. That the only reason they dislike his policies is that Obama’s black and they’re racists. It worked once.”
Steve57 – I missed the above portion of your comment #52, which I can’t believe you actually wrote. Sure there are racists out there, but to believe as your thesis suggests that race bullying accounted for his victory in 2008 is a pretty fringe theory.
My original criticism was your rant against die hard brain dead liberals. You have now shifted your discussion to undecided voters, which is where the attention should be. The problem is that you communicate an inconsistent message from comment to comment.
I pointed out that the MSM shielded the public from a lot of the Obama negativity in the 2008 campaign. You seemed to agree by pointing out that he had surrogates do his wet work for him. You then said people didn’t really have to do any research on him to find out what a radical and bad actor he was, all they had to do was listen to his words.
D’oh, if the MSM was putting a muzzle on all those stories, the only people getting them were the less than 5% of the population who are political junkies inhabiting the internet, Fox News, etc. I would call that a meme fail.
“But he couldn’t help but talk about his grandmother as a “typical white person” or take digs at people who wouldn’t vote for him because he didn’t look like those other presidents on dollar bills.”
He talked about his grandmother being a typical white person in one speech that I recall. The MSM smothered the Rev. Wright controversy after two speeches without going into detail on any of the sermons. It is a fact that Obama does not look like other presidents on our currency. If that offends or scares you, you might have issues.
“How many times did he reveal his intention to indulge in class warfare, by promising things like raising the capital gains tax even if revenue went down as a result out of “fairness,” or promise to spread people’s wealth around? I lost track.”
I remember Obama bringing up raising the capital gains tax rate once on a Sunday morning talk show and beclowning himself by doing so. I remember his spread the wealth around comment to Joe the Plumber. If you think he made so many other references to the same topics, perhaps you could dig some up?
“That he was a liar and a fraud was obvious even then.”
Sure, to political junkies and conservatives, not necessarily everybody. Who was he trying to target?
In comment #71, you confirm the continued existence the MSM filter I originally posited which protects voters from seeing the negative side of Obama:
“I think it’s fairly obvious that all the false arguments the media pushes have a decidedly leftist tilt. In neither case does the media give the counter-argument any serious coverage”
That’s why I really don’t understand what your overall argument is because it seems to flip flop from comment to comment, from racist bullying, biased media, stupidity, etc., etc.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/17/2012 @ 8:19 pmI don’t like how Romney is being such a big girl about releasing his tax returns
happyfeet (3c92a1) — 7/17/2012 @ 8:52 pmMy “theory” about why Obama won in 2008 has nothing to do with actual racism. It has to do with the fear of being called a racist. The bullying I’m referring to involves accusing republicans of racism, and charging those with voting for republicans with having done so solely out of racism.
It isn’t a “fringe theory;” it’s a long standing liberal tactic. They are quite open about it. They can’t win on the issues. The only thing they can do is to bully people into not voting for GOP candidates by accusing them and GOP voters of being motivated by racism. They’ve indulged in this tactic long before Barack Obama ever entered the national political scene. Al Sharpton has long accused Republicans of merely trading in their Klan robes for suits and silk ties. And of using racist code words (although the dog whistle talk is relatively recent terminology). Welfare reform was just racist code for anti-black bigotry. It’s simply been ramped up since Barack Obama entered the national political scene. Now it’s not merely just racist code when conservatives criticize counterproductive and destructive liberal policies. It’s racist code to criticize Obama for his policies.
They’re quite open about engaging in racist demagoguery as a deliberate tactic.
And will branding tea party ‘racist’ work?
Mary Frances Berry, Professor of American Social Thought and History, U. Penn, former Carter appointee as Assistant Secretary of Education and to the US Commission on Civil Rights (eventually chairing the committee), on the Politico blog “The Arena,” July 2010.
You can easily get liberal Democrats to admit that they will gladly attempt to smear candidates and voters as racists (falsely, without evidence, as Berry gleefully admits) as a deliberate tactic to shut people up and also fire up their own base and to drive down GOP support.
I don’t see why they shouldn’t be open about it, since apparently to point out that they engage in racist bullying tactics will be dismissed as a mere “fringe theory.” When it’s been one of the few plays in their playbook for decades.
Yet you think it’s just crazy talk if I point out they not only do it but publicly brag about doing it. How it’s a great tactic which they’ve found to be very effective for them. I submit that’s why they find it a great tactic, and continue to use it. They’ll never be called on it, as any critics who point out it is one of their go-to tactics will be dismissed as part of the lunatic fringe. Like I have here.
That’s got to be a great position for them to be in, politically. The media, and even many conservatives, will not allow them to be “swiftboated.” And by that I mean the truth that even they openly acknowledge to be used against them.
My argument remains pretty much what it was when I started.
These are the tactics liberals use when campaigning. It isn’t an either-or proposition; that’s their handbook. That’s all that’s in it, but they’ll use all of the above.
Because they work.
That was the liberal attack line exactly. If the fact that he doesn’t look like other Presidents offends or scares you, you must have issues. As a matter of fact, the only reason you woudn’t vote for Barack Obama is because you have issues with him being black.
That was the attack line in 2008, and it will be used again in 2012.
Obama kept bringing up his skin color to in cooperation with the media who were making it an issue. He was not as obvious about beating voters over the head with it as his media accomplices who openly accused voters who wouldn’t vote for Obama of racism, but he certainly made it clear that he agreed with the accusation.
As an aside, you don’t need to suspect me of having issues. I’ll tell you what issues I have. In this case the issue I have is with race-obsessed politicians (and their political appointees in the case of Holder) and their water carriers projecting their racial obsessions onto others in order to accuse them of racism. Without any evidence, as they’ll admit when they think they’re among friends.
I am not bouncing around at all. I think if you have any confusion it is probably because I discuss what the tactic is but how it is executed. For instance, “false arguments” are a major tactic. But in order to make them work you’ve got to suppress the counter-argument, to the point where the false argument is the only serious game in town.
To do this you’ve got to co-opt the media. This wasn’t hard for liberals to do as the Soviets had been co-opting the western press for quite some time. Actually, it wasn’t hard for the Soviets to do; you don’t have to work hard to co-opt willing accomplices. Walter Duranty got a Pulitzer in 1931 for printing unvarnished Soviet propaganda, and suppressing the truth by accusing anyone saying their was famine in the Ukraine of spreading “malignant propaganda.”
But using media bias to your advantage is merely the how; how you execute the tactic of advancing your false arguments. Not the tactic itself.
Likewise stupidity is not a tactic. It’s clearly a factor that they intend to exploit in order to advance their false arguments.
The confusion you have is between means and ends. I’ll try to be clearer when I’m discussing the means, and what ends the those means are intended to serve.
I don’t think it’s just me who recalls that he made many references to these or closely similar topics. Which could all be lumped under the general heading of what Barack Obama perceives to be “fairness” in terms of economic outcomes.
Closing Income Gap Tops Obama’s Agenda for Economic Change
It was, as the NYT reported in February 2008, “tops” on his economic agenda. So it’s fair to say he discussed taxing the rich and giving more freebies away to the poor quite a bit more during his campaign than you’re recalling. And indeed the report summarizes quit a bit of his frequent calls to shift a greater tax burden to the wealthy (not just capital gains) and transferring the wealth in the form of publicly funded benefits to those who aren’t wealthy.
But I’m going to digress to note this observation in the above article:
This backs up what I attempted to say earlier. You didn’t really need to be a political junkie to see through Obama as a liar and fraud. Even this reporter could see that based upon what he was actually saying that Obama’s economic approach would be far more aggressive, and by that more aggressively leftist, than even Hillary!
Even if you didn’t know a thing about his history you could have deduced who Obama was just from his speeches and website. As long as you weren’t deceived by the “conciliatory rhetoric.” Or what I called mere window dressing previously. There was always an undercurrent of hard-core leftism in his speeches. And the media didn’t filter that out because when you swim in a sea of hard core leftism, expecting them to notice the leftism would be like expecting a fish to notice it’s surrounded by water. The hard core leftism just didn’t register, as to the group-think media that’s centrist talk.
If you listened to Barack Obama during the campaign, you could easily have figured out who he was without knowing anything more about him than what he was telling you.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:03 pmClearly I didn’t mean that’s the only thing they can do. Just that racist bullying is one of the main things they can do.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:06 pmI think part of the confusion is this sort of formulation. I am referring only to how the racist bullying tactic is applied in this case. Those who dislike Obama’s policies and their effects will be accused of doing so only out of racist motives by the liberal racist bullies.
Not because they believe it themselves, as Berry admits they have no evidence the charge is true, but because the charge is very often an effective means to at least intimidate voters into not supporting the GOP candidate if not actually to vote for Obama.
And it’s true this tactic can work. I’ve had people tell me, black and white, while they weren’t sure about who Obama was then they felt they had to vote for him as a symbol of getting past the country’s history of racism. Or words to that effect.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:18 pm“It has to do with the fear of being called a racist.”
Steve57 – I understood that. It’s a tactic to shut down debate. Can you show anywhere that it’s a tactic actually generate votes? Some liberal writing an article on Politico is not particularly convincing.
You might convince me that younger voters, say below 25 or 30 can be swayed by racial pressure because they are fresh out of an education system indoctrinating them in the evils of white privilege, but I think older voters are less like to behave that way because they have become inoculated to the race baiting BS at work and society at large. If you have any actual evidence to back up your theory as anything other than a tool for speech suppression, feel free to present it.
“I am not bouncing around at all. I think if you have any confusion it is probably because I discuss what the tactic is but how it is executed.”
No, I showed where you are bouncing around because I think you are having trouble coming up with a coherent theory to explain Obama’s 2008 win.
Pro-tip – Start with the demographics.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/17/2012 @ 10:28 pmI don’t see what’s incoherent about stating it was due to the three perennial liberal tactics of bullying, fearmongering, and false arguments.
Since those are the only tactics that liberals have at their disposal to advance their causes, I don’t see how I can bounce around.
As far as the demographics go, of course minorities, gays, women, and the young put Obama over the top. But it’s the tactics that the liberals use to drive the turnout of those voters I’m discussing. These tactics are always the same. Which isn’t to say that the only bullying, or fearmongering, they engage in is race based. Or that the false arguments are the same false arguments. The tactics have to be tailored to the terrain.
Also you’re mischaracterizing the status of Mary Frances Berry in terms of Democratic politics in general and liberal black democratic politics in particular. She’s not just “some liberal” and she didn’t write an article for Politico. She was invited to participate in an on-line discussion reserved for influential opinion-shapers in the circles in which they travel. She was invited to participate on that basis; just “some liberal” wouldn’t have made the cut.
Do these charges of racism gain votes for the Democrats? I do know that Democrats clearly intended to drive a wedge between the GOP/TEA Party and independent voters with that line of attack and not to simply shut people up. And various polls showed declining support among independents for the TEA Party over the time period these attacks were taking place.
Just how important the racist smear was in causing that decline is difficult to determine. And just how this declining support translated into voters staying home or crossing over on election day even more so. As I said earlier when discussing Obama’s 2008 election:
There are polls that ask people things such as if they think the TEA Party is racist, but I know of no polls that ask people if they voted against Obama because they are racists or if they voted for Obama to prove they are not racists. So my evidence is anecdotal. I know several people who’ve admitted they voted for Obama precisely because he’s black. Whether they voted for him because it would be “historical,” as they claim, or to prove their not racists I can’t say as I wouldn’t expect anyone to admit the latter. But the fact remains they voted for him because of his skin color, and they told me they voted for him because of his skin color. I know of no more systematic evidence that’s more systematic I can access to support this.
The Democrats, on the other hand, I’m convinced do have such evidence. That they have tested these types of smears with focus groups. They have after all been using such smears long before the 2010 midterms or the 2008 election. I’m convinced this focus group testing indicates these smears are effective effective to one degree or another, and can produce results on election day. In three ways. Increasing turnout among voters inclined to vote for Democrats but who might not have been motivated to turn out but for the fear mongering. Suppressing the vote as they bully some otherwise inclined to vote for the GOP candidate to stay home. And causing some voters who may not have otherwise voted for the Democrat candidate to do so to prove themselves not racist.
It’s simply inconceivable that a party that thoroughly tests all its campaign messages to determine their effect on voters would not ever have poll tested the “GOP are racists,” “not voting for Obama is racist,” or “the GOP has been hijacked by racist TEA Party extremists” themes. They have consistently used the generic “the GOP is racist and wants to lynch blacks and burn black churches” for election cycle after election cycle. They would not have done so if they didn’t have reason to believe these charges of racism didn’t prove to have at least a mildly beneficial effect on their election prospects. They’re not stupid. They don’t use these messages recklessly and they simply don’t continue to use messages that prove to be losers.
So when a long-time, well-connected Democratic operative and activist such as Mary Frances Berry says tainting their opponents with the charge of racism “is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats” I take it to mean there is actual proof that is actually the case.
Democratic pollsters and consultants just aren’t shy about telling their clients which themes they should keep using, and which they need to drop like a hot rock. They keep using this one. That’s telling. Which isn’t to say it’s always been a surefire winner for them. Sometimes it’s obviously the least worst choice among the bad arguments they have to choose from. As was the case in 2010. I’m hoping this is again the case in 2012.
But since they are using it that must mean that it got a better reception from their focus groups then “America’s Back!” Which Dem public opinion consultants have already told their party to avoid like the plague as no one believes the economy has recovered.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/18/2012 @ 2:23 am” I do know that Democrats clearly intended to drive a wedge between the GOP/TEA Party and independent voters with that line of attack and not to simply shut people up. And various polls showed declining support among independents for the TEA Party over the time period these attacks were taking place.
Just how important the racist smear was in causing that decline is difficult to determine.”
Steve57 – I guess the only assumption to make in assuming the attacks were effective would be to assume the 2010 GOP landslide would have been greater without them, right?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/18/2012 @ 8:20 am“It’s simply inconceivable that a party that thoroughly tests all its campaign messages to determine their effect on voters would not ever have poll tested the “GOP are racists,” “not voting for Obama is racist,” or “the GOP has been hijacked by racist TEA Party extremists” themes.”
Steve57 – Self-refuting logic. See “Bradley Effect.”
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/18/2012 @ 8:24 am“They have consistently used the generic “the GOP is racist and wants to lynch blacks and burn black churches” for election cycle after election cycle.”
Steve57 – Good. Now a thought experiment. If the Democrats have consistently used such themes across elections, why should there be any differential impact on voters across elections except among those who have not become inured to the BS?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/18/2012 @ 8:41 amI’m aware of the concept of the Bradley effect. But it shows that these pollster and focus group consultants attempt to measure everything in an effort to improve election results for their clients. How does the fact refute the logic that they intensively poll test and focus group their campaign themes and slogans to measure their effects as well?
Or that they continuously attempt to improve their techniques so that their clients can be confident the results they actually achieve are somehow related to the opinion research they paid for?
We’re talking of an “effect” that was related to an election 30 years ago. The concept of the Bradley effect was simply used as an impetus at the time to refine their methodologies. Since Bradley underperformed while Obama increased his share of white voters over Kerry in the general, if anything it appears that consultants the Democrats used took the lessons learned to improve their tactics.
Which is why I said sometimes it’s the least worst choice among a number of bad options. And mentioned one bad option they’ve already dropped. Due to the fact they poll test and focus group every one of their campaign messages.
Do you really believe they haven’t poll tested and focus grouped this message, that the GOP is racist to the core and so are the people who vote for its candidates, in all the time they’ve been using it?
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/18/2012 @ 9:13 am_____________________________________________
See “Bradley Effect.”
I’d say we’ve gone from the extreme of that to the opposite extreme of where voters see Obama as, if anything, being so interestingly different or fashionably non-conforming, that he’s treated like the big, beautiful, hip brand of the moment.
Based on a recent Pew Research poll taken internationally, the huge percentage of positive reactions he generates in Europe is like an ultra-liberals’ wet dream. Interestingly enough, Obama, although still getting a majority of thumbs up no matter where, rates less well in Poland, a bit less well in Japan. In turn, he rates somewhat lower in the US, but still much higher than such a mess deserves (certainly since we’re the people who have to live with the guy).
He does even less well in China, and quite poorly in the Middle East, although still generating higher marks than George W Bush did in the latter.
Mark (a346be) — 7/18/2012 @ 9:29 am“How does the fact refute the logic that they intensively poll test and focus group their campaign themes and slogans to measure their effects as well?”
Steve57 – You have already asserted that people are afraid of being branded racists. Please tell me how poll testing and focus groups on the concept that the GOP and Tea Party are racist would generate results that are anything other than what the Democrats sought. Actual voting behavior is a completely different issue than talking to a third party or in a focus group. Think of the term confirmation bias. Is this something you still fail to see?
“I know several people who’ve admitted they voted for Obama precisely because he’s black. Whether they voted for him because it would be “historical,” as they claim, or to prove their not racists I can’t say as I wouldn’t expect anyone to admit the latter. But the fact remains they voted for him because of his skin color, and they told me they voted for him because of his skin color. I know of no more systematic evidence that’s more systematic I can access to support this.”
Hey, I do as well and many of them were Republicans. I am convinced though they viewed him as not as a significantly worse choice than McCain because the way his background was hidden, suppressed and whitewashed. If I had been able to convince them he wanted remake America in the shape of a Euro-weenie socialist bankrupt government centered republic, focused them on his radical past associations with ACORN, membership in the communist New Party, the causes he directed money to while in charge of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the nature of Black Liberation Theology and beliefs of his spiritual mentor and moral compass Rev. Wright, his radical gun control beliefs, radical abortion beliefs, etc., etc., I’m convinced they most of these people would not have voted the way they did regardless of Obama’s race due to the risk to the country.
The problem was these people were not political junkies and the carefully crafted history and public persona of Obama and his campaign largely obscured those aspects of him all but listeners of certain talk radio and cable TV and political junkies willing to go looking for information. The position you are arguing does not apply to the vast majority of lazy American voters.
Also, I would argue that bogus racial rhetoric is just as likely to fire up voters to pull the lever against candidates using such tactics just because it is such a tired old tactic and Americans are sick of it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/18/2012 @ 9:56 amYes, and there’s polling data from 2008 that supports that conclusion.
Gallup: Majority of Americans Say Racism Against Blacks Widespread
As another Gallup poll elaborates:
So I don’t know how many voters I talked to who said they voted for Barack Obama simply because he’s black because they believed it would be “historic,” “symbolic,” or simply to prove they’re not racists. I strongly believe it’s a combination of those factors.
The idea that America is a racist country is in fact a false argument. A lie. America is probably the least racist country in the world. But that’s the media meme. And that’s the Democratic party line. People believe others are racist, but by a wide margin they don’t believe they themselves are racist.
In other words, the bullying, the fearmongering, and the false arguments do work to shape people’s perceptions. The idea that America is racist is immune to evidence, if any evidence contrary to the false argument is ever allowed to see the light of day.
Al Sharpton would be out of a job if the media and leftist political elites (I know, I repeat myself) ever allowed reality to penetrate their echo chamber. Instead of basing their ideas about what’s going on in the country on “Mississippi Burning.”
And the constant barrage does have it’s effect on voters. As the poll results I’ve cited indicate.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/18/2012 @ 10:08 amTo elaborate, a voter’s impulse to vote for the first black President to prove the country isn’t racist is closely tied to the impulse to prove the individual isn’t racist. I’ve found it difficult to distinguish between the two as they do buy into the idea that the only reason anyone would pretend to care about Obama’s qualifications and pass up the opportunity vote for the first black President is racism.
How do you distinguish between someone who feels that “we” need to prove “we’re” not racist and “I” need to prove “I’m” not racist? It’s similar to a teenager asking a doctor for advice because “her friend” thinks she may be pregnant. Sometimes there really is a friend involved, often there isn’t.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/18/2012 @ 10:31 amIn the seven elections from ’80-’04, the GOP received 8-12% of the Black Vote; in ’08, McCain got 4%.
The question arises in my mind:
How many states that went Obama in ’08 will go Romney in ’12, if Romney can just double McCain’s Black Vote percentage – going from 4% to 8%?
(snark alert)
AD-RtR/OS! (b8ab92) — 7/18/2012 @ 10:38 amAnd, are all of those voters Racist?
Poll tested or not, this election will not be decided on a message of racism. Yes, that will be part of some of the most virulent leftist messaging. But most people including most democrats do not see “racism” as the single dominant issue that must be addressed in this presidential election. Many probably see the increasingly rampant crime (assault, robbery, and murder) rate that is overtaking the cities to be an issue that relates to racial and economic disadvantage, but not as a reflection of white racism. That ship has sailed. People are sick of the race baiting and phony accusations. Some nominal R’s and I’s probably did vote for Obama in 2008 because they believed and were enamored with his story, and thought as a young bi-racial president he could improve racial relations for everybody. He has not made things better–they are worse, and most people actually see that. Why would they naively vote for him again? Many business owning, employed (or want to be employed) Dems and Independents are as scared about this economy, their future, and public safety as anybody. What “worked” in 2008 does not easily work this time for one trick pony Axelrod.
Where the so called Bradley effect matters is that pollsters are very likely not getting a true picture of how Obama is perceived in 2012. This is partly because they usually oversample Dems and also because people (for various reasons) often mess with pollsters and are possibly not being entirely candid about how they really feel about Obama. The tale will have its surprise ending in Nov. 2012. In the meantime, even the internal sampling of both candidates’ campaigns may not be very accurate.
elissa (741144) — 7/18/2012 @ 10:39 am“Additionally, the Minority Rights and Relations survey shows that a 59% majority of blacks say they would view Obama’s winning the presidency as one of the most important advances of the past century for blacks. This contrasts with a slightly smaller 48% of non-Hispanic white Americans who view the prospect of putting the first black American in the White House as a key civil rights milestone.”
Steve57 – The survey says nothing about how such people intend to vote and internals of the polling by party are not presented. It measures opinion, not voting intentions. It is a stretch to divine the latter from the former.
“How do you distinguish between someone who feels that “we” need to prove “we’re” not racist and “I” need to prove “I’m” not racist?”
This seems to be your obsession, not mine, as if there was some way to control the messaging or speech of others. Grow up. There isn’t. Trying to prove you are not a racist is a fools game. Counterattack. Challenge the claims. Ask for proof. Point and laugh. Ignore.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/18/2012 @ 11:23 amWhich is why I haven’t used “independent” voter interchangeably with “centrist” or “undecided.” And if you noticed, the example of the kind of centrist who can’t make an argument against a bad leftist idea until he personally sees it fail in practice, not knowing that an argument already exists that obviates the need to put the bad idea into practice just because it “sounds good” as we already know it’s destined for failure, was Dwight David Eisenhower. He’s practically an icon among centrists who believe we need to govern from the middle. He ran against the right wing as a a progressive moderate. So progressive and moderate was he that when his former VP Nixon ran against Kennedy, Kennedy was seen as the more reliable anti-communist.
And as I’ve already pointed out, when Krushchev confronted him Eisenhower admitted he couldn’t even make an argument in favor of American free-market capitalism and against Soviet communism.
They are destined to learn from experience. They have always been destined to learn from history. So I think your premise is off base. And I also think I’m accurately describing the situation of most lazy American voters, as you put it.
Of course they didn’t dig into Obama’s past. Of course they didn’t listen to any of your arguments as they hadn’t seen it confirmed on TV or in the papers. (I once saw a reporter raise that very question as if it were an insightful point while interviewing an Iranian opposition leader back in the ’80s: “How do we know your group exists; we haven’t seen it on TV?)
They were too lazy to listen to what Obama was actually saying. Even the NYT reporter in the article I linked to couldn’t fail to notice that underneath the “conciliatory rhetoric” was a very aggressive message. But a lot of other people failed to hear that message.
They bought into the notion he was a unifier and healer despite the evidence right in front of their eyes that he had the exact opposite effect on the Democratic party during the primary.
You didn’t need to know anything more about Barack Obama then what he was saying and the effect he was having just in 2008 to know he wasn’t who he was selling himself as. If you opened your eyes and ears just during that year, you would have known who he really was.
I know you want to focus on the general election. But I contend that people who could only be bothered to start to pay attention a month or two before the election are exactly the sort of people who are susceptible to the liberal tactics I’ve identified. Bullying, fearmongering, and false arguments.
And I’ve already said as much. I’ve also said nobody polls for that kind of data for public consumption.
But if people buy into the idea and agree with such poll questions that racism is a big problem in America despite the fact it’s not true in real life but only on the pages of the NYT or on the TV news, and that Barack Obama is a healer and a unifier despite the immediate evidence he’s no such thing, I don’t think it’s at all a stretch to believe it will effect the voting behavior of some individuals in the groups polled.
The anecdotal evidence supports this.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/18/2012 @ 12:57 pm“They bought into the notion he was a unifier and healer despite the evidence right in front of their eyes that he had the exact opposite effect on the Democratic party during the primary.”
Steve57 – This makes no sense. If the same people were not paying close attention like a political junkie during the general election, why the f*ck would yo think they would be paying closer attention during a primary?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/18/2012 @ 1:31 pmdaleyrocks, I didn’t expect them to pay attention. Nor did I expect them to pay attention to his speeches. Nor did I expect them to be interested in Obama’s personal history; not much of anything did I expect them to pay attention.
Hence I fully expected them to be influenced by the bullying, fearmongering, and false arguments.
Those they didn’t have to pay attention to. They were immersed in it. They could just absorb the messages with no effort on their part. And having absorbed it to go off and vote for Obama because he’s black and that made him historic or symbolic or whatever. Which many then did, including your GOP friends, having absorbed the message that none of the stuff they didn’t pay attention to was important, and only a racist would care about it anyway.
Which is why I don’t believe these tactics are always a mistake and why I believe they can and do work.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/18/2012 @ 2:08 pm1. I think we can all agree on the effect of the input and use of the “historic racial healing” narrative in the 2008 race that a lot of people glommed onto including some nominal Repubs and Indies.
2. I think we can agree that Barack Obama was sold as a brilliant, optimistic, “above partisan politics” new kind of practical politician, which sounded good to lots of voters. Included were people who were sick of the war, were scared about the economy, were tired of Bush excesses, and who inherently decry overt, ideologue/zealot driven politics (included here were influencers like Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and Doug Kmiec).
3. I think we can agree that Obama in 2008 was not honest about his goals or intentions and the media let him get away with it because they were so in love with the idea of nos. 1 and 2. that they did not care to vet him or to know anything about candidate O that might stall the dream.
4. I think most of us would agree that McCain in 2008 was not a very good candidate or a very good choice to carry the conservative torch. There was not much enthusiasm on the right in 2008.
So here’s where the disconnect is with respect to the discussion we’re having on this thread:
2012 is not 2008. We are not re-living the 2008 election. The same 2008 Axelrod memes do not apply. The candidates together are a different dynamic. Barack Obama is now known as a mere mortal who has not been a leader or a good president. His verbal tics and narcissistic tendencies irritate a lot of Americans. The slogan “Hope and Change” is no longer inspirational–it’s used with derision in comedy acts and political cartoons. The economy sucks. Employment opportunities for the young and the middle aged suck. Housing market still sucks. States can’t pay their bills. Now, there are a dozen or more young, bright, upcoming right -leaning pols to act as surrogates and as torch carriers in their regions and nationally. (In contrast, the left has Nancy Pelosi, Janet Napalitano and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.)
Instead of obsessing over what happened in 2008 and continuing to call voters stupid for what they did in 2008, and wringing our hands because the media is in the tank maybe we’d be better off focusing on messages and tactics to win back some of those crossovers and also the Black voters who (except for historic 2008) normally vote Republican.
elissa (65233d) — 7/18/2012 @ 2:10 pm91. Thoughtful commentary on a subject meriting continued attention.
So how come Pew or WaPo that were oversampling Dems 9 points and Rasmussen oversampling Repubs 5 points could close on the center the last week or two before an election and end a few points either side of the outcome.
I suspect shenanigans, like tribal knowledge employing proprietary weights on data, e.g., Razzie knows a certain number of Indies are likely to vote with the GOP and skews the sample to their benefit on opinion polling.
Ok, I don’t have to have this epicycle in my model, just brainstorming, but there’s some advantage to pollsters’ divergence of practice otherwise it would disappear in pursuit of accuracy, their holy grail.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/18/2012 @ 2:14 pm97. “maybe we’d be better off focusing on messages and tactics to win back some of those crossovers”
The other day I was listening to NPR(driving family in wife’s car) on a Polling schema study that suggested reasonable, accepted notions for political behavior were in fact not our actual motivation.
Wish I could give one of their examples but I do not multitask well, if at all.
But let me suggest a pet theory of mine, that people in the main make their political choices and think political thoughts, entertain arguments that their peers, their friends and families entertain, think and decide.
I have some contact with circles of academics, clergy, retired farmers, small business operators, etc. Academics would never publicly admit to conservative beliefs anymore than pray in public. Such would endanger their career.
But they reconcile their cowardice with their open mindedness by transforming it into propriety.
Indepedent thinking is not common among the species, one needs to move group-think, not mere individuals.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/18/2012 @ 2:44 pmEd Morrissey on Hotair has a hilarious piece on how Nancy Pelosi is publicly telling House Democrats not to go to the Dem National Convention.
That’s panic. Nancy does not want her minority caucus to be photographed with Obama.
Absolutely hilarious.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/18/2012 @ 3:02 pmI agree. So I expect the tactics to be executed differently. I do not expect the bullying to be primarily racist. Although the fearmongering will be to targeted audiences.
I differentiate bullying from fearmongering as the former is aimed at the opponents to drive participation down and at least keep supporters away while the latter is aimed at constituent groups to prop up what they suspect to be sagging support and get their supporters to turn out.
I don’t mean voters in particular. For instance, the Obama campaign has aimed its bullying tactics at individual financial supporters of the GOP and Romney. In typical Axelrod style going after divorce records, possible misdemeanors, civil suits against them, anything they can find. Not just the Koch brothers, either.
As you said, elissa, things have changed. The tactics will be the same, but they’ll be executed differently.
Steve57 (65d29f) — 7/18/2012 @ 3:06 pm