Patterico's Pontifications

8/23/2012

Threats to GOP Convention Won’t Work

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:36 am



What could interfere with the Republican convention? Well, there is a hurricane:

Tampa won’t hesitate to pull the plug on the Republican National Convention next week if Tropical Storm Isaac threatens the Tampa Bay area as a major storm, Buckhorn told CNN Wednesday morning.

“Well, absolutely, we’re prepared to call it off,” [Mayor Bob] Buckhorn said on the network’s Early Start with John Berman. “I mean, safety and human life trump politics. I think the RNC recognizes that. The organizers, certainly Gov. (Mitt) Romney, recognize that.”

The chances that Isaac, which is churning in the Atlantic Ocean toward the Caribbean Sea, will hit the Bay area still remain small. But it did strike as a hurricane, the impact would be enormous. And with thousands of extra visitors in the area for the convention, community leaders would have the added responsibility of assuring their safety…

And there are the Anonymous/Occupy folks, with their graffiti and weapons.

Worst of all, we might see Mr. Intimacy, Slow Joe Biden!

Do I feel worried? No. We have Chris Christie and Paul Ryan speaking. They have Sandra Fluke. We’ll be talking about the economy and the future of the country. They’ll be talking about abortion. That’s rope a dope, if Romney does it right, because Obama’s record on that — third trimester abortions in particular — is scary.

So relax. Conservatives from Tampa to Tulsa should be pleased.

57 Responses to “Threats to GOP Convention Won’t Work”

  1. The embedded Breitbart video was making comments impossible. I took it down. Follow the link now to see it.

    Patterico (83033d)

  2. By the way, even if the hurricane completely destroys the convention, which is unlikely, I’m still not worried. Our ticket and our ideas are better.

    Patterico (83033d)

  3. I blame Bush for the hurricane.

    Amphipolis (d3e04f)

  4. if Romney does it right, because Obama’s record on that — third trimester abortions in particular — is scary

    the prospect of Team Mitt maundering on about third trimester abortions at any length whatsoever whilst our pitiful obama-raped little country goes tits up is even scarier I think

    the only thing Mr. Governor Romney and Fiscal Policy Tonto need to say is that president food stamp would rather talk about stupid fetuses than about America’s horrific decline into a cesspool of fail

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  5. Did they forget to mention that Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn is a Democratic ?

    Neo (d1c681)

  6. Mitt Romney will follow the Bob McDonnell template for this election, and – if not ignore – will de-emphasize social issues in favor of the economy, and how the O-Team has taken a bad situation and made it into a disaster.

    Personally, with the planned attendance in Tampa of the OWS folks, I think a little tropical-depression will be a cleansing that the city would welcome.

    AD-Restore the Republic/Obama Sucks! (b8ab92)

  7. Here is an excerpt from the article from “The Hill”:

    +++++++++
    “The Republicans’ convention messaging will be thrown off, Baker said, “If Joe Biden goes to Tampa and says, ‘Where’s Todd Akin?’ ”
    +++++++++

    I would suggest answering with, “Where’s John Edwards?”

    jim2 (6482d8)

  8. If Obama really wanted to disrupt the convention, he’d roll out the FEMA trucks.

    Pious Agnostic (7c3d5b)

  9. Gee, it would be a shame if a hurricane came and blew all of those occupy and code pinksters away!

    Better get Michael Moore down there to act as an anchor/storm shelter.

    Icy (9bbab7)

  10. It is traditional for the candidates not to overtly try to sabotage each others conventions. Just another of the myriad little ways Democrats are lowering discourse and acting like petulant children. Occupy their toilet training.

    SPQR (ada825)

  11. SPQR,

    They only do this because their ideas are so important that tradition, politeness and even ethics must be abandoned to further their righteous cause.

    They are, as we used to say about such people, fanatics.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  12. Romney, Ryan and such ought to still take a break during the Democrat convention, pointedly saying that they still believe in a tradition of civility towards their opponents.

    Then let Rush, Palin and others counterprogram the Dems. Maybe Palin could have rallies in Charlotte and visit the Boeing plant and such. Would also be good if a 100,000 Tea Partyers could show up.

    But Romney should stay classy.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  13. 100K TEA Partiers?
    That’s who’ll show up just for coffee-break, the real demonstration should be much larger.

    AD-Restore the Republic/Obama Sucks! (b8ab92)

  14. I’m waiting for the false-flag attack on Biden, myself. They’re telegraphing it pretty hard.

    luagha (5cbe06)

  15. The convention might well have given their campaign a bump but it would be temporary.

    The Donks might actually lose momentum.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  16. Anyone want to bet against Akin becoming the network face of Republicans during the Convention?

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  17. I think it would be awesome if the GOP just called off the convention altogether. If they said something like, “You know, with our country being broke and in debt up to the gills, it would be really obnoxious for us to spend tens of millions of dollars on a televised pep rally. Instead, we are going to release videos of prominent Republicans giving speeches on the new direction our country needs to take.” Of course, the city of Tampa would come out the loser as they would not be receiving expected revenue from hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, strip clubs, taxis, rental cars, etc. There would need to be some way of making it up to them.

    On a related note, now that the Democrats are meeting in September who will that affect all of the public school teachers who usually comprise a heavy chunk of their delegations? Are they all going to take vacation time that week? Will some of them be allowed to claim that it is a union event or an “educational experience” and get paid by the taxpayer for being there? Will anyone care enough about these questions to look in to them?

    JVW (edec8d)

  18. Anyone want to bet against Akin becoming the network face of Republicans during the Convention?

    I’m sure that Romney, et al. have told him that he needs to pull a Claire McCaskill and suddenly “decide” that he needs to be campaigning in Missouri instead of cavorting in Tampa. I can’t imagine he would actually be a delegate at the convention.

    But I figure you also mean that he will symbolically become the face of the convention, and on that score you are probably right. He will certainly be front-and-center at the Democrats’ convention.

    JVW (edec8d)

  19. Prof. Jacobson quotes Hinderacker:

    “The Democrats apparently think they have hit the jackpot with Todd Akin’s moment of stupidity, but I’m not so sure. How, exactly, are they going to take advantage of Akin’s blunder? By talking ceaselessly about abortion.”

    Zombie’s gotta eat.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  20. I expect hurricane Isaac to dog-leg to the right as it passes North of Cuba and continue up Florida’s East Coast following the Gulf Stream.

    I also suspect the weather services would be emphasising a similar projected path if the GOP convention wasn’t scheduled for Tampa Bay.

    ropelight (9b5d12)

  21. I’m sure that Romney, et al. have told him that he needs to pull a Claire McCaskill and suddenly “decide” that he needs to be campaigning in Missouri instead of cavorting in Tampa.

    He’s already IN Tampa.

    Kevin M (bf8ad7)

  22. I *still* think that Akin should do the circuit of the TV and radio talk shows (to cover both sides of the political spectrum), and simply say “I made a Whoopie and I apologise ! I have learned from this experience that I should not have been Biden my time speaking” …

    What do his critics do then ?

    Alasdair (81fcf1)

  23. The latest Rasmussen telephone survey of Likely Voters in Missouri found McCaskill up 48% to Akin’s 38%. 9% favor another candidate in the race, and 5% are undecided.

    On Hannity’s radio show today Karl Rove praised Todd Akin as “a good man, a man of deep faith” but said he “cannot recover” politically and that “the race is over” and that as time went on “it was only going to get worse for Akin.”

    ropelight (9b5d12)

  24. “And there are the Anonymous/Occupy folks, with their graffiti and weapons.”

    I think the biggest threat from that crew is that one of them might drop their pants and take a dump right on the podium.

    Dave Surls (46b08c)

  25. Neither rain nor snow nor Hurricane Ike shall stop these candidates from the swift completion of their appointed tasks!

    The meteorologist Dana (f68855)

  26. The tropical storm seems to be weakening and may not be a factor.

    A few years ago, Hurricane Ivan was expected to be hitting New Orleans at the time of the American College of Surgeons convention. I waited until the last minute before going and the hurricane turned east and missed the city. Incidentally, there was no sign of any preparation by the city for the expected hurricane. Not even boarded windows.

    Mike_K (326cba)

  27. Ike’s winds, they surely will blow
    But on the convention will go.
    Mitt will stand tall,
    He’ll be heard by all,
    And he will rid us of O!

    The Limerick Avenger (f68855)

  28. Hurricane Isaac
    will not stop our convention;
    O has got to go!

    The Senryu Avenger (f68855)

  29. Our esteemed host wrote:

    Do I feel worried? No. We have Chris Christie and Paul Ryan speaking. They have Sandra Fluke. We’ll be talking about the economy and the future of the country. They’ll be talking about abortion. That’s rope a dope, if Romney does it right, because Obama’s record on that — third trimester abortions in particular — is scary.

    That’s the key: staying on message. We should have learned from Bill Clinton, “it’s the economy, stupid!” The Democrats will do everything that they can to change the subject, to run on something, anything other than the economy and President Obama’s actual record in office. We have to keep the focus on the economy, and what a crappy job the President has done.

    The economist Dana (f68855)

  30. Comment by The Senryu Avenger — 8/23/2012 @ 5:44 pm

    Arguably that’s haiku, as it contains a reference to nature or seasons.

    SPQR (26be8b)

  31. That’s just it, they lie without reservation, when the economy was recovering, they insisted this was the ‘worst economy in 50 years’

    narciso (ee31f1)

  32. Pollsters have the contest even before the conventions. As Sabato points out no incumbent has won re-election hanging even into Election eve.

    Next month begins economic woe upon woe.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  33. It’s a FREAKIN TROPICAL STORM.

    Here’s news for you hurricane noobs: A mere “hurricane” is like a 5 on the richter scale to someone from cali. If it’s not a class-3 or above, it’s nothing but a big storm with some possible flooding in low-lying areas. As in, your feet and your stuff gets wet, not “your house is swept away”. Unless you are RIGHT on the coast, you don’t need to worry beyond simple bad-storm level measures about L1/L2 hurricanes.

    This is nothing but the media trying to make it look lie a big TS hitting tampa near the convention will affect anything.

    Feh, what, are we liberal pansies that a little rain gives us problems?

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  34. Carolina m00n
    all teh low T Dems’ll sw00n
    they’ll fall in teh Fall

    Colonel Haiku (5dd42f)

  35. tropical storms can play holy hell on the hydrangeas

    happyfeet (3c92a1)

  36. come January
    no mo’ milhous 0bama
    kick around no mo’

    Colonel Haiku (5dd42f)

  37. 32..a little rain? Duh, nearly 1 million people in Tampa in a flood zone? Think more likely Nawlins could get whacked again based on last tracks I saw. Nice that they raised all the buildings up on high stilts and built whole new system of unbreachable dikes. And of course what could go wrong with the racist -hate- blacks George W Bush gone and if something does go wrong, just blame him anyway like Madeline Semi-Bright recently stated… blame him forever.

    Calypso Louis Farrakhan (e799d8)

  38. the Ace up their sleeves
    unleash the Fluke Battalion!
    unashamed I shart

    Colonel Haiku (5dd42f)

  39. “The Democrats apparently think they have hit the jackpot with Todd Akin’s moment of stupidity, but I’m not so sure. How, exactly, are they going to take advantage of Akin’s blunder? By talking ceaselessly about abortion.

    I suspect i commented here about this, but:

    The switchup is to make it about liberal hypocrisy.

    Whoopi Goldberg made almost the EXACT same assertion about a REAL rapist in re the polanski crap.

    “It wasn’t rape rape”, implying that having sex with a 12yo isn’t rape, first off, which is ludicrous. That court transcripts make it clear it WAS rape — anal rape, in fact — she repeatedly asked him to stop and he didn’t….

    But then they DEFENDED this far-far-below-pond-scum, despite the fact that, years later, he had not the slightest remorse other than that he got in trouble for it — quote “Everyone wants to f*** young girls” endquote — (Sorry, Mr. Polanski, not all of us want to do it with 12yos, not all in their asses, and certainly not when they’re begging us to stop).

    They don’t care about the fact that they are hypocrites, but they KNOW it’s bad to be shown to be one, so they really, really, do respond to demonstrations that they are being hypocritical by trying to change the subject.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  40. I really don’t get Right-Wing Republican obsession with Abortion.

    Nobody is forcing anyone to get an abortion and clearly all those tens of millions of abortions that have been performed in the US since ROE v. WADE were not all performed on non-Christian Democrats.

    So clearly American Women of all races, political and religious stripes have been getting abortions regardless of all the self-righteous hypocritical posturing by the Christian Taliban.

    If abortion in the first trimester is really murder then you first need to arrest tens of millions of American Women and charge them with murder before I’ll believe you.

    ModRepublican (0c4b6b)

  41. If abortion in the first trimester is really murder then you first need to arrest tens of millions of American Women and charge them with murder before I’ll believe you

    How exactly are we supposed to do that, when the Supreme Court says they have a constitutional right to take out a hit on their babies? We don’t have the power to arrest them. It’s called kidnapping. Which is why Roe and Casey need to be overturned.

    Milhouse (8acf6a)

  42. Ha, ha, ha. Look ladies Ahab is back as ModRepublican, demanding respect for “Elections have consequences”

    http://washingtonexaminer.com/whos-sorry-about-the-roberts-ruling-now/article/2505530#.UDY2G6OQmSp

    Death spiral at the hands of empanelled electorate.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  43. ModRepublicanDemocrat,

    We remember you—you’re the Democrat who puts on his Alger Hiss costume, pretending to be a disaffected Republican…all in an attempt to persuade fence-setters and independents who may happen to read this thread, that it is “ok” to re-elect Obama.

    Nice try, not-so-tough guy, you’re really shadow boxing now.

    It’s bizarre that you are encouraging the arrest of women who have had abortions during the first trimester.
    There is no jurisdiction that would allow for their arrests for the alleged “crime” as you describe it since it is currently NOT against the law for women to have abortions.

    But your totalitarian police state impulse is not surprising. We know that you left wingers seriously do believe in imprisoning people you disagree with.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)

  44. Mod-Republican….You need to thank God that your Mother didn’t think the same way you do about abortion….as we say in Cajun Country…”She was pro-life, sh’a!”

    reff (4dcda2)

  45. “This election, to me, is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment.”

    – Bill Clinton

    “I don’t want my daughter near him [Bill Clinton].”

    – Claire McCaskill

    Colonel Haiku (5dd42f)

  46. Despite all the Sturm und Drang over abortion, remember the result of the Fluke dustup.

    O’Blunder lost support among married women. As sentiment stands, giving R&R all swing states except PA Urkel gets 238 Electoral votes.

    That’s not enough, and he did that.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  47. I can see MO religious righties being desolate because their candidate cannot win.

    I cannot see them or the moderates giving McCaskill reverse coattails and swinging the state to Ogabe.

    They are more conservative than WI and have voted with the winner since 1920.

    McMahon is leading in CT.

    gary gulrud (dd7d4e)

  48. 1) This was never about abortion. The dems are doing everything they can to get it OFF of the economy, though.
    2) Romney is, if anything,, relatively moderate on the topic. I’m fine with that because my own position is middling on it…. and regardless of your stance on it, there’s a host of other issues where The One and Romney are going to differ radically, and those are much more important, in both the long and short run.
    3) You might note the economic downturn of late — this is because there has been an increase in the chance that The One will get re-elected, is my suspicion. That means everyone is hedging their bets instead of starting to bet on recovery… they know The One == “no recovery”.

    IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States (8e2a3d)

  49. I’m very concerned. Biden has recently been drawing crowds in the hundreds, and some of them reportedly haven’t been paid or coerced to attend.

    It remains in doubt whether anyone capable of staying awake through an entire Biden speech will attend and record the gaffes.

    Estragon (13e813)

  50. As re-told by Peggy Noonan (!) in the WSJ:

    It is good that Joe Biden is going to the Republican National Convention to hold high the flag of his party. People make fun of his gaffes, of his embarrassing verbal forays, but he’s no fool and he knows how to take it to the other guy. The speech he is working on, to be given in the heart of downtown, just across from the convention site, will be stirring and stentorian: “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Tampa, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, ‘Ich bin ein Tampon.'”

    Beldar (8e9db8)

  51. Comment by IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States — 8/23/2012 @ 10:15 pm

    3) You might note the economic downturn of late — this is because there has been an increase in the chance that The One will get re-elected, is my suspicion. That means everyone is hedging their bets instead of starting to bet on recovery… they know The One == “no recovery”.

    No, it’s fallout from European austerity.

    I don’t subscribe to the notion that feelings affect the economy.

    If any worries were affecting the economy it would be the fiscal cliff.

    But Ben Bernanke will come to the rescue.

    Unfortunately only at the point of actual recession.

    He will come to the rescue, until and unless he is replaced. Which might turn out to be Romney’s biggest mistake.
    ssin.

    Sammy Finkelman (2178a8)

  52. It’s been said that the ’68 Chicago riots got Nixon elected.

    Richard Aubrey (0aac79)

  53. I think the biggest threat from that crew is that one of them might drop their pants and take a dump right on the podium.
    Comment by Dave Surls — 8/23/2012 @ 4:59 pm

    — Not to worry . . . Akin will NOT be speaking.

    Icy (3615bd)

  54. The Republican Party scheduled its convention right at the height of the hurricane season. The height of the hurricane season is Aug 15 to Sept 15 but the real height is about August 28 to Sept 2.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  55. Beldar,

    That Peggy Noonan column where she cited the line written by the closeted cosnervative Hollywood screenwriter aping JFK’s line about how “today, we’re all Berliners” is hysterical.

    Only Joe Biden could refer to the people of Tampa as “Tampons” in German, and then flash his Tom Cruise chesire cat grin in self-satisfaction.

    Elephant Stone (65d289)


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