Surely the attack in Libya matters, and not just from the casualties.
The Fed actions? We'll see how important they are to the economy. I'm an optimist on this, but no question about that there's divided opinion from both conservative and liberal economists. I think it's very unlikely to have any effect on the election, however.
What else? What do you think mattered this week?
Saturday, September 15, 2012
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Do you think Romneys crummy campaign matters yet? The media narrative that he's losing?
ReplyDeleteA question: do you or other political scientists ever interact with the journalists who say stupid things like "the fundamentals of the race are such that Romney should winning" ? Do you think the data-free, emotional-based style of election reporting is beginning to wane as bloggers and political scientists become more widely known? I hope so!!
Not sure how much, but Netanyahu's decision to go all in on campaigning for Romney seemed significant. It will be interesting to see the reaction from conservatives regarding a foreign leader actively campaigning for a presidential nominee on MTP.
ReplyDeleteWell, back in the 90's, Bill Clinton sent his campaign shysters (Carville, etc.) over to Israel to help get rid of Netanyahu and get a more agreeable type in power, so he could win the Nobel he craved.
DeleteSo Netanyahu is just taking a bit of revenge, I suspect. Not that he matters much, because I don't think he does.
It will be interesting to see if he uses his Meet the Press appearance Sunday to further this or walk it back.
DeleteGonna have to say that the mittster's fumbling of the whole Libya thing mattered. It certainly won't help his campaign and I think it will continue to alienate the press. Seriously though, Krugman had a great point about the main guy who team Romney has been sending out to attack Obama. Dan Senor. He was was the head of public relations for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq back in 2003 and 2004. Now he's one of mitt's chief foreign policy advisers.
ReplyDeletehttp://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/the-emerald-city-gang/
My god. You really can't make this stuff up.
"Gonna have to say that the mittster's fumbling of the whole Libya thing mattered. It certainly won't help his campaign and I think it will continue to alienate the press."
Delete.
Well, I agree that the lefty "press" will continue to lay siege to anybody challenging their messiah, as diseased and illegitimate as that sycophancy might be.
But it's still to be determined whether Obama's past bowing and scraping and support for islamofascist elements in Libya and elsewhere, who had previously murdered US soldiers in Iraq and who since have gone on to murder American diplomats and others in recent days, will boomerang on Obama.
The lefty wolfpack media definitely knows this all has deadly potential for their messiah. So, they have been immediately vicious in their attacks, and I'm now starting to think the Willardbots foresaw all this, and preempted the lefty MSM's wolfen ways, and struck first, to set the narrative instantly. If so, this is truly fascinating strategy.
The Obamabots full well understand that this could destroy Obama, and they and their supporters are reacting as such. Obama will only survive this election, at best. But if the electorate perceives him as both failed domestically and abroad... it's curtains... it's 1980.
Oh, man. Can't you guys stay over at Redstate and your other million blogs?
DeleteKeep comforting yourself that it's 1980 all over again until November 2012, and then you can come up with other excuses.
What's an Obamabot?
DeleteFor a while, some Republicans in New York were pushing Dan Senor to run against Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate. They actually cited his experience with the CPA and his time on Wall Street as his two strongest assets.
DeleteMaybe this cell-phone video of Mitt Romney at a fund raiser matter?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l2J61379sEs
It's his version of American Exceptionalism. I think it's also his view of foreign policy.
ehh; 'matters,' not 'matter.'
DeleteThe political winds have changed, but not my ability to produce clean copy.
Eh, that's from what, 2-4 weeks ago? If it matters, it would have mattered then. It didn't, and it won't now. However, it's still one of a gazillion moments showing Romney's personality, world view, etc etc, and it's entirely consistent with all that I'd say.
DeleteRlick, I guess I was a week early.
DeleteIt will matter next week.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
Zic, you hit it out of the park.
DeleteThis was the week in which mainstream RepublIcan politics became unmoored from reality. This matters.
ReplyDeleteI'll also go with the Romney response to the violence in Benghasi, but I have a particular rationale for why it I believe it mattered.
ReplyDeleteSure, there's the more obvious effects of showing candidate Romney in a bad light for his tone-deaf press conference the morning after the deaths of four Americans had been reported, and how the criticism from a number of GOP-leaning sources highlighted (for the media) that this was a "real" gaffe to be batted around, this took two solid days off the calendar while Romney was trying to get that fixed.
What I think was important about this, was that it totally knocked Netanyahu's whining out of the news - as the Islamic extremists in Libya used 9/11 to attack the US, so was Bibi using 9/11 to attack Obama, by planting his meddling flag about a "red line for Iran" in the American media, and into the Presidential race.
If Romney had just kept his voice-generating circuits disengaged this past week, you would have had all the usual suspects in the Washington media writing stories about "How Obama is Endangering Israel" (or "Is Obama Endangering Israel?" in the more 'liberal' places). On top of that you have the Arab Street in the Middle East blowing up in like 16 different places.
Instead, the discussion was about how big a disaster Romney's response was, and Obama looks good by staying calm and Presidential, and for sending troops into the region to protect our embassies. Netanyahu's gambit failed so badly, he has to come back tomorrow to try and toss another banana peel at the President's feet on "Meet the Press". Even then, Romney's clown shoes foreign policy credentials have severely weakened this line of attack.
At best, the media does their usual bootlicking, and it's mostly ignored because.. at worst, Romney and his Dubya Bush All-Stars are already exposed as a return to 'Cowboy Diplomacy', and the surest bet to get the country into another war before the end of 2013.
If you support Obama do not watch this if you do not support Obama do not watch this.If you support Obama do not watch this if you do not support Obama do not watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnZ1dIorO8g
ReplyDeleteI don't know - DOES the attack in Libya matter (electorally)?
ReplyDeleteWill it still be news by the beginning of November? Does it clearly reflect well or poorly on Obama? My guess is that the answer to both of those questions is 'no.'
On this point, if this turns out to be a temporary outburst that fades quickly -- as I expect it will now that Friday prayers are done -- then the ridiculous Romney response further displays his craven and vain presidential campaign.
DeleteThis was the first week that the general public is starting to pay attention, and Governor Romney immediately decided to explicitly criticize the President as an international crisis unfolded, and he did so in a typically unfair fashion.
When these events fade away over the next few days, and things revert to normal, the President will end up with more foreign policy credibility.
Even if the specific incident is forgotten by November (and I'm not so sure that will happen since this involved some pretty dramatic events), it could still affect the outcome of the race if it helps shape voters' image of Romney (and this is a time when many voters are tuning into the race for the first time). People's opinion of a person can endure long after they have forgotten the reason they first formed that opinion.
DeleteActually, I'd definitely say various members of the Republican Establishment saying that the Party as currently constituted is dead if they lose to Obama in November, rabid partisans pushing for more "issues" (more strongly articulated super-conservative social policy and/or more clarity on the party's very conservative economic policy), and conserva-book pundits laying down the gauntlet and stating that a party that can't win in the 2012 environment should never win.
ReplyDeleteWell, Willard is a lying progressive crapweasel, so I'm not certain his presidential run has any bearing on the existing political landscape, one way or the other.
DeleteLikely a better indicator would be the local, state and federal election results, if you're looking at the distributed weight of political philosophies and their current standing.
Further, I'd say that strident conservatives looking to drive the debate in their direction are likely hoping Willard loses, as that would ensure that 2014 would become the mother of all offyear blowouts, in their favor. A Willard victory would tend to neutralize that effect.
It's more about the trend than anything else, then.
If only they would hold themselves to that! Those kind of promises they break like the wind. Tax reductions for the rich, those they hold to.
DeleteTo Anonymous September 16, 2012 9:06 AM:
ReplyDeleteYour implication that down-ticket contests would better reveal how the conservative movement is faring this year is pertinent. I think that's one of the reasons why GOP leaders are now openly voicing concern over Romney's decisions and the direction of his campaign. I believe that Romney's pick of Ryan for VP was a GOP concession of sorts until 2014 or 2016. The conservative wing of the party really wants to break away from the DC establishment and base the new GOP on social/ religious issues, leaving those who are most concerned about economic issues to either split off and form their own party, or merge with the Libertarians. Anyway, I think that the GOP split has been in the making since 2008 with the Palin pick.
So, definitely, I think Romney's tone-deaf response to the attacks on the American consulate in Libya mattered this week. It was the first marker that disqualified Romney for the job.
" The conservative wing of the party really wants to break away from the DC establishment and base the new GOP on social/ religious issues..."
Delete.
What leads you to believe this? This prediction seems like the typical lefty boilerplate to me, but maybe you have some analysis I've overlooked.
However, the conservative break with the Beltway establishment is long evident, so you're not breaking any news there. It's real. It'll continue on. Poor Nan-Nan called it "astroturf" back in 2009, but went silent after gettin' shellacked. ;-)
So yeah, the candidate picked by the Beltway establishment, Willard the lying progressive crapweasel, from Taxachusetts of all places, isn't being well-received out in the hinterlands. But at the local, state and federal levels, candidates supporting a more conservative zeitgeist will likely perform better overall than him, which as I say, gives us best indication of the contours of the overall political landscape.
And that obscene strike in Chicago, and that county circuit judge's kamikaze decision on Walkernomics in Wisconsin... those give us an idea of the overall contours as well. ;-)
To Anonymous September 16, 2012 9:06 AM:
ReplyDeleteYour implication that down-ticket contests would better reveal how the conservative movement is faring this year is pertinent. I think that's one of the reasons why GOP leaders are now openly voicing concern over Romney's decisions and the direction of his campaign. I believe that Romney's pick of Ryan for VP was a GOP concession of sorts until 2014 or 2016. The conservative wing of the party really wants to break away from the DC establishment and base the new GOP on social/ religious issues, leaving those who are most concerned about economic issues to either split off and form their own party, or merge with the Libertarians. Anyway, I think that the GOP split has been in the making since 2008 with the Palin pick.
So, definitely, I think Romney's tone-deaf response to the attacks on the American consulate in Libya mattered this week. It was the first marker that disqualified Romney for the job.
The Bernanke announcement -- what Peter Schiff calls "Operation Screw"
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/LS879r7xeLc
Yeah, Zimbabwe Ben is carrying out the Beltway establishment's handiwork here. He cranked up the printing presses again, even though the CPI went up 0.6% on August.
DeleteNice work, Ben. You're pumping the stock market, skyrocketing commodities, energy and food especially, and destroying people on fixed incomes, and their savings.
Nice work, Ben.
So let's see, the August misery index is the sum of an annualized inflation rate of 7.2% plus the unemployment rate of 8.3% or so, meaning the Obama Misery Index stands at 15.5 which puts him in 3rd place all time, behind Carter's 19.72 and just barely nosed out by Nixon's 17.01 if you can believe it.
And given that the real unemployment is at least double what is being reported, it's certain Obama's the career leader in Misery Index. He'd be in the Misery Index Hall of Fame if we counted it up simply.
And what's that lying progressive crapweasel Willard got to say about all this? Nothing. He agrees with Obama on Zimbabwe Ben's handiwork. He agrees with Obama on a lot, much as you hard leftists on this site shriek to the contrary. That's why this race is tied. The electorate recognizes these 2 are bad choices, and not what we need.