Obama V. Romney

Leo

Well-known member
thought we could use a new thread as the race reaches the home stretch. seems the dems had a much better convention, thanks to mr. hilary rodham clinton.

found this encouraging:
State of the race: Advantage, Obama
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/80949.html?hp=r5

...although the GOP/superPACs have a huge bank account of donations that will rain down a torrent of negative ads in the last month. obviously the debates will play a big role as well, romney did ok in primary debates when scripted but seemed to lose it a little and say dumb things when confronted/challenged, or when he got annoyed.
 

Leo

Well-known member
a better politician would have managed the primaries differently. let's face it, romney was up against a pretty weak field of GOP opponents and should have been able to beat them without going far-right/"severely conservative". had he done that, he wouldn't look like such a flip-flopper now that he's moving back to the moderate center to appeal to general election voters.

the general sense, even from people who dislike obama, is romney has no core of conviction...like a true business consultant, he'll tell everyone what they want to hear, not what he really believes. he and ryan are so vague in their plans that no one, outside the GOP faithful, trusts what they would actually do in office.

another challenge for him is there are so few undecided voters at this point, tough to say if convincing them will be enough to gain him victory in battleground states. it would be ironic if, in this year of citizens united, there simply aren't enough undecided voters to sway, regardless of all those millions in SuperPAC spending.
 
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Sectionfive

bandwagon house
One evening before last week's Congress, Barack and Michelle Obama went to visit the Clintons for a chat and to sort out arrangements for the Democrat nomination. When they were being shown around the Clintons pad Barack asked Bill if he could direct him to the bathroom, so Bill showed him to his own quarters and his own bathroom. In the car on the way home Barack was telling Michelle about Bill's own quarters and how he even has a golden urinal. A few days later Michelle met Hillary and was thanking her for the lovely evening and mentioned how impressed Barack was with Bill's gold urinal.

That night as they were getting ready for bed Hillary turns to Bill and says,
"You won't believe this, but I found out who pissed in your saxaphone..."
 

connect_icut

Well-known member
tea partiers and far-right conservatives will be thrilled with that video. the only problem is they were never going to vote for obama anyway, so it doesn't gain mitt anything. not sure it does any good for his attempt to reach out to moderates/independents/undecideds.

The American left is already calling this "the day Romney lost the election" and stuff like that. Maybe, maybe not. It'll be interesting to see how much damage this really does him. It'll be a good test of how much middle-American has swallowed all the extreme right-wing/libertarian bullshit that's been finding its way into the mainstream discourse over the last decade.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Hope this doesn't get boiled down to welfare-claiming Democrats vs taxpaying Republicans.

As Bloomberg points out here, GOP voters make up a big chunk of the 47%.
 

vimothy

yurp
Not sure how old that advert is, but there's been talk of this recently:

Three Romney advisers told BuzzFeed the campaign's top priority now is to rally conservative Republicans, in hopes that they'll show up on Election Day, and drag their less politically-engaged friends with them. The earliest, ambiguous signal of this turn toward the party's right was the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as Romney's running mate, a top Romney aide said.

"This is going to be a base election, and we need them to come out to vote," the aide said, explaining the pick....

"On the outside, here's what going to happen: we're going to nuke Barack Obama into radioactive sludge in the swing states with 3000-4000 points of TV in September," Wilson said. "Crossroads and Restore [two Republican SuperPACs] will do the same. It's going to be hitting in concert with the terrible economic news, and it'll strike a chord."

That leaves Romney to spend most of his time on the trail delivering narrowly-focused messages meant to excite conservatives who weren't always behind him in the Republican primaries. (Ironically, what eventually won many of them over was Romney's argument that he would be the best candidate to win over moderate voters who traditionally decide the election.)

It has transformed Romney's road show from an almost robotic speech into a sometimes-passionate, and often unpredicatble, partisan appeal.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/romneys-new-strategy-turns-right
 

Leo

Well-known member
Not sure how old that advert is, but there's been talk of this recently...

that fundraiser video posted on mother jones was taped in may 2012, after mitt won the primaries. and the article you quote from is a big reason why this election is far from over, even with all the gaffs and campaign meltdown stories. tons of money for negative ads will tighten the race, and voter ID laws could hurt democratic efforts to turn out their base.

washington post has an article about a woman in pennsylvania who went to get a state voter ID at the department of motor vehicles, had to take the day out of work and it took her four hours all together, standing in various lines, filling out various forms and having to show about five other specific forms of ID. how many people are actually going to take the time out of work and put up with that much bullshit? not many, i imagine. and most of them are democrats.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...8d4f52-0027-11e2-b260-32f4a8db9b7e_story.html
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I didn't watch it myself but, um, it sounds like Mitt Romney demolished Obama last night.
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
tumblr_mbd0a28oWc1qiseoho1_500.gif
 

Leo

Well-known member
I didn't watch it myself but, um, it sounds like Mitt Romney demolished Obama last night.

it was a bit painful to watch for an obama supporter. romney continued to contradict his earlier positions and occasionally just make shit up, but he was more aggressive and energetic. obama rarely got in a groove, looked down a lot, pretty much never held romney's feet to the fire on things like the 47% quote or paul ryan's budget plan. he better pick up his game in the next two debates.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
He'll still win, though.

I think what would be really interesting (among many other things, admittedly) if Romney actually won would be the reaction of all the real Republican contenders who elected to wait until next time. They are betting (probably correctly) on an Obama win -- and, I am sure, as future GOP candidates rather than conservative supporters, hoping for one.

Would Ann Romney be the first Welsh American First Lady? This is about the only thing that would stir me to actively hope for a Romney win.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
I think what would be really interesting (among many other things, admittedly) if Romney actually won would be the reaction of all the real Republican contenders who elected to wait until next time. They are betting (probably correctly) on an Obama win -- and, I am sure, as future GOP candidates rather than conservative supporters, hoping for one.

Be interesting to see how Christie's future plays out long-term. If the GOP can't keep people like him inside the tent they're really double fucked with knobs on. But you can already see the Tea Party tendency narrative taking shape - Romney had momentum and was on course to win until Sandy came and blew him off course, aided by an ambitious self-interested NJ gov.

Bollocks of course - the momentum had stalled and was going into slight reverse already, but that won't stop them.

538 at its healthiest since before the first debate for O - http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/. And presumably any bounce from Sandy still take to full effect.
 

Leo

Well-known member
going strictly by the math of crunching the various poll numbers, nate silver has obama's chances at over 90%. i wish i felt that confident, but i'm encouraged. either way, whoever loses is going to be a really sore loser and probably fight it in court.

thought this was interesting: republican legislatures in florida and ohio institute new restrictions this year on early voting, resulting in huge lines (5-7 hour waits!). on the other hand, faced with voting places wrecked by hurricane damage and power outages in new york, democratic governor cuomo signs an emergency measure that allows any registered voter to vote at any polling location in the state. one side doing everything it can to limit voting, the other side taking measures to help as many people as possible to cast their vote. that says a lot about the two parties and our current situation.
 
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