Romney is getting swiftboated. Make your opponent's supposed biggest strength his weakness. Without his successful business background he has nothing that might appeal to an independent voter.
US Presidential Election: Tuesday November 6th, 2012
- Thread starter Team Brian GB
- Start date
- Status
Nothing like the swiftboat thing, to be honest. This might actually have some legs. The swiftboat thing was all bullshit.
I think what made the Swift boating thing unique was that you had a decorated war veteran being chastized on his war record in favor of character like Bush who's daddy's influence had kept him safely away from the war.
think what the Obama people know is that Willard got an awful lot of income form firms that outsourced jobs.
Geebus, the GOP talk show loons are getting nuttier. Audio within link.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/rush-limbaugh-obama-hates-america_n_1677338.html
"I think it can now be said, without equivocation -- without equivocation -- that this man hates this country. He is trying -- Barack Obama is trying -- to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream.
There's no other way to put this. There's no other way to explain this. He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced. He moved to Chicago. It was the home of the radical left movement. He hooks up to Ayers and Dohrn and Rashid Khalidi. He learns the ruthlessness of Cook County politics. This is what we have as a president: a radical ideologue, a ruthless politician who despises the country and the way it was founded and the way in which it became great. He hates it."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/rush-limbaugh-obama-hates-america_n_1677338.html
"I think it can now be said, without equivocation -- without equivocation -- that this man hates this country. He is trying -- Barack Obama is trying -- to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream.
There's no other way to put this. There's no other way to explain this. He was indoctrinated as a child. His father was a communist. His mother was a leftist. He was sent to prep and Ivy League schools where his contempt for the country was reinforced. He moved to Chicago. It was the home of the radical left movement. He hooks up to Ayers and Dohrn and Rashid Khalidi. He learns the ruthlessness of Cook County politics. This is what we have as a president: a radical ideologue, a ruthless politician who despises the country and the way it was founded and the way in which it became great. He hates it."
Lots of Romney adverts hitting back at Obama on TV at the moment.
Newbie Basa1987 PMed me asking me to post a link to this op-ed piece which appeared in The Hindu.
Having done that, I will now chastise Basa1987 by pointing out that that has nothing to do with the election. Bad newbie. Bad.
Also, the article is twaddle.
It takes a particular statement from Obama (that India "limits or prohibits the foreign investment that is necessary to create jobs in both our countries, and which is necessary for India to continue to grow,") and makes what seems to me to be an unwarranted leap to specifically claiming the President is telling India to let more Wal-Marts in, even though the article itself later admits he was almost certainly talking about India's effort to tax Vodafone's merger retroactively.
Additionally, the article equates making efforts to prevent outsourcing to protectionist trade barriers, which seems a bit of a stretch.
I think my favorite excerpt though is this one:
That the author chooses to conclude that it is NOT right for India to stop a Walmart from being built, (many cities and towns in the US have made that same effort, with varying degrees of success,) and likewise not right is nearly as hilarious as the assertion that foreign companies outsourcing jobs to India "only increases their efficiencies." As someone who works for a company which keeps its call center (along with all the other jobs) here in America, I'm only too aware of the false economy that low wages offered companies, and the trap of dissatisfied customers who find that the British English that Indian children begin learning at age eight does not adequately prepare them to converse with Shaniqua in Atlanta, Lenny in the Bronx, or Cletus in Mobile, no matter how many episodes of Friends they've seen in their two-week training course.
And all of this leaves aside what can only be described as a massively naive expectation that an American President in an election year with high unemployment numbers should somehow be publicly perfectly fine with sending American jobs to India.
How's that then, Basa?
Having done that, I will now chastise Basa1987 by pointing out that that has nothing to do with the election. Bad newbie. Bad.
Also, the article is twaddle.
It takes a particular statement from Obama (that India "limits or prohibits the foreign investment that is necessary to create jobs in both our countries, and which is necessary for India to continue to grow,") and makes what seems to me to be an unwarranted leap to specifically claiming the President is telling India to let more Wal-Marts in, even though the article itself later admits he was almost certainly talking about India's effort to tax Vodafone's merger retroactively.
Additionally, the article equates making efforts to prevent outsourcing to protectionist trade barriers, which seems a bit of a stretch.
I think my favorite excerpt though is this one:
That the author chooses to conclude that it is NOT right for India to stop a Walmart from being built, (many cities and towns in the US have made that same effort, with varying degrees of success,) and likewise not right is nearly as hilarious as the assertion that foreign companies outsourcing jobs to India "only increases their efficiencies." As someone who works for a company which keeps its call center (along with all the other jobs) here in America, I'm only too aware of the false economy that low wages offered companies, and the trap of dissatisfied customers who find that the British English that Indian children begin learning at age eight does not adequately prepare them to converse with Shaniqua in Atlanta, Lenny in the Bronx, or Cletus in Mobile, no matter how many episodes of Friends they've seen in their two-week training course.
And all of this leaves aside what can only be described as a massively naive expectation that an American President in an election year with high unemployment numbers should somehow be publicly perfectly fine with sending American jobs to India.
How's that then, Basa?
"Cletus"Just out of interest, are you talking about their accent or their dialect in general - grammar and so forth? It's true that Indians speak British English dialect, but their accent's not always easy for us to understand either (unlike that of other Br.E speakers like Australians and New Zealanders). I also found when I was in India that most people who spoke English but weren't used to talking to foreigners had real trouble understanding me.
What about the GOP used to appeal to you? In what ways do you think the GOP has changed over the last couple of generations? Obviously the Tea Party movement is new, but isnt that just a radical reaffirmation of core Republican beliefs about the small state? And while they have a loud voice, the movement is still a minority of the party.
Is it more right wing now than it used to be? More out of touch with the common man? More fanatical about tax cutting? More likely to pander to the religious right?
In all fairness that is a very one sided video. There are many different types of private equity firms, and buy outs. Some do an excellent job and injecting cash into companies and help them survive and grow. Many of the Bain Capital buy outs were distressed companies and had a less than 50:50 chance of survival.
Since when has attacking someone for being rich and successful been an effective strategy in America? Is this banking on the notion that the financial crisis has been a game changer and people are more appalled by extreme wealth than they are motivated by their own aspiration? In the Land of the Free? I wouldnt bank on that, personally.
Just out of interest, are you talking about their accent or their dialect in general - grammar and so forth? It's true that Indians speak British English dialect, but their accent's not always easy for us to understand either (unlike that of other Br.E speakers like Australians and New Zealanders). I also found when I was in India that most people who spoke English but weren't used to talking to foreigners had real trouble understanding me.
Both, really. The accent, yes, but there's aspects of dialect as well, both in the fact that it's British-originated English, and aspects that seem entirely Indian. I recall hearing the phrase "I will revert to you" and thinking "refer to me as what?"
Five Thirty Eight pretty much agrees with my take on the importance of this Bain stuff, as does The American Prospect:
It's been a decent month or so for Obama, but the Plech Prediction - and I know you guys set a huge amount of store by this - is still pessimistic. I think Romney will close in September and October while spending enormously, and scrape through in the election. But that's a prediction about the economy: assuming there's no major scandal, I will be right if the recovery drops off, wrong if it picks up, and probably wrong if it continues to weakly recover... gaffes and trading blows won't matter.
They're not attacking him for being rich - that's the way the Right are spinning it (Rush Limbaugh has just announced that Obama 'hates America').
What they're doing, more or less, is attacking him for being a rich asshole. Making his money by dubious means, hardly paying tax on it, hiding those low taxes, and explicitly intending, once he gets in office, to apply policies that will make it even easier for him and other rich assholes to do that.
It's been a decent month or so for Obama, but the Plech Prediction - and I know you guys set a huge amount of store by this
- is still pessimistic. I think Romney will close in September and October while spending enormously, and scrape through in the election. But that's a prediction about the economy: assuming there's no major scandal, I will be right if the recovery drops off, wrong if it picks up, and probably wrong if it continues to weakly recover... gaffes and trading blows won't matter.They're not attacking him for being rich - that's the way the Right are spinning it (Rush Limbaugh has just announced that Obama 'hates America').
What they're doing, more or less, is attacking him for being a rich asshole. Making his money by dubious means, hardly paying tax on it, hiding those low taxes, and explicitly intending, once he gets in office, to apply policies that will make it even easier for him and other rich assholes to do that.
OK but still, that sounds like a message that would play well in Europe but is that the way to win elections in America? Doesnt pay taxes - well, taxes are bad anyway. Intends to make it easier to avoid paying tax - cool, tax is the devil's work, and that means more people can get rich off their own hard work. Making money by dubious means - well, he made money by being a capitalist, and if there is one thing America believes in it is capitalism. I mean, am I barking up the wrong tree here? This is just how I always thought the US voter looked at the world.
I think you're caricaturing a bit. The Ayn Rand spastic wing of the GOP base feel that way. But 30% of Republicans don't (they're not about to vote Democratic though, because the Dems let in Muslim Mexican terrorists and tear babies apart with their teeth).
And most Americans are in favour of higher taxes on the rich.
I am sure you are right about me caricaturing it. The reality is usually more subtle than these kinds of generalisations allow for. It reminds me of something I read somewhere, some time ago, about how Americans, when asked what they thought about socialism, responded negatively. But when they were asked what they thought of certain individual principles that underpin socialism, such as the rich paying more and the state protecting the most vulnerable elements of society, they responded favourably. Ergo, socialism is a dirty word in America and not properly understood, but Americans not being hostile to more left wing principles. I cant remember where I read that.
That's the thing, really. I think great swathes of the American electorate are social democratic...but they see the term socialism as a dirty word because of decades of fairly sophisticated propaganda on the part of the business sector and government.
There was a poll a couple of years back that said that something like 80% of the population believed 1) that there should be universal healthcare, and 2) it was a moral obligation on the part of the government to provide it.
I dare say that's been a commonly held belief for quite a few years in the U.S. , but it shows how fecked their version of democracy is that the desires of the majority of the population are rarely reflected in public policy...even in something as important as healthcare.
Maybe we are referring to the same poll. Certainly similar conclusions. However, this reality is surely being put to the test now. If Americans wanted healthcare, but the political class wanted to block it, maybe you can see it never coming to fruition. But now they have it, it should in theory be much harder for politicians to take it away, if the people believe in it and want it. So we will see how that pans out.
I've never followed politics closely but I was born and bred into the GOP side as are many Texans. We are led to believe Dems want to bring socialism, make whites bear all burdens, negotiate with terrorists, etc. Having a free mind that I finally discovered the ability to hold in the last decade has allowed me to view from outside the bubble I once lived within. 9/11 has had a huge influence in my views, and the Caf has opened my eyes to other horizons. I'm all for GITMO but also for universal healthcare. I've always been pro-choice but I'm also defiant towards illegal immigration. I now believe it is time to tax churches and religious holdings.
However, over time I've become more of a free-spirit type and along with kicking religion (i.e. Christianity) to the curb and proclaiming atheism, experiencing all the problems in this country, seeing how the rest of the world acts/reacts/lives, how the last administration nearly bankrupt our economy and the world, then these racist, elitist pricks of the trash party... I've just completely flipped sides. I'm not a liberal by any means but I'm no longer a conservative either. I'm down the middle with 75% slowly climbing over the fence to the left side.
Come to the UK. Youll fit right in here. We all hate God but love poor people. Its awesome.
There is no left side (at least not in the classic sense). The political spectrum in the States has shifted so much in the past 20 years or so that Obama, whose stance would have been seen as moderate Republican back then, is seen a Clinton-style democrat now.
There are no grand ideological differences between the Republicans and the Democrats. They differ on some things, of course, but nothing major. So pick your poison. Obama, Romney, it doesn't really make any dramatic difference.
As long as corporations and seemingly unaccountable financial institutions have a strangle-hold on politics then you'll get whatever they say you'll get.
Well I've said for years that big business runs the US and much of the world. I do find the corporate vote counts as a person a big pile of stinking bullshit.
What about their inability to agree on a budget and the politics of tax cutting? Isnt that quite a significant ideological difference?
Perhaps this cat should run for president... the former state governor felt she could and surely the cat is slightly more intelligent, granted he can easily be distracted by birds and rodents.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/cat-mayor-alaska-town-15-years-204423536.html
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/cat-mayor-alaska-town-15-years-204423536.html
I'm sort of like that as well. I was never overly political, always a democrat though, until I saw the conservative/tea bag/Republican reaction to an Obama centrist presidency. These people had their Bush 8 years and look how that turned out, and to react so quickly and selfishly and angrily and with often flat out racist sentiment, and with such an obstacle driven agenda against any "change," really politicized me.
That and . . . and a developing, burgeoning independent non mainstream press that was free from corporate self interest by way of the internet, and all the information that was so scarce or hard to get before. It's no wonder the Right Wing is so anti education, anti intellectual, anti thinking.
And I should add . . . the absolute horror and utter disbelief of the rise of someone like Glenn Beck, and FOX news in general.
It's not even a new idea, though. Adam Smith spoke about in The Wealth of Nations when he described how the "masters of mankind", the merchants and manufacturers of the day, were the ones who dictated policy to the government. And not just in domestic policy matters either.
John Dewey summed it up well when he said "politics is the shadow cast over society by big business". Conglomerates and financial institutions are the substance, politics is only the shadow.
To a point, I suppose.
But I dare say voters know exactly what will happen when Republicans are in power: the deficit will go up. Democrats: taxes go up. There are some fluctuations, but again, nothing major.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
Simon, another way to approach your question might be to say that although freedom to pursue profit ranks highly among many Americans' values, it's not their only value, and that fairness and equality also rank highly.
After all, getting rid of kings was the foundational act of American nationhood (along with some other stuff involving cherry trees, apple trees, and shooting the living shit out of each other for four years).
After all, getting rid of kings was the foundational act of American nationhood (along with some other stuff involving cherry trees, apple trees, and shooting the living shit out of each other for four years).
Apparently the US Olympic uniforms from the Salt Lake games were made in Burma!
It's been a decent month or so for Obama, but the Plech Prediction - and I know you guys set a huge amount of store by this
Mike's prediction: Obama to win relatively comfortably.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/17/john-sununu-obama_n_1679803.html
playing right into Obama's hands.
They must have expected the Muslim, unamerican, socialist charges by now.
Here is a good post on how to be an American:
To be an American 101:
1) Open an account in Switzerland
2) Open another one in Bermuda
3) Close companies here, ship the work overseas, bring profits here (filtered through #1 & #2)
4) Fly American flags profusely and HIGH
6)..
playing right into Obama's hands.
They must have expected the Muslim, unamerican, socialist charges by now.
Here is a good post on how to be an American:
To be an American 101:
1) Open an account in Switzerland
2) Open another one in Bermuda
3) Close companies here, ship the work overseas, bring profits here (filtered through #1 & #2)
4) Fly American flags profusely and HIGH
6)..
Damn.
Ah well, at least Obama gets another term. That's worth being wrong on the internet for.
I'm also assuming that there is worse to come. You don't use your best stuff this early in a campaign. Finally the Dems have stopped being such pussies and are playing to win.
I do find it worrying how business leaders like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are now revered like rock stars. Has that ever happened before?
Trump in the 1980's?
JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, etc. They weren't rock stars, but they were icons in the American political and cultural landscape. To me, the GOP is hoping for a return to the Gilded Age where the wealthy control everything and piss all over everyone else.
Lets just say the Obama team are not like Kerry's campaign.
Your assumption would be right.
- Status