anyone else floored by just how incompetent the rmoney campaign is?

[unblock]

the one thing you used to know about republicans was that they could always run impressive campaigns.

they have to.

their policies are impossible to sell legitimately.

their candidates uniformly suck. the last candidate they had on any level with and semblance of charisma was reagan, which is why they put him on such a pedestal. even since then we've been treated to one fake, slimey, arrogant, smarmy, ungraceful, disgraceful tool after another.


but man, could they put on a show. i mean, they had no choice, but they sure put on a good campaign. flawless messaging, hitting hard, good scandal deflection, perfect timing, everything.

the product sucks but it's very well marketed.



but what is it about rmoney??

first they boxed themselves into a huge corner regarding the aca. this was RMONEY's plan, and their line SHOULD have been that obama's one big law was HIS plan. but the whole republican party doubled down in opposition of their own plan, kneecapping their own candidate on the issue.

second, the whole tax this is horrendous scandal management. either the mclame camp should have leaked it early enough to kill rmoney's nomination chances or rmoney should have released his tax forms early enough so that it would be old news come november. you know, the typical friday night bad news dump.

instead, they're making every amateur mistake in the scandal book. drip, drip, drip. smear the muck around more, keep it in the press, do nothing to end it.

AMAZINGLY incompetent.

not complaining at all, but what is going on??

[pnwmom]

1. His top-down CEO business background hasn't prepared him for the give and take of politics.

He's been surrounded by too many yes-men.

[Warpy]

8. Even if he's getting direction, he's not taking the advice

Good point about the yesmen.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. I feel the exact same way

Surely President Obama could not really be so lucky to be blessed with such an incompetent opponent, could he? Sometimes, I even wonder if I'm dreaming about how bad the RMoney campaign is being run. In fact, in most instances, President Obama's campaign hasn't even had to lift a finger, especially in regards to his overseas trip last week. We've got a little ways to go to November but Romney has run such an incompetent campaign so far (and his trip abroad didn't help things at all) that his favorability ratings are sinking and people are starting to sour on him, things that will be difficult to fix no matter how many billions of dollars in ads are run against President Obama. That people seem to generally like President Obama and believe that he is looking out for the average "John and Jane" suggests that he stands a good chance of winning a second term barring some kind of catastrophe(though I can't exactly imagine what that might be).

All I can say is, whatever he is doing, I hope he keeps it up!

[Politicalboi]

3. But it worked for him in Mass

He pulled the same shit, and possibly not having spent enough time living in the state to be Governor, but he did it. He got away with it, and this was in Mass.

He thinks he can do it again, and the media will probably tire of this soon.

[braddy]

6. He was elected Gov with less than 50% and left office desiring reelection but faced a 34% approval

rating, that election was his only victory since he started running in 1993, and until this primary win. Willard is not exactly a walking political machine, and as we saw in Mass., he was a failure as a political executive.

[silverweb]

4. They don't care.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I think they know they're incompetent and they just don't care -- because their real plan is to steal the election.

Voter suppression.
New restrictive ID requirements.
Election fraud.
Intimidation.
Deception/misdirection.
Electronic manipulation.

They'll be using all the above and whatever else they think they can get away with. It only has to work in a couple of key states and they just might pull it off -- again (think Florida 2000 & Ohio 2004) -- if Dems don't aggressively counter every single underhanded tactic with a tidal wave of exposure, strength, solidarity, and making sure every Democrat gets the opportunity to vote and be counted.

[freshwest]

10. +1,000

It will take an overwhelming turnout as in 2008 to overcome this. The dog whistles from now to election day will make their votersline up to vote GOP no matter what. Romney could come out officially as the anti-Christ and they'd vote for him.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

11. Economic manipulation, too...

Unemployment would be at least 7% if some of the job-creating bills Obama had introduced were passed.

[vixengrl]

5. I think there's a perfunctoriness that's hard to square with the

a) ginormous gobs of money that's sure to be wielded by the Rmoney campaign and the SuperPACs it (hardeeharhar) won't be colluding with

and

b) the antagonistic nature of the GOP base (aka--The Teaparty) to the Obama Administration and all that.

Is it that they suspect they'll lose and can't commit? (See the recent Tomasky column at The Daily Beast.) Or is this just a place-holder--the GOP suspecting they'll sacrifice this one and put all their real chips on 2016?

I don't know for sure, I can only guess that for some reason, the enthusiasm isn't there. Whether Romney being a lying privileged asshole sucked all the will out of his campaign is just a thing we can only talk about , wherever and whenever it's absolutely necessary to do so, which is all the time.

In other news, Mitt Romney is a lying asshole about military voting rights in Ohio, won't release his tax returns because he's probably a sneak-thief, and the more anyone gets to know him, the more they hate his face,

Go Amercia!

[BlueStreak]

7. They are good with the dirty tricks, but

When was the last time the GOP ran a solid campaign?

I think the only honest answer to that is 1980, and even then it took the treasonous hostage deal with the Ayatollah.

Did GHW Bush run a great campaign in 1988 or was Dukakis especially bad? I don't want to criticize, but we know the answer to that one.

Did GHWB run a great campaign against Clinton? Did Dole?

And in 2000, certainly Rove did his job well, but Gore and Droopy Dog didn't exactly light it up.

And in 2004 Kerry just stood there without ever fighting back on the swift boat attacks. Was that a great GOP campaign or a particularly inept Dem one?

And did McCain run a great campaign? I don't think so. From his strange VP choice to the bizarre goings-on during the financial crisis, this campaign never went anywhere.

I see Romney as about average for ineptness. Republicans, by their nature, are out of touch. They are much more comfortable in the country clubs and in the company of billionaires. Put them around common people and they immediately seem out of place. That's just who they are.

[Gregorian]

9. The evolution of communications is the enemy of cockroaches.

Digital information with it's ability to be stored and searched is a killer for those who thrive on ignorance.

And Obama's campaign is good.

[grantcart]

13. oh slimy piece of shit go back from where you come from.

Of course you are desperate in your dispair that the complete and total rejection of your radical right agenda.

Your brief time here is coming to an end.

The time when we have to tolerate your kind having a seat at the table is coming to an end.

You will be soon back at the small childrens table talking to like minded psychopaths.

[grantcart]

14. What has struck me, and some other campaign type guys I talk with is that there seems to be

no learning curve at all.

From the begining of the primary campaign it didn't seem as if they got any better at all.

It appears that the campaign doesn't have a Plouffe or Rove type that is the center of the campaign administration and has the power to go into the boss and give him bad news, even if the bad news is that the candidate is screwing up.

no learning curve at all.

[Summer Hathaway]

15. That's what strikes me, too

The fact that mistakes aren't learned from - they simply lead to even bigger mistakes.

[oldhippydude]

18. funny you should mention that....especielly you Grantcart

what it reminds me of.. bunch of Mormon yes men, very similar to the last days of Howard Hughs.. money could buy anything except common sense.. If it made sense to Howard that was all that counted..

not only is there no learning curve.. it goes beyond incompetence, and reeks of decay..

[Kalidurga]

16. I am actually in shock...

I am still not over what Romney did in London. Then he went to Israel and not only insulted the Palestinians, he tried to make it better by insulting Mexicans. Apparently Romney is capable of learning something. When he went to Poland he said very little and shook a lot of hand. Some leader there said it was like shaking hands with a dead fish, I paraphrase of course. Then the bigger shocker was when he told Reid to "Put up or shut up." This move might be an ok move under a couple of conditions. The first being that the person saying it has provided lots of proof for their position and the person they say it to has not provided any proof for anything and is just on constant attacks. The other condition is that the person saying it doesn't appear to be a waffle wearing flip flops waiting to etch a sketch any embarrassing positions away. So, no Mitt has neither of those conditions met so this just makes him look even weaker and on melt down.

[elzenmahn]

17. One Word -

- ARROGANCE -

They apparently think that having their hands on the electoral levers (voting machines, suppression), along with a rabidly racist sect of their base, will be sufficient to propel the Mittwitt into the White House.


Lest we forget, however, that there is a more reasonable part of their electorate that is getting disgusted with this excuse of a campaign as well. And remember, the debates and conventions haven't even started yet. That's when the real compare-and-contrast begins - my advice: stock up on the popcorn and your favorite hooch for the inevitable drinking games. Obama vs. Mittwitt in a debate? Forget a cleaned clock - Mittwitt won't even have a clock to clean when Obama's done with him.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

19. "what is going on??"

This didn't happen overnight. It came in stages.

Originally, the Right Wing knew they had to dress things up to sell it to the public because it's really hard to get employees to vote for the party of their boss. Then Newt came out with his "word list" and a new batch of people came in who didn't know how to govern but knew how to win with a negative campaign. Right Wing control of the media was almost complete to the point where the entire debate was between the hard right and the libertarian right. They kept saying "this is a center-right country" so much they believed it themselves. They created a vast echo chamber and became victims of their own propaganda to the point where Karl Rove famously said people like us were in what they call the "reality-based community"

Rove went on to say, "That's not the way the world works anymore, we are an Empire now and when we act we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too. We're history's actors. And you will be left to just study what we do."

That arrogance born of the bubble is what we are observing now. The total, unabashed sense of entitlement to the reigns of power without regard to any outside force which they consider to have been vanquished long ago. They stroll boldly wherever they go and act like everyone should be honored to receive them, for they are America's Political Royalty. The ones who brought down the Soviet Union single handed and BRIBED the Hippie movement into becoming Yuppies and joining their ranks.

We used to know, as a nation, how to deal with people like this...

[Kablooie]

20. The extremists have driven all the facile politicians into hiding or retirement.

And they are set and determined not to allow lessons from the past or realities of the present affect the purity of their ideologies.

[vinny9698]

21. Nations are always using the last war tactics to fight the new war.

This is what Team Romney is doing. They won the governorship using these tactics and will continue to use them.