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Blame Fox News, not Mitt
Romney's run an awful campaign. But his real problem is most Americans reject the Fox News/Limbaugh fairy tale
By Jonathan Bernstein
(Credit: AP/David Mcnew/Salon)
Romney himself, or at least his campaign, seems to have massively misunderstood how the economy is perceived. Thats perhaps due to the conservative closed-information feedback loop. If most of your information comes through Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, you might think that the economy was just fine or maybe a bit on the weak side until January 2009 and that it has gone from bad to worse since then. Certainly, thats what Republican rank-and-file voters seem to think. In the meantime, while Democrats are optimistic about the economy and Independents are moderately pessimistic (but far less so than in 2008), economic confidence among Republicans is as low as it was back in the nightmare winter of 2008-2009.
The outcome of all this is a Republican campaign theme emphasizing the question Are you better off? a terrible match for what are, after all, miserable economic circumstances. Rather than inviting people to compare the present to how things should be and therefore encouraging them to compare Barack Obama to whatever their ideal might be Romney is asking people to compare Obama to George W. Bush. While that might work really well among those listening to Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck, its a losing fight with everyone else.
So Romney cannot have a coherent foreign policy because what his voters want to hear is that Barack Obama sympathizes with terrorists. Most Americans, meanwhile, think of Obama as the guy who took out bin Laden. Romney cannot have a sensible tax policy because conservatives insist that he promote large, self-funding tax cuts for the rich. Most of the nation, however, supports raising taxes on the rich, and reality insists that cutting taxes also reduces revenues. Also, Romney didnt invent the 47 percent nonsense; whether he truly believes it or not, he was simply parroting back what his voters have been hearing for years from Rush Limbaugh and others like him.
One is that its likely that any winning candidate, after spending years fighting for the Republican nomination, would be so far inside the conservative closed-information feedback loop that he or she would be doing the same things. Its not because the candidate pressure from the right but rather because he or she has lost perspective on what anyone outside of that loop believes. And the second is: Weve seen no evidence that Tea Partiers are willing to trust anyone.
Sure, weve had some campaign goofs that appear to be about Romney and not the GOP: the flap about his tax returns, the decision to put Eastwood on the podium without a script, the candidates brilliant plan to insult the Brits over the Olympics. But for the most part, whats been happening hasnt been a series of gaffes; its been the very predictable consequence of the triumph of Tea Party conservatives in the Republican Party.
a very interesting article with a very plausible theory - should be read in its entirety:
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/22/blame_fox_not_mitt/
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Blame Fox News, not Mitt (Original Post)
Douglas Carpenter
Sep 2012
OP
Faygo Kid
(21,477 posts)1. Fox News basically runs the GOP now.
They have no wriggle room. The right wing radio bloviators only make it worse, by being so far out of it. They have their listeners convinced that Obama has no chance. Extraordinary.
The Magistrate
(95,237 posts)2. Sound Observations, Sir
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)3. To quote David Frum:
"Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox."
So, Republicans, how's that Faustian bargain working out for ya?
Same question goes for the dumbass movers and shakers in the party that thought turning the Tealiban loose was a good idea.
friendly_iconoclast
(15,333 posts)4. I read something along those lines on Fark, of all places:
http://www.fark.com/comments/7341876/Are-you-a-down-in-dumps-conservative-worried-that-Romney-is-blowing-his-presidential-chances-Blame-Fox-News-not-Mitt?cpp=1
...The social conservatives only have one thing sustaining them at this point... The white-hot, seething Anyone But Obama syndrome. Romney has been a complete windsock on the wedge issues they hold dear. The fiscal conservatives who put any thought into it know Romney/Ryan are the bastard children of G.W. Bush and Ayn Rand, combining the worst of each, so they aren't exactly inspired. The only thing holding them together is all those "temporarily embarassed millionaires" like Joe the Plumber who think they're going to benefit from Tax Cuts Uber Alles.
You betcha they're going to swing even stupider in 2016.
You betcha they're going to swing even stupider in 2016.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)5. Some of those comments are priceless.
"thenewmissus: I blame a lot of things on Fox News, but Mitt's campaign isn't one of them. Mitt built that." is a bowl of awesome with a cherry on top.
Uncle Joe
(58,111 posts)6. Kicked and recommended.
Thanks for the thread, Douglas Carpenter.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)7. Fox 'News' has done more damage to the USA
than Al Qaeda. I'm glad the majority of us reject both.