If Barack Obama loses the presidency, blame for the outcome may come down to a fatal mistake in tactics: The Democrats made fun of Mitt Romney. Too much fun, as it turned out.
Uncomfortable with talking about Obama’s own domestic record, the Democrats’ campaign against Romney essentially amounted to portraying him as a nitwit — an ignorant, insincere, and gaffe-prone dolt who had no business being on the national stage, much less becoming president. That message was relentlessly pushed over the summer and early fall by the Obama campaign and it was undeniably effective. By the end of September, literally every single respected national poll showed Romney trailing the president. The National Journal, for instance, gave Obama a margin of 7; Fox News, 5; NPR, 7. Republicans were discouraged; the race seemed over.
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As a fairly rabid liberal and Massachusetts resident for the last ten years or so, I've never had the feeling that the narrative against Romney was one of stupidity.He's said some pretty dumb things but I've never had the impression that the man was somehow low functioning. Now if you want too talk self-serving, hypocritical, demagogue, biased, elitist and dangerous then I'm on board with that completely.
and the liberal media was glad to go along....
Recent failures by Mittens to be a complete fool has been only possible by keeping him tightly under wraps practicing his Reagan impersonation.
If Mitt loses. I think it is becoming clear Mitt will lose. The reason Mitt will lose is two fold. He's the same Mitt that was governor of Mass. inconsistent, wobbly without any real sense of who he was or what he wanted except to be governor. Now he wants to be Pres. not for any special reason, just because.
The other reason is he had the Republican Party hung around his neck. No not the conservative party I knew and once belonged to, but this nuthouse of Tea Party freaks, libertarian naive children, and a flock of haters. These folks scare the heck out of normal folks.
So when Mitt loses hopefully the powers that be will give us normal Republicans a call and ask us to come back. We'll actually think about it.
Hear, hear. I registered independent/unenrolled for 20 years. Even voted for Mitt. When Mitt "reinvented himself" and started touring the country slamming Mass and attacking gay rights was the first time I ever declared myself a member of a political party. And it wasn't the Republican Party.
In general, Democrats view Republicans as incompetent Neanderthals, and to see this one simply needs to watch MSNBC. When the Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen said that Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, it was reflective of the contempt and disdain in which Democrats view Republicans and those who hold traditional values.
Mitt Romney made more than $250 million in the private sector—there is no affirmative action program that I know of that gives idiots $250+ million. (The same cannot be said for the Nobel Peace prize—see Obama winning the award two weeks into his Presidency.) Romney has always been a smart and competent manager, and an able, if uninspiring, politician, whether you agree with his views or not.
Hillary Rosen was a private citizen when she spoke. She was not part of the Democratic presidential campaign. Just as Rush Limbaugh voices his over the top opinions. By the way she apologized for her remark. When was the last time Mr. Limbaugh did for any of his disgusting utterances. Further Mitt Romney was given other people's money to make his fortune and lucked out with a finger heavily weighted on the scales in his favor. Even then many of his business practices do not pass the smell test. However agreeing or disagreeing with his views is how we choose Presidents. How he did in business is not since what he was doing had little to do with how a country should be governed. As chief executive in Massachusetts he had 400 vetoes overridden and spent his last year badmouthing the state while taking a leave of absence of some 200+ days out of the state. He raised fees and passed on shortfalls to the cities and towns. He cut education and mental health outlays. When he left less than 34% of Mass citizens approved of his leadership. Since Democrats make up only 35% of the state that must have included many who voted for him in the first place.
Hillary Rosen was a private citizen when she spoke. She was not part of the Democratic presidential campaign. Just as Rush Limbaugh voices his over the top opinions. By the way she apologized for her remark. When was the last time Mr. Limbaugh did for any of his disgusting utterances. Further Mitt Romney was given other people's money to make his fortune and lucked out with a finger heavily weighted on the scales in his favor. Even then many of his business practices do not pass the smell test. However agreeing or disagreeing with his views is how we choose Presidents. How he did in business is not since what he was doing had little to do with how a country should be governed. As chief executive in Massachusetts he had 400 vetoes overridden and spent his last year badmouthing the state while taking a leave of absence of some 200+ days out of the state. He raised fees and passed on shortfalls to the cities and towns. He cut education and mental health outlays. When he left less than 34% of Mass citizens approved of his leadership. Since Democrats make up only 35% of the state that must have included many who voted for him in the first place.
No one believes Mr. Romney is a fool. We just believe he has lived such a privileged cloistered life that he does not get out much. Humor is used since it is the more effective medium to point out these detrimental flaws as a potential chief executive for this nation. We can live with it but we will not be better off. The flip side of this is Mr. Current Republican Candidate's mockery of the President. It talks of throwing Israel under the bus, apology tours, weakening welfare laws, weakening our miliary, and other fantasical assertions. I notice you did not emphasize Romney's calling teachers, firemen, and police who belong to unions "stooges," his exact words. We indeed need some comic relief to prepare us if this country can not see that their choice will be foolish if Mr. Romney is elected. The candidate himself has kept his policy cards very close to his chest but is surrounded by advisors who brought us two unneeded wars and economic collapse. If we put them back in office, the joke will be on us.
The point here is very true, and Tom is wise to display it. Negative advertising does indeed work. But there is a fine line that must never be crossed, where the attacks come across as silly. Never has any candidate emerged more comptetant in reversing the sway of the ads than Romney has in the debates.
NEW PARAGRAPH: The SNL portrayals of the candidates is very revealing in this regard. They destroyed Georeg W. Bush by making him look like a complete dunce, and that that was the narrative that stuck. It does similar approaches on all Republicans, making them look silly, and here is the point: It makes fun of their policies. This is a tack it never places on Democrats. It will make fun of their speech patterns, of their body language, and give us a good laugh. But never does it parody their policies.
I would love to be a writer for the parodies of Obama. We could ridicule his declaration that he could stop the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. We could ridicule his belief that 50,000 pages of health care regulation could actually bring down the cost of health care, we could do skits about the national security leaks, and the bumbling political decisions of Eric Holder (fast and furious, not prosecuting the balck panther thugs harrassing people on election day)
No, SNL ignors these jewels and simply makes fun of Obama's speech style.
Now, Obama seems to have employed SNL writers to write attack ads on Romney, and his failure on this come through every time Romney is able to speak wwithout going throuhg the mainstream media filter. It will almost guarantee an Obama loss.
From the Salt Lake City Tribune endorsement of President Obama for a second term: "In considering which candidate to endorse, The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board had hoped that Romney would exhibit the same talents for organization, pragmatic problem solving and inspired leadership that he displayed here more than a decade ago. Instead, we have watched him morph into a friend of the far right, then tack toward the center with breathtaking aplomb. Through a pair of presidential debates, Romney’s domestic agenda remains bereft of detail and worthy of mistrust.
Therefore, our endorsement must go to the incumbent, a competent leader who, against tough odds, has guided the country through catastrophe and set a course that, while rocky, is pointing toward a brighter day. The president has earned a second term. Romney, in whatever guise, does not deserve a first." [ http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/55019844-82/romney-obama-state-president.html.csp ]
Keane's disingenuous column is only surpassed in anti-Democratic hatred by Jacoby's horrendous voter suppression garbage today. Obama has been the target of incessant right-wing attacks before and since he became president, and that hatred has been translated into broad-based Republican obstructionism putting party before country in order to destroy the President and his administration. But here we have this pathetic whining about attacks on Romney apparently to generate (undeserved) sympathy for and perhaps fear of Romney if he were to be elected president. It's the sickening hypocrisy of people who can dish it can't take it themselves.
Tom, you are so right. Axelrod and his Chicago campaign office spent hundreds of millions trying to demonize Mitt Romney. In the historic first debate between Obama and Romney, 70 million viewers saw a diffident, contemptuous incumbent president and a Romney who is intelligent, reasonable and even compassionate. Game over, Barack. Call United Van Lines and prepare for your million dollar lecture fees (just like Bill Clinton).
Mr. Keane points out the obvious. The Democratic Party spend millions of dollars, probably over $100 million in fact, demonizing Romney. Then, came the first debate during which some 70 million Americans watched both Romney and Obama for the first time without a prepared speech or teleprompter, and Romney was nothing like the bumbling fool the Democrats had built him up to be.
Americans respect a successful businessman, and everyone knows that Romney didn't get there by being a bumbling fool who thinks airplanes should open their windows. That the Democrats expected the vast majority to swallow the koolaid illustrates just how low an opinion they really have of the American people.
As for Obama himself, a bit of debunking of Democratic propaganda was all it took to discredit Obama's machine and remove his aura as a good and genteel leader, a post-partisan, post-racial man who would heal the bitter divisions of the Bush years. He's exposed now, an emperor with no clothes, and the sight is not a pretty one.
Conservative and moderate Republicans both feared Romney in the primaries,now he's the second coming of Christ.
Great column today and so right. In fact, name one Rep canadidate that wasnt mocked or made out to be a fool, idiot, incompetent and extreme by the democratic party and majority of the mass media, commedians and like: Sarah Palin, George Bush, Dan QUayle, Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower...all the way back to the first republican Abe Lincoln who they said was uneducated and ugly...
Name one Democratic candidate who wasn't mocked, made out to be a fool, idiot, incompetent and extreme by the Republican Party and majority of the mass media? Our first President seems to have been largely spared in his time, but from Adams' campaign onward it has been the rule rather than the exception.
Wow...we have listened to years of Obama being made fun of and that was okay but saying anything about Romney will backfire on Obama winning. I have more faith in the American people to be able to see beyond this nonsense. For the past four years small groups have gathered on the road sides with a poster of Obama manipulated to appear like Hitler! He was not even president yet when these groups formed. We have listened to years of garbage about Obama not being a citizen, years of argument that he is Muslim, What else...oh ya...we have heard that he is a socialist because he believes that all people deserve affordable health care.
Quite the contrary to what Keane says here, "Uncomfortable with talking about Obama's own domestic record" (You must have your head in the sand and your ears blocked, Mr. Keane if you have not heard Democrats talking about this!) Democrats are talking at length about the domestic record and the improvements that have been made since Obama took office. Please go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing jobs over the past number of years. Look at the decline in jobs that took place in 2007-2008 when Obama was NOT President. It stays down for 2009 while the Obama administration starts to get things in place. Need I remind you that we had the worst economic collapse sine the Great Depression just BEFORE Obama took office? Have you forgotten that? Times have been very tough for many people, but things are on the upswing with no help from the Republicans in Congress! Since late 2009, there has been a complete reversal of the trend and the chart shows the number of jobs increasing each year. The chart shows almost a mirror image of the last three years of the Bush administration, with the line headed down on the Bush end and up from 2009 through present. Please, go fact-check that! We are moving in the right direction with more jobs and developing the sustainable energy sector of our economy. The oil companies are not happy about that, but we need to stop depending on oil, no matter where it comes from, to fuel our lives. Game over, Romney!We won't let you dismantle our country so you and the most wealthy people can become...oh ya...more wealthy, at the expense of the poor and the middle class. Your greed is amazing!
Here's the chart! Note the source; these are the facts from the Dept of Labor Statistics. So, stop the nonsense about there not being an increase in jobs, the chart shows the truth.
Be careful, kathleen1, you may trigger the right wing's allergy to facts.
Kathleen, your graph is colorful but not persuasive. Yes, there has been some job creation since the recesssion ended several years ago. But the rate of recovery has been so anemic under President Obama that the official unemployment rate remains near 8 percent and lots of discouraged workers have permanently left the job market to collect disability checks. It's time for aa change. Romney and Ryan deserve a chance to get job creation rolling once again.
"Uncomfortable with talking about Obama’s own domestic record." When you can't win on facts, attack the person. There is no truer statement of the liberals' conundrum and thus their strategy in this election. And enough of the fight over jobs. Everyone knows that the economy is in the recycle bin. No chart or newstory can change that. This country is in woeful condition and the democratic answer is four more years of the failed experiment. Many conservatives, including myself, were willing to vote for Obama in the last election because we were on the wrong path. Do liberals have the same desire to see our country righted or are they so blinded by Obama's love for their social policies that they'll risk everything for abortion and gay marriage? If you read the Globe op/ed pages and more importanly the letters to the editor you'd be left with serious doubts about that question.
Quotes from my favorite conservative and the godfather of all true conservatives:
"I am a conservative Republican, but I believe in democracy and the separation of church and state. The conservative movement is founded on the simple tenet that people have the right to live life as they please as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process." (in a 1994 Washington Post essay)
"The religious factions will go on imposing their will on others,"
"I don't have any respect for the Religious Right."
"Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass."
"A woman has a right to an abortion."
If you can't agree with those statements you're not a "conservative". You are simply a reactionary who despises government.
Conservatives have never hated government but are philosophically opposed to radical change, not change itself. Mitt is nether a conservative nor a liberal nor a moderate. He is politically nothing.
I think you're reaching here Tom. Of course Romney's been made fun of, that's part of the job description for a politician. Many Republicans have attempted to demonize Obama, questioning his citizenship and saying he wasn't a Christian but a Muslim (as if that were an insult). Seems like Romney has been treated with kid gloves in comparison. And come on, regarding the 47% remarks, he asked for it.
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