The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Elusive Trope's picture

    The Hail Mary was Successful but Costly

    By Elusive Trope on Thu, 10/04/2012 - 9:00pm |

    Romney down by 9 with 10 minutes left to go, not trusting his defense, went for the Hail Mary pass (just lie through your teeth and hope no one notices).  It was successful.  But the only wide receiver that put fear into the hearts of the defense's backfield was injured in the process.  So there is now 9:41 left in the game, Romney, down by 9 and in field goal range at Obama's 14 yard line no longer has a sigificant passing game.

    Does he play it safe over the next few days and settle for the field goal?

    Does Obama's team find a way to sack Romney's team and put them out of field goal range?

    Or does Romney team commit stupid undisciplined penalties talking to the media that puts them out of field goal range?

    Or does Romney muff the next snap and turn the ball over?

    Or does some play in the next rally or messaging in the next media interview allow Romney's team to score a touchdown on a trick Statue of Liberty play (because Romney is so patriotic, there is no other trick play he would consider) and score a touchdown, cutting the lead with just under 9 minutes left to just 2 points.

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    by Elusive Trope on Thu, 10/04/2012 - 11:38pm

    "'You can say anything you want during a debate and 80 million people hear it,'observed Peter Teeley, press secretary to Vice President Bush. If reporters then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, 'so what? Maybe 200 people read it or 2,000 or 20,000.'"

    – New York Times, November 1, 1984

    http://www.michaelmoore.com/


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 12:12am

    that might have been true in 1984, but this is 2012 and people get their insight from tweets, links and pics from friends and co-workers, and youtube.  So 200 people read a reporters take on the debate, but 200,000 saw the tweet from Big Bird and 25,000 saw the image of the cookie monster dis Romney,  This is a different world.


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 12:25am

    Sure everyone is having fun with big bird. But how many people tweeted about this?

    http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/lets-not-forget-that-mitt-made-hi...

    Here is Mitt Romney last night, criticizing the green energy loan guarantee program that was part of the stimulus bill:
     

    You put $90 billion into green jobs....And these businesses, many of them have gone out of business, I think about half of them, of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business.


    Close! The DOE 1705 program has approved 33 loans worth about $16 billion. So far there have been three failures (Solyndra, Beacon, and Abound), which works out to a failure rate of....

    9%.

    By dollar volume, these loans will cost a maximum of about $600 million if the government ends up on the hook for the entire loan amount. That comes to maybe 4% of the total. By other measures, the failure rate is less than 1%


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 12:36am

    This is 2012.  How do people understand their world.  Back when Reagan was taking on Carter, we had the national news, our local news (how does candidate X's proposal impact [insert your city or region]), and maybe the NY Times if was delivered in your region,  Then there was SNL.  In those days, what happened  during the debate mattered because once it was gone, it was gone.  Now in a post modern revenge, we relive the moment ad nauseam, not as it was, but re-filtered through some perspective, whether that is ideological (e.g. Maddow and Hannity) or non-ideological (The Chive). 

    In other words, your figures for 98% of the populace create the glazed eye syndrome.  Big Bird is of course Big Bird, but he (she?) connects in a way talking about the DOE doesn't.  And how Americans know what the D and the O and the E stand for?


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 12:52am

    I have absolutely no idea how people understand their world. How can a guy who made millions off shoring and out sourcing jobs, squirreling cash in the Cayman Islands and Swiss bank accounts, paying less tax on his millions then lots of middle class workers, plans to voucherize medicare for all the retiree's kids, (but it won't affect you, don't worry), with tax and deficit plans that are mathematically impossible and bad for our country even if they could be made to work run nearly even in the polls?

    Now maybe all the jokes about Big Bird will sway a vast amount of votes for Obama. That's really pathetic if its true. Worse yet, I hope its true. I hope the people are that trivial because substance against blatant stupidity doesn't seem to be working much better than 50%.

    But there is a possibility that 70 million people heard Romney say Obama spent 90 billion to promote green energy and half of the companies failed, many of the loans were payoffs to his campaign contributors. Its possible that the lie will not be corrected with a funny and clever tweet. Its possible it might affect their vote and its possible all the other lies Romney told will affect votes too. In spite of all the hilariously funny big bird tweets.

    I guess I just don't have your faith in the power of the tweet.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 1:20am

    all i know is that liberals gnashed their teeth from 2000 to 2008 that Bush was in the White House because people would rather have a beer with him rather than their opponent, and it appears that conservatives are gnashing their teeth that Obama is in the White House from 2008 to 2016 because the people would rather have a beer with him rather than his opponents.

     

     


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 1:40am

    I suppose one could make the case that elections are won on the "wanna have a beer" standard. I never thought that was a really powerful motivator.

    One could make a better case that Gore lost because he was successfully portrayed as a serial liar with some sort of crazy ego problem. A lie the republicans sold to the people with an assist from the media. I'll remind you that the guy no one wanted to have a beer with got more votes than the guy everyone wanted to get drunk with. It was only our archaic electoral college system and a nudge from the Supreme Court that gave the win to Bush.

    One could also make the case that Kerry lost because he was portrayed as a flip flopper and his service and medals from Viet Nam were, again, successfully lied about. Of course it could all be beer.

    I don't think  this debate will change things much. But this election is close and it only takes a few points to change the outcome. Maybe it is all about beer and big bird jokes but I think lies convincingly and successfully told can have a pretty large effect too.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 2:13am

    Talking about Romney lies on how job growth will eliminate the deficit, would the average voter comprehend this stuff, probably not, from Howard Hill a retired investment banker:

    Starting with Romney’s assertion that his policies will lead to 12 million new jobs over four years and provide the government with fresh tax revenue, how close will that come to plugging the gaping hole in the federal budget? ....If you have a $1.3 trillion annual deficit, and you are going to make it shrink to zero..... If the new jobs were those $40K per year jobs each paying 20 percent in taxes, we’d need 162.5 million new jobs. For those playing along at home, that’s more jobs than the total current civilian labor force, which stood at 154.6 million last month....If we assume (12 million jobs) that those jobs pay $40,000 per year and that each new job pays 20 percent in Federal taxes, the total additional revenue comes to just $96 billion in 2016.

    Let’s imagine those new jobs are really, really good jobs. How good do they have to be to provide enough new tax revenue to cover the deficit?

    At a 25 percent Federal tax rate on all the new income, the average new job would have to pay a mere $433,333 per year to fill the gap. Sign me up for one of those new jobs, please....

    It's lying, Republican style. They keep changing the lies so fast, by the time you debunk the last one they have a new set ready.

    Tom Toles:

    Every election has it’s own unique millstone hung around the public’s neck, and this year apparently it’s going to be that Romney was “energetic”, therefore his policies make more sense for the Republic than they did before he was “energetic”. So now, back through the policy slog once more. People will discover that pressing harder and more energetically on the budget pencil does not change the math. That is I presume people will figure that out. If not, well, see you in the funny papers.


    by NCD on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 10:07am

    maybe the best way to explain this is to point out that John Mellencamp came from a small town in Indiana - yes, he is a Hoosier, just as I find myself.  He understands better than anyone the cultural film that runs in people's minds. A film that makes no sense when one looks at how people vote.


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 1:52am

    Hail Mary!

    Full of grace, The Lord is with thee

    Blessed art thou amongst women and....

    Fuck the Romans and the repubs cause they are never going to help that baby no matter how much help that baby might need the help.

    the end


    by Richard Day on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 5:46pm

    The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  So many of the conservative right (with their prosperity gospel mentality) believe if you are on God's good side, only good things happen to you.  If you're poor, you're just not praying good enough.  If you get right with God, the debt collectors won't be calling.

    So how can their side be behind? Why is God denying them the Oval Office?


    by Elusive Trope on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 6:30pm

    I was in Philosophy I at the U; 1968

    Some TA was going over the notes from he who must be obeyed.

    Some chick chimes up in response to some directive from the TA:

    BUT THE LORD THY GOD ADMONISHED THE PHILISTINES....

    He kind of looked blank as she continued and by the time she finished he said:

    WELL FIRST OF ALL; THERE AINT NO GOD!

    Everybody laughed.

    Just kidding he admonished just before he told us the hour was over.

    The repubs under Rove simply referred to the Christian Right as the nutters or some such during W. Bush's Administration.

    So I am stuck in this purgatory whereby I despise theological explanations for anything and the heaven presented by the real followers of the Christ who really are responsible for the Union in the mid 19th century; the Civil Rights Advocates of the mid 20th century and the wonderful folks who continue to champion the aims of The Christ in this new century.

    the end

     


    by Richard Day on Fri, 10/05/2012 - 7:29pm