UNLIMITED GOP 2012 PRIMARY CANDIDATE THREAD

[Cain]

Matt Taibbi has upset the fee-fees of Democrats everywhere by pointing out that Romney is a boring centrist much like Obama

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/is-this-the-most-boring-election-ever-20120507

The people who work for the wire services and the news networks are physically incapable of writing sentences like, "This election is even more over than the Knicks-Heat series." They are required, if not by law then by neurological reflex, to describe every presidential campaign as "fierce" and "drawn-out" and "hotly-contested."

But this campaign, relatively speaking, will not be fierce or hotly contested. Instead it'll be disappointing, embarrassing, and over very quickly, like a hand job in a Bangkok bathhouse. And everybody knows it. It's just impossible to take Mitt Romney seriously as a presidential candidate. Even the news reporters who are paid to drum up dramatic undertones are having a hard time selling Romney as half of a titanic title bout.

The Republican base is angrier and more determined than it ever has been, yet Republican voters picked as their nominee the one candidate in their slate of primary challengers who depresses them. This is exactly the John Kerry scenario. Kerry was never going to win, either, and everyone pretty much knew that, too. But at least in the Kerry-Bush race there was a tremendous national debate over the Iraq war, which many people (incorrectly, probably) thought might end more quickly if a Democrat was elected.

This year, it's not like that. Obviously Republican voters do hate Obama and genuinely believe he's created a brutally repressive socialist paradigm with his health care law, among other things. But Romney was a pioneer of health care laws, and there will be dampened enthusiasm on the Republican side for putting him in office.

Meanwhile, Obama has turned out to represent continuity with the Bush administration on a range of key issues, from torture to rendition to economic deregulation. Obama is doing things with extralegal drone strikes that would have liberals marching in the streets if they'd been done by Bush.

In other words, Obama versus McCain actually felt like a clash of ideological opposites. But Obama and Romney feels like a contest between two calculating centrists, fighting for the right to serve as figurehead atop a bloated state apparatus that will operate according to the same demented imperial logic irrespective of who wins the White House. George Bush's reign highlighted the enormous power of the individual president to drive policy, which made the elections involving him compelling contests; Obama's first term has highlighted the timeless power of the intractable bureaucracy underneath the president, which is kind of a bummer, when you think about it.

Then there's one more thing – Obama versus Romney is the worst reality show on TV since the Tila Tequila days. The characters are terrible, there's no suspense, and the biggest thing is, it lacks both spontaneity and a gross-out factor. In Reality TV, if you don't have really sexy half-naked young people scheming against each other over campfires in the Cook Islands, you need to have grown men eating millipedes or chicks in bikinis drinking donkey semen. And if you don't have that, you really need Sarah Palin.

This race has none of that. Biden is the best character in the series, but for exactly that reason the Obama administration would be wise to bury crazy Joe in a salt mine until the election is over. (The networks have skillfully teased the Frasier-style future spinoff show from this election – the inevitable Hillary-Biden race in 2016 – but they're keeping most of that action under wraps for now). Romney will no doubt stoop to some truly appalling attacks before the election season is over, but he'll do so out of sheer, boring calculation. He's not insane, which is a tremendous insult to a Republican politician.

A thousand liberal blogs have sprung into action, denouncing Comrade Taibbi for his Moral Equivalence Deviationism and shouting "no, this is the most important election EVER", ignoring things like recent history or common sense to make their "point".

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Isn't every election the most important election ever? I mean, sure, I love to watch Republicans lose but only for the fact that they're so easy to hate. Plus, they're more entertaining as losers than Democrats are. But I can think of some elections that were way more significant than this one.

[Cain]

Reading between the lines on this, it looks like Ron Paul is losing control of his activist base

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/ron-paul-admits-he-will-not-be-president/257167/

The campaign, Paul said, "will continue to work in the state convention process" in order to "carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that Liberty is the way of the future. Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted."

There are 11 states that have yet to hold presidential primaries, from Oregon and Nebraska, which vote on Tuesday, to Paul's home state of Texas on May 29, and finally Utah on June 26. Paul said competing in those states "with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have."

Though the statement is a bit cryptic, it seems to be a message directed mainly at Paul's activist following. The message: Cool it.

In recent weeks, Paul supporters have increasingly been making trouble at local Republican Party conventions, even as they've succeeded in gaining delegates in several states. This past weekend, Paul delegates in Oklahoma got in a physical altercation with Mitt Romney's delegates, and in Arizona, Paul backers booed Romney's son Josh. A Paul supporter even interrupted Herman Cain at a GOP gathering in Virginia on Saturday.

Paul has tried to dispel the notion that his fans are actually a legion of saboteurs bent on making a scene at the national GOP convention in Tampa in August. "It certainly isn't for the reason of disrupting a convention," Paul told CNN last week. And his campaign publicly disavowed Paul-supporting activists' attempts to take over the state party in Idaho.

Paul and his team are, according to sources familiar with their thinking, deeply uncomfortable with the spectacles staged on his behalf. But more than that, they see the chaos as a threat to Paul's long-term goals.

[Doktor Howl]

Reading between the lines on this, it looks like Ron Paul is losing control of his activist base

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/ron-paul-admits-he-will-not-be-president/257167/

We saw this in the last election, when some of Paul's stalwarts tried to mob Sean Hannity.  Also, the neck-stomping thing in Kentucky (or was it Tennessee?).

[Cain]

Kentucky, but I think that was Rand Paul.  I suspect there is a lot of overlap in support though, to be honest.  Not to mention when Ron Paul gives up campaigning for the Presidency, I am fairly certain he is going to hand over his support network to Rand.

[Cain]

Bain Capital is fucking up Democratic strategery

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/205025-dems-receive-more-bain-dollars-than-gop

Democrats have accepted more political donations than Republicans from executives at Bain Capital, complicating the left's plan to attack Mitt Romney for his record at the private-equity firm.

During the last three election cycles, Bain employees have given Democratic candidates and party committees more than $1.2 million. The vast majority of that sum came from senior executives.

Republican candidates and party committees raised over $480,000 from senior Bain executives during that time period.

Oops.  That rather complicates the plan of tying Romney to Wall Street, doesn't it?

[Luna]

Romney has apparently chosen to stuff his foot in his mouth up to the kneecap.

Mitt Romney: I find it amazing that we have troops in harm's way around the world - in Afghanistan right now, in Iraq the first three years of this president's term. He doesn't go on TV every month and talk to the American people about the sacrifice being made by these men and women. I find it extraordinary that a very few number of families are paying the price of freedom in America. The hurdle to actually putting our troops in harm's way is very, very high, and the test is America's interests. Our security interests. And they have to be involved in a very significant way to deploy our troops.

This... from a draft dodger.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/08/1052774/-The-Most-Disgusting-Comment-In-Last-Night-s-Debate

[BabylonHoruv]

Romney has apparently chosen to stuff his foot in his mouth up to the kneecap.

Mitt Romney: I find it amazing that we have troops in harm's way around the world - in Afghanistan right now, in Iraq the first three years of this president's term. He doesn't go on TV every month and talk to the American people about the sacrifice being made by these men and women. I find it extraordinary that a very few number of families are paying the price of freedom in America. The hurdle to actually putting our troops in harm's way is very, very high, and the test is America's interests. Our security interests. And they have to be involved in a very significant way to deploy our troops.

This... from a draft dodger.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/08/1052774/-The-Most-Disgusting-Comment-In-Last-Night-s-Debate

That doesn't look like foot in mouth to me.  Romney appears to be taking an anti-war stance.   I think it is bullshit, but he is trying to portray himself as the "bring the troops home" candidate.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Romney has apparently chosen to stuff his foot in his mouth up to the kneecap.

Mitt Romney: I find it amazing that we have troops in harm's way around the world - in Afghanistan right now, in Iraq the first three years of this president's term. He doesn't go on TV every month and talk to the American people about the sacrifice being made by these men and women. I find it extraordinary that a very few number of families are paying the price of freedom in America. The hurdle to actually putting our troops in harm's way is very, very high, and the test is America's interests. Our security interests. And they have to be involved in a very significant way to deploy our troops.

This... from a draft dodger.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/08/1052774/-The-Most-Disgusting-Comment-In-Last-Night-s-Debate

That doesn't look like foot in mouth to me.  Romney appears to be taking an anti-war stance.   I think it is bullshit, but he is trying to portray himself as the "bring the troops home" candidate.

You fucking idiot.  He's talking about universal conscription.

I find it extraordinary that a very few number of families are paying the price of freedom in America.

For Iran.

The hurdle to actually putting our troops in harm's way is very, very high, and the test is America's interests. Our security interests. And they have to be involved in a very significant way to deploy our troops.

[Luna]

A foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney's campaign warned against policies that would aid "the Soviet Union" Wednesday, making him at least the third person from Team Romney — including Romney himself — to refer to a country that hasn't existed since 1991 in the course of attacking President Obama's foreign policy.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/romney-soviet-threat-again.php

Out of touch?  Not Mittens!

[Phox]

A foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney's campaign warned against policies that would aid "the Soviet Union" Wednesday, making him at least the third person from Team Romney — including Romney himself — to refer to a country that hasn't existed since 1991 in the course of attacking President Obama's foreign policy.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/romney-soviet-threat-again.php

Out of touch?  Not Mittens!

I believe they are referring to this incident:
http://www.kaneva.com/asset/assetDetails.aspx?assetId=4153745&communityId=0

[Sir Bearington]

I really hope Mitt isn't a communist sympathizer or Pro-communist.

Otherwise Sexyfish is infact a russian spy.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

The romney campaign is up to date on foreign affairs! Fuck general secretary putin!

[Sir Bearington]

The romney campaign is up to date on foreign affairs! Fuck general secretary putin!

Now let's see if he can see Russia from the west coast using his super eyesight like Sarah palin who uses it to spot and target deer for hunting.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Romneys on (occasionally) the east coast but usually in michigan which is central coast.