Posted on 09/17/2012 10:16:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Josh Barro:
You can mark my prediction now: A secret recording from a closed-door Mitt Romney fundraiser, released today by David Corn at Mother Jones, has killed Mitt Romney’s campaign for president.
Josh Marshall:
It’s rare when the impact of some gaffe or embarrassment or revelation isn’t overstated on first blush. But this may just be that rare exception. This tape strikes me as absolutely devastating.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hasn’t the 2012 campaign taught us not to jump the gun with various “gaffes”? (Yes, I will be using scare quotes throughout.) In fact, didn’t the 2008 campaign teach us this too? Here is my old graph with the 2008 Democratic primary polls, noting Obama’s comment about “bitter” voters who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
No movement in the polls after the story broke. Let’s do some from the 2012 general election thus far:
No discernible or certainly consequential movement because of Obama’s two “gaffes.” The only movement after Romney’s comments about the Libya attack is in his favor, thanks largely to the probably inevitable tightening after Obama’s convention bump.
The best case for saying that “gaffes matter” is that actual voters are persuaded to change their minds because of the gaffes. If they don’t, then it’s tough to argue that “gaffes” are really “game-changers.” And, in fact, usually voters don’t change their minds. See, for example, Michael Tesler’s and my analyses of the impact of “the private sector is doing fine.”
The best argument you can make about these gaffes is sort of a woolly counterfactual: “Well, if it hadn’t been for the release of Romney’s video today, Romney would have been able to accomplish X, Y, and Z, which would have helped him win the election.” Like any counterfactual, there is some plausibility—yes, Romney would rather talk about the unemployment rate than these comments.
But like any counterfactual, it’s predicated on assumptions about what the world would have looked like without these comments. And given the tenuousness of any such assumptions, and the (at best) small effects that single events in any presidential general election campaign tend to have, I would stop well short of calling this video “devastating.”
Many a news cycle was built on a “gaffe” with a remarkably short shelf life.
Audiance = Audience...I even checked it...Aaargh!
Seriously - this kind of “Dumminess” is a problem. I even heard a black guy talking to another black person (security guards) who said he was undecided and wished he could vote for Clinton again.
Undecided voters often don’t vote...but they will when they here something like this.
You can’t say 47% of the people are on the government dole...they aren’t...at least all the way. I get my coffee from McD’s every morning and sometimes an Egg McMuffin and I see the same people every day and they are adults who get up at 6:00am for every shift. They always say thank you and “come back”. These aren’t lazy people and I don’t begrudge them a few foodstamps if their salary is low.
Romney is messing up bigtime IMHO.
here's a clue for you liberals. what groups are disproprtionately represented in those red highlighted states? hint: 97% of this particular group voted for Barack Obama in 2008.
Well I don’t have a problem with the fact that your graph shows that the southern states are the highest “Non-Payers” by state...my state (Georgia is pretty close to a “paying state”)
I seem to remember Gerald Ford saying something about certain Eastern European countries behind the Iron Curtain actually being “free” during a debate with Carter...it was pretty devastating.
Georgia-the state with the third highest population of african americans. Mississippi is number one. Lousiana is number 2. South Carolina is #5. Alabama is #6. Florida is #11 and Arkansas is #12. I wonder why there are so many people collecting welfare and not paying taxes in those states.
Yep. And there’s a bigger problem: oblunder has clearly divided this country in many ways, polarized groups against one another. Romney’s comments only make this worse. He should be pointing out obluncer’s divisiveness and not coming up with his own.
At a time when we need to come together, Romney needs to reach out to every group and invite them in. That’s what Reagan did. Reagan would never have written off half the Citizens for the other party. He invited them to join him to make a new America.
Here we are at the point where a guy who knows economics inside and out is blasted from both sides for making a true statement, while the lying son-of-a-bitch-in-chief gets plaudits for each new fabrication manufactured for him. Screw it. This country really is dead.
Mr. niteowl77
This is true. Romney is/was never going to get the Government Dependents’ votes anyway. His winning depends on massive voter turnout on the ABO side, and with independents, with an ambivalent Democrat leech turnout.
It was not a “gaffe”, it was a serious violation of the standards of Political Correctness.
...”But what Romney did was not a gaffe”...
It was called that by people who major in calling good, evil and evil, good. ...”Jesus (Yeshua) warned Satan is the “father of all lies. The Bible warns “in the last days” evil men (and women) will be prevalent. Lying and deception (and being deceived) will characterize the generation (and the leaders) who will pull the world down into the dark abyss and terrors of the coming “Apocalypse” . . .
“But KNOW this,
that in the last days
perilous times will come . . .
Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse,
deceiving (lying) and being deceived.”
(2 Timothy 3:1, 13)”...
http://www.alphanewsdaily.com/Warning%205%20Lying%20and%20Deceiving.html
We believers admit to being a “peculiar” people because some of us believe we are in the last days. What description can come closer than that of the previous quote to describing the hedonism of our ruling classes today? God has a place prepared for the just and the unjust..We must always remember that a final judgement will bring justice to bear on the sinful men and women who have only lusted for power in their short lives here on this earth.
...”for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls”...ESV 1 Peter 1:24
And do we expect that all welfare mothers want the same lifestyle for their daughters? I think not! And do we expect that all disabled fathers want their sons to be disabled? I think not!
Dependent people want better for their children. They want their children to be employed and self-sufficient. These are the children for whom Romney will be providing opportunities.
I think it’s a very smart move. Remember when Obama said “everyone’s got to have skin in the game?” Well everyone doesn’t. Half the country is carrying the other half and both the middle class and the wealthy resent it.
I am flabbergasted at how wrong-headed your post is.
There is NO WAY that the Republicans can out-Democrat the Democrats. That’s what got us into this mess.
And if you are saying that Latino’s are all part of the 47%, that’s just wrong.
And for the ones who are, along with whites, blacks and everyone else, it’s time for the parasites to consider the health of the host or nobody is gong to be left.
We just can’t afford to let this go on, and for my part I commend him for getting this issue out in the open.
Oh the Latino vote is already lockstep to Obama for Mexicans, thanks to Obama’s promising of illegal alien bennies. For Cubans Romney has a lead I am sure. Puerto Ricans may be slightly in the Obama camp although historically they don’t get along with blacks.
This might actually work in his favor to “gin up” and excite the base! Bush did this in 2004 and won by about 4%. it is doable! But none of you who claim to be conservatives need to sit on the fence!
Despite the fact that Romney wasn’t my choice, I will vote. I will vote. I will vote - for Romney - Against OBAMA!!!!!
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