Mitt Romney's Desperation

Over at his blog at Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi writes that the presidential race is pretty much over, Obama's won, and everyone's pretending otherwise for their own reasons. The media takes the blame for wanting the ratings/newsstand sales/hits generated by the tight race narrative, according to Taibbi, but obviously the campaigns themselves benefit -- Team Obama is probably worried about complacent voters and Team Romney's motivation should be obvious. It's probably overstating the case by a few orders of magnitude, but at this point it feels pretty accurate -- especially when you think about the scattered reports of a Republican mood of doom and the fact that the phrase "Romney's narrow path to victory" is fast becoming a cliche.

But another cliche is "[insert period of time here] is a lifetime in politics" -- in this case, between now and November. This cliche is pretty much true. A lot could change between now and then. Unfortunately for Romney, a lot of those changes are in his positions. Romney's need to tell every voter exactly what they want to hear has him tying himself in knots and engaging in pretzel logic.

Huffington Post:

Despite his 2008 call to "let Detroit go bankrupt," presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Monday that he would "take a lot of credit" for his impact on the U.S. automobile industry's comeback.

During an interview with WEWS-TV in Cleveland following a campaign stop, Romney said his views helped save the industry.

"I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy," Romney said. "And finally, when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back."

This is, of course, completely insane.

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Romney's Latest Attack Just Another Lie

It's becoming very clear that Mitt Romney plans to run a campaign of lies. If you check out Steve Benen's posts on the subject at the Maddow Blog, you'll see that the sheer number of Romney lies is really pretty astonishing. That Romney is a shockingly dishonest man is the most overlooked story of the 2012 campaign. It ties in with his constant readjustments on the issues; Mitt has his finger in the wind and his eye on polling, constantly trying to tell people what they want to hear -- even when it's a plain lie. It's one of the things that really disturb me about him. He clearly wants the power of the presidency very, very badly -- probably more than any candidate in my lifetime -- but he doesn't seem to want to tell anyone why. It's clear he's willing to do or say whatever it takes to get it. What he'd do with it remains a mystery.

On the bright side though, he and his campaign haven't been stellar examples of competence. He's constantly tripping over himself. The real Mitt often shows up at the least opportune moments. But it's easy to focus on the gaffes to the distraction from the lies.

Somewhere in our recent history (i.e., during the Bush administration), it became a terrible thing to call a lair a liar. The media shies away from pointing out untruths, preferring instead to simply report the things a public figure says -- and then report how that figure's political opponents respond. If the only information you ever got was from the mainstream media, you'd live in a world where there's no such thing as facts and lies, only differences of opinion.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that a photo circulated by Romney spokesperson Ryan Williams (posted above) isn't the most honest depiction ever.

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Romney's Healthcare Plan: Just Passing the Buck

It's time once again to discuss "repeal and replace." That's the Republicans' so-called plan to deal with the terrible problem of Obamacare. They want to repeal the whole damned thing, then replace it with something a lot better. Here's Mitt Romney's campaign website on the big plan to replace the Affordable Care Act:

On his first day in office, Mitt Romney will issue an executive order that paves the way for the federal government to issue Obamacare waivers to all fifty states. He will then work with Congress to repeal the full legislation as quickly as possible.

In place of Obamacare, Mitt will pursue policies that give each state the power to craft a health care reform plan that is best for its own citizens. The federal government’s role will be to help markets work by creating a level playing field for competition...

Mitt will begin by returning states to their proper place in charge of regulating local insurance markets and caring for the poor, uninsured, and chronically ill. States will have both the incentive and the flexibility to experiment, learn from one another, and craft the approaches best suited to their own citizens.

So Mitt's plan is that he doesn't actually have a plan. He'll hand out money to the states with block grants -- which are more likely to be spent plugging budget holes than on health care -- and that's about it. He's passing the buck and calling it a "plan." All he promises to do is return the health care market to its previous completely screwed up and unsustainable status quo -- then it's up to someone else to get us out of this mess Mittens has made.

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Confronted With His Secrecy, Romney Plays the Victim Card

A few days ago, I wondered if anyone actually knew who Mitt Romney really was. Was he the moderate governor of Massachusetts? Or was the centrism an act to win in a blue state? Is he the far-right Tea Party type he seems to be now -- or is that an act to win the GOP primaries? We have no way of knowing, other than to take Mitt's word for things. And that'd be a lot easier if Mitt's presentation of himself weren't constantly changing.

As the DNC video above demonstrates, these questions have occurred to more people than just myself. Not only does Mittens have secret plans for after the elections, he has a secret ideology, a secret past, and secret wealth.

Steve Benen:

Mitt Romney appears rather desperate to shield his tax returns from public scrutiny. He has the materials -- when Romney was considered for John McCain's 2008 ticket, the former governor turned over 23 years worth of returns -- he just doesn't want to share the materials.

The Romney campaign, however, has a new line it hopes will put a stop to the questions. Ed Gillespie told Fox News the other day, "In 2004, John Kerry as a Democratic presidential nominee, released two years of tax returns. In 2012, Governor Romney will release two years." Romney himself repeated this on CNBC yesterday, saying, "John Kerry released two years of taxes."

The problem, of course, is that the talking point isn't true. Judd Legum explained that Kerry, by the time of his 2004 presidential campaign, had actually released 20 years of tax returns.

Romney was only off by a factor of 10.

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ALEC, Guns, Prisons, and the Lucrative Business of Fear

The Trayvon Martin case has brought a secretive group to national attention. "The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has traditionally been anonymous, working behind the scenes to advance a far-right agenda far from the public spotlight -- which was always the intended plan," writes Steve Benen. "Shadowy obscurity allowed ALEC to be more effective and made it easier for lawmakers to follow the group's lead without controversy."

ALEC is behind many bad ideas at the state level; ultrasound laws, attacks on Planned Parenthood funding, attacks on unions, the Republican War on Voting, and -- of course -- insanely liberal gun laws like "Stand Your Ground." The sum total of ALEC-inspired gun laws has turned states like Florida into wild west-style war zones, where one in every fifteen adults has a concealed carry permit. Needless to say, this doesn't make for the safe society that conservatives tell us it does. If you doubt that, consider how safe a gun saturated community kept Trayvon Martin.

But the purpose of all these gun laws isn't to keep anyone safe, no matter what you're told. The purpose is to create fear. Liberal gun laws are great PR for fearmongers. They pretend to decide to "finally get serious" about a problem you had no idea existed. And the reason you were ignorant of the problem is because it doesn't exist. As they do with voter ID laws and voter fraud, political hacks use a few isolated incidents to create the impression of a massive problem about to overrun the United States. First the argument is that the only way to protect yourself is to get a gun, then it's that liberals are too strict about how you use that gun. Finally, it reaches the absurd level of "Stand Your Ground," which -- when all is said and done -- allows you to shoot anyone you're afraid of.

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Republicans' Jobless 'Jobs Agenda'

If you want a great example of how the Republican Party's reduced itself to empty talking points, consider their argument that government doesn't create jobs. It's obviously untrue on so many levels, but they keep saying it because the chumps keep buying it. They almost always immediately contradict themselves by talking about all the ways they think government could create jobs. Pet projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, cutting taxes, reducing regulations, etc. will all create a great big jobs avalanche, we're told, if only government would get around to creating all those jobs that they also argue government couldn't possibly create. And lets not forget that all of these people are either drawing a government paycheck or competing for a government job.

But the idea that government can't create jobs becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy with Republicans. They get into government and block measures that would increase employment. And that's when they aren't calling the shots. When they are calling the shots, all that stuff they talked about on the campaign trail and Fox News goes out the window. When Republicans are in power, it becomes time to pay off narrow constituencies that helped get them elected. These payoffs have absolutely nothing to do with jobs, mind you, but good governance was never really the point. The point is a corporate anarchy they wrongly refer to as "free market capitalism" -- and a Republican majority to protect that anarchy.

Since you don't achieve anarchy by passing laws, Republicans become obsessed with trivial busy work. You repeal what you can, hamstring this or that agency when the opportunity arises, but mostly you dick around with inconsequential BS that throws a bone to those narrow constituencies.

Steve Benen:

With Congress' approval rating reaching depths unseen since the dawn of modern polling, self-interested lawmakers should probably focus at least some of their attention on addressing actual problems.

House Republicans apparently disagree. In 2010, the GOP majority invested considerable energy in tackling imaginary threats (killing farm-dust regulations, protecting the "In God We Trust" motto); picking unnecessary culture-war fights (restricting abortion rights, going after NPR); and pursing right-wing measures that couldn't become law (replacing Medicare with a voucher scheme).

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How Many Rounds Can the GOP Primary Fight Last?

The big day in Florida is tomorrow and polling is all over the place. While pretty much all of it shows Mitt Romney winning, the question is by how much -- and in that, polls are in wild disagreement. Of three of the most recent polls, two show the race tightening drastically, while one shows Mittens maintaining a big lead. Already, Gingrich is lowering expectations, talking about a strong showing, rather than a win.

There's a reason why polling results are all over the place in Florida -- it's a blood-soaked battlefield. "Estimates vary on exactly how much more Romney has spent in Florida, but the enormous gap is hard to miss," writes Steve Benen. "TPM's figures say pro-Romney spending outpaced pro-Gingrich spending, $15.3 million to $3.4 million. NBC News totals put it closer to $16.9 million to $4 million. As of Friday, the New York Times pointed to a $15 million to $2.5 million gap."

So Mitt has the financial advantage and that's pretty much the only thing that turned it back around for him. But deep pockets can only take you so far. "In a general election against a well-financed incumbent president," Benen says, "this financial edge will largely disappear."

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And the Presidential Campaign Goes Straight to Stupid...

I watched Newt Gingrich's movie on Mitt Romney last night. When Mitt Romney Came to Town may be a stinging indictment of Romney's slash-and-burn style of capitalism, but it's not a very good movie. It's more of an attack ad than a documentary, filled with clichéd negative ad tropes -- slow motion clips, ominous and growly square wave tones, etc. No Oscar buzz here.

Still, the message is pretty clear and pretty accurate; when Romney claims to be a "job creator," he's not being 100% honest. But this is Newt Gingrich, which means there has to be at least one completely insane note in the movie. When I saw that Steve Benen wrote about "oblique xenophobic slights" in the movie, I'd expected to see jobs moving to China or undocumented workers stealing American jobs.

What I saw instead was Mittens speaking French.

And apparently Team Newt thinks that speaking French is a horrible, horrible thing. Because I woke up this morning, turned on the news, and saw this:

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The Republican Attack on Democracy

The Republican war on voting actually serves two purposes. The most obvious is in preventing people from exercising their most fundamental right as an American, while the second is to create yet another culture war wedge issue. Hordes of illegal aliens are voting, they argue -- without evidence. In other cases, people vote twice or in the wrong district, in order to elect their candidates. The problem with this scenario is that the one high-profile case I can think of involved someone who would most definitely not vote dem. Still, it fosters the divisive "us-vs-them" hysteria that Republicans love so.

The New York Times editorial board points out just how phantasmagorical the idea of widespread voter fraud really is.

In Kansas, the secretary of state, Kris Kobach (who also wrote Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant law), pushed for an ID law on the basis of a list of 221 reported instances of voter fraud in Kansas since 1997. Even if that were true, it would be an infinitesimal percentage of the votes cast during that period, but it is not true.

When The Wichita Eagle looked into the local cases on the list, the newspaper found that almost all were honest mistakes: a parent trying to vote for a student away at college, or signatures on mail-in ballots that didn’t precisely match those on file. In one case of supposed “fraud,” a confused non-citizen was asked at the motor vehicles bureau whether she wanted to fill out a voter registration form, and did so not realizing she was ineligible to vote.

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A Washington Scheduling Conflict is Not the Most Important Story Ever

One of the things I like to do with what I think of as my "long form" posts is kill two or more birds with one stone. It's often the case that when you look closely at an issue or story of the day, it relates to other stories and other issues. So many things are interconnected and politics (as much as politicians like to pretend otherwise) is a complex and faceted thing. It's nearly always the case that you can grab a story and make it at least two stories; "Man, this is dumb -- and the media sucks!" And yes, media suckage figures into this particular post.

So let's begin with that. Yesterday, President Obama announced that he wanted to address a joint session of congress on September 7. This wasn't going to work, there was a big Republican debate that night and we can't have the president dominating that news cycle. Of course, House Speaker John Boehner didn't put his refusal that way, but no one on Earth believes there was any other reason. The President pushed his case, but later dropped it. He'd address congress on the 8th.

OK, now here's where we get to the "and the media sucks!" part; this is the big story today. A scheduling disagreement. Yes, the GOP looks petty and self-serving. "Remember, this is just about picking the date for the speech. It's like arguing about the shape of the table before sitting down for negotiations. What possible chance is there for Washington to approve meaningful economic legislation if there’s a dramatic showdown over scheduling?" writes Steve Benen. "That's a rhetorical question; the chances are zero." But the bigger story -- that President Obama is going to unveil a major jobs plan -- is lost in the coverage of this minor palace intrigue.

Worse, it turns out we have a good idea what's in the plan the President will outline and media's ignoring this knowledge.

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Little Bullies, Schoolyard Taunts, and Republican Campaigning

When I was in grade school, there was this one kid. Of course, he will remain nameless, because this is the story of a little prick. He delighted in hurting people's feelings and pushing people's buttons. And he was also a coward. If you chased him down, he'd beg and cry and promise to stop being such an a-hole, but as soon as he got out of reach, he'd go right back to being a jerk -- I mean immediately. I would've kicked his ass -- maybe I should've -- but I wasn't that kind of person, I was raised right. I see now that he was some category of bully, but it didn't seem like it at the time, because all the violence in that particular relationship would've come from me. But bully he was, because he enjoyed abusing other people. And he did it because he knew I wouldn't hurt him, despite the fact that I was one of the biggest kids in the school. Seriously, I could've snapped him like a twig.

If current events are any indication, that kid has a job in the Republican Party today. At the very least, he's a Tea Partier. They're the party of insults, the party of smears, and they do it because they know liberals won't hit back in the same way. We can't, really. Our voters wouldn't like it. We're persuaded by rational argument, not schoolyard taunts. But Republicans love jerks. If you're an abrasive loudmouth, you're the best thing ever. If you don't believe me, turn on talk radio and count the seconds between insults. You won't count very high. Or better yet, correct a rightwinger on twitter. Their very first response to you will be an insult that they think is knee-slappingly clever. They mistake debate -- which in its purest form should be a fact-based, logical exposition of truth -- for a knock-down, drag-out fight in which the one who gets to say, "Ooh, burn!" is the obvious winner. Facts are meaningless, logic is irrelevant, truth is for losers. Politics is about insults and political debate is just a more formal version of "the dozens."

Which brings us to this photo being passed around by David Limbaugh:


Click to enlarge

How very typical.

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Rep. Paul Ryan Hides Behind a Paywall

What is that I smell; is it fear or blood in the water?

Politico:

It will cost $15 to ask Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) a question in person during the August congressional recess.

The House Budget Committee chairman isn’t holding any face-to-face open-to-the-public town hall meetings during the recess, but like several of his colleagues he will speak only for residents willing to open their wallets.

Ryan, who took substantial criticism from his southeast Wisconsin constituents in April after he introduced the Republicans’ budget proposal, isn’t the only member of congress whose August recess town hall-style meetings are strictly pay-per-view.

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The "Unbiased" Media Strikes Again

When I woke up this morning, I cracked open my paper and came across this simpleminded and asinine opinion piece, courtesy of the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board. Yay for the debt limit deal, they argue, because it proves that Washington still works, despite the best efforts of some imaginary, bipartisan obstruction patrol.

The ideologically-driven progressives on the far left and the rigid tea party crowd on the far right seem equally entrenched against building consensus around workable solutions.

But at some point, the relentless finger-pointing and blaming of "the other side" needs to stop so America's very real and complicated problems can be addressed in meaningful ways.

The first thing that popped into my mind was a quote from Paul Krugman. "The 'both sides are at fault' people have to know better; if they refuse to say it, it's out of some combination of fear and ego, of being unwilling to sacrifice their treasured pose of being above the fray," he wrote recently. "It's a terrible thing to watch, and our nation will pay the price."

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There's Only One Pledge that Should Matter to House GOP -- And It's Not Grover Norquist's

The head of the anti-tax taliban, Americans for Tax Reform's Grover Norquist, just blinked.

Washington Post:

WITH A HANDFUL of exceptions, every Republican member of Congress has signed a pledge against increasing taxes. Would allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 violate this vow? We posed this question to Grover Norquist, its author and enforcer, and his answer was both surprising and encouraging: No.

In other words, according to Mr. Norquist's interpretation of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, lawmakers have the technical leeway to bring in as much as $4 trillion in new tax revenue -- the cost of extending President George W. Bush's tax cuts for another decade -- without being accused of breaking their promise. "Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase," Mr. Norquist told us. So it doesn't violate the pledge? "We wouldn't hold it that way," he said.

Norquist later walked his statement back a hair. "Any changes in taxes should be kept separate from the budget deal," he said on MSNBC this morning. It's not extremely clear why it should be kept separate from debt limit negotiations, other than the fact that Norquist sensed he'd given away too much. Still, if doing away with Bush's high-end tax cuts doesn't violate the pledge, it doesn't violate the pledge.

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The Bush Tax Cuts Failed. Period

It's a chart that's been making the rounds for a while now. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities graphed out the main drivers of current and projected deficits and came up with the following:



TARP, bailouts, the stimulus? Ain't crap. And the economic downturn didn't really make much of a dent. The big driver of current and future deficits are the Bush era tax cuts. Although the hole blown in the deficit by the cuts dwarfs them, it pays to point out that we fought two wars -- which Bush made sure were off-budget -- while giving people who could afford to help pay for those wars a free ride.

This isn't pie-in-the-sky liberal loopiness here. These are history, these are facts. We were told that tax cuts would help us "grow our way out of deficits." They didn't. Again, that is fact. We were told the tax cuts would give us a rollicking, healthy economy. Look around you. They failed. That is a fact. In short, every argument in favor of the cuts has failed to materialize. The Bush tax cuts are -- as a simple matter of historical fact -- a complete failure. They are currently zombie policy; dead arguments, inexplicably still shambling around, serving no actual, real world purpose and feeding off the public dime.

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GOP Candidates Must Walk the Line Between Too Crazy and Not Crazy Enough

At this point, it would be unrealistic to expect polling on the 2012 presidential race to be predictive. The elections are nineteen months away, give or take a few weeks, and anything could happen between now and then. If you looked at a poll now and said, "This is definitely who's going to win," being right would be as much a matter of luck as anything. It would barely be a better informed choice than using the numbers in your mother's birthday to play the lottery.

But one cliche about polling that's inarguably true is that they're snapshots of a moment in time. It shows you where people's heads are at; what they think is important, what they seem to want, what misconceptions they hold, etc. If not predictive, polls can still be informative.

So looking at a New York Times/CBS News poll out today can tell us a lot about Republican primary voters, even if it doesn't tell us much about who will win that primary. This poll, like a recent CNN poll, finds Republican voters unimpressed with their choices. The NYT poll finds that "nearly 60 percent of Republicans cannot point to a single candidate about whom they are enthusiastic," while CNN's showed "No opinion/No one" in the lead, with 45% of respondents.

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On the Front Lines of the GOP's War on Math

Before we get started here, I just want to say that the next person who says that Egypt and Mubarak are important for stability in the region gets to shut up. Is Egypt looking real stable to you right now? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Here at home, where things are a little more stable, the only major skirmish right now is the Republican War on Math. If there's one thing that Americans can count on, it's that the GOP will remain unswayed by fact for quite some time. With the rise of the Tea Party on the right, we see an anti-fact movement taking hold of the party. From the raising of the flag at Iowa Jamma to the Soviet Union being brought down by Sputnik, in the hands of Republicans, facts become irrelevant things. Want Thomas Jefferson -- who actually wrote the divinity of Christ out of the Bible -- to be the most Christian man ever? Done. Need the American Civil War to be about anything other than slavery? You got it. Give them a little while and the right will be blaming FDR for America's humiliating loss in WWII.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone to learn that the Republican relationship with arithmetic is a rocky one. Numbers are, after all, one of the highest forms of truth. So, since no fact is immune to revision and twisting, numbers have found themselves in the GOP's crosshairs surveyor's marks.

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Republicans Strike Another Blow in the War on Math

The Republican War on Math marches on, as the House's farthest-right members, in the form of the Republican Study Committee, put forward a list of cuts they say amount to $2.5 trillion over ten years. By cutting, non-defense discretionary spending, and then holding spending to 1996 levels for ten years, they promise it's going to save a specific amount. However, when asked how these savings are going to be achieved at this specific level, things get a little murky -- as Rep. John Campbell demonstrates:

Partial transcript from Think Progress (emphasis their's):

CAVUTO: I don't want to pick it apart too much, because you always appreciate the efforts at spending cuts, but a lot of these eliminations and reductions, Congressman, realistically come to $330 billion of the $2.5 trillion of proposed cuts. So, in other words, the real meat, up-front cuts, while still substantial, about $330 billion, ain't the $2.5 trillion. So what is the more realistic figure?

CAMPBELL: The more realistic figure than the two, oh, you mean other than what's listed on here?

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For the GOP, We are All Just 'Minor Things'

Here's a short list of things that are the height of tyranny -- at least, in terms of healthcare reform -- according to Republicans (and courtesy of Crooks and Liars):

-Excluding children under age 19 with pre-existing conditions
-Lifting lifetime and annual limits on benefits paid. No longer can a price be put on someone's life.
-Allowing young adults to remain on their parents' policies.
-Closing the Medicare Part D donut hole for seniors.

These things must be repealed or the Republic shall surely fall! So the party's majority in the House of Representatives voted to save America from communism last night, passing a bill to repeal the healthcare reform law. Unfortunately, the effort is doomed to fail and is seen as symbolic (read, "political theater"). The hyperbolically and inaccurately titled "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" has no chance of ever becoming law itself. It would have to pass in the Senate -- where it stands no chance -- then to the president's desk -- where it'll be surely vetoed. Then it's back to Congress, where there's no chance of a veto override. The only thing more doomed than this bill are Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions.

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