Romney Can't Buy Love

Politico has the story of Mitt Romney triumphant five-state sweep of primary elections last night:

Mitt Romney swept all five Republican primary elections Tuesday night, putting an end once and for all to any hopes for a comeback by his beleaguered GOP primary opponents.

The last state to be called was New York, where voting ended at 9 p.m.; Romney was previously projected the winner in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

There was little suspense in tonight’s elections. Only in Delaware, where Newt Gingrich camped out in recent days and collected endorsements from top local officials, was Romney at any risk of losing. Even a Gingrich victory there would have been unlikely to complicate Romney’s glide to the Republican convention in Tampa.

Yes, nothing but smooth sailing from here on out. Just a non-stop express train to the Oval Office. There's only one hitch: Mitt's actual showing was more than a little weak.

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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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Romney Wants to Shake that Etch A Sketch Now

I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.
-Romney 2012 Communications Director Eric Fehrnstrom, on what happens once the primaries are over.

There you go. With Rick Santorum out, it's time to shake the Etch A Sketch. While it's possible that the search for the Not-Romney will switch back to Newt, most observers believe it's unlikely. And you Ron Paul supporters need to accept facts; it's been over for a very long time. It's gonna be Mittens, whether you like it or not.

It's going to be fun watching the hyper-partisan right shake their own Etch A Sketches. After months of bashing Romney as someone just short of a commie, it'll be interesting to see them line up behind him and declare him History's Finest Candidate. The Inevitable has indeed become The Inevitable; it's time for the heretics to see the error of their ways and rejoin the fold.

But admitting error and embracing reality are not acts that come easily to many conservatives. Some seem incapable of doing them at all. And it may be that the search for the Not-Romney will continue -- among the two candidates who are Mitt Romney.

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Romney's Tanking Favorables

Who won the Nevada caucuses? Almost certainly, it was Mitt Romney. Officially speaking -- as of this writing at least -- we don't know.

Associated Press:

After months of reassurance that they could play with the big boys despite a trail of mishaps, the Nevada GOP played all of its cards Saturday and lost big time in a messy, disorganized election that saw low turnout and complaints of voter fraud and unexplained ballots.

But the biggest tell that the volunteer-run caucuses didn't go as planned was that more than 24 hours after voters finished casting their ballots, no one officially knew who had won.

By late Sunday, only 89 percent of the votes had been tallied. The holdup was Clark County, the state's most populous county and home to the Las Vegas Strip, where officials stayed up until the wee hours Sunday counting ballots but still couldn't finish the task.

It's not getting a lot of press, since exit polling showed such a convincing win that Romney's victory isn't really in doubt. But the problems in Nevada stem for larger problems for the GOP; Romney's nose-diving approvals and an inability to get GOP voters to give a damn.

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The Bain of the GOP's Existence

The next time someone tells you, "I'm a capitalist," go ahead and answer, "No, you're not." You'd just be playing the odds. A capitalist is defined as "A wealthy person who uses money to invest in trade and industry for profit in accordance with the principles of capitalism." In other words, probably not you or the person you're talking to. "Capitalist" is synonymous with "financier."

Also, notice the term "job creation" isn't anywhere in the definition. People don't invest to create jobs, they invest to make money. In fact, whether any jobs are created by the investment is entirely beside the point. In many cases, jobs are lost. The people Republicans hold up as the high-minded "job creators" not only aren't interested in creating jobs, but they'd really rather not. When you're maximizing profits, you want as few employees as possible. After all, you're in the business of writing your own paycheck, not someone else's.

When it comes to what Republicans call "job creation," they'd rather you didn't see how the sausage is made. Because when you get right down to it, it looks pretty heartless. If hiring someone means you'll make money, you'll hire someone -- and if firing someone means you'll make money, they're out. The "job creators" have been doing one helluva lot more firing than hiring lately, which makes the GOP's favored term for capitalists a lie. After all, one would assume that a "job creator" actually would get around to creating some jobs. Lately, they've been acting as "job destroyers."

Which brings us to a guy named Willard "Mitt" Romney, son of wealth, former vulture capitalist and professional job destroyer. Remember the villain in all those movies -- you know, the ones where there's a hostile takeover and rich corporate-type wants to sell off all the company's assets and fire everyone? Yeah, those movies. That's Mitt Romney, CEO of Bain Capital. He's that guy.

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Sweeping Up After Iowa

I'm tempted to say that the big winner in last night's Iowa caucuses was not-Romney. Newt Gingrich -- the old not-Romney -- got 16,251 votes. Rick Santorum -- the new not-Romney -- pulled in 30,007. Mitt Romney barely won, with 30,015 (we won't include Ron Paul as a not-Romney, because Paul voters were almost certainly voting for Paul, not against Romney). It's probably too simplistic to say that, had there been a single not-Romney, he would've won with by 16,000 or better, but I don't think Mittens would've won. I doubt anyone on Team Romney is feeling extremely triumphant today. The phrase of the day is probably "a win is a win." They're probably right. The Iowa caucuses aren't even representative of Iowa.

A few other observations from around the web:

Michael Li: Wow. Paid media $/vote so far: Santorum $1.65, Bachmann $8, Romney $113.07, Gingrich $139 Paul $227, Perry $817. [Numbers calculated last night with about 80% of the vote in]


Associated Press: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has won most of the delegates in the Iowa Republican caucuses, edging former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Romney won a projected 13 delegates and Santorum won 12. Texas Rep. Ron Paul was shut out.


Paul Begala: The Romney-inevitability stories will now be tempered by chin-stroking about the candidate's weakness. He is basically tied with a guy who supports banning contraception and another guy who attacks the 1964 Civil Rights Act. If Mitt Romney can't beat them, he ought to find another party to run in.

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Punditry? Idiocracy

Iron my shirt! Iron my shirt!
--Hecklers at a Clinton appearance in New Hampshire

Before we really get rolling here, I'm going to tell you a little story. In 2004 I was so for Kucinich. He was right about everything. There wasn't a single issue that I thought he got wrong. He was perfect.

When February came around and it came time to cast my primary vote, I voted for Edwards -- still believing that Kucinich was perfect. Why? Because I noticed that the longer the Democratic primary race went on, the lower Bush scored in the polls. The 2004 dem debate wasn't about who would make the best president or -- despite the punditry -- the question of electability. The debate was really about who thought Bush sucked more. And, as the primaries went on, it was Bush -- not the Democratic candidates -- who was taking a beating. So I voted for Edwards, who was running second, hoping to keep the ball rolling. If the Bush-bashing fest that was the Democratic primary continued, I figured Bush's slide would continue.

All of which is by way of explaining that I can't say who I will or won't vote for next month. I vote in the primary based as much on the moment in history in which my vote is cast as I do on whether or not I think the candidate is good. I'm not ruling out voting for anyone, even if I'm not particularly supportive of them at this very moment. When it comes to the primaries, at least, I'm the non-classic undecided -- someone who's vote is cast deliberately and strategically -- as opposed to the classic indecisive dope.

So, I'm not saying that I won't vote for Hillary Clinton. Just that it's really, really, really unlikely. Hillary, like her husband and Joe Lieberman, is a "New Democrat" -- meaning a corporatist Democrat, what Sen. Russ Feingold calls "Republican-lite." So I'm not really a fan.

But, man, is Hillary ever getting a raw deal in the press. She seems to be attracting the stupidest, most simpleminded criticism out there. We got a glimpse of how brainless the criticism would be at the very beginning of the campaign, when she caught some flack for showing a little cleavage on C-SPAN. This had something to do with the campaign how? Since then, it really hasn't gotten any better.

It's been asked whether the nation is ready for a black or female president. The first two primary contests say yes -- and that trend's likely to continue. The question is whether or not the media is ready for a black or female president. And the answer there is mixed. Black? Yes. Female? Clearly not. Despite either being or living with women all their damned lives, most of the press seems to have no idea how to cover a woman's campaign seriously.

Take the latest incident. At an appearance in New Hampshire, Clinton was asked, "How do you do it? How do you keep up ... and who does your hair?" OK, stupid question, but we'll let it pass. It was asked by a local free-lance photographer, not some big-name talking head.

According to CNN, "Clinton said she had help with her hair on 'special days,' and that she drew criticism on the days she did not." Point number one -- she draws criticism from the media for bad hair days. Who freakin' cares? What's the reasoning here? Will Osama Bin Laden (assuming he's alive) look at President Hillary's frizzy hair and say to himself, "America is weak today. We must strike now!"?

But the bigger point is that Hillary cried when she answered. Well, not exactly. Not if you watch the video. She chokes up, probably because she was as tired of the damned, stupid-assed questions about hair and make up as she was just plain tired. But, you'll notice, she doesn't actually cry.

This is what crying looks like:



That's House Minority Leader John Boehner crying his eyes out over the fact that Democrats had introduced a non-binding resolution opposing Bush's surge. In fact, Boehner seems to cry at the drop of a hat. How big a deal was this with the punditry? It wasn't. Pretty much only lefty blogs made anything of it.

But Boehner's not running for president, just running at the eyes, you say? How about this, then:

Associated Press:

Mitt Romney's eyes filled with tears Monday as the Republican presidential contender recalled watching the casket of a soldier killed in Iraq return to the United States and imagined if it were one of his five sons.

Adding a poignant twist to a story he often tells on the campaign, Romney recalled the scene at Boston's Logan International Airport while he was Massachusetts governor to make the point that the country remains united despite its differences over the war or other national challenges.

Was the reaction of the punditry, "Boo-hoo, Mittens! Boo-hoo-hoo!"? No. Romney's emotional moment was "poignant." Never mind that Mitt's kids are only in imaginary danger of that imagined death in Iraq. Mitt's kids will never serve -- they're too busy campaigning for their dad. Mitt calls this, "Serving their country." There was no talk of Mitt Romney's "Ed Muskie moment."

Apparently, it's only bad when women cry these days -- even if they don't actually cry.

We'll end this with the context of the quote we started with:

A Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign stop was interrupted when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, "Iron my shirt!" during one the US senator's final appearances before New Hampshire voters cast the first primary ballots in the US.

Clinton, a former first lady running to become the United States' first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman's place is doing laundry and not running the country.

"Ah, the remnants of sexism -- alive and well," Clinton said to applause.

Amen. Not only among those lower primates who heckled her, but among the punditry who criticizes her. There are plenty of substantial reasons for criticism of Hillary Clinton, the only reason pundits resort to sexism is because it's so damned easy for them.

This way, they don't have to actually do any work. And this way, they can ignore the issues. Just as in 2004, when the pundits asked the BS question, "Which candidate would voters most want to have a beer with?" (ignoring, BTW, that Bush doesn't drink), it allows them to dodge the real questions and the real problems facing the nation. And it allows them to drag the campaign coverage down to the level of paparazzi TV like Entertainment Tonight.

That's what they think of you. They think you're stupid and they think you care about BS. And, if you don't care about BS, they'll use all their pundit powers to convince you that you do. Think what you like about Hillary Clinton, but be offended by what the media thinks of you and how dismissive they are of your intelligence.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; Romney; Republican; Democrat; New Hampshire; The media covers Hillary Clinton as if she were Hillary Swank