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With the presidential election seven weeks from tomorrow, it's clear that Mitt Romney is not yet where he wants to be. President Obama appears to have an advantage -- though his lead is hardly insurmountable -- and there's growing pessimism on the right.
Making matters considerably worse, however, is the evidence that Team Romney is itself in disarray. It's hard enough to defeat a well-liked incumbent with a lengthy record of accomplishments, but doing so with a campaign operation divided against itself makes Romney's challenge that much more difficult.
While "talk of infighting within the Romney headquarters" has been "percolating for months," we've clearly entered a new stage. Politico published a lengthy piece last night filled with unnamed aides pointing fingers and casting blame -- for Romney's muddled message, ineffective ads, disjointed convention, and useless speeches.
The number of Republican insiders and campaign staffers who seemed eager to dish to Politico about their dissatisfaction only reinforced the scope of the underlying problem.
It gets worse. Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei also report that Team Romney, just 50 days before the election, is going to "abruptly" shift its strategy, after Romney advisers concluded "they had to make a painful course correction."
And what strategy will the Republican campaign "abruptly" shift to? According to BuzzFeed, Romney will focus on mobilizing the GOP's right-wing base with an emphasis on "patriotism and God." And according to the New York Times, aides said Romney "would present a series of speeches, television commercials and events promoting his five-point economic policy."
So, Romney staffers agree there will be a shift in the campaign's direction, but disagree with one another as to which direction.
The talk about Romney's inevitable electoral demise still seems premature, but when it's mid-September and campaign insiders are turning on one another, and disagreeing with one another about the campaign's basic strategy, there's clearly a significant problem. We expect this from a campaign after it has lost, not before.
What's more, this isn't just inside baseball for campaign junkies; we're learning something important. One of Mitt Romney's principal selling points is that he has tremendous managerial skills thanks to his lucrative private-sector experience. Vote for Romney, the argument goes, because he knows how to run a major operation, and will be competent as head of the executive branch.
And yet, Romney appears to be struggling due in part to a failure in leadership. What does that tell us about the kind of president he'd be?
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Specifics lose, not gain votes!
Mitt needs to continue with his "Less Filling! More Taste!" campaign, because of its broad appeal to both sides.
Thanks for making me LMAO.
(: - )
We can only hope Mitt Romney digs down in the weeds of his and Lyin' Ryan's plans. THAT would be terrific. Ain't gonna happen.
It's like watching bumper cars at an amusement park.
The one thing Romney and Ryan cannot do is tell the truth or give specifics. Because America PROBABLY won't vote to be screwed. Hence:
"We'll lower our taxes and raise yours. We'll take away your health insurance. We'll start a war with Iran. Our defence expenditure and tax plan will raise the deficit by 9 trillion dollars over ten years. We'll further deregulate Wall Street so they can can play their greedy games and bankrupt the economy again. We'll exchange Medicare for a voucher plan which won't cover squat, but will be a bonus for the private insurance companies who pay us to keep them happy. Women will have no more of the equal pay for equal work BS that Obama gave them through Lily Ledbetter. We will not permit abortion under any circumstances, and we will end the environmental protections that keep your air and water clean."
Who's going to vote for that?
I doubt he'll run on his MASS record either, of being 47th in job creation out of 50 states. Or his Bain record of outsourcing and ending jobs in order to gain wealth for himself. LOTS of wealth which he put where America could not use the needed tax revenue, ie: Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.
Why share ones wealth with ones country, right, MITT?
Do you think you can get Romney to make that speech? He's pretty easy to talk into things.
Do you think any of you libs along with the giant a hole who is host of this train wreck of a show will ever discuss somthing really important like how obama is directly responsible for death of our Ambassador to Libya and how he has made this country the laughingstock of the world with his kiss everybodies ass dipolomacy?
I thought not, losers
You're not exactly a winner, are you.
At least I can make arguements based upon facts taken from both sides, as is typical in your responses is only to attack.
Get a life, job and a brain and maybe you will be able to sit at the Big People table instead of the spoiled brats table you are at now.
I have all 3.
But I don't go to right-wing blogs to fight with everybody there. That would take an infantile personality who's desperate to prove he matters.
As to his "running a corporation" skills, they do not translate well to government.
A CEO has a board of directors filled with cronies and backscratchers.
POTUS has a 'board of directors' called Congress, and it is filled with people who hate his guts. And who cannot be 'fired' by the President.
True, but you would think that managerial experience would at least be useful in a presidential campaign. The only conclusion I can reach is that Romney is actually a terrible manager. He succeeded in a 400-person "business" where his family background and money allowed him to come in on the top floor and demand that no one question or contradict his decisions, but is completely floundering in a somewhat larger campaign where he can't personally make every decision. And even if government could be run "like a business," imagine what that says about how competently he'd run an organization of four million!
Face it. If he personally made every decision, it'd be even worse.
He's a Mittastrophe!
The biggest change he could make to his campaign is to get specific about what he would do as president. As much as I love Obama, he's dealt almost entirely in generalities as to what he would do in a second term; I think the first to go specific, to bring forward specific plans as what he hopes to accomplish over the next four years, would have a tremendous advantage with independent voters. Romney refuses to do this, however, and Obama sees no reason to do it when Romney won't, and thus the voters are left to vote solely on the basis of character and likeability. Obama wins those hands down with independents.
It's disengenuous to compare Obama with Romney regarding "specifics" or "generalities". Obama is the incumbent, we have all seen what he wants to do, and how easy it is to obstruct. I am a little tired of hearing this said about Obamas second term, like it's some secret. It's another way to "otherize" him. Romney is only known for a single crappy term as a gov, so people deserve more specifics. Another canard is this "independent voters"! The Republicans have veered so far right that the "middle" no longer exists. Either one is foolish enough to swallow their nonsense, or not. I can't imagine trying to stake a middle ground anymore, you end up a "No Labels" rube...
Voters already have specifics about Obama's second term--the direction he took in his first term. He has also made clear that he would like to pass the DREAM Act, increase pay equity and worker labor organizing protections, and increase taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers.
Obama has offered somewhere between a 2-to-1 and 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases. He's made clear that he prefers to work with the UN, NATO, and other alliances when implementing foreign policy. He has made extensive use of drones and surgical strikes when dealing with terror groups and other insurgent threats.
Romney, on the other hand, speaks in vague generalities about using tax cuts and eliminating "tax loopholes" (though, of course, he won't tell us which ones) to "make the economy better. His only apparent foreign policy approach is to be so awesomely awesome that the rest of the world will simply kowtow to us.
There's no need for Obama to be more specific. It's Romney who is the unknown commodity here. Unless he plans to advocate for a "secret presidency," he needs to start filling in some gaps.
Willard himself has told us why he avoids specifics at all costs. He said that when he tells people what he plans to do, they don't vote for him. So what does that mean about the specifics he isn't telling us? It says that if he ever got into them, he would lose even worse than he is now.
Don't forget, he said he would create 12 million jobs!
Asking him how is just being biased.
Asking him "where" could be worse!
Ah so. American speak great truth.
#3.6 Domo allegatto.
So, in essence Romney will be focusing more on himself, due to the fact that he thinks he has been made into a God by his belief in the Mormon religion and his own self-proclaimed success. Mormons do not believe in one God they believe that they themselves can become a God....Looks like we have a problem Houston. Onto Plan M, I think that's the letter plan he is on now.
Angel,
not as eloquently as you just stated it, but i have said the same thing.
This is what happens with a candidate that is nothing more than silly putty. He gets molded, stretched, bent in every direction trying to appease a GOP that is in itself fractured. Most likely Romney himself doesn't even know what he stands for - if he ever really stood for anything.
Why, how can you say that? Mitt stands tall, strong, proud, and with great resolve--for the proposition that Mitt is entitled to be President.
Beyond that, who knows?
He's the "right height" (not to mention he also thinks he's the right color to be in the white house).
As the saying goes, "if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."
Mitt's fallen for, and over, everything.
Penquinpatter #5
I don't know what Mitt stands for but I know what Americans won't fall for!
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Samuel Johnson
The wheels are off the Romneymobile, kids.
He still may win, but we're now in a campaign where one of the candidates can no longer win out of his own efforts. Instead, it's going to take some kind of an outside event he can't control to get it done--a horrific gaffe at the debates, a sudden international crisis that is catastrophically bungled, or a huge, ugly, nasty scandal that pops up out of nowhere and unfolds in a matter of weeks. And I mean a real scandal, not one ginned up out of the off-gassing from the fetid WND/Issa toxic waste dump.
The people who were persuadable tuned into the RNC looking to see if there was any reason remaining to believe that somewhere behind the miasma of lies, there was a guy with moderate politics and the character not to be run by a party that thinks its the mainstream because it's gone so completely around the bend it can't see anyone else. They weren't looking for an alternative, they were just looking to see if there was an alternative.
And they didn't get it because the people running that convention were so far gone--so utterly beholden to the would-be oligarchs and their minds so thoroughly imprisoned by the counter-factual nonsense that makes up the right wing alternate universe bubble--they they didn't have a clue what those voters wanted. And also, because Romney does, in fact, have no character and was only feigning moderation because he was in Massachusetts.
I think Obama got a bounce from both conventions, not just his own, and that's why it's not going away.
They were given the chair.
Steve,
i hear you.
he may still win
don't underestimate the repubs in regard to what they might do to win this election. i do believe our president will be re-elected, but i remember what happened in 2000 in florida, and what happened in 2004 in ohio.
since our President took office, we have seen unprecedented voter suppression laws. we have also seen the most obstructive repub congress in the history of the world (filibusters). we have seen repubs deny all economic policies, even those they have supported in the past. the "individual mandate", A REPUB IDEA used to counter health care reforms by Hillary and Teddy, when President Obama put it on the table for health care reform because he knew the public option was dead, and to GET REPUB VOTES, all of a sudden the individual mandate BECAME UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
a concern that i have is WHO OWNS DIEBOLD AND OTHER EASILY PROGRAMMED, NO RECEIPT VOTING MACHINES? voter ID is not the only way to suppress the vote and STEAL AN ELECTION.
repubs are opposed to a democracy, because they believe that people should not be EQUAL, that, like ayn rand, the rich are the only ones who should have a say. they pander to the rich, but they can't win elections with only that percentage of the vote. to make up the rest, they also have to pander to those who will vote against their own economic interests by using gun rights, abortion opposition, and opposing civil rights for gays (god, guns, gays). repubs use whatever they think will appeal to those WHO ARE WILLING TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR OWN ECONOMIC INTERESTS BECAUSE THEY ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT PREVENTING ABORTION, PREVENTING CIVIL RIGHTS FOR GAYS, and lying about President Obama taking your guns away. we have also seen "dog whistle politics" enter this campaign by using welfare. there is no level to which they will not stoop, and they have proven it over and over and over (birthers, etc.).
the EAC was created after the 2000 election to improve standards for ELECTRONIC VOTING SYSTEMS. the gop doesn't want regulations on voting machines.
i'm not sure where we are on regulations for voting machines, mostly owned by repubs, including mitt romney, i believe.
Obama must be republican. He certainly does not represent the hard -working, nonUnion in industry. Wait for the debt bomb. The lower class (47%) will suffer most. People with money and industries will just move more off-shore.
You just can't polish the turd that is Mitt Romney and his CEO-ness. CEO's impose their will by intimidating and never hearing they're wrong. In Romney's case, he could game the system to heads-he-wins-tails-you-lose success.
Of course the problem is that any intelligent person who's been paying attention will know Mitt Romney is an empty suit. But how many intelligent people paying attention are there?
Empty suit? I would say that suit is full of crap! 8-)
Rick Santorum, the former senator candidate, told a far-right audience, "We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do. So our colleges and universities, they're not going to be on our side." He also denounced "Hollywood," where people think they can get Americans "to jump through the hoops they want you to."
Like Santorum wouldn't tell us what to do if he was in a position to. Get rid of birth control and abortion, public schools, regulations and on and on. But WE tell everybody what to do! He's beyond a fool. He's the village idiot that's too dumb to find his village without GPS.
Having his kids hug a dead fetus really sums him up for me. They're going to be scarred for life.
Romney's whole campaign was premised on running against a fictional Obama who fit the GOP's delusional narrative of a "failed presidency." Is it any wonder those dishonest chickens are coming home to roost?
So Romney is going to spend the next 10 days going over his 5 point plan in detail? Hard to do when he won't discuss details.
A control freak that can't control his campaign or anything else unless he buys it. His history of lies and hiding everything he's ever done tells me all I need to know about this guy. Then getting another liar to run with him as VP confirms it all. He's not ready for the 'big chair' and he's not ready for prime time.
But wasn't Romney's secret to success at Bain to lead by getting out of the way?
Romney's claim of presidential talent based on his being an accomplished manager was always a myth. He didn't build or run companies. He just "found opportunities" and structured deals to make him rich whether the companies thrived or not. The campaign in disarray confirms that the #1 point on his resume is all hot air.
Most accounts of Mr. Romney's business "success" at Bain have noted that the deals which netted them the most profit were structured in such a manner that they could barely fail. They looked for what were often desperate companies, offered them "screw you" terms wherein their boards could go under now, or go under a bit later with some profit, and gave them that wretched choice. Most went with the latter, and Bain won big. The idea that this is indicative of some amazing business acumen on the part of Mr. Romney always struck me as odd. It was just greedsters profiting from other greedsters and the heck with the carcass they left behind.
This is essentially what he has brought to his campaign. He saw the US as a company about to go under, figured he'd swing a deal with the board (AKA the GOP power brokers), come in, loot the place for himself and his ilk, and leave the shell behind. The problem he is encountering is unlike his business dealings, in this case the rank and file actually still get to vote and they want details - and to what few details they are hearing, they are saying, NO.
Does anyone really think if the workers at the various companies Mr. Romney disassembled had been able to vote on the plans he was offering, they would have said yes? I think he never really considered that "we people" might have an impact on his goals. After all, the little folks never have before.
It's deja vu all over again. The same sort of "we've lost the messaging, we've lost control" hand wringing happened last time out, thanks to McCain's deer-in-the-headlights approach to the wrecked economy, and a Vice Presidential candidate who somehow thought personal attacks, intellectual un-curiosity and a hee haw demeanor would make her face the new face of conservatism.
Here's working it works out as well this time, too.
What they cannot get through their thick skulls is, of course, that nobody LIKES their message. It is actually coming through loud and clear.
The only thing that's still missing is a "temporary suspension" of Mitt's campaign to grandstand on a "legislative hot-button issue". Too bad Rmoney doesn't have any of those cards, huh?!
giving up on the economy and switching to "god and patriotism"???
good god! (if you'll pardon the expression) is there some bible-thumping, jesus-jamming yahoo somewhere who still doesn't know where his preacher stands? does romney expect that these people will start metastasizing? that well is about dry. no wonder the repubs are into vote suppression so deeply.
They have always said that he is running a campaign to energize his base. The problem is that will not produce enough votes.
If you can't even run a campaign, you clearly can't run a country.
(I can't read the word "disarray" without hearing it in Shaunesse's voice, from HBO's Deadwood.)
I really hate listening to Bay Buchanan trying to rationalize it all. (Just heard her again on Alex Wagner.) Well, I hate listening to her at all....can there be anybody more irritating or Wrong????
This is amazingly similar to John McCain's campaign exactly as slappy magoo said up above. Let's hope it goes in exactly the same direction.
Mary Matalin's pretty close.
And Ann Coulter, don't forget Coulter. Like anybody could. She's THE most annoying to me.
I still say she's the she-wolf of the SS.
The end result of the Hitler Youth Group. A blond, blue-eyed fascist who thinks anyone that isn't a Republican is a traitor.
maybe it`s her movements and speech is just like pats. i see here and think him.
God....does he mean Elohim, the 6'2 MAN that's on a planet circling far off star Kolob ?
I'm really looking forward to seeing & hearing what the right wing says/does in a couple/few years, after Obama is re-elected & the economy has bounded back, the AHCA is fully implemented, and all of the other things Obama gets accomplished in his next term.. Not to mention what all the conspiracy theorists/neo-cons will have to say when none of their theories come to fruition..ie: birthers, NRA (gonna take our guns!! lol), being taken over by the Muslims, etc., etc... Ahhh the satisfaction of reality..
In more close time however, I am looking forward to the post-election BS that will be spewing from the right.... Ohhh the glory of victory :)
Bounced back? yeah - Obama did it - not industry. Keep a token until the debt starts a smokin' Romeny was correct to call out the 47% who get a federal tax free ride.
As a CEO, Romney didn't have to convince people, they had to convince him. He didn't have to coax anyone to do things, he told them what to do and fired them if they failed. He didn't have to bring people together and build consensus, he snapped and watched others jump.
So it turns out that getting people to agree with you when you have no conception of what their problems and goals are is more difficult than firing them and selling their workplace. Who coulda guessed.
We can only hope that his decline will translate to further problems for the GOP down ticket.
"The talk about Romney's inevitable electoral demise still seems premature..."
I don't recall very many people on the Left, or Right, constantly cautioning us that talk of Barack Obama's electoral demise was "premature," during the many times the republicans, and media pundits were celebrating the "inevitable electoral demise" of Barack Obama.
#28, The numbers just don't add up and there's no way to win over the American people with lies and evasion. or worse, telling them the TRUTH about what he and Ryan will do.
People aren't going to vote to insure their ruin.
Well, the T-party will. They still haven't caught the whiff of the fumes from the bus that's headed their way.