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About a week after Election Day, National Review held its Post Election Cruise 2012, aboard the m.s. Nieuw Amsterdam, and fortunately, New York's Joe Hagan was there to document just how nutty the excursion really was.
There's quite a bit to chew on in Hagan's article -- don't miss the racist Californian who said the ship's managers should be white, the retired surgeon who sees armed insurrection as a credible scenario, and John Yoo's mother complaining that conservatives are stuck in "denial and projection" -- but what stood out for me were comments from Kevin Hassett, a former economic adviser to Mitt Romney, and co-author of the ridiculous 1999 book Dow 36,000.
As we drained the Pinot Noir, Hassett gave his audience the insider's view of the Romney campaign, describing how its election-monitoring software crashed on November 6 and Obama was probably behind it, "because those guys are so evil." [...] "The thing we have to understand is, these are people who don't have any morals," said Hassett. "They'll do anything. I'm one of their No. 1 targets. I mean, they really want me bad."
"Well, you're safe on this ship!" said Bobbie boldly.
Then Hassett pivoted to the liberal media. "I actually think that Goebbels was more critical of Hitler than the New York Times is of Obama," said Hassett, tucking into a piece of strudel. "I was in the middle of the fight against the propaganda, and I have stories like you wouldn't believe. These people are so evil. They're basically Fascists. It's unbelievable."
Now, Hassett's propensity for nuttiness isn't exactly new, and he's certainly entitled to his opinions about Democrats' morals and ideological beliefs.
But to hear Hassett argue that President Obama was probably behind the crash of Romney's election-monitoring software, "because those guys are so evil," points to a larger concern.
It's true that the Romney campaign came up with an Election Day program called "ORCA," which did in fact crash when it was needed most. But that wasn't Obama's fault; it was the result of Team Romney's incompetence.
As dawn broke on Election Day, 800 Romney volunteers filled the floor of TD Garden in Boston. This was the centerpiece of the campaign's turnout operation, code named ORCA, that was supposed to swallow Obama's Narwhal program. But the Romney team was so determined to keep ORCA secret that it had never run a test at TD Garden; it had only gone through some lesser runs in a different building.
The ORCA workers were supposed to be in contact with more than 30,000 volunteers stationed at polling places across the country. Those volunteers were told to bring a smartphone and go to a secure Web page on which they could report the names of everyone who voted. In this way, the Romney campaign could determine if supporters had failed to show up and urge them to vote.
But as volunteers on Election Day began tapping in the names of voters, it became clear something was wrong.
The system was so overloaded with incoming data from volunteers that it exceeded capacity and crashed.
Maggie Haberman and Alexander Burns wrote a lengthy report on ORCA's spectacular failures over a month ago, and it's clear there was no sabotage. The Romney campaign just didn't know what it was doing, and the result was an untested program that didn't work.
As for Hassett's self-pity, I understand the stages of grief, but paranoia isn't one of them. That this guy was a leading economic advisor to Romney is a little disconcerting.
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Yeah, Mr. Romney's 'fail whale' was, and still is, amusing.
A lot of people got paid a lot of money to run a pretty badly incompetent campaign based on telling a candidate, who didn't want to run what he wanted to hear, which was based on made up facts from people who didn't want him to run to begin with.
Good one! I think you nailed it in one paragraph.
hasset's comments are just another great example of repubs doing what they do best. CALLING DEMOCRATS OUT FOR THE VERY THINGS THAT ONLY THEY ARE DOING. an example of this would be blaming democrats for "voter fraud".
Welcome back to the 2nd Grade playground...
"Fail whale", that is priceless. So much for load testing! If I were this Hassett person, I'd be questioning the very fabric of our Judeo-Mormon values, here in Amercia*..
lolz!
How easy to justify the compromise of one's own principles (or lack thereof) by arguing that the other side is so much worse. No evidence is needed, just a self-important ego bolstered by the nodding heads of the company one keeps.
The level of the right's willing descent into corruption can be clearly measured by the degree of evilness they need to ascribe to those who oppose them.
I wish I could claim credit but Romney's entire campaign can be summed up in two words: "Divine Comedy." And yes, it does follow the book quite well. From winning the primary (Inferno), to running on the campaign trail (Purgatorio), to losing the election and the aftermath (Paradiso). Granted most Republicans probably would say Romney went through the book in reverse order (winning primary Paradiso, losing Inferno). But isn't that what happened to Lucifer? Started in Heaven got kicked out to Hell? Coincidence, I think not.
Lucifer was on the short list for VP, but was deemed 'not conservative enough' for the Teapers and replaced with Ryan.
Outstanding. And this is what a sinking ship looks like ...
That this guy was a leading economic advisor to Romney is a little disconcerting.
That these people are allowed to leave their padded cells is more disconcerting. It's also unbelievable that they aren't in padded cells.
Money quote from the article:
As the Republican image stood today, said Lileks, “we’re the stupid people, we’re the yokels, we’re the dumb, we’re the racists, we’re the hicks, we’re against everything that’s hip and cool.”
How true.
The other money quote. Jonah Goldberg:
“Their conception of what the country is about, they really were sure the country would reject Barack Obama,” he continued. “I do think it hits them hard. The fear I have, why this election stung, I think, Obama has successfully de-ratified some of the Reagan revolution in a way that Clinton never could and didn’t even try to. That’s what freaks people out, that feeling in their gut, either Obama has changed the country, or the country has sufficiently changed that they don’t have a problem with Obama. That’s what eats at people.”
Hassett said, " I have stories like you wouldn't believe".
You, Sir, are correct!
You sir , being so veddy composed , have brought to bear the essence of imperial thought , carrying on .
Brevity is the soul of wit. Oscar Wilde
I tip my Dew Rag to you!
I'll be laughing at that one the longest.
.
These folks call Obama a fascist, a socialist, or a communist with impunity. Don't they know that the three political doctrines are not the same thing? Oh wait... recognizing the difference requires knowledge and a grounding in reality. Never mind....
“We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.”
George Orwell
“There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
-- "Alice in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
Apparently liberals simply aren't willing to (or don't have a reason to) make the effort it takes to create an alternate reality for themselves to live in.
Perfectly stated.
"...if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties... if that is what they mean by a "liberal" then I am proud to be a liberal."
~ John F. Kennedy
And why do you think they're against education and encouragement of critical thought?
To conservatives, all of these words are just used to mean "evil." They don't care what they mean, they're just trying to convince themselves and the gullible that Obama=Hitler and Stalin. There's no actual argument behind it other than "he doing stuff we don't like, so he's evil!"
It's a really good thing that these people didn't get installed into the White House - they're so stupid they would blame Russia for their problems as well.
Then there's the idea that Romney lost because he didn't want to be President. I only hope that Obama is as "evil" as the repugs, they aren't just a-holes, they're dolts!
Can't we just tow that ship out to sea and set them adrift somewhere...you know like the Bermuda triangle? Please??
after hearing tagg romney's statement that his dad didn't really want to be president, i have to ask, "do they know how stupid they sound"??????
Mitt Romney has an ability to generate, even within his own party, facial expressions of the kind usually attributed to conversational halitosis. Apparently, his son has inherited that ability.
If I am not mistaken those grapes were of a sour variety , suzette , therefore a speculative loss of no great epicurean or electoral value .
I think .
That would certainly explain their "whine" :)
Articlei in New York magazine is worth reading and exceedingly chilling. The country is in serious trouble when officials from the campaign are as delusional as the inmates.
It was hard for me to read the article but held the same sort of fascination as driving past a car wreck. In other words, you can't look away, even though decency holds that you should.
I'm really curious about this, though. Does anyone have an explanation? I've heard from various sources dark hints at something terrible that's going to happen because Obama was re-elected. And I'm not talking about vague complaints like the country is going down the drain.
No, this seems more specific. If I'd only heard it once, I'd dismiss it. Sounds like they believe there's an uprising simmering just under the surface, ready to break out. My 83-year-old mom, for one, lives in Arizona, and she told me yesterday that she's really worried about what is happening with our government. You couldn't mistake the genuine fear in her voice.
Where is this coming from and who's behind it? Anybody know?
Where is the fear mongering coming from? Try Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
What I have been hearing is that the GOP tanked Romney so that whatever disaster they expect will stick to Obama. I don't know if it is supposed to be another 9/11, or a financial meltdown, but the GOP was suposedly afraid of Romney filling Hoover's shoes, or looking like Bush after Katrina. The whisper I hear isn't that the SHTF because of Obama; it's coming and the GOP wants the plausible deniability to bame it on Obama.
Those volunteers were told to bring a smartphone and go to a secure Web page on which they could report the names of everyone who voted.
That seems like an incredibly tall order...These volunteers were supposed to report the names, then get feedback from the campaign, and have enough time to go out and drum up the missing votes, or the campaign would start making calls at some pre-determined late afternoon time, to get out the remaining vote.
If your strategy centers on responding to exit poll data, you're a little late to the game.
I would suggest that the real purpose of ORCA was to track voter fraud (i.e. votes by blacks and college kids), for future lawsuits, if the vote was close.
Hassett's blame-throwing at Obama folks for his Romney's ORCA crash brings back the the Joe Lieberman - Ned Lamont primary of 2006. Lieberman's website crashed under load a few days ahead of the primary due to his staff's own poor site building. His campaign very publicly talked up the tech savvy on the Lamont side and how it was hard to imagine they couldn't have attacked Lieberman's site. Same sliminess as Hassett. Bye bye, Joe.
Didn't some anomyous protest group claim credit for bringing ORCA down? If so, given how ORCA was organized the claim was no big thing.
Yes, I seem to remember a post on this blog right after the election that the group Anonymous claimed they had hacked into the system and changed all the passwords so that the Romney staffers couldn't access their accounts. Anybody else remember this?
Yeah, I saw an article in the NYT that said they claimed that but there was no follow-up or proof. If it's true, then I wish they had been around many years before.
Eh, it's easy to claim to be Anon and responsible for something. People claim to be with Anon because they want to be taken seriously. But people genuinely with Anon tend to have proof, which gives them that credibility.
There's nothing really solid in the ORCA claims. They accuse Karl Rove of being behind it, instead of the Romney campaign, and that it was a voter fraud scheme instead of a mere GOTV program. They point to his melt down on Fox News over Ohio. But that's not causation, he could have been sure of Ohio due to his own arrogance. Or because of the money he spent. Or the "corrected" polling he put all his faith in.
Anon has turned evidence over to the authorities before. If they were involved here and had something real about Rove rigging the election, and clearly they don't support the man, they'd have published it or contacted the FEC.
As it is, this sounds like someone just trolling.
These people have no morals?
Who are the people that want regular working folks & those unable to work to pay higher taxes, have less health care & no programs like Social Security & Medicare? Moral people take care of "the least of their brothers." And sisters. And children. And elderly. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Read the New Yorker article. Clearly, they're mostly concerned with keeping all the "colored folks" in their proper places as wait staff and figuring out where to store their wealth now that the Obama people are destroying the American economy. Sheesh!
“Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?”
Someone is the center of his own universe.
Is anybody else struck with the silliness of this cruise. It is sort of like, "Why, we just blew the national election with a surpassing display of self-delusion, arrogance and incompetence. To reward ourselves we are going on a cruise." Maybe they should have gone to Disneyworld?
Well, remember that this cruise was planned and filled before the election, with the idea that it would be a victory celebration. Surprise!
I'd guess it turned out to be a group-wallowing instead. Wallowing in self-pity and self-sanctimonium, while decrying all those godless liberals who stole what was rightfully theirs. It was hard enough reading about it. I know misery loves company, but that must've been truly awful.
The cruise ship industry describes its demographic as: "The newly wed, the overfed and the nearly dead." How true in the case of National Review.
That sounds just like Santa Barbara! And it's full of conservatives now. Avoid the place unless you like taxis, hotels, and booze. There's not much else there.
My first thought was the Hagan piece had to be satire. Hundreds of the Republican elite steaming past Guantanamo days after the election? Funny!
Voyage of the Damned
The image of rich white conservatives on an elite cruise through the Bahamas, being served by people of color, complaining of the conditions of Jamaica for white tourists, and all the while wondering what could have gone wrong with the modern GOP is right out of Sartre--a modern day Huis Clos for Republicans.
I wonder if it occurred to anyone in this floating echospheric bubble that isolating themselves from the mainland of political thought might itself be a problem? On the other hand, if any of them were capable of an honest conversation with "the help," or with an actual Jamaican, with any of the people who are invisible to them, they may have gleaned some self awareness.
As C.S. Lewis once said: "a hard heart is no defense against a soft head." ignorance has its own defenses and it appears impossible to get through to such folks who assume that any disagreement stems from a socialist, unpatriotic, or anti-colonialist spirit--the latter is so anachronistic in its conception that it is intellectually incoherent. The GOP has become an isolated free floating cult, whose tenets include ideological purity (if not racial purity), violent xenophobia, anti-education, anti-intellectualism (one leads to the other), and an obsession with the reproductive process.
One of the deepest ironies of this piece is the knowledge that the longer this group isolates itself from the real world the more shocking the crash of reality when they finally dock--perhaps in 2014.
"Nature was not on our side." With his innocent statement about the conditions around Half Moon Cay, Capt. Smit found the perfect metaphor for describing the direction of Republican party over the last 40 years...
Thank you, Joe Hagan. Easily one of the most satisfying, amusing, and disturbing pieces I've read all year...
I suppose it's too late to hope that the M.S. Nieuw Amsterdam will become a modern-day "Flying Dutchman"?
Please...