FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Wouldn't surprise me. Jerks.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Yeah, I got bored with that woman's video and gave up. If it's a real story, someone credible will pick it up eventually. If not, oh well.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Well, it hasn't gained any traction since Sept. 29 when she recorded the original interview, so she needs to get going this weekend if she's going to upend the election.

Definitely a 6, though.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Then again, maybe the administration is paying people not to run it.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

I don't have $1000 to bet Nate Silver with, but I wonder what odds he'd give me on my hunch we'll wake up Wednesday morning and not know who won.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Even if Obama wins Florida, I doubt it would happen that way. He would win it on the strength of Broward County, which has a tendency to report late. On that night in 2000, one reason Bush was able to claim victory and the presidency was that he held a relatively large lead until the Broward returns started rolling in.

As for the electoral gods, I wouldn't call old_tony that. A hero maybe, but not a god.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Washington Post with an endorsement that is fairly predictable in its result but also quite scathing in its content: "Mitt Romney's campaign insults voters"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romneys-election-campaign-insults-voters/2012/11/02/69fcc1fc-2428-11e2-9313-3c7f59038d93_story.html

How, other than an assumption that voters are too dim to remember what Mr. Romney has said across the years and months, to account for his breathtaking ideological shifts? He was a friend of immigrants, then a scourge of immigrants, then again a friend. He was a Kissingerian foreign policy realist, then a McCain-like hawk, then a purveyor of peace. He pioneered Obamacare, he detested Obamacare, then he found elements in it to cherish. Assault weapons were bad, then good. Abortion was okay, then bad. Climate change was an urgent problem; then, not so much. Hurricane cleanup was a job for the states, until it was once again a job for the feds.

The same presumption of gullibility has infused his misleading commercials (see: Jeep jobs to China) and his refusal to lay out an agenda. Mr. Romney promised to replace the Affordable Care Act but never said with what. He promised an alternative to President Obama’s lifeline to young undocumented immigrants but never deigned to describe it.

And then there has been his chronic, baldly dishonest defense of mathematically impossible budget proposals. He promised to cut income tax rates without exploding the deficit or tilting the tax code toward the rich — but he refused to say how he could bring that off. When challenged, he cited “studies” that he maintained proved him right. But the studies were a mix of rhetoric, unrealistic growth projections and more serious economics that actually proved him wrong.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Did you overhear the actual sex?

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

The Captain is just instigating.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

Easy money for Silver.

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

So will this bother Starman and the rest of the left? Somehow I doubt it.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/reid-laughable-for-romney-to-say-dems-will

 

Re: THE 2012 POLITICS THREAD

No, that's not what I said. I said that ON THE MARGIN, a 25-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage would make some currently employed people (and some possibly employable people) not cost-effective. Indeed, I emphasized that it would be difficult to point to a particular employee-employer relationship and say, yes, that one will end with a 25-cent-an-hour increase in the minimum wage. But across an economy of some 150 to 160 million working people, some people are going to wind up unemployed as a result. The question is, is that worth it? Is the unemployment that will result worth the gain to those who remain unemployed? That's way the hell above my pay grade. But let's not pretend there won't be negative consequences to some people -- working people, your beloved 99-percenters -- as a result.