The new and improved, fight-free Romney vs. Obama thread!

[Azrael]

How about Rick Santorum? Isn't he the one that called Obama a "snob?"

chronicle.com/article/From-Snobs-to-Pointy-Headed/130960/

"There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor to try to indoctrinate them," continued Mr. Santorum at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. "Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image."

 

[Dick Whitman]

How about Rick Santorum? Isn't he the one that called Obama a "snob?"

chronicle.com/article/From-Snobs-to-Pointy-Headed/130960/

"There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor to try to indoctrinate them," continued Mr. Santorum at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. "Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image."

So now he IS a professor?

 

[doctorquant]

I'm not denying Democrats sell an effective line of populism, of course they do, but to say that the Republican party hasn't used 'anti-intellectualism' to its benefit as a recurring strategy is to deny history.

My original point was that the 21st century Republican party has a conflict on its hands when it has to sell a Harvard- or Yale-educated candidate to its base.

It has no problem, on the other hand, selling the base Sarah Palin.

If you're talking about what some call the "nominating wing" of a given party, I think you're absolutely right that you'd have a way easier time selling a modestly credentialed candidate to the Republicans than you would the Democrats. What's funny to watch is when such a person gets near the top on the Democratic side. I'll never forget the contortions my (ardent, life-long Democrat) brother-in-law went through to convince himself just what an intellectual heavyweight John Edwards is. I mean, John Edwards is no dummy, but an intellectual? Come on!

 

[dixiehack]

To review:

Intellectualism. Bad for coffee machine repairmen. Good for vending machine repairmen.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Interesting how effectively - and for how long - the modern Republican party has tapped the wide vein of American anti-intellectualism. Since at least 1952, so going on 60 years.

LOL ... yes, we Repubs are such dunces.

But amiable.

As deck points out, what I'm saying is that no matter how smart or accomplished or corporate or effete the Republican candidate might actually be, the party strategy is to condemn 'pointy-headed intellectuals.'

This it has done as a matter of course from the day it labeled Stevenson an 'egghead.'

Oh, both parties do that. The terms/labels might change, but both parties work from a recipe resting on convincing potential voters that to vote in a particular way is the same as "sticking it to the man ..."

I also don't think it's necessarily anti-intellectual to call someone an "egghead" or to suggest they are too smart for their own good.

It's like the scene from Back to School where Sam Kinison Rodney Dangerfield tells the "egghead" professor how the real world works.

Liberals love political theory, and believe they can correct any problem by using the power of government.

We need more jobs? Pass a jobs bill! Healthcare isn't perfect? Pass a healthcare "reform" bill!

Want to bring down crime? Pass a gun control bill!

That's what passes for intellectualism?

America's biggest cities -- and school systems -- have been run by liberals, and by liberal theory, for decades now. Where are the success stories?

Your answers don't work on the local level. They haven't worked elsewhere in the world, yet, you still want to implement them here, on a national level. Based on what?

Is it anti-intellectual to point out your ideas have failed, repeatedly?

Is it wrong to point out that a generation of liberals thought the Soviet Union was a model society?

Liberals still admire Fidel Castro, and would throw parties for him in New York City when he would come to the UN.

Liberals believe Gorbachev to be an intellectual, and Reagan to be a dunce.

If your ideas have failed, it doesn't make me anti-intellectual when I reject them.

Kinison was Rodney's crazy history professor.

 

[YankeeFan]

How about Rick Santorum? Isn't he the one that called Obama a "snob?"

chronicle.com/article/From-Snobs-to-Pointy-Headed/130960/

"There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor to try to indoctrinate them," continued Mr. Santorum at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. "Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image."

How did Rick Santorum do in the Republican primary? Did he beat the guy with two degrees from Harvard?

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I thought obtuse only described angles.

 

[Alma]

The people that liked her didn't like her because she rejected intellectualism, they liked her because they felt like they could relate to her.

They felt like they could relate to her in part because she was full of her own self-righteousness and rejected <i>any</i> establishment idea - intellectualism, of course - to inclusion of ideas she'd even naturally engage on. To Palin, everyone was (and probably still is) a crony or a phony. She actually reminded me of the most odious college basketball and football coaches, an insecure, self-styled, I'm-always-right, big-mouthed professional contrarian who kept grudges and kept score. Her speech at the RNC in 2008 made that plain. Just a bunch of complaints and snide, cutting remarks strung together for a crowd of people who get off on feeling persecuted.

Yeah, folks related to her. The worst in them related to the worst in her.There are a lot of petty, broken people out there - Republicans, Democrats, you name it - who think they've earned everything that God simply blessed them with, and resent anyone being "better" than them. That's Palin, boiling at any perceived slight, lock, stock and barrel. Gore, IMO, had the same affliction underneath a far more polished exterior.

 

[Alma]

How about Rick Santorum? Isn't he the one that called Obama a "snob?"

chronicle.com/article/From-Snobs-to-Pointy-Headed/130960/

"There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor to try to indoctrinate them," continued Mr. Santorum at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. "Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image."

How did Rick Santorum do in the Republican primary? Did he beat the guy with two degrees from Harvard?

You're missing the point, and I'm no great defender of higher education in its current form.

At the bottom of Santorum's rant - and he borrows it, sadly, from fellow, misguided Christians - is: Avoid any institution or worldview that might tell you something you don't want to hear (that is, what Rick Santorum and his ilk thinks you shouldn't hear) and just create your opposing institutions and worldviews. If some voter said 'Mr. Santorum, what about Liberty University? Or Patrick Henry? Or Oral Roberts? Are they OK?' you can bet Satorum will respond with a shirt-eating grin and say "sure, they're teaching the truth there!" Then go to ideological war with the traditional "liberal" ones in the name of your own personal rights. In other words: A new kind of Civil War, the godless vs. the God-filled. Precisely what believers are repeatedly not called to do. If it appears I'm being dramatic for effect, I'm not really.

The Tea Party, at its core, is a protest, obstructionist political entity designed to smear crap on the walls and pout. They're hunger strikers of modern American democracy. I don't even really begrudge them this status; parties like this exist all over Europe, which is why many of those governments function like shirt, and need the Euro just to get their ass in gear. For the Tea Party to really work - to really achieve long-term gains - it has to exist in a state of dissatisfaction. It will require new things to gripe over. It will demand new concessions. Assimilation into the larger GOP - though I personally desire it - is technically failure.

Santorum isn't a strict Tea Party guy, per se, but he falls nicely into the "let's just remake all the institutions in our own image" forgetting that liberal bastions (universities, Hollywood) are stuffed to the brim with conservative ideas. I mean, cop movies aren't exactly what I'd call "the liberal concern." Most rap music reinforces capitalism and individualism to the nth degree. Guns? American movies love guns. The NRA has no better lobbyist than Michael Bay.

But a movement like the one we're seeing right now requires the total destruction of nuance. It has to be "Us vs. Them" or it doesn't work. And the clock's running, too. This gambit may fail in spectacular fashion, for some of the issues around which the "new right" want to rally -- like denying gay rights -- may find no traction in the next generation. And the globalism clock is ticking, too, since all these nations who now have a taste of our outsourced jobs want more pennies in their pocket. American capitalists know: The day when it costs more (in sheer hassle, in cultural red tape) to do business overseas than it does to do business stateside is fast approaching. China's gonna pull the "fork you, pay me" card pretty soon. India, too. Russia? Yep. And if the working and middle classes haven't been fully subjugated in America by the time that happens - if the stiffs haven't thrown their lot behind this new brand of conservative leadership - there stands to be a huge ideological margin call.

I'd rather it never made it to that kind of standoff. I'd rather the GOP did its forking job, and put some pissants in line. Interestingly, I don't think Romney has much use for the Tea Party BS. He's a "Democrats buy shoes, too" kind of guy, a realist. He doesn't need to die on all the hills the Tea Party does.

 

[YGBFKM]

I'm no intellectual Democrat like yourself, stitch, but it's their.

 

[TigerVols]

There are plenty of six-pack-swilling white guys President Obama could have picked to be his running mate. I don't disagree that train-riding Joe's background was part of his appeal, but he was also the chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Senate and his foreign policy credentials were also key.

 

[YankeeFan]

There are plenty of six-pack-swilling white guys President Obama could have picked to be his running mate. I don't disagree that train-riding Joe's background was part of his appeal, but he was also the chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Senate and his foreign policy credentials were also key.

For example? Give me a realistic alternative to Biden.

And, he may have been the chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, but that's not how they sold him or used him.

And nobody's ever accused Joe of being an intellectual.

Meanwhile, let's not forget that Palin was a sitting Governor. They didn't just find her on the side of the road.