If Romney had won

In case you were wondering, Zeke Miller who's now at Time magazine, posts a longer look at Mitt Romney's transistion plan. There's probably no more relevant reaction than these tweets from the big time con blogger at Powerline:

John Podhoretz: Now I'm glad he lost. Seriously, this is an embarrassment. It's like the Romney administration was going to be one big Learning Annex.

The plan was hundreds of pages long, (complete with PowerPoint presentations), carefully crafted by hundreds of the best corporate toadies within the Romney inner circles. They envisioned remaking the White House in the image of a predatory Bain style corporation. This would have included breaking the function down into “Care & Feeding Offices, Policy Offices, and Packaging & Selling Offices."

First on the agenda:

Corporate-style training seminars were planned for appointees and nominees before the inauguration to teach management skills.

A plan to restructure White House operations to suit Romney's corporate management style, with clear deliverables....

If you read the selected pages embedded at the link, you can see Romney would have had us at war with Iran, Syria and possibly China within the first six months even while he was busy abolishing every trace of the former administration's policy from repealing Obamacare, disemboweling Social Security and Medicare, to the reinventing the tax structure to favor corporate interests because, you know, job creators.

We didn't just dodge a bullet on this one. More like dodging a nuclear warhead. [photo via]

Romney wants to be the comeback kid

Guess the Romneys are missing the spotlight. Saw yesterday that Anne was giving an interview somewhere and today we have this, which is as sad as it is funny:

Restless, a little wistful and sharply critical of President Barack Obama's second term, Mr. Romney said in an interview that he plans to re-emerge in ways that will "help shape national priorities." As a first step, the former Republican presidential nominee plans to welcome 200 friends and supporters to a three-day summit next week that he will host at a Utah mountain resort.

He is considering writing a book and a series of opinion pieces, and has plans to campaign for 2014 candidates.

Wonder if anyone has told the candidates? Have a feeling there might be a number of regretful scheduling conflicts on that score. [photo via]

Mitt Romney, reluctant candidate

They're still doing post mortems on Romney's failed bid for POTUS. Boston Globe rehash is pretty good if you're not sick of these yet. This part is the only thing that's new and much mockery of Tagg's claim ensued on the social nets.

More than being reticent, Romney was at first far from sold on a second presidential run. Haunted by his 2008 loss, he initially told his family he would not do it. While candidates often try to portray themselves as reluctant, Tagg insisted his father’s stance was genuine.

“He wanted to be president less than anyone I’ve met in my life. He had no desire to . . . run,” said Tagg, who worked with his mother, Ann, to persuade his father to seek the presidency. “If he could have found someone else to take his place . . . he would have been ecstatic to step aside. He is a very private person who loves his family deeply and wants to be with them, but he has deep faith in God and he loves his country, but he doesn’t love the attention.”

I actually believe Tagg. I mean, I think once he decided to run, Mitt wanted to win because he's that competitive but I don't think he ever really wanted to be President, at least not this time. I think it was Ann who really, really wanted to be FLOTUS and Mitt always gives his Queen Ann everything she wants. Just a theory. [Reuters photo via]

If you don't know me by now

It took me a long time to believe that Mitt Romney really didn't know he was going to lose the election. I assumed it was just a ploy to placate the investors. When I saw this photo of Romney's last stop in Pennsylvania I honestly thought he saw his future and this was his last bittersweet moment of public adulation.

[photo via]

But having read about Romney's post-election malaise, I'm beginning to believe he really was clueless. It appears he was so sure he was going to win, he didn't bother to make any plan in case he lost.

Mitt Romney looks out the windows of his beach house here in La Jolla, a moneyed and pristine enclave of San Diego, at noisy construction workers fixing up his next-door neighbor’s home, sending regular updates on the renovation. He devours news from 2,600 miles away in Washington about the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, shaking his head and wondering what if.

However, I do remain convinced that Ann Romney's burning desire to be First Lady was the driving force behind his decision to run in the first place.

By all accounts, the past month has been most difficult on Romney’s wife, Ann, who friends said believed up until the end that ascending to the White House was their destiny. They said she has been crying in private and trying to get back to riding her horses.

I deleted many a tweet saying just this in the last three weeks. It's exactly as I imagined, but it felt too cruel to mention it. It was long clear to me that she enjoyed the celebrity much more than Mitt and thus would take the loss all the harder.

Indeed she did not look all that thankful in their Thanksgiving photo.

Unlike many I've seen, I take no satisfaction in the Romney's sorrow. But I am enormously grateful that he didn't win. And not because Mitt apparently couldn't organize his way out of a long hall with only one door. Of all the reasons a Romney presidency would have been a disaster, this is the biggest one:

“Nothing so unbecame his campaign as his manner of leaving it,” said Robert Shrum, a senior strategist on Democratic presidential campaigns. “I don’t think he’ll ever be a significant figure in public life again.”

Being president requires taking setbacks and losses with grace and equanimity. Mitt simply didn't possess these qualities in the slightest measure. So we didn't just dodge a bullet when we re-elected President Obama. We dodged a megaton nuclear bomb.

Obama Romney lunch summit

And so the presidential election of 2012 comes to a close. President Obama hosts not president Willard Mitt Romney at a private White House luncheon. The body language in the official White House photo speaks volumes.

[Pete Souza photo]

That was in front in of the camera. Suspect inside their heads, it looked more like this.

They dined on white turkey chili and Southwestern chicken salad...

Romney operative declares moral victory

Shorter Stu Stevens, top Romney campaign planner: Miserable Mitt didn't really lose the election. All the rich people and angry white guys voted for him. If the damn poors and coloreds didn't get to vote, Mitt would be measuring for drapes in the Oval Office and I'd be looking at a gig as the new PressSec.

Also too, Obama only won because the stupid lamestream media wouldn't vet him because he's a blah man. Next time it will be different. You'll see...

Juxtaposition

Elections have consequences. Our President on a goodwill tour of the far East with SoS Hillary Clinton.

[At the Viharn of the Reclining Buddha, White House photo]

While the loser, Romney pumps his own gas again...

...and watches his memorabilia lose its value.

[via Ed Henry on twitter]

Romney a self-righteous dick right to the end

Willard Mittens Romney, champion of personal responsibility, figured out why he inconceivably lost the election. It wasn't his fault. Romney on a conference call with his disgruntled donors told them he would have won darn it, except that President Obama was all giving out big presents like he was freaking Santa Claus or something.

"The Obama campaign was following the old playbook of giving a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they could get to vote for them and be motivated to go out to the polls, specifically the African American community, the Hispanic community and young people," Romney told hundreds of donors during a telephone town hall Wednesday. "In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups."

In other words, the insulting remarks he made about you 47% deadbeats he made behind closed doors? The only mistake was it was made public before the election. Now that you moochers didn't vote for him, he's free to trash you losers again.

Of course, as Ezra points out, it's a very ugly vision of how politics works and the Mittster was offering some big gifts to his donors too. Lord knows they tried to deliver the game for him from showering him with money to threatening to fire people if Obama won.

But he apparently still has hopes of keeping some kind of grift going among the "job creator" class.

Romney said he and his team were discussing how to keep the campaign's donor group connected — perhaps with annual meetings or a monthly newsletter — "so we can stay informed and have influence on the direction of the party, and perhaps the selection of a future nominee."

"Which, by the way," he added with a chuckle, "will not be me."

The former Massachusetts governor said he was trying to turn his thoughts to what he would do going forward.

"But frankly," he said, "we're still so troubled by the past, it's hard to put together our plans for the future."

It's all so sad when the entourage goes home and leaves you all alone. Guess cutting off the campaign workers' credit cards in the middle of the night just wasn't enough to dull the pain.

Our own Capt. Fogg has more thoughts. [graphic via]

If the world could vote

The Mittwit premises his magic economic rescue formula on the idea that he is so revered around the world that a multitude of confidence fairies will descend on the earth in gratitude the moment he's elected. It seems the BBC conducted an international poll to test that theory. I guess it could be true, if by "the world" he means Pakistan.

Sadly, this will have no effect on the anti-Obama crowd. They hate the rest of the world about as much as they hate our POTUS.

Climate change is no joke

Devastating ad. It was an obvious theme to go with, but so really well produced in short turn around time. This should be running on television non-stop until election day.



Also too:

Based on this Mittwitticism from the not so distant past.

President's precedence

[ photo via Steven Portnoy on twitter]

Lot of chatter on the internets this afternoon about Chris Christie ditching Miserable Mitt and singing the praises of President Obama. The general consensus goes along the lines of Mistermix's view that Christie is playing for 2016.

There's a small contingent of reluctant admirers ranging from John Cole's near kudos to Atrios who sees Christie as wanting to rise to the occassion and do his job.

Me, I'm somewhere betwixt the three of them. I don't doubt Christie calculates the political ramifications of any act and fine tunes his schtick with an eye on 2016. And like John, I've had a few moments when I've felt some genuine admiration for Christie's refusal to pander to the crazies and flat out take a firm and unpopular position. But I'm generally turned off by his big mouth bully boy style.

I'm with Atrios on the notion that for all the shady dealing Christie does to advance his own ambition and the fortunes of his own benefactors, in this situation I believe he's driven more by wanting to get the job done than by politics. On a practical level embracing Obama and the feds serves his needs the most in bringing relief to the victims of the storm. Of which he has millions. So why would he snub Obama who's bringing in FEMA in favor of Romney arriving with a rented truck full of canned soup and baby diapers?

Not saying Christie didn't weigh the political advantages at all, but really think this time it was secondary to doing what was best to solve the immediate problems.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Romnopoly game

Thanks to someone at Balloon Juice for posting the best pro-Obama ad of the entire season.



Really well done. This should be on TV.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

You know who else used to photoshop his photo ops?

No sillies, not Hitler. Well, maybe he did, Leni was a great propagandist, but you will recall the many instances of Bush era photoshopping from the toppling of Saddam's statue to the crowds at Georgie's speeches.

Not for nothing, has Romney hired nearly every Bushie apparatchik. They come in very handy when one needs to fake the attendance at a Romney rally. Gotta keep the myth of Mittster's phony momentum going somehow.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Sexual innuendo is in the eye of the beholder - Updated

Before I even saw Lena Dunham's ad endorsing President Obama, I knew I was going to love it because of this tweet:

Erick son of Erick: What's worse than the Obama as is that some people really like it. We do live in a fallen, depraved world destined for the fire.

He, of course, meant to say Obama ad, but typos aside, Erick son of Erick was joined in his horror by the entire population of Nutopia. Surely this is the first sign of the apocalypse and the whole of humanity is doomed to roast in hell now. What's most amusing about their mighty fauxrage is their own hero, Ronald Reagan made such references to first time voting himself and if you ask me, his was much more graphic than the Obama ad.

Being woefully ignorant of pop culture, I have no idea who Lena Dunham is, but she is as cute as a puppy who just learned to run and the ad is sweet. You have to stretch rather far to find the sexual innuendo in it. Seemed clearly to be about voting to me.



On a semi-related note, I'm sorry to tell you this video of Meat Loaf singing America the Beautiful with Mitt Romney has already been taken down, allegedly due to copyright issues. Rather certain it was out of pure embarrassment. It's truly obscene. The old washed up pompous ass from the 70s was more off key than Mitt has ever been. Hoping the internets come up with a bootleg copy somehow. It deserves to be archived for posterity.

Oh and Meat Loaf surprise endorsed Romney at the rally because, Cold War bitchez. Apparently it's still a huge threat. Who knew? Sadly, by tomorrow the GOP base will probably be building bomb shelters in their back yard to protect themselves from it.

Update: Full video is gone, but managed to find a clip of Meat Loaf singing. Watch it quick before they take that one down too. [More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

All that's missing is the flight suit

Adding a bit to the Morlock theme of yesterday's post, this photo looks to me like the Eloi lining up to submit to their Morlock master.

[photo via Zeke Miller]

This was taken at a Romney rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa where Mr. Romnesia told the crowd: "I'm optimistic, not just about winning. We are going to win, by the way."

Of course the latest polls aren't exactly agreeing with that optimism but the internets tell me it hasn't stopped the Romnesia campaign from "unskewing" (read that as lying to themselves and their supporters) the unfavorable numbers and inventing their own favorables. Everything I'm seeing suggests to me they know they're losing and they're setting up a narrative to paint Obama's win as illegitimate.

And speaking of polls, this tweet from yesterday validates everything I've ever said about them:

PublicPolicyPolling: Lots of folks calling for OH tracking poll- if some org wants to sponsor for 20k we'll do 400 a night tmrw through Sunday before election.

It's all about the money and the incentive is high to deliver "interesting" results. And now that we have a price point, think about all the money the news orgs spent on running these things over the last few years. With that kind of dough they could have hired more journalists and reported -- real news.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Rhymes with Morlock

Richard Mourdock, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate doesn't think a pregnancy caused by rape is the final victory of a brutal rapist. He tells us after much thought and prayer he's realized it is a gift from God. Apparently he believes a woman should consider it a blessing to be forced to carry this daily reminder of a vicious assault on her body to term, no matter what the damage to her emotional health or her life plan. Because it's his God's will that she do so. And Mr. Mourdock doesn't think health plans should cover contraception at all. (I don't suppose I need to mention Mr. Mourdock will never have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy himself.)

Mitt Romney has done a video ad endorsement of only one Senate candidate. Yes, that would be the same Richard Mourdock. And although Mitt claims he doesn't agree with his views, Romney fully supports Richard Mourdock's candidacy and will not ask him to take down the endorsement ads. Nor apparently, will Mr. Romnesia's face be removed from the Mourdock website. [graphic via]

Since he's already said it all, outsourcing the outrage to Charlie Pierce:

Mourdock didn't come to these views over the weekend. He held them when he announced. He held them when he beat Richard Lugar in the Republican primary. He held them when he was up in the polls over Joe Donnelly. And he held them before, during, and after Romney endorsed him. And the way I know this is that, a) Romney has yet to unendorse him and that, b) the Republican senate campaign hierarchy is still behind Mourdock and what he believes.

Mourdock did receive support Wednesday morning from a key Republican leader — Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "In fact, rather than condemning him for his position, as some in his party have when it's come to Republicans, I commend Congressman Donnelly for his support of life,'" Cornyn said.

Tell me again that I don't have to worry about Romney's having two or three Supreme Court appointments to make, or about a Senate full of Richard Mourdocks passing judgment on them.

I'd only add Paul Ryan's PAC gave Mourdock thousands and he's not the only GOPer who is backing their fellow troglodyte. Mourdock has received thousands more from other sitting members of the Senate. And let's not forget this position is part of the Republican party platform. They removed the rape exception.

Romney may well disagree with that position, but he's proven time and time again that he's willing to do anything politically expedient to advance his personal ambitions. Whatever the context, when he said he would delighted to sign a bill supporting that position, he meant it. Mark my words, if Republicans take control this time, Roe will be overturned. And like the song says, you don't know what you got till it's gone...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Gloria Allred springs October surprise

Until the court agrees to unseal the records, this falls under juicy gossip only, but if it plays out it would be a bombshell. Because if Romney lied under oath to help a friend screw over his wife during a bitter divorce, that's a serious crime.

Mitt Romney LIED under oath when he testified in the divorce of his good friend and screwed the friend's wife out of a lot of money in the process ... so claims the ex-wife of Staples' founder Tom Stemberg.

Multiple sources connected with the divorce tell TMZ ... during Tom's uber nasty divorce case with ex-wife Maureen, Mitt Romney gave a deposition and testified during the trial that Staples was worth virtually nothing. Romney testified that the company was worth very little and Tom was a dreamer and "the dream continues."

Here's the tell that gives it credibility:

Partly as a result of Romney's testimony, Maureen got relatively little in the divorce, but we're told just weeks after the divorce ended, Romney and Tom went to Goldman Sachs and cashed in THEIR stock for a fortune. Short story -- Romney allegedly lied to help his friend and screw the friend's wife over.

And it gets uglier. In shades of Newt Gingrich the ex-wife "suffered from MS and had multiple bouts with cancer." Romney's BFF Tom Stemberg cancelled her health insurance, left her homeless and in severe financial distress. One might call such vile heartlessness the Vulture Capitalist Code, so beloved by conservatives across our country.

Time is short, so who knows if this will play out in time to make a difference but Gloria Allred was in court with the ex-Mrs. Stemberg and various newspapers have petitioned the courts to release the records. It would be really good if the truth came out before millions of Americans make the same horrible mistake as they did in 2004.

The last debate -- 2012

To the extent victory can be declared in these things, Obama clearly won the debate last night. He was fully present, well versed on policy and well prepared to parry every cheap shot Romney could possibly take at him. Mr. Romnesia, despite his best efforts to fake peace lovin' Mitt, who just happens to have hired nearly every one of the Bush era neo-con foreign advisors, was reduced to a puddle of flop sweat by the end.

(And where, I ask, was that famous handkerchief when he really needed it?)

Willard Romnesia very nearly duplicated McCain's awkward lolling tongue exit from the stage.

Of course, nothing will dislodge the "both sides" narrative of a corporate media desperate to maintain the ratings only a "tight" race can deliver. To be fair, old Bob did better at moderating than I expected. (Granted it was a very low bar). But he spoils what little respect one might have when he delivers this nonsensical assessment of the debate:

Debate moderator Bob Schieffer said Tuesday he was "surprised" that President Obama and Mitt Romney sought to shift the final debate on foreign policy issues toward domestic policy concerns.

Maybe we watched two different events. I'm pretty sure if you read the transcript or watch the video, you'll find that it was Romney who derailed the discussion from foreign policy to his favorite domestic talking points which have been well covered already. If it can be said Obama "did it too" it was because he was responding to Romney's false slurs. If old Bob had been a bit better at his job, he would have insisted the Mittster answer the actual questions instead of changing the subject altogether.

Slate at least noticed Romney's deflection tactics but they still missed the mark with the "both did it" elide. What do they think Obama was supposed to do under the circumstances? When you have your opponent on the run, you have to follow them in order to keep fighting. You don't deploy onto an empty field.

Obama demonstrated his competency, his cool and his experience. Mitt went to a foreign policy debate and did everything possible to deflect the questions and change the subject. That is when he wasn't explicitly agreeing with and endorsing President Obama's current policy. Willard's entire argument was: "I'd do the exact same thing as the President, only it would better because I'm so awesome, everyone will love me and fear me."

Willard's biggest problem is not "everyone" agrees with his grandiose self-assessment:

A BBC World Service opinion poll has found sharply higher overseas approval ratings for US President Barack Obama than Republican challenger Mitt Romney. — An average of 50% favoured Mr Obama, with 9% for Mr Romney, in the survey of 21,797 people in 21 countries.

This is important but sadly, a much too large percentage of Americans either don't understand how critical international consensus is to our national security or they're too hooked on self-destructive chest thumping nationalism to care. [Photos via LGF and knck1es.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Mitt outsources his campaign workers

Mr. Romnesia is out there shouting his main priority is jobs, jobs, jobs. That could be true if he meant offshored jobs outside of America. Tweet of the day:

Mark Agee : TRUE STORY: A friend got called by a Romney canvasser. She asked, and he was in the Phillipines. Mitt outsourced his own fucking campaign.

Guess cutting costs on canvassers is why he can afford to shower his executive lackeys with hundreds of thousands in bonus payments.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

He who dies with the most toys wins

Brutal travel day. Burned to a crisp. Fortunately, looks like it was slow news day too. Don't have the energy to leap into the twitter mayhem but made the usual rounds. Atrios captures the essence of the problem in one of his terse, semi-cryptic posts. Just read it. It's very short. The Galtian Overlords Don't Know What They're Doing.

Or you might say, they know exactly what they're doing in the moment, but don't understand the consequences of what they do. I see no evidence the law of diminishing returns factors into their calculations. Ever.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]