The most important election of big bird's life: US general election 2012 part III

Yipyipyipyipyip

i think andrew sullivan just endorsed romney

PBS already asked the Obama campaign to stop airing the Big Bird commercial from the other thread.

Ouch. I know that title will please a few people, but maybe something a little less harsh?

I don't even get the joke

I think the thread title should stand in for Morbs' interjections.

but maybe something a little less harsh

How about some blown-up child bodies photos?

As long as just the Taliban are killing Brown civilians, Morbs is happy

We don't elect the Taliban.

@DennisThePerrin
Netanyahu ranting about Iran at the UN was measured compared to liberals ranting about the coming Romney apocalypse.

Eh if the Democrats can't win against this guy, this country deserves what it fucking gets.

v reminiscent of Jon Lovitz as Dukakis on '88 SNL saying "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy"

there are further debates.

the title to this thred is a good and relevant title

We don't elect the Taliban.

I thought we elected Hitler MAKE UP YOUR MIND.

the title to this thred is a good and relevant title

― Grimy Little Pimp (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved),

I agree, but I'd like to fix it to say ONE murdered Big Bird. Grammar counts even at the end of the world.

TRU

seconded, approved, implemented

One of my friends who lives in Mass. just posted this on FB:

So...in the mail today, we received a four-page, color, 8 x 10 "brochure" from the Massachusetts Republican party detailing when Elizabeth Warren called herself a Cherokee and when she didn't. You open it up, and there's a big timeline. The thing that struck me is how expensive this must have been to produce. It must be nice to have an endless stream of money. And, of course, they just HAD to call her "Cherokee Liz."

Eh if the Democrats can't win against this guy, this country deserves what it fucking gets.

Things are going to be fine for the Dems this time around; the trick will be next time to see if the Obama for America crew moves on to other pursuits and the Dem fundraising and ground game reverts to the mean.

Sorry for the cynicism. Just, you have this guy who during his 100th 'Introduction to the Voting Public' declared that he would shut down a 40-year-old business, fire the guy interviewing him for the job of President, and act all cavalier about it. That people would trust their future to a guy that often jokes about firing people is just kind of mindboggling.

I felt the same way when Bush was elected the first time, and with his reelection, I sort of lost all of my hope for the voting people and the election process. This was ignited again when Obama won, maybe the first time I've been happy about an election. If Romney actually wins through some voting laws restricting who can vote or just wins, I dunno. I try hard to see outside of my own perspective, but as hard as I try, I can't imagine why anyone who doesn't profit from Romney's election would want him there.

I can't wait to see Scott Brown lose. I anticipate that even more than Romney losing.

Scott Brown's campaign doubling down on the "hey, let's be super racist" strategy is a very interesting choice

first romney lead on realclearpolitics?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

If you wanna think about whether this would actually be of much help:

http://www.salon.com/2012/10/08/democrats_really_do_have_a_shot_at_winning_the_house/

mitt's campaign doesn't seem so bumbling anymore though

bumbling looks increasingly irrelevant when the incumbent is yawning and shrugging his way through the campaign.

yes it does; the big difference is that Obama's campaign now also looks to be bumbling

xp: rare Morbius/DJP mindmeld

Obama's campaign (or a sypathetic super-pac) could do much worse than to buy up a lot of air time and just use it to show a medley of Romney's all-time moments caught on video, without comment, similar to the ad with the 47% remarks as the soundtrack and pics of random americans.

The "corporations are people, my friend" moment. The "I like firing people" moment. The "I'll bet you $10,000" moment. An so on. Almost as good as Dukakis in the tank or Dubya in his flight suit and Mission Accomplished.

you remember that Dubya in his flight suit didn't work, right

Like a greatest hits package?

That people would trust their future to a guy that often jokes about firing people is just kind of mindboggling.

Well we had a TV show that was sort of popular for a bit there where gleefully announcing that contestants were "fired" was the whole schtick. Plus the guy behind it rode that fame to a quasi-serious presidential bid and a newfound relevancy. Lots of Americans are dicks.

Obama would be pleasing a lot more of his alleged base if he had fired a few more ppl, or just not hired Geithner & Co.

geithner knew where all the dead bodies were buried though. lol

on one hand, after watching what happened in 2004 i'm confident that lots of americans are dicks AND terribly misinformed about everything that's not a tv show. facts are largely irrelevant, too. who has time to keep track of facts these days and now i am slowly pulling out my phone and now i am and looking at my phone and now i am just looking at my phone now, i'm done with this paragraph or whatever. whoa, tv on my phone. update on my phone now, look at that

on the other hand, that debate was romney at his absolute best and obama at his absolute worst. the freakout is a little premature, we'll see if obama is actually awake over the next few weeks, that should help, and if the moderator of the next debate can actually ask a question or two that should help obama as well.

I really don't know how not to be cynical/jaded when popular opinion can be swayed so easily one way or the other. Oh, wow, Romney wasn't a total asshat one night on TV? That guy's getting my vote! Oh, wait, Obama brushed it off with humility the next day? I changed my mind, he get my vote! Oh, wait, Romney said something about Libya? Back to him. Huh, Obama turns out to be fired up and ready to go after all? It's Obama.

that's not how it happens tho, v. few people in america are genuinely undecided and switched their vote cause they saw the debate

it's more like some 'maybe I won't vote' romney supporter was more likely to say they were a romney supporter after hearing that he rocked obamas socks off on the tv

Ahahahah 7 percent of Americans think that PBS takes up half of the federal budget.

7 percent of Americans are currently filling up water balloons with piss

here's an interesting visual of global views on Obama vs Romney (may need to right click and view in a new tab):

http://thumbnails.visually.netdna-cdn.com/obama-vs-romney-what-if-the-world-could-vote_50747103b5170_w587.png

you need a microscope to understand that

oh sorry didn't see your second sentence

also speaking of dead brown civilians

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/world/asia/pakistan-teen-activist-attack/index.html

The thing is, narrative-wise the whole first debate sets Obama up as the underdog, which people love.

I hope you're right, but I'm not sure if it works that way for the incumbent.

that wd make him Reagan '84

a new mark in lowered expectations?

I.e., I don't think the Yankees will suddenly be underdogs against the Orioles on Wednesday just because they lost the second game.

iirc Kerry whipped up on Dubya in the first debate, and then it was all downhill.

(tho admittedly that was a real Hail Mary for Mondale at that point)

xxp

im sure christie has not once thought abt giuliani standing atop a pile of rubble w/a bullhorn

xp I mean not weird to speculate if you are a pundit or a message board poster pretending to be a pundit.

unsure about "effervescent" and "Chris Christie" in the same breath

and youre already in possession of the information that christie is a calculating disingenuous ahole

A history of congressional alignments:

http://xkcd.com/1127/large/

and youre already in possession of the information that christie is a calculating disingenuous ahole

Absolutely, but I still can't imagine many of the countless other calculating disingenuous Republican aholes would be this magnanimous toward an incumbent Pres. demonized by his party the week before a close election.

I got: http://imgs.isidewith.com/results-image/195143252.jpg

Absolutely, but I still can't imagine many of the countless other calculating disingenuous Republican aholes would be this magnanimous toward an incumbent Pres. demonized by his party the week before a close election.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:36 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it possible he doesnt want romney to win

Also most Republican assholes not governors of blue states in desperate need of Federal largesse.

of course he doesn't want romney to win! did anyone see his speech at the convention? i am desperate for tea leaves auguring good things, so i like to think christie doesn't think romney is going to win. aka, going crazy without the NYC subway!

Interesting/confusing graphic, Alfred. No such thing as "center right" in the House anymore.

ya the convention speech was def a huge CLUE

No one except a few dudes at the Weekly Standard and National Review and the dupes who read them thinks that Romney's going to win.

No one has ever strongly suggested that Romney would win. That's sort of the media's big lie in this bloodsport, that Romney ever had a chance. They've blurred the lines so much by making the story about Romney closing the gap, which is a far cry from closing the deal.

The question is how all the crazies convinced Romney is somehow winning or going to win will react to Obama II. I bet ever worse than demoralized Dems did to Bush II.

40 some percent of Americans seem to think the polls are all rigged to support Obama; and the polls are very close.

balloon juice piece otm

Feingold's political action group is now describing nearly all Dems running for Senate as progressives:

Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, Chris Murphy in Connecticut, Jon Tester in Montana, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, and Bob Kerrey in Nebraska are all being targeted by corporate special interest money in the final stretch before Election Day -- and they can all win.

If these progressive candidates win, we have a real chance at reform. If they lose -- well, we can't afford that.

well the last three are about as progressive as their states are gonna get

Yeah it's all relative.

I really have to remind myself that Nebraskans consider Kerrey a progressive.

Stephen Stills wants you to know what he thinks.

Suite: Romney Blue Eyes

Halloween is over.

I really have to remind myself that Nebraskans consider Kerrey a progressive.

― the ones that I'm near most: fellow outcasts and ilxors (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 31, 2012 2:30 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Bob_Kerrey_SenateMatch.htm

Bob Kerrey is a Libertarian-Leaning Progressive (click for explanation)

ok so that quiz:

Stein 93%, Obama 93%, Anderson 75%, Johnson 68%, Romney 18%, Goode 11%

Dem 98%, Green 91%, Libertarian 46%, Repub 7%

pretty convinced that 100% of my libertarian and repub numbers there due to GUNS AND DRUGS

Ezra Klein defends Nate Silver: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/30/the-nate-silver-backlash/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

Some of the arguments here have been downright weird, as when Politico’s Josh Gerstein wrote, “Isn’t the basic problem with the Nate Silver prediction in question, and the critique, that it puts a percentage on a one-off event?” Or when Politico’s Jonathan Martin wrote, “Avert your gaze, liberals: Nate Silver admits he’s simply averaging public polls and there is no secret sauce.” Or when Politico’s Dylan Byers wrote, “So should Mitt Romney win on Nov. 6, it’s difficult to see how people can continue to put faith in the predictions of someone who has never given that candidate anything higher than a 41 percent chance of winning.”
Come to think of it, a lot of the odder critiques of Silver have been coming out of Politico. But that makes a kind of sense. Silver’s work poses a threat to more traditional — and, in particular, to more excitable — forms of political punditry and horse-race journalism.

If you had to distill the work of a political pundit down to a single question, you’d have to pick the perennial “who will win the election?” During election years, that’s the question at the base of most careers in punditry, almost all cable news appearances, and most A1 news articles. Traditionally, we’ve answered that question by drawing on some combination of experience, intuition, reporting and polls. Now Silver — and Silver’s imitators and political scientists — are taking that question away from us. It would be shocking if the profession didn’t try and defend itself.

More recently, we in the media — and particularly we in the media at Politico — have tried to grab an edge in the race for Web traffic by hyping our election stories far beyond their actual importance. The latest gaffe is always a possible turning point, the momentum is always swinging wildly, the race is endlessly up in the air. It thus presents a bit of a problem for us if our readers then turn to sites like Silver’s and find that none of this actually appears to be true and a clear-eyed look at the data shows a fairly stable race over long periods of time.

http://imgs.isidewith.com/results-image/195450709.jpg

only 88 at the top end, i'm less politically happy anywhere than a lot of ppl here

xp I agree though that's not really what the data shows this month!

stop bragging xp

i didn't even put in my crank preference for class- rather than race-based affirmative action!

it doesn't have to be either/or u know

simplicity = political durability imo

i think my steinscore was 90. shoulda installed some democracies.

guess we all have to have our crank subjects. I put 'against raising min wage'.

yeah i did too :/

econ blog liberals over here

k, I'll bite:

Jill Stein - 97% (i'm a Steinstan I guess)
Rocky Anderson - 82%
Obama - 73%
Romney - 4%

94% Green
93% Democrat
34% Libertarian
0% Republican

http://imgs.isidewith.com/results-image/193050639.jpg

Like jjusten I'm probably pretty skewed Libertarian by GUNS AND DRUGS but much less Republican due to being pretty isolationist foreign-policy wise.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/joe-biden-transgender-rights_n_2047275.html

Joe Biden: Transgender Discrimination Is 'The Civil Rights Issue Of Our Time'

wow – I'd no idea Biden could even pronounce "transgender."

Haha joe!

Is it time for a fourth thread?

Biden was meeting with volunteers at an Obama for America office in Sarasota, Fla., when he singled out one woman "who he thought had beautiful eyes," reads the pool report. The woman said something to Biden that was inaudible to the pool reporter, but Biden responded to her by saying it was the "civil rights issue of our time."

LOL

kinda can't wait for the onion to get a hold of that one

xp With one week left, we could do with a new thread:

Robotman oddly cheery: US General Election part IV

― Neutral Coliseums (Matt P), Monday, October 29, 2012 6:58 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

go4it

If we've got a new thread, you all can keep posting those 800x1000 .jpgs of Jill Stein in this one.

Agreed

Robotman oddly cheery: US General Election 2012 part IV

quick someone repost all the gifs