The Aged P

To all US Republicans – here is your statistics assignment for today

2008
Obama/Biden 69,456,897
McCain/Palin 59,934,814

20012
Obama/Biden 58,702,702
Romney/Ryan 56,455,982

Some useful information

In 2008 the Republican president was extremely unpopular, there was a financial crash, a worrying war and a media pushing two narratives – the possibility of wiping away the scars of racism by electing a black president and an orchestrated demonisation of the GOP VP candidate with lies and sexist insults.

In 2012 the economy was still broken, the worrying war was still simmering away and the Democratic administration was racked with scandals. The Republican candidates were clean cut, inoffensive and apparently competent politicians completely acceptable to the GOP establishment and the media.

( Note -you might find this extremely helpful)

Your task

Explain why the 2012 Republican ticket lost the election and got three and a half million fewer votes than the 2008 ticket
Please send your answers, accompanied with your apologies, to a certain lady in Wasilla, Alaska.

Thank you

So, within a few hours the long saga of the US Presidential election will be over. Compared to our own bursts of six week frenetic electioneering, the American process is a long drawn out affair which began in the early autumn of 2011 when Republican hopefuls started throwing their hats into the ring.

I have never been a great fan of Mitt Romney. He has a well deserved reputation for shifting his political stances according to prevailing winds and he always distanced himself from the Tea Party revolution that emerged, unbidden, from the wreckage of the 2006 and 2008 GOP defeats.

His problem with many conservative Republicans, at present submerged beneath the soundbites and overblown rhetoric of whistlestop campaigning, is that once in the White House he would revert to type and pursue a don’t rock the boat, steady as she goes establishment pleasing Bush style governance that would kick the can of America’s dysfunctional indebtedness further down the road for Willow Palin’s generation to sort out.

Nevertheless, since the alternative is allowing Obama and his seedy gang of hacks an opportunity to set in concrete their goal of turning America into John Lennon Imagine World, it seems to me that Romney is the least worst alternative.

The other solid reason for enjoying a Romney victory would be the delights of relishing the deflated balloons at the BBC which, throughout the campaign, has scarcely deigned, via the wretched duo of Mark Mardell and Jonny Dymond, to conceal a sneering disregard for the views of flyover USA. Throw in the tears of Obama’s wealthy groupies in Hollywood and his mainstream media palace guard and it would be a repeat of that glorious November in 2004 when GWB confounded the elite and won his second term fair and square with the bonus of congressional control.

Unfortunately the GOP establishment threw that magnificent moment away in subsequent years. Would Romney do the same?

Perhaps.

But remember, during Bush’s second term, there was no figure who symbolised the spirit of conservative resistance. With President Romney he and his advisers would always be aware of the presence of Sarah Palin, always ready with a red hot poker near the presidential derriere to keep him on the straight and narrow……

I know, I know it’s National Review and Erika Johnsen over at Hot Air will say it’s all part of Romney’s 378 point plan , yes siree, so stay pumped and keep on clicking onto us and don’t get annoyed by that irritating ad that always pops up…….

This Politico story is almost too depressing to contemplate:
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It gets worse, so be sure to read the whole thing to make sure you ruin your week off right.
Meanwhile, it’s a good thing for Romney that absolutely nothing of any interest has been going on in the world this past week, and steady-as-he-goes Mitt can keep reminding the American public, when he bothers to emerge from the foxhole into which the media has driven him, that President Obama’s a nice guy, but by golly he’s in over his head, and gee whiz I saved the Olympics and, dadgummit, a CFO is just what this country needs right now. (Although even that’s not working any more.)

Not to worry..almost certainly within the next two days the Death Star will appear, Romney will step out of his pseudo plastic skin and hurl a rain of thunderbolts onto Obama’s head. The President will crumble and Mitt will shoot into a 20 point lead – it must be true because the people at Hot Air keep on saying that.

Yes folks it will need fire, passion and a clear vision of what the candidate stands for to get those supporters crawling barelegged over broken glass to get out the vote – so thank goodness Sarah Palin wasn’t nominated. If she had been the GOP candidate Obama would be leading in the polls by now….

A lazy and childish piece of work Erika. This sort of intellectually vacuous fluff might be commendable in a high school magazine but not in anything that wants to be taken seriously

Wow – you certainly wouldn’t call that a demonstration of nuance..

It’s a comment on a post at Hot Air by Erika Johnsen in which she uses a poll of Europeans published in the UK Guardian to show that many of them don’t think much of GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney (an opinion which, I believe, was until comparatively recently also shared by a great many US conservatives) She uses the results to show how Europeans are decadent and lily livered compared to Americans in general and Mitt Romney in particular.

What with their many debt crises and severe unemployment levels, coupled with their socialism and their general political foppishness — which is all just working out so well for them — the absence of the European layman’s endorsement is kind of a dagger to my heart. I think I may have to rethink my vote now. …Not. You’ll forgive me, Europe, if I prefer to work for an America that is a strong, robust, take-no-prisoners powerhouse of moral and economic righteousness, rather than just another impotent, piddling player on the international stage. Sorry I’m not sorry.

That’s fine, Erika – tell that to the Germans with their massive private sector, lower unemployment and export led prosperity…and not a Chinese loan in sight..

Foppishness – I bet that would go down well with those British soldiers with their tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, helping you with your “war on terror” and their comrades who are still getting killed or maimed fighting alongside your troops.

It’s a shoddy piece of hackery, designed to gain applause from the Neanderthal wing of the lumpenproletariat – and if you read the bulk of the comments she certainly scores a hit with the zombies. But “journalism” it certainly isn’t.

It appears that Erika “The Gem” Johnsen has taken over Allahpundit’s old role of dumping on those pesky foreigners. The trouble is that although Allah’s knowledge of culture and politics outside the USA was shallow and stereotyped he did write with fluidity and wit. Miss Johnsen lacks his saving grace. She has tried to create a kind of perky pseudo Palin schtick, striving to sell herself as a sassy tough as nails chick as at ease working out at the gym as she is downing beers with the guys at the bar.

Epic fail – Her style is contrived and her humour is leaden.

Fact is she was almost certainly hired by the powers that be at Hot Air to pimp Mitt Romney as a ballsbreaking conservative iron man who is so tea party he doesn’t even have to acknowledge the tea party. Romneycare? Forget it – I am sure Erika would say that was some other guy called Romney. Indeed it wouldn’t surprise me if she produced a rail and claimed that it was actually split by Mitt in his early days of rural poverty working with Abe Lincoln….

Amusing really, if it wasn’t so sad for, until a few months ago , you would hardly find anything in the Hot Air posts or comments that was favourable to Romney. Now it has become the digital arm of the Romney campaign – which explains Erika Johnsen…

Come back, Tina Korbe – all is forgiven…….

According to Twitter hashtag #RNCPowerGrab many Tea Partiers and GOP grassroots activists are angered by the RNC rule changes – Michelle Malkin is the lightning conductor for this so go to her for the latest.

Don’t bother with Hot Air. It has become an unadulterated Romneyfest and has stuck its head in the sand over this.

What I just can’t understand is how the Romney machine can be so stupid as to alienate the very people who dug the Republican Party out of the grave in 2010. Indeed, some could well be saying to themselves if this is a portent of how a Romney administration might behave maybe it would be best to concentrate on winning the senate and leave Mitt swinging in the wind.

Nevertheless however things go in November it is possible that Sarah Palin will emerge as one of the most powerful political forces on the right either within or without the GOP.

If Mitt loses it will merely underline her strictures about the good ol’ boys beltway network and their drive for power devoid of principle and could lead either to the reshaping of the Republican Party or even its replacement by a new party and in either situation she could, if she chose, play a key role

If Mitt wins he will be constantly aware that Palin will be close behind his derriere with a red hot poker ready to keep him to the strait and narrow (Matthew 7:13/14)

Not bad for for a woman with minimal staff, no machine who operates mainly from a keyboard beside an icy lake thousands of miles away from Washington and New York – and who is despised by Hollywood, the media, the Democrats and the Republican establishment….

Now why do you think that is?

Confession time….I was a cynic and doomster about the London 2012 Olympics. In 2005 I was hoping Paris would get the time bomb and we could avoid all the expense and inconvenience. It seemed a classic piece of Blairite New Labour grandstanding, as empty and vapid and meaningless as the Millennium Dome.

In the weeks beforehand my pessimism meter dial hit the red zone as transport unions blackmailed extra bonuses, private security companies failed to deliver and predictions of traffic chaos and empty seats filled the pages of the Daily Mail eager, as always, to always play Cassandra.

Then it all changed. An brilliantly orchestrated opening ceremony that captured the essence of our quirky, eccentric, self deprecating British spirit segued us into a fortnight of sporting drama. No transportation problems, no security breakdowns, no violence, just day after day of pure unadulterated enjoyment.

We were on holiday in Italy for most of the time so just got to see bits and pieces of the action from screens in the restaurants and bars surrounded by Italians and Germans. Imagine how good it felt to gloat (inwardly, of course) as our sportsmen and sportswomen piled on the gold medals….

And, after that magnificent Olympic cauldron was finally extinguished and the Mayor of Rio took hold of the Olympic flag I suddenly remembered……..Mitt Romney and his cheerleaders at the US conservative blog Hot Air. Even with the rest of the world praising London 2012 resident blogger Allahpundit was sustaining his glass half empty schtick, pursing his lips and flaring his nostrils at the closing ceremony…..

Sorry, Allah (as I commented at his post), I think the rest of the world will pay more attention to the response of the Aussies whose 2000 Sydney Olympics have, up till now, been regarded universally as the benchmark of success. Down under they rate the 2012 Games as even better than Sydney and, coming from Oz, that is praise indeed.

As for the closing ceremony it is always more of a party atmosphere and the audience and the athletes in London obviously enjoyed it. In lengthy celebration there will always be low spots and Russell Brand fits that bill admirably. The rest of it, however, was great fun.

But then Hot Air has systematically waxed eeyore over the London Games. That might be because of an inbuilt tendency to regard anything outside the USA as weird/outlandish but it is more likely to be due to the fact that Atlanta 1996 was not one of the best summer Olympics or that Salt Lake 2002 winter Olympics had to be rescued from a bribery and corruption scandal.

As for Mitt, is he man enough to eat his own words and offer his congratulations to Lord Coe, the man who organised the best ever summer Olympics, and to the British people who embraced the Games with a fervour unmatched in modern times?

Just askin’ as our American friends might say…..

My Tea Party friends in the US have never held Mitt Romney in high regard. Until the autumn of last year (coincidentally when the Republican presidential primary campaign began) his public rhetoric against the Obama administration was strangely muted and he has always retained an aloof distance from the tea party.

His ascension to the probable GOP nomination was strangely lacking in public warmth from ordinary voting Republicans. But it was certainly well organised with legions of surrogates doing their very best to undermine potential rivals even before the 2008 presidential election was over.

Romney didn’t win the campaign with love, but he did win it with money – and the support of a seedy coalition of GOP “consultants/strategists” , RNC hacks and those Washington/New York “conservative” media pundits apprehensive of the tea party and the new media which was beginning to break the old news monopoly.

But when I heard that Romney was coming to Britain ready to build bridges I thought maybe the guy had a bit of steel in his backbone

Members of the former Massachusetts governor’s foreign policy advisory team claimed that as president, he would reverse Mr Obama’s priority of repairing strained overseas relationships while not spending so much time maintaining traditional alliances such as Britain and Israel. …….
……..The two advisers said Mr Romney would seek to reinstate the Churchill bust displayed in the Oval Office by George W. Bush but returned to British diplomats by Mr Obama when he took office in 2009. One said Mr Romney viewed the move as “symbolically important” while the other said it was “just for starters”, adding: “He is naturally more Atlanticist”.

Then I read this

But he told US television there were “disconcerting” signs about Britain’s readiness. “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out,” he said. “There are a few things that were disconcerting: the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”
Nonetheless, Mr Romney questioned the enthusiasm of the British public. “Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment?” he asked. “That’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.”

For crying out loud – if that’s his way of building a bridge I think I would rather deal with some fruitloop from Iran….at least you know the guy is a viper right from the start.

If he knew us better he would realise that it is in our very nature to moan and complain until the event actually starts. We did that with the royal wedding and the diamond jubilee. Indeed a lot of us were never that enamoured of hosting the Olympics anyway. But now the thing has arrived our enthusiasm has already started to show….witness the crowds in every village and town to greet the Olympic torch. Why didn’t Romney’s crew do some research on that?

…and maybe Romney (as well as Allahpundit at Hot Air) forgot about the 1996 Atlanta Olympics

If International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch’s address to the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games is remembered at all, it is for his unwillingness to bestow Atlanta’s Games with the honor of “the greatest in Olympic history” – that coveted rhetorical flourish lauding the host city’s organizing efforts. Unbridled commercialism, poor and unreliable public transportation, a deadly terrorist attack on Centennial Olympic Park: such significant failures shaped Samaranch’s verdict that these Olympic Games were “most exceptional,” but not “the greatest.”

Romney’s gaffe about the London Olympics, bad mouthing them even before they start is in itself of little consequence in the great scheme of things. But it does tell us something about the man…. say what you like about Sarah Palin she knows the difference between being forthright and showing good manners. Maybe Mitt Romney is really Edison Carter….

Max Headroom was shown to have been created from the memories of Edison Carter. The character’s name came from the last thing Carter saw during a vehicular accident that put him into a coma: A bar with a sign warning of low clearance, marked “MAX. HEADROOM: 2.3 M”.

Mitt Headroom, anyone?

Governor Mitt Romney, who is likely to be the Republican nominee against President Obama in the forthcoming US elections this coming November will spend the last days of July attempting to burnish his foreign policy credentials with visits to Britain, Israel and Poland.

The aim will be to introduce himself onto a world stage where the other players, on the surface at least, appear not to have bought into the disappointment and disillusion felt by large swathes of the US electorate. The myth of the transformational figure peddled by the US media in 2008 which presented a shallow Chicago machine hack as a latter day Moses who would lead his country and the rest of the world into a global era of peace and honey is still the official party line of the chattering classes outside the USA – except in Poland where Obama is seen as Putin’s poodle and Israel whose government is very wary of repeating the role of the Czechs against Obama’s Chamberlain.

So Romney wants to remind these folk that, come January there might very well be a new face in the White House with a very different world view. A lot of his foreign policy advisors could well be George W Bush retreads with a far more cynical view about resetting buttons and the faces in Warsaw and Jerusalem will be far more comfortable with that.

One would like to say that David Cameron and his London colleagues would also be keeping their fingers crossed for a Romney victory since Obama has been rather disdainful America’s closest ally with his pandering to Russia and Argentina – but, unfortunately, Cameron, like the UK media in general, is still infatuated with Obama the myth. Indeed, during his visit to Washington last March the British Prime Minister was so grovellingly obsequious to the president that Romney surrogates let it be known that they felt an election year line had been crossed.

Romney will be in London for the opening of the Olympics, reviving memories of his own connections when he was drafted in to rescue the Utah 2002 winter Olympics from corruption and confusion. However he will also take the opportunity to press some influential flesh
At his first stop, in London, Romney plans meetings with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Foreign Secretary William Hague, and Ed Miliband, who leads the opposition Labour Party. He plans fundraisers, where attendees will likely include bankers and others from London’s financial sector.

For most of this year David Cameron has been particularly gaffe prone. Let’s hope he isn’t stupid enough not to realise that, with the polls still too close to call, he might well be talking to the next US President and a man who almost certainly will have more respect for the special relationship than Obama and his Chicago cronies….

But you never can tell with Cameron. For all his Tory rhetoric you always get the feeling the man is essentially a fully paid up member of the metro elite who still hungers for approval from North London dinner parties and and the UK branch of Obama’s media “palace guard” at the BBC…and, with Michelle Obama heading the US Olympic delegation he might find her beady eye a little discomforting….

Fascinating civil war broke out at Hot Air over a Jazz Shaw post taking House Speaker John Boehner to task for suggesting the November election will really be a referendum on President Obama rather than an endorsement (or otherwise) of Mitt Romney.

Aside from Romney’s “friends, relatives and fellow Mormons,” Boehner said, most people will be motivated to vote for him in opposition to Obama.
The Ohio Republican made the remarks when an unidentified woman asked during a question-and-answer session: “Can you make me love Mitt Romney?”
“No,” Boehner said. “Listen, we’re just politicians. I wasn’t elected to play God. The American people probably aren’t going to fall in love with Mitt Romney. I’ll tell you this: 95 percent of the people that show up to vote in November are going to show up in that voting booth, and they are going to vote for or against Barack Obama.

Opinon seemed evenly divided over whether Boehner was to be congratulated on his honesty or condemned for rocking the GOP boat. But soon one or two posters were declaring that Romney was not only the best thing since sliced bread but would also become Reagan 2 once he got to the White House.

Funny thing is, until the last registration, although there were partisan voices for Palin, Cain, Santorum, Perry etc the general view appeared to be that, far from being another Reagan, Romney was McCain 2 – a stodgy, uninspiring choice who could only be voted for with a peg affixed to one’s nose.

Strangely enough, however,since the most recent registration voices have appeared ascribing Zeus like qualities to a man previously despised for his Romneycare past, his flip flopping on key issues and his failure to stand for re-election as governor of Massachusetts……

But the post of the day came from someone who felt that Boehner had been hoist with his own petard and had no sympathy for his oddly timed whinge

Yeah, John, I wanted to vote FOR someone, someone I agreed with on 90% of the issues, someone I trust to at least fight for the reforms this country needs, someone to make me believe in the promise of America again. Sadly she decided not to run because she knew the deck was stacked against her because you and your ilk never would have her back and would work against her every step of the way. So I am left with Mittoast. And yes, John, I will be among the 95% that is going to be a good little solider, eat my gruel and vote against Obamao. But my vote won’t be FOR something. So John, don’t count on getting either my money or time. Those go for the things I am FOR.

Ouch….I hope that hurt…..

The BBC, acting in its capacity of being the UK extension of Barack Obama’s “Palace Guard” (aka the US mainstream media) led on the website with an item headed

Romney and Republicans raise $100m in June

Under the headline the text confirmed that Mitt Romney, the likely Republican candidate in this coming November’s Presidential election, had raised more money than Obama. At first glance one could have sensed from this the possibility of a Damascene conversion at Beeb HQ…..that they might have actually decided to report a US election in a fair and balanced way by shedding the liberal/left blinkers that for over half a century have coloured their reporting.

But, true to form, as one’s eyes travelled down the page, it became clear that they were performing to the script posted out from the New York Times, Washington Post and the TV alphabets. The Obama campaign is firing all its guns on Romney’s wealth to characterise him as a gold plated fat cat who knows nothing about the everyday problems of ordinary people in a struggling economy – and the reason for harping on the success of the Romney/GOP fundraising was to associate the Republican Party with this fat cat image…

Look, folks, it’s Obama and the people v Romney and the fat cats – and the fat cats hope to buy the election…

Moreover, to darken the image even further, the BBC references a recent Vanity Fair article

And there were negative headlines this week over a Vanity Fair investigation reporting that much of Mr Romney’s personal fortune was hidden in a network of opaque offshore investment havens.

Yes, Vanity Fair, (the one that was so sympathetic to the Occupy “movement”)…..did a full scale investigation into Romney’s wealth (probably using the fifty fact checkers that AP sent to Alaska after Palin’s VP GOP nomination in 2008)…..yet somehow has never managed to send anybody to Chicago to find out more about Obama’s relationship with Tony Rezko, a key figure in his political transfiguration who was later convicted of money laundering and bribery.

But then, since VF is clearly the house magazine of the glitterati, the BBC didn’t spend too much time agonising upon the mixed messages being sent out by Obama’s hobnobbing with the Hollywood elite….

As for the tear stained pleas from Obama and his surrogates about being outspent – smoke and mirrors, anyone?

The only catch is that the actual spending by super PACs so far this year tells a quite different story. The truth is that the super PAC founded by top Obama staffers and its aligned “independent” groups are outspending groups that oppose the president by roughly two to one.

….and behind those pro Obama super PACs are some very shady figures….

But hey, whenever did an honest in depth probe of any liberal/left political structure figure particularly high on the BBC agenda? As for the piece itself just look at the subtle hints offered by the selection of photos……Romney holidaying on an expensive rich man’s toy while Obama is out there talking to horny handed sons of toil….

….and not a single mention of golf….

cross posted at Biased BBC