The Entire Bleeping GOP Is Stuck in 1980

First, at Nate Silver’s place (“now-cast” tab, right hand column) it says that if the election were held today, Mittens would have an 8.2 % chance of winning. That’s down 24.1 percent since September 6.

The forecast for November 6 is a little tighter (Mitt has a 21.4 % chance). And keep in mind that Mitt has a ton of money left. The swing states are going to be absolutely saturated with anti-Obama ads from now until the election. The numbers could swing quite a bit before we’re done.

But having money is one thing; knowing what to do with it is something else.

At Salon, Alex Pareene treats us to A Children’s Treasury of Conservative Commentators Pretending It’s 1980. Most of the Right is flogging the “Obama = Carter” meme for all it’s worth. And I say that horse died a long time ago, if it was ever even alive.

First, I suspect Jimmy Carter as a character in right-wing mythology is not the same Jimmy Carter perceived by the non-ideological electorate. Most voters under the age of 40 or so may think of him as just a nice old man who used to be President. Most voters old enough to remember the Carter Administration may not consider him to have been a great President, but he doesn’t inhabit the same Hall of Shame that features Richard Nixon or George W. Bush. So, outside of the right-wing echo chamber, I doubt the name “Jimmy Carter” evokes as much negativity as the Right assumes it does.

Second, it appears Barack Obama is perceived as strong and competent by most people who are not baggers or wingnuts. Get this: An Esquire/Yahoo News poll found that voters think Obama would beat Romney in a fistfight, 58% to 22%. Yes, it’s a silly question, but I think it says something about who the voters think is cool and tough and who they think is a prissy rich boy who wears mom jeans.

But yes, GOP, please do spend your gazillion dollars on ads comparing Obama to Carter. If you think it’s such a good idea, go for it. Please.

(And, one more time, this is showing us how the raid to take out bin Laden really was a political risk for Obama and really did change the trajectory of the campaign. If that had failed, the Obama = Carter meme might have some traction.)

Mittens Personality Disorder Watch: A Romney adviser is saying that if Romney were president, the attacks in Libya would not have happened. The sheer gloriousness of having Mr. Romney in the White House would cause the rest of the world to fear and respect us once again.

Mom jeans, say I.

14 thoughts on “The Entire Bleeping GOP Is Stuck in 1980

  1. Many people under 40 may think of Carter not only as a nice old man who was president, but as that nice old man who helps build houses for poor people. He’s that guy who really lives his faith.

    As a woman of 60 who lived through the Carter years, he was a so-so president who took environmental problems seriously and who after his presidency found an issue — housing for the poor — where he has made important contributions. I didn’t agree with all his policies and actions but I respect him.

  2. It is unclear how the voter suppression laws will effect the vote. I don’t think the supporters of President Obama should let up their efforts at all.

  3. To quote Mitt’s spokesperon directly:
    “There’s a pretty compelling story that if you had a President Romney, you’d be in a different situation…”

    This is too good to pass up:
    ‘There’s a pretty compelling story that if you had a President Romney, he could have flown around the Earth backwards in time, and saved the Ambassador.’

    ‘There’s a pretty compelling story that if you had a President Romney, all it would take to fix the economy, is one snap of his noble fingers.’

    ‘There’s a pretty compelling story that if you had a President Romney, he would heterosexualize the gay, lighten the browns and blacks, make women realize their place, make everyone rich, and Christianize the whole world – bringing about the World Peace that everyone has always wanted.’

    As for 1980, and the meme that Carter was some failure as a President, I give you 3 reason that the comparison between Carter and Obama v. Reagan and Romney won’t work.
    1. Obama ain’t no Carter – not that Carter was bad.
    2. Mitt sure as hell ain’t no Reagan. As a pure politician, Mitt ain’t a pimple on on one of Ronnie’s withered asscheeks.
    3. If they assume people might think that Carter was a bad President, there’s at least one REPUBLICAN President that people KNOW was a horrible President – George W. Bush. And the proof is all around them!
    And W. only finished his Presidency less than 4 years ago – NOT ALMOST 32 YEARS AGO!!!

    Mitt’s campaign reminds me of the Titanic – a voyage that began in confidence, and in it’s current circumstances, considered unsinkable – but ended up at the bottom of the ocean anyway.
    Except instead of hitting an iceberg by accident, the designers, the Captain, and the crew of the Mittanic proved so incapable, that when they put their ship in the water, it sank like a rock from the sheer weight of their own incompetence.

  4. Oh, I love that “fistfight” statistic. Horribly fun to visualize too.

    But I do agree with all the warnings not to be complacent. Money Boo Boo’s advertising budget and the GOP’s voter suppression tactics make me nervous.

  5. Could the carter reference be to the “october” suprize that regan launched.I thought that was in all the papers since 2000. The bit where several people were taken hostage at an embessy in the middle east, the occupants were held by a then religous fanatic, that was contacted by several “americans” working for another political party, to hold these detainees till after the election, I believe it was called iran-contra. And only investigated by the party in control then. Seems odd to me, the commentators on radio calling for an october suprise. The party visiting several countries overseas for talks, then this film pops up, but this time something went wrong, someone died. And i think some one responsible for that action, should be tried.

    • Jim — the phrase “October surprise” originated in the Nixon Administration. In October 1972 — a few days away from the 1972 election pitting Richard Nixon against George McGovern — Secretary of State Henry Kissinger announced that the U.S. was close to a cease-fire agreement with North Vietnam, and that “peace is at hand.” It turns out the announcement was a bit premature, but the “surprise” is credited with damaging McGovern, who was running as a peace candidate but who was losing anyway. Since then, the phrase “October surprise” has been used to describe any event impacting the final weeks of a presidential campaign.

      Also, FYI, most of us here are old enough to remember the Iranian hostage crisis, which helped Reagan defeat Carter in 1980. (Iran-contra was related but happened later and involved different hostages.) Are the right-wing radio announcers hoping the Middle East blows up into a worse crisis so that Mitt Romney can be elected? Shows us what patriots they all are, I suppose.

  6. I wonder if the 2010 California gubernatorial election is relevant to the question of how much good Mitt’s money will do him. Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman easily, despite spending just a fraction of what she did. There were a lot of factors in play, Jerry Brown having such wide recognition and so forth, but I know a lot of people just got sick to death of the Meg Whitman ads. First you get to the point of diminishing returns, and after that at some point saturation advertising can start to backfire.

  7. Was a bit shocked by that fistfight statistic, but on reflection it makes sense: Obama’s backbone is made of steel compared to jellyfish Romney.

    Love how wingnuts like to flog Carter. One of my little pastimes was going into bookstores (back when there were bookstores) and taking the more stoopid variety of conservative books (Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck) and either flipping them over, or otherwise misfiling them. I recall a book that tried to pillory Jimmy Carter – the cover photo of Carter was of course very unglamorous, and shot/photoshopped in lighting that made his skin look pale green. Does their game get any more obvious than that? These people can’t stand that Carter is doing good in the world. They would pillory Jesus if he were alive today. They hate Desmond Tutu for recently calling for war crimes trials for Bush, in The Hague.

    I’m with Ed McP – the voter suppression stuff scares me. This scenario wouldn’t surprise me at all: from now till November, Obama leading Romney by x%, but all of a sudden on election night, an unexpected number of states go for Romney. And the anger and shock that follows. Reminds me of 2004, when I went to bed, believing Kerry had it in the bag, and was horrified on waking up.

    There’s a great article on Truthout.org by Greg Palast that goes into detail about this. Amazingly, the Democrats, in a few states (New Mexico was cited) are also into this game – supressing turnout – but it’s overwhelming the Republicans who are being the ratf*ckers here, with Karl Rove being a major player. Some heavy duty technical sophistication (data mining) going on – they’ve moved past the novice days of manually tinkering with homebrew Access databases and Excel spreadsheets.

    Somebody asked a few days ago: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is presently reviewing a lower court decision that upheld their voter id law. From what I’m seeing, their high court – with an equal number of Democrats and Republicans – is looking pretty harshly at the lower court ruling. No outcome yet.

  8. The fistfight statistic is silly but revealing. I mean, it’s a silly way to elect a president, but to the extent that it is how we elect our presidents it’s worth paying attention to. Speaking of California governors, for instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger got himself elected to that position on the basis of what? His image as an action hero.

  9. It wouldn’t be a fistfight..Romney would ball up into a fetal position and start crying uncontrollably upon receiving his first bitch slap.

  10. “Just a day after Jimmy Carter’s inaguration, he followed through on a contentious campaign promise, granting a presidential pardon to those who had avoided the draft during the Vietnam war by either not registering or traveling abroad.”

    Bible says..”Turn from your wickedness and I will heal your land.”

    Sometimes we’re so blinded by selfishness that we just can’t see what love for America really means.

  11. Not to be pedantic, but don’t you mean to say “down 24.1 percentage points”. in general terms, if it went from 11% to 8% that would be down 24%. I suspect it went from about 32 to 8 … thus “down 24 percentage points”.

  12. For those of you who are technologically inclined, there’s an iPad/iPhone game that acts out that fist fight situation (it’s called Vote!!!).

    I wonder if Romney even thinks he’s appealing to young people? I can’t figure out who he’s trying to win over beyond, like, six guys in Montana.

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