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It would appear the Romney team is now fully banking on their ability to run a campaign focused around things that are simply not true. The campaign admitted that their highly racially tinged ad which falsely accuses Obama of gutting the work requirements for Welfare reform is their most effective ad. From Buzzfeed:
“Our most effective ad is our welfare ad,” a top television advertising strategist for Romney, Ashley O’Connor, said at a forum Tuesday hosted by ABCNews and Yahoo! News. “It’s new information.”
The welfare ad has been the center of intense dispute, with Democrats accusing Romney of unearthing old racial ghosts and Romney pointing out that the Obama Administration has offered states waivers that could, in fact, lighten work requirements in welfare, a central issue in Bill Clinton’s 1996 revamping of public assistance.
The Washington Post‘s “Fact Checker” awarded Romney’s ad “four Pinocchios,” a measure Romney pollster Neil Newhouse dismissed.
The ad is quite simply based on a complete fabrication, a misrepresentation of reality. The Washington post is only one of numerous fact checkers and media outlets to point out the ad is not true. Instead of responding to the criticism by changing the messaging, the Romney team is doubling down on the false claim that Obama has “gutted” the work requirement from the welfare reform laws. Not only is the Romney campaign still repeating the false attack about welfare, but Romney told USA Today that Obama was doing this to “shore up his base.” This charge is also knowingly false, since Romney knows the underlying claim is false.
Since the Romney campaign admits this style of attack is effective, and they don’t care if the claims are true or not, we should expect more of this racial dog whistle messaging between now and November.
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The Romney campaign has discarded the dog whistle for the megaphone and, as seen on Morning Joe when Chris Matthews got slapped down publicly for saying so, it’s been done with the willing complicity of your librul media. They need a horse race for ratings, and this campaign was in danger of slipping away.
Now that Team Mitt has found something that evens up the candidate’s standings, it’s all good for media commentators, media time peddlers, political pundits, paid consultants, fundraisers on both sides, and media bookers. All eyes on the horse race!
The GOP is counting on the low-information voter to buy into every one of their lies. They openly admit, at the RNC, that the information in the commercial is a lie, but they don’t care. They know their base and possibly a significant number of other voters will simply take what they say to be true.
The low-information voter doesn’t care about Pinnochios. They don’t read WaPo. It’s on TV, therefore it must be true.
The problem with the big-lie strategy is that it is open to counterattack. For it to work, the Romney camp would have literally to submerge the Obama ads by claiming the whole ad-space. I’m sure Obama’s people have gamed this out. The Kerry experience was a lesson in not what to do. The big lie can firm up Romney’s base, since it is hostage to the Thug media outlets; but his base isn’t enough to take him over the top. All Obama has to do is say, ‘Romney is lying to you. Would you trust this man to sell you a used car?’
Good point. I’ve made it myself at times, but I forgot it.
If you control the media then facts are not necessary. They better do something about this darned internet though. Mubarak certainly controlled the media in Egypt and how did that work out for him?
Mitt seems to want the racist White Vote but should there not be an anti racist White backlash?
Sure many people do not like Obama but the pollsters all seem to imply all this anti Obama anger is from the right.
I can think of several people just at this site who probably won’t vote for Obama but are offended by racism.
Thy don’t like the GOP war on Women, Gays, Hispanics etc and if anything Mitt’s actions threaten to make the anti Obama Left change their minds.
If you are a swing state voter, it will be a wrenching decision, but a necessary one.
Facts don’t matter to voters who want to believe you, no matter what you say but Mitt needs a majority of voters to win.
Illinois Chicago if Obama loses my district its all over.
Nixon said in the Primary run to the right in the general election run to the center. Today’s GOP is to the Right of Nixon and on the issues Americans care about most like Protecting SS and Medicare even Obama is to the Right of the majority of Americans.
If Obama loses its because he is to far Right.
Just when will Obama get the Stones to call Mitt a Liar? Even if I wanted to vote for Obama I can’t support him unless he fights back himself.
I am not asking for that much I don’t want to waste my time with Obama if he won’t fight back against the Right.
I think you could argue neither major party is overly concerned with facts but the Republicans are more open to admitting it. Obama’s proposals for bipartisan solutions will result in the status quo being maintained. The same type of status quo that was maintained on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. See you in the next recession when the real facts will hit the fan.
They, themselves, admit it’s a lie. About the claim that Obama “raided” Medicare, one J. David Woodard, a GOP consultant, said “It’s enough to win the election. That’s all that matters.” So great is their love for America.
Agreed!
Welcome to postmodern politics. Jacques Derrida checked out of this madhouse too early and missed it.
No surprise. The primaries gave us a good intro to the Romney strategy: lie and spend a lot of money lying. The supreme court equates money with speech. Romney demonstrates that money is mendacious speech. Meanwhile Obummer begs us every day for more money.
Obama has proven himself to be a very passive president. The DNC has done no better. Obama will forever be known as “the great capitulator”.
Except for the cable talking head partisans, the MSM refuses to use the word “liar” and Willard in the same sentence.I don’t think you will see Obama come right out and use the “L” word on the stump. Better he waits until the right moments in their three debates, when tens of millions will be watching. Willard comes prepared for debates, but if Obama catches him where Willard has to think on his feet and improvise, he’s toast. In the meantime, guys like Clinton next week in Charlotte have to call Willard and Ryan out for the liars they are time after time, where the word sticks to them like glue.
I agree 100%.
I got the deck chair by the bar.
I’ll bring the ice :)
NPR interviewed Romney’s campaign manager today and called him out on the Welfare to Work add. He revealed the campaign’s tactic–stonewall. He insisted that the big lie was, “A matter of opinion”, and therefore, in the Romney campaigns “opinion”, it was true.
I dont see the difference between Romney lying in campaign advertising, and Obama lying to the American people about what he represents. It’s all the same sh*t, and simple karma tells us Obama completely deserves the misrepresentation.
Obama was nothing but a place holder anyway. Wall st. now wants to bring in Willard RMONEY of Bain ( AKA PAIN Capitalismo) Capital ( the grim reaper) to finish the job. ( Privatization of everything of any value in this country.) The smashing flat of what remains of any Unions Private or Public and last but not least the crushing of what’s little is left of the once mighty Middle Class ( now no longer needed.) All this is just the beginning of a massive reorganization of society in preparation for the real ADAPTATIONS that will be required to deal with radical climate changes right up ahead. On the way to the 22nd centuries buried and domed cities for the .001 % are various iterations of Soylent Green, The Hunger Games and Zardoz all wrapped up into one. By the mid-22nd the world’s population will be down at 50 mil. or less and the planet’s surface for the most part will be a barren scorching desert, It’s Oceans dead acidic wastelands filled with trillions of jellyfish and acid tolerant algae. The 20th / 21st century coastal cities all under 60 ft. of water. Welcome to the world brought to by EXXON-MOBIL et al.
Then you need to consider the nature of the lie. There is the “Lie by Deception”, which is your complaint about Obama. Then, there is the blatant misrepresentation of a fact, which is what the Romney campaign is doing. One is deceit and the other is propaganda. Citizens don’t like to be lied to, but citizens often don’t recognize when they are being skillfully manipulated and will often happily accept that the manipulator is the patriotic leader that will restore their nation to its former glory. History is replete with manipulators and the eventual outcomes are rarely what the manipulated expected.
Wrenching? Really? So stay home and let Mitt Romney pick the next 3 Supreme Court Justices. There’s no “wrenching” decision here — and if you decide not to vote, or vote for a third party candidate with NO CHANCE OF WINNING then you deserve to governed by the Republicans…
‘Citizens don’t like to be lied to,’
That is one of the big reasons 0 is in trouble now. If there had been some perp walks off of wall street within a year of taking over there would never have a ‘tea party’.
The reason for a less than firm allegiance for the incumbant is because the average citizen feels in their gut that this guy isn’t on their side and all of his class strata ‘populism’ is as phoney as the 3$ bill he was sold out by the MOTU after he caved to their extortion and took prosecution/accountability off the table. Failing to prosecute any one at BP is another big one. He could have run against a crazy wingnut congress if he hadn’t been so impotent at using a bully pulpit.
The other three years of bullshit he has spewed hasn’t served him well he was so hopey changey and couldn’t even reconcile his lies under the blue dog coat he flipped off the ‘professional left’.
as hackworth1 said in the ‘One Point Presidential Race’ thread.
“How do you fuck that up?*
Ask Obama. He knows.
Now he’s neck and neck with an asshole that even the Republicans don’t want.”
I missed the report on the Welfare reform changes.
What are the changes that President Obama is making to Welfare?
I heard that the States requested the changes, but I haven’t heard what the changes are.
Does anyone know?