Heh. McCain could at least blame Caribou Barbie. Romney’s got nobody to blame but himself.

Nothing against Michael Dukakis, but Romney makes Dukakis look like a political genius.

The key takeaway that the Republicans will miss is YES, Romney is a horrible, terrible candidate — but he was THE BEST THEY HAD.

The only republicans who will be angry if Romney loses are the flat-earthers. They’re also the only VOTERS who are stupid enough to believe that Obama’s some kind of crazed leftist. The fatcats in the party are plenty smart enough to know that in this election, their interests will be very well protected no matter which one of these corporate hookers wins.

Romney is a terrible candidate who has had a terrible election season. By design, I believe. Our rich and powerful elite overlords are giddy about a second Obama term to further their evil plans.

I can’t believe how dumb Romney is. Gives credence to the anonymous whispers from Bain employees that Mitt didn’t run anything, he was just the rain man, the connection to big money investors.

That said, the Obama brilliance meme is as unbelievable. Does anyone here think Obama knows what the economy needs and just won’t do it? He’s a neoliberal acolyte, for cryin’ out loud. It’s not a thought process, it’s a belief system.

Exactly right!! He was way better than all of the other certified lunatics in the republican primary.

The Republicans can blame the loss on Romney, but how can they explain why he was nominated in the first place with out destroying their carefully constructed propaganda??

I think the GOP will responsd the same way the Dems responded to Kerry’s loss. No soul searching, just an acknowledgment that the primary process delivered a really poor candidate.

Boxturtle (Of course, if you’re going to sell radioactive bull$#!+, you need to have a good salesman)

That’s a really good question, one that the GOP brain trust is probably sweating. How do you get someone electable through the GOP primary?

Obama is the weakest incumbent since Jimmy Carter and he ought to have been easy to beat. Yet it’s looking more and more like an Obama electorial landslide.

The Dems should be asking themselves why they let a candidate like Obama get through without a primary challenge. It’s going to work for them, but only because Rmoney is self destructing.

Boxturtle (Wonders if the superpacs will pull out of Ohio when their own polls show Mitt’s dead)

Maybe they can say the election was rigged. Electronic voting machines. No paper ballots. Diebold!

I knew he was doomed the minute he picked Ryan, who the AARP has had in its sights because of his determination to end Social Security and Medicare. (Ironically, Ryan’s surrogates in the media, who are enamored of his granny-starving ways and who can’t be bothered to actually look at the bogus numbers he tosses around, seem to be pushing the meme that Ryan is actually Electoral Gold that’s being tarnished by Romney’s FailStink. They apparently — and rightly — fear that losing Ryan as a congresscritter may mean losing their cherished plans to make us all eat catfood in our old age.)

A creep show dissing on a creep show. Film at eleven.

And speaking of creeps, ZEGS gets creepier by the day. To think that beltway pundits would ever take this clown seriously enough to treat him with deference (even obsequiousness) is completely beyond me. The simple fact is that Ryan’s thought process is approximately an inch wide and an inch deep, give or take a few millimeters.

Most of us got over Ayn Rand’s batshit craziness sometime in junior high school, yet Ryan continues to hump that dead horse as if it’s, um, Rafalca or something. If I had to guess, I’d say he buys copies of “Atlas Shrugged” by the gross because the particular volume he’s fetishing and fondling at any given moment becomes unreadable, due to the number of sticky pages contained therein – if you know what I mean, and I think you do…

I’m pretty sure I owe you the beverage of your choice.

And speaking of Willard getting his ass kicked. Go women!

But he could still end up as the President of the United States of America.

We cannot forget that, despite his poor performance, despite his stupid statements, despite his poorly thought-out ideas, he has power in his corner that non-GOP candidates cannot even imagine.

We’ve seen it in the voter suppression efforts, for which the GOP doesn’t even try to hide its one-sidedness. We’ve seen it in the amount of money his corporate supporters have thrown at the campaign. Romney stated this morning very clearly that the media blitz was about to begin.

Complacency is another factor. Likely voters doesn’t begin to account for people who will actually show up at the polls between now (early voting) and election day, whether they are kept out of the polls or not.

The level of voter apathy in this country is disgusting and, based on anticipated voter participation, I can’t see how we have a leg to stand on to insist that democracy and election oversight in the Middle East should fall to the US. We can’t even get our own butts out to vote and no one is holding guns to our heads or threatening to kill us if we so much as hint at voting.

The GOP doesn’t plan to lose, even if all the chicanery and back-room deals mean they don’t win fairly. So this whole discussion is probably going to be moot, leaving most of us to cynically wonder what the heck happened.

The Zombie-eyed Granny Starver was a horrible choice. I also felt at the time that it was a huge mistake. RMoney needed a moderate, or a woman or a Latino, to help his campaign. The far-right fundies were already squarely in his court. He needed to expand his reach, and failed utterly to do so.

At this point, I think it’s safe to say that all votes for Mitt are either incomes over 1 million/year, IQ’s of under 75, or passengers on Mitch Mc.’s ship (get that black-thing-out-of-our-white-house at any cost).

In no way is this any kind of endorsement of Obama. He should be stuffed into the Keystone XL pipe.

GO, Jill Stein, you GO girl!!

I’m hoping for Jill to make a strong showing. I have no illusions that she can win, but I think 5-7% of the national vote would be incredible.

She’s certified on the ballot here in Texas. My household will be casting its votes for her.

The Kabuki Show entitled “Presidential Campaign 2012″ continues apace.

Whatever…

The PTB had already determined that their already-in-place hired hand, Barack Hussein Obama, would be the “winnah” in 2012, so the so-called “Republican Party” ran a bunch of losers, nutjobs, also-rans, rich liars, and Willard “Mitt” RMoney in the Klown Kar “Primary.”

Of course the so-called “conservatives” as “represented” in the propoganda wurlizter by rightwing whores hacks & shills have been given their marching orders to “blame it all on RMoney.” Whyever would anyone even contemplate that the so-called “Republicans” would have any kind of “Come to Jesus” soul-searching moment? Why? THIS IS playing out EXACTLY as the PTB want it to! There’s no “Come to Jesus” when you’ve gotten everything you wanted… and MORE!

Good post, but… seriously?

Wouldn’t it be the coolest thing if Ryan lost his seat in the House, also? The Demo party machine (never known for its proactive thinking on anything) would do very well to pour some money into the congressional race in Wisconsin’s 1st district. Ryan (and his bullshit fantasies) need to be publicly humiliated. Would he end up working as a lobbyist? Of course. Would I accept that as a condition of seeing him getting his ass kicked all over hell and gone? That’s true, too.

I saw a piece last week that briefly mentioned Ryan had lost his lead there, and the trends were going against him.

Not sure how accurate that was. I haven’t seen very recent polling. What I gathered from the article, though, is that there’s almost a probability that he will lose.

That would be sweet, sweet justice.

Has Mitt Romney yet learned the answer to his question about why the windows on airplanes do not open?

there’s almost a probability that he will lose.

If that’s true, then the oppo could do worse than to pour a few million (tip money to the party) into that race. Kick his ass into the next time zone.

That would make for some Comedy You Can Believe In.

On edit (which expired) – eGooglizing shows that Ryan still holds a lead, 6-8 points depending on polls (almost within margin of error…), and recent trends do indicate that Zerban is gaining and may continue gaining as we approach the election.

Not as good a sign as I thought I got last week, but still pretty good.

Um…because they forgot to install the roller-downer handles? Hey…they built that.

I’m sure Mitt thinks that the responsible, intelligent citizens who should be on airplanes are smart enough to only roll down the windows when it wouldn’t effect the cabin pressure.

The poor ignorant folks who would make that stupid mistake shouldn’t be able to afford plane tickets in the first place.

And thank you SNL for making me belly laugh about it.

No way Stein gets 5%+ this year. She isn’t polling above 1% anywhere.

I do think this may be the year third parties break out, mostly on the right. My pet theory is that if polls show Obama up 5%+ nationwide then evangelicals will feel free to vote their conscience (most likely Constitution Party) and libertarians will feel free to let their freak flag fly. Together, Greens, CP, and LP may total 5%-7%.

Unlike third parties in the past (Perot or Wallace), these changes may have greater endurance. If the Republicans can’t deliver control, and can’t buy off their constituencies with deficit spending, then the three or more main factions will increasingly split off into futile unelectable subgroups.

You mean they don’t? Anyone riding in an airplane that has Mitt Romney aboard is gonna need fresh air bad.

The fact that Jill Stein is not going to win is not the point. It’s the fact that any vote for her is a more clear point than a vote for Obama or a boycott of the election. He’ll know where your head is with a Stein vote. Anything else you can do won’t count at all or, worse, be counted wrong.

Mine too! It’s my leftover Hope from 2008 and instead of Change we got Chains so I guess I heard that wrong.

I suppose we have lots of “homonyms” in Englilsh. That can prove to be a problem.

I think that not all the blame should fall on Romney. The republican party has a detestable platform, a despicable record in congress, and has alientated a large percentage of the voting population, women, minorities, and people with a brain. Their “brand” has been damaged, perhaps irreparably, with all the nutjobs in their party. It IS regrettable that all we have left is the democrats. But, that’w why we have formed the (Boiling) Frog party here at FDL and we support Jill Stein. Our slogan…RIBBIT.

There is some hope in what you say if you think the R’s have Congress, Main Stream Media, and at least half the polling companies (the ones who follow NON-standard polling methodology), Corporate activism and money and they are losing big time. The wedge issues like abortion, gay hysteria, race baiting etc. are losing their effectiveness. I hear more and more people sounding more and more reasonable. Hopefully that will turn down the heat before us frogs is boiled to death.

One of the Repubs main problems is that their base is so far distanced from their main money guys on social issues. The super-rich Repubs don’t really care about abortion and probably aren’t that religious, yet the R base is heavily swayed by those issues.

So Romney was the only person who could play “plastic man” and hold hands enough with both camps of the Republican party. But to do accomplish that feat, he had to be the “robotic” good guy he’s always been with enough squishiness (or flip-flopping) to a few votes from the base. The other Repub candidates could not restrain themselves and wound up p-ssing off the money men.

The Repubs will need a major marketing overhaul in the next 4 years. I suspect they’ll do better in 12.

Republicans damaged their party 4 years ago. They are doing the same thing this time, perhaps even to a larger degree. Can they recover? IMO it depends on the democrats. And look what they did in 2010. They can certainly do it again in 2014 giving the GOP a foot in the door in 2016. Americans sometimes just want somebody different. That and an inept Al Gore campaign delivered us Cheney/Bush.

I do think the voters are getting a little smarter. But they are still easily fooled and the democrats have not proven they can govern effectively and to the satisfaction of a majority of the people.

I was just struck by the fact that you were able to cross-out “whores” and replace it with “hacks”. It occurred to me that you also could have gone for a slash-character, there: “whores/hacks”. It’s all true/sad. (Gah, I’m slashing again!)

CONSERVATISM CAN NOT FAIL IT CAN ONLY BE FAILED. The right is nothing but a bunch of CORPORATE COMMUNISTS with a smattering of right wing christian exstremists for flavor. the fact that we have had over 30 yrs or reganomics which can be proven to have done nothing for the bottom 90% does not faze these ideological devotees.

Well, what did they do to Bob Dole when he lost? Or Gerald Ford?

They’ll all retreat to the country club and enjoy. Why would It be any different with Romney?

Isn’t Ryan still on the ballot in his congressional district? If he’s not VP, he’ll be back in Congress next year and the spin will be that he survived the hordes of liberal cannibals to represent the good people of America in Congress–it’s a win-win for him no matter what.

Yes, it is likely that republicans will continue to blame the messenger, not the message. But a message that throws 47% of the citizenry under the bus is not going to be a winning one ever.

I actually think that 47% is actually well above 50% since the republicans seem to stomp on ALL women every chance they get.

I think the selection of Ryan was actually a look ahead to 2016 rather than an attempt to bolster the 2012 ticket. All I can say is run Pauly run.

Should Obama actually get a more favorably disposed Congress and continue to double down on “austerity”, 2016 could be a do-over of 2010 and then some.

“Isn’t Ryan still on the ballot in his congressional district?”

Yes, but per an FDL article yesterday, that contest is starting to look winable for the dems.

“…it depends on the democrats.”

The democrats are master of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Just look at 2010.

And the republicans play a much better long game.