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Mitt Romney – Caricature
Washington has been so obsessed with austerity for so long that many politicians seem to have actually convinced themselves that the country is full of masochists looking for a daddy to inflict that pain which feels so good. Politicians seem to have forget that democracy should be about making people’s lives better.
Candidates should offer plans on how to improve the country. The electorate normally votes for the candidate they think has the best ideas to improve their lives, the lives of their families, and their communities.
It amazes me that we have gotten to the point where someone could run for president and not truly grasp this basic concept. Apparently Mitt Romney was surprised that people without health insurance voted for the only candidate with a plan to get them health insurance. From his interview with Chris Wallace:
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY: It’s a proven political strategy which is, you have a bunch of money from the government to a group and, guess what, they’ll vote for you.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WALLACE: To some people, it sounded like the remark you made in your campaign about 47 percent of Americans looking for handouts.
MITT ROMNEY: The president had the power of incumbency. ObamaCare was very attractive, particularly to those without health insurance. And they came out in large numbers to vote. So that was part of a successful campaign. [...]
WALLACE: Why do you think that was?
MITT ROMNEY: Well, I think the ObamaCare attractiveness and feature was something we underestimated in a — particularly among lower incomes. And we just didn’t do as — as good a job at connecting with that audience as we should have.
For all the problems with Obamacare the Obama team at least had something they could point to and say “this is our plan to help you with a serious problem you face.” The Romney campaign didn’t even pretend to have a plan to deal with the large number of uninsured people in the country. Their plan was to repeal the law and replace it with nothing. Given the choice between imperfect solution and no plan, people are going to gravitate towards the solution.
This was not just some clever campaign strategy. This is the foundation for why Democracy works.
Republicans used to at least talk about how they could address problems such as global warming or the uninsured with pro-market reforms. Lately, they have stopped even pretending these issue can/should be addressed.
Image by DonkeyHotey released under Creative Commons License
15 Comments
They’ve convinced themselves that campaign funding can overcome enlightened self-interest. And, they’ve almost convinced me of that; Romney should have gotten a lot fewer votes than he did.
Our Overlords impoverish us. They also impoverish the English language with their Doublespeak. They call poor people “lower incomes”. It is just binders full of lower incomes.
Well, I think the ObamaCare attractiveness and feature was something we underestimated in a — particularly among lower incomes
no Mitt the ones who loved it were the health insurance and big Pharma lobbies, The reason why you are pissed is Obama got money from them and you did not get as much..
D’s controlled the Mass legislature when Romney ‘passed’ healthcare coverage. D’s wrote the legislation and had a veto-proof majority. He had no choice really and just signed off on it. Mitt’s dad paid for everything, school, house trust fund. He ‘gave away’ his inheritance when his dad died because he was already rich from destroying working class people by exploiting the tax code with Bain / stealing their pensions/ hiding the money. He ran up insane debt as Governor and left Mass with a giant mess. Why he thinks he’s qualified (entitled) to comment on this topic is mind bending.
Ex-candidate Mitt puts himself firmly in the camp that refuses to understand the problem for republicans is that their message did, in fact, come through loud and clear.
And why we bother…like listening to W or Rove. What I love about this section
is the revelation that R. has probably never had a situation that he could not buy or smooze his way out of it…..probably in some phoney fashion. He sounds offended or suprised that “those (little)people” are glad to see a health care plan….as if he has any idea….He needs to do the Peace Corp or Juvenile Court or child protection….he could learn so much.
Both Willard and Ms. Dancing Horsey are breathtakingly clueless about how the vast majority of people really live. In fact, the overall attitude is like Reagan’s “welfare queen” crap on steroids. And sore losers? Jeebuz Xmas, I’ve never seen anything like it. The sense of smug, aristocratic entitlement manifested by both of them tells me everything I need to know about how Willard would have comported himself in office.
“A
chicken in every potcar elevator for each and every one of my plutocrat associates, compliments of the US taxpayer.Here is all they sell these days. This, and thinly-veiled racism. Republican Rhetoric has been distilled thusly (which Tea Baggers and unemployed Wingnuts are eating up):
Government needs to “Get Out of The Way” (of everything except women’s uteruses).
All Taxes are bad and unfair.
Though a “Flat Tax” or other disproportionate taxation which benefits the rich would be beneficial to all.
because – if you win the lottery, you won’t want to pay taxes.
Note: The Democratic Party is not too far off the ranch from these same basic principles.
If Romney converted all his personal wealth into quarters, he would have one thousand, million pounds of the coin, enough to fully load about 500,000 one-ton pickup trucks.
Why should nyone be surprised, or at this point even outraged? We have government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. The obvious next step is to curtail voting rights so those pesky non-rich don’t get it into their heads that government can do things for them, too. Their social role is to obey. End of story.
better for whom has always been the issue.At my brothers famillies table tonight i listened to a network news anchor run through a list of stories about those very measures that our govt uses to determine if lives are getting better or not – a huge fall in the life expectancy of women living in the south, the ongoing war on wages, acid rain contributing to karst sinkhole phenomena,the daily “sequester update”…and it ended with a mention that there are a record number of billionaires in america, something like 15% more over past 10 years…without really trying to, some network just told the truth..life in america is getting better all the time for oligarchs…its getting worse for everyone else
“The obvious next step is to curtail voting rights…”
I think the Supreme Court is working on that right now.
“Democracy Is Supposed to Be About Making Lives Better”- no matter how many times you say this, no matter how warm and fuzzy it may make you feel the statement is categorically false.
Democracy was never intended to empower the people. It’s history dates back to the Greeks and it’s founding principles were to create elite and quite controlled social and political arrangements.
The understanding of the “State” as growing directly out of the “Police” and the army, and intended for no other purpose than to enforce property dates back much, much farther. The original organization of Athens is based on military districts which not only yield a fixed quota of troops but also revenues to fund mounted archers who are slaves – the first police force. The rule of the demos, i.e. “democracy”, grows directly from this. The innovation here, is not the “fairness” of the Athenian democracy. In fact it is a huge step backward from the Greek Tribes which were based on consensus and one vote for each adult. In place of that, the “Democracy” recognizes only one out of every 32 people as citizens. It’s key is not its incorporation of the people (except for those formally so defined), but in its organization of the state, and through it, the guarantee of personal property, most importantly in slaves.
This is yet another example of a thing we see through a thick fog, whereas those who came before us had a much clearer view.
Twenty five hundred years after inception of democracy, we still do not understand that we were ruled by Pentacosiomedimni, Solon’s aristocracy who could generate 500 bushels of goods annually. Nothing has changed in the meantime, even the measure of wealth remains the same: bushels and barrels!
Yeah, they would have been totally out of place in D.C…….
Republicans used to at least talk about how they could address problems such as global warming or the uninsured with pro-market reforms. Lately, they have stopped even pretending these issue can/should be addressed.
Obama sort of stole their ideas, Obamacare foremost, but also in giving Wall Street banks free rein and pushing a cap and trade market instead of carbon tax.
Romney lost because he and his advisers were too blinkered to realize that his path was running to Obama’s left.