A Theory About Conservative Crapola - The Daily Beast

justinspoliticalcorner:

Forget a nickel; I’d a sixpence for every piece of conservative crapola spin I heard in the last two months. In retrospect, it’s very revealing about they try to game the system to get places like Politico and other mainstream outfits to assume they’re correct and accept their assumptions.

There was no way on Earth, for example, that young people were going to turn out this time. They were a higher percentage this time than last. Higher! Gallup, for one, bought into this in a huge way.

There was also no way Obama voters were as enthusiastic as Romney voters. Just no way. The enthusiasm gap. Everyone bought it. Again, the opposite was true.

Americans were going to be outraged by Benghazi. Chicago made up jobs numbers. Florida was a done deal. Romney had momentum until Sandy. And on and on.

Conservatives say these things with such conviction. I think they believe them to be true. And there’s a reason for that. Not so long ago, when conservatives said these things en bloc, they would come true. They’d happen. Back in Clinton’s day, say. Or Bush’s, before the debacles really hit home.

But then at some point, the majority of Americans stopped buying conservative bullshit. It must have been after Iraq. And Katrina. But now, conservatives can’t make surrealities come true just by saying so.

h/t: Michael Tomasky at The Daily Beast

Mitt Romney Lost Because He Ran An Insulting Campaign

Of course, when discussing Romney’s penchant for insulting voters, the obvious beginning would be his infamous “47 percent” statements that were released in September, causing the very first great cleavage between his polling numbers and President Obama’s. These comments should be placed next to those of his running mate Paul Ryan, who said that the country was in danger of becoming one of “the makers versus the takers.” And then let’s not forget the immortal worlds of one-time GOP frontrunner Herman Cain, who said that those that were out of work or facing rough economic times should “blame yourself.”

But referring to half the electorate with such disparaging remarks as “takers” or “unwilling to have self-responsibility for the lives” was just one way in which Mitt Romney and his surrogates insulted voters. Another way was his campaign’s reliance on complete, unadulterated malarkey when it came to voter communication and outreach. Consider the following: Doubling down in Northern Ohio on the lies that Chrysler was moving its Jeep production facilities to China. (A lie which drew not only a rebuke from Chrysler’s executive management, but also resulted in Chrysler allowing their workers to take the day off on Election Day.) Romney also made up out of whole cloth the suggestion that President Obama waived welfare-to-work requirements for certain states. In fact, the Romney’s campaign reliance on a “bunch of stuff” became so essential that over the summer a campaign pollster stated that the campaign would “not be dictated by fact-checkers.” An admittance to relying on lies could not be any more blatant, which is just as insulting as telling half the country they are nothing but a bunch of government-leeching losers.

And let’s not forget Romney’s international insult tour this past summer. Although another repeated Romney lie was that Obama went on some sort of “apology tour”—Obama never once said the words “apologize” or “I’m sorry” at any foreign stop, and even if he did let’s not forget that U.S. foreign relations were at a nadir after eight years of George W. Bush—Romney went on a tour in which he left a trail of insults in his wake, from Great Britain to Israel to Poland. Kind of like how Don Rickles is renowned for being the “insult comic” we missed our chance at seeing what Romney could’ve done as the “insult President.” And for that, we should be relieved. During the third debate about foreign policy, when Romney wasn’t agreeing with President Obama, he kept stating that the President had somehow alienated our foreign allies. Which was all it took for one Twitter user to remind everyone of Mitt Romney’s summer insult tour.

Many so-called “expert” political pundits predicted a long night on Tuesday, caused by many states with races too close to count and even suggested a winner may not be known for days or weeks after Election Day. Instead, Barack Obama was confirmed having won his re-election at 8:15 PST, just fifteen minutes later than when he was confirmed four years ago. Many watchers and pundits might have been surprised. For those who had recognized just how insulting Mitt Romney was a candidate, Obama’s quick confirmation of re-election was to be expected.

Alaska 2012 Election Results