The Romney Campaign might as well issue a press release making the facepalm the official hand gesture of Romney-Ryan 2012. It all started back with Sen. Reid's successful hijacking of their message. Remember all that reporting a while back on the crappy employment numbers? No? Oh yeah...that's because for two weeks, the narrative of the 2012 campaign was Reid's accusation that Romney wasn't releasing his tax records because they would show he hadn't paid hardly any income taxes. Remember that? You know...all the stuff about "a source" telling him. Then Pelosi coming out and backing Reid? Romney saying he's only releasing two years and that's it, he'd not be talking about it anymore. Of course you do. And the fact that you do is proof of how successful Reid's ploy was.
To counter that hijacking, what was Romney's move? He went and picked a fight with The Big Dog, aka William Jefferson Clinton, over...of all things...WELFARE. WTF?! Your response to getting played by Harry Reid is to go pick a fight with Superman IN HIS FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE? Guess what...that was another 3-4 days lost.
Add in the charges Romney threw around in Ohio about Obama trying to disenfranchise military voters, which kind of blew up when the associations representing each branch of service members asks to file amicus briefs supporting the Presidents argument...shit's kinda been adding up in the L column for old Willard, and things haven't been going well.
Enter the VP choice. Yeah...it was time for Mittster to channel his inner Stella and get his groove back. So, which way did he go? Romney goes the McCain way. That's right. He made "a bold" choice. That's code for "looking at the electoral map, we're gonna get our teeth kicked in. If we don't want to get embarrassed, we need to make sure all the wingnuts turn out. Let's pick someone who appeals to the far right." Seriously, what VP pick that was obviously geared to energizing your base has worked in modern times?
So...after picking a VP pick that gifts Obama a custom-made argument to the seniors of Pennsylvania and Florida (who needs those states!), the Romney-Ryan express rolled out in to the country side. Surely things improved. Presidential candidates always get nice bumps when they announce their VP picks, especially if they're base is lukewarm and the pick was chosen to energize the faithful.
Uh...not so much. While Romney has gotten a slight bump in popular vote polls and some state-centered polls, electoral forecasts still have Obama winning comfortably. FiveThirtyEight has it forecast at Obama 291 - Romney 243.
It hasn't helped that in addition to the weight he voluntarily strapped to his neck like a beautifully bold-striped Brooks Brothers tie (ie., Ryan's Medicare and SS views), he's also got to deal with the fact that Ryan vigorously defended the stimulus under W and voted to bail out the auto industry and the banks. (Yeah...Ryan is such a die-hard free market capitalist, alright). And it seemed pretty moronic to kill at least the relatively "good press" you have been getting since the pick by talking about what you said you were done talking about: your taxes, when you claimed to have gone back and looked and you paid at least 13% each year. (BTW, that's a tell on Romney. He actually thinks Joe Sixpack will think it's great he paid 13%. Romney has no idea that majority of Americans are taxed at a higher rate).
It hasn't helped that in addition to the weight he voluntarily strapped to his neck like a beautifully bold-striped Brooks Brothers tie (ie., Ryan's Medicare and SS views), he's also got to deal with the fact that Ryan vigorously defended the stimulus under W and voted to bail out the auto industry and the banks. (Yeah...Ryan is such a die-hard free market capitalist, alright). And it seemed pretty moronic to kill at least the relatively "good press" you have been getting since the pick by talking about what you said you were done talking about: your taxes, when you claimed to have gone back and looked and you paid at least 13% each year. (BTW, that's a tell on Romney. He actually thinks Joe Sixpack will think it's great he paid 13%. Romney has no idea that majority of Americans are taxed at a higher rate).
Of course...that was before this week's HUGE FACEPALM moment. Over the weekend, crazy-ignorant Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), who is the GOP's nominee for Senate "misspoke" by explaining that women who are victims of "legitimate" rape don't get pregnant, the body has "defenses" against that. Obviously, Akin didn't misspeak. He just screwed up by pulling back the curtain and exposing his warped and ignorant view of the world. By the way, this yahoo is currently on the Science and Technology committee in the United Stated House of Representatives. And you wonder WTF is wrong with that august body...
Why does this matter? Well...it just so happens that dreamy Paul Ryan has been a big supporter of Rep. Akin. They worked together to restrict access to abortions in house legislation. Remember that whole brouhaha over "forcible" rape? Yeah...that was them. So, since Willard picked Ryan as his new BFF, he's gotten caught in Hurricane Akin.
And it gets worse. Romney ain't exactly been an oak on abortion. This is the guy who pretty obviously went from pro-Choice to win his governor's race in Mass., to pro-Life once he starting running for the GOP nomination simply for the votes. He claims his views have "evolved." Well...if that's the case, it's legitimate for folks to wonder if he's "evolving" to join the Ryan-Akin club.
Romney originally came out with a pretty weak statement on the whole Akin affair.
"Gov. Romney and Congressman Ryan disagree with Mr. Akin's statement, and a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape," said Romney campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg in a statement.
That was Sunday. On Monday, Romney moved to calling the comments offensive and wrong. On Tuesday, he released a statement pretty much calling on Akin to drop out of the race telling Akin to consider "what's in the best interest of the country." As RNC Chairman Reince Preibus said:
"I think that it was pretty clear that Mitt Romney believes that everything that Todd Akin said was unbelievably at odds with rational thinking. He led the charge. Everyone followed suit. We all followed Mitt Romney's lead yesterday," said on MSNBC's "Jansing and Co."
Well...that's that, right? Save by Romney? Uh...just one problem. See...they all didn't follow the Mittster's lead yesterday:
Republicans who are drafting the party's platform approved strong anti-abortion language Tuesday that makes no exceptions to allow abortion in cases of rape or incest victims, a statement of principle that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said is too limiting for his own beliefs.
Repeating the party's official 2008 position, the 2012 platform calls for "a human life amendment" to the Constitution and says "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed." It makes no specific references to exclusions, and it's expected to be adopted with little dissent on Monday's opening day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.
DOH! How do they explain this? Well, according to Preibus, this is the PARTY's platform, not Romney's, so it's all good. Well...it's nice to know the guy you guys want to lead the country can't even lead his party on their platform, but ok. You've dodged that bullet. Unless...
Mitt Romney may not be able to “defend” Todd Akin’s theory that women can’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape,” but apparently the physician behind this controversial theory was an “important surrogate” for Romney’s presidential campaign in 2008. Dr. Jack C. Wilke, former president of the National Right to Life Committee, is known as the “father of the anti-abortion movement.” A 2007 statement from the Romney campaign hailed Wilke as “a leading voice within the pro-life community and will be an important surrogate for Governor Romney's pro-life and pro-family agenda.”
OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! COME ON, MAN! Seriously...the facepalming in this Romney campaign is reaching epic proportions...
But, we're gonna help Romney out. We've got some advice. Mitt, if you really want to carpe diem, you'll go down to Tampa and when you give your speech, you'll stand tough...AGAINST the crazies in your party. That's right, blast 'em. Tell them their way of thinking is what cost the party the Senate in 2010. And if they keep it up, it's gonna cost them the White House and eventually make the whole party irrelevant. Think about it, Mitt would get great press, he'd come off as a strong leader and he'd undercut the attacks he's gonna continue to get hit with going forward. But Mitt ain't gonna do that. He'll pander. He'll get the usual bump out of the convention and then he'll lose in November. Just like Kerry in 2004 and McCain in 2008.
