GAT_00: BSABSVR: People will have moved on from this ad by September.

Yeah, this was stupid to release this early.

No it wasn't. For a number of reasons.

The most important is because Romney can't do a farking thing to refute anything in that ad, because it's all true. Daisy was fearmongering and largely bullshiat at that. This is just adding to the narrative at this point. As you said, no ad will ever trump Daisy, nor does it have to. They can chrun out stuff like this as often as they want for very little cash from now until Election Day.

Second, there's more at stake than just the Presidency. In every poll where the questions is asked...regardless of who has the lead...the large majority of people state they think Obama will win...which means even Romney supporters think they're farked. The more they think that, that more they just don't even bother to donate cash, phonebank, knock on doors, and possibly even vote. So killing their morale is key to all those downticket races. Also, keep in mind he hasn't picked a VP yet....now's the time to give anyone that may be worth a damn second thoughts about hitching their wagon to this failtrain.

Finally, to those first two points: you never, ever take your foot off the throat of an opponent you've been beating on for nearly a month straight who's completely on the defensive. Romney's campaign is in total reaction mode....and they're farking horrible at it even by the low standards they've set for themselves. Those interviews yesterday and the fact he doubled down on not releasing his tax returns were just awful. Furthermore there's no indication the public is responding negatively to these ads. And frankly, I don't think Romney has the chops to withstand this barrage. The guy's never been questioned his entire life...and this has to be the rudest awakaning one could imagine for him. He's simply not cut out for this.

The Obama campaign is in complete control, and you never willingly give that up. Romney has the Convention and the VP pick that will allow them to take over some news cycles and headlines, so you just keep swinging in the meantime.

Corvus: Romney know if he releases his tax info he is sunk. That thing probably is full of tax evasion and other embarrassing crap.

Think he had 4 years to clean up his tax records and the ones he planned on releasing to the public has him only being taxed little more than 14%. Think how bad the others are.

That's the stunning hubris of this. Romney has been planning to run for office for decades, probably. His first Senate race was in 1994. 1994! He is an ambitious man. And yet, he thinks he can forgo the normal tests and obligations of running for office. With enough obfuscation and lying, he thinks, it'll be fine. I don't use the word lying lightly, but it is the only word that accurately describes his statements about his professional life and policy positions.

He's trapped in lies, and unnecessary ones, avoidable ones that a normal man of ambition (one grounded in reality and with a lick of foresight) would have indeed avoided. I am not sure if this is just contempt for America and the media (assuming they'll buy anything he says), or if the crucial thing that explains his behaviour is that he thinks he is not subject to the same rules as everybody else.

So, as a foreigner I see... Democratic ads are harsh but honest, and Republican ads are harsh but lying nonsense.

Have I got it right?

The point is that the "mainstream media" has decided that Romney's Bain years are a legitimate subject of inquiry, one that they can pursue without fear of being branded as liberals. If Forbes is going after Romney on this, anyone can. And that is the kiss of death. I wouldn't be surprised to see a delegate revolt at the repub convention, as more and more lurid financial details come out. This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks.

You have to wonder how someone like Romney can believe that his financial dodges and tax evasion either wouldn't come out or wouldn't be identified as the serious transgressions they are. Can anyone really be that entitled and at the same time that clueless? Apparently the answer is yes.

Huntsman/Guiliani 2012!

CptnSpldng: HeartBurnKid: You know, I'd point out how tone-deaf it was for the Republicans to nominate Romney at this point in history (seriously, there are people out on Wall Street and in every major city protesting the very cloth that Romney is cut from on a daily basis), but the sad truth is, he's one of the better candidates they had to choose from. Though I do think Huntsman or Johnson would have been a better choice, still.

Better candidates, possibly, but consider that the powers that be in the GOP may well have calculated that no one was gonna unseat Obama and that the real race was going to be in 2016. We may be witnessing the ritual gutting of the sacrificial lamb. By turning much of the primary process over to the Teahardists, the GOP elites may hope to silence them in coming years after their 'failure.'

Very likely true, I think.

I hope the election goes something like this:

Romney gets beat and destroyed before the RNC, where he gets dropped from the ticket. RON PAUL gets the nomination in all the chaos due to his strong, yet ignorant support base. RON PAUL gets creamed by Obama during the debates where all the Paultards are forced to hear and understand RON PAUL's positions for the first time, really. Obama wins 2012 easily. Critical thinking becomes popular again.

Come 2016, the Tea Party and their kind are mostly laughed away, considered fringe and unsafe for American politics. If this is the case I can see either the GOP completely crumbling to be replaced by a different party (less likely) or rallying behind more moderate conservative politicians and engaging in real discussion. Perhaps we can shift to being a real progressive country again.

A man can dream.

Dafatone: I'm less impressed by the singing and most of the commercial than most people, I think.

But. "Mitt Romney's not the solution. He's the problem." Boom.

^
|
|
THIS.

I think this is a brilliant bit and very likely to be a recurring theme. It turns Reagan's tired old quote about how "government is not the solution..." on its head and throws it back at Republicans.

Sgt Otter: gothelder:
Gonna get a time out if ya call out alts. Depending on which douch is on duty . At least one moderator posts as a troll alt. I got timed out last week when I forgot that rule

Mmmhmm. Asking a certain Farker for ANY proof of his supposed services in the United States Marine Corps is considered "harassment."

If everyone was removed for "harassment" here, there would only be 4 people talking about bieber on the Entertainment tab.

Kevin72: Lorelle: BSABSVR: But that was a time when everyone had 3 TV channels to watch. The effectiveness is that people are still talking about it three generations later. People will have moved on from this ad by September.

There were 3 major TV networks, but we had about a couple dozen channels to watch on VHF and UHF combined. :)

Ex-Detroiter here. We had four. We had CKLW Channel 9 entertaining us from Windsor. Any old Canadians remember a show called "Razzle Dazzle"?

In the mid-Sixties, Detroit had seven or eight. Don't forget WKBD 50, the PBS station (56?), and the old channel 62, which became channel 20.

ox45tallboy: Winning: When was the last time the presumed party nominee failed to earn the nomination at their party convention?

Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. But he had a really good excuse.

New keyboard. Stat.

However, I've been thinking a lot lately about just how different America would have been if RFK wouldn't have been taken out.

I mean, think about this.

If you have Bobby Kennedy running as the Dem nominee, you likely have Reagan rather than Nixon as the GOP nominee.

Could you imagine just how great this country could be today if we would have had the benefit of a Bobby Kennedy presidency in 1968? Nixon's political career would have been over, and Reagan would have likely lost in a landslide to RFK, and would likely never be taken seriously as a major party candidate again.

Can you imagine a world without Reaganomics? Where we killed off that whole movement before it ever got started?

BigOle8point: BO is a straight dickbag. Hope and change you promised. And instead of working you choose slander? Fark you. Im tired of you, tired of nazi joe up there yelling like some hitler wannabe. You've got your fame... move on please

Yup...right on, bruthah! We got 8% unemployment instead of the 20% we were headed to (if he'd allowed GM to go under). We got Osama bin Laden as crab food on the bottom of the Indian Ocean. We got the troops out of Iraq and leaving Afghanistan. And we got ACA. Oh...and four more years.

How's yer side doin'?

propasaurus: Coco LaFemme: Brutal is right. It's very cutting in its honesty and directness. Like someone else pointed out though, it's July and the election is in November. An ad like this would be at its zenith of effectiveness after the debates, when the push to really stick in the minds of undecided voters is being made.

My parents remember the "Daisy" ad, and my dad said it scared him shiatless, and he was 15 when that came out. The spectre of nuclear annihilation was still very present, and the ad itself was basically saying, "Vote LBJ, or Goldwater will have us all blown to smithereens by the Soviets."

Makes me think that if this is what they've got loaded for July, they've got something really devastating in the pipeline for October.

One of the goals of this is make the Romney campaign devote time and money to fighting this rather than either attacking Obama or advancing their own ideas... I'm sorry, I laughed so hard typing that last part, I snorted bourbon down my nose, which burns like shiat.

Anyway: it makes sense to run this now, rather than hold it back for later, because it really resonates while this narrative is in the news cycle.

Third-best case is that Romney is forced to spend a lot of money defending swing states that otherwise he wouldn't have to. Second-best case is that it makes some swing states unwinnable and Romney has to cede them to Obama's Fifty State Strategy. Best case is that the Repubs become so fearful that they actually dump Romney at the convention... which basically amounts to throwing away every campaign dollar spent so far.

BigOle8point: BO is a straight dickbag. Hope and change you promised. And instead of working you choose slander? Fark you. Im tired of you, tired of nazi joe up there yelling like some hitler wannabe. You've got your fame... move on please

This sounds like a rationally formed opinion, with the goal being the increase in the quality of Americans' lives. Kudos to you, sir.

GAT_00: BSABSVR: People will have moved on from this ad by September.

Yeah, this was stupid to release this early.

And nothing tops Daisy, ever.

You guys act like this is the only ad they're going to run. When your opponent is down, you go for the jugular. To wait until Sept to run this, people would say Obama is just rehashing the same arguments.

You want to disenfranchise his supporters before they can pick up steam. Do the gut punching now, once people see you in a negative light, it's much harder to make them like you.

Ricardo Klement: It's nothing like Daisy. Even as a distortion of his opponent, it falls well-short of Daisy.

Mainly because it doesn't do that .

Nina_Hartley's_Ass: nicculus1: heh, nobody is calling obama a member of the elite anymore.... fascinating.

Or an empty suit.

Yep. Getting paid 6 figures for doing nothing kinda puts the kibosh on the notion that Obama is the empty suit.

Erix: tartie_pants: ok I am sure this was mentioned but it hit me last night while reading EW and as no one in my immediate circle cares about political things, I figured I would just put this out there. People are questioning the timing of this ad, but I am wondering, could this be a interesting tie in? Here we are hitting Romney on his association with Baine capital weeks before Dark Knight comes out with it's same named antagonist. Could hitting and sticking Romney now with Baine, be an attempt to leave that subtle connection in the minds of the people seeing / hearing about Dark Knight? Random and out there but just wanted to mention.

Are you trying to say that Obama is.. a dark knight?

He's not the president we want, but the president we need, and the president we deserve.

GAT_00: Jesus that's a gut punch.

When you have a Bain Capitol weasel like Romney wanting to do to America what he did to so many businesses, and he has the financial backing of several tycoons from Texas, Wall Street, Vegas AND from foreign nations (thanks loads Citizens United), it's time to start opening up a can of Chicago Way on these bastards.

Yes if RFK had not been shot he would have won against Nixon. Easily. That's why Nixon arranged the assassination and the patsy to take the blame, same as 1963.

And no, he would not have run against Ronald Reagan, who had only been governor of California for the same year and a half service as Sarah Palin's year and a half when nominated. Plus Reagan had no delegates because he didn't run in 1968. RFK was assassinated in June at the end of the 1968 primary season.

lordofwar7777: PonceAlyosha: Destroy him.

He's actually kind of a sweet guy, and I was best friends with him starting in about 6th grade until we drifted apart post high school. Even if I could prove it, I wouldn't.

I think what would satisfy everyone is a detailed blow-by-blow (ahem) account of the encounter written in a lurid prose style with lots of detail and fake names. You can then sell it on Kindle. Worked out pretty well for that 50 Shades of Gray lady.

simplicimus: Remember, mommy,
I'm off to get a commie,
So send me a salami,
And try to smile somehow.
I'll look for you when the war is over,
An hour and a half from now!

So long, Mom,
I'm off to drop the bomb,
So don't wait up for me.
But though I may roam,
I'll come back to my home,
Although it may be
A pile of debris.


Whatever became of HubertRomney?
Has anyone heard a thing?
He campaigned on his own,
Now he sits home alone,
And waits for the phone to ring.


/Hubert who?

Might be wise to try to burn Romney down now before the convention.
There are more than enough Ron Paul and Gary Johnson supporters that would love to take advantage of a weakened Romney.

This is divide and conquer here, folks. It's not going to be pretty.

mrmyxolodian: oldweevil: However, I've been thinking a lot lately about just how different America would have been if RFK wouldn't have been taken out.

I mean, think about this.

If you have Bobby Kennedy running as the Dem nominee, you likely have Reagan rather than Nixon as the GOP nominee.

Could you imagine just how great this country could be today if we would have had the benefit of a Bobby Kennedy presidency in 1968? Nixon's political career would have been over, and Reagan would have likely lost in a landslide to RFK, and would likely never be taken seriously as a major party candidate again.

Can you imagine a world without Reaganomics? Where we killed off that whole movement before it ever got started?

[i.qkme.me image 400x300]

/Seriously though...I've never actually thought this through.
Would RFK have won? Was he actually that popular?

Had RFK gotten the nomination and gone up against Nixon, he would have cleaned his clock. Bobby was very popular with blacks, Latinos, young kids (draft age and older), and the poor. He joined the campaign later than McCarthy and was keeping up, considering. I think he could have swayed the "McCarthy kids" to vote for him, especially with a platform that included bringing our troops home from Vietnam. He was also very set on doing more for the impoverished in the country, especially blacks and children. He was Obama before Obama was Obama. He was everything his brother wasn't.

Also, if RFK is President, we don't invade Cambodia or Laos, and Kent State doesn't happen.

PonceAlyosha: Destroy him.

He's actually kind of a sweet guy, and I was best friends with him starting in about 6th grade until we drifted apart post high school. Even if I could prove it, I wouldn't.

simplicimus: MaudlinMutantMollusk: simplicimus: abb3w: In case anyone hasn't seen the Obama ad, it's apparently officially referred to as "Firms".

For contrast, "Daisy".

For you kids, the ad came out when schools were doing the dunk and cover drills, Air Raid sirens went off periodically as tests, and buildings were marked as fallout shelters.

The duck and cover cartoon was on that page, too

/good times...

Yep, nothing like a wooden desk to save you from a nuclear detonation.

We had our first duck and cover drill of the year during my 8th grade science class (1964). Our teacher said to ignore it and keep on with the lesson. Someone asked why and she said if there was a nuclear attack she didn't want to die cowering under a desk and that she would go up on the roof and watch the fireworks while they lasted. I admired the hell out of that woman. Oh yeah, they still called them air raid drills back then.

Very effective but not "Vote Goldwater and your children will be vaporized" effective.

Lawnchair: ox45tallboy: If enough people at the convention realize that Romney stands no real chance at winning, they will probably move on

Um, how about no there. For at least one big reason... Utah. While Mormons are only a couple percent of the nation, they're overwhelmingly Republican, overwhelmingly vote, and have a lot of kids. Unceremoniously boot the great Mormon hope, and the reddest state in the nation becomes at least a swing state for the next 20 years.

Are you high? I mean, Mitt losing the nomination is basically impossible. But are you seriously suggesting that in a fit of pique the Mormons would start voting Democratic?

propasaurus: 'I owned the car and was in the driver's seat when it crashed, and I collected the insurance payout, but I was NOT driving!'

"It's technically true, because I let go of the steering wheel!"

BigOle8point: BO is a straight dickbag. Hope and change you promised. And instead of working you choose slander? Fark you. Im tired of you, tired of nazi joe up there yelling like some hitler wannabe. You've got your fame... move on please

0/10 Either bring a good game or take your lumps & stfu

Wow, love him or hate him, Obama's PR guys sure brought their A-game. Romney's ads don't make him look like he brought a knife to a gunfight... in comparison to this, they make it seem like he brought a pair of hooty-owl safety scissors to at thermonuclear war.

ariseatex: True, and I'm giving in by responding. But hey, it's Saturday night, and I'm stuck at home, so what else is there to do but respond to trollbait?

Well, there is a Steam sale going on...

/waiting for games to download

HeartBurnKid: You know, I'd point out how tone-deaf it was for the Republicans to nominate Romney at this point in history (seriously, there are people out on Wall Street and in every major city protesting the very cloth that Romney is cut from on a daily basis), but the sad truth is, he's one of the better candidates they had to choose from. Though I do think Huntsman or Johnson would have been a better choice, still.

Better candidates, possibly, but consider that the powers that be in the GOP may well have calculated that no one was gonna unseat Obama and that the real race was going to be in 2016. We may be witnessing the ritual gutting of the sacrificial lamb. By turning much of the primary process over to the Teahardists, the GOP elites may hope to silence them in coming years after their 'failure.'

Corvus: bugontherug: "Oooh. You're not supposed to say mean things in a presidential election. It's not fair!"
~~Willard Mitt Romney, commenting on Obama ads calling him to question as a vulture capitalist, possible felon, and definite liar.

Actually Obama's position is that he did NOT commit a felony, Romney's position seems to be that he DID.

Sure. The point is that logic traps him into admitting one or the other. He is "impaled on the horns of a dilemma." He tried to respond by kicking dust in the bull's eyes, but that doesn't seem to have worked. He's stuck.

DeltaPunch: What's amazing is that there's a goldmine of stuff to use against him. Forget not being liberal, not having the right ideas, etc... there's a ton of stuff you could use against him for not being conservative enough. Plus the lying and flip-flopping (Paulites hate that crap, since a lot of them are fed up all "lying politicians") -- it really makes me wonder if Obama's camp will gently remind conservatives about how bad Romney is for them before the convention...

I think of it a little like a football offense at work. If the defense is soft at a certain position, or they don't have an answer for a certain play, they're going to keep on using it until there's a stop. Bain's sank a Romney campaign before, so the Obama camp is going to keep hitting him at that weak spot so long as it keeps getting traction. But if it does stop working, like you say, there's plenty of other angles to attack from.

The key, I think, is that they're going to define Romney to voters before he has a chance to define himself, continually keeping him on the defensive in the process - a bit like a redo of the ill-fated Kerry campaign.

Random aside: This is where Citizens United comes back to bite the Republicans. It makes a Convention rebellion and discarding Romney for some less wounded candidate (RON PAUL!) far more likely, because the SuperPACs control the bulk of the money and they can spend it to support any damn candidate or cause they choose to.

/Obama really knows his Sun Tzu, doesn't he?

ps69: This issue would have been kept at a low murmur if Mittens hadn't tried to come out swinging with his indignant "how dare he!" response. Bad move Willard.

Especially since it came off as less of a "swing," and more of a "whine."

"Oooh. You're not supposed to say mean things in a presidential election. It's not fair!"
~~Willard Mitt Romney, commenting on Obama ads calling him to question as a vulture capitalist, possible felon, and definite liar.

BigOle8point: BO is a straight dickbag. Hope and change you promised. And instead of working you choose slander? Fark you. Im tired of you, tired of nazi joe up there yelling like some hitler wannabe. You've got your fame... move on please

Which one is "nazi joe" again? Is that Joe Biden? Funny, I never would have pegged him as a Nazi. Good work outing the old fascist! Are there any other members of this administration that are also members of the Nazi party? Please, do share!

Altair: "Daisy" was hyperbole, this is not.

Precisely.

It's also simple, elegant and memorable.

I'm in awe right now. This ad is good. Really good.

Dr.Zom: I'm still not sure he'll be the nominee though. I suspect a Hail Mary.

Despite the corporate controlled media's rush to defend Romney against the "felony" accusation, the sworn SEC documents he filed prove beyond a reasonable doubt that either Romney a) committed one or more felonies by falsely saying he was running Bain Capital when he wasn't, or b) is lying now and really was in control of Bain Capital when he previously swore he was.

As a progressive, I'd like to personally thank the Republicans. You've nominated a guy whose candidacy is now over before it even began. Good show. You should have gone with a winner like Bachmann or Gingrich. Then you'd at least have a chance.

KarmicDisaster: mrmyxolodian: "There is no whining in politics. Stop demanding an apology, release your tax returns."

-- GOP strategist John Weaver, quoted by the AP, calling on Mitt Romney to disclose his tax returns.

Hmmm. I think that it is likely that the returns are going to show more of the same or worse, or he would have released them already instead of just the two "fixed" returns generated after he decided to run. Maybe that is why the Dems released this ad now, it puts Romney in a very hard place by priming the public in case he was thinking of releasing the returns now in the hope that things will blow over by the election.

"If you have things to hide, then maybe you're doing things wrong. I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people."

-- Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R), quoted by the AP, calling on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns.

ox45tallboy: Romney's record at Bain and his record as governor is every bit as important as Obama's record as Senator, and now President.

romney's record of trying to simultaneously hold multiple positions is kinda important, too - and this latest dustup is just further hammering that home. and it isn't as tho they are highlighting an inconsistency, or a change of stance or position - it's that he holds diametrically opposed positions on 1 singular thing. he was running bain when it comes to MA residency, but he wasn't when it comes to owning a business that disposed of aborted fetuses. he was running bain when it comes to SEC filings, but he wasn't running bain when it comes to actual bain business practices.

i just dunno that anything specifically about bain is the crux here, any more than it being a perfect example to point out Schrodinger's candidate.

You know, I'd point out how tone-deaf it was for the Republicans to nominate Romney at this point in history (seriously, there are people out on Wall Street and in every major city protesting the very cloth that Romney is cut from on a daily basis), but the sad truth is, he's one of the better candidates they had to choose from. Though I do think Huntsman or Johnson would have been a better choice, still.

Smeggy Smurf: GAT_00: I think more than a few of you are overestimating the competence of the DNC.

They lost to Bush. Twice. If that's not incompetence then nothing is.

Then you'll be pleased to learn that Terry McAuliffe and Howard Dean are no longer chairs of the DNC!
Also, the Gilmore Girls has since been canceled.

"There is no whining in politics. Stop demanding an apology, release your tax returns."

-- GOP strategist John Weaver, quoted by the AP, calling on Mitt Romney to disclose his tax returns.

Obama: "COME OVER HERE!"

*burns Romney to ashes*

Announcer: "FATALITY! OBAMA WINS! FLAWLESS VICTORY!"

I think more than a few of you are overestimating the competence of the DNC.

GAT_00: BSABSVR: People will have moved on from this ad by September.

Yeah, this was stupid to release this early.

And nothing tops Daisy, ever.

Wasn't that stupid. Think about it for a moment. If you set the tone of your opponent before they have had a chance to set it themselves; people will remember this tone. It's much like studies have shown that people who are told a lie and then told the truth will STILL believe the lie. It's what FOX runs on and it's what others are learning. Politics is about perception.

ox45tallboy: Coco LaFemme: Brutal is right. It's very cutting in its honesty and directness. Like someone else pointed out though, it's July and the election is in November. An ad like this would be at its zenith of effectiveness after the debates, when the push to really stick in the minds of undecided voters is being made.

My parents remember the "Daisy" ad, and my dad said it scared him shiatless, and he was 15 when that came out. The spectre of nuclear annihilation was still very present, and the ad itself was basically saying, "Vote LBJ, or Goldwater will have us all blown to smithereens by the Soviets."

Which would lead me to believe this isn't the strongest thing Team Obama has up its sleeve.

Whatever they're doing, they need to keep doing it. Yes, people will biatch that Obama's going negative, but I don't see it as negativity when it's the truth. Negativity would be what Karl Rove's team did to McCain in 2000, accusing him of fathering a child out of wedlock, when that was the McCain's adopted daughter Bridget. THAT is negative. Using Romney's own words or his own gubernatorial record against him is just good politics.

Sgygus: Mitt spent many years being an all-American capitalist and he obviously was quite good at it. Now he is going to be president and he is going to be quite good at that as well.

Mitt Romney, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler

Mitt had a small house of brokerage on Wall Street... many days no business come to his hut, but Mitt has fear? A thousand times no!

Mitt never doubted myself for a minute for he knew that his monkey strong bowels were girded with strength like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung. Glorious sunset of his heart was fading.

Soon the super karate monkey death car would park in his space. But Mitt has fancy plans... and pants to match. The monkey clown horrible karate round and yummy like cute small baby chick would beat the donkey

/Feel my skills, donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey

That is definitely a very effective ad, simple and stark and to the point. It's a nasty shot that may make Romney's convention harder, and like noted above its timing this early in the cycle likely means they have more where that came from. I'm intrigued.

I'm less impressed by the singing and most of the commercial than most people, I think.

But. "Mitt Romney's not the solution. He's the problem." Boom.

Obama singing some Al Green at the historic Apollo Theater...smooth, inspired, and effortless. Making the women folk wet

That was brutal. That is Dukakis as tank commander brutal.

If they're doing this kind of advertising this early in the campaign, I can't wait to see what they're working on a few months away from the election.

BSABSVR: People will have moved on from this ad by September.

Yeah, this was stupid to release this early.

And nothing tops Daisy, ever.