Tag Archives: politics

Derision 2012! – Media & Voters & Polls, Oh My!

Yeah, no real way to get that shoehorned into the “Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!” tune.  But I did my best.

Let me just get this out in the open right now.  I voted for Barak Obama in 2008.  Even looking back and knowing what I know, I still would have voted for him in 08.  Had McCain picked Romney to be his running mate instead of dead-from-the-neck-up Sarah Palin, I may have gone differently.  But of course we all know what happened.  Now regardless of what you think of the man or his policies, President Obama brings the smarts and we here at Frank’s place dig the smarts.  He is still the smartest dude running for President, but some things have transpired that have caused me to look elsewhere for a President.

One of the biggest issues for me is the constant reminder of the economy he inherited.  In 2009 I can accept the constant reminder of what President Bush left behind.  And make no mistake, the bail-outs, the tarp, the mounting deficit, these things were either done or set in motion long before President Obama was sworn in.  But after 2009, the constant harping about inheriting the worst economy since the great depression became unseemly, then it became un-leaderly(?)  At some point the President would have done well to adopt a buck stops here attitude.

Of course conservatives, republicans, and tea-partiers, (by the way those are 3 distinct groups wether you want to believe it or not),  have been rightly calling out and/or bashing the President for this constant blaming of President Bush for our current problems.  Tracy, my wife, has had to listen to me howl at the TV whenever the President speaks because he invariably will evoke some form of, “you know we inherited the worst…”, yeah, yeah we get Blamey McBlamerton.  Enough already Mr. President.  I just can’t believe he still tees up this softball for the opposition to hit out of the park, as they absolutely should.

But for as much as the opposition rightly hits the President for always blaming others for our country’s issues, they must think it’s a winning strategery (thanks P. Bush 43) because they have taken up the charge at a full gallop.  In the past 4 months since Romney was clearly going to win the nomination, conservatives, republicans, and tea-partiers have been blaming everything under the sun for why the Governor lost the election. Spoiler alert – election is not till 6 November.  In other words Romney hasn’t lost yet, but his base, the fringe, and the media outlets that support him have already started his obituary.  In this obituary they list clearly the three causes of the Governors death:

1. Left wing media bias – hard to argue, but I will take a 37.4 deg angle

2. Voter fraud – you’ll run out and buy lottery tickets when I’m done with this one

3. Election polls – you know those annoying polls that take a small sample of voters and project who’s winning or losing, you may have even been called and participated in one

Politically this may be a winning strategy, and I don’t think it is, it’s just as cowardly as the President blaming President Bush 43.  So let me take a shot at helping my conservative brethren understand why blaming these 3 entities just doesn’t hold up.

1. Left wing media bias – Ok, my good friend Tony has convinced me that this exists to a greater extent that I had originally believed.  As it turns out left wing media bias has been around for a long time.  I would argue cable news outlets and social media has amplified and sharpened the bias, but it still existed on the big three networks long before MSNBC came along.  Be that as it may, blaming them for a candidates failure makes you look weak. If this bias has existed for so long why isn’t your candidate prepared for it?  How can something you’ve known about for decades take you down?  If you can’t plan for and defeat or work around something you’ve known about forever, how can your guy, as President, deal with things he won’t know about until after they happen?

See where I’m going there.  Blaming the media makes you look weak; not just because blaming anything but yourself makes you look weak, but because blaming something that has always existed makes you look weak and incompetent, and not smart and unable to adapt.  You know, presidentialy type things.

2.  Voter Fraud – Hard to know where to start with this.  Why?  Because it almost never happens.  You have a better chance of being struck by lighting WHILE purchasing the winning power-ball ticket than you do of witnessing voter fraud, being in the polling place when voter fraud happens, or even voting in a state where voter fraud has occurred. Here’s a few links in case you want to read actual stats.

http://www.truthaboutfraud.org/

http://richardcharnin.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0

Now equally mythical is the “fact” that requiring people to have photo ID at the polling place will disenfranchise voters, specifically the urban poor and minorities, two groups who tend to vote democrat.  Pennsylvania just lost its case in the state supreme court to require photo ID of anyone wanting to vote.  PA made it free of charge, set up convenient places to get one, and in some cases would even come to the home of those unable to get out.  How those people would then vote is beyond me, but the state accommodated and somehow lost.  Here in TN we must show photo ID to vote and I’ve not heard of anyone being disenfranchised. In fact my mother-in-law just moved here and when she got her TN drivers license they registered her to vote.  That’s how easy the states make it to obtain an ID and register to vote.

Disenfranchisement due to photo ID is almost as rare as voter fraud.  But at the end of the day voter fraud is the dodo bird of election cycles.  Everyone’s heard of one but no one has ever seen one.

Don’t look now…

I wonder if he’s registered?

However if you prefer the myth of voter fraud I would refer you to Hannity of Fox, check you local cable provider, and The Drudge Report on the internets.

Seriously, if you hear of voter fraud in your district and your next stop is not the local Piggly Wiggly to buy a power-ball ticket, you’re an idiot.

3. That brings us to the third cause of Romney’s crushing defeat that hasn’t happened yet: election polls.  There were election polls being taken long before we really knew who the republican candidate would be. Once Romney emerged as the clear front runner the polls went into high gear.  And it was all a big waste of time.  The polls in early January are worthless.  Guess what, the polls in late October are worthless too.  The only poll that counts is the one you stand in on November 6th.

Having said that it is interesting to see how the media has handled the current polling results.  I’ll just cut to the chase, Fox News hates them and regards them all as flawed and the rest of the media thinks they are grand and believe Obama will win in a landslide. But the left wing of the media reacted as they normally do, so no surprise there.

It’s Fox’s reaction that is puzzling.  Again this is the network that has taken Obama to task for always blaming everything/everyone but himself.  I guess imitation is the sincerest form of flattery because the gang at Fox have been merciless in their attack on poll results.  They have gone so far as to claim it’s the poll results that are making things worse for Romney.  Obviously the polls show him behind by a few points nationally and by wide margins in several key battleground states, or states considered necessary to win to win the election.

They got so paranoid about the poll attack on Romney, some news shows on Fox criticized poll results done by a few other Fox News Shows.  That’s right.  The network that claims to be fair and balanced actually may have pulled it off.  Unknowingly of course.  There is no way O’Reilly and Hannity knew the particular poll they were slamming, showing Romney down by 10 points or more, was actually a poll done by Fox News and used by Special Report with Bret Baier.

It gets better, or worse.  Minutes after bringing on Dick Morris, Bernie Goldberg and even retired/fired NY City Detective Bo Ditle (WTF), to say polls are so unreliable and cannot be trusted, Hannity then shows poll results that have Romney in the lead and wants us to believe they are accurate and trustworthy after spending 15 minutes telling us how notoriously slanted and biased poll results are.  It’s like the gang that couldn’t shoot straight decided to form a circular firing squad.  Lets hope their aim improves.

So to wrap up, it’s the Media, Voters, & Polls that caused the Romney defeat.

I wonder if all the analysts and pundits have mentioned to Governor Romney that they know the outcome of the election next month and the cause of his demise.

Derision 2012! – A gaffe is a gaffe: except when it isn’t.

So it appears the Governor doesn’t want the Frank’s Place vote.  We here at Frank’s Place are ready to pull the lever for him, but he just called us losers.  Odd strategery Governor, very odd strategery.

Here’s the low down.  Governor Romney was at a private fundraiser last night.  Well, private except for an iPhone video that was reportedly made or discovered by the grandson of President Jimmy Carter.  More on that in a sec.  In the video Romney can be heard saying that roughly 47% of the country will most likely vote for Obama.  He expounded to say that those 47% are the people who take no responsibility for their lives, expect government to provide them food, shelter, clothing, etc…     Here is the exact quote from the Wall Street Journal:

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president, no matter what,” Mr. Romney said in the video. “All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.…These are people who pay no income tax.”

Quick tough guy side note:  Bro, I’m not a victim, I’m a retired vet with 22 years of service.  I worked for 15 years in the warehouse at Sears & Roebuck in Mays Landing NJ. Smarten up Governor.

Ok, my wounded pride not withstanding, the 47% not paying taxes Romney thinks he’s talking about is actually made up of the working poor, seniors, the filthy rich (aka Romney), and wounded veterans returning from the war.   And those people, the 47%ers, turns out they live in predominately red states – meaning the governor and the state legislature is made up of republicans.

Intriguing side note:  A popular dig at Obama made by Romney, Ryan, and most republicans is that he’s the worst president since Jimmy Carter.  They have been saying that since the primary started in August 2011.  Let that sink in – August of 2011.  How awesome would it be if Jimmy Carter’s grandson dropped the 50,000 a plate fee to go to the fundraiser just to video Romney.  Talk about a dish served cold.  Revenge with an iPhone.

Enough of the intrigue.  Lets make a quick stop at hypocritical-ville while were here.  The party of no government, the party that thinks what Romney said last night, is also the party that wants government to intervene in marriage, pregnancy, rape, religion, what language we should speak, and union strike busting.  So I think we can all agree the “less government party” mantra is the biggest load of bullshit ever sold to, and then bought by, a group of people. More accurately, it’s less government for the things I don’t like and more government for the things I do want.  That won’t fit on a bumper sticker but it’s at least more honest. And you know what, saying that out loud would not deter me from voting for a republican candidate if I thought they were able to fix things.

But let’s get to the real issue – the media and the orgasms they were having after watching that tape.  This story will go on for three days at least.  You’ll see headlines about a gaffe, about the race being over, about Romney making a huge mistake.  None of those will be true by the way.  The liberal media will ring this out like a soaked dish rag for as long as possible.  The conservative media will trumpet it for a news cycle, maybe 12hrs, then bring up the bibles and guns “gaffe” the president made when he was running in 08, and then they’ll drop it.

The only comparison between the two episodes that’s apt is the fact neither statement was a gaffe.  It wasn’t a mistake by either man.  The President said the “clinging to guns and bibles” line at a private fundraiser as well.  So there is one other comparable fact. But it wasn’t a gaffe.  The President actually believed that at the time and probably still does.  I guarantee the Governor believes what he said last night.  So what separates the two issues.

The first is the coverage. The bibles and guns comment was really the only thing Obama said that ever got any analysis from the press.  And that analysis didn’t last long.  Romney will get his chops busted over this for weeks and as I said it will dominate every minute of every news show not on FOX for at least three days.

The second but more obscure issue is the following comments each man-made.  Obama was saying how he would need to go out there and change the minds of the people who cling to their guns and bibles.  He was detailing how he would try to turn diehards because he would have to be president to everybody.  Romney was explaining why he was giving up on those people because they would never be convinced to vote for him.  The funny thing is Romney is right for the most part.  The diehard Obama supporters will never be convinced to vote for Romney and won’t support him in anything he does as president even if it would help the country. It’s the same treatment Obama is getting from the conservative diehards now.  Saying it out loud is just seems like bad form because it sounds like, and it will be spun like, Romney doesn’t care about half of the country, while Obama was painted as trying to convert the country to his way of thinking. One statement is a positive thought, the other, negative.

The third issue – Obama made his comments with almost 6 months to go until the election, prior to his convention.  Time does heal all wounds, as it did in his case.  Obama did win the election convincingly.  Romney has less than 60 days to put out this fire and refocus on why people aren’t back to work even though wall street has clearly rebounded. It’s a message that should stop Obama’s second term bid in its tracks.  But for some reason Romney can’t seem to stay on that message.

The issue now facing Romney – can he withstand the amount of media whoring coming his way and get back to talking about things that matter.  At the end of the day the fact that he called me a victim and a loser makes no difference in the real hierarchy of what’s important.  I can take it.  He’s just a soft handed, rich boy, jerk off anyway.  But he may be the next great president.  Don’t think so?  Go read The Election of 1800.  Thats’ the battle between Jefferson and John Adams.   They said the most hurtful and heinous things about each other and their families, wives, kids, pets, the poor, uneducated, people who do manual labor, etc..  and both of those men are considered founding fathers and great presidents.  Either one of those guys would have made these two current cream puffs pee their pants during a campaign or debate.

Romney’s only issue now – can he get the all important Frank’s Place endorsement bump.

The fact that Romney couldn’t be more wrong is really beside the point.

Derision 2012! Summer of Stupid

You ever have that feeling when you make a prediction about something but in the back of your mind you hope it doesn’t really come true?  Yeah, that’s where I’m at after this little beauty of a prediction.  From the post Are you smarter than a campaign manager?  back on May 20 I wrote this, “Anyone looking for the level of campaign discourse to be raised is in for a big disappointment.”

The campaign of President Obama is making me look like Nostradamus.  The post that quote is from details how the President’s campaign people kept opening what they believe to be cans of whupp-ass on the Governor, but turn out to be big cans of worms instead.  Every ridiculous charge they made against Gov. Romney over the summer was contradicted by the fact their guy, aka the President, had done something of equal or greater numb-nuttiness.  I won’t rehash it all, you can re-read it of you like.  Just click the link above.

Well the gang isn’t done.  I guess they feel like we have not properly appreciated the level of stupidity they can rise too.  However in this case to add to the degree of difficulty they have coupled stupidity with outright shamefulness.

At issue: a democratic super pac ad run by Priorities USA in which an older man, Joe Soptic, tells the tale of how Bain Capital, Romney’s Bain Capital, bought the failing steel mill where Joe worked and shut it down, causing the loss of Joe’s health care.  Some unspecified time later his wife became ill, Joe took her to the doctor and found out she had stage 4 cancer.  She died 22 days later.  Joe implies in the ad that the illness occurred almost seconds after Romney personally called to cancel Joe’s health insurance.

In the ad Joe implies that his wife was probably sick a lot longer then she let on, but he figures she kept quite because they could not afford the insurance.  He claims he had no idea how long she was sick.  The ad concludes with Joe saying he believes Romney has no idea what he has done to him and the lives of thousands of Americans.  I didn’t need it explained to me.  Joe is implying that Romney killed his wife.  Bill Burton, former Obama deputy press secretary and head of Priorities USA and author of the ad is implying Romney killed Joe’s wife.  The President, by not only staying silent on this hatchet job, but then co-opting part of that ad for his own campaign to use, is saying Romney killed Joe’s wife.  This was roughly but more eloquently the same conclusion that most political pundits on the airwaves and social media came to.

The only thing that killed Joe’s wife is cancer.  The steel mill in question went under in 2001.  A lot of steel mills went under in 2001.  Bain offered Joe a buyout but he refused it.  Romney was off organizing the olympics when all this went down so I’m not sure how he even figures into this.  Oh that’s right the President’s new strategy is to lie his pants off before they catch fire.

Joe’s wife was diagnosed and died in 2006, the plant closed in 2001.  By most accounts it would have closed then or before 2001 had Bain not propped it up long enough to realize some profit from it.  In other words, Joe was losing his job one way or another, but he could have made some money had he taken the buyout, he refused.  Had Bain not bought the plant and it closed in 2000 or earlier, Joe would not have even had an offer of a buyout.  Once more, Joe’s wife had a job and insurance through 2003.  So she must have become ill after that time, some 2 years down range from when the plant closed.

The lies, falsehoods, faulty implications and outright made up BS in this ad would take pages and pages to unravel.  Suffice to say, the President and his campaign people have decided there is no bar low enough they can’t slink under, if it means falsely accusing Governor Romney of murder in an attempt to stay in office.

That was the Shameful. Now for the stupid.

This attack opens the President up to countless charges of murder.  It’s the same nonsense as with the dog, and the bullying.  The President is guilty of far worse then what his team accuses Gov. Romney of.  In this case however, the President can actually be linked to murder.  It took all of 5 minutes for right wing bloggers to bring up the story of the border patrol agent Bryan Terry killed by a gun used in the failed Fast and Furious operation run by the current White House administration.  See this: Red State

Why on earth would you do that if you were the Presidents election team?  How could they not see what the counter attack would be and avoid it?  It stagers the mind of even the most meager intellectuals among us.

The summer of stupid is just getting warmed up I’m afraid.  Don’t even get me started on the fake christian solidarity over some chicken samiches.  I don’t have time, I have to protest the presence of synchronized swimming at the olympics.  What fast food chain would one go to protest something like that?

Five Guys I hope.