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[McDohl]

Mitt Romney Out of Context

Oh.  Snap. 

[Royal☭]

Mitt Romney and the Infinite Sadness

[Bal]

I have no idea what the fuck he's talking about throughout most of this video. He's ASTOUNDINGLY unrelatable.

[Brentai]

There are times there (esp. that part where he just sort of sneaks up behind and disconertingly ogles at the reporter) that I have to wonder if he's actually got some sort of high-functioning autism.

Which makes me feel a bit bad about the whole thing, really.  Maybe it's not his fault that he's a terrible person.

[Thad]

New Yorker: Why is Romney Such a Loser?

It's a provocative title but a pretty thorough and well-thought-out piece.

The bullet points:

1. The Romney campaign is incompetent.
2. Romney is incompetent.
3. It’s all the G.O.P.’s fault.
4. Americans like Obama, or the idea of Obama.
5. It’s the economy, stupid.
6. It’s all demographics.
7. Things aren’t really so bad.

Worth clickin' on over to the whole piece.  They're good points and well-argued.

[A²]

There are times there (esp. that part where he just sort of sneaks up behind and disconertingly ogles at the reporter) that I have to wonder if he's actually got some sort of high-functioning autism.

Which makes me feel a bit bad about the whole thing, really.  Maybe it's not his fault that he's a terrible person.

Lack of social skills and inabiility to relate to people appear in both autism and the rich.

[Büge]

So does sociopathy.

[Brentai]

A general disconnection with the working population of America is normal, yeah.  That's just a function of being unfamiliar with a person's lifestyle and concerns.  But it's not like the rich don't have their own etiquette, and there are some things that are just innate to the human nature.  Stuff like being unaware of other people's personal space, a sense of humor that doesn't really work outside of his mind, his inscrutably foreign body language, a pattern of behaviors that are harmless but so far out of what's considered "normal" that it's worrying (dog, roof, etc.)... let's not pretend that these are things that this group in particular aren't familiar with.  Even his general view of people -- "I want to avoid interacting with people who aren't directly relevant to my efforts."  That's not "oh god poor person cooties", that's, well

That's me.

[A²]

Wait, did you just come out of the mental closet of autism?

[Friday]

Brent's been talking about how he thinks he's autistic for quite some time.

[Brentai]

You guys make it sound like I'm managing a Kickstarter.  It's not a revelation that I have a number of social quirks and avoidant personality behaviors.  And I don't think I'm as bad as one of the candidates for President of the United States, so it's pretty easy to file under "not a problem".

What I'm saying is that we all are to some to degree or at least know someone who's got the same weird shit as Mitt going on.  Some of his social problems come from a platinum tower upbringing, some of it is from Mormonism, and some of it is just Mitt Romney.  I still disagree (vehemently) with some of the stuff he believes in, but I'm willing to cut the guy more slack than most on the "He's an innately unsettling  individual who's difficult to get accustomed to" front, because, well.

[Brentai]

Then again: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012/09/21/romney-taxes/57821564/1

The documents also made clear that Romney, who donates millions of dollars to charity each year, reduced the amount of charitable deduction he claimed this year to keep his tax rate above 13%.

He didn't, like, stop using tax shelters or anything like that.  He screwed charities, thinking that it's enough to make people happy that he's still paying 13% in taxes.

There's a line between being harmlessly weird and actually being an asshole, but it's hard to see when you're already straddling it.

[Royal☭]

The thing about Mitt is it's easy to defend one or two of his quirks on the basis of "We're all a little weird, this is just how Mitt is."  But taken in aggregate with everything else about him, it starts painting a much more disturbing whole.

[Brentai]

Like I said, I don't think that's his whole issue, it's just part of a whole basket case full of issues.

It's really telling that someone so mentally regressed can get so far, because he's rich.  There's a case for some kind of reform there, but this country isn't ready to see it.

I want to reiterate, though: this is THE time for the Democrats to start rallying.  Even the most pessimistic of us can see that the Romney campaign is bleeding out and can't recover with anything short of a second market crash.  So the focus has to change.  Get every Democratic senator, congressman, and junior official out there and beating the pavement as hard as they can.  Have huge fundraisers in th safe districts, then give it to our allies in the contested ones.  Come together with one unified, powerful, and absolutely true message: "We are the solution that Romney never was."

[François]

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about US taxes, but did he actually screw charities? The way I read it, he donated the same he would have usually, but did not report the full amount on his tax paperwork, which is to say he did not claim the entire fiscal recompense he was entitled to in order to artificially inflate his tax rate. Like the key word here is that he reduced deductions, not donations. Maybe I'm just figuring wrong though.

[Brentai]

Aha, you're right.  He DID donate, but had to rescind most of he deductions he would take from it so he wouldn't accidentally go under the magical 13% number he had rattled off before tax season.

Which, of course, wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't been tax sheltering in the first place.

Still slimy, but less of a straight-up "well then fuck YOU" maneuver.  The worst of it is that this sort of obvious number manipulation is probably going to hurt him more than if he HAD actually done that.  "See guys?  I TOTALLY pay all my taxes (when everyone is looking at me) (even though I could have easily avoided it otherwise) (and I'm still not releasing my records from before people started looking at me)."

[Brentai]

http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/2012/09/21/pelosi-confident-democrats-will-win-back-house-says-obama-will-win-big/

Glad to see The Leadership is actually fucking awake for once.  Not sure how much I want to see that particular woman swinging her ladycock about this early, but hey, optimism and movement from the lower left is always a refreshing change of pace.

[Caithness]

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about US taxes, but did he actually screw charities? The way I read it, he donated the same he would have usually, but did not report the full amount on his tax paperwork, which is to say he did not claim the entire fiscal recompense he was entitled to in order to artificially inflate his tax rate. Like the key word here is that he reduced deductions, not donations. Maybe I'm just figuring wrong though.

Wouldn't that make him ineligible to be President by his own criteria?

[Thad]

I want to reiterate, though: this is THE time for the Democrats to start rallying.  Even the most pessimistic of us can see that the Romney campaign is bleeding out and can't recover with anything short of a second market crash.

Well, short of Obama performing worse than Romney in any one of the debates, anyway.  Which I wouldn't bet on, given that he's Obama and Romney is Romney.

Heard on the radio that the polls are showing Democrats pulling ahead in pretty much every closely-contested Senate race and the Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from Romney/being Republicans.

Whether this is a sea change and will sustain itself for six weeks or whether it's as fleeting as Herman Cain's frontrunner status remains to be seen.  I think this is big and will give the lie to The Daily Show's suggestion that a single gaffe can't define an election anymore, but I'm still entirely prepared to be wrong and for everything to rubber-band back to status quo next news cycle.

And I'm still fucking baffled as to why anyone thinks this particular video is a big deal.  I mean, yes, we should be outraged that a Republican thinks half the country is made up of lazy moochers.  We should be outraged by this 100% OF THE TIME.  This is not Mitt going off-message; it's not even Mitt saying anything different from what he was saying in public a few months ago (I'm thinking specifically of the line he gave at a college Q&A; don't remember the exact quote but it was along the lines of "Well if you think the government's job is to give you a handout, vote for the other guy.").

It's just...no fucking shit, that's all.

Have huge fundraisers in th safe districts, then give it to our allies in the contested ones.

There's a whole other conversation to have about how Howard Dean taught the party how to campaign even in places where it thought victory or defeat was certain, and it immediately forgot that lesson as soon as he stepped down as chair.  It's VEXING.

I think you're exactly right, but I think that, short of big $50K-a-plate fundraisers with Hollywood celebrities, we're not likely to see the kind of campaigning in safe districts that you're talking about.

[Brentai]

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about US taxes, but did he actually screw charities? The way I read it, he donated the same he would have usually, but did not report the full amount on his tax paperwork, which is to say he did not claim the entire fiscal recompense he was entitled to in order to artificially inflate his tax rate. Like the key word here is that he reduced deductions, not donations. Maybe I'm just figuring wrong though.

Wouldn't that make him ineligible to be President by his own criteria?

Well the argument there is that he was perfectly aware of such tax breaks, and therefore competent, but decided not to claim them because he's such an upstanding citizen.  Exactly 13% an upstanding citizen.

(In the interest of full disclosure, my ETR last year was 12.1% federal and 5.2% state.  It would have been 22.3% and 5.2% state if I didn't own property and go to school last year, both of which factors go out the window under the Ryan Plan.  Paul Ryan wants to nearly double my taxes and nobody cares, now THAT'S vexing.)

And I'm still fucking baffled as to why anyone thinks this particular video is a big deal.  I mean, yes, we should be outraged that a Republican thinks half the country is made up of lazy moochers.  We should be outraged by this 100% OF THE TIME.  This is not Mitt going off-message; it's not even Mitt saying anything different from what he was saying in public a few months ago (I'm thinking specifically of the line he gave at a college Q&A; don't remember the exact quote but it was along the lines of "Well if you think the government's job is to give you a handout, vote for the other guy.").

It's just...no fucking shit, that's all.

The rage over the video itself is overstated; it's the capper on a consistent string of terrible, terrible mistakes that start way back with, what, London?  The timing was just horrible.  People were already in a mode to doubt whether or not this guy was fit to be President after he made light of the murder of an American ambassador (I will not and should not be expected to let that go); hearing those three most sinful words of leadership, "I don't care", coming from his mouth in a perfectly candid moment pretty much answered it for them.

But those are the other two factors at work here.  First, because it's Romney supposedly speaking his heart.  We accept a bunch of terrible things a politician says to another group because, well, we believe they're feeding us a line of bullshit, so it's comforting to believe that he's feeding them a line of bullshit as well.  When the campaign is over, he'll shake up the Etch-a-Sketch, and magically become the real Mitt Romney who just so happens to be the perfect candidate we always wanted him to be e.g. the exact opposite of the one he claimed to be.  But, no, this is the real guy.  This is the person who may become President.  And deep down in his heart, he detests every one of us.

The other factor of course is, he's said some offensive things about the poor, holds some policies that will definitely hurt us, and may obviously not give a shit, but he has never up to this point said anything as definitive as "These people are not useful to me, so I am not going to pay attention to them."  That's not something you say about your followers as a leader and expect to have them still accept you as a leader.  Even if they're slaves.  It's... well, it's the Cake Comment that Mongrel was waiting for.  It's exactly what it is.  An unthinking, absolute writeoff of the people who are depending on you for support.

And then there's a third, that's unique to this country: We really, really love our democracy, or at least our rough semblance of it.  If you say out loud, "47% of the people have no voice as far as I'm concerned", then you're just about a rounding error away from being Against the People.  Even if we have trouble articulating it, every American has a revulsion to that built right into our most basic beliefs.  On some level, I'm sure even the fundamentalists are shocked.

So in short: Yes, a single gaffe can still end a campaign - if your gaffe is less of a loud scream and more declaring yourself to be King George IV.