The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Further Omens of Impending Doom

Posted on | April 16, 2012 | 31 Comments

It’s Romney 47%, Obama 45% in the first Gallup Daily Tracking Poll of the 2012 general election campaign, and I’m sure everybody’s happy at this apparent falsification of the claim that a bitterly contested fight for the nomination was bad for GOP prospects.

Having foresworn any actual optimism, however, I regard this as a false hope: We’re still as doomed as ever, but the pollsters and media are trying to trick us into thinking Mitt can really beat Obama. They want to get everybody’s hopes up, so that Republicans are utterly demoralized and disillusioned by the inevitable defeat on Nov. 6.

One of these days, I’ll have to start covering this campaign as if the outcome were not a foregone conclusion, but that day has not yet arrived, and so here are the latest headlines via Memeorandum:

Romney offers policy details
at closed-door fundraiser
— MSNBC

Romney Specifies Deductions He’d Cut
— Wall Street Journal

Spilled Details Reveal Romney’s
Tax Promises As A Mirage
— Talking Points Memo

Even Behind Closed Doors,
Mitt Romney’s Tax Reform Ideas Are Timid
— Slate

Exclusive: Romney Sells Inauguration
Access, Nine Months Early
— Buzz Feed

That last headline bespeaks such deadly hubris, I think it safe to say that anyone who pays for access to the “Romney inauguration” is proving the truth of an old saying: A fool and his money are soon parted.

Another earthquake in Vanuatu? Existential dread overwhelms me.

UPDATE: Optimism from . . . Allahpundit? Say it ain’t so!

 

Category: Doomed Beyond All Hope of Redemption, Election 2012, Mitt Romney

Comments

31 Responses to “Further Omens of Impending Doom”

  1. Lisa Graas
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:02 pm

    Hail, Mary!

  2. Lisa Graas
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:03 pm

    You have earthquakes. I have Hail Marys.

  3. Lisa Graas
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:10 pm

    Oh, hey, did you read that line in the “deductions” article at WSJ about how he said he’s going to rely on “earned media” to win against Obama? In other words, don’t be relying on tip jar hits from Mitt for your defenses and praises, bloggers.

  4. robertstacymccain
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:16 pm

    Right: As of Feb. 29, between the Romney campaign and his super-PAC, they’d already spent over $100 million.

    Did anybody you know get a dime of that?

  5. Adobe_Walls
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:26 pm

    Exactly how is earned media defined?

  6. Adobe_Walls
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:29 pm

    In theory it makes perfect sense for Mitt to be starting to pull ahead of Obamsky. However, as I said the other day “rational metrics” seem to be in short supply.

  7. ThePaganTemple
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:32 pm

     Probably any mass media market where he can maximize the value of his advertising dollars, but that’s just a guess.

  8. Charles
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:50 pm

    Obviously one needs to buy one ticket to the Romney inauguration and one ticket to DoomCon. Then you’re bets are covered.

  9. Charles
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:57 pm

    The 2000 election proved the GOP can spot the Dems 500,000 votes and still win faster than you can call Rutherford B. Hayes on the telephone.

  10. willpeir
    April 16th, 2012 @ 5:59 pm

    Romney won mostly by being bland and painting everyone else as scary and unhinged. But I’m sure the mainstream media won’t attempt to use that strategy for Obama come Fall. Why, their integrity is at stake!

    http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/buffett-349130-obama-tax.html

  11. Charles
    April 16th, 2012 @ 6:07 pm

    I would imagine that his new media people would hit the tip jars of bloggers who support him, not the ones who insist he’s doomed. George Soros may have some money for the gloom and doomers.

  12. Rick_GraniteGrok
    April 16th, 2012 @ 6:46 pm

    I tell relatives to prepare for Obama term 2…they tell me I am out of my tree…

  13. Pathfinder's wife
    April 16th, 2012 @ 7:09 pm

    That was Bush v. Gore, prior to BDS and faults aside, Bush could be a very likeable guy who could connect with people.
    And, well, against Gore.

    This will not be ’00.

  14. Shawn Gillogly
    April 16th, 2012 @ 7:27 pm

     Nope. By November, Romney will be ‘erratic,’ ‘unhinged’ and every gaffe he commits will be rammed into the meme.

    And given his great reputation as a ‘fighter’ (yeah), he’ll be sure to leave the National GOP in just as good a place as he left the Mass GOP when he ran away instead of fight for reelection.

  15. Zilla of the Resistance
    April 16th, 2012 @ 7:43 pm

    So is it now officially impossible that there could be a brokered convention? 

  16. K-Bob
    April 16th, 2012 @ 8:37 pm

    Free network coverage due to something about your campaign being deemed “newsworthy.”

  17. Pathfinder's wife
    April 16th, 2012 @ 8:43 pm

    Technically no, but right now it certainly is looking impossible (and inevitable).

    …yay…

  18. Pathfinder's wife
    April 16th, 2012 @ 8:45 pm

    I think they are going to go with evil, lying, plutocrat and cold hearted schemer myself.

    In fact, I think they are going to go with a sort of reverse strategy to what the Repubs will be forced to run with: “Vote for Obama, at least he isn’t Romney”.
    This could get interesting — I need to buy up on popcorn.

  19. K-Bob
    April 16th, 2012 @ 8:50 pm

    The reason Romney brings the DOOM! is because folks on the right have not mastered the art of telling convincing lies.

    Thus the only thing we can do with any real *conviction* is to tell everyone how bad Obama is.

    We’re expected to unseat an incumbent via opprobrium, and support our candidate with noiseless, moment-free, tepid “sanction.”

    It’s golf claps all around!  We need a new cocktail for celebrating this.

    Let’s see.  Unexciting. No-frills. Bland acceptance.  Bitter outlook.  What else would do, but an eight-ounce plastic tumbler of straight, Valu-Rite vodka–no ice?

  20. John
    April 16th, 2012 @ 8:52 pm

    This is going to be Dinkins vs. Giuliani, round 2. Polls will look terrible, right up until the end. Get ready for President Mitt.

  21. Adobe_Walls
    April 16th, 2012 @ 9:42 pm

    So that would encompass the “blogosphere” with the emphasis being on FREE, thanks.

  22. Adobe_Walls
    April 16th, 2012 @ 9:43 pm

    It would be really useful if we could call Rutherford B. Hayes on the telephone.

  23. Adobe_Walls
    April 16th, 2012 @ 9:46 pm

    They will use all the memes they can concoct, division of labor will assign different memes to the various elements of the Orwellian onslaught.

  24. Pathfinder's wife
    April 16th, 2012 @ 10:13 pm

    I’m thinking more of really cheap gin in a mug…with a chaser of watered down kool aide in a Dixie cup.

  25. Bob Belvedere
    April 17th, 2012 @ 9:02 am

    Prudence demands we prepare, but it seems to be an American trait not to.

    However, one can take solace in the fact that the show Doomsday Preppers is getting good ratings.

  26. Bob Belvedere
    April 17th, 2012 @ 9:05 am

    Exactly.  Both SG and PW are correct.

  27. SteveF
    April 17th, 2012 @ 9:13 am

    If the public support remains at 47-45 favoring Romney, Obama will be re-elected. If an election is close enough to steal, it will be stolen. By the Democrats.

  28. Narrative Arc: Second-Guessing Palin, Santorum’s Story and Romney’s Doom : The Other McCain
    April 17th, 2012 @ 1:01 pm

    […] 16: Further Omens of Impending DoomApril 11: Memo From the National Affairs Desk: Foreboding Gloom Pervades VanuatuApril 10: SANTORUM […]

  29. K-Bob
    April 17th, 2012 @ 3:32 pm

    Well, I doubt journos would agree to that, since “earned” means, “good enough for a journo to talk about it.” Out here in the blog realm, we’ll talk about any dirty little thing.

  30. K-Bob
    April 17th, 2012 @ 3:35 pm

     I think you just invented mouthwash!

  31. Tennwriter
    April 17th, 2012 @ 4:38 pm

    And then what?  Suppose you’re right?  How is this a good thing?  Don’t you realize?  Don’t you feel the onrushing Doom?  Is there that much difference between Obama and Mittens that its enough to get excited about except in a negative ‘I hate both these guys’ way which barely rises above my distaste intensity level for Coca-cola that has lost its carbonation?  Why, oh, why should I care?  Realize not that we, that is America, have lost alrready?  Know you not that if the answer is ‘Mitt’, it was a really stupid question?  Why should I cheer that the Moderates and the Dishonest have managed to push a stale, yellow ice covered mitten down my throat?  Am I supposed to be so loyal that I will willingly join in the party to beat my head into a wall?  How many more straws can the camel take before it rolls over, belches out a gaseous obnoxity, and dies?  Don’t you think that a  John McCain style cratering is more likely?  After Obama wins, will the moderates, the RINOS, and the corrupt big businessmen promise with a gold-ring bedecked pinkie to never, ever vote for a modrate aka liberal again, at least in the GOP? 

    Is this guy ever going to stop asking stupid questions?