Swopa!

I am hoping that things will be relatively quiet until a couple of weeks before the conventions. This fall looks to be really ugly.

Since Mittens is, in his own inimitable way, as stupid as Dubya ever was, the best thing he could do between now and the convention is just shut up.

But I’m not betting on that happening.

I can guarantee that will not happen. He is in a tough spot, since much of the GOP base are either lukewarm toward him or actively loath him. He has to make a case for them to vote for him and not just sit home. That is why I think it will get ugly in the fall. The ads for senator and governor here already are getting that way.

In 2008, the Obama campaign very famously adopted the lie-low-until-September strategy (drawing criticism from many progressives — obviously not for the last time! — who wanted a nonstop fighting approach).

However, they’re probably also looking at the model of Clinton’s reelection in 1996, when his campaign aggressively sought to define Dole early on.

Fortunately for Team Obama, defining Romney requires little more than simply telling the truth. Too bad they can’t say the same for defining Obama at this point.

Obama also faces the problem of relatively low enthusiasm among the Dem base (at least as compared to 2008) and close polling numbers. I think this election is going to be about turn out as much as anything. Whichever side manages to mobilize more of their voters to go to the polls wins. That also applies to the “independents”/”swing voters”, who mostly really aren’t either of those things. They are mostly Democrats or Republicans (based on voting behavior) who do not like labels and who swing between voting and not voting, not between parties.

Shittiest election season ever. Raw dog, either way. I only hope more Americans opt out of the duopoly. But I think the Unitary Executive and the National Security State remain intact, controlling pretty much everything, with guns and money and suchlike, and I can’t see civil disobedience (even armed insurrection) making a bit of difference. Welcome…as they say…to The Machine.

Maybe I’ve just got a perverse streak in me, but I can’t figure out who the Republican base is. The tea=jerks are not, I hope (!), the majority, but I haven’t a clue what the majority really wants. And I can’t figure out who the Democratic base is, either. Can you? So, yeah, I’ll tolerate a full on slug fest for the next several months while we try to figure out who stands for what and who stands behind them. Bring it.

Yeah. “Not quite as bad as the other guy” is not the most inspiring slogan.

As far as I can tell, the GOP base is roughly 1/3 Teabaggers, 1/3 Talibangelicals/social conservatives (including the racists), and 1/3 the rich and business types. The Dem base seems to be progressives, minorities, the LGBT community, women, women, and those portions of the working classes that do not fall into the first two groups of the GOP base.

“You said ‘women’ twice.”

“I like women.”

And I do! All of my grad students are women. So was my mother.

If that is even somewhat true, I do not see how Magic-Underpants Steal-Your-Job Romney can win. If that is even somewhat true, I don’t know who in the hell Obama thinks will vote for him!

Yeah, but don’t overlook the ‘my two dads’ guys and gals!

It would be hilarious if no one showed up to vote, but that’s another one I’m not betting on.

Fry: “When did you become so interested in politics, Professor?”
Prof. Farnsworth: “The minute I became old!”

The sad reality is that one of them has to win and it would be really sad if they were elected by a tiny minority.

Last time around my brother and my dad, both old school Republicans, just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for McCrazy, and they sure as hell weren’t voting for the black guy…..so they just didn’t vote for the top sport. I understood. What I did not understand is that this time around they will be content to vote for Mr.Business-is-my-Business while I can’t imagine voting at all for the top spot. My, my …. how Obama did rehabilitate the decrepit Republican Party.

But I do believe that a tiny minority is what is most likely to happen. And I believe that because I think that Mr. Hopey-Changey just basically shat upon all the people who were apparently fooled by him. Seen him backing the unions in Wisconsin? I didn’t think so. Did he … timely!….speak up for equality in marriage? I don’t think so. Did he back Dan Choi and others… not till Mr. Potus’s butt was on fire. Who does O stand for? Not for you or me.

I’ve often said that the only people who could save the Republicans from themselves are the Democrats.

And they seem to working real hard at it these days, and it is not just Obama.

Oh Swopa – SCOTUS is going to rule on ACA sometime in June. So, I’m just saying, the landscape is going to heat up, in some direction, in this what you say in your first sentence:

“…next month or two to be the dullest part of the 2012 presidential race.”

Au contraire mon frere, shit is going to heat up big time IMO in the next month or two.

My, my …. how Obama did rehabilitate the decrepit Republican Party.

How so?

Oh no, it’s pretty much every party Democrat. Even the Progressives continually cede framing and problem identification.

By trashing his own base and also by allowing banksters to go free, by ‘looking forward’ and by removing himself from the people who voted for him. He gave space for the tea-jerks to go frenzy-like and to bring the Republicans back to life. Well, that’s just me musing. YMMV.

And, Swopa, on May 10, Obama did make an etch-a-sketch reference in regard to Romney trying to take credit for saving the auto industry. I’m not link-a-licious, but the google hits it on the first try.

No, that may explain the muted enthusiasm on the Left for Obama, it does not explain the intensity of the opposition to him on the Right.

Time for me to toddle off. Farmers’ Market in the morning and I want to get there early to get the good stuff.

Hey, I have no problem recognizing the racism on the right…..but I still think that if Obama had been less ‘bipartisany’ (i.e., weak and foldable)and had he not ignored, dissed and disparaged his ‘base’ then I think he’d have held the crazy right wing at bay. But, hey, that’s just me. Maybe he ‘couldn’t’ be a Democrat.

That’s true. I meant they hadn’t put it in an ad yet, but you’re right that Obama fired a warning shot there.