Day: October 3, 2012
Press Is Covering Romney as a Losing Candidate
The press is doing to Romney the same thing it did to John Kerry, and to Al Gore before him: Covering him as a loser. A weird loser. A distant loser, who is ‘uncomfortable in his own skin’ and ‘failing to connect’ with ‘regular voters.’ The contempt and pity for him as a candidate is almost palpable, and each moment in the campaign is distorted imperceptibly, as if by magnetism, to reinforce the Romney caricature. This is how we got a flurry of stories, for instance, about how Romney doesn’t know why airplane windows don’t roll down.
— John Cook, writing on Gawker.
Ryan Continues to Evade the Math Portion of the Test
This last weekend, Paul Ryan repeatedly dodged questions about the mathematical impossibility of the tax plan he and Mitt Romney are running on, and then, having burned through seven repeated questions and two minutes of dodging, insisted he couldn’t answer because the math would take too long. Today Bloomberg News spoke to Ryan and promised he could have all the time he wanted to get into the math. Guess what? He still didn’t. Rather than try to reconcile his irreconcilable promises, Ryan dissembled his way through another interview.
—Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.
Ryan Believes 30 Percent of Americans Want Welfare State
Seventy percent of Americans want the American dream. They believe in the American idea. Only 30 percent want their welfare state. Before too long, we could become a society where the net majority of Americans are takers, not makers.
— Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan, in remarks he made in November 2011.
20 Percent of Voters Could Be Swayed By Debates
8 in 10
Americans in a USA Today poll say there’s nothing either candidate could say or do in the debates that would change their minds about their vote. Still, one in five say the debates could sway them — including 24% of Obama supporters and 18% of Romney supporters.
Republicans Much Less Popular than Democrats
49% to 42%
The Democratic party is slightly more popular than unpopular, while the Republicans are underwater, 39% to 53%, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll.
Hey, Fox and Drudge: Here’s Video of Mitt Romney Attempting a Southern Accent From March – Not Five Years Ago
The Daily Show
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The right-wing-o-sphere is ablaze over a five-year-old non-secret video being promoted by Fox News et al as a devastating “October surprise” bombshell that shows then-Sen. Obama addressing a historically black college in Virginia in what is actually a fairly passable Southern accent.
And yes, affecting an accent that is not one’s own in an attempt to appeal to a particular audience is pandering — but it’s also something almost all politicians do. See for example the video above from March — seven months ago — in which Jon Stewart skewers Mitt Romney for attempting to use Southernisms to appeal to white voters in the Deep South during the Republican primaries.
