I’m not too sure the speech was designed to dissuade the neanderthal cult of the Trump demigod. Romney is dumber than he looks if he believed he could even make a dent in the hive mind of that crowd. But I could see where his effort might help stop some of the bleeding. Trump has a cap. I’d guess there’s at least some small percentage of fence sitters that you might skim off the top and get a dialog going that could reach few more people. Who knows. Either way it’s still funny as shit to watch.
Mitt Romney: He talks and talks and pleads and pleads. No one listens. No one cares.
1 Like
It depends whether both you guys are talking about the soft drink or the not-so-soft drink. 
1 Like
Greedy narcissist phony fails to persuade voters to abandon another greedy narcissist phony.
I guess what it comes down to for the GOP is whether there are more people like the lady you met, or more people like this:
I’m no more of a Mitt fan than the average TPM reader…
but I still appreciate any effort to call attention to what a train wreck Drumpf is.
Yes, to Drumpf supporters who say that they vote for him as a
“middle finger to the establishment” (ignoring the billionaire irony for now)
it will only make them even more irrational.
But sober types DO need to call out Trump…in part because he’s dangerous
(imagine him with the nuclear codes) and from the Republican perspective,
as Romney says, if they go with Trump, they will get crushed in the general.
In short, I never cared how Drumpf fanatics would react, MR spoke out about
a crazy, dangerous person, to those who will listen, and I can’t fault him for that.
This is what I’m saying:
Well, there’s a picture that’s worth a thousand words, all of them synonyms for “crazy.” Saw video of her, she’s certifiable. But at least where I live, there are lots of country-club types. They were the norm at one point, although we’re bluing up. Low taxes, light regulations, sure, but not the wingnut stuff. Overton window has affected some but by no means all. Mostly just offering an anecdote to go with numbers we already have.
2 Likes
For sure, and your analysis makes a lot of sense. I also suspect Romney hoped having a luminary such as himself weigh in on the situation would break the ice, so-to-speak. Other politicians would follow his inspirational lead, and Trump’s facade would get chipped away through repetition at the very least. That has absolutely not happened, of course. For an inspiring, charismatic Republican politician, one could scarcely make a blander choice than Romney – he’s pablum to Trump’s tabasco. But those who maybe, possibly, just might have been able to rope in others to follow their lead – Paul Ryan maybe? He’s popular with both the rubes and the right-wing punditocracy – have hedged their bets in very cowardly fashion. Hence all the “#never trump… but I’ll support him if he’s the nominee” foolishness.
1 Like
Hell, they pretty much defined the GOP for my entire life up until about 2000, when GWB stuffed his administration and the courts with religious nutcases, and the crazification accelerated to warp speed in 2010. I think that John Boehner exemplifies that rapidly-dying breed of conservative-but-not-bugfuck-crazy Republican, and I believe he bailed because the Tea Partiers are just too fucking lunatic for him to want to deal with any more.
3 Likes
I agree, and this polling seems to bear that out as well. You are correct, Romney and the whole NotTrump campaign is not aimed at his core supporters; rather, its aimed at peeling off the people leaning that way
'Among Republican voters, 31 percent said they were more likely to vote for Trump following Romney’s speech, while 20 percent said they were less likely to vote for Trump."
That seems to match up well. 31% is the low end of his hardcore support, 20% is roughly the people that were supporting someone else and were migrating towards Trump (his highest national polling was at 49%).
So I look at those numbers and would say that Romney actually delivered more damage than I would have thought, and actually may a dent in precisely the group he was targeting.
This weekend’s contests would seem to give support to that thesis as well.
Romney’s speech, on the other hand, was a huge and unexpected bonus for Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, who will now have a HUUUUGGGGE arsenal of anti-Trump talking points, ready to load up into a series of campaign ads.
Thanks, Mitt!
It rallied them if anything. Possibly bringing in more people who would have stayed home.
Possibly.
But I bet it will keep more people–who were flirting with the idea of supporting Trump–
home, thinking: “Oh my God, I was considering voting for that?!?”
(Again, I think the hard-core Trumpsters are unreachable by logic & rationality…but I don’t think that that means that anti-Trump criticism shouldn’t be widespread amongst the sober…though I do think that a Trump nomination would be the best gift the Republicans could ever give the Dems)
Do they still make Jolt! Cola?
Just being silly. I had real moonshine at a music festival once. I also worked with an editor on a morning paper once who drank Mountain Dew continuously in the early morning hours. He was always kind of twitching and bobbing around.
…I just made the connection between Moonshine and Mountain Dew. This never occurred to me before. Holy crap.