This is the tack Romney’s going to take — to accept fully the left’s narrative frame about a recovering economy and then work to attack it along its periphery with complaints that it took a longer time than it had to? Really? Really?
Because isn’t that what Obama himself is saying — that the economy was worse off than he believed initially, and that therefore the recovery, now finally gaining momentum, took longer than expected to get kicked into gear? Or in other words, that Obama’s policies are working?
Yet we’re to believe Santorum is the “economic lightweight”?
Honestly. Does Romney want to beat Obama or join onto his campaign as an advisor?
We can do better.
Romney to base” I really don’t feel your pain. I’m with Obama on the recovery issue. I’ve seen his numbers and they look good to me. “
Strategery!
Fucking imbecile
Romney to base: ” The president is laughing at you as ‘flat earthers’. He is not helping you. he is not helping you get back to work. His policies continue to hurt you and raise prices. I’m mostly okay with that. Championing you and promising you with help (not short term monetary AID payments to shut me up, but actual help and leadership in struggling with the tightening coils of the ravenous kraken of government) would be silly and imprudent. Vote for me! As on the left so on the supposed right!”
One subject Romney seems to have mastered with some depth and precision: suicide.
Romney to base: ” I’m a better Obama than Obama is so vote for me to be the new slower Obama who won’t just jam it in and break if off. You’re still going to get effed but you don’t have to squirm so much while it happens. ”
Romney to base: ” Liberty is not a real choice on this alphanumeric phone menu. For liberty press ?. Oh…right. No ? key. And you can’t Alphanumeric it because it’s a non-terminous non-repeating decimal. Sorry. Well…too bad. Grow up and vote for me! Because I’m relatively libertesque. Sometimes. Like McCain. Maverick II! “
Hey! You ate my pi font! Thats sucks!
For a nano-second there I almost thought Jonathan Karl might want to talk about that vanishing creature, the family car trip.
And yet every time when political discussions erupt at my favorite bars or in get togethers of friends, I point out that the GOP is not your friend, or that they’re really not any different or better than the dems, I get looked at as if I were a freakin’ heretic.
link
I think what we are supposed to take for granted is that Romney would GOVERN differently from Obama. It sure does seem, however, that he’s intent on campaigning as if… I swear, I was going to say “as if he’s more likable,” but I don’t even think that’s it.
What is the case for Romney? Every time I try to figure it out, I come up with nothing.
Does Romney want to beat Obama or join onto his campaign as an advisor?
A consolation prize is better than nothing. I think I learned that at Bain Capital.
So…Romney claims we’re in a too-slow recovery (just like Obama always does!), then when challenged on that immediately walks it back, then claims this recession (see, now it is a recession after all) is bound to get better in spite of Obama’s policies because…historically we always recover from recessions, or something.
Sigh.
On the other hand, given that the perversity of the universe tends to a maximum, perhaps this verbal tapioca will sell like truffled pasta to the moderate middle, and we’ll avoid Obama II. That is, we’ll settle for maintaining the status quo of Obama I, which is the Romney outlook.
What say you George? Avoiding Obama II is one thing (most probable in my view), avoiding an economic downturn driven by extended high transportation fuel costs? That a nasty horse of a coming color.
Who knows about the vagaries of fuel costs? It will help if Mittens does what he can to liberalize oil leases and exploration, but given the legions of lawyers and bureaucrats devoted to throwing legal challenges under the wheels, it may not help all that much. At any rate, if there’s a short war of some sort between Iran and Israel before the election, I have no clue how that plays out for Obama’s chances. There is always a “rally around the President” effect, so it may not hurt but instead help him, especially with the MFM running interference for Barry.
“There is always a “rally around the President” effect, so it may not hurt but instead help him, especially with the MFM running interference for Barry.”
I concur, in fact lean toward open warfare helping Obama, though I don’t think he’ll seek it, if it should come, so much as stumble into it unwittingly. As far as high fuel costs go, I suspect they could come down or begin to come down by the time of election, but that the damage would have already been done, though the wider effects of that damage may not show fully for a few months at that point.
“I think [Obama] is great.” — Matt Romney
“If only Obama had appointed me to an ambassadorship, I’d already have this nomination sewn up!”
oh my hairplugs
Joe Biden Booed Loudly at Pittsburgh St. Paddy’s Day Parade – Hands Out O’Bama Signs (Video)
Better hair, better church, doesn’t believe the time comes when you’ve made enough money.
Obama’s just a little in over his head. That’s all.
I’m not wasting my super expensive gas to drive to the polls this fall, I can promise you that.
So, here’s what Mitt is *not* running on, either explicitly, or implicitly because of his Massachusetts carpetbaggage:
1. Obamacare.
2. Energy production.
3. Religious liberty.
4. The economy.
Okay! I guess the party platform can be shortened in the process. Just have it read “Mitt Romney.”
Maybe he’s trying to run the first campaign where everything that can be said on his behalf is actually on the bumper sticker.
Mitt Romney 2012: because white chocolate is less fattening than dark.
FTFY.
“Obama’s going to lose anyway so why shouldn’t I take credit for it?”
Wait till the boy apprentice loses the spear and blows the wizard and dragon up. Stick sword in charred dragon corpse. Garnish with PR. Serve.
I’m pretty sure we are in recovery mode.
Was it the $4+ dollar gas, the depressed housing market, the millions of new jobless people, the record debt, or the prospect of what inflation would do that brought you to your conclusion?
Or maybe it was something else — like really really really wanting it to be so, and listening to those in whose interests it remains to tell you it really really really is so?
Meat prices are way up too.
This johntaylor thing, which one is that again?
I was actually going off GDP and employment. Things recessions and recoveries are traditionally measured off of. The stock market is another typical indicator.
And while home sales are not an indicator of recession/expansion, inventories are trending down and sales are trending up.
Since I’ve been here, these are the winning donkeys you’ve chosen to ride:
* The Catholic Bishops are right
* Rush is right
* The economy is getting worse
* Santorum or bust
Yee-haw!
That would be the GDP growth-rate that’s half of what it was and the unemployment rate that’s twice what it was when the media was telling us, at this point in the 2004 campaign, that Bush didn’t deserve reelection because the recovery was so pathetically weak?
“johntaylor” us so dum that you cannot insult it.
johntaylor, are you in college?
I think you may have told us a story when you claimed to have a consulting firm with 23 (?) employees.
House starts are recovery indicators and I don’t see them. Existing home sales just mean that people with money are buying up property that is being firesold are auction.
Banks are closing willy-nilly.
Hiring is stagnant or falling off.
Energy prices drive the cost of everything, so expect to see food costs go through the roof this summer. Indeed, they are already up 20+% since a year ago.
Inflation is going to give it to us good and hard pretty darned soon.
In short: You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Have you looked for them? They’re trending up.
No, it’s not. Here’s a really good place for all these kinds of stats:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/
That happens as the economy recovers – demand increases and world oil production is basically flat. Rising energy prices could derail the recovery. Note the words there – derail the recovery – because we’re in recovery mode.
But keep saying we aren’t, because (1) I would like to see Obama reelected (although I don’t think Romney would make a bad president and luckily Santorum is fading) and (2) the more you argue with graphs the less likely you are to be taken seriously.
And yet the President isn’t riding the “recovery” donkey. Instead, he’s pulpit-thumping about the “war on women,” “Flat-earthers” and other-non-economic issues.
Odd, that.
Then, I suppose, record lows in workforce participation and household inflation of 8 percent would make “Recovery Summer II” a bit of a box office flop.
No, John Taylor: you keep insisting to the millions who’ve lost jobs, who are daily molested by the government and its regulatory agencies, and who are enjoying the blessings of a “recovery” that you say is gloriously prompting $4.50 gas (see, economic victory!), that you read on some leftwing blogs that they really are just fine.
I’m sure that’s all it takes to make it so.
Also, be sure to ignore any charts that don’t quite fit your narrative. That way you won’t technically be arguing against them — instead, ignoring them completely and pretending they don’t exist — and you’ll be taken seriously!
(by the way, the top story on the blog you link notes that the housing market may finally bottom out this year some time. RECOVERY SUMMER 3!)