Let me answer semi-briefly:
1) The message seems managed and contrived. Lots of talk of liberty, inclusivity, growth — and yet at the same time, we’re told Obama is a nice guy who sold us hope and change but who hasn’t succeeded at giving us what he promised. Now, why they’re going with this message is obvious: it’s the, it’s okay, you maybe fucked up in ’08, but it’s not your fault you fell for the faux pragmatism of the committed Marxist, we understand how and why you fell for it, hope and change is seductive, and you wanted to believe.
— Which I’m sure they believe gives cover to “moderates” and “independents” who broke for Obama in 2008 to change course. And because the GOP establishment aims nearly everything toward moderates and independents, the message they are selling is at once predictable and discouraging. Because it is politics as usual. And people know that’s what they are going to get from a Romney campaign. So why watch? Nobody likes to feel like they’re being talked to by focus-group results. And yet we know we are with Romney and the RNC.
2) There are no real undecideds left. The economy is in the tank. The private sector is largely foundering. The takers make up nearly 50% of the electorate. And the Left has institutionalized, through the media, academia, pop culture, and its political messaging, a grievance and entitlement society that is meant to Balkanize us. This is their voter bloc, and they have decided to sit back, rail at the capitalist system, and justify their own enslavement to the state that provides for them. People who view national politics through the lens of their own identity grievance group have already made up their minds. The Left has cut loose the religious; they’ve embraced the secularists, be they in the various ethnic identity group movements, the gay community, the “feminists”, or the environmentalists. These people, nasty sorts, make up the rhetorical and intellectual apparatus of the modern day Democratic party.
— So why watch a convention if your mind is already made up?
3) It’s one thing to talk about an American Renaissance, but it’s quite another to work simultaneously to centralize the party’s power while kneecapping the very people who you rely on to get you elected. The GOP establishment has seized upon the grass roots’ fear that re-electing Obama will be the final step in the “fundamental transformation” he promised us in 2008. They know that we must vote for their candidate — and they are maximizing that advantage. What actually got done at this convention? One thing: the Party centralized its power through a rule change, and John Boehner pretended the shouting dissidents in front of his face didn’t even exist. That is your takeaway moment from this convention, the lasting optic that many of us will remember.
4) If people already know what you’re going to say and how you are going to say it, why bother? Obama’s cult of personality aside, politicians are not rock stars. Those who care enough about politics to tune in are those most committed to changing the country. And they have been routinely savaged by the party they are now forced to support. So fine. They’ll get our vote — out of necessity. But that doesn’t mean we need to listen to their bullshit.
5) We’re exhausted. And watching a convention driven by focus groups — and run, seemingly, on the optics that we have blacks and Hispanics,too! — is simply depressing. We’re not children. We don’t like being managed. We aren’t as susceptible to hamfisted propaganda as are the morons who make up the left’s conga line of useful idiots. So.
6) These are dangerous times. Balloons and bullshit, faux collegiality and faux concern — it doesn’t sell. The pragmatists consistently tell us how we have to message, whom we must appeal to, which optics and images will work, etc. — and yet they never seem much to care about the substance of the conservative message save how best to camouflage it or neuter it. They tell us how we MUST win seats — pragmatism! power! — and so we can’t get caught up in “purity,” and then they cut off funding to a pro-life candidate who they feel embarrasses them by suggesting that their pragmatism is actually tied to certain issues that, for some, are more than just a political calculus.
7) Does anything we do make a difference? We change the makeup of the Congress and we get Boehner and attacks on the TEA Party. We rise up en mass, and we get John Roberts and the legacy of His Bipartisan Court ready to smack us down. We manage to convince Congress to block legislation, and Obama simply issues a dictate and it is done — and the House leadership lacks the balls or the will to block funding (either that, or they realize that these new precedents being set will work for them once they have a GOP President; this is an inside-the-Beltway power game, and we are but the pawns being used to fill out the board).
There. Hope that helps, Mark. As for what the decline in viewership itself augurs? Nothing, in terms of this election, save for the conservatives who have determined to stay home and make this thing close when it needn’t be, had the GOP given us a candidate who didn’t himself create a top-down government run health care system in Mass; who didn’t himself strike against religious liberty by siding with bureaucratic consistency; who hadn’t himself shown a propensity to accept the government’s role in regulating “climate change”; who sells himself as a businessman, yet believes in pinning the minimum wage to inflation; and who has surrounded himself with many Bush-types, rehashing the compassionate conservative message that, in the end, was one major catalyst for the TEA Party that right now is out of necessity supporting him.
But I suspect when it gets down to the wire, they’ll relent, just as the GOP knows they will. After which? Well, I don’t think the power structure has any idea what’s coming.
Discuss.
Greetings:
As I meld even more with your mind, I would add the following.
1) In the bits and pieces of the convention that I saw, what occurred most often to me was, when the media types were asking their oblivion-based questions, “Gee, that would have been a great question to ask Barack Obama back in ’08”. So, I would add maybe many viewers where not in need of another media two-step around the dance floor.
2) The Republicans have again supplied America with a nice, honorable Presidential candidate. But instead of Clint Eastwood’s “performance” I would have opted for a Sean Connery reprise of his “Chicago Way” soliloquy from the film “The Untouchables”. The guttersnipes that currently hold power in Washington (D.C.) haven’t earned any “nice” or “honorable” and will take every advantage that they can of those character traits.
That’s a fine summation. Ersatz politics. Not our politics, but a zombie politics parading around in a politics costume. Which everyone knows is fake, which the fakers know everyone knows, yet know also, they can continue for a little while to carry on.
I’d like to look at the numbers because how do you compare 08 viewership that lasted hours with 12 viewership that the major broadcast only allowed 1 hour each night and manhandled the coverage?
Maybe a lot of people just are exhausted by the increasingly desperate MSM?
My only quibble, is it isn’t conservatives who decided to make this close by staying home. It’s the establishment who did that, as they always do, because “the GOP establishment aims nearly everything toward moderates and independents,” as Jeff noted. At that’s because the establishment isn’t conservative, it’s status quo.
I didn’t watch a second of the convention live. (I watched some clips on the internet) I won’t watch the Democratic convention either.
I’m going to vote against Obama in November, and there are millions more like me.
Harvey Mansfield surveys six political writers on elections.
It isn’t a close race. I think we are witnessing a national Bradley effect.
Who doesn’t expect conventions to be a parade of fakery? Not me, that’s for sure. I’ve watched the things ever since I was in pigtails. We can bitch about the stagecraft all we want, but the conventions are big parties and aren’t going to change anyone’s minds. Who watches them? The party faithful and news junkies.
I like them for the silly hats. The shameless patriotism. The hageography about the candidates. The soaring, and sometimes not, rhetoric. The speeches by loved ones, especially the wife whom we may not have met. I like all the little kids all dresses up with shiny clean faces and new haircuts or hairbows. And the balloon drop.
Of course, I’m just a flagwaving bitter-clinger and that’s my 2¢.
40-50% less this time than last.
Maybe that 40-50% can no longer afford their cable bills.
I’d be curious to see if there was an increase in people watching on C-SPAN instead of the broadcast & cable coverage. I watched some of the speeches (Mia Love, Susana Martinez, Ryan, and Clint), but I am sick to death of the instant “analysis” by pundits and political operatives. That’s as big a turn-off as the scripted messaging from the RNC/DNC.
At that’s because the establishment isn’t conservative, it’s status quo.
And status quo is statist.
Just as predictable too, Libby
Libby
Yep, after sampling the “coverage” on Tuesday we went CSPAN
Watched a bit of CNN and was disgusted yet again at ‘reporters’ on the floor sticking mikes in the faces of people and saying “how about Mitt’s likeability problem?” or “how are you guys going to fix your woman problem?”
heh
Mike-sticking Reporter: “So, how do you like Mitt’s stance on ending Iran’s development of nuclear weapons?”
Mike-stuck Respondent: “What stance?”
Mike-stickeR: “Exactly.”
Now, why they’re going with this message is obvious: it’s the, it’s okay, you maybe fucked up in ’08, but it’s not your fault you fell for the faux pragmatism of the committed Marxist, we understand how and why you fell for it, hope and change is seductive, and you wanted to believe.
To your point Jeff:
“But in all seriousness, do you know why so many of us believed? We led with our hearts and our dreams that we could be more inclusive than America had ever been, and no candidate had ever spoken so beautifully.“
Wasn’t that Artur Davis that said that?
– Marxists always speak beautifly, just before they enslave you.
* Foreskin! *
– Oh, and too all the Progressives that heart their enslavement….
* Welcome to pleasure Island. Your ears and tails will begin growing shortly – bon appitite’ comrads! *
How do they track viewership anyway? I assume only stupid people agree to allow what they watch being tracked. otherwise, why would tv content be so insipid?
40-50% less
Tastes great !
…
Less filling !
…
– They use to use paid viewer tracking via phone Car in. I was one for a short time in the 70’s, back when TV guidr was regular household reading and distributed with the Sunday newspapers.
– Not sure how they do it now, but probably something similar on the net.
There’s no mystery, no drama about what might happen, just an overly prepared message: “My side good, your side bad.” Nobody but people looking to pump themselves up or people looking to pick it apart for their own overly prepared message cares.
Nor should they.
– They use to use paid viewer tracking via phone Car in. I was one for a short time in the 70?s, back when TV guidr was regular household reading and distributed with the Sunday newspapers.
– Not sure how they do it now, but probably something similar on the net.
If someone asked me to do that, I think I’d tell them to pound sand. I think I actually did that once.
I postulate that the lower viewership echos the people who bought the hope and change, were tuned in (sorta) in 08 … and now, just don’t care so much.
They may not even vote this time around. They’ve returned to their apathetic mode, after realizing that their enthusiasm was misplaced.
And the balloon drop.
Oh, totally. My 12 y/o stayed up to watch with me.
Sure they do.
I’m gonna hop on with Libby & Darleen here. I clued my Folks into C-SPAN to watch un-enturuppted.
And during Eastwood’s speech, my Pop actually called me and said, “That thing is a hi-chair! It’s like he’s trying to reason with an invisible 3 year old while trying to have a decent meal at Chilli’s“.
Rocker. Off. Fell.
Gaia is messing with them already.
Ha! leigh.
The “Golden Calf” got all submerged and ruined by rain & salt water?
Oh noes!
I was promised four years ago that Obama had the seas under his control.
What a horrible turn of events.
I’m sure they can get the Greek Columns out of storage and dusted off in time… for the most pathetic show…of all time.
Is it wrong that I smile because somewhere Chris Matthews is crying?
Lamont, you just know Barry has those Greek columns in his bathroom. That way he can remember the heady days of yore while he’s shaving.
That or he has them next to the throne. IYKWIMAITTYD.
8) No Sarah Palin. Really.
“I was promised four years ago that Obama had the seas under his control.”
Yah, but Rush Limbaugh hoped he’d fail and that broke the spell.
I watched the first night, after finding out about the rules “vote”. That made me not want to watch any more.
And the DNC? Well, there’s going to be a balloon drop. But I don’t think they’ll be doing a tribute to JFK.
Quite frankly, since RP chose to run as a Republican this time and then refused to fully endorse* the winner, then refused to release his delegates, he came across as a sore loser.
*What does that even mean? You can qualify an endorsement now? Either you endorse or you do not. The rest are weasel words.
I don’t think they’ll be doing a tribute to JFK.
More likely a montage of other presidents (D of course) interspersed with pictures of the Wonce’s Great Deeds™.
It will be a short film.
Agreed, Pablo. Excluding Sarah Palin from the list of prime-time speakers was a breathtaking act of stupidity.
Are you guys serious? (She asked, rhetorically.)
Like there hasn’t been enough of a brouhaha about Clint Eastwood “eclipsing” the whole shebang.
It was bad enough that McCoot was there.
This has been tweeted to @marklevinshow.
Anyone here thinking of a new political party in 2016, regardless of the November outcome?
Leigh, aside from my own feelings about Sarah Palin, having her on would have made sense merely from a utilitarian standpoint. She has lots of loyal supporters whose votes the Republican Party should not take for granted. And if eclipsing was a concern, they could have scheduled her for Tuesday so her speech wouldn’t have stepped on those of Ryan and Romney.
The thought has crossed my mind, David.
I know where you’re coming from, Mike. It would be nice if she could just show up, speechify, hit the road. Sadly, that’s not what would happen.
I have some liberal friends who basically loath Palin, but even they admit she can light up a crowd and it was stupid to not have her speak.
I’d have been okay with Palin if they’d dropped McCoot.
Both of them would have been too big a reminder of what a party of dumbasses the GOP is. IMHO, anyway.
OT: BBH (and anyone else into ‘space’ stuff) – if you haven’t listened to it yet, you might really appreciate Bill Whittle’s latest Stratosphere Lounge episode. It’s his tribute to Neil Armstrong, the awesomeness of the NASA in the ’60s, and his surprisingly thought-out plans for making Space Exploration happen again in our lifetime, without using a cent of Govt. money.
His optimism and enthusiasm are infectuous. The dude rocks.
I think the answer to Levin’s question is easy. The Republican base is not FOR Romney, only AGAINST the Democrats.
When picking the lessor of two evils, you’re still picking an evil. Obama stinks, yes, but Romney is no summer rose either.
Plus, we’ve been through this before. McCain was very noxious, especially since Obama was effectively sterilized by the media, so, as others have alluded to, it was purely Palin that energized the rank and file. Further, because of that slice of history, people aren’t going to get so energized over Ryan. The RNC has shown us what they consider window dressing, not to be taken seriously.
I was listening to Mark when he first posed the question, and I thought the very first caller nailed it. “You want me to lie to my neighbors about Romney?” he asked. Mark brushed him off, but that’s the attitude Mr. Inevitable candidate inspires. Fear of what Obama is doing to the country, not faith in what he will do for the country.
Romney was shoved down our throat, and it’s hard to get excited, what with all the gagging and choking…
The stats are misleading. Viewership is way down when compared to the 2008 conventions — but those conventions were huge outliers in terms of total viewership. See this Nielsen chart comparing ratings of conventions from 1960 to 2008: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Conventions-Historic-TV-Ratings-Track.pdf
Coventions are anachronisms; it’s not the 1880s anymore. Nobody needs to watch a convention to know everything about the candidates and their platforms.
The Internet — it’s that simple. I would have watched, but didn’t need to with following Twitter, blogs, and video posted therein. Who wants to listen to all the snarky “wisdom” interspersed with too-numerous commercials? Not me. I can watch the speeches at my leisure.
I think Romney/Ryan has the potential to be a better ticket than Reagan/Bush. Mitt has shifted to the right and the Ryan pick is encouraging. It is certainly the best ticket SINCE Reagan already. Bush/Cheney darn near killed us and McCain/Palin was a non-starter. Needing to appeal to moderates is a political reality.
The polling is clear on this, many people still like Obama personally. If you go too hard at him on a personal level even those who realize has hasn’t lived up to the hype spring to his defense. You said it yourself, you would be in essence telling the voters they were dumb for voting for him. We, Mitt and Ryan know they WERE dumb but unfortunately you can’t say that if you want to get votes.
A red meat convention might have made us happier but I don’t think it would have been effective. Romney and Ryan are on the right side of most issues, it always remains to be seen what they would do in office. I don’t think they would allow liberals like Ted Kennedy to write education bills for them or get us into 10 years wars the public hates.
I disagree with this article. Viewership was down because the MSM knows that the Democrats will have nothing positive to offer at their convention. So they are making a concerted effort to depress viewership for both conventions. They cut their coverage to 1 hour per night, and they did as little advertising for it as possible. They wanted their ratings to suck for the GOP convention, and they want their ratings to suck for the Democrat convention. They’re hoping that the less people who see both conventions, the better chance Obama has of winning.
The MSM has given us plenty of proof that they don’t care how much money or customers they lose. They are in the business of trying to “change the world” and “make a difference”. Hollywood is no different. The movie studios could have made a killing after 9/11 by making pro-American action films with Special Ops vs. Islamic terrorists replacing the old Cowboy vs. Indian roles. Instead, the movie studios gave us “Redacted” and “Syriana”, and a bunch of other anti-American flops that were too bad to even remember. They didn’t care. They’re on a mission.
The idea that viewership is down by close to 50% because Romney isn’t firing up the base is nonsense. Did McCain fire up the base?
Libby says September 1, 2012 at 11:28 am
I saw it all on C-Span. I wouldn’t go near the MSM again with a 10-foot pole.
I liked the convention. I agree with Jeff that much of it is BS but there are moments that are worth it, such as the older couple who recounted their son’s friendship with Romney. This mattered to my understanding.
“Leigh, aside from my own feelings about Sarah Palin, having her on would have made sense merely from a utilitarian standpoint. ”
If the republican establishment had been planning the sickening rules change takeover of the party from local leadership then they might not have wanted her anywhere NEAR a podium and indeed she might have bailed on them in protest.
It’s bad TV. If you can’t masturbate to it, what the Hell’s the damned point?
Bush/Cheney won twice. The housing bubble bursting killed us. That Bush was a big spending “Compassionate Conservative” didn’t hurt him a bit. The economy sunk McCain before he ever launched and the fact that he was a campaign pussy sealed the deal.
America is fickle, and weird. Look at who we elected.
As these things go, this is as good a ticket as we could have expected. But just between you and me, we’re still fucked. On the bright side, it might buy us some breathing room.
They say that because they don’t want to be called raaaaacissssstss by Obama’s basketball, not because they’re planning to vote for him.
And besides, there’s reason to believe he’s losing the independents
I picked out a few speeches that intrigued me (by checking the speakers & times online) and cared enough to hear & watch live.
I tuned into C-Span on for those (unfiltered).
If I missed one that I wanted to hear, I would find it soon enough on the web.
Cannot make myself watch any type of “news shows” as I get annoyed hearing the pundits come on after every speech and interpret what I just heard with my own ears and they generally agree that my ears need cleaning.
They’re just yapping to be yapping and filling the time with stupid commentary.
Missed quoting the best part:
Also, Mitt Romney’s “move to the right,” such as it is largely consisted of undermining the “true conservative” qualifications of his primary rivals in an effort to make the primary about electability by persuading Republican primary voters that all the candidates were impure.
It seems to be readily accepted that Romney, Obama, and Biden are that same old “pols” that Clint was trying to warn us about.(and Clint was the only person worth seeing on this show) But Ryan seems to be equally an equally gutless “yea” vote for the TARP swindle of the US Treasury. Everyone should be ready to limit all these thieves to a single term for the immediate future.
” What does it augur?”
As someone else indicated above, many of us – many, many of us – have a new way of watching televised political speech or theater.
A significant portion of the offerings thrown our way are fluff. Someone somewhere likes them, and they can be heartwarming or funny, but they transmit so little new information that it’s not worth our always-too-short available leisure time to stick butts to couch and watch the entire spectacle.
So you read the next-day critiques and see what’s making people talk, and then you go to YouTube and you only watch the useful stuff.
Well, plus the new car-crash vids, or big-storm vids, and at least one or two adorable-kitten vids that pop up by mistake . . .
This type of analysis strikes me as “Scrooge” slice of things.
Reminds me of a post on the Olympics suggesting the Olympics is bogus to the core. Take the javelin, how irrelevant an event it is. Sorry, I’d like to see how far a human can throw a thing, the javelin being a thing that flies farther than any other thing. Of course to that writer if it were a baseball or a football being thrown, he suddenly brighten up and think the whole thing was wonderful. Same with this analysis of the convention. It didn’t ring your bell, so the whole thing is bogus. Wrong.
I watched for about 5 minutes on a regular newscast on Tuesday night. I saw that they were being their usual self important arrogant selfs and I switched to CSPAN for the remainder of the convention.
The post commentary had very little relation to the actual speeches.
If I would have stayed with network or cabe coverage, I would have missed some of thee better speakers while the talking heads blathered on over them.
The post addresses the question “why…is viewership down?”; the answer is, as I’m reading jg, that both parties are corrupt; so, why should anyone bother to watch this crap, especially on ‘mainstream’ networks, where the crap is sifted, packaged and curdled with some other delivery-packaging-oaf’s own predetermined ideology?
Speaking for myself (a known political junkie who quickly gets bored when the shit being shoveled is obviously self-righteous shit) I knew when to tune in to see a particular speaker I wanted to hear. The rest were slapped up on YouTube clips almost immediately, so I didn’t miss much. I actually fell asleep listening to Mitt (boring and not so persuasive) Romney, so there’s that.
As for the specific speeches at this GOP convention, Clint Eastwood’s bit will become iconic, after others’ speeches are long-deservedly forgotten. If Rush Limbaugh had been permitted to speak, that would also have been excellent, because of my personal, handy Rule of Watching Political Speechifying thumb: if a LeftLibProgg gets hysterical prior to, during, or after a given speaker’s speech, then it’s likely worth watching.
I’ll probably watch more of the DNC convention, because I’m fascinated with watching busy little termites chewing away at the foundations of this Republic.
Jumah at the DNC is still on, just not DNC “official” event.
As for the other not DNC “official” event…
I listened to Mark discussing this with listeners on the podcast yesterday and was fascinated by this smart man’s confusion. I didn’t watch 1 minute of convention coverage – and I’m a political junkie (some FB friends watched CSPAN or streamed it online). I know who I’m voting for, I never watch network news or cable channel news (FOX is going down the drain with RINOs and lefties), and I can’t bear the idiot talking heads. Whatever I want to see of the speeches is on Youtube. My time is more valuable than watching convention crap with commercials, I hate a major hate-on for the RNC, the GOP establishment and the whole facade. The timing was bad for us even on the east coast.
There’s another factor: the networks are losing viewers, cable news is increasingly stale and annoying, PLENTY of people have given up cable/satellite altogether (this household is just months away from doing the same), and the whole political convention thing to many of us just seems anachronistic in this digital age. The one thing that could have been interesting last week was neutered by Romney and the RNC Tuesday and had a lot of TP types seriously flipping out (and I don’t mean the Ronulans). I don’t know who cares about these things but a lot of us very clearly do not and were happy to express it. Most conservatives I know are champing at the bit to VOTE, but not to watch a GOP circle jerk.
I’m also not buying that the DNC ratings will be better – that side is seriously demoralized and should be. Although it does promise to be, as Mark likes to say, a conga line of freaks. ;-)
I consider myself a bit of a junkie and I didn’t watch a minute of it. The only video I watched was Eastwood.
First off, I watched it on CSPAN. It was great to watch it without all of the pundits telling me what to think about the speeches.
Second, here’s the thing people need to know about Romney: One of the things he did that made the Olympics so successful was that he did an end run around the opposition–which in that case was corrupt individuals who were in the way. He didn’t confront them or get into arguments with them. He just went around them.
Now, look at his 2008 campaign. He spent his entire time courting people who would later become members of the TEA party. He held hundreds upon hundreds of townhalls where he opened up the floor to questions. He called it the “Ask Mitt Anything” tour and he gave tons of specifics on thousands of questions. Voters rejected him.
You want that guy back? He’s in there. But it seems clear to me that he feels he has to do another end run. I understand Romney may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But don’t make it hard for him to be a conservative. Get out there and get a great congressional team in place. Democrats are going to be brutal to him once he gets in office–you thought what they did to Bush was bad? x’s 100. Don’t make him have to battle you too. You do your personal part to support conservative ideas and policies–your personal best–and he’ll respond.
With regard to the convention–yes, red meat would be nice. But the voters left to grab are the “feelings voters.” They aren’t people who have made up their mind on principle. If they were those kind of people, they’d already know how they were going to vote. The economy is in a shambles, the President is a nightmare, etc. This shouldn’t be a hard thing to decide. And yet, they’re out their wringing their hands worrying about such intangibles as who is nicer and who is more likeable, etc. As much as that frustrates those of who are not feelings voters, it is what it is and has to be addressed.
There are a lot, I think, just not the floating in the middle moderates who can’t decide between Obama and Romney that conventional wisdom and the MSM fantasize about. There are a few of those, I suppose, but the overwhelming amount of undecideds I know, on both sides, are “fringe” elements who can’t decide whether to support one of the Big Two, go third party, or not bother at all.
Bottom line, I hope it means there’s a quiet consensus amongst a majority of will-votes that they will vote for a sloppy GOP ticket and auger a hole in Team Progressive’s bottom. Line.
OT: FNS has Antonio Villraigosa on. Mein Gott! The man is an idiot.
This wasn’t an analysis of the convention done in a vacuum, this was an answer to a prompt that itself was based on a fact: a significant decline in viewership.
Whether or not the convention was my cup of tea or not is really only relevant because, it turns out, I was not alone in my willingness to let the thing go by unwatched (I did tune in for Ryan).
The question is, why was it unwatched? And I provided what I think are decent answers. Responding with “wrong” isn’t really helpful. If you have other answers, perhaps you should share. Calling somebody else a scrooge, then stomping your feet and running off, that’s not terribly useful.
[…] No Matter What, It’s Alway “Bend Over, Insert Shit Sandwich…” Posted on September 2, 2012 8:47 am by Bill Quick GOP convention viewership down more than 40%. Mark Levin asks, why? What does it augur? | protein wi… […]
“See, I never thought it was a good idea for attorneys to the president, anyway.
I think attorneys are so busy — you know they’re always taught to argue everything, always weigh everything, weigh both sides. They are always devil’s advocating this and bifurcating this and bifurcating that. You know all that stuff. But, I think it is maybe time — what do you think — for maybe a businessman. How about that?” — Clint
I think Mitt would have made a fine attorney:
“[Mitt] never takes anything at face value; he can argue any side of a question. And sometimes you think he’s like really believing his argument, but he’s not. He just flushes the whole thing out and figures out the whole picture.” — Ann Romney
No, but Palin did.
I think there’s a lot to the argument that the networks tried to depress viewership and that many people who are political junkies tuned in via C-SPAN. But those two things alone don’t account for losing half the audience.
It’s dangerous to discount how betrayed the base felt after the rules change fight, punctuated with John Boehner pretending the conservative delegates didn’t exist.
Ignore that at your own peril, GOP Party stalwarts.
Polling would be equally clear on this: people like hearing the truth.
I think people have become meta-poll takers. They don’t answer truthfully. They answer in terms of what they expect you wish to hear, either positively or negatively. This actually removes real nuance.
My opinion. YMMV.
Or in the alternative, “ignore that” because as GOP stalwarts, they can do no other. And then — when the consequences from that situation flow, as they may, i.e., should their fellow citizens renounce their GOP in vast numbers, going on to form a new party more fit to their own needs — recognize that it was precisely their GOP stalwartist “can do no other” that in part brings those consequences about.
You know all that stuff. But, I think it is maybe time — what do you think — for maybe a businessman. How about that?” — Clint
I think Mitt would have made a fine attorney:
But Mitt was and is and excellent business man. So Clint supports him. He provided an 80% success rate for profitable return for his clients while at Bain. Sure, he’s rich, so he can’t be trusted. After all, he didn’t give every last dime he ever earned to charity – just his inheritance. I do not seek to persuade. I just don’t discount Romney’s abilities, altruism, and determination. He’ll need two of those characteristics by the boat load as president.
That would show up in the Wed. and Thur. nite viewership numbers, wouldn’t it?
The fight began the day before the Convention began if I recall correctly Ernst. The first proposal was then abandoned to be replaced by two others on the first day, so there a sense in which the viewership may have been affected from the get-go.
Its much, MUCH simpler than that. The ways to view said convention as well as the ways to measure who watched are significantly different than in 2008. I don’t buy it, frankly.
Nielsen should no longer be the ‘go-to’ company for measuring video audiences, because they can’t measure all video feed streams. Like the major networks they monitor, they’ve outlived their usefulness.
And your analysis presumes that the people that didn’t watch are the hardcorest of the hardcores. That’s utter nonsense. “We got Boehner and attacks on the Tea Party” ? Are you fucking serious with this idiocy ? I doubt there is a single sentient human on all the Earth that was GOING to watch, but was dispirited because of that.
You are taking yourself and this whole Don Quixote tilting at the “establishment” windmills way, way, WAY too seriously. There really aren’t words to describe how over the top this “establishment vs. us” rant has become.
And scene.
OK, so you’ve sphinctered. Now, do us a favor, go follow the weird naked Indian!
No. It assumes that many of the hardest of the hardcore ultimately tuned out. But to get these numbers, others tuned out as well. Which is why I also noted that I don’t think that there are many real undecideds, meaning the pageantry isn’t really appealing just now.
You keep telling yourself that. And telling me. And doing it with the conviction of some curse words and some faux incredulity. That makes it much more convincing.
Try these: you don’t have to read here.
The fact is, the GOP establishment just granted itself an enormous power grab. Boehner ignored those pushing the minority report. Pretended they didn’t exist. Those are facts. And the TEA Party and the state parties saw it happen.
You can pretend these things only matter to me. You’re wrong. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you can’t be fucking serious with this idiocy, can you?
C-SPAN and streaming video didn’t exist in 2008. Nor did Youtube.
I forgot.
Never mind.
I’m off. Enjoy your holiday weekend.
I’ll be tilting at windmills if anyone needs me. Which is silly, but it beats having to cradle Mitt Romney’s balls with my tongue.
There is a salient point there. F’rinstance, while YouTube existed, so did its 10 minute limit. I know that I personally watch stuff on C-SPAN less and less and on C-SPAN.org exactly that much more. Other news sites contribute to the same phenomenon. Then, there’s stuff like
GBTVThe Blaze TV where eyeballs on the product also aren’t counted.Ratings don’t mean what they used to. The content delivery paradigm is undergoing a sea change. I know I blew off watching a number of speeches live because I was doing other stuff and I knew I could go back and watch them when I could devote more attention to them. In fact, I’ve yet to watch Susana Martinez. I think I’ll go do that now.
This was not possible in 2008. Now it’s pedestrian, technologically speaking.
And yet, somehow it nevertheless forms the basis for an entire subgenre of political and social and sociological and intellectual criticism.
And speaking of Dr. Sowell and tilting at windmills, did you know that he’s been writing the same book over and over and over again?
Nobody ever calls him Quixotic though.
I posted a reply to deadrody showing 12 different ways why he’s foolish. But it’s stuck in moderation because wordpress thinks I’m spamming books for amazon.
I agree. But we’re talking about a HUGE difference in numbers. Personally, I skipped the convention, then went back and watched what speeches were driving the left nuts. Because I knew those might matter.
The rest? Why bother?
So while I’m sure the new ways to watch have some affect on the numbers, I think a lot of what happened was that people just don’t care as much — and they’ll pick and choose what to watch at their leisure based on their own interests.
This is true. But that feeds into what I’m arguing: it’s less of an important immediate event. And therefore we’re content to watch it when we get around to it, if we ever do.
There was little excitement or immediacy to the thing. For any number of reasons, some of which I tried to articulate. Naturally I could be wrong.
That’s probably more true than in any previous election. I think the vast majority of people have already decided that they know all they need to know to decide whether to re-elect Obama. Unless you’re a politics junkie, why watch when you already know what you’re going to do?
Yup. And even some political junkies were put off by what happened with the rule change. I know I was.
deadrody might not think so but there was a contingency of very pissed off people — though it’s also true that some people didn’t think it as big a deal.
I wasn’t happy with the rules change (understatement of the year), but you knew they were going to do something. It just puts the onus on the grassroots and the states to up their timetables for change from the ground up. Those at the top were primed in 2008 to be put out to pasture. Was it any wonder that they noticed they were loaded into the cattle shute on the way to market? Would you expect them to go quietly? It’s of a piece that just as we are chafing at the yoke being applied, they too are bucking at the loading into the chute on the way to the glue factory.
Small blip. The truck has already unloaded and the gate is swinging shut.
Everyone who was put off by the rules change was a political junkie. While it was a big deal, it was an inside baseball big deal. Go ask 1000 random people about it and 996 of them won’t know what you’re talking about.
This is an interesting data point, though I’m not exactly sure what to make of it:
This one is interesting too, and I know exactly what it means:
Schadenfreude sells.
Mitt has a JD from Harvard Law, don’t think he ever practiced though. He also has an MBA.
That is one of the reasons the left is having trouble getting traction against him, he is really hard to paint as either stupid or evil.
Mitt has a JD from Harvard Law, don’t think he ever practiced though. He also has an MBA.
If he had an AA stint as the first Mormon editor of the Harvard Law Review, then he’d be impressive.
Pablo, are you telling me that people flipped over to MSNBC for the entertainment value in watching Mathews et. al. lose their shit?
I’m shocked to find such cynicism in our electorate.
“Would you expect them to go quietly? It’s of a piece that just as we are chafing at the yoke being applied, they too are bucking at the loading into the chute on the way to the glue factory.”
They aren’t going to any glue factory. They are going back to real life (which they helped to perturb into its current shape) with full pockets and a rolodex of important phone numbers. There’s no slaughter implied. They aren’t fighting to preserve anything but the authority to continue holding their boot on our neck.
He speaks French, too. What an elitist, unlike say John Kerry.
What this is sitting up is a comparison to ‘their’ DNC’s ratings. You can bet that if 3 more people watch it than watched ‘ours’, it’ll be considered a huge BFD, and we’ll never hear the end of it.
Bill Clinton’s secretive speech that is so secretive will be their barn-burner. And that Sandra Fluke gal’s sales pitch. Let’s just hope those two meet up and have their own Eastwoody – Blue Dress moment.
(If Clinton trots out an empty chair, you know who I’ll put in it! )
Heh heh heh. I usually save that for election nights.
“He speaks French, too.”
I’m kinda thinking Mitt should take to carrying a blow-up of Obama’s “seat taken” twit-pic, with the caption: Ceci N’est Pas un President.
I suspect that burning their barn is exactly what Bubba’s gonna do. You fucked up, Barack! You trusted him.
Bubba’s speech is going to be about three things
1) Bubba
2) How good you had it under Bubba
3) How Barak Obama is going to be like Bubba (this time).
I think you overlook one thing, Ernst. Bubba despises Obama.
NY Post is claiming that Bubba refuses to let the O campaign vet his speech. Bet he doesn’t have it loaded into the prompters either. If I were O, I’d be nervous.
Although, HillBuzz is reporting that the Penny P is putting together some friends to buy the O’s a house in Hawaii for $35 mills to move to and that Grandma O is telling friends that they are moving there in January. So maybe Moo is resigned to the inevitable.
Make of those what you will…
Ernst:
1) Bubba
2) How good you had it under Bubba
3) How Barak Obama is never going to be like Bubba.
FTFY.
Penny P? Moo? Room too hip for me…brain shorting out…feel like dolt…need…jolt cola.
Damn it! Mom was right! Buying a 2013 fuel-efficient Hyundai Elantra DID make me dumber!
Penny Pritzker and Moo = Michelle O.
Penny Pritzker of the banking bailout fame and Chicago buds with the Obamas..
Ahh! I actually got Moo shortly after I posted. ‘Moochelle my belle’ and all that.
I didn’t know about Penny Pritzker though.
I hereby denounce myself as raaaacist.
1. Many homes have cut back on cable expenses, so CSpan isn’t available for viewing on most basic bundles. But it’s available online. Which is how I watched the convention.
2. Many Conservatives refuse to watch the alphabet networks for any reason and especially won’t for politics. Why expend emotional energy on rage when you can watch your own convention uninterrupted and without frothy, inane commentary?
I think online technology and “online ideology” have finally met up with the older viewers who would have relied on the networks four years ago. They no longer do so.
Clinton’s looking for the win-win.
If Obama win’s it will be because of Clinton’s keynote. And if Obama loses, well, that just means that not even Clinton could save Obama from Obama.
Now, if people incorrectly conclude that Obama is never going to be like Bubba, regardless of what Bubba says about wanting to go back to the good ol’ days of the late 90s? Well, that’s hardly Bubba’s fault now, is it?
Of course not. It’s not the Big Dawg’s fault that Obama can’t run with him and had best stay on the porch.
[…] more, and it’s all perfectly on target. Particularly Jeff’s conclusion. Elsewhere, Jeff explains something crucial to Levin; including this: 6) These are dangerous times. Balloons and bullshit, faux collegiality […]
“It’s dangerous to discount how betrayed the base felt after the rules change fight . . .”
What’s “the base”?
If you mean the rightest of the right – those who are more conservative than 85% of the rest of the Republicans – i.e., the Tea Party Loose Conglomeration Of Folk – then I’d agree. Those folks were obviously angered.
But if “base” means the great bulk of reliable Republican voters – most of whom, I’ll posit, lie somewhere to the left of the Tea Party people on the continuum – I’ll count myself in this group – then I think you’re missing something.
We all watched the nomination process as it swept (crept?) across the various states, as people watched the R debates and then went to (or watched) whatever process their state party uses to select its nominees.
And we all observed as the party came to the democratic version of consensus and settled on Romney as our nominee. The party made its choice through this process. Done deal. My guy lost, but he got a chance to make his case, and we got our chance to support him and convince people if we could, and so, as long as I put myself forth as a member of the group, and the group has decision-making processes that are fair, then the end result is my own result.
There were some arcane and frankly boring details left for the truly involved to take care of – e.g., planning, extolling, and conducting the actual convention where the already-made choices would be ratified and their names placed on stickers and banners and such, but it was was in essence a party celebrating and marketing the choice we’d already made.
But the Paulites – man, they’re like what the Deadheads used to be, there has to be something of the old Pastor Moon somewhere in that group – they saw that, as long as there was still process for them to control, there was room to move, and so, since “the party” had gotten complacent and a bit careless after the primaries, the Paulites worked out some arcane and inside-baseball way of hijacking the process of certifying a nominee, and started chortling aloud about it, and started to set up to carry it out, and eventually they had everyone in the party’s volunteer process brigades at each other’s throats, and, worst of all, they all seemed to be damned proud that they had worked out a clever way to subvert an election.
It’s my impression that these rule changes were conceived of as part of the effort to hold off the Paulites’ idiocy, but I’m admittedly not up to speed on the details. If there’s way more to it all than that, and I’m missing something basic that trumps the situation, please tell me.
But, if these rule changes were a rational and reasonable and effective response to the Paulites’ threats of disruption of the convention, then I am for them enough so that I’d not quibble about insisting upon a perfect, absolutely-no-side-effects solution.
Especially since the threatened disruption would heighten our chances of Obama Part Two, leave long-unhealing scars across the party, and give grist to the tingly-legged and the Pelosies of the country all through the election season and well into “Hope-Change II – The Kulaks Push Back”.
bobbyb, I think you’re on to something. The Republican base, such as it is, is split. I’d contest your 85% assertion (I’d put the split closer to 50-50), but that quibble aside, I think you’re right. The half of republicans that are more right leaning don’t feel represented by the party anymore. Mostly what we feel is used. Who ya going to vote for, Obama? seems to be the stick we get, and the carrot of fixing the economy dubious.
A third party is in the works. We’ll see if the republicans hang on to 85% of the base, or they go the way of the Wigs.
“If you mean the rightest of the right – those who are more conservative than 85% of the rest of the Republicans – i.e., the Tea Party Loose Conglomeration Of Folk – then I’d agree. Those folks were obviously angered.”
And if we don’t mean that ? Especially the whole 85% magic number. And is losing 15% of the party support worth potentially (but probably not if the past is any indication) gaining 5 or ten percent of the free floating ” independents” ? Might you not miss that 15% when 85% of them are gone?
“But if “base” means the great bulk of reliable Republican voters – most of whom, I’ll posit, lie somewhere to the left of the Tea Party people on the continuum – I’ll count myself in this group – then I think you’re missing something.”
But what if that is NOT the base at all?
“And we all observed as the party came to the democratic version of consensus and settled on Romney as our nominee. The party made its choice through this process. Done deal. ”
Looked petty much like a railroad to me. And the floor fight that didn’t anger gave the state parties LESS ability to choose their own candidates. ” The party made its choice through this process.” That’s positively Orwellian. Akin was the party’s choice in Missouri…until he suddenly wasn’t. Angle and O’Donnel were the party’s choice at one point too and the party seemed to act like they were not.
“But the Paulites”
Seem a rather poor excuse for neutering local party’s role in choosing candidates.
“It’s my impression that these rule changes were conceived of as part of the effort to hold off the Paulites’ idiocy, but I’m admittedly not up to speed on the details”
Not really a sterling defense of the procedure. Why did Boehner have to ignore the minortiy report and how is it justified or evidence of a healthy process for choosing anything? Why were delegates pulled off of committee to stack the vote? Why was it that only two pundits ever mentioned it? (Malkin and Limbaugh?)
“But, if these rule changes were a rational and reasonable and effective response to the Paulites’ threats of disruption of the convention, then I am for them enough so that I’d not quibble about insisting upon a perfect, absolutely-no-side-effects solution.”
I’m not cool with it at all. It makes the party a mockery of a grass roots effort. A sham.
“Especially since the threatened disruption would heighten our chances of Obama Part Two,”
Also not much of an excuse for what happened. How can I support a crooked machine that claims it had to become what it is because of the Paulites? I can’t. Not even to save us all from Obama Part 2. I don’t much care who you decide the base is. Mitt’s boyz have screwed the pooch and risked fracturing the party despite it being so important to come together. And this is when his trust numbers within the party are marginal. This is just 2008 all over again and hoping that Obama has poisoned the well too much with Carteresque flailing to be reelected. We were supposed to be better than this. Since we are not I can’t vote for “us” anymore. Why? Because of what just happened at the GOP convention under Mitt’s watch. And I frankly don’t owe people who fucked me over a thing. I don’t think covering up what just happened is in anyway patriotic. It is cowardly. It is letting the GOP slip even farther into being a useless, over spending, corrupt, unresponsive, slower path to a leftist super state.
The GOP fucked up after being warned about it.
The GOP is tainted beyond recovery and needs to die as far as I’m concerned.
” leave long-unhealing scars across the party, and give grist to the tingly-legged and the Pelosies of the country all through the election season and well into “Hope-Change II – The Kulaks Push Back”.”
They probably should have thought of that before they did what they did when they did it. Now they just might have to face that without my support. Better hope we are less than 15% and easily scared.
I’d like to see how far a human can throw a thing
It would be fun to see a priebus hurl.
The base of the Republican party is the conservatives / classical liberals. The party is there to represent the ideas of its base. But now we have the inverse: we’re told that the base must get behind the wishes of the Party leadership, such that they no longer represent us so much as lead us and treat us as “reliable Republican voters.”
We are only reliable Republican voters because the GOP used to at least to pretend to concern itself with our representative demands. It has become increasingly evident to many, however, that the GOP is actively working against movement conservatives — those who have become fed up with being told we must work within the left’s system and have determined to change the status quo — such that they plot to hamstring them on the state level, in Congress, and in primaries.
From the onset, we were told that Romney was the only serious candidate, the only won who could win, etc.
The GOP at this convention tried to get the primaries frontloaded with winner take all states, b/c they don’t want a traditional convention at all. They want a coronation. And they demand the right to choose the candidate, while pretending the process is an open one. It’s a shadow tyranny camouflaged as a democratic process.
These rule changes were pushed as a way to combat the crazy Paulites. That was the “crisis” that the GOP establishment didn’t let go to waste. They took away power from state delegations, replaced sitting delegates to stack votes, ignored the minority report, and pretended that they were doing this all for the greater good.
Fuck that. That’s not representative government. And I’m not having any of it any more.
The GOP is going to find out soon enough that many of its “reliable Republican voters” are no longer there. They know that this year they have us over a barrel, and they used that advantage to weaken the power the conservative activists are increasingly wielding in an effort to affect real structural change to the party. What they did amounted to a raw power play, and many people want to turn a blind eye to it because We Must Win.
Tell that to Todd Akin.
Fuck that. That’s not representative government. And I’m not having any of it any more.
I agree with this.
I have a question: in the past delegates have been pledged to vote for Candidate X or Y or Z to represent their delegation. I didn’t know until a few cycles ago that delegates may change their votes and vote any old way they want to once they are at the conventions. Was the rules change made to take away any rogue factions within the delegation and force the delegates to vote as they had themselves pledged?
Quite obviously I don’t understand the arcane mechanisms of government very well and that’s why I’m here.
I’m remembering something somebody said two years ago, addressing the GOP: We’re your customers, not your footsoldiers.
Michael Barone: Are we watching the last national conventions?
Barone could be right. The conventions are becoming an anachronism in a 24 hour news cycle world.
“24 hour news cycle world”
I think that’s a bad way of putting the thing leigh. For instance, we could as well say “conventions are become an anachronism in a world in which a vote is not a vote — being a mere pretense to voting — but a predetermined outcome issued by a tyranny”, or any number of similar propositions.
So, we are the Soviet Union?
Seems to me one either watched John Boehner say “The ayes have it” or one didn’t, but that the characterization of his action couldn’t possibly be “now that was a vote!”
It surely didn’t seem like a vote, did it? To me it seemed as if what I had always suspected had at last become overt.
[…] together if possible. Separately, just as good. This happened early on and there is at least some theorizing that The Rules Fight harmed viewership, which it may have in part, but those turned off would be […]