Food Fight! (Or Why Won't Obama Have to Go Negative Next Fall? A: Because the GOP Already Did It!)
Added intro: Why should a Democrat care if the GOP presidential primary has entered meltdown mode? Obama's style and personality do not allow him to go negative. This year, he will not have to. Democrats will have plenty of "negative" material to use about the GOP nominee---and they can credit it all to other Republicans! How sweet is that?
Long post, but hey? Who ever wants a food fight to end? They are so much fun---if you are a spectator.
Mitt Romney has been the presumptive GOP nominee since McCain’s defeat in 2008. Everyone knew he would run again and (most likely) win his party’s nomination. He should have been in good shape. A former governor, he could boast about having “executive experience”. As someone who oversaw an attempt at health care reform, he was ready to tell America “I can give you what you want better than Obama can.” Since he was a Republican from a northeastern state, he would not have a lot of right wing ideological baggage to dump before heading into the general election. Romney was the guy who could hit the ground running along the line on the center of the road….
So, why does Romney look so weak? Why is he in a virtual dead heat with Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum, one of the most pathetic politicians the GOP has ever produced? How come Ron Paul---a certified libertarian loon---is nipping at his heels? Why is Newt---a Republican’s Republican---stalking him, ready to launch a pie square at Romney’s chiseled features the moment he looks over his shoulder? Blame the Super Pacs.
How did the GOP go from being the party which never ever criticizes another Republican during the primary to the food fight in Animal House? Two words: Citizens United. Those two words hit the scene in January 2009. They were followed the very next day by two other words that have changed the face of politics in America. Super Pacs. The speed with which Rove and others formed their Super Pacs suggests that Citizens United came as no surprise to them. The case at the center of the controversial ruling began when the Bush administration decided (for the first and only time) to enforce federal election financing rules in a case involving attack ads against Hillary Clinton. Why would the Bush administration attempt to enforce federal election rules for the benefit of a woman that the GOP hates? Maybe so that Rove and others could announce their newly formed Super Pacs before the ink was dried on the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Super Pacs were the winner of the 2010 election---and the U.S. lost. By running attack ads against incumbents, the GOP managed to propel a bunch of bat shit crazy Republicans into office. If they could get a posse of Tea Baggers elected, surely the Super Pacs could get one white man installed in the White House…
Or maybe not. The problem with Super Pac money is there is so damn much of it. And it can only be used on negative (attack) ads. Every company in the world is free to form a Super Pac. There is no limit on the amount that can be spent. Hell. China could form a Super Pac to fund a candidate and the Supreme Court would give it a big thumbs up. Remember, Justice Stevens warned the others that the ruling would allow unlimited foreign money in U.S. federal political, and Scalia and the others responded with a big Don’t care!. And if we are talking about all the money in the worldthat is a whole lot of cash just waiting to be spent on the Republican Party primary Battle Royale in which the last man standing is the winner:
Thanks to the Gang of Five, the Republican presidential primary has now entered its Warring States period. The Warring States era in China was the six hundred years of chaos that occurred as various kingdoms battled to see who would come out on top.
No, that isn’t an artist’s rendition of the recent GOP primary in Iowa. That’s a bunch of long dead Chinese guys trying to kill each other in their frenzy to become the Big Boss. But it could easily represent Newt (who has now decided to go negative) and Romney (who already went negative) and Rick and Ron and Rick and all their super-duper political weapons of mass destruction which were bought and paid for by Big Oil and Big Banks and Big Pharm and Big Agriculture and everyone else who is willing to pay for the right to choose the next Secretary of _____.
Super Pac money means a lot of things (besides never having to say you are sorry for your serial adultery or your racist newsletter or your sheer idiocy). Super Pac money means that the corporate media can not anoint a candidate, as they did back in 2008 with John McCain and insist that Republican voters hold their noses and vote for him. In the old days, when NBC declared your campaign dead and buried, folks stopped giving money and that was that. Remember how John Edwards second place finish in Iowa was used to hammer the nails in the coffin of his campaign? The press tried to do the same this year. So far, the only Republican candidate they have managed to shoot down was Herman Cain, for the crime of being Black. (The sex part was obviously not important since Newt is still in the race.) The rest just keep holding out their hands and getting more cash from the rich/corporate donors. And as long as the money keeps flowing, the campaigns keep chugging along, like the Little Train that Could.
Except make that a great big shiny nuclear powered red train. And put six of them on the same track trying to get to the finish line first…
Super Pac money can not be used to tell the world about the greatness of the guy who has promised to cut back federal regulations for your industry. It can not be spent on television ads that show your white male candidate kissing babies and walking on water. No, it has to be spent on ads in which one Republican (Romney) accuse other Republicans (Newt) of going “Whoops!”
Or this one from Romney about Perry:
Romney's ads have been so much fun to watch (and so productive at the Iowa caucuses) that Newt Gingrich has decided to join the food fight:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gingrich-romney-liar-iowa-caucus-20120103,0,7578014.story
Romney is not the only one flinging lime Jello across the crowded cafeteria . A group representing “did not even make a blip on the radar screen” Huntsman has purchase $300,000 worth of anti-Romney ads for New Hampshire:
http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/03/anti-romney-ads-why-the-deafening-silence/
Here is a great graphic (all ready for the Dems to use next fall) courtesy of Ron Paul. If anyone knows where I can get this one as a bumper sticker, please let me know.
Another great graphic from Ron Paul:
Here is an excerpt from a Ron Paul anti-Romney radio ad:
"Mitt Romney can't fight against ‘Obamacare’ because he supported the same mandates and government takeovers as governor of Massachusetts. Romney can't stand up against more bailouts because he supported them. He can't lead the charge to shrink the government because he has grown it."
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/ron-paul-runs-antiromney-radio-ad-109455.html
That’s a radio ad, because it’s cheaper. Ron “No more welfare for anyone even companies” Paul is probably not rolling in corporate cash. But lots of the others are. Recall that Perry entered the race with six---count ‘em six Super Pacs. All of them paying for ads like this anti-Romney ad, “The Truth is Not for Sale”, from Perry
http://www.therightscoop.com/new-rick-perry-ad-addresses-romneys-10000-bet/
And this double barreled ad from Rick Perry attacking both Newt and Mittens:
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-presidential-election/perry-ad-hits-newt-mitt-on-health-care-mandate/
I have always been a big fan of kitten fighting graphics like this one:
But I am beginning to enjoy the Mittens fighting graphics, too!
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