The story behind Mitt Romney’s loss in the presidential campaign to President Obama

By Michael Kranish
The Boston Globe Staff / December 22, 2012

It was two weeks before Election Day when Mitt Romney’s political ­director signed a memo that all but ridiculed the notion that the Republican presidential nominee, with his “better ground game,” could lose the key state of Ohio or the election. The race is “unmistakably moving in Mitt Romney’s direction,” the memo said.
To this day, Romney’s aides wonder how it all went so wrong.
They console each other with claims that the election was much closer than realized, saying that Romney would be president if roughly 370,000 people in swing states had voted differently. Romney himself blamed demographic shifts and Obama’s “gifts”: ­federal largesse targeted to Democratic constituencies.
But a reconstruction by the Globe of how the campaign unfolded shows that Romney’s problems went deeper than is widely understood. His campaign made a series of costly financial, strategic, and political mistakes that, in retrospect, all but assured the candidate’s defeat, given the revolutionary turnout tactics and tactical smarts of President Obama’s operation.

To read the rest of it:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2012/president/2012/12/23/the-story-behind-mitt-romney-loss-the-presidential-campaign-presidenobe’s Scottt-obama/2QWkUB9pJgVIi1mAcIhQjL/story.html

Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKranish. He is the coauthor, with the Globe’s Scott Helman, of “The Real Romney.”

(I'm finally looking over my last Asheville photos and may make my last post with them soon. This is not part of the narrative, so here goes)

Our President is on Meet the Press this Sunday.
Time for Gregory to rise and shine if he at all can.

Just said by Richard Wolff - sitting in for Tweety on Hardball.

edited to say that the little hopeful thing about David Gregory was said by me, not Richard Wolff

Published on Dec 26, 2012
Shoot-'Em-Up Charlie is back, this time appearing as the spokesman's spokesman for his pals at the NRA. With Wayne LaPierre's recent press conference, it's time to update those pro-gun bumper-stickers! Stay up-to-date with the latest animation! http://tinyurl.com/fiore-update

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The international terror group known as Al Qaeda announced its dissolution today, saying that “our mission of destroying the American economy is now in the capable hands of the U.S. Congress.”
In an official statement published on the group’s website, the current leader of Al Qaeda said that Congress’s conduct during the so-called “fiscal-cliff” showdown convinced the terrorists that they had been outdone.
“We’ve been working overtime trying to come up with ways to terrorize the American people and wreck their economy,” said the statement from Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. “But even we couldn’t come up with something like this.”
Mr. al-Zawhiri said that the idea of holding the entire nation hostage with a clock ticking down to the end of the year “is completely insane and worthy of a Bond villain.”
“As terrorists, every now and then you have to step back and admire when someone else has beaten you at your own game,” he said. “This is one of those times.”
The Al Qaeda leader was fulsome in his praise for congressional leaders, saying, “We have made many scary videos in our time but none of them were as terrifying as Mitch McConnell.”
As for the future of Al Qaeda, the statement said that it would no longer be a terror network but would become “more of a social network,” offering reviews of new music, movies and video games.
In its first movie review, Al Qaeda gave the film “Zero Dark Thirty” two thumbs down.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/12/al-qaeda-disbands-says-job-of-destroying-us-economy-now-in-congress-hands.html#ixzz2GNPYtWDS

Black Business had somehow managed to thrive there years before in the shadows of segregation but now "The Block" in Asheville's Eagle Street stands in stark contrast to an otherwise booming downtown in Asheville, NC.
There is controversy not yet resolved about revitalization, and the funds for it.

In the meantime wonderful artwork blooms on the walls of a small old park.










Throwing this one in from another area, just because it shows more wall art, in a reflection shot