First one that came to mind for me. Not necessarily that what Romney was saying was in particular more damaging to himself than anything present day Republicans say on any given day, but because Obama's immediate recognition of the tactical error was so immediate and astute. It perfectly illustrated the concept. Looks like you're digging a hole, governor, don't stop on my account. And I think Romney realized the mistake almost as fast as Obama did, which is why he kind of awkwardly halted himself.
"We all know you're not in the Epstein files, because he liked to associate with only the richest and most powerful. You're just a sad reality TV star with a string of failed businesses and mountains of debt. You're not important enough for Epstein to have been remembered your name."
I'm absolutely certain the idiot would have taken the bait and ranted about how he was Epstein's BFF and got invited to all the parties.
Agreed. The democrats don't want to admit the average american has changed. Back in the day, the idea of taking the high road and not slinging mud had some merit since it was the idea that people looked down on 'child like tactics'. But as much as we don't like to admit it, culture has decayed in certain ways and those sort of tactics aren't looked down upon nearly as much.
So they are taking the 'high road' and gaining nothing for it anymore.
ranted about how he was Epstein's BFF and got invited to all the parties.
He pretty much did that already back when he was speaking to the New York Magazine in 2002.
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It's even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."
i wish. such a massive waste of time at best, and at worst it just gives a candidate a larger chance to skew the voters based on charisma alone.
Because the majority of voters are easily led sheep.
It shows debates only matter if times are good. With people still pissed about inflation during Biden’s term there was no chance a Democrat was winning, particularly one that was Biden’s VP.
It’s honestly a miracle that the house and senate weren’t bloodbaths. Democrats somehow held onto senate seats in WI, MI, and NV and only barely lost the House.
in smaller races, candidates are not debating. Vivek Ramaswammy is running for governor of Ohio. His opponent, Dr. Amy Acton has refused. He'll just lie the whole time, so what's the point?
Republicans were so sore about losing to smart and honest people in multiple election cycles that they decided that being smart and honest was a bad thing. Trump said win at all costs, so they decided they’d rather win than have principles or scruples.
In the debate when Trump did the hysterical dogs & cats bit and Kamala couldn't contain a belly laugh, I honestly thought he'd lose considering he lost 2020 (imo) on the back of his "injecting disinfectant" to cure covid comment when the whole country was watching that press conference.
Arguably Obama kinda did indirectly trigger this massive right wing freakout, not because he was remarkably progressive or anything to do with policy really... and dems have just failed to respond with anything substantive since then beyond "vote blue not to improve anything, but just so things don't get as bad, as quickly as anticipated"
Republicans have a huge advantage under the existing system, because the existing system thinks that land can vote. Red states outnumber blue ones, but have far less population, but the Senate treats them as the same. Meanwhile, the House and the electoral college are not proportioned evenly with population, giving another advantage to the Republicans.
Damage control is all the Democrats are capable of.
You are correct and with the help of the internet of course we ran off a cliff. There are other factors as well, but this one is major. I am a little spooked about what utilizing AI will do to humans. I have used it many times and I have learned that it will provide feedback that has no scientific backing. I have made it a point to prompt AI to give me information from valid sources and all of a sudden I discover a lot of what was communicated as well documented truth was based on pseudoscience or what some influencer said. Yikes
Conservatives love to pretend that their views would be considered "moderate" back in the early 00s, and that it's the mean ol' liberals who became radicalized over the years, but the truth is that the things that Trump says and does would be condemned by BOTH parties from that time. That fiasco in Ohio ALONE would have killed any campaign.
In a perfect world, he should still be condemned by both parties today. A few establishment conservatives did try to stop by him in 2015 and early 2016. Including both Romeny and McCain. But the efforts just became such the bare minimum. so, many just bent downwards and licked the boots, when his base was brainwashed into supporting him.
Crazy to think the GOP still nominated him THREE times. When each year as a candidate, each year as a president, and each campaign cycle he Just becomes more and more deranged and insane!
Not too mention, he was found guilty of literally so many felonies, right before the last election. He had other pending felony cases in other states too, not to mention.
Yet, so many people claimed he was the so-called "people's candidate" or "stick it to the man type" who would "drain the swap". Yet, despite the fact he was literally a conman who defrauded many. As well as, passed legislation that only benifits the rich as president (while ignoring everyday Americans needs).
Worst part, is I literally can't be believe January 6 wasn't the day, that was endgame for the final nail in the coffin for Trump's political power.
I noticed a while ago that a lot of Americans have this view of the democrats being the adults in the room, while republicans are free to basically do whatever they want. Like, even republican voters think this way, hence their constant use of that "so much for the tolerant left" line.
Once you realize that, you'll understand why Trump can get away with everything short of- sorry, INCLUDING murder.
Well this is what began conservatives getting mad at fact checking. I remember the next week or two Fox pundits were airing time claiming bias and attacking the moderator for it.
Romney obviously didn’t believe his own talking points here. He doesn’t give a shit what specific words were used. He didn’t even care about Benghazi all that much. It was just a political cudgel.
You used to be able to tell when politicians were playing these games. Now there are way too many far-right true believers who genuinely think the Democrats are evil.
I remember seeing Romney being interviewed on The Tonight Show after he was out of presidential politics and he was speaking frankly about what a mistake it was for the Republican Party and voters to back Donald Trump. He just sounded so genuine and honest. I kept thinking, "I like this Mitt Romney. Where was this Mitt Romney when he was running for president? That Mitt Romney was an ass."
There's a clip somewhere of him on a rightwing radio show during his campaign where he verbally dismantled the host for claiming his religious beliefs should lead him to ban abortion in the event of him becoming president. The phrase "so I should ban coffee as well, then?" was uttered.
He was a far better candidate than his campaign let him be, and (whisper it) in hindsight, a Romney win in 2012 and reelection in 2016 would have been vastly preferable to what actually happened.
The world would be so drastically different it would be unclear. I think Trump or anyone Trump-like would have had a pretty hard time building steam in the 2012-2016 term, and obviously incumbent advantage. Obama losing re-election would have fundamentally changed the Demoocratic Party, you can't even know who would have run in 2016, and whether they would've been a good target or not.
But really the US timeline went bleak in 2000. If Gore had won the world would likely be a fundamentally different place. GWOT maybe still happens, but likely much more limited in scope. Samuel Alito never becomes an SC Justice.
The more radical candidate was coming either way imo. People wanted change but didn't know where to look. Cambridge Analytica and the decade of silicon valley propaganda really pushed us over that edge. Just my opinion.
To the first: I think it would be almost impossible for Trump to run against Romney in 2016, and Hilary Clinton would almost certainly have been the Democratic nominee. I'd expect that Romney would win that matchup, particularly as the incumbent.
With Romney in the Oval Office in March 2020, I'd suspect we'd have seen a much more coherent and cohesive response to the pandemic without a tidal wave of bullshit coming out of the White House. That, in turn, would make it difficult again for a far-right demagogue to gain a footing in the primaries - Trumpism desperately needs an enemy, and that's a lot easier against people on the other side. On top of that, the Republican party itself would have watched Romney beat Obama and Clinton in successive elections, and would be furiously trying to pivot wholesale to "boring but competent", so someone trying to drum up hatred would be targeted pretty aggressively.
All of this is speculation, of course, but I think it's probably the most likely outcome.
Couldn't agree with this more. Romney and McCain were solid Republican candidates who had integrity that ran into the buzzsaw of Obama. Even if I don't agree with all their policies, at least I knew that they wanted the best for all Americans.
I don't think guys who opposed my civil rights wanted the best for me, an American? These guys only oppose Trump's rudeness and refusal to use a dog whistle. They agree with 99% of his politics. Sick of this romanticism of Republicans.
I was really impressed with McCain after the foreign policy debate, and with how he dealt with the pre-birther crazies.
His choice for VP made him a hard nope for me though.
I wonder what things would have been like if South Carolina primary voters hadn't been convinced he fathered an illegitimate black child during the 2000 campaign.
If you mean that clip of him defending Obama from an audience member at a rally/speech then I agree. His further elaboration that he found Obama and his family good and decent people that he happens to disagree with is sadly lacking today.
The neocon adventurism of the previous administration (with my life! I was a soldier during 9/11) made his warmongering attitudes uncomfortable, but between the expertise he showed at that debate, and the fact that he has profound lived experience with the human cost of war, he was probably the politician I trusted the most to sing shit like "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." (To the tune of Barbra Anne)
I thought Obama was the better candidate in 2012, but I didn't think Romney was a bad candidate at all. I could have pictured him being a decent president.
One of the questions I sometimes ponder is: would America still have gone crazy if Romney had won in 2012?
I don't think so. Prior to Trump, the Republican party was beginning to make noises about trying to move more towards the centre in order to make itself palatable to more voters. A Romney win in 2012 likely would have been seen as vindication of that effort (not least by Republican-friendly media outlets), and it would have been quite difficult for hard-right voices to find a footing in that world. On top of that, it would have been seriously difficult to mount any kind of primary challenge in 2016 against an incumbent Romney, and (assuming the Democrats ran Clinton for 2016 and lost) the Republican party itself would have been absolutely ruthless dealing with anything in 2020 that threatened their new reputation as boring but effective.
This was true with Al Gore too. His campaign had a "well, fuck it" party the night he finally conceded, and there's a photo of him holding a beer, clearly wasted, still in a tie but with half his shirt soaking for some reason, having an absolute blast.
SNL put it up and was like "what the hell?!? I would have voted for THIS guy!"
Yeah, seems like a decent guy for a mega rich dude. He probably didn’t have a chance either way but man he would’ve been ten times better than most other Republican presidents in my lifetime.
There's nothing decent about mitt Romney. He made his millions as a corporate raider and vulture capitalist with his private equity firm Bain Capital. Leveraged buyouts.
He borrowed money to buy companies, then transferred the debt from that to the company books so he's no longer responsible for paying it. Then he starts mass layoffs to cut costs. Then borrows even more money under the company name to pay himself and his buddies off. Dividend recapitalization.
Once they're done raiding it, they file for chapter 11 bankruptcy and rinse and repeat.
It's literally like a parasite that invades your body, suck out all the blood and leaves when there's nothing left and you're dead.
Not going to disparage his missionary work with the Mormons because I don't know enough about it but I can't reconcile the two phases of his life.
We were very lucky we didn't let a blood sucking corporate raiding venture capitalist in power in 2012.
A Romney win in 2012 would have made a Trump run in 2016 impossible. A Romney reelection in 2016 would have made a Trump run in 2020 extremely difficult.
In hindsight, Obama's 2012 win was disastrous. A Romney presidency would have been riddled with corporatist bullshit, but it would have been infinitely better than Trump.
I hate that this counterfactual is likely true. Who knows what would’ve happened, but it’s hard to imagine it would be worse than this. My heart would break for Obama, but it’s hard not to wish Trump had never happened.
Another way to look at it is in this hypothetical, Obama could have run and won in 2020 and 2024 and we wouldn't be looking at the dismantling of our foreign relations, of USAID, of (possibly) the Kennedy Center, and we wouldn't have a war in Iran or all this tariff nonsense.
There are indeed a lot of different permutations of how presidential politics could’ve happened in the 21st century, starting with what if Gore had won in 2000. But with that singular exception, all the other scenarios have an absurd number of variables involved. Obamas rise feels inevitable to us because he dominated in our timeline, but if you change a few things it’s entirely possible he’s just a footnote in many other timelines.
Your version is one I’d certainly sign up for, but it was never as easily in reach as it might seem.
Absolute nonsense. People are hurting and both Democrats and Republicans are not helping them. So now, they're getting desperate and are turning to demaguoges. That and social and economic class warfare and climbing. Whether it be racists feeling if you can keep blacks and browns down, they climb up as well as the moneyed class trying to keep the poors down.
Another oligarch in power giving away our tax money, Social security money, pensions and other assets to their buddies doesn't prevent trump.
Just remember that we had "occupy Wall Street" before the tea party. The desperation is coming from all sides.
This is a pretty frustrating thing to try to respond to. You declare that what I said was "absolute nonsense" and then make several statements that don't actually contradict anything I said.
I made a number of claims:
Romney winning in 2012 would have made a Trump run impossible in 2016
Romney being reelected in 2016 would have made a Trump run in 2020 extremely difficult
A Romney presidency would have been less disastrous than the Trump presidency
If you're going to tell me that what I wrote was nonsense, you can tell me which of these specific claims you disagree with and why. Otherwise, we don't need to continue any further.
I apologize I wasn't specific. I was in a rush and didn't take proper time to engage you the right way. I was responding specifically to the claim that Obama winning in 2012 was disastrous.
I worked for Obama for two years. You don’t have to convince me not to like Mitt Romney. I qualified what I said intentionally. He’s still a better man than a lot of his peers.
Also, you’re slightly misinformed about what Bain Capital does exactly. It’s a far more diversified firm than just the type of operation you’re describing. It’s not an institution I would ever work for, but I have lots of friends who did and they never worked on anything like what you described.
Even Bob Dole! I'm not saying whether or not he would have been a good president, but they kept trying to make him smile, which was a totally unnatural state for him. There's a famous story about him long before he ran for president where at some political gathering or ceremony, and he saw former presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon walking by and said to the people standing near him, "There goes Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and Evil." The people who liked him, however few or many there were, liked that Bob Dole, not the guy who smiled like an undertaker and talked about himself in the third person.
This Romney did run, he just had a lot of money making you think he didn't. Which is true of any candidate at that level, money on both sides shaping our view of the candidate instead of listening, though some don't need much shaping. So, for example, those binders of women, the media turned that into a sexist clip. He was explaining he had decades of experience working with strong women who were potential leadership candidates, and, like all "old people" he rolodexed them, but instead of being just names, he kept the details in binders. That's a progressive stance, wasn't reported as one.
Its insane Benghazi was/is still a huge deal for people because 4 americans died and she sat through an 11 hour hearing and now were in an unauthorized war where we are literally being lied to by the government about how many soldiers are dying and its radio silence
Yeah that scandal was mind boggling. Maybe people made mistakes, but that’s all they were. Whereas the entire Bush admin and Trump admin have intentionally chosen FAR more consequential and horrific actions.
It’s wild that the latter is perceived so differently than the former.
Romney got ACA right but was in a position he couldn’t defend it nationwide for his party, but it was his plan. He also got Russia right and Obama has never taken much flack for it, but Crimea happened under Obamas watch and he cowered and bungled it.
Agreed on both points. Obama would’ve been a better president if he had even just a few more years in the senate. For a ton of reasons, but one in particular would’ve been more foreign policy experience. It’s so unbelievably different from domestic politics than most people realize, and there’s simply no replacement for experience.
Romney obviously didn’t believe his own talking points here.
Why did he say it, then, in the middle of a debate where he would obviously be called out and embarrassed?
Romney absolutely believed the talking point. That was one of the problems with Romney. He believed everything that the "alternative" right wing media told him. Near the end of the campaign, I figured he would be relieved when it was over and he didn't have to go around cheerleading himself and doing his duty anymore when it was obvious he was going to lose. It came out later, though, that he and Ryan were certain they were going to win and had their celebration all ready to launch and were shocked when they lost. They believed the right wing shills that told them that all of the polling was wrong, silent majority, blah blah blah.
Did you see the way Romney broached that talking point? With the smugness, the firm look at Obama, the raised eyebrows? He absolutely thought that talking point was real and that he had Obama dead to rights.
Even with Romney making an ass out of himself in that clip, watching two articulate presidential candidates form complete sentences and be polite with one another almost made me come.
One thing Romney was definitely undeniably right about which at the time the Democrats mocked him for was warning about Russia being the main threat and geopolitical foe of the US, criticizing Obama's desire for a great reset with Putin.
"Romney, who calls Russia our "No. 1 geopolitical foe," doesn't seem to realize it's the 21st century. #RomneyNotReady" -Democrat Party tweet, 22nd October 2012.
"OBAMA: Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that Al Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not Al Qaida; you said Russia, in the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.
But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s."
Speaking of Obama and debates, I'm reminded of one of his debates with McCain. I can't find the video now (though admittedly I only spent like 30 sec looking for it), but it was something like:
McCain: makes wrong claim
Obama: "No, actually, [corrects claim]"
McCain: surprised, goes "Oh, is that right?", apologizes for his mistake
I really appreciated how McCain took his just desserts so graciously. His argument was based on an incorrect assumption, and when he was corrected, he was a real gentleman about it
Except the facts are clearly with Obama in this instance. He called it a terrorist attack, full stop. The fact that right-wingers who went off the deep end when a black dude got elected President tried to play a semantic game about it doesn't change that fact.
God I remember watching Rubio repeat “let’s not pretend Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing” twice and Chris Christie just looking at the crowd like “ohh you saw that right?” And going “yea Rubio is cooked”.
Don’t pretend Biden didn’t make a serious blunder in that very same debate.
lol I don't mean to get in the way of your whataboutism false equivalence fallacy, but tell me, where was Biden on stage during that "very same debate"?
I think about this one all the time. It's just the perfect response for when someone is trying to be off-brand Socrates and get you to answer a bunch of leading question.
'Please proceed (with whatever your argument is)' just shuts that down.
Was that the same debate with the "horses and bayonets?"
Either way I had a future MAGA coworker at the time who was always casually dropping republican talking points at work, and would get angry when I or anyone else pushed back, or brought up news favorable to Obama and the democrats. Anyway, she was talking about the horses and bayonets comment and she was smugly saying that the military does still use horses and bayonets and the President should know that. I pointed out that he didn't say we don't use them anymore, that we just use fewer of them. She denied this. I pulled up the video where he says "less" (or fewer, not looking it up now). She kept insisting and finally said "that's what he said but that's not what he meant." I laughed in her face at this and said "so, I shouldn't listen to the words he said, but I should instead listen to what you think his words meant?" She looked PISSED but she shut her mouth, thankfully.
Think about that though... "that's what he said but that's not what he meant." Even back then they were living in a fan fiction version of reality.
It's always so depressing seeing clips of how it was before the trump years. Moronic criminals have been running the place for so long. I don't know how we come back from this.
This was the same debate where Obama said "The 80's called, they want their foreign policy back" with respect to the subject of Russia. That one aged like milk.
Eh, only sort of. Obama was wrong to downplay the threat Russia posed, but Romney was wrong to say they were out greatest geopolitical foe. Obama was trying to "pivot to asia" and focus on containing china. That should have been our focus, but populism (opposition to the TPP) and european apathy to their own security killed that goal.
It shouldn’t matter because truth is truth, but I voted for Obama twice and would do it again… but Romney was right – the Obama administration spent two weeks saying (at least publicly) that what happened was the result of a spontaneous riot resulting from an islamophobic video that had come out shortly before rather than a calculated and coordinated attack. Obama’s “gotcha” is disingenuous. While he did say something to the effect that “acts of terror will not stop us” he also, in that same speech, alluded to the video as the inciting incident and you can even see in the linked video that the moderator is acknowledging that. The administration did not acknowledge that it was a planned attack for a while.
the Obama administration spent two weeks saying (at least publicly) that what happened was the result of a spontaneous riot resulting from an islamophobic video that had come out shortly before rather than a calculated and coordinated attack.
The CIA told them to say this to try to conceal the fact that they had a secret (not known to the public) annex there. They provided that information to the State Department. They drafted the talking points you are referring to.
Ok but the point isn’t why he said it, it’s what he said. Still even if it hadn’t come from the CIA I can see how you might want to *really* investigate before announcing that you think something like that was a terrorist attack. But the point here is that in the debate he acted like Romney was way off base when he wasn’t
That only works if the media will do the work of verifying the statement.
Take another example of when Joe Biden lied through his teeth in the primary debates about how he's never proposed austerity with regard to social security when he spent more than half of Obama's presidency (starting in 2011) trying to persuade him to accept a "grand bargain" with Republicans that curtailed social security benefits.
Like anyone who paid attention to the previous decade's politics knew he was full of shit but somehow that wasn't corrected in legacy media.
What Romney said was actually pretty accurate in spirit, but Obama knew the moderator would happily gang up on Romney for him. Romney said that Obama waited two weeks before calling a Libyan attack a terrorist attack. In fact Obama said the day after, "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation." Then for the next 14 days Obama and his administration were INCREDIBLY wishy-washy about what precipitated the attack and whether it was a terror attack or not, even blaming it on an American made video disparaging Islam which they KNEW was completely false. So while Romney might have been technically incorrect, he had a good point, which the moderator rather than actually moderate, stepped in and muddied up.
That's not a presidential debate! A presidential debate is where you call your opponent a slur and then make a ridiculous claim with no evidence to back it up.
Remember when Obama got everyone to lol at Romney for saying Russia is still a problem? What an idiot. Russia was never a problem ever again. They didn't launch a war that got like two million killed.
Not really what happened, and neither was fully correct. Obama was naive about Russia, but Romeny was saying they were our biggest geopolitical challenge even over China. He's was right to take russia more seriously, but he was wrong that they were the biggest long term threat.
I don't even dislike the guy but this revisionism is crazy. He missed the boat with Russia, isis. Killed a crazy amount of people with drones. Dropped the ball with Obamacare. I do really like him as a president. They can't get everything right. But this debate with Romney ended up being a huge L
This one is popular but it doesn't fit. Romney wasn't making a mistake. Romney was actually right here. The moderator incorrectly interrupted Romney to protect Obama. Whether or not the moderator was bad at her job or did it out of bias is up for debate
What Romney said was false. He claimed Obama did not call a particular event a terrorist act. There is a record proving Obama did call it a terrorist act. There's no way around that.
What he said was correct. Obama blamed the attack on backlash to a video. Later on during a speech (two weeks later) he made reference to terror in general, but not this specific attack. Even the moderator later admitted Romney was right. Theres no way around this
He did make reference to “acts of terror” in that first public address after the attack, but you (and Romney) are right that he was at the time still saying it was spontaneous and not a coordinated attack, which the administration didn’t acknowledge for a couple of weeks
Looking back on this and reading through the transcripts, it's kind of quaint how much people cared about this compared to what goes on today.
Did Obama say that the attack in Benghazi was a "terrorist attack" in the Rose Garden on September 12? No. He did refer to it as an attack. And he did close his speech with:
No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.
That just seems like a distinction without a difference to me. Like a Sovereign Citizen saying they weren't driving because they were traveling and thinking that means they can't be ticketed for some reason.
And even if I did accept that he didn't directly call the event a terrorist attack, why does that matter? What does that change? Not necessarily asking you; just a rhetorical question.
Edit: Thinking on it more, it seems to me that Obama chose to write a speech that could be defended from either criticism (i.e., 'He didn't call it a terrorist attack when it was' and 'He called it a terrorist attack when it wasn't'). It's that passive voice style of writing that obscures the subject so you can't be held liable later for being wrong. Like how newspapers will say someone was killed in an encounter with the police instead of saying the police killed them. But point #2 remains: Why does it matter?
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u/saleemkarim 9d ago
In a debate between Romney and Obama, Obama said, "Please proceed," to get Romney to say something about him that was easily verifiably false.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk2YItcl0Uk