Wednesday I paid a visit to Red State. I thought today would be a good time to follow up. All is not well over there, as you might have guessed, and Mitt is not universally loved.
Comments were copied directly from Red State, I changed nothing except to remove one nickname from the text, all spelling and grammar is original.
Comments below
1. For me, former anger about the MSM bias is slowly turning into fear about
American security as the Obamites and the press have been joined as a
controlling, conniving, corrupt politburo. (CCCP? let's not reflect on
that...).
I'm having a tough time swallowing the initial story from the Obama
administration which originally wanted us to believe that these
demonstrations in the Middle East are merely normal cycles of unrest,
exacerbated by a suspicious video of dubious origin. In such an
important event - the assassination of the first ambassador since the
Carter years - we need to learn the truth about exactly who in foreign
policy and national security circles knew what and when. But I doubt
that truth will be forthcoming, and fully expect that the reality will
be re-created or suppressed.
I now add all that to my acceptance that Obama - a president who has
made the economy, the debt and unemployment situation worse, has pushed
for political gain a QE3 which will further erode our dollar and push
inflation (a move which even Bernanke doesn't seem to think has much
chance of actually making things better), and the status of the Middle
East has gone from unstable to chaotic, far more threatening to
homeland security - does appear to be moving up across current polls.
And it looks like an electorate cheering a populist mantra which has
rendered them as passive and apathetic to the President's actual record
as the Lotos Eaters, may carry this deceiver-in-chief on their shoulders to a second victory.
I keep thinking - praying actually - that I'm going to wake up soon from this Orwellian nightmare.
2. Obama is the President whether we like it or not...Now is not the time for Romney to go all Sarah Palin and look like a fool. It is time to mourn the dead and come together as a nation. Romney will get his chance to be presidential but this should not be his "look at me" moment it simply makes him look desperate.
3. Response to 2
I can't relate to you, Good governance. The first thing that comes to mind when I see what happened in Libya and Egypt is fury. When I see them burning our flag, I want to burn them. If I knew those killed and hurt, it would be different, but I do not. And I don't need answers. We all know who did it and why. And we also know that an American government official was killed in an act of war, orchestrated by a foreign government, under the flag of a terrorist organization,and the current administration treats it as an accident rather than an attack. At precisely the time planes were crashing in New York 11 years ago....
This sissified good-guy approach you advocate has done nothing but work to destroy our party and erode the backbone of our country. Republicans need to be more brutal and straigthforward, not less.
This distinct lack of balls on our side has hurt republicans for most of my adult life. As Rush said today, what would the response be if this had been 10 years ago? Or 10 years and 11 months ago? It certainly wouldn't have been one of mourning or trying to understand the violence. And when people are storming our embassies, American's first instinct should be fury towards those who did it.
The Obama administration's response has been an outright disgrace and Romney should do everything in his power to show the American people why. His only chance is to abandon this syrupy nice-guy, Obama isn't so bad approach.
4. Response to 3
Like I said before, timing is everything. Too many people are confusing "be careful what you say right now" with "don't ever say anything, ever."
This is no time for Romney to be a bull in a china shop. It can't always be about expressing outrage all the time, can it? If it is, maybe you need to re-examine your outlook on things. And just know that most Americans don't share that point of view.
5. absolutely spot on. I think Romney blew this one big time. There was absolutely no need to say anything about obama or his policies on this day. He should have said "there are many valid criticisms to be made about obama policies. But today is not the day to do that. Today I stand with the American people in condemning this barbaric attack. We will put pressure on the local govts to bring the perpetrators to justice". and then wait for a few days until violence subsides and talk about specific obama policies that are bad, instead of jumping at every violent event to criticize obama. There is plenty to criticize in obama foreign policy. But by jumping at these tragic events to criticize obama, Romney looks like he is doing crass politics at a time of tragedy, even if Romney is right.
THis man is running one of the worst campaigns in history. It took him until the convention to show that he is more connected to and has helped more ordinary people in one day, than obama has done all his life. He let axelrod define him to be a heartless man, while Romney is the guy who has actually served the poor and the down on luck people in his private life. Obama talks about it. Romney lived it. This should have been pounded on the airwaves, before axelrod defined Romney. Even now I dont see or hear any of Romney's character witnesses anywhere. In addition Romney comes across as somebody who desperately jumps on both national and international events to criticize obama, instead of expressing concern at the event for a day or two and then clearly articulating why that particular event was precipitated by obama policies. He keeps saying obama's policies are making things worse, without doing a bill clinton like clear explanation of what specic things are getting worse by which policy. The economy is in the tank. The job numbers are actually worse than the offical number (Romney doesnt talk about that either). Woodward says this man never showed leadership in one of the biggest leadership testing exercises during the debt limit extension negotiations. Romney should be winning by 10 points. INstead he seems to be on track to lose by 10 pts. Maybe he will eventually win. But if he does, he has to thank Obama, not his campaign. I havent seen a more incompetent campaign ever. I know you folks here dont like to hear it. I say McCain campaign was better than this mans campaign.
I say Murdoch is right. This man needs better campaign operatives, which he wont change now and as a result will most likely lose. And Murdoch is right about the fact that he is still playing to the choir (his base). What the hell? this is september. The base isnt going to vote Obama by any stretch of imagination. He should be attracting other voters, whether it is independents or sympathetic hispanic voters or Reagan democrats. Erick is crazy to suggest Romney should keep taking potshots at Obama on the day when they are chasing americans in the middle east. This most certainly comes across as desparation on a day like this. IT looks like there is absolutely no one in the republican party who can run campaigns anymore. I say make KarL rove the permanent campaign manager for all campaigns from now on. This is just ridiculous. Like Laura said, if republicans cant win this election in a landslide, might as well give the country to the socialists and shut down the party. There is no better opportunity to take the presidency and the senate (and hopefully not lose the house) than this year. If I dont see another campaign run by inept idiots from Boston for the rest of my life, it will be too soon. I know you folks here dont like to hear it. I dont care if you pile on to call me a troll and anything else. But between Bush and Obama this country is screwed for 16 years, while China is reaping all the benefits (not to mention the pile of cash from every last trinket they sell here) of these two incompetent idiots ruining the country for successive terms. Maybe Christy should somehow get on the ballot. I think he might win. And definitely will run a better campaign than Romney. I get the feeling he will govern better than Romney as well, given how well Romney is running his campaign.
6. Obama running off to Vegas to raise money so he can continue to be our ineptest president - Obama's house of tarot cards are coming down around him - unions on strike in his "own" town of Chicago with his handpicked Mayor, now the Arab Muslims are killing our ambassadors - sent by Obama and Hillary. His failure to listen when everyone said he was feeding the Muslim Brotherhood - well - maybe that was his plan.
there is NO country in the world like the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America, there are some that are close, perhaps, like Canada and Australia. But NO WHERE is there the Liberty and Freedom guaranteed by our constitution to every one of our citizens, male, female, black, white, red, yellow and even religion. We are very tolerant to all religions, we may say many things, question even God, but we don't go around killing people for what they believe or what they say. That Americans think the rest of the world is like us only means they are ignorant of the world. Someone was yammering last night about how we had "liberated" the people of Libya - bull, out of the frying pan and into the fire of the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia law to the hilt. We did those people no favors. Obama did the same thing with Egypt, knowing that the Muslim Brotherhood was the only real organized entity that could take over from Mubarak. We are in the same process of trying to turn Syria over to the Muslim Brotherhood
at what point to you let Shiia and Sunni kill each other and protect ourselves. Don't tell me about Muslim extremism - they are ALL extreme - and they chanted yesterday exactly how they all feel about the USofA and western culture. they HATE us and wish us dead. What part of that doesn't Obama understand.
Romney should walk carefully and merely point out that this is Obama's making, Obama is the Democrat President, it is his problem - just as it was Carter's problem with Iran - and the similarities are remarkably similar. A pacifist, appeasing President with no hint of what to do. He is a little child still playing in the sand box with grown ups that play with guns.
7. I never said don't fight. I'm just saying, know the terrain, know your opponent's strengths. Like Erik wrote, Mitt needs to be careful as he seeks to make his points against a sitting president during a foreign policy crisis. Reagan didn't just charge in against Carter wily-nilly. He knew how to make his points, in the right way, in the right tone, at the right time.
We're trying to get enough independent voters to win an election, now. Not just feel good that we lashed out against Obama.
Thus concludes my walk on the wild side