Posted on 10/10/2012 12:34:15 AM PDT by nathanbedford
What do the polls tell us, is Romney enjoying only a bounce from the debate which will eventually subside leaving him where he was before or at slightly behind Obama? Or was the debate the precipitant of a momentum wave which will carry through with increasing force to election day? My hunch is that it is the latter.
Many of us were perplexed by our inability to explain why Romney was unable to gain traction against Obama for so long when Obama's record was so execrable. We looked at the bias in the media, we considered the demographics of dependency and race, we said we must wait until after Labor Day, we were concerned about the evident disparity in the ads appearing in the air war, we deplored the ignorance of the electorate, and, finally, we turned our guns on the Romney campaign itself and declared that it was too passive and lacked killer instinct and the candidate himself lacked charisma.
After the debate we concluded that Romney prevailed so magnificently because we have the right side of the issues, he argued his case flawlessly, he presented himself as a regular human being contrary to Obama's caricature, he exposed the vapidity of Obama's presidency, all done directly to the people unfiltered by the media.
Since the debate we saw Obama's campaign desperately lurching like a Mexican jumping bean from one post to another pillar trying to find some way to stop the slide. The campaign has called Romney a liar, it has said that he is fatuous for wanting to defund big bird, it is derided him as a humbug. So far, it does not appear that the advantage running to Romney from his performance in the debate is decelerating. The question is will it deflate or will the momentum build?
I believe that the momentum will continue, although perhaps at a decelerating rate of increase. I choose to support that with the weakest kind of argument, argument by analogy.
I believe that the state of the race, or more particularly, the state of Obama's campaign, before the debate was like that of soft snow on a mountainside in a state of incipient avalanche held in place only by the weakest friction, liable to the slightest trespass to cascade to the bottom with increasing speed and momentum. There is nothing to stop such an avalanche until it bottoms out.
Avalanches occur because the footing of the structure is unsound, there is little to support it and nothing can stop it once it starts.
So it was with the Obama campaign. It was a tissue of lies, inflated with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of deceptive ads, covered by the media, enjoying the very weak friction of incumbency, waiting only for the alien touch of truth to send it to the bottom. I see nothing to stop the disintegration until Obama's numbers settle at his irreducible minimums dictated by demographics and dependency.
Until the snow field of lies finds bottom there is no intervening reason to suspend the laws of inertia.
I like it. Thank you.
What we are seeing is not all “Romney bounce” - much of it is Obama unmasked. A lot of it is the polls using the debate as an excuse to report the truth all along, that Obama is in heep big doo doo.
Obama unmasked or alternatively,
Obama unplugged
Well, it could happen that way, but we’d be fools to count on it.
A great read to start the day. I'm hoping you are right.
All I would add is that the dems are trying to build an electorate in which demoographics and dependency add up to an automatic democrat majority. Welfarism and identity politics glued together by resentment and class warfare is a toxic mix. And it's just about all the dems offer today.
Nice.
I’m agreed and ...
... I also have with friends been using the weak analogy method ... but with the only alternative being numbers, which can’t express it ... what else is there until election day?
That this wasn’t damage measured along a continuum, but structural damage. That the boat isn’t just leaking, it was cut in half. That Obama’s popularity wasn’t reduced, but that the brand was destroyed. The image wasn’t reduced in size, the illusion was shattered. That this isn’t a swing, but the entire swing set was moved.
It really is a structural thing rather than something along a continuum - not a swing, not a bounce.
Somewhere I read today, maybe here or at a link, that Machiavelli said that once a leader becomes an object of contempt, he’s doomed. I think that process was begun.
Avalanche - yeah in a way I think it’s more complete than anything I came up with ... because it includes that there is a whole lot of potential energy propped up on a virtually non-extant foundation, waiting for a little nudge, and what was the nudge? The singe, only, first time, ever ... in Obama’s entire political career, that he was ever so slightly challenged in a way that demanded he defend his positions or record.
Anyway - liked it. Similar concept I’ve been trying to get across to my D and R friends.
Run on much?
creating a Giant TSUNAMI.......
that will wash Obama and his minions into the dustbin of history.
Tomorrow I will send Romney/Ryan $20 that I absolutely cannot afford to part with. This is 1940 and we’re nearly out of Spitfires and Hurricanes whilst $188 million dollars a month worth of Messerschmitts, Heinkels, Focke-Wulfs and Dorniers are rolling off the assembly lines around-the-clock.
LOL! Nothing like stating the obvious after the fact. Some of us concluded this would happen before the debate.
Obama needed to snow people with BS to convince them the next four years will be better than the last four years - and he barely tried (I guess he knows he can’t keep repeating the same old nonsense of four years past).
All Romney has to do is hold out “hope”, and people will vote for him.
Excellent analysis, probably correct.
I’d like to proffer an alternative possibility, only a possibility, one I could never prove.
This race has been over since 2010.
The polling has been cooked to make it seem otherwise.
If you use 2008 election turnout models as a baseline, then look at the 2010 mid-terms, there’s an acute upward arc favoring Republicans. If it’s concluded that Obama’s policies brought us our decisive 2010 win, then why wouldn’t the upward trajectory have continued? Did Obama change any of his policies? No, he gave us more to dislike.
What we think we’ve been seeing was merely a media cooked-up concoction, a mirage, a myth that served a purpose for our adversaries. The specially-sauced polling and the belief that the media still had the power to persuade was all it took to distort reality and make us feel like this loser ever had a chance.
Neither, Bounce or Debacle, it was planned..
The next two Romney will be gang raped..
Because the next two will be closer to the election..
And Americans have been dumbed down so much, they will not remember the first one..
Americans remembering anything for longer than a week is rare.. very rare..
Brilliant actually...
FReeper announces breakthrough in cure for the Ad Hominem Distemper-an Analogue of Tourette's Syndrome
I have pondered a while now the best way to help you with your condition. It is indeed perplexing because the regular nostrums like Ritalin seem to be of no avail. I debated offering personal counseling and I considered that I could recommend some rehabilitation centers where they can, with modern drugs, ease you through withdrawal before you embark on a 12-step program. But these are usually quite expensive and, barring a successful intervention, the patient has a very poor prognosis because he is unwilling to accept the treatment.
All the modern authorities report that the majority of patients once released from rehab inevitably wander back to their keyboards and commit the sin of personal attacks within a matter of hours. Alas, the hard and bitter truth is that the AD HOMINEM DISTEMPER which afflicts you and so many others with access to the Internet, has no known cure, as a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine under this very title has concluded. The statistical relapse rate has been truly disheartening. That is, until now for I have by the grace of a benign Providence hit upon the solution to your compulsion which no doubt will be published in the next edition of the Journal under the working title, FReeper announces breakthrough to cure the Ad Hominem Distemper-an Analogue of Tourette's Syndrome. I will be pleased to send you a reprint upon request.
It all came to me as an epiphany when I contemplated your symptoms. The malady is easy to describe: The unfortunate patient, unable to deal with the substance of what he reads and bereft of factual answer for it, resorts to attacks against those whom he regards to be the author of his misery, much like the ancient Pharaohs who cut off the heads of messengers bearing bad news. Our modern Pharoah cannot, of course, physically decapitate anyone in ether-space so he becomes a mighty potentate astride his own keyboard and lashes out to assassinate the character of these cyber devils. After he has pushed the Reply button and sent his screed into cyberspace, he enjoys a rush of adrenaline and a psychotic high which, of course, is inevitably followed by a deeper low from which he cannot emerge until he finds another victim for his calumnies. The disease is progressive and up until now there has been no known cure. But I have found the certain cure and I am willing to give it away, free and without charge, out of Christian concern and solicitude for a fellow conservative. You may consider this to be charity but I am also motivated in the interests of science. Since my motives are altruistic you will observe below the absence of any claim of copyright for my breakthrough, I exact no excise for my good works. I do this not just to save you - but for all humanity, that is, to save all humanity from you.
My prescription, like all brilliant breakthroughs which are obvious only in hindsight for their simplicity and brevity, is analogous to the practice which has developed on the Rush Limbaugh radio program in which the caller, to express a whole series of complementary observations merely has to say: Dittos -and all is perfectly understood by everyone with no trouble or bother or any loss of time.
My antidote for your Ad Hominem Distemper is simplicity itself: Whenever you feel an attack coming on do not resist, for that only leads to the cold sweats, rather, you should embrace it because, after all, acceptance of the disease and your powerlessness over it are the first steps in your recovery. Do not try to avoid your keyboard but eagerly reach out for it. We know that you have nothing to say about the substance of the matter, we know that you've been confused by the reality with which you have been confronted, we know how feverish and insecure you feel as a result, we know how much you feel the need to blackguard someone. Nevertheless, go confidently to your keyboard without any anxiety that you will compulsively vituperate - as though you were some wretched victim of Tourette's syndrome - and take your keyboard stoutly in hand to gallantly type the following:
TOUCHÉ
(recent results of phase lll clinical trials have shown that the better course of therapy is to encourage the patient to write the word in italics and in bold letters because it seems to bolster self-esteem, a pathological deficiency common to all these unfortunates)
Now there, don’t you see how much easier and lighter you feel in your soul? Instead of betraying to the world the poverty of your intellectual estate, you have made a clean breast of your ignorance, which is different from rank stupidity, and it is anyway the first step in your recovery program. More, you will be awarded points because you show the world that you are a bigger man and by no means petty. The therapeutic effects of this balm cannot be overestimated. Phase llB and pivotal phase lll clinical trials have shown that, although my remedy may be sublime, it is not wholly perfect because it brings no cheap and easy rush, no high, but then no crash either, no withdrawal, no need for the next fix. Instead, you can have your life back.
Your friend,
Nathan
It’s obvious you are a legend in your own mind and in love with the sound of your own keyboard clicking away. You were so proud as a peacock of your vanity, lots and lots and lots of words, stating what is now obvious to all, and when I (and another poster) pointed that out, your little feelings got hurt and your fantasies of winning a Pulitzer Prize went “poof”.
When you have calmed down from taking your petulant little tantrum, I’d suggest you study the Gettysburg Address and understand why it is considered genius. It takes no talent to bloviate on and on. Talent is required to concisely make your points.
I always enjoy your posts.
Interesting to see the trolls skulking about. Hmmmm.
2) "Nothing like stating the obvious after the fact. Some of us concluded this would happen before the debate." -Mr. Dem,post#8
Nothing like producing evidence of your second sight. I challenge you to produce evidence that you "concluded this would happen before the debate." If you cannot, we are free to dismiss you as a drive-by poster who takes shots of opportunity to feed your own ego and one who is in desperate need of therapy for keyboard Tourettes.
There you go again with the royal "we". So you have promoted yourself as the assigned spokesperson for everyone (more proof of what I said, you are a legend in your own mind). Or you could just be schizophrenic and both of you are posting...
Obama, in that debate, was downright disturbing on many levels. I think this and I know what a loser the guy is. I can’t imagine what some wishy-washy “independent” was left feeling. It is going to be hard to wash that impression away. (though I never doubt the recklessness of the “moderate independent”)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.