I’m going to break with finance and just make a prediction here that has little to be gained from. Maybe that seems silly, since I’m putting myself on the line with no chance of reward, but I think it needs to be said. Actually, I’ve already said it last month, but exclusively on Twitter, which is an outlet most sane people just don’t read.
So here goes, for all to peruse over:
This election is just not going to see the kind of spending the last one did.
Maybe I’m being naïve, but my basic insight is that Obama is not going to drop a billion dollars fighting Generic Republic #9; he needs an opponent to spend that kind of money and the GOP is not providing him an opponent.
Good lord, do you remember the last election? I knew McCain would be the nominee before he bothered to run. The GOP primaries are usually so obvious; the party faithful have their pure breed race horse picked out years in advance.
But not right now. All of this nonsense…”Perry in lead”…”Santorum breaking away”…”Backmann taking the nomination”…”Herman CAIN”….”The Return of Romney”….
All this trash doesn’t mean anything for the latest candidate; what it really indicates is that the conservatives don’t care for any of these assholes. How much money do you think a disinterested Republican donor list is going to turn up? I’m not giving a cent to any of these morons to blow.
The call for this election to be the most expensive ever seems to hinge on two points; Obama says he’ll spend a billion, and this is the first presidential election since we’ve had unlimited campaign contributions from corporations.
I know, you on the left just love to bitch about corporate donors and how they’re going to show zero restraint and buy up all the elections. Just like they buy up all the good property and steal your sunlight. But what’s in it for a corporation to drop that kind of money here; when do they make it back?
In order to get anything (like healthcare reform repealed) they don’t just need the presidency…they need the Senate.
Yeah, that’s not happening, not after the Tea Party fiasco of this summer.
And as for the former point of Obama spending a billion…well like I said, is he going to spend that much money fighting the GOP when they can’t even seem to agree on a single candidate to put against him? Maybe that’s all part of the strategy, since they are all hated so much. Obama fairs worse against nobody than he does against any of these bodies. But…he has to face somebody.
And Obama’s own donation levels have consistently come in below expectation. Even his own side isn’t very hyped up about this.
My guess is that we see spending in this election lower than anytime during the last two decades. And the only people who are going to be getting hyped up are those of you who choose to do so…which will be a minority.
The rest of us are turning off our televisions and going outside.
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Good points.
Are you nuts? You think Ben Nelson is retiring because he thinks he’s got a good shot of being re-elected?
Obamacare is a wave that is still cresting, my friend. You understimate the rancor out there… and it’s just going to get worse, no matter how the Supreme’s rule on Constitutionality.
People don’t like being told by Washington assholes what they have to buy. It puts them off their breakfast.
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Yeah, but it doesn’t crest until 2014.
By that time, they’ll be no Dems left in Congress.
At least none that voted for ObaCare.
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That’s fine by me; I’d rather the GOP spend their resources wisely in trying to pick up seats in the House or Senate, or at least to retain a majority in the House, than waste money trying to get Obama out of office.
I want Obama in office when the wave crests. I don’t care about all the quasi legal initiatives he’s going to have the agencies undertake because they can be cleared out in a heartbeat and their fleeting judgements can be cast off with the waive of a pen.
That’ll give us a sustaining majority, which means the Republicans four years from now can actually start pushing the country conservative without having a blowback that puts Democrats back in office, deadlocking everything.
You, my friend, need to acquaint yourself with the self-sustaining qualities of inimical, stultifying, gummint bureaucracy.
Wave of a pen? You wish! You know how hard it is to shrink a bureaucracy that’s grown to double its size over 8 years? By being blase about four more years of the Zero, you are threatening the very fabric of our nominally capitalist– and free! — society.
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If that were the case (a conservative wave), the Republicans never would have lost the House, and Obama would never have been elected. Both parties are two sides of the same coin. The Republicans had their chance to make their changes with the presidency and both houses of congress. Instead we got a war in Iraq. The Democrats had the same chance to bolster the economy via Keynes and fix Medicare and tweak Social Security, and possibly education. Instead we get ObamaCare.
The Tea party comes along and gets angry. OWS comes along and gets something no one understands. Nothing will change…
This is indeed a thoughtful comment, Yogi. Unbelievably frustrating to think of ~12 years of squandered opportunity.
Especially since any of the chances for either party to do right could be considered good politics on top of being good results for the citizenry.
Further indication that politicians (aka ‘dirty sumbitches’) are NOT incented to do the right thing, or even (often) the good political thing, simply the self-serving-turd thing.
The Dems were well on board for the war with Iraq, if you recall. The vote was some 99-1 or something of that order.
It wasn’t until those mendicants saw political opportunity in railing against the war that it became “the Republicans.” Shame on us for not abandoning troops fighting for their lives in Fallujah.
Let’s face it, the Federal Repubs are certainly too enemeshed in the fabric of big money Washington politics, but that power — that ability to move the economy to their will to grant favors to vastly diverse and purposely separated consituencies — is the lifesblood of Democrat Party.
And that is why they need to be kept from power. They believe the solution to problems in the government is “more.” At least the newer Republicans believe it is “less,” and anyone who had dealt with an officious, unchecked bureaucrat or bureaucracy knows the danger inherent in that path. We risk giving up the personal freedom that made this country flexible, adapative, innovative, and yes, great.
Those of you sitting in your comfortable leafy Stamford suburbs should look to the decimated horror that is East Hartford and Bridgeport to know where the path to “I’m from the gov’t and I’m here to help” lies.
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Jake, I guess I’m a lot more cynical than you. I just hope we can get back (were we ever there?) to the point, when men and women of both parties run for office to improve the future of our country and not to line their own pockets.
Your next to last paragraph is pure comedic gold.
Is my thoughtful comment being moderated?
Not that I know of, but I’ll check. Sometimes the filter catches stuff for like, no reason.
Yeah it got stuck in purgatory. I set it free.
Thanks.
(laughter) now Foxnews and CNN are trumpeting “Romney wins by 8 votes.”
You cannot win by 8 votes. It’s a statistic impossibility. The margin of error associated with running an election all but guarantees that.
The real outcome is that the Republicans do not have a clear candidate, and so now the media is trying to crown one for them.
You must look to the predictions of Jakestradamus, my friend.
Then all will become clear.
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Hahaha I thought it was Jake-rodamus?
If the GOP really is that concerned with beating Obama, the only alternative to them is Ron Paul. He may fracture the social conservatives, but fuck the social conservatives. He’ll more than make up for it with additions in independents, and those votes come directly from Obama.
And social conservatives are not going to swing Obama, so it’s a winning strategy. On the other hand, you push the wrong Republican and Obama grabs independents along with his party faithful, and it’s no contest: 60% to 40% of responding voters go blue.
Of course, a Ron Paul candidacy has a whole other host of issues, as he is not going to adhere to GOP dogma. But maybe that’s a good thing…
Completely see it that way too. Ron Paul is the only GOP candidate with a chance of stealing, and even galvanizing Obama’s former base to his side.
I think a Romney-Santorum ticket would be really competitive, but that only would be if Paul does not run as an independent. I know a couple of hard-core Paul “believers” one of whom is a local politician.
They do not compromise, and are very stubborn. If Paul ran as an independent, think he would take some of Obama’s younger voters, but I think he would hurt Romney-Santorum more.
CT. You act like the election is next month. The GOP will get behind THE NOMINEE. What you are seeing now is the name calling dance that will end in the next few months. Obama has sooo much baggage that he will drown in Novemeber. People have not forgotten the coup attempt by Reid and Pelosey when the Dems were in total power. It scared the shit out of everybody when they bribed Nelson to cast the final ballot on Obamacare.