Talk Elections

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/mitt-romney-birth-certificate_n_1828095.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/mitt-romney-birth-certificate_n_1828095.html)

Are you serious Mitt

Oh stop it was just a joke.

Why joke about this?

I'm sure the Trump wing of the party had a good laugh.

I expect to see more and more racially tinged comments like this and the welfare ad as we head into the fall.

To drive home the message that while Barack Obama was technically not born a hateable furriner, he might as well be for all that the Republican electorate, and thus Romney, cares. "Nobody doubts my Americanness - I'm a clean whitebread Protestant Ur-American! (Apart from actually being a Mexican Mormon, of course.) Now Mr Obama, on the other hand... he's a Black, you see, and a Black Exotic at that. He's so Unamerican we needed to see his birth certificate."

Such a piece of slime

What else is Mitt Romney to joke about? Remember, the man can only be programmed to say so much.

"No one as ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know this is the place I was born" Mitt Romney

I was wondering how long it would take him to go the birther route. This confirms what we all know, Romney is behind, he knows it, the GOP establishment knows it, and they are going to have to go Nuclear to even have a shot.

Voting starts in a couple weeks but ends on Nov 6. My guess is they are starting to see the writing on the wall. 

Quick time to dream up more voter suppression tactics!

Anyone want to take a guess as to how soon before we see the first birther television ADS?

I wouldn't call this a joke, it's not funny. It's just a racist comment.

Mitt should just go back to describing Obama as having a "foreign outlook" and other dogwhistles. This was just clumsy and will only backfire

Very moronic. Willard can't claim the high road anymore.

What we don't know is his "home state".

Mitt Romney represents the state of New Hampmassautahchiganafornia.

Why did obama joke about seamus on the car?

Because a dog and the President are EXACTLY the same.

bbbbbut I read on the Atlas Forum that only Democrats make petty attacks while Republicans stick to the real issues...

It was also a joke about something that, you know, actually happened.

I honestly don't get how this is being interpreted as a joke.

Mitt, that wasn't funny at all. I think you need to replace your humor circuits.

I really do despise this man.

LOL.

Obama's reply:

http://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/239062043368509440

LMAO

Good one, Mitt.
I enjoyed that joke so much that I'm going to send in a donation.
To your opponent.

EDIT:  I'm perfectly aware that both campaigns have hit below the belt.  Obama and his surrogates have made often irrelevant and sometimes quite offensive stabs at Romney.  So, in the abstract, turnabout is fair play, and the stakes in this election are far more important than this comment.  But pandering to birthers just gets under my skin, even as a snide or clueless joke.  

The 24 hour news cycle is officially out of control.

Would Tim Tebow ever defeat Obama in a presidential race?

Yes... this is TOTALLY the media's fault... *eye roll

Yeah, it is the media fault that Romney can't help himself from saying stupid ****.

Microsoft Romney 2012 needs to be upgraded.

This is not stupid inks. This is a pretty clever way of saying (read-my-post-above) without actually being presentable as endorsing birther positions, which would effectively end his campaign. Expect much more of this. Do not expect anything more than this.

The hacks coming out of the woodwork to defend their teleprompter king.

()

Maybe Mittens should consider using a teleprompter more often. Then perhaps he wouldn't make so many gaffes.

Perhaps this should not surprise me coming from the candidate who said, "I'm running for office for pete's sake, I can't have illegals" in a debate.  As a minority, I've watched these veiled racist messages coming from GOP tickets for many years (remember Palin going to a rural area and describing it and similar communities as the "pro-America" parts of the country).  

Obama makes just as many gaffes, and using the teleprompter for a normal conversation doesn't cut slack.

Off topic, but this makes Obama look like a jack***, calling an Admiral a General.  How can a President running, make a simple mistake like that?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192643/Barack-Obama-botches-rank-Navy-SEAL-William-McRaven.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2192643/Barack-Obama-botches-rank-Navy-SEAL-William-McRaven.html)

People are taking what was a bad attempt at a joke and turning it into much more than it is. Romney is not a birther, and it would be idiotic to play the birther strategy if he was behind, since that would do nothing but alienate more people.

Mitt makes awkward gaffes all the time when talking to people about a particular area (cheesy grits, trees are perfect height, etc), in an attempt to be funny. This is no different.

The Romney campaign racist strategy of othering the president continues apace.

Everything is racist in your book, including the color of the ants on the ground.

No, only the things that are blatantly racist, like Romney's comments today. If you read the NY Times article about this, it seems that Paul Ryan's comments as well stressed the supposed cultural disconnect Obama has from the white, Christian Americans who made up 95% of the audience. So it was hardly an accident.

Obama doesn't have anything not in common with white caucasians that I know of.

an awkward dude.  generally I assume everything Mitt says is 100% rehearsed and focus-group-tested, this I have a few doubts.

This was clearly just a case of Romney trying to be emphasize himself as a Michigander in a way that he thought for some reason would be clever.  But, people like to be offended.

Really?  There are birth certificate request jokes that are specific to Michigan?  I don't, by the way, look for opportunities to be offended.  Birtherism is offensive, and enlisting it in a joke doesn't help make it obvious that it's just a joke.  In fact, I always thought one of the good things about Romney being the nominee was that he wouldn't give any quarter to birther stuff, so I was not expecting to hear remarks like that from him.

Hey, RockyIce, I've been watching presidents make speeches for more than thirty years, and they all used teleprompters--a lot.  Where did this idea come from that Obama is the only president to have ever used them and that we should especially find fault with him for doing it?

While I think Romney was going to lose anyway, if it turns out to be very close, we might point to this as the thing that lost Romney the election.

This thread is a whole lot of waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Doubt it.

I think Romney is going to lose, but this will have no effect on the election.

Dumbass

It's hard to compare a stupid, but harmless, mistake to pandering to the bigots.

More like desperation. Why tell a joke about a stupid conspiracy there?

Considering that team Obama spoonfed the Soptic story to a superpac and then lied about it, politics is clearly in the 'anything goes' stage.

Welcome to the reality you created. A bunch of whiners will cry on the internet and nobody will care.

Hilarious how the blue avatars here will never, EVER admit that Romney did anything remotely wrong or politically unwise.  Listening to them, you'd think the man is infallible.

Sure he has. But ignoring liberals is not one of them. He has no reason to care about those types.

Oh, I don't think it will have any political ramifications at all, and obviously no one cares about what I say on the Atlas Forum, nor should they.  But, you know, it's a free country, I have freedom of speech, and I'm just saying I don't care for it.  That's all.

Yes, I don't think Romney is a brither. I can believe it was just a botched attempt of joke, but when you're a candidate, you need to be careful. There are people who actually believes this s**t and there's no need to encourage them, for they are too stupid to understand the difference.

Couldn't he just stick to complimenting the height of the state's trees?  At least there are no sinister racial undertones in that.

That is the problem with this. Romney is coming off a week where he has been trying to distance himself from a fringe view point from one extreme of his party. So he shouldn't be making jokes about another fringe viewpoint from another crazy wing if his party.

Romney continues to act like he is running in the GOP primary.

Sorry anvi.   I know you don't look for ways to be offended.  I wasn't thinking of your post when I said that, but I shouldn't have been so general.  I just have found that there are some people here who jump quickly to accusations of racism or bigotry and then don't want to hear another explanation, and I let it gets to me too much lately.  (Really, I shouldn't even say that those people like to be offended when it may be a reasonable response based on assumptions they sincerely hold.)

I can, looking at it again, see why someone would be offended by this, but I don't think Romney was trying to feed into birtherism. He was trying to emphasize that he was born in Michigan (I'm assuming that's what he's referring to when he says "this is the place we were born and raised" and not America generally) since he has had trouble connecting with any sort of home advantage there. I read the reference as being a joke that played on the controversy, not on Obama for supposedly not being a genuine American.

Yes, very true. There are definitely some vocal proponents of playing the 'that's racist' card around here.

racist.

^

The Obama campaign did.

http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/files/2012/08/Screen-Shot-2012-08-24-at-1.27.20-PM.png

I often wonder who does the inept socialization of young Republicans.  Why can't they understand some people can "go there," but it's generally a bad idea for other groups of people?

Where were you raised?

He's no Reagan when it comes to jokes, but that's all he was doing. Obama made a joke of it a time or two and there was no outcry on him. Let's simply get over it and focus on more pressing issues.

Please see the post directly above yours.

YES! Actual issues would be very nice.

The false equivalency by Republicans is laughable.

It is one thing to make jokes, but Romney just blew the racist dog whistle.

To some people in America racism is an "actual issue."

To those who are defending Romney, are you seriously arguing that this is smart politics?

Obama's shamus joke was also stupid, and I dont think that helps more than it makes him look like he is taking cheap shots.


Why cant partisans here acknowledge when someone makes a bad play. Its like watching a football game and having a set of fans say 'that wasn't an interception, our quarterback was luring the other team into a fight with our defense'

Perhaps but I wouldn't put a true story about a dog on the same level as racism towards a black man.

Both sides are guilty of these off the cuff remarks. Romney made a mistake, it's done, it's over with, let's get back to real game.

Of course this was not good politics.  It was a joke that completely flopped. Mitt did not want to be asked on CBS news the weekend before his convention about this. The politics on this are not good for him, but it was absolutely not racist.

People like you make others sick of bringing up racist issues ALL THE TIME.  How about paying more attention to important topics like 13 million people being out of work or economic issues? Those have a more impact than your petty problems.

Of course Obama gets to joke about it. What the hell.

And I don't know whether this was Mittens being Mittens, a joke (doubt it) or racial pandering. I would not be surprised if it was. Why do so many people think it wasn't? Obviously that sort of thing does move some swing voters in crucial states, especially the "he's not american" or "he doesn't get america" attacks. Let's not forget Sununu said something very similar a few weeks back.

Look this birther thing is racist.  It's 2012.  Neither I nor any other decent person feel any obligation to just sweep this under the rug.  This is not just some "off the cuff remark."  This birther crap is a well worn routine that has been going on for months and been condemned.  After shooting his mouth off over seas and pissing off allies and being called a racist by Palestinians you would think this guy would learn.

In a lot of ways this race was Romney's to lose.  A lot of us from the political left had no great fear or animosity towards the guy.  We may have not liked some of the policies he put forth but we were reasonably comfortable that we were not going to have a Bush, Palin, Bachmann, Cain, Perry, etc on our hands.  I just didn't think once the nomination fight was over and it was approaching September we would be dealing with this racist birther crap from Romney.  To be honest with you we didn't see this garbage from Bush.


Sorry you must have misunderstood the thread.  It was ROMNEY that told a racist joke in front of a crowd of people on live TV... not me.

Maybe Republicans should stop playing racial dog whistle politics and stick to the real issues as well.

Romney to lose means more people being unemployed and another 4 years of stagnation, high unemployment and the country going on a downfall.

No.  My point was Romney unlike a lot of prominent Republicans stayed away from the racism, sexism, gay bashing, and war mongering.  In other words it was actually possible to have a reasonable conversation with the guy, but he decided to crawl down into the ditch with the rest of the rabble.

No worries, shua.  I don't believe Romney is a birther at all, or even anything remotely in the universe of one.  So, maybe that's why I was taken aback by the comment he made today--I didn't expect it, and was just left feeling like, "wow, what is that?"  But, then again, if I revert back to a more humble parody of myself, I've unintentionally flubbed jokes badly too, so I'm probably a bad one to point fingers.

I think it's perfectly understandable for people not to want Obama to be president anymore.  He has let some very important opportunities go by that have disappointed me too.  But, you know, I've actually spoken with him directly through more than one correspondence, I think he is, on a human level, a really decent fellow, and, not to jump up and down or anything, but I was really proud four years ago to have played even the most insignificant parts in helping to get the country's first African-American president elected.  So, I have a visceral reaction to birher stuff, it really makes me sick.  So, if my initial reaction seemed like an overreaction, that's basically why.

Half the people posting on this thread need to eat razorblades.

Link. (http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-denies-birth-certificate-swipe-20120824,0,4436760.story)

So there you go Romney apologists.  Apparently you were wrong.  It wasn't a joke about President Obama's birth certificate.  It wasn't even about the president!

I can't wait until the campaign is over.

That's a joke, by the way. Where's your sense of humour, etc, etc, etc.

This was not a joke...this came from Romney's gut...maybe a Freudian slip but not a gaffe.

I think we got a mini peak into the soul of Mitt Romney, not a pretty picture. Kinda sad for a guy with a couple Harvard degrees and who's dad was generally a stand up guy.

He is not a closeted birther deep down in his soul. ::) He is just a guy who is clueless as to how to connect with people and makes a lot of stupid gaffes when trying to be funny. Same thing with his illegals comment, and a bunch of other things.

Liberals need to bring up the Birth issue more!

It distracts voters from important issues like the economy and universal health care. 

To be honest, at this point, Obama's birther issue is a losing issue for Obama.  It needlessly reminds swing voters that Obama lacks patriotism or nationalism, and thinks of America and Americans second to the UN. 

In 2008, Obama spending his childhood in Kenya and Indonesia was seen as an asset to improving International relations and promoting support in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Now, the international Birther background places Obama as a President who ignores the problems of everyday Americans.  So keep talking about the Birther issue because it calls into question Obama's patriotism.  It will sink Obama faster than speaking French sunk Kerry.

You misunderstood the thread.  ROMNEY told the racist birther joke in front of a crowd of people on live TV.

Romney is not a birther but this was a pander to the birther crowd.  I have seen this movie before -- Reagan campaigning against "welfare queens," Bush I running Willie Horton ads against Michael Dukakis, Palin talking about the rural "pro-America" parts of the country.  It's very clear who the target audience is for all this.

Not sure about that.  I think it's more he's gotten so used to "appealing to the base" he just slipped and ad libbed part of that routine.  He hasn't shifted gears yet and Etch A Sketched for the general.  Someone in his campaign needs to program in the hard left back to the center... or right of center.

^You must be another one of those secret Muslims.  The Muslim Brotherhood will be running things in no time....

Seriously though it is quite scary how many think Obama is some sort of Manchurian candidate or something.

"Obama lacks patriotism" what the hell, where do you come up with this crap

then you should eat the courage pill and enumerate which half should and which half shouldn't.

this is not exculpatory. 

The more Liberals complain about the Birthers and call Tea Party members racist, the more it emboldens their cause.  I know Obama is trying to rally the Liberal activists against these white racists but Liberals think the birthers are a bad joke. 

Besides, wasting time talking about the Birther issue takes time away from talking about the economy, jobs, and healthcare.  So the more Liberals complain about Birthers, the more likelihood that they think Obama is busy worrying about his birth certificate than failing to fix the country. 

Liberals speak for themselves when it comes to Conservatives being racist.  In my opinion, Liberals make hyperbole issues about race topics since they're so concerned about specific ethnicities to vote for their BS ideas.  They're not to unite people, their goal is to divide people into groups which is class warefare and quite a few people have grown tired of it.

I think the Obama campaign and Liberals are worried about the Birther issue, otherwise they and the liberal media won't make such a big deal every time a Tea Partier brings it up. 

The average voters thinks its a bad joke, but the more Obama fights back about it and spends time creating ads about Birthers, the more regular people are going to think its a big deal, and that maybe Obama is fighting back so hard is because he's afraid of something. 

I don't see how the Birther issue is going to make someone "stay for Obama" or "switch to Obama" 

Its more annoying to hear Liberals constantly complain about Birthers.
The better option is to just ignore the conspiracy theorists and talk about the other issues.  But Liberals have no other issues to talk about other than how "Racist white folks are" because they hate the black president because he's born in Kenya.  Its just stupid is as stupid does, and Liberals are just buying into the stupidity. 

If a Liberal is going to vote for Obama because Romney made a "birth certificate joke" then that liberal might need to re-think his or her priorities. 

Obama made a gaffe (his true feelings) when he said "You didn't build your business, government did" and it showed how little Obama thinks about private enterprise and capitalism in America.  It shows that he secretly and inheritently views corporations as evil and undeserving of their success. 

Romneybot thought this was a joke?

Anyways, McCain was retroactively given citizenship when he was 11 months old, so the birthers really barked up the wrong tree.

That's not even the quote taken out of context, that's literally not the quote:


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/jul/18/context-obamas-you-didnt-build-comment/

It's probably time to start infracting for intentional distortions of the "you didn't build that" quote, since it's very well established that the antecedent of "that" isn't "your business."  Anyone who tries to imply that it is the antecedent is just intentionally trolling.

and the antecedent is ?

Seriously?

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build [those roads and bridges / general infrastructure from that great American system]"

And there's no way at all it could possible be "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build [that business]"? It's impossible and in fact trolling to say that?

Yes, it is trolling because it makes sense in context. Businesses use these facilities in some form and they most certainly did not build that.

Infracting for trolling at the 2012 Election board is like giving speeding tickets at Indy 500.

But true.

Are you seriously arguing what he meant?  I can understand if you oppose infracting, but it's very obvious what Obama meant if you look at the entire quote.

The antecedent is ambiguous. It could refer to the general system, the roads and bridges, the business, or the success in a general way. Not that it matters. It's clear enough what the point of his argument is.

Willard Mitt Romney: The Awkward Comedy tour

Only to a troll.

I've made the exact same argument to right wingers myself.  It is human nature to magnify your own efforts and diminish the efforts of others.  Most of us on the left learn to recognize this fact and adjust for it when we are 5.  Right wingers carry on right into adulthood thinking they are the only ones doing any work around here and they and they alone should be recognized when something works out.  Public roads, teachers, SBA loans, and government contracts have nothing to do with the success of companies like Ryan Incorporated.


Republicans think discussing racism is "wasting time."

Discussing legally entrenched racism isn't a waste of time. Discussing racism in America is, largely because there are no reasonable government policies that can combat it any further at this point, and also because it's been marginalized enough that it is no longer a significant cultural phenomenon.

Also, congratulations on becoming the second person inducted to my ignore list, after Bandit. I tend to click the "Show" button anyway, so presumably we'll still have lots of fun.

I've come across this formulation of acceptance of ambiguity and complexity in interpretation as equivalent to trolling before. I don't really understand it, but sometimes internet memes go over my head.

I do not believe that is true and even if it was true I think that is an odd thing for someone on the right to say.  I thought people on the right liked private sector solutions?  If there is enough of an uproar on the internet and through media outlets certain racist behavior will be curbed.  Frankly I didn't read the whole thread but I don't think anyone asked the government to step in in this situation.  I discuss all kinds of things the government doesn't have the power to regulate.  Since when was government's ability to regulate the prerequisite for discussing a social problem?


If you are that upset about people discussing racism... imagine how African Americans feel when they have to listen to Romney.


Sure.  We only have a major party nominee making a racist joke in front of a crowd of people on live TV.  Yeah that's not a problem... but forum posts you don't like are.  Got it.  Racism bothers me a lot more than forum posts.  I have definitely read things on here that I find distasteful.  So distasteful the people that posted them were perma banned.  Those people never made it onto my ignore list.  I guess everyone has their priorities.

Take off your partisan glasses and tell me which of these makes sense:

-- The government helped build a great infrastructure, roads and bridges.  If you have a business, you didn't build that infrastructure.

-- The government helped build a great infrastructure, roads and bridges.  If you have a business, you didn't build that business.



Not only is the second statement completely nonsensical, it doesn't fit into the paragraph at all.

It's not, it's just difficult for me to think of anything that could curb it at this point, and leftist Americans tend to think some sort of final push from somewhere will eradicate it.


No, it's more about your signature and your hoplophobia. I'm not upset about people discussing racism, I'm upset about people who believe you can just easily get rid of it. Internet pushes can change the way politicians behave but not how regular people behave. I don't even know what you mean about the second half of your sentence; most of them probably disagree with him, some amount agree. My gut says few African Americans would consider Romney racist, but I haven't seen polling so I won't repeat that as a fact. Romney's father, George, marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.


Whether birtherism is racist or not can be argued (I would say it isn't, but I understand how it could be viewed as such), but calling Romney's joke racist is just incredibly dishonest.

Is it nonsensical? Or is it, in its non-absolute sense, a reasonable inference from the other statements he was making?  That is, one doesn't build a business all by oneself.

So hang on a minute.  You can't handle someone criticizing Marco Rubio's factually incorrect, hyperbolic, hyperpartisan remark?  You can't handle someone disagreeing with giving every flight attendant in America a gun, but African Americans should listen to this birther stuff from the Republican presidential nominee and just keep their mouths shut?  Obviously not afraid of a little double standard are we?


That's a lie.  That was debunked over half a year ago.


Link. (http://articles.boston.com/2012-02-28/politics/31103356_1_mitt-romney-george-romney-father-march)

Vosem, Romney will say ANYTHING that pops into his head depending on the time of day or who the audience is.  I would be careful about calling people out and putting them on "ignore" based on some off the cuff Romney pronouncement.

Yes, just like the majority of your posts.

Which board were you reading? This is a heavily democratic board in which republicans are frequently villified as trolls and Obama is held in a much higher regard than Romney.

Of course I can handle criticizing it, but the idea that it's some kind of stupid gaffe, when, at absolute minimum, 40% of the population agrees with him is just incredibly dumb.


This is something rather more difficult to handle, because it's an obvious measure and because your argument against it (flight attendants will go on murderous rampages) is just so bizarre.


Where did I say they should keep their mouths shut? I'm pretty confident most of them realize it was a joke (and that in fact calling birtherism a racist phenomenon is stretching the truth -- not necessarily breaking, but stretching), but if they feel offended, they should go ahead and say it.


Excuse me, what?


Having read more about it, admittedly it's unlikely (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/28/mitt-romney/george-romney-and-mlk-marched-but-not-together/), not impossible but unlikely, they did it, but it's historical fact that George Romney marched for civil rights, and there are witness accounts other than Romney himself who claim they met at Grosse Pointe.


Clearly.


I put you on ignore more for your irrational beliefs about arming airplane staff and your general belief that Republicans are racist than for any specific post.

George's Romney record on civil rights is not an issue there. We're talking about Mitt Romney.