Republican Desperation in Salt Lake County

Look what I found driving in Holladay today:

Not only is this sign illegally placed, but it's also highly illegal as it has no indication of who paid for the signs.

Not only that, but it also smacks of desperation.  Doesn't exactly sound like a campaign that's up 10 points, does it?  (More on that in another post.)

In fact, it really is sad that the only thing Mark Crockett can campaign on is how "liberal" Ben McAdams is.  I've gotten two mailers from Crockett the past few days telling me this.

Not only is the sign illegal and the campaign tactic desperate, but it's a flat out lie.  Find me one person who honestly thinks Ben McAdams is as liberal as Rocky Anderson.  In fact, I'd be willing to be that both men would scoff at the notion.

Anyway, however liberal Ben McAdams may be, he is willing to bring all sides together to find a common ground.  The world of politics needs more Ben McAdamses.  Salt Lake County needs Ben McAdams.

Touchdown Romney, Game (not) Over

Mitt Romney won last night's debate. However, the game is not over.

 You see, Mitt needed a win. And knowing that he only needed a tie, Obama played not to lose, and lost. It was the political equivalent of a football team playing prevent defense. You send three linemen at the quarterback and drop the other 8 into coverage. Most of the time, playing prevent defense allows the quarterback time to throw, and receivers more time to shake the defenders, allowing the offense to march down the field. It's cost the University of Utah several games against BYU the past several years (and almost cost them this year's game).

 It's bad to play prevent defense when you are up by less than a touchdown, but even worse when you are down 17 in the 4th. A stop makes it very difficult to win. Allowing a touchdown gives your opponent momentum and confidence. But, you're still up 10 points. The game isn't over. Do you run down the clock, hoping your prevent defense will last until election day? Or do you play your norm, moving the ball effectively and efficiently down the field, hoping to play just as much offense to run the clock to 0:00?  Or, do you run wide-open aggressiveness, hoping you can stick the final nail in the coffin, but also hoping you don't throw an interception, allowing your opponent to have good field position.

I think a good place to start is by pointing out that It's easy to score a touchdown when you have 12 men on the field win a debate when you tell a lie every minute and 24 seconds, not counting lies you repeat.

We'll see what kind of coaches Team Obama has.  I just hope it's not Kyle Wittingham.

-Bob

Mitt Romney: Frequent, Flagrant, Brazen Liar

Interesting bit from the Guardian about Mitt Romney's dishonesty.  Some highlights:

 Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.
Now, in general, those of us in the pundit class are really not supposed to accuse politicians of lying – they mislead, they embellish, they mischaracterize, etc. Indeed, there is natural tendency for nominally objective reporters, in particular, to stay away from loaded terms such as lying. Which is precisely why Romney's repeated lies are so effective. In fact, lying is really the only appropriate word to use here, because, well, Romney lies a lot. But that's a criticism you're only likely to hear from partisans.

The author then talks about the bit in Romney's book about President Obama going around the world to "apologize" for America, which in the real world never happened.  

President Obama never went around the world and apologized for America – and yet, even after multiple news organizations have pointed out this is a "pants on fire" lie, Romney keeps making it. Indeed, the "Obama apology tour", along with the president bowing down to the King of Saudi Arabia, are practically the lodestars of the GOP's criticism of Obama's foreign policy performance (the Saudi thing isn't true either).

 He then goes on to list several more Romney lies about the economy, stimulus, auto bailout, Obamacare.  But then we get down to the "Brass tax" of it all:

The lying from the Romney campaign is so out-of-control that Steve Benen, a blogger and producer for the Rachel Maddow show compiles a weekly list of "Mitt's Mendacity" that is chockfull of new untruths. Benen appears unlikely to run out of material any time soon, particularly since Romney persists in repeating the same lies over and over, even after they've been debunked.

This is perhaps the most interesting and disturbing element of Romney's tireless obfuscation: that even when corrected, it has little impact on the presumptive GOP nominee's behavior. This is happening at a time when fact-checking operations in major media outlets have increased significantly, yet that appears to have no effect on the Romney campaign.

What is the proper response when, even after it's pointed out that the candidate is not telling the truth, he keeps doing it? Romney actually has a telling rejoinder for this. When a reporter challenged his oft-stated assertion that President Obama had made the economy worse (factually, not correct), he denied ever saying it in the first place. It's a lie on top of a lie.

As a song we used to sing in Primary says "When you tell one lie, it leads to another..." 


And, in conclusion, a paragraph I wish I had written, because it so well sums up my feelings about Mitt:

Romney is charting new and untraveled waters in American politics. In the process, he is cynically eroding the fragile sense of trust that exists between voters and politicians. It's almost enough to make one pine for the days when Sarah Palin lied about "the Bridge to Nowhere".