Willard isn't scary enough.

I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but "we suck less" isn't going to be enough to win in 2012. It didn't work in 2010, and it won't work in 2012.

They need to give people an affirmative reason to vote for them -- especially because the prospects of a Romney presidency (unless he picks a Palin/Bachmann/nutbar as veep, which is possible) aren't sufficiently scary.

What do you want to do in 2013, guys? Tell us.

UPDATE

Before I get any more "stop complaining" comments, I'm coming from a place of wanting Obama/Biden to win. I don't think they're going to win, however, by screaming "Scary Republican!" and "suck it up, hippies."

Call me crazy.

Obama and civil liberties.

Not something to brag about.

And right on cue.

Of course it is.

IN THE MAIL: This Is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House.

Herman Cain, the choice of bigots.

I'm sure there's probably an element to the notion that supporting Herman Cain flatters white Republicans who might be, shall we say, not very progressive on race.

But the fact is, Cain ran for president for nearly a year as an unrepentant bigot, arguably the first time we've seen that at the presidential level since George Wallace in 1968 -- and that's why he's attracted so many bigots.

Give people a reason to vote, and they'll vote.

There are probably a lot of reasons there is a Democratic enthusiasm gap, and what they are exactly is open to debate. What's not debatable, however, is that there is one -- and it's significant.

And the only way the White House can reduce it is to give Democratic base voters a reason to get fired up and ready to go in 2012. Because the "adult in the room" stuff isn't enough.

Jobs bill was a good start -- but what's the agenda beyond that, guys?

Sarah Palin thinks jobs = "titles."

It's like she really doesn't know the difference between one of the most powerful political offices on the planet -- and all of the awesome responsibilities that come with it -- and a sinecure.

Then again, she probably doesn't know what the word "sinecure" means, either.

Perry to wingnuts: please forgive me for calling you heartless xenophobes.

The Secessionist offers flowers and chocolates to the angry Teabaggers.

Presidential candidate Rick Perry on Wednesday apologized for saying that anyone who opposed giving tuition breaks to the children of illegal immigrants “did not have a heart.”

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, the Texas governor said he had made a poor choice of words during the Sept. 22 presidential debate, but he stood by his view that the decision in his state to extend tuition breaks was the right one.

“I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate,” Perry admitted. “In Texas in 2001 we had 181 members of the legislature – only four voted against this piece of legislation – because it wasn’t about immigration it was about education.”

That's true, but only because the GOP wasn't quite so batshit 10 years ago.

This is what's known, in psychological terms, as "projection."

Assrocket:

How many Democrats are National Socialists at heart? Quite a few, I suspect...

If you love America, you're ignorant of her history.

Another Republican who loves this country and our heritage so much that he would flunk a 7th grade history test.

And the Weekly Standard haz a big sad.

There will be no savior candidate from New Jersey in 2012.

Billionaires against higher taxes.

One wonders if any of these billionaires who scream "class warfare!" have any idea at all what the top marginal tax rates were in the United States for most of the twentieth century.

Aside from the "I'm carrying the country on my back" line -- I loved this graf.

I pay taxes. I am willing to pay even more taxes but I would want accountability that the money was being spent wisely on infrastructure investments; education and retraining; and anything that makes us more competitive and gets people working again. That seems fair doesn’t it?

Yes, that "accountability" you seek, Ted, is called "elections." Look into it.

Farewell, Jon. We hardly knew ye.

The GOP debate stage gets a little less crowded and a little more crazy.

Wick Pewwwwys feewings gawt huwt.

Ha-ha.

Texas Governor Rick Perry responded Monday to criticism by President Obama regarding his position on climate change, calling the president's remarks "outrageous" and suggesting Mr. Obama was exploiting the fires for political purposes.

"It's outrageous President Obama would use the burning of 1,500 homes, the worst fires in state history, as a political attack," Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan told Politico via email.

Where to begin?

Let's start with the fact that it was the Secessionist who first used the wildfires as a political attack.

Moreover, it was the Secessionist who -- as wingers are known to do -- made climate change a political issue.

Texas is suffering through it's hottest, driest year ever. But global warming's a hoax!

Florida Republicans to Perry: STFU.

Memo to GOP candidates: bashing Social Security isn't a smart path to winning the Sunshine State:

“There is a way to talk about Social Security reform without scaring seniors and while demonstrating to younger workers that you’re going to have a modern system that’s going to be there for them,” said Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. “We haven’t heard it yet.”

Putnam, a former Republican congressman, expressed concern about Rick Perry’s criticism about the creation of Social Security in his book. He also mentioned Florida straw poll winner Herman Cain’s repeated references to switching over to the “Chilean model” of entitlement programs.

“Claiming that Social Security is unconstitutional is a way bigger problem than saying it’s a Ponzi scheme,” Putnam said. “And I don’t think the average American aspires to the Chilean standard of living.”

Life under the oligarchy.

It's the banksters' world -- we're just living in it.

Beating up the professional left.

Badgering the base didn't work in 2010 and it's not going to work now.

Baffling.

"The immigration thing."

Why one Florida wingnut rejected Perry.

"I was coming in for Perry, like a lot of people, but now I'm not sure," Charles Prachar, 72, a delegate from Macclenny, Florida, said before the vote. "I didn't like how bad he did at the debate and the immigration thing."

Just how crazy is today's GOP?

This crazy.

Another GOP savior candidate to the rescue!

High-larious.

Christie is even less acceptable to the Teahadists than the others. He's admitted that he believes global warming isn't a librul hoax, he calls the anti-Sharia wingnuts "crazies" -- and he says people are born with teh gey.

Good luck, Chris!

Perry's immigration problem will doom his campaign.

You can't win the Republican nomination in 2012 talking like this.

But if you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart.

That really pissed off Jim Geraghty.

Hey, Governor, if we wanted to hear suggestions that folks on the Right are heartless, we would have tuned in to watch a bunch of Democrats.

If you want to alienate Americans concerned about illegal immigration, the quickest and surest way is to suggest that they have cruel, draconian, xenophobic, or racist motives for their focus on border security.

Of course, it is cruel and racist and xenophobic to punish children for their parents' actions. Anyway, short of refudiating himself, I don't see how the Secessionist survives this.

Weekly Standard and its readers freaked out by GOP debate.

The Weekly Standard's official response to the GOP debate:

Yikes.

Some of us have been insisting that the GOP has been taken over by crazies for a while -- nice to see that even the propagandists at the Standard have come along.

The e-mails flooding into our inbox during the evening were less guarded. Early on, we received this missive from a bright young conservative: “I'm watching my first GOP debate...and WE SOUND LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!!”

Yes, it obviously was his first GOP debate, because they've been sounding like crazy people for the past decade and a half.

How can you flub calling Romney a flip-flopper?

The Secessionist manages it.

The Secessionist fades.

I kept telling people early on that the Secessionist was a lousy politician who would get exposed pretty quickly on the national stage, and he's doing just that.

People outside of Texas might not have realized that Perry was an accidental governor and Rove protege who switched parties at exactly the right time in history, got lucky -- and never faced a serious challenger.

The guy couldn't break 40% of the vote running against the likes of Kinky Friedman in one of the most right-wing states in the country.

It's not over for Perry, but it will be soon enough. As I saw it, his best path to victory would've been to avoid the media (and most of the debates) and the press, a la Palin in '08. Oh well.

This isn't great news for Obama. You can bet Axelrod was salivating over a Perry-Bachmann ticket.

Coward.

You can run, but you can't hide, Secessionist.

The problem with bragging about passing Mitt Romney's health care bill.

People might actually say, "Why not Romney, then?"

I still believe Romney will get through the GOP primary, because the Secessionist's Walker, Texas Ranger stuff will not play anywhere outside of the Old Confederacy. Also, it seems like every day the "Texas Miracle" looks less and less miraculous.

So if it is Obama/Romney, Obama's got his work cut out for him, because he's spent most of the past 18 months validating the GOP's deficit mania and talking about how government needs to "tighten its belt."

If the economy gets a lot worse, look out.

Elizabeth Warren vs. Jonah Goldberg

Who do you think wins?

Great plan, Bill!

What is Clinton thinking?

“If we cut government spending, which I normally would be very inclined to do when the deficit’s this big, with interest rates already near zero, you can’t get the benefits out of it,” Clinton said. “So what I’d like to see them do is come up with a bipartisan approach, starting with the payroll tax cuts because they have the biggest return.”

He added, “What I would like to say to both Speaker [John] Boehner and to the president is, OK, you both have your deal. Go work it out. Meanwhile, focus on putting America back to work now, because it just confused Americans.”

"Go work it out." Yeah, I'm sure the GOP will be happy to "work things out." Just as they did on the stimulus, health care reform, the debt ceiling, etc.

I mean, the idea that Obama's equally unwilling to make a deal as the GOP is nucking futs.

Glenn Reynolds peddles the "half the country doesn't pay taxes" lie.

Putz, still very non-partisany and libertarianish -- just loves to parrot objectively false right-wing talking points.

CHANGE: Obama Wants Americans to “Pay Their Fair Share” Except For the 47% Who Pay No Taxes.

Yeah, that's not true.

But the modifiers here — federal and income — are important. Income taxes aren’t the only kind of federal taxes that people pay. There are also payroll taxes and investment taxes, among others. And, of course, people pay state and local taxes, too.

Even if the discussion is restricted to federal taxes (for which the statistics are better), a vast majority of households end up paying federal taxes. Congressional Budget Office data suggests that, at most, about 10 percent of all households pay no net federal taxes. The number 10 is obviously a lot smaller than 47.

The reason is that poor families generally pay more in payroll taxes than they receive through benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit. It’s not just poor families for whom the payroll tax is a big deal, either. About three-quarters of all American households pay more in payroll taxes, which go toward Medicare and Social Security, than in income taxes.

Not only is the "ZOMG half the country doesn't pay taxes!" bullshit a lie -- it's a lie that, if they had an single ounce of intellectual consistency, they'd be celebrating.

What, they want Obama to raise taxes now? I can't keep up.

Government sucks! Unless it benefits me personally.

And in Rick Perry's case, it benefits him a whole hell of a lot.

Taxing the rich is popular.

I continue to be amazed that wingnuts express seemingly genuine shock/outrage that Obama wants to raise taxes on rich people.

In 6 days, Obama will have proposed over $2 trillion (that trillion with a ”t”) in new taxes, above and beyond what we already pay.

The big spender is on a tax hike bender.

1) Taxes are at historic lows.

2) The gap between the top 1% and everyone else is at historic highs.

3) Taxing rich people is very popular.

I understand that all they care about is keeping taxes low for rich people, but you'd think some of their shrieking would acknowledge -- however slightly -- at least some of these actual facts.

C'mon, John Cole -- you're better than that.

So, predictably, the House GOP has rejected Obama's jobs bill. Fine -- we knew that they would never give Obama a win and spend $447B in the process.

But here's how John Cole sees it playing out politically.

Up next, the manic progressive wing starts screaming about Obama not just making his job plan law by waving a magic wand, the “bully pulpit” chorus begins, all while the media completely ignore Republican intransigence and instead focuses on the “rift” inside the Democratic party while having concerned and excited chats about Obama’s sagging popularity.

Actually, that's wrong.

What will happen, if the last several years' precedent holds, is that Obama will start chipping away at his own plan, whittling it down while Republicans keep shouting, "Nyet."

Then, at the 11th hour, some crappy random collection of tax cuts will be passed under the name "American Jobs Act" and Obama and his apologists will declare victory -- and everyone will hate the Jobs Act, because of the spectacle it took to pass it, and because it will be toothless.

Now, I'm perfectly willing to let this play out -- my hope is Obama knew all along the GOP would reject the plan and he's going to use that as a cudgel in the 2012 election. He's going to say to the American people -- "I want to create jobs and the other side doesn't" and make it a binary choice. He's going to keep hammering them over and over and refuse to compromise, because he knows the public is with him.

I enjoy a good straw man as much as anyone else, but c'mon, John. Obama's problems aren't all about the liberal base of the Democratic Party and the media. That's silly.

Scenes from the Texas Miracle.

I suppose it is a problem for the Secessionist that the unemployment rate in Texas is the highest it's been in 24 years.

Sick as a dog.

Sorry for the light posting, I've got a bad bug.

In other news, I don't understand why this kind of advice wasn't given 18 months ago.

Too crazy for Rick Perry.

You know you're far-right when you freak out the Secessionist with your blood lust.

America hates the Teabaggers.

Less popular than Atheists, Muslims.

America really hates Real America!

No more Two Minutes of Hate left.

Friedersdorf:

Erickson. Coulter. Ace of Spades. Leon Wolf. These are the sorts of people -- indeed they are the very individuals -- who draw on tribal loyalty and employ vitriol to enforce political orthodoxies. Amazingly, they seem genuinely shocked that a pathological culture impervious to reason now exists around Palin, as if a movement that began with critics being assigned to a virtual leper colony could end any other way. Loath as these people are to admit it, Kathleen Parker was right all along. So was Daniel Larison and David Brooks (and to be frank, I was as prescient as anyone).

Adding, the entire left (and the majority of independents) were right all along as well. Pretty much everyone except the GOP rump, including Glenn Reynolds.

I'll have to find another subject for my Two Minutes of Hate series.

Telling us what you're going to do with your second term would be a good start.

The hand-wringing is getting louder.

“We need to work more on the message,” Mr. Rodriguez said, adding that much of Mr. Obama’s challenge stems from a group of Republicans who “simply say no” to all of his advances. “We have to re-energize people and get them back to the party.”

What message? Hard to "re-energize" people when you're not telling them anything.

Still no "issues" tab on the campaign website.

He's not just angry, he's stupid.

In addition to labeling him weak and/or angry, wingnuts also love the "Obama's really an idiot, the media just doesn't cover it" meme.

In today's episode, Putzy links to William Jacobson, who insists that Sarah Palin, is in fact, much smarter than Obama. Why? Because Obama said Lincoln founded the Republican Party, which everyone knows isn't true.

Everyone except the Republican Party.

Abraham Lincoln helped establish the Republican Party with a speech denouncing an 1854 law, written by a Democrat Senator, that allowed slavery to expand into the western territories.

Idiots.

The very brave Paul Ryan.

He's so afraid of his own people, he's started charging to attend his town halls -- and now he's a thug, to boot.

Angry black man watch.

Putz, always happy to pass on race baiting.

MICHAEL BARONE: Obama The Unhappy Warrior: “Barack Obama looked and sounded angry in his speech to the joint session of Congress.

Wingnuts like Putz have spent the past 3 years constantly vacillating between calling Obama a weak, feckless Carter-like pushover -- or Mumia Hussein Obama, ruthless leader of a Chicago-style gangsta government.

Sure, that's a glaring contradiction, but any time they can play the angry black guy card -- they'll take it.

Good speech.

I have a sinking feeling, however, that unless Obama fights for it as he said he would, all the goodies (infrastructure, job programs) will get stripped away and the entire bill will be a bunch of random tax cuts.

Oh, and what Digby said.

Chait's non-response.

I really have no idea what Chait is getting at here.

Can anyone figure it out?

Freakshow.

It's hard to watch this "who can be the most crazy" show, but I did laugh when the Secessionist just said,

I kinda feel like the pinata at the party here.

Everyone, all together now: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Let the Two Minutes of Hate Against Erick Erickson Begin

Confessions of a former Palinbot.

To paraphrase Ann, a lot of us fell in love with Sarah Palin because of her enemies and a lot of us have fallen out of love with Sarah Palin because of her fans.

Don't you just love that? Supporting a political candidate not on the basis of her competence, policy preferences, ideas, intelligence, achievements or track record -- but because she pisses off liberals.

You get what you deserve, idiots.

Let the Two Minutes of Hate Against Ann Coulter Begin.

It's over.

The wages of austerity.

Heckuva job, Secessionist.

Under Gov. Rick Perry (R) this year, Texas slashed state funding for the volunteer fire departments that protect most of the state from wildfires like the ones that have recently destroyed more than 700 homes.

Volunteer departments that were already facing financial strain were slated to have their funding cut from $30 million to $7 million, according to KVUE.

The majority of Texas is protected by volunteer fire departments. There are 879 volunteer fire departments in Texas and only 114 paid fire departments. Another 187 departments are a combination of volunteer and paid.

I blame the hippies.

The debate on the left about how progressive Obama is really doesn't matter. If you want to defend his policy choices on the merits (i.e., the stimulus was plenty big) -- knock yourself out.

But the simple fact is they're not working politically.

Public pessimism about the direction of the country has jumped to its highest level in nearly three years, erasing the sense of hope that followed President Obama’s inauguration and pushing his approval ratings to a record low, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

More than 60 percent of those surveyed say they disapprove of the way the president is handling the economy and, what has become issue No. 1, the stagnant jobs situation. Just 43 percent now approve of the job he is doing overall, a new career low; 53 percent disapprove, a new high.

Slow on the uptake, cont'd

Geez.

"We're going to see if we've got some straight shooters in Congress. We're going to see if congressional Republicans will put country before party."

Going to see?

So, the whole voting unanimously against the stimulus, health care reform and hostage-taking over the debt ceiling wasn't convincing enough?

1927.

USA! USA! USA!

Dr. Jim Jirjis, director of general internal medicine at Vanderbilt University, said people, like Willis, without access to care often die of conditions that were much more common decades ago.

"He [Willis] might as well have been living in 1927," Jirjis said. "All of the advances we've made in medicine today and are proud of, for people who don't have coverage, you might as well never have developed those."

Global warming, un-debunked.

Remember when wingnuts had a huge circlejerk over that bogus "NASA" study that supposedly "debunked" climate change?

Oh well.

Hey, I tried to warn them.

Let me save you some trouble here, wingnuts. You’re going to need to do a little better than a Big Oil-funded flat-earther from the University of Tractor Fixin’ and Bible Learnin’ to override every major scientific society and academy on the planet.

Just trying to save you a little trouble here.

Awful.

From Duncan:

Black unemployment is at 16.7%.

Black male unemployment is at 18%.

White unemployment is at 8%.



Unemployment for those 25+ with bachelor's degree or more education is at 4.3%.

Reminded me of this.

Neckar drivers no likey da preznit.

It doesn't matter at all if some NASCAR drivers don't want to meet Obama.

But it's worth pointing out that if a bunch of NBAers or NFLers refused to visit the White House during the Bush years, there would've been a nonstop Faux News/wingnut freakout over it (with lots of legacy media concern-trolling) -- until they were forced to apologize.

Just saying.

Slow on the uptake.

Sigh.

“It is a big deal that the House said ‘no’ to the president from our end,” a White House source with intimate knowledge of what took place between the House and the president told me Thursday. “This confirms what we all know: They will do anything in the House to muck us up.”

This confirms? Way to keep up, guys.