The Obama Diary

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Charles P. Pierce: ….. Romney has a problem: People don’t like him. Not only that, but the more people see him, the more they dislike him …. Newt Gingrich’s unfavorability ratings in this country at large are whopping … But Willard’s unlikability is of a different sort. It is chronic and general….

…. There is something about Willard that doesn’t connect ….. Willard stopped being electable because there stopped being the faintest reason to vote for him. If you wanted stubborn independence, you had Ron Paul. If you wanted sanctimony, fetuses, and paranoia about Iran, Rick Santorum was your boy. If your biggest thrill in life is to hock a loogie at all of your fellow Americans whom you despise, well, Newt Gingrich always has been there for you, and he’s better than you are at it.

…. If he is to be nominated - and I still think he probably will be - Willard Romney will be nominated by a party that would move en masse to the other end of a subway car rather than listen to him talk any more. At the convention, we will be treated by the least spontaneous “spontaneous demonstrations” in the history of the Republic. By the third day, they might have to bribe people just to fill the hall.

Full post here

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The Week

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Michael Tomasky: Newt won by hatin’ on the black guy and the liberal media. He hated on them expertly. He fired synapses in conservatives’ brains that they barely knew were there ….He won because he expressed and embodied conservative rage better than the others.

….. Exactly why is Gingrich suddenly more electable than Romney? Because, it is said, he has proven that he can debate Barack Obama. You hear conservatives talk, they’re just licking their chops over this. They may well nominate Gingrich not because they really want him to be the president of the United States, but because they want to see him debate Obama…..

….. They want someone who can stand on a stage with Obama and say, “You are our nightmare. You are the destroyer. You are the un-American and the anti-Christ, and I smite you.” For conservatives, it’s personal with Obama. He blinds them with hatred.

So they don’t really want someone who can “beat” Barack Obama, which is the question the exit polls asked. They want someone who can humiliate him in prime-time television, put him in his place, expose him to the world such that all the deluded idiots in this country who still like Obama finally and blazingly acknowledge the truth that has so long been obvious to them…

More here

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