On Fri, 9 Nov 2012 07:17:25 -0200, ALBERTO VIEIRA FERREIRA MONTEIRO
<albm...@centroin.com.br> wrote:
So... What about Obama's reelection?
Here in Brazil, we had the impression that the Republicans "chose" the
worst possible candidate, someone they put there to lose. Or maybe the
Democrats voted in the Republican primaries to make him win.
I've got a somewhat different take on it from Dan, I think. The extreme
'right' in the Republican party is a shrinking minority, however little
they want to admit the fact, and however voluble their protests to the
contrary might be. Rick Perry is an example of the kind of candidate
they would have preferred.
The Republican mainstream probably knew better; if they felt the same
way as the extremists Perry would have floated a lot longer than he did.
Of all the other candidates, Ron Paul seemed the most sensible, but he
had two things going against him: 1. He had a history of permitting
extremely racist sentiments to be promulgated under his imprimatur; and
2. He was far, far more intelligent than any of the other candidates
and, indeed, a fair margin of the electorate. Americans shy away from
intelligence.
So no, Romney was the best pick of the available options, as far as the
Republicans saw him, I think. He wasn't *too* smart, wasn't *too*
radically 'right', wasn't *too* moderate/centrist. He also wasn't too
consistent, as his constantly changing campaign evidenced (he was
reversing himself a couple of times a month by the end).
No one deliberately floats a candidate they think will lose - what
would the profit be in that? And if the Democrats had been stealth
voting to undermine the Republicans, they would've picked someone
clearly batshit loony, like Perry.
Did anyone over there ever think that Mitt Romney had _any_ chance?
Well, all but about 225,000 voters, yes. That's how narrow the popular
vote margin was, last time I checked, between Obama and Romney.
Dan was right about the debate performance, as well. Romney came out
swinging and clobbered Obama in the first debate. The second and third
were solid comebacks, though the third debate - being about foreign
policy - was not watched by many Americans. (Our foreign policy is
'kill em all and let god sort em out'.)
Biden did pretty well against Ryan in the VP debates, as well, calling
him out repeatedly whenever he went outside the bounds of what most of
us call 'reality'. Obama did the same thing with the second debate,
calling Romney out when he lied, letting himself talk himself into
corners, and so on.
Nonetheless, Romney's approval went way, way up after the first debate,
and it really did seem to energize him and his supporters. The
electoral map doesn't show just how close the popular vote really was -
and it was close.
--
Warren Adams-Ockrassa
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