Bottom Line, Norquist Got What He Wanted.

[kpete]

Last edited Sat Aug 11, 2012, 12:45 PM - Edit history (2)

“We are not auditioning for fearless leader,” Grover Norquist told conservatives at the CPAC convention in February. “We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget...We just need a president to sign this stuff...Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen..."


http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/mitt-romney-paul-ryan-budget-conservatives-vice-president-health-care.php


He's Grover's Bitch now!
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/08/11/a-man-of-reliable-rubber/

[rocktivity]

1. Yep, a replay of The Madness of King George

With Ryan and Norquist playing the roles of Rove and Cheney


rocktivity

[cantbeserious]

5. Exactly - Ryan Just Became A Big Problem For Team Obama - Ryan Deflects Conversation To Budget

This benefits the Republicans because the electorate does not understand the budget.

Karl Rove's SuperPacs will twist the budget to their advantage.

Rove will outspend Team Obama on the budget to insure that most moderates swing right.

[rocktivity]

12. Those moderates aren't swinging anywhere

without seeing Romney's tax returns:

The only groups standing with Romney and saying he should not release his tax returns are Republicans (70%), conservatives (53%), and tea partiers (71%). Democrats (86%), liberals (89%), and moderates (65%) all believe Romney should release more years of tax returns.

rocktivity

[cantbeserious]

14. Yes - That May Be True - However, It Only Takes A Few Moderates To Swing The Election

eom

[kenfrequed]

18. not this tim

Most people have already made up their minds and this time it is more important for President Obama to speak out about favoring economic progressivism. The only people interested in any kind of mederation or compromise with romneyesque trickle down crap are fat cats.

This election is going to be determined by turning out your base and by speaking out to how backwards the Ryanomney school of deprivation and greed is. It is long past time to stop talking about moderates and recognize that the 'moderate' is an artificial construct based on the flawed idea that all issues have a centerpoint between the parties positions that is somehow preferable and that ideal. Modern politics cannot be contextually arranged into a scale based on a pseudo-nichomachean ethic.

It is even greater folly that this arrangement of middle positions actually has adhereants. Ask people honest policy questions and you get honest answers. Most people think that the wealthy need to pay a fairer share of taxes. You cannot create a fair and rational "moderate" position between this position and the right wing postion that the wealthy pay too much in taxes without havin to invent a group around. Bunch of people that either couldn't answer the question or didn't want to.

[cantbeserious]

19. Koch's Billions And Karl's Brain Will So Befuddle The Honest And Fair Question Tactic

that many low information voters will be left spinning with a perpetual headache.

[freshwest]

2. Exactly. Thanks for finding the exact quote.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. K&R

for showing who is "in charge" of the GOP.

[kenfrequed]

4. When will the national media do the math on evil-grover policy?

Seriously, at some point in time someone needs to grab grover by the shoulders and demand he tell the American people how his shitty supply side bullsh!t doesn't work and pecisely how every step of government shrinking has made things worse.

[cantbeserious]

6. No - Fox News Will Invite Karl Rove For A Champagne Celebration

eom

[Wounded Bear]

10. But it does work....it funnels money upward....

just as it is designed to do.

I've often described the Republican economy as:

What you'd expect if you got a lot of rich fuckers in a room together and asked them how they'd like the economy to work.

It's doing pretty well, actually.

[kenfrequed]

13. True.

Apt and appropriate assessment.

[Doctor_J]

17. And since Big Media and Hate Radio are all rich fuckers

they are unlikely to complain.

[summerschild]

7. 'Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen...."

... and just enough brain cells to remember his name......

Yup. Romney will do....


Observation: I don't recall anyone voting for Grover Norquist for anything - but I guess nobody has the guts to tell him.

[Skidmore]

8. Does anyone ever look into who is behind Norquist?

He didn't spring fully formed from the forehead of Zeus for cripes sake. Where did this little man get all of his power? Who owns him?

[Stinky The Clown]

9. Every now and again I try to post reminders of who and what Norquist is.

To wit: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021083601

They sink.

NOBODY talks about this guy.

[cleduc]

11. Yep, if Romney breaks some digits

Grover's got a #2 to sign off on his legislation

[Overseas]

15. Scares me because Ryan supporters have billions of dollars.

They will spend millions on promoting their dream team Mormon & Catholic Combo, trying to pretend that their plans to crush social security and medicare are just sensible attempts to fix the deficit. And building on the years of 24/7 Fox telling them President Obama has been a fierce socialist destroying America.

They will continue generating polls of carefully chosen "likely voters" to trumpet on TV to show that there is still "remarkable support" for Radical Romney and Ryan, and how this election is going to be close. That the GOP austerity message is "resonating with Americans who have had to cut their family budgets, so they understand" the radical Republican message.

But perhaps to give their carefully engineered polls more validity, we'll see some early polling showing the president continuing to surge ahead of Romney. Then later the polls can tighten, as "people have gotten to know Ryan as a sincere and dedicated civil servant" -- vs the corrupt servant of Koch Industries and Friends that he truly is.

And while we are focusing on the New Jim Crow election manipulation tactics of Republicans across the country with their radical efforts to make voting much harder for Democrats, which we should be, we still don't have paper ballots.

So I worry that those voter ID tactics will be used as the excuse to cover up more modern techniques of vote manipulation to explain away another strange variance in vote tallies from the exit polls in the middle of the night, such as we saw when "Bush beat Kerry."

I hope I am wrong and that in spite of the billions spent on TV and mercilessly unAmerican attempts to disenfranchise as many Democrats as possible, millions surge to the polls to defeat the radical Republicans at the local, state and federal levels.

[vaberella]

16. Obama's commercial on the GOP Ticket...handed to him. n/t

[Raine1967]

20. Romney just gave up all control of his campaign.

I posted this over in Politics, I am going to cross post here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/125167761

Remember this from last February? David Frum wrote this after hearing what Grover Norquist said at C-PAC

They have reconciled themselves to a Romney candidacy because they see Romney as essentially a weak and passive president who will concede leadership to congressional conservatives:

All we have to do is replace Obama. ... We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate.

The requirement for president?

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

This is not a very complimentary assessment of Romney's leadership. It's also not a very realistic political program: congressional Republicans have a disapproval rating of about 75%. If Americans get the idea that a vote for Romney is a vote for the Ryan plan, Romney is more or less doomed.

In picking Ryan, Romney basically gave in to Norquist and his anti tax supporters. He-- imo -- looks even weaker than he did before. Instead of choosing to lead, he is following. It may be good for him in the short term -- but it will really be bad for him in the long term.

Romney is no leader. He will do whatever he is told to do from the powers that (want to) be.