This 2012 Republican nomination process has gone from amusing to funny to stupid to embarrassing to pathetic.

When I first started watching this fiasco unfold, I figured the end result would be exactly what Ann Coulter said:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/vo6SOpOE788

If we replace Chris Christie’s name in her statement with “a viable Republican candidate”, we arrive at my statement at the time.. If the Republicans didn’t get a viable candidate to run, they were going to nominate Romney and they were going to lose, barely, to President Obama.

When none of the preferred Republicans were willing to run for PotUS.. Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels.. I felt that the inevitable conclusion was that Romney was going to be nominated, because as I said then and as I still maintain now, he’s the only REAL candidate that’s been involved in the process, and the rest of the guys and gals were all filler content to make it look like the Republicans ever had a choice.

The rest of the candidates were supposed to look SO BAD when compared to Romney that he was supposed to come through this process looking like someone people might take a chance on as being the leader of this entire country = the leader of the entire world.

That’s not how things went, and at this point, like I said two months ago, back in December, 2011 http://billcammack.com/2011/12/11/brokered-conventions/ the pundits are *NOW* talking about Brokered Conventions every day.

The short version of my December article that I linked is that if none of the current candidates secures the requisite number of delegates by the end of the process, the Republicans aren’t obliged to run ANY. OF. THEM! o_O

So, all this tomfoolery between Gingrich, Romney, Paul, and Santorum might get thrown out the window so the Republicans can decide at their National Convention to run Jeb Bush instead.

How interesting would that be, if all these so-called “candidates” have been tossed to the mass media to be made incessant fun of because of their own stupid statements, and then NONE OF THEM end up advancing to the general election? :D

Numbers Game

If you look at the numbers elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/delegates, there are approximately 2,286 available delegates.

To definitely receive the nomination and not get jerked at the Convention, one of the “candidates” has to secure 1,144 delegates.

Up until now, the delegates have been assigned proportionally, meaning that if you win a state with the most votes, that doesn’t mean that you get all the delegates. It’s something to the effect of there are voting districts that award you delegates if you win them and voting districts that award you NOTHING if you win them. The important thing for these candidates to do is win the most districts that actually contain delegates.

Let’s not count everyone’s current delegates, because there are only two candidates in this race.. Romney, and Not-Romney.

Currently, according to the chart, Romney has 105 delegates, and the rest of the candidates combined have 120. This means that Romney has less than 50% of the delegates that have been awarded so far.

1,144 delegates to win is approximately 50% of the 2,286 delegates available…

You see where this is going, right? :D

If the trend continues the way it has been so far, Romney will fail to secure the nomination before the Republican Convention, and then all bets are off.

I’m not saying that anyone else will have enough delegates to win, but that they *DEFINITELY* have the potential, at this point in time, to block Romney from being nominated.

This entire time, Romney has been polling around 30%, which, again, is less than 50%. Way less.

What he’s been counting on is that eventually, we get to the winner-takes-all states, and he’s going to squeak by with a bunch of 30% wins and end up with the delegates he needs.

When I first started writing about this stuff, I agreed with that assessment. Now, I’m not so sure that’s going to work out just the way he planned it.

YouTube Link => youtu.be/sLRwdbg1xME

The reason why the different also-rans have been said to be “surging” is that Romney’s support has remained consistent, while the rest of them come from nowhere to somewhere, passing Romney in polling until we find out that they were paying women’s rent that weren’t their wives, or that they have historically, serially cheated on their wives until dumping the wife for the chick they were cheating with, or they sound like COMPLETE IDIOTS when they speak freely in debates, or whatever else has knocked off the other “candidates” so far.

The problem for Romney right now is that as the “surgers” have disappeared and eventually exited the race entirely, virtually NONE of their support has gone to Romney.. It’s all gone to the next potential Not-Romney, which is why Republicans are praying, wishing, and begging for a Brokered Convention.

The reason that’s a problem for him is that 30% will never be greater than not-30%, which is 70%.

Now, we know Ron Paul isn’t exiting the process. He’s amassing delegates so he gets to speak at the Convention and talk about liberty. He can’t be discouraged from continuing, because his goal isn’t to win, but rather to have decision-making power when the national spotlight is on Republicans.

Gingrich, on the other hand, after being *SMASHED* by Romney’s Super PAC by millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that flooded television stations and caused his polling numbers to nosedive, could possibly exit the race… The only reason he isn’t is so that he can jerk Romney for dragging his name through the mud and try to get him back by ruining his chances to win, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

Race To The Bottom

The problem with Gingrich staying in the race is that he’s a way better speaker than Romney. Every time Romney goes off-script, and I mean AN ACTUAL SCRIPT THAT HE NEEDS TO READ, he commits some kind of political gaffe, which is actually a lack of ability to prevent his actual views about life from spilling out of his mouth.

The longer Gingrich stays in the race, the more times Romney has to freestyle. The more Romney freestyles, the worse he looks. Meanwhile, Santorum has been sitting on the sidelines, not getting dirtied by either Romney or Gingrich, but that’s about to change dramatically. Ron Paul isn’t involved because everybody knows he’s not going to be nominated, so there’s no sense in wasting money making negative attack ads about him.

The effect of this race dragging on has gone in a different direction than I predicted.

I thought that compared to all these non-candidates, Romney would eventually emerge as the guy that all Republicans need to back if they want even the slightest chance of a victory vs. President Obama.

What actually happened, though, is that because Romney couldn’t get them all to quit, because they know that Not-Romney is a way more desirable candidate than Romney, and they want to be the last Not-Romney standing.. Instead of turning the corner and being able to talk trash about Obama, Romney is *STILL* in a position where he has to talk trash about Gingrich and Santorum.

The problem with that is that in order to talk trash about Gingrich and Santorum, you have to portray yourself as even more of a jerk than they are.

This is not going to play out in Romney’s favor in the general election.

My original prediction of Romney being the only one that can win the general election for the Republicans was based on the fact that he’s the only one that’s well known for flip-flopping on issues… just about *ALL* issues.

In fact, what Republicans currently refer to as ObamaCare was originally RomneyCare, from when he was Governor of Massachusetts:

washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-romneycare-obamacare-connection/2011/10/11/gIQAv0PdcL_blog.html

The folks who worked on the Massachusetts law didn’t exactly fade into the background once the health reform law passed and implementation got underway. Instead, many former Romney officials are now working for both the Obama administration and state governments to ensure that that the Affordable Care Act gets set up.

I figured this would help Romney in the general, because he would be able to tell people that he wasn’t that far off from Obama’s thinking, so they should elect him as a change from how the economy’s been going.

Unfortunately, he can’t play that card until he gets past Gingrich and Santorum… Until then, he has to pretend to be a Conservative.

Everybody knows Romney isn’t a Conservative (or, anything, really.. he just wants to be elected), so the longer he has to pretend to be one, the more inauthentic he looks, saying freestyle garbage like “I was a Severely Conservative Republican Governor”:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/DI8PlTtM7DU

What the hell is a SEVERELY Conservative person? :D haha Imagine you asked your homeboy how his date went, and he replies “I severely had sex with her! :D”, you *KNOW* that dude is LYING!!! :D HAHAHAHA

Almost-Obama

So, the net effect of this situation dragging on is *NOT* that Romney looks better, but that he looks worse… Daily… Some days, HOURLY! :D

Meanwhile, Ron Paul’s reputation has remained perfectly intact, even in light of the “I don’t know who wrote all those racist comments in the newsletterS with my name on them” situationS.

Gingrich’s name is mud with women, because his current wife is actually the mistress that he cheated on his mistress that he cheated on his first wife with en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich#Marriages_and_children, so women are constantly reminded of his ex wives that he dumped after announcing to them that he’s screwing some other chick now.

Guys, generally, don’t care about that. They’re like “Play on, Playah! ha-HAA :D Get In Where You FIT IN!!! >;D”.

Santorum is making himself more viable for the Republican nomination and less viable for the general election every day with his comments about women, contraception and a host of other ridiculous ideas of his that caused someone on television to say “Santorum has the finest mind of the 13th century”:

campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/the-first-principles-of-rick-santorum/

One dismissive reviewer of Santorum’s 2005 book, “It Takes a Family,” wrote in The Philadelphia Inquirer that Santorum is “one of the finest minds of the thirteenth century.” (An opponent once said the same of that other provocative Catholic conservative, William F. Buckley, Jr.) This is no insult: it is the heart of Santorum’s appeal to conservative evangelicals.

So, the only way for Romney to look good to Conservatives is to attempt to appear to be more of a jerk than Santorum. Romney isn’t even good at THAT! :D haha He’s just not convincing as someone who has principled objections to things. Everything he says seems to be learned off of 3×5 cards that his handlers trained him with.

In fact, it’s tough to pretend to have a position on something when that particular thing doesn’t matter to you at all… In Romney’s case, he’s rich, his father was rich, his sons are rich..

The Romney Kids’ $100 Million Trust Fund
money.cnn.com/2012/02/06/pf/romney_kids_trust/index.htm

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Mitt Romney’s five sons — Matt, Tagg, Craig, Ben and Josh — are sitting pretty with a trust fund worth $100 million.

There’s no reason that Romney should sound authentic in *anything* he says regarding middle class people, and ESPECIALLY not the American poor.

Similarly, I don’t sound authentic when I tell women I love them, because they’re trapped in the movie / fairy tale notion of what love is, and they know I’ve always had women, I have women now, I’m always GOING to have women, and the concept of only being physically attracted to one of them doesn’t register with me.. it isn’t my personal reality.

I *DO* love them if I tell them I do, but my detachment makes me appear inauthentic when I say it.

It also makes me appear inauthentic when I say it to more than one woman as we’re all standing together on a balcony at a party, but that’s neither here nor there. >:D

So.. Romney, who appears to believe in nothing, because he doesn’t have to believe in anything, because he’s rich already, and he’s never going to be not-rich, isn’t able to convince Conservatives that he loves them, so he has to keep making stupid statements to prove his fidelity.

Meanwhile.. Rick Santorum ACTUALLY. BELIEVES. WHAT. HE’S. SAYING!!! :D hahahaha oh man.. You can see that he actually believes it when he’s speaking.

This is why Conservatives are flocking to him.. Not because they think he can win, but because they’re not convinced that Romney would carry the Conservative flag (and neither am I) if he were nominated. They’d rather go down swinging, backing Santorum, than relegate themselves to the very choice that made me feel that Romney had a chance in the general, which is a decision between Obama and Almost-Obama.

Just Like I Told You

Meanwhile, we’ve seen an important shift occur.. A shift that I told people this entire time was going to happen.

President Obama’s favorability ratings were low a few months ago. They were so low that Republicans were telling me, and they really seemed to believe this, but then again, Jim Jones’ followers believed him too, that *ANYBODY* the Republicans ran would easily be able to defeat Obama in the 2012 election.

I told those people very simply, and directly to their faces “That’s because the people being polled don’t know what kind of candidates you’ve offered as an alternative.”

I told them that the more the American people understood about the Republican candidates, ESPECIALLY when Perry, Bachmann, and Cain were still involved, the better Obama’s going to look.

That’s exactly what’s happened, and what will continue to happen until Gingrich drops out. The Republicans are in a race to the bottom. The only selection to be made is which one of them is the least worst.

Meanwhile, Obama’s ratings have been steadily climbing. When the polls changed from “Obama vs. Any Republican” to “Obama vs. Romney” and “Obama vs. Santorum” and “Obama vs Gingrich” (since they refuse to give Ron Paul any light, whatsoever, in these polls), the numbers have been steadily rising for Obama and steadily declining for all three Republicans.

This is because they insist on ripping each other apart, like crabs in a barrel.

We never hear about why one of them is better than the other one. We only hear why one of them is worse than the other one, and they’re doing Obama’s campaigning job for him.

Another thing I told you four months ago, back in October billcammack.com/2011/10/28/scorched-earth-politics/ was that the Republicans needed to change their obstructionist tactics after Obama started telling the entire country what they were doing… As soon as The President started going from state to state, speaking to the actual people and on television, talking about “Pass This Bill” so that teachers and construction workers and Armed Forces veterans can get jobs, right now, and Republicans refused to do it, while simultaneously *NOT* offering an alternative plan to put those same people to work, they trapped themselves, and just like I said, every day since then, they’ve been taking a beating in the media for being AGAINST job creation for Americans.

Now.. Not only does everybody know that they’re doing anything they can to deny President Obama a second term,

YouTube Link => youtu.be/2gM-1HbK4qU

but the economy is getting better, *DESPITE* their objections and interference.

Instead of being able to take credit for the (albeit, slow) American economic recovery by claiming bipartisan cooperation, they currently look like a bunch of people that have tried and failed to make the current President look bad, while simultaneously failing to get any of their desired party members to run for PotUS and instead offering us this clown show that has many people believing the Republicans are deliberately throwing the race, because they can make more money bitching and moaning about Democrats for another four years than they would if they were actually in office.

Do You Know Any Women?

So the newest trend amongst Republicans is to attempt to get back on the wrong side of history with women’s reproductive rights. :D

I think the creepiest part of everything I’ve watched over the last several months is that these people either HAVE NO CLUE or DON’T GIVE A DAMN about the people that they flippantly disrespect.

They really seem to have forgotten that women can vote now.

They can also hold jobs, own property, ask men out on dates…

Here’s a tip for y’all.. There’s what women SAY, and what women DO.

This is why a lot of women (though I refuse to believe statistics that say things like 98% of any group does anything www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-claim-that-98-percent-of-catholic-women-use-contraception-a-media-foul/2012/02/16/gIQAkPeqIR_blog.html) use contraception and then TELL YOU THEY DON’T.

This is why, as pathetic as your candidates already are, you’re alienating Independents, which you’re going to *NEED* in the general election.

You’re also alienating Republican Women who don’t feel like returning to the dark ages.

So.. As Usual.. As has been the pattern throughout these proceedings, you’re pandering to the people that are already going to vote for you, while simultaneously alienating the people who were on the fence and MIGHT have voted for you.

The only hope the Republicans have at this point is a quick and decisive win by one of the final four that leads to the rest of them dropping out, so they can get back on-message, and the choice becomes Republicans vs. Democrats, instead of Republicans vs. Republicans and Republicans vs. The Poor, and Republicans vs. Women, and…

I still believe Romney is going to be nominated, because he has too much money to spend on negative ad campaigns, compared to Santorum and Gingrich, who are both still in the race only because they each have billionaire “sugar daddies” throwing money at them:

1. christianpost.com/news/gingrichs-casino-sugar-daddy-and-his-influence-on-the-gop-primary-68555/

2. dailykos.com/story/2012/02/16/1065501/-Rick-Santorum-s-sugar-daddy-In-my-day-girls-put-aspirin-between-their-knees-for-contraception

If he takes too long to get them to quit, though, his reputation as someone with passionate convictions about anything at all will be zero, nada, zilch.

If Santorum gets the nomination because Gingrich drops out, Paul pulls a consistent 20% of the vote, and Romney pulls a consistent 35% of the vote, leaving 45% winner-take-all victories for Santorum, he will have successfully painted himself into the corner of being the wacko “He-Man Woman Haters Club” founder and president, energizing American women from coast to coast to vote not necessarily FOR Obama, but definitely AGAINST Santorum.

If Gingrich gets the nomination, he’s going to go BUCK WILD in debates against Obama and make Republicans seem like creeps, most likely leading to several seat losses to Democrats in the next set of elections. Congress’ approval rating is already down around 9% (meaning that 9 out of 100 people actually like how they’re carrying themselves in Washington), so Gingrich running around illin’ will most likely be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

If Paul gets the nomination, that would probably indicate that Republicans in Congress have irretrievably destroyed their brand, and need to rebuild their party from the ground up for the 2016 campaign.
–
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Today, the Republicans in New Hampshire are going to make their decision about which candidate they’d like to see attempt to defeat President Barack Obama in the 2012 general election.

Here’s how I think it will turn out:

1. Romney
2. Huntsman
3. Paul
4. Santorum
5. Gingrich
6. Edit: Buddy Roemer
7. Perry
8. Cain
9. Bachmann

I know Cain and Bachmann are kaput already. I’m pretty sure they both qualified for this primary before they exited the race, so they’ll probably have a few votes each. Cain had ~58 votes in Iowa, and he wasn’t even there.

Romney

Romney has had New Hampshire on lock this whole time. His lead is deteriorating, but it’s way too little, way too late. He’ll coast to an easy victory here… The only thing I dislike about this situation is that the stupid-ass pundits are raving about a candidate winning Iowa and New Hampshire back to back. They might have to STFU when the official vote count is received from Iowa in two weeks, and they determine that Santorum actually had more votes. I don’t see how you can get all happy about a virtual tie and then a definite win, but that’s television for you. \o/

Huntsman

I’m thinking and HOPING that Jon Huntsman will take second place here… One of the dumb things about how the pundits report the polls is that they like to give you the percentages for each candidate, but they don’t like to give you the percentage of people that are currently undecided or willing to change their minds. Last I heard, that number was ~45% were definitely going to vote for the candidate they said they were going to vote for, and ~55% were NOT DEFINITE that they were going to vote for that candidate (or didn’t select one to begin with). More people are “undecided” than are “decided”.

I think that a lot of the undecided people will vote for Huntsman. He’s put in the groundwork in New Hampshire that Santorum put in in Iowa. The worst I can see him doing is 3rd, but I believe he’ll take second by a few points over Ron Paul.

I’m biased on this one, because I’d like to see Huntsman get the nomination, because he had the best job creation record when he was Governor of Utah (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Huntsman,_Jr.), and I think he makes the fewest wacko statements out of the entire group of candidates.

Paul

Ron Paul should be in 3rd. His fan base is pretty consistent. He’s also consistent in what he says. There’s nothing you’re going to hear from him NOW that’s going to make you think about voting for him. You’ve already heard it and all the cards are on the table.

Right now, Paul isn’t planning to go to Florida, because he doesn’t have enough money to be effective there. You can’t go door-to-door in Florida.. You have to pay for a lot of television advertisement. He said that if he does well in New Hampshire and gets an infusion of money, he’ll rethink that position, and that he’s taking this election process one week at a time.

This check-to-check campaign mindset is to Romney’s advantage, because he has enough money to do whatever he wants, and run a parallel campaign in several states, simultaneously, while the rest of these dudes have to run serial campaigns and start all over from scratch in each state.. If they’re even registered (Only Romney and Paul are registered for Virginia, for example. It’s been speculated that Santorum failed to register for D.C. as well).

Santorum

Santorum should take fourth place.. Not because of anything he did in particular, but because Gingrich and Perry will do worse than he does.

The only reason Santorum did well in Iowa is that he receved this particular religious endorsement:

Rick Santorum Gets Big Boost From Iowa Christian Conservative Leaders

URBANDALE, Iowa: Rick Santorum received a big Iowa endorsement Tuesday that should help rally the splintered Christian evangelical community here around him. A social conservative leader in the state, Bob Vander Plaats, backed the former Pennsylvania senator just two weeks before the caucuses here, calling him “the Huckabee in this race.”

“I saw him as a champion for the family in the U.S. House, I saw him as a champion for the family in the U.S. Senate. I saw him as a champion for the family on the campaign trail,” Vander Plaats said. “I believe Rick Santorum comes from us, just not to us, he comes from us.”

I brought this up last month, in billcammack.com/2011/12/31/2012-republican-iowa-predictions/, but for some reason, the pundits refuse to discuss this and keep talking about a non-existent “Santorum Surge”.

There *is* no surge. Santorum was polling around 10% until he got that endorsement, and then, overnight, he was polling near Romney. Now, he’s back to polling around 10% because the group that endorsed him doesn’t have such a high percentage of people in New Hampshire.

I’ll be completely surprised if he does Ron Paul’s numbers, and he shouldn’t be anywhere near Huntsman when the smoke clears tonight.

Gingrich

Gingrich has many, many problems with his campaign, but the two of them are the attack ads that Romney and Paul’s supporters created about him (also shown in billcammack.com/2011/12/31/2012-republican-iowa-predictions/), and his current wife.

There are going to be A LOT OF FEMALE VOTERS this cycle. :) They don’t take kindly to home-wreckers, because they project situations they experience onto their own lives and have seriously negative reactions to it.

Gingrich is the only dude that brings along the chick that was screwing him behind his wife’s back and that he ended up dumping his wife for, with. him. on. the. campaign. trail.

When women look at them together, they imagine how TIGHT they’d feel if their ex-husband or boyfriend was flaunting the chick that stole their man on national television.

In fact, Gingrich’s marital/infidelity history is part of what lost him the religious support that went to Santorum in Iowa… The only way for him to get back in contention for the nomination is for both Santorum and Paul to run out of money and drop out of the race.

Perry

Rick Perry.. as usual.. wasn’t smart enough to quit, after delivering his “Thanks for the support, y’all, but I’m going back to Texas” speech after getting trounced in Iowa.

Right now, he’s polling at 1% in New Hampshire, but he’s not campaigning there. He went directly to South Carolina, which is the next stop for this carnival.

If Perry gets waxed in S.C., he needs to hang up his spurs for real this time, and stop wasting people’s money that they donated to his campaign… Once they hit the South, that’s where Perry and Santorum are supposed to start SHINING, so if they don’t, they’re finished.

Perry’s the low man on the totem pole, and he’s definitely going to South Carolina, so you can bet that all six of the remaining Republican candidates will be there.

Romney or Obama

Ultimately, like I’ve said this entire time, Mitt Romney is the Republicans’ only hope to defeat President Obama this cycle, and even *those* hopes aren’t great.

The only way Romney won’t get the nomination is if all but one of the extraneous candidates drops out immediately after South Carolina, and the vote becomes Romney vs. Not-Romney.

It’s always been that way, but there are several candidates that are splitting the Not-Romney vote, so he’s winning with 25% support from his party… As soon as everyone else drops out, 25% won’t be enough to defeat 75%. Gingrich knows this, and intends to remain in the pocket until Santorum and Perry get shaken out.

So, I don’t think New Hampshire is going to weed anyone out, but I think it’ll give a more realistic view of where the candidates stand, nationwide. Romney and Perry have a lot of money left. Santorum and Paul don’t. Gingrich and Huntsman are in the middle.

It would be interesting to see Huntsman/Romney and then Huntsman/Obama for the Presidency, but I think it’s actually going to be Gingrich/Romney and then Romney/Obama.

EDIT: I left out Buddy Roemer (www.buddyroemer.com). Good Luck to him today! :D
–
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I know most of y’all tune in to BillCammack.com to listen to me talk yang about women & dating, but I’ve been preoccupied recently with the clown show known as United States Politics.

I’m over it now, so we’ll be returning to our regularly-scheduled programming.. joined in progress.

What had HAPPENED was…

Why Did I Bother?

A little over 4 years ago, I had never heard of Barack Obama. EvAr.

At some point, I became aware that the first VIABLE black candidate was running for the Presidency of the United States of America.

The rest of the people who ran were clearly merely symbolic. They had never had anywhere near resembling even the slightest, most minute, miniscule chance of coming anywhere close to being nominated as a party’s candidate, much, much, much, much, MUCH LESS having any inkling of an opportunity to come close to winning the general election.

None.

So then, I was like “Hmm… I might be witnessing history here, so let me pay attention.

So I found out he was going to be running against John McCain, and I was like “That figures”. John McCain fit that mold that you expect from people that Republicans nominate to be President.

McCain got caught looking angry a couple of times, but I didn’t see any footage of him actually looking stupid, so it was a toss-up to me.. Let’s say that I felt like Obama had a 35% chance of winning the election and becoming the PotUS.

Next thing you know.. And, for me, this was like one of those “Where were you when Nixon resigned? o_O” or “Where were you when you found out about 911″ situations.. I became aware from the television that the Republicans had selected a female to be the Vice President if McCain became President.

Without knowing anything at all about Sarah Palin, whom I had never heard of until that very news report, because I don’t give a flying **** about politics, I immediately thought that this was some sort of tactical error on the Republicans’ part.

I felt like they had been planning on Hillary Clinton becoming the Democratic nominee, so they decided to split the “I want to vote for a female” vote by sending their own female to the big dance, negating the “You can be a part of history by electing the first female as President or Vice President” effect which would have occurred if they had selected another white male to run with McCain.

I figured that maybe they had made promises that they couldn’t back out of when Obama defeated Clinton.

So then, I started hearing news reports about Sarah Palin, and I suddenly had zero doubt in my mind that if the election occurred fairly, Barack Obama was going to be the 44th President of the United States of America.

None.

No doubt, whatsoever.

It was literally impossible that America was going to vote for a ticket that included Palin as VP with McCain being in (according to pundits) questionable health at his age.

This would have been tantamount to electing Palin President, which will never happen, so I was absolutely certain that barring ridiculousness, Obama was going to win, which, of course, he did.

I immediately became interested in the next election. I’ve never been interested in a Presidential election ever, before 2008, and I wanted to make sure I was aware of the scenario when 2012 rolled around, so I wouldn’t be like “I guess the Republicans didn’t have anyone viable to send as VP, so they threw up a Hail Mary, sending Palin”.

What I’ve found out (albeit, through television punditry and internet research) is that the process doesn’t work the way I imagined it did.

Money Talks, But Bull**** Doesn’t Have To Walk

My impression was that each team selected who they thought the best person was and then sent them to the general election. You know.. Like in hockey, when you have to decide the game by a shootout, you don’t send Herbs to try to score. You send your best players.

So I was prepared to see and hear from the best & the brightest of the Republican party during their nomination process, and instead, I was treated to, to use my cousin Nigel’s term, and pardon my French for a second, but “an embarrassing shitshow”.

I’m an Independent. I vote for whomever I feel like voting for. I’m not a Republican, yet their candidates suck so badly that *I* feel embarrassed when they say such stupid, uninformed, and generally assholeish things that week after week they alienate more and more of the American population that they’re going to have to turn to for votes in the general election.

I’m now aware of what had happened in 2007, and it’s happening again in 2011.

Basically, running for President costs money, for advertising, entry fees to places, travel, etc. If you have enough money, you can run for your party’s nomination ’till the cows come home. You can’t get ejected for lunacy or idiocy. Nobody from your party can stand up and say “This person is an idiot. Remove them from the roster.”

To mention hockey again, it’s like you’re the captain of a team, but YOU don’t get to choose the players on your team, and you get stuck with a bunch of Herbs. What was the point of your being captain, if you don’t get to decide who plays and who doesn’t? o_O

To make matters worse, the requirements are different for winning the Republican nomination than they are to win the general election. The things you have to say to get people to clap at Republican debates are the exact same things that you would NEVER SAY if you wanted anybody else to entrust their well-being and that of their families to you by voting for you to be the PotUS.

This is why I’ve maintained from the beginning that Mitt Romney is the only candidate that’s currently on the roster that has even a remote chance of defeating President Obama in the 2012 election.

Nobody trusts what Romney says, because there’s just as much footage of him saying THING as there is footage of him saying -THING.. Like two different things that can’t possibly BOTH be beliefs of the same person, there’s videotape of him swearing up and down that he believes in both, depending on the crowd he’s speaking to and what he’s trying to get them to do.

That might seem to be a liablity. In the general election, it isn’t, because Romney can say he’ll do similar things to what Obama would do if we just replace Obama with him.

None of the rest of the Republican candidates can say that.

The only one that sounds like he has any sense, and who definitely has the experience to be a decent President, in my opinion, is Jon Huntsman, but he’s never been polling well, so we’ll see if he ever gains traction.

Actually, Ron Paul has sense too, except it’s not the kind of sense that’s going to prompt anyone to elect him PotUS.

In fact, even though Paul has been CONSISTENTLY hovering around #3 in every poll I’ve seen since the Iowa Straw Poll, which he barely came in second to Michele Bachmann in, the Republicans consistently talk around him and never mention him, even as the other candidates surge and soon fall off.

So, His own party won’t back him, and it’ll be interesting to see what happens if he decides to run anyway, after not receiving the nomination.

All of the nominees other than Romney have painted themselves into corners that are going to cause them to get DEMOLISHED when the Democrats start running attack ads. They don’t even have to make things up. All they have to do is play back the tapes of what the candidates have said over the past several months that they’ve been having debates and otherwise running their mouths to the press.

I Am Jack’s Complete Lack Of Interest

However.. My sudden and complete lack of interest in this process isn’t even the fault of the horrific Republican candidates. It’s actually Congress that has made me realize that none of this actually matters.

I thought it would be obvious to everyone that allowing America to default on its debt was entirely unacceptable. Instead, they waited until the last day to decide what they were going to do, which they could have decided way before that.

Imagine your wife tells you to take out the garbage, and you’re like “Nah”.

Imagine she keeps badgering and pestering you, and you’re like “Nope”.

Let’s say you don’t take out the garbage for days, until the whole house smells and she’s about to take it out on her own, and then you go “Psych! :D HAHA I’ll take it out! :D”

You think you’re getting laid anytime soon? o_O

Since your ass KNEW you wanted to screw your wife, you should have known was was going to happen TO YOUR HAPPINESS if you played that situation down to the wire and done the right thing.

Congress played that game and America’s credit rating got downgraded.

In fact, there were Republicans, including Bachmann, that are very happy and proud to say that they voted AGAINST the “Final debt deal” => projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/112/house/1/votes/690/.

This made me relatively suspicious. Upon researching the situation, I found out that some Republicans have made it their top political priority to deny President Obama a second term:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/2gM-1HbK4qU

When I found out about this, I was sure they were going to send Romney, because sending anyone else from that cast of characters is an automatic LOSS for the Republican party.

If McConnell was serious (and, of course, he was) about denying President Obama a second term, it was imperative that the Republicans field viable candidates and then back the strongest one, with the best personality, most intelligence, best Presidential demeanor, and best handle on the things a Presidential nominee would need to know about WAY. BEFORE. HE (or she). BECAME. A. CANDIDATE.

So then, I watched as Romney couldn’t get past approximately 25% (1 out of every 4 people saying they’d vote for him) in the polls.

Upon researching the situation, I found out that Mitt Romney is a Mormon.

This is automatically a problem. Listen to this dude that’s down with Rick Perry:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/7aF2Cnhr5jQ

In case you can’t see the video, here’s what dude said:

Perry Supporter: The decision for Conservative, Evangelical Christians right now, is going to be “Do we prefer somebody who is truly a believer in Jesus Christ, or somebody who is a good moral person, but he’s a part of a cult?”. And it’s not politically correct to say, but it’s true, Mormonism is a cult.

If you look at the states that Romney won in his 2008 campaign (marked in yellow):

Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008

none of them are in the South (also known as The Bible Belt)

On top of that, he only got 11 states, vs 31 states that McCain won, who subsequently got SMIZASHED by Obama in the general election.

Since Romney’s rich, he gets to run for President again, because as long as you have money, you can be involved.

That, by the way, is what Herman Cain is still doing in this race also. He’s backed by infinite funding from his “brothers from another mother”:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/lv4GGbK60J8

Anyway.. Once I found this out, I was like “The Republicans are going to have to get over this Mormon thing if they’re going to back their only hope for a 2012 victory, since preferable people like Chris Christie and Paul Ryan refused to run.

Unfortunately, this is where Congress comes in.

All Your Decisions Are Belong To Us

If you listen to “regular” Republicans talk about the Tea Party, they say that they’re just a minority and don’t make any decisions… However.. Every time you turn around, some Republican decision has been influenced by the Tea Party => huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/04/tea-party-gop-2012_n_948348.html.

To put it plainly.. Let’s say you have 20 team members and the other team has 15, so that every time you vote on something, you win.

Now.. Let’s say that 7 of your team members consider themselves a group. That still makes them a minority, as you still have 13 team members, but if that “minority” refuses to vote with you, whether they abstain or vote with the other team, you can’t defeat 15 with 13, so, suddenly, you’re beholding to this so-called “minority” for your voting success.

According to the pundits, we saw this play out during the “Debt Ceiling Crisis”.

Apparently, we saw it AGAIN, during the so-called “Super Committee Failure”

Granted.. “Regular” Republicans who have pledged that their #1 political priority is removing Barack Obama from office can’t afford to do *ANYTHING* that causes the economy to improve before election time, so it’s most likely going to be another 12 months before most of y’all even catch a whiff of a job.

The point, however, is that the pattern I’ve seen over the last several months is of the Republican majority FOLDING beneath the will of the Republican minority.

This is the main reason I’ve lost interest in this process. It’s a setup.

The Tea Party, AKA the “minority” that’s pulling the strings, bills itself as Conservative.

Romney is not a Conservative. He’s an “I’ll say whatever you want to hear so maybe you’ll elect me”.

He’s also not going to get any light in the South, like he didn’t get any light in 2008.

The same game plan that makes you believe that you’ll be ok if America defaults on its debt obligations also makes you believe that the best thing for your party is to nominate a generally unelectable candidate.

In other words, The Republicans may very well decide to LOSE BIG by running a definitely-Conservative nominee instead of untrustworthy Mitt Romney.

Last Straws

Speaking of untrustworthy, that reminds me of the last two elements that have totally removed my interest in this farce.

Romney just ran a clearly unethical television commercial where his team took something that President Obama reported John McCain’s campaign as saying and only played the part of the audio that makes it sound like Obama said the statement himself.

As an example, it would be like if someone said in an interview “Steve said I took the money, which I didn’t”, and the only part that made it to the commercial was “I took the money”.

That’s CLEARLY unethical and underhanded and desperate.

It’s also a bad idea to set a precedent of misleading campaign commercials, because REAL VIDEO EDITORS can and will make you look very, very, VERY STUPID if we feel like it, so your best bet is to run ethical ads before we quantize and autotune that azz and have you singing entire songs about things you never said.

The second element was that last night, Newt Gingrich said something to the effect of creating review committees to decide which illegal immigrants get deported.

This flies in the face of the unspoken Republican candidate stance that they’re totally scared to actually verbalize, because they know they’ll automatically lose the general election, which is that if they’re elected, they’ll deport 12 million illegal aliens, quick, fast, in a hurry, Flavor’s vision ain’t blurry.

The reason that statement was important is that Gingrich has recently enjoyed a surge in his poll numbers, now that all the rest of the Non-Romneys have fallen off.

Also.. Gingrich’s statement occurred *after* all the candidates except the two Mormons attended the Iowa Thanksgiving Family Forum:

YouTube Link => youtu.be/aY8Zw5NzUXQ

It also occurred after this:

businessinsider.com/ron-paul-evangelicals-iowa-pastors-secret-meeting-11-2012

Evangelical powerbrokers hosted a secret meeting in Iowa for conservative religious leaders last week to take a second look at some of the candidates who might be a viable alternative to Mitt Romney, Business Insider has learned from sources with knowledge of the event.

According to a source, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Ron Paul all spoke at the event, which brought together some of Iowa’s most influential evangelical pastors. Organized by the powerful Christian activist David Lane, the two-day conference was a feeble attempt to recapture some of the evangelical energy behind Mike Huckabee’s Iowa caucus win in 2008.

Last week’s meeting in Iowa should have been an opportunity for Perry and Gingrich to finally make real comebacks in the first-in-nation caucus state. Both candidates lack organizational support in Iowa, sources say, so mobilizing churches is their last hope to win over the state’s Republican primary voters, 60% of whom identify as born-again Christians.

But a source at the conference told Business Insider that the meetings only confirmed that “evangelicals have lost their cohesion — they don’t trust their leaders.” Pastors who favor Michele Bachmann didn’t even attend the event, the source added, an affront that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

The importance of the combination of those three events is that it’s clear that the fix is in. Gingrich is now campaigning for the general election, NOT the Republican nomination.

Without the South and without Conservatives, Romney can’t possibly be nominated. If you exclude Romney from the pack, Gingrich doesn’t have to campaign against the rest of the Republicans. Huntsman is Mormon. Cain is selling books and amping up his lecture circuit fees, and while he knows a respectable amount about business, he knows nothing at all about some really important things that an actual President would need to know about. Bachmann was never honestly a frontrunner, but instead was the only non-Romney available until Perry entered the race the next day, after which she was finished. Santorum doesn’t count. Perry manages to say something stupid every. single. week., so he’s not going anywhere unless Gingrich implodes from all the historical baggage that he brought with him after YEARS of being in this game. Paul can’t be nominated because he’s a loose cannon.. a Libertarian, not a Conservative.

Of course, Romney’s not aware of this, so he’s creating advertisements against President Obama instead of against Newt Gingrich. :/

Done

It’s really disgusting, how incompetent these people are, and I’d really, HONESTLY like to know why none of the viable Republicans wanted to run this cycle.

I mean, imagine that you know you’re a great dodgeball player, but you refuse to join the game, and then sit on the sidelines and watch your team get SMASHED by opponents that you feel that YOU could have easily defeated… Talk about the wrong side of history. :/

I’m no longer interested in watching this stupid process where people say idiotic things and then their pundits defend them as if they’re viable candidates for the most important job on the planet.

I’m tired of watching partisan pundits refuse to say “Fill in the blank” is unelectable and should get off of the Republican nominee stage.

This whole situation is embarrassing, and now I see how they ended up selecting Palin in 2008.

That’s what I wanted to learn. That’s what I wanted to understand. I’ve been waiting for this knowledge for four years, and now I have it.

The point of the nomination process is *NOT* to send your best and brightest, but rather to send whomever is actually WILLING TO RUN, and whomever has enough money to stay in the race.

That sucks. That’s not interesting. That’s not American Exceptionalism.

Unless a good political sex scandal occurs, I’m done with blogging about politics.

Good Luck to the unemployed Americans that y’all get jobs before the year 2013 AD.

I would personally like to see Jon Huntsman get the Republican nod, because I think that would actually be an intelligent contest between him and President Obama.

Barring that improbability, the Republicans need to send Mr. Unreliable, Mitt Romney if they want to have any chance at all in the general election.

The way I see it now, Conservatives are going to rally behind Gingrich and take their chances, which I consider to be an automatic, forfeit win for Obama.

At least they can say they went down swinging. :/

I’m over it.
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• Republican GOP Presidential Candidate Debate 2011 [Part 02]
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Republican Debate

Bloomberg Television and Charlie Rose made an interesting decision last night, by choosing to focus the entire Republican candidate debate on economic issues.

[Disclosure: I've edited video for Bloomberg Television, Charlie Rose, ABC and Fox News. www.linkedin.com/in/billcammack]

This was interesting because the candidates don’t have 90 minutes worth of things to say about the economy or jobs.

Of course, Herman Cain talked about his 999 plan, which Michele Bachmann snapped on him with something like “Turn those numbers over, and the devil is in the details”, indicating that if you flip it, it becomes 666:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/666_(number)#The_Number_of_the_Beast

In the New Testament, the Book of Revelation (13:17-18) cryptically asserts 666 to be “the number of a man,” associated with the beast, an antagonistic creature that appears briefly about two-thirds into the apocalyptic vision.

In modern popular culture, 666 has become one of the most widely recognized symbols for the Antichrist or, alternatively, the Devil. Earnest references to the number occur both among apocalypticist Christian groups and in explicitly anti-Christian subcultures. References in contemporary Western art or literature are, more likely than not, an intentional references to the Beast symbolism. Such popular references are therefore too numerous to list.

It is not uncommon to see the symbolic role of the integer 666 transferred to the digit sequence 6-6-6. Some people take the Satanic associations of 666 so seriously that they actively avoid things related to 666 or the digits 6-6-6. This is known as hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

I had been wondering for a couple of months now when someone was going to bring that up, and I had a nice personal chuckle and virtual high-5 for Bachmann for finally getting the religion card on the table against Cain.

Speaking of which.. Religion is another highly likely reason why Bloomberg Television chose to ignore everything that’s happened since the last debate… They didn’t want to talk about this:

Romney Calls on Perry to Repudiate Pastor’s Mormon ‘Cult’ Remark

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called on rival Rick Perry to denounce comments made by a supporter who likened his Mormon religion to a “cult.”

“I would call upon Governor Perry to repudiate the sentiment and the remarks,” Romney said at a news conference in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

The Reverend Robert Jeffress, a Baptist minister from Dallas, called Mormonism “a cult” and said Romney is “not a Christian” in remarks to reporters after introducing Texas Governor Perry to an Oct. 7 meeting of social conservatives.

“I just don’t believe that that kind of divisiveness based on religion has a place in this country,” Romney told reporters today.

The renewed attention to his Mormon faith has threatened to throw Romney off his economic message as he has worked to win over party leaders like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who appeared with Romney at today’s news conference to announce his endorsement.

Some evangelical voters, a critical part of the Republican base, don’t believe that Mormons are Christians because they use the Book of Mormon as a holy text along with the King James bible. Their opposition helped end Romney’s candidacy for the Republican nomination in 2008.

Christie’s Rebuttal

Christie today dismissed those concerns as irrelevant to Romney’s qualifications for president.

“These types of religious matters have nothing to do with the quality of somebody’s ability to lead,” he said at the news conference with Romney. “Any campaign that associates itself with that type of conduct is beneath the office of president.”

This brings us to something that’s more important than sitting a bunch of not-actually-candidates-for-the-Presidency-of-the-United-States-Of-America down at a table and having them say blah blah blah blah blah like they’ve been saying already for months…

Christie Endorses Romney Ahead of GOP Debate

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, just one week after definitively announcing he will not run for president in 2012, endorsed Mitt Romney for the job Tuesday afternoon.

Christie, at a news conference in Hanover, N.H., described the endorsement as an “easy decision.” He cited Romney’s experience in the private and public sectors, saying he “brings the best of both” to the job.

The point being that the guy that the Republicans ACTUALLY wanted to run for President against Barack Obama, Chris Christie, is suggesting that his fans support Mitt Romney.

This is the absolute last straw. :)

Not-Romney

I say that there is absolutely no way that the Republicans will be sending anyone but Romney to the big dance.

To be clear, Romney was always the only quasi-viable candidate that the Republicans fielded this cycle.

All these surges in the polls that you’ve seen (if you’ve been paying attention to this stuff at all) are not votes for individual candidates.. They’re votes *AGAINST* Romney.

There are only two choices here.. Romney and Not-Romney.

He tried this last cycle, but got waxed, buffed and simonized by John McCain, who promptly punted his chances by selecting Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. If you feel like reading about it, here it is => en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney_presidential_campaign,_2008

Originally, the only Not-Romney was Michele Bachmann, which is why the stupid-ass pundits kept playing her up as a viable Presidential candidate.

In fact, she was never viable and certainly still isn’t.

As soon as the poll-takers had a different Not-Romney, when Rick Perry entered the Republican race the very next day, you never heard from Bachmann ever again, because nobody’s actually going to vote for her.

To be fair, and qualify my statements.. You can’t become the PotUS by not-answering questions.

When someone asks you if you would deport 11.5 million illegal aliens that are currently living in the USA, the answer is “yes” or “no”. The answer “I’m not going to talk about that until we secure our border with Mexico” will not get you elected.

When you’re asked about specific policies that you would enact if you were elected, saying “I would repeal this and that that Obama and the Democrats have put in place” is all well & good in a hypothetical sense, but it doesn’t build confidence with anybody that you can actually do *ANYTHING* that you’re saying.. such as waving your magic wand and returning gas prices to $2 USD per gallon.

In fact, you can see her concentrating SOOOO HARD on what she’s supposed to say in response to actual questions that it’s ridiculous. Her robotic, planned, fake-ass responses to everything are going to get her a lot of book sales and lecture circuit bookings, but no, she was never viable and she hasn’t shown any signs of improvement at all.

The next Not-Romney was Perry. He was shining for, like, three days, before he started making yahoo statements about what would happen to people if they came to Texas and all other kinds of local yokel nonsense that clearly demonstrates that he’s not prepared for the National stage, MUCH LESS the *INTERNATIONAL* STAGE!!!

He can barely read off of his index cards that he has on the podium or table during debates to try to snap on Romney. It’s embarrassing.

Can you imagine what would happen to someone if they were supposed to verbally challenge you and they needed to read their thoughts off of cards? They’d get laughed out of the state.

Imagine that you went for a job interview, and you had to read things off of cards to a potential employer. You could forget it.

Anyway.. Perry was the Not-Romney for a hot minute, and that’s over now. He’s verbally stumbled and bumbled too many times, and when the camera shows him during conversations about international issues, he looks dazed and confused, and that’s when they’re not even addressing him.

You can tell that he’s jumped the shark because nobody confronted him during last night’s debate. Nobody cares. He’s a non-issue. Everybody wanted to talk about Romney and Cain.

After Bachmann fell off immediately, and Perry fell off as soon as people heard him actually speak, Herman Cain has risen to become the only Not-Romney left.

Also-Rans

Newt Gingrich is not an actual candidate. Nobody’s going to vote for him. Everybody knows this.

Rick Santorum, I have no idea how he’s still allowed to come to these debates. They let Gary Johnson get on the stage for one debate, and he’s gone again, already.

If you look at the list 2012.republican-candidates.org/, there are a bunch of dudes you’ve never heard of that are billed as candidates??? \o/

How does one become involved with this? o_O

Maybe I’ll get my 3,000 Facebook Friends to write me in as a Republican candidate too! :D

Like I’ve said before, I’d like to see Jon Huntsman vs President Obama in 2012.

That’s not likely to happen, as low as he’s polling, but my friend Sam tells me to stop listening to the liberal media and believing the hype, so I’m going to hold out hope that Huntsman can make something happen in the actual primaries.

Of course.. Huntsman has the same “Mormon Issues” that Romney has, so I realize that it’s a longshot.

Ron Paul is like that crazy, moonshine-drinking old-ass uncle that you have that lives WAY, WAY, WAY, FAAAAAR in the sticks and has all these wacko ideas that you know deep down are absolutely correct to a degree, but you simultaneously know that nobody would ever put him in a position to have actual power over your life.

Do I care that people got flooded in Vermont? Yes. Does it matter to me? No. It makes no difference in my life, whatsoever.

Do I feel like people that got jerked by an act of nature should be helped by the Federal Government or whomever is in charge of helping people that need it? HELLZ YEAH!!!

The concept of “Sucks to be them.. Flooding in Vermont isn’t the problem of people in Texas, so let them sink or swim on their own” is straight retarded.

The concept of letting individual states determine safety standards for air traffic control is straight retarded.

I realize that Ron Paul owes Moses a quarter from the good ole’ days, but this isn’t the Wild, Wild West or the Gold Rush Era.

This is not a bunch of free, wild, unsettled (well, you know… other than all the natives y’all wiped out) land in between Mexico and Canada. This is a group. They’re called UNITED. STATES.

Scream all you want about “liberty”. Nobody’s going to back your play.

Herman Cain has risen to become the king of the Not-Romneys because he’s saying things that people understand.

In fact, last night, Rick Perry was asked about his economic plan, and he essentially said “I’m dropping it three days from now”…….. ummmm…. WHAT? o_O

Are you crazy?

Herman Cain’s been yelling 9-9-9 all day, every day, even more than President Obama’s been yelling PASS THIS BILL, and you show up to yet another debate completely unprepared to articulate *YOUR* jobs plan?

C’MON, SUNN! :/

Perry folded because of his stance on education for the children of illegal immigrants in Texas and because people know damned well that if they send him to debate Barack Obama, it’s not even going to be funny.. only strictly and entirely embarrassing.

Beginning Of The End

The two guys that the Republicans actually wanted, Paul Ryan and Chris Christie “don’t want none”. Perry has a Pro-Christian/Anti-Mormon chance to receive the nomination, but everybody knows that if they send Perry, that means four more years for Obama.

This is why Cain is currently the Not-Romney. There’s no one left.

Meanwhile, Christie just endorsed Romney. Trump will be getting on board, soon. The rest of them will fall like dominoes.

There never was a Republican candidate other than Mitt Romney this cycle.

If you don’t realize this, you haven’t been paying attention.

If you disagree, feel free to click here and leave a comment so we can debate this.

The main problem that Romney has is that he’s gone on record in text and video as advocating diametrically opposed positions, depending on whom he’s speaking to.

People don’t trust him, because they know he’s going to say whatever he needs to say to try to get elected, and nobody actually knows where he stands on *ANY* of the issues.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, and I can’t believe this is happening, because they had four years to figure out, cultivate and field a viable candidate after tossing the previous election by adding Palin to their ticket, Romney was and still is their only shot AT ALL of defeating President Barack Obama in 2012.

As a bonus tip, I’ll throw this in…

There are two reasons why the President’s approval ratings are currently as low as they are:

1. He only recently started snitching on John Boehner and Eric Cantor for their obstructionist tactics in opposing jobs for the American people.
2. The Republicans haven’t selected their nominee yet.

The common, everyday, stupid person doesn’t know that the President can’t just do whatever he feels like doing and the rest of the country has to follow.

Joe Public is learning that now, since “PASS THIS BILL” has been in the news every single day now for weeks and is not going to stop until the very day of the elections.

Every single day, Democrats are saying “We want to give the American people jobs, but the Republicans are blocking our efforts.”

Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant. By the time the election rolls around, the entire Republican party will have been vilified.

Vilified for not passing this bill.
Vilified for yelling to let people without insurance die.
Vilified for booing a homosexual soldier that’s risking his life for this country.
Vilified for putting stipulations on allocating disaster relief funds for American victims.
Vilified for not answering questions about deporting illegal aliens.
Vilified for hijacking the debt ceiling talks until the USA’s credit rating was downgraded.
Vilified for not producing any jobs or even proposing a plan.
Vilified for hustling to add restrictions on early voting and voter identification.
Vilified for always talking about corporations and never about jobless individuals

By the time the 2012 election rolls around, Republicans won’t have a decent reputation left amongst THE PEOPLE, who are the ones who actually have to VOTE for whomever’s going to be the President for the next 4 years.

This is when the polls will change from “Do you approve of Barack Obama’s accomplishments over the past 4 years” to “Would you rather live in a country where Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is your President?”

Suddenly.. There will be a major shift in the poll statistics! :D HAHAHAHA

Anyway, I’m tired of all this. I’m not impressed. This is basically a joke, like it was in the 2008 election.

If the Republicans decide to agree to parts of Obama’s jobs bill, they lose the election because he gets to say that he created jobs for the American people.

If the Republicans keep blocking opportunities for Americans to work, they lose the election because nobody’s going to want to give the people that have been denying them the opportunity to make money EVEN MORE POWER OVER THEIR LIVES.

I dont know why this isn’t obvious to them, but it isn’t.

What they need to do is stop playing these “candidate” games, clear these extra characters off the playing field, have them endorse one or two frontrunners (Romney and an alternate), and consolidate their efforts.

Of course, that won’t happen, because that’s not how the game is played.

Also, if Romney gets the nomination, as I’ve suspected he would all along, be prepared for a third-party candidate to be fielded by disgruntled Republicans, splitting the vote and ensuring a Barack Obama win in 2012.
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Social Media

People always want to know how to make money with social media.

The problem is that social media doesn’t make money FOR you. Social media ENABLES YOU to make money…. maybe.

Everybody wants to know how their sales are going to increase once they hire you to create a website or set them up with a presence on Facebook or Twitter.

In Fact… Your sales are NOT going to increase unless a) YOU know what to do with your own internet presence, or b) you HIRE SOMEONE ELSE that knows what they’re doing to handle that aspect of your business for you.

Buying Trophies

In contemplating social media strategies, you have to see yourself as the owner of a race car team and your goal is to win races, thus receiving trophies.

As the owner, you have to decide where you’re going to allocate your budget (money) so you achieve your desired outcome.

If you’re racing in a legitimate organization, you can’t BUY TROPHIES. If you could buy trophies, your competition would be able to buy them too and there would be no reason to run any of the actual races.

Similarly, in social media, you can’t BUY SUCCESS. If you could, everybody would pay some money, receive a positive ROI and there would be no need for professionals at any point of the process.

Unfortunately, this is how a lot of people sell social media to you. They know you know less than they do, so they give you useless tidbits of information and charge you handsomely for “consulting” with them. This is usually the best thing for them to do because if they told you what you REALLY needed to do to be successful with social media, THEY wouldn’t get very much of your money because most of them don’t’ have any of the technical skills necessary to actually DO any of that process for you.

Winning Races

In reality, you have to actually WIN RACES to receive trophies.

What’s the process involved in doing that? o_O

1. You get the trophy by winning the race
2. You win the race by finishing in first place
3. You finish the race by starting the race (driving)
4. You enter the race by having something to drive (a car)
5. You have a car and a driver because you spent MONEY on them

As you can see, you spend your money ENABLING yourself to potentially win. You don’t spend money directly on the WIN.

What does this look like in social media strategy?

The part that people TELL YOU is that you need a website and a Facebook account and a Twitter account. The part that they TELL YOU is that you want people to follow you and the more the merrier.

Budgeting Maintenance

The part that they DON’T TELL YOU is that they’re selling you a car, not a trophy. They’re selling you the ability to MAYBE win.. POSSIBLY…

They also don’t tell you that this isn’t a car show, it’s a race. If it were a car show, you could bring your car to the venue and potentially win a prize for “prettiest car”, or “best paint job”, or “best-built engine”… Being that this is a RACE, it means that you need a DRIVER. o_O

If you’ve already spent money on the car (website), someone has to drive it (maintain your presence). That’s either going to be YOU or someone you hire to maintain your online presence for you.

If you’re going to do it yourself, you’re going to have to spend HOURS each week interacting with customers and potential clients, reading blog posts, writing blog posts, updating your inventory on your site, searching the internet for positive and negative references to your company, checking your statistics to see which items and pages are the most popular and which aren’t doing well, reading and replying to emails, paying attention to the endless flow of twitter posts from the thousands of people you “followed” because some idiot told you to, fielding phone calls and returning voicemails from people that got your number from your website, reading and intelligently replying to comments you receive on your blog, keeping spam and other dumb comments out of your comment section, reading up on the latest technologies for maintaining your presence, spending time on trial & error with new and potentially exciting products…

Thanks For The Money

THIS is what they don’t tell you. They’re’ just like “Give me your money. Here’s your website. Peacebeyotch! :D”. This is why so many people have garbage internet presences, because nobody told them that after you make a blog, you have to populate it and constantly update it. Nobody told them that if you make a site where you’re selling products on the internet, you THEN have to spend your time advertising your product or you need to hire someone else to do that for you.

Nobody told them that if you make a Facebook page and then you don’t actively participate in conversations, you don’t build any rapport and you don’t make any sales. Nobody told them that they needed to participate in conversations that are important to OTHER PEOPLE and not just those that revolve around your being able to sell something and get some money.

Nobody told them that if you follow 3,000 people on Twitter, you’re going to have so many updates that you can’t possibly read all of them, much less contemplate them and reply to them. Guess what? :D .. If you can’t read everything from the 3,000 people you’re following, the people that are following 60,000 people don’t see what YOU WROTE either. o_O

Are You Qualified?

Even if you tried to maintain your own internet presence, how good are you at doing that? How good are you at socializing? How good are you at holding conversations with people? How good are you at SPELLING and GRAMMAR? HAHAHA How good are you at knowing which posts to weigh in on and which to leave alone? How good are you at finding out where people are talking about you or your company, what they’re saying and how you can respond to them? How much time do you have to monitor the internet and respond quickly, giving yourself the appearance of caring as opposed to the appearance of someone that built a car that they don’t know how to drive or built a store that they don’t have time to stock and maintain?

So.. Next time you’re thinking about incorporating social media into your business strategy, recognize that you have to budget not only to BUILD your site, but also to MAINTAIN it.

If you don’t have money to pay someone to maintain your site, either it’s not going to get done or you’re going to have to pay yourself to do it during time that you could have spent billing clients and making your money back.

Either way, nobody’s going to hand you a trophy because you got a website built or because you made a Facebook Fan Page or a Twitter account. That’s not where the work ends. That’s where the work starts.

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• Thoughts about the “Fast Company Influence Project”
• Famous For Nothing [Fame, Part 3]