The Reality-Based Community

February 13th, 2012

I do not think that word means what the WaPo thinks it does

by Michael O'Hare

Romney won the Maine caucuses and the CPAC straw poll, and the Washington Post tells us:

Coupled with his victory in Saturday’s straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, the Maine win gives the GOP front-runner and former Massachusetts governor a substantial [sic] boost heading into a 17-day period in which there will be no contests.

Wow.  His margin in Maine was 194 votes; at the CPAC 238; if that scores a substantial boost, there’s been some really serious grade inflation down your newsrooms.

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Posted: Monday, February 13th, 2012 at 12:25 am
4 Comments »

4 Responses to “I do not think that word means what the WaPo thinks it does”

1. Warren Terra says:

   February 13, 2012 at 1:41 am

   The (conspiratorial, quite possibly overhyped) buzz is that he may not even have won the Maine caucuses – that dedicated followers of Ron Paul may have outhustled casual voters for Romney to win a majority of the delegates on offer.
   And, of course, he got fewer votes in Maine than he did four years ago against stronger opposition, in a year that according to obvious indicators (who the incumbent party was, how satisfied people were) was likely less favorable to the Republicans.
2. Freeman says:

   February 13, 2012 at 3:37 am

   I heard that too. Story I read was that Romney’s camp got them to declare the winner of the Maine caucus before votes Paul was likely to get were counted. Also read that Romney packed the CPAC poll using a tactic that Paul has used in the past (everybody does it, they say) – buying tickets for busloads of supporters. The story claims that the Republican establishment is rigging their own primary process to get the nominee that they want. Some folks just can’t seem to help themselves.
3. koreyel says:

   February 13, 2012 at 4:28 am

   This brilliant Frank Rich paragraph digs deep into the Romney hype that apparently continues unabated:
   

   Much of the Romney inflation, naturally, has to do with his good fortune in having such a splintered and screwy scrum of opponents. Often we’re told that he “looks like a president” (that would be a pre-Obama president). We also hear constantly about his message discipline, his organization, and his money—attributes that matter more to political consultants and the pundits who pal around with them than to an angry electorate trying to dig out of a recession. To the political class, Romney is the most electable candidate because his mealy-mouthed blandness is what will lure that much-apotheosized yet indistinct band of moderates and independents to his side. But as Michael Kinsley long ago joked that Al Gore was an old person’s idea of a young person, so Mitt Romney is a political hack’s idea of an electable conservative president.

   Who in God’s Name Is Mitt Romney?
   http://nymag.com/print/?/news/frank-rich/mitt-romney-2012-2/
4. mitchel j. freedman says:

   February 13, 2012 at 6:34 am

   Corporate media pundits reflect their bosses’ desires. The bosses want Romney, so the default is to say Romney has momentum at every win, and then when he loses a race, to say well, he’ll come back. South Carolina was only important if Romney won. It was not important the moment he was losing.

   Did anyone see C-Span last week where Robert George at the NY Post actually admitted in a panel with Robert Kuttner that he would rather not get fired by attacking Fox Network programming, since Fox also owns the NY Post. It was said in that sort “joking” way where the person really isn’t joking. These people know precisely where to stand for their bosses, as middle managers do in most corporations.

   The sooner people begin to analyze corporate media as a group of corporations, meaning their social liberalism and economic conservatism reflects the executives’ views, the sooner they will see through the lie of the “liberal” media slogan.