“…the bankers of yore operated by building relationships; Bain made its investors money in large part by breaking relationships, e.g. by walking away from implicit promises to workers. It’s not a style that makes for good diplomacy.”
…There’s an unsightly churning phenomena that takes place within the right-wing media these days and it revolves around the constant need for unsavory content. There does not actually exist enough shocking news and information to sustain the Obama-hating press apparatus, or The Outrage Machine. Therefore, lots of the outrages have to be not only exaggerated, but at times completely fabricated or even recycled….
…Republicans have done what, honestly, we couldn’t have done better if we’d designed a strategy ourselves.
…Until 2007 radio had the worst rating system ever invented. I know, I worked in the industry, and we all knew the numbers were total nonsense. They measured ratings by giving people “diaries.” They would keep these diaries for three months and all along they were supposed to be recording what they listened to on the radio every fifteen minutes. What a joke. Most people would fill out the diary at the end and scribble down what they thought they remembered….
…Then in 2007, radio started switching over to something called Portable People Meters. This did not rely on human memory. It’s a device that picks up the radio signal wherever you are and records the station you’re actually listening to. So, what happened? It turns out people were listening to a lot more music than they realized and a lot less talk. So, the sports stations, the hot talk and the conservative talk stations were all hurt.
Last year, Crain’s New York Business reported that Rush Limbaugh’s ratings were down 33 percent. The portable people meters have been expanding to different markets throughout these years (they didn’t just replace all of the diaries instantly in 2007, it’s taken a while). So, it’s unclear how much Rush was hurt by the more accurate readings last year and how much people just stopped listening to him….
…Rush’s audience is a myth. He is a paper tiger. Do some people listen to him? Of course. Is it anywhere near the hype? Not remotely. Talk radio is a dying business. I wouldn’t be surprised if his daily listeners didn’t even reach a million….
…A common theme recurs in analysis after analysis: what the NRA claims credit for usually turns out upon closer examination to be nothing more than elections in which Republicans do well….
…Over the last four elections, 86 percent of NRA House endorsements went to incumbents….And if you’re a Republican incumbent, the endorsement is almost guaranteed: 90 percent of GOP House incumbents got the endorsement in 2004, 91 percent in 2006, 96 percent in 2008, and 97 percent in 2010….
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.
“
| — | Voltaire, according to http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/911.html |
From the comments, & it’s crackin’ me up fiercely:
“…The 2012 Republican mullet: pro-business in the front, slut-shaming party in the back…”
To reiterate, Ron Paul’s supporters are not helping his cause:
…Levin said he has been extremely critical of Ron Paul and have “gotten into it with some of his folks.”
Levin added that he was “particularly disgusted” with Paul’s newsletters. He has also called Paul’s foreign policy “unpatriotic” and “un-American.”…
…Levin said that his team received a note from Wilson basically saying that unless Levin apologized for comments made about Paul and some of his supporters and changes his attitudes, he would not be renewed.
“It’s one thing to drop a program and to add a program, and everything in between. It’s quite another to try and censor a program,” Levin said, in order to control what he says on the air. Levin said that rather than wait the 90 days, “we quit,” and excoriated Wilson for using “Stalinist tactics.”
Predictably, Ron Paul supporters gleefully heralded the news. Keep in mind these are the same people who scream ‘Freedom’ like William Wallace at the end of Braveheart, and to these people, any disagreement with the Texas Congressman is considered “lying.”…
Beneath Rick Santorum’s stunning three-state sweep on Tuesday stands another stubborn sign of dissatisfaction with the status quo: Republican turnout is down.
I’m talking embarrassingly, disturbingly, hey-don’t-you-know-it’s-an-election-year bad. It is a sign of a serious enthusiasm gap among the rank and file, and a particularly bad omen for Mitt Romney and the GOP in the general election….
…Will the Republican Party finally self-destruct for the amusement of everyone sane on Earth? Were the Mayans talking about the GOP all this time?…
It’s time that the right stop coddling its rising stars like trust-fund brats who are bailed out of trouble and assured at every opportunity that it’s someone else’s fault anytime something goes wrong. What do Paris Hilton and Palin have in common? The privilege and burden of knowing that even if they accomplish nothing of significance for the rest of their lives, they’ll stay rich.
“
| — | Sarah Palin and the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic |
