House of Eratosthenes

Realized, after I entered a comment on Professor Mondo’s blog, that I’d made a point not often made by myself or anyone else. It’s an important one because it explains why a lot of good, honest people are talking past each other.

I look at it a little bit differently: To demonstrate his worthiness of the mantle of “love ‘im or hate ‘im, he’s the only one who can beat Obama so you’d better line up,” Mitt needed to triumph over this thing like Fat Man and Little Boy triumphed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You’re an educated man well accustomed to dealing with statistics. You’re in Mitt’s corner, albeit far from enthusiastic about it…certainly not the only one. How many of the delegates who voted for Mitt, do you think, could be described in this way? Do you suppose each one has a squishy counterpart in the Santorum camp? Hah!

It’s an exercise in determining the relative mass of two objects, by taking a glance at their physical sizes. Just as density is important in measuring masses, enthusiasm is important in picking who’s gonna win.

I very often hear from the independents, who after all are the ones who really decide elections, how embittered they are that they haven’t seen a president they’ve liked since Ronald Reagan. Hear it over and over again: Last decent one was Reagan, Reagan, Reagan. I don’t understand why these squishes are seen as more electable. Nobody feels too enthusiastic about ‘em because nobody likes ‘em, and nobody likes ‘em because they can’t trust ‘em. And that’s not an insult to Gov. Romney’s character; these candidates are “seen,” wrongly, as being more electable. Illusionary or not, it’s a critically important asset, from their perspective, so naturally they’ll do whatever it takes to maintain it. So every question that comes up, they check the polls. They may have tons and tons of personal integrity and character off the job, but once they clock in, they might as well not. Reliable as bouncing footballs.

People are not like bits in computer memory, either one or zero. They’re more like the fractional representations in between. Enthusiasm matters, and it matters a lot. We count these things in integers, so our framework of perception causes us to miss out on this again and again and again.

Besides of which, if enthusiasm doesn’t matter and people really are just a bunch of ones and zeroes, frankly I think Obama has this thing locked up. You’ve got someone who was never fooled by the Obama malarkey, ever, back to Day One, who’s out of work, his medicine costs two or three times as much because of ObamaCare, understands down to the marrow of his bones that we can’t afford any more of the nonsense…that’s still just one guy. Offset by teeming hordes of Obama Zombies, brainlessly muttering “Oh yeah, okay, whatever…hope and change…don’t wanna admit I was wrong in ’08, so hope and change…” Obama takes that state. Maybe it’s a battleground state. Then you go to the next state and see the same thing happen.

Obama’s not going home next year unless he’s sent home by a differential in enthusiasm. Which is manifestly possible. Even likely, I think. But Mitt can’t deliver it. Why can’t he? Because the guy who can’t afford his medical treatment anymore, cannot appreciate a vision of success in that direction. He’ll make it to the polls on a rainy day. A couple of his friends, who understand the same issues, and their gravity, and have the same opinions about it, won’t. The Obama zombies, meanwhile, I’m thinking two will vote if you find me three. I’m pegging the residue of 2008’s “I wanna be part of this (Obama) thing” spirit at about 67 percent. Six in ten seems low, seven in ten seems a bit high.

And now, in the words of Jack Woltz, let me be even MORE frank. I am less persuaded than ever before by this talk of “Romney is the only one who can take it.” I am worried. I’m worried about Romney. I always have been. It worries me when, if I want to drag a net and snag a whole bunch of negative chatter about a candidate, my best prospect is to drag said net through the people who are supposed to be supporting that candidate. And this is the perception I have of Romney’s supporters. They are all declaring their allegiance, and they come from all sorts of walks of life, they disagree about many other things and agree about Mittens…yes, that much is encouraging, to be sure. But if they only agree about him because they desire a tactical advantage, there’s no real agreement there. They agree they want to win. Well who doesn’t?

Mitt gets the ABO enthusiasm — Anybody But Obama. Okay, on election day if the weather isn’t good, is ABO going to net you the 67 percent to match the Obama Zombies? That fighting spirit of “Yeah, yeah, okay, I said Mitt was the guy…back when the weather was a lot different than it is now…okay, let me go get my coat.” I don’t think it will. The economy will improve — or, at least, there will be some flimsy statistical signs, like last month when the unemployment rate dropped after so many people gave up on trying to find a job. November of ’12, there will be a few more nuggets like that, and the media will play them up. Ten people support Mitt Romney because of ABO right now — I will bet you at least five of them don’t vote when the time comes. And that’s five out of ten who insist Romney’s the guy “because we’ve gotta beat Obama no matter what and nobody matches Romney for electability.” These aren’t bad people or dumb people or unreliable people, but I think a majority of them will get caught up in something else. They’ll be watching reruns on Election Night. Yeah, I’m serious.

The same holds true for Romney himself, once he’s elected. The thing that has to be appreciated here is that, on all the issues that really matter, what’s common sense to the common folk is intolerably right-wing to the elites. Just to pick some examples: Illegal immigration. Or: Schools changing their methods rather than receiving more money. Or the Big Kahuna: Government trimming wasteful spending instead of raising taxes. Global warming and drill baby drill. The people get it. We’re not divided, not as much as we’re represented. To make these seem like contentious issues, you have to offer a bigger soapbox to the left, you have to skew the samples when you do your polling.

But once you so skew and once you so misrepresent, for the reasons I was spelling out as I entered my comment at Mondo’s, politicians like Romney will listen to and act upon the results. Faced with a choice between pursuing a common-sense not-whackjob-liberal course of action, and avoiding a good healthy George-W.-Bush sliming, a Romney will do whatever it takes to avoid such a sliming.

Reagan would pursue the common-sense solution.

Refer back to my observation about the indies, and the legacy of The Gipper. Therein lies the lesson. People appreciate leadership. They don’t appreciate sucking-up.

whatever…hope and change…don’t wanna admit I was wrong in ‘08

And…. poof! There goes the republic.

This is why I, too, think Obama takes it in 2012 — the ol’ foot in the door strategy. To admit you were wrong about Obama in ’08 means that you fell hook, line, and sinker for one of the most transparent shams of all time. You voted for a guy who, in a rational world, couldn’t get elected dog catcher (and who governs worse than the hypothetical dog catcher would’ve). And that’s before @ssholes like me come around rubbing it in (as I surely will, gleefully, if somehow by the grace of God we pull this thing out).

Not too many people have the testicular fortitude to admit they’ve been had, especially on that scale. (If they had any sack, they’d be voting Republican in the first place).
- Severian | 01/04/2012 @ 17:32
Someone better tell Ann Coulter, then. Her last three or four columns in a row have been about what a great guy Romney is (and why we can’t trust Gingrich). Her only slap at my preferred candidate, Perry, was that he was “too much like George W Bush” (so what?) and that he gave in-state tuition rates to illegals. (Oh, and the Gardasil thing.)

The thrust of her argument is that Mittens is the only current candidate who ran as a Republican and won in a blue state. Yeah…and he also implemented a state version of the very program we are going to try and repeal at the federal level…and he isn’t even sorry about it.

To see someone who I always counted on to lay the smackdown on the Left and be a stalwart conservative – to see her in the tank for this RINO squish – turns my stomach sour.
- cylarz | 01/06/2012 @ 04:50
I very often hear from the independents, who after all are the ones who really decide elections, how embittered they are that they haven’t seen a president they’ve liked since Ronald Reagan. Hear it over and over again: Last decent one was Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

You must have met the so-called independent that I work with, then. He is very proud of having been a Reagan Democrat back in the 80s…and he hasn’t voted for a GOP ticket since 1988…but by golly, he is an independent.

I don’t understand why these squishes are seen as more electable.

Been wondering the same thing for some time now myself…and why real conservatives have to get labeled “extremist” and run off the stage.
- cylarz | 01/06/2012 @ 04:52

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“Once They Clock In, They Might as Well Not”
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012