Romney joins the birthers

Written By: - Date published: 2:41 pm, August 27th, 2012 - 55 comments
Categories: us politics - Tags: , ,

I’ve been meaning to write for a while on the American presidential campaign, and the terrifying possibility of a Ryan-Romney presidency. Later I hope, but I can’t help but note briefly now that Mitt Romney has joined the truly loony “birthers”:

Romney makes birth certificate dig at Obama

US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took a dig at President Barack Obama today over his birth certificate in comments that re-ignited the controversy over the Democrat’s eligibility to be president.

“No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate,” Romney told a rally of some 7000 people in his home state of Michigan. “They know that this is the place that we were born and raised,” he said to the laughter of the crowd, speaking alongside his wife, Ann.

Romney’s comments were a reference to the widely discredited belief that Obama, whose father was from Kenya, was not born in the United States and thus is not eligible to be president. …

Romney brought up the issue despite having complained recently that the campaign had taken a nasty tone.

“Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them,” Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

“Governor Romney’s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America,” he said.

Give pause to “any rational voter” – that’s true. But the longer I spend watching politics the more I see that rationality has bugger all to do with it. A Ryan-Romney presidency is a very real possibility. Then things get really interesting.

55 comments on “Romney joins the birthers ”

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  1. TheContrarian 1
    27 August 2012 at 2:54 pm

    Romney has consistently maintained he believes Obama is a natural citizen.  

    • Lightly 1.1
      27 August 2012 at 3:09 pm

      yeah but he’s dog-whistling racists and that’s despicable.

      birther-ism is just racism in disguise.

    • felix 1.2
      27 August 2012 at 3:14 pm

      “Romney has consistently maintained he believes Obama is a natural citizen.”

      So he’s playing to those who believe the birther nonsense, even though he knows it’s wrong. That’s actually worse that if he believed it IMO.

      • TheContrarian 1.2.1
        27 August 2012 at 3:36 pm

        Na, no need for him to even do that because birthers wouldn’t vote Obama anyway.

        I think he just made a stupid joke. It isn’t like he is known for making well thought out comments. The man is a buffoon.

        • felix 1.2.1.1
          27 August 2012 at 3:58 pm

          “birthers wouldn’t vote Obama anyway”

          That’s a moot point, he’s not saying this shit to try to win support from Obama voters. He’s saying it to build, nurture and strengthen the support of the racist, redneck, retard elements of his own party.

          And by doing so, he lends a little bit of credence to their offensive idiot views and makes the whole world a tiny bit worse forever.

          And yep, he’s a buffoon. But New Zealanders of all people ought to be wary of writing off buffoons.

          • TheContrarian 1.2.1.1.1
            27 August 2012 at 4:36 pm

            Thing with Mitt Romney, and what I consider to be his greatest weakness, is that he doesn’t know what he is trying to be. His personality comes across as “rich guy wants to run the country” and a lot of the gaffes he makes come from a position of him trying to define himself as something else and failing miserably.

      • seeker 1.2.2
        27 August 2012 at 4:52 pm

        And mine felix. Doing it “even though he knows it’s wrong” debases the man, and in turn dog whistles the baser instincts of humanity for his own ends. Those who follow him and agree with him become debased in turn. It’s so infectious, it’s almost a right wing virus.

    • joe90 1.3
      27 August 2012 at 3:19 pm

      birther-ism is just racism in disguise

      Ta-Nehisi Coates: Fear of a Black President.

      If Obama is not truly American, then America has still never had a black president.

    • Matt 1.4
      27 August 2012 at 7:40 pm

      Um, if one thing characterizes candidate Romney, it is that he has not maintained a consistent position on anything.

  2. Carol 2
    27 August 2012 at 3:05 pm

    “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate,” Romney told a rally of some 7000 people in his home state of Michigan. “They know that this is the place that we were born and raised,” he said to the laughter of the crowd, speaking alongside his wife, Ann.

    This looks to me more like a racist dog whistle, rather than expressing a belief Obama was not born in the US. It is invoking a racial hierarchy by implying that Romney is more truly a US-ian because of his ethnicity/skin colour

  4. Bored 4
    27 August 2012 at 3:17 pm

    I posted Orlovs tongue in cheek comment on another post earlier…refers to the idiots who will vote Romney.

    …….. go out and take part in the Reverse French Revolution that’s underway in the US. That’s where revolting peasants do all they can to elect an aristocrat who will swindle them out of their savings even faster and lock up even more of them in the Bastille. And what makes these peasants so revolting is that they are all fat—from eating cake instead of bread, just as Marie Antoinette had suggested.

  5. Pete 5
    27 August 2012 at 3:55 pm

    Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight still gives Obama a 69.4% chance of winning a second term. Unless there’s a huge October surprise or the economy goes into freefall, I don’t think that will change.

  6. Pascal's bookie 6
    27 August 2012 at 4:21 pm

    It is possible that the GOP hasn’t been using a whole lot of racist bullshit in the permanent campaign.

    It’s also possible that they aren’t referencing all of that stuff in the more intensive campaign in the lead up to November in order to give the more excitable racist halfwits in their base a reason to vote for a flipflopping Mormon stuffed shirt who that very same base has been hating on for the last few runs around the electoral turnpike.

    It’s possible. Both of those things are possible. But it doesn’t look very likely in this particular universe.

    http://www.timwise.org/2012/08/if-it-walks-like-a-duck-and-talks-like-a-duck-racism-bigotry-and-the-death-of-respectable-conservatism/

  7. muzza 7
    27 August 2012 at 5:54 pm

    It makes no difference who you have, you get the same result, simply faster if the GOP are flying the red flag and at the wheel!

    If TPTB wanted Obama back in, they would be printing again by now, so its war or lose I expect for him.

    Romney, fantastic, get a look where his family came from and some of his distant relatives, and do the same with Paul Ryan, what a pair those two make!

    ____________________________________________________________

    Why R0b, did you bother writing this article, was it purely to show your bias and eager need to take a poke a hole at the “birthers”, because your words are transparent.

    The whole piss-take that is 100% controlled US politics is awful to witness, so to have an article of this low quality on TS, not even attempting to cover anything constructive at all, says alot about the author.

    You can do better than this r0b, total waste of energy writing on what is obviously a personal bug bear!

    • felix 7.1
      27 August 2012 at 6:16 pm

      Jeez muzza, don’t tell me you believe that birther rubbish as well.

      • muzza 7.1.1
        28 August 2012 at 7:25 am

        I dont have an opinion either way, because it makes no difference,.

        This years presidential “choices”,

        The Wall St rent boy, racial appeaser with a fake peace prize, questionable past and beliefs

        or

        The Wall St rent boy asset stripper, who wont show his tax returns, is a mormon bishop, and possibly trying to live out some sort of oath, or prophecy according to his beliefs

        Sweet options!

        • locus 7.1.1.1
          28 August 2012 at 8:36 am

          You don’t have an opinion either way…. Why not answer the question and agree that birthers are seriously fruitcake racists?

          • muzza 7.1.1.1.1
            28 August 2012 at 9:37 am

            I won’t answer, because I do not know/care either way that they are “seriously fruitcaske rac*sts”. Some will be, some won’t be, either way, its again just smoke and mirrors!

            Notice how they each have a distraction issue to throw at eachother, Romney with his tax returns, and Obama with the birth certificate.

            Instead of following the “distractions”, which you do to try convince yourself that you are not some “closet rac*st”, maybe take a look into what both these “men” represent!

  8. captain hook 8
    27 August 2012 at 7:15 pm

    Rachael Maddow on Letterman this afternoon. “The Republican Party is toxic, anti science and creating states laws to stop people from voting.
    I guess the vote is only ‘legitimate’ if you are a republican.
    Romney is also promising to cut taxes for the rich too.
    Looks like the USA is starting to weird out and go on the wonk New Zealand style.

  9. Macro 9
    27 August 2012 at 7:27 pm

    The UK media got it right – “Mitt the Twit!”
    Only idiots would vote for that man.

    http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/mittromney/ig/Mitt-Romney-Pictures/Mitt-the-Twit.htm

  10. Tim G 10
    28 August 2012 at 12:07 am

    Similar neo-lib shit, different colour and incredibly boring.

    Supposedly intelligent TS readers repeating the same rubbish about Romney being wooden and JK being affable/personable – apparently if the media keep repeating it you’ll buy it.

    I am always amazed that my completely politically-disengaged friends in NZ can get excited about what is effectively a 1 horse race.

  11. Colonial Viper 11
    28 August 2012 at 12:27 am

    I think the Republicrats will win. Or maybe the Demoblicans. Well, regardless of who actually wins, it will be one of the bankster-sponsored political parties.

    • Mr Burns 11.1
      28 August 2012 at 8:47 am

      Of course it will. Us business elites have standards to maintain. What are you saying, that ordinary people should have a say in how America is run? What are you a, <splutter>, communist?

  12. mike 12
    28 August 2012 at 1:42 am

    “Corporations are people, my friend,” Romney said.

    Some people in the front of the audience shouted, “No, they’re not!”

    “Of course they are,” Romney said. “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes?”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-says-corporations-are-people/2011/08/11/gIQABwZ38I_story.html

    Wow this guy is a genius. His words make so much sense! I used to think that everything that corporations earned ultimately went to offshore tax havens, or maybe zebras. But now I see that it actually goes to… people.

    And clearly, this proves that corporations in fact are people.

    Haha American politics is farney.

    • The Peanut Monster 12.1
      28 August 2012 at 1:02 pm

      Worse – the US Supreme Court confirmed this in the Citizens United case, when it held that corporations were in fact, entitled to fund political campaigns as a constitutional right under the First Amendment, a right that was reserved until that point for human beings. Then comes the Super PAC, and the unfortunate richest-man-takes-all political system that is the United States.

  13. Tracey 13
    28 August 2012 at 8:39 am

    The obvious unfounded retort is ” I only have one wife”

  14. The Peanut Monster 14
    28 August 2012 at 12:28 pm

    This kind of rhetoric is dangerous. It smacks of nationalism and in some cases, plain racism. In many respects, the Republican party is highly racist, which interestingly goes against their roots, founded as they were an anti-slavery party: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/25/politics/cnn-explains-gop-party/index.html?
    Lincoln is celebrated by both sides of the fence (as I believe, he should be), but he was far more “left” than the average Republican nowadays. The obsession with national myths – the Boston Tea Party for example – is useful to a point. The problem is that they are mythologised into fantasy, and their meaning is lost. Popularising things for political ends to manipulate the masses is dangerous. Especially, as in this case, it is basically racism.

    Many americans sadly do not need to be encouraged on that front.

  15. tc 15
    28 August 2012 at 3:04 pm

    Is anyone surprised after electing and then re-electing the Village idiot, george double ya, that mittens is anything but as mad as a box of frogs.

    from a land where they have massive warehouses of religious books from old and recent print runs/recycle runs piling up because ya can’t destroy the word of god you know

  16. captain hook 16
    28 August 2012 at 3:10 pm

    is romney legitimate?

  17. fatty 17
    28 August 2012 at 3:11 pm

    I love the US elections…almost as good as a season of Breaking Bad

    • lprent 17.1
      28 August 2012 at 3:42 pm

      Nah – reassembles a recent season of True Blood – full of arcane story arcs, far too many characters, a world where working for a living is steadily becoming something that only innocent victims do, and punctuated by vast screeds of arterial blood as the storyline slowly spins out of control.

      By which you can deduce that
      a. I get forced to at least listen to the series.
      b. I don’t like the series much.
      c. The series makes more sense than US politics since they evisicate news readers in prime time….

      and based on turnout in the US where more people don’t vote than vote for either presidential candidate… I guess they view it the same way I do.

  18. Certificate Courses 18
    28 August 2012 at 6:41 pm

    Is there a reason we are being this childish?

  19. millsy 19
    28 August 2012 at 10:15 pm

    In the 1980 campaign, Reagan was endorsed by 2 labour unions, PATCO (ooops..), and the Teamsters. He also delivered a speech with words to the effect that unions engaging in collective bargaining was an example of freedom.

    In the 1970’s Richard Nixon increased funding to universities and introduced laws to combat air pollution. He also proposed a form of universal health care and a UBI. The space shuttle was designed and developed with his backing.

    Dwight Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway system, expanded Social Security carried on with the New Deal.

    Infact, a large amount of the Republicans who either held or campaigned for office in the post-war period, would be considered to be well to the left of the party in 2012.