The 2012 Three Ring Circus AKA The US Presidential Election

[Northern Dominus]

Uh...when did classism factor in here?

Make this easier on me and just list the things you do understand about classism. You denigrate sex workers who have to ask for less than the minimum wage, and then you don't see where the classism is? Really?

It was a silly slightly-off color joke...which is spurred by the fact that he rmakeup looks like a pastiche of the aforementioned hooker and yet she's claiming some sort of moral high ground by voting for Romney based on the notion that he's "hot" and that her cat's name is Mittens and therefore shares some sort of root name with the GOP candidate.

Ah...so women whose appearance you find distasteful cannot possibly...*blah blah blah assumption unfounded generalization SNIP*

Okay...at what point did I ever explicity or even tacitly imply that I look down upon others simply based upon their occupation or means of attaining cashflow? In no way do I hold sex workers in any sort of contempt. If anything I feel the criminalization of sex workers is short-sighted, uninformed, and does more harm than good, and that's just a start.

As far as your other assertions that I'm a fan of genocide and land grabs (which BTW I'm not a fan of either. Were it up to me I'd be happy to give the remaining tribes a large cache of weapons and say "Have at it, take back what you wish.", but that's not happening either), slavery (anyone who screams "southern pride" should be wrapped in their own confederate flag and set on fire), or other sundry things, I appreciate you turning me into this pastiche of everything evil and wrong about the US, but as the song goes I'm the cult of personality...or something. I just wanted an excuse to use that song since apparently I'm being made into this big figure

I believe in direct representation, that means my vote is no better or worse than the rich man in Gold Coast or the struggling one in Beverly (I live in Chicago so expect heavy references to the home town.). I believe that our government works slowly and has to in order for an idea to pass through both houses and get sussed out and made better, not held hostage because of ideological dogma. I believe that our bill of rights applies to every man woman and child in my country regardless of gender, skin color, gender identity, sexual orientation, or religion, and if you don't like it you're free to say so but beyond that tough luck.

I also believe I have the freedom to use whatever silly terms and ideas I have in my head to mock stupid arguments, such as the one in question where an ill-informed woman made her views known to the world via youtube and made several rather silly rationales of support. She didn't espouse the virtue of Mitt's tithing to the Church of LDS, or his economic policies, or any of his record in Massachusetts. No, her main arguments were that Mitt is "hot" and that he shares a root name with her cat.
Therefore I felt that an equally silly statement should be used to describe the silliness of her public statement.

Any questions?

[Free South Califas]

Make this easier on me and just list the things you do understand about classism. You denigrate sex workers who have to ask for less than the minimum wage, and then you don't see where the classism is? Really?

Ah...so women whose appearance you find distasteful cannot possibly...*blah blah blah assumption unfounded generalization SNIP*

Okay...at what point did I ever explicity or even tacitly imply that I look down upon others simply based upon their occupation or means of attaining cashflow?

When you made "$5 hookers" the butt of your joke. I don't see how you could be confused about this.

In no way do I hold sex workers in any sort of contempt. If anything I feel the criminalization of sex workers is short-sighted, uninformed, and does more harm than good, and that's just a start.

Well, good. You should modify your rhetoric so it lines up with your beliefs.

As far as your other assertions that I'm a fan of genocide and land grabs (which BTW I'm not a fan of either. Were it up to me I'd be happy to give the remaining tribes a large cache of weapons and say "Have at it, take back what you wish.", but that's not happening either), slavery (anyone who screams "southern pride" should be wrapped in their own confederate flag and set on fire), or other sundry things, I appreciate you turning me into this pastiche of everything evil and wrong about the US,

I wasn't the one who expressed admiration for the principles the country was founded on. However, I'm sincerely happy to hear that you didn't mean it.

but as the song goes [url]I'm the cult of personality[/url]...or something. I just wanted an excuse to use that song since apparently I'm being made into this big figure

Delusions of grandeur are an internal problem.

I also believe I have the freedom to use whatever silly terms and ideas I have in my head to mock stupid arguments

Who has argued otherwise? Has someone been trying to censor you?

such as the one in question where an ill-informed woman made her views known to the world via youtube and made several rather silly rationales of support. She didn't espouse the virtue of Mitt's tithing to the Church of LDS, or his economic policies, or any of his record in Massachusetts. No, her main arguments were that Mitt is "hot" and that he shares a root name with her cat.

See how easy it is to do this without adding to the problem of the depersonalization of already-marginalized sex workers?

Therefore I felt that an equally silly statement should be used to describe the silliness of her public statement.

I appreciate your explanation. I happen to disagree: the problems of sex workers are many things, but 'silly' does not come to mind as one of them. Of course, you have the right to be as bigoted and exclusionary as you like as long as you have the permission of Max Barry and co.; they're your words, and it's his site. Conversely, I have the right to criticize them, subject to the same restrictions.

[Northern Dominus]

Okay...at what point did I ever explicity or even tacitly imply that I look down upon others simply based upon their occupation or means of attaining cashflow?

When you made "$5 hookers" the butt of your joke. I don't see how you could be confused about this.

In no way do I hold sex workers in any sort of contempt. If anything I feel the criminalization of sex workers is short-sighted, uninformed, and does more harm than good, and that's just a start.

Well, good. You should modify your rhetoric so it lines up with your beliefs.

As far as your other assertions that I'm a fan of genocide and land grabs (which BTW I'm not a fan of either. Were it up to me I'd be happy to give the remaining tribes a large cache of weapons and say "Have at it, take back what you wish.", but that's not happening either), slavery (anyone who screams "southern pride" should be wrapped in their own confederate flag and set on fire), or other sundry things, I appreciate you turning me into this pastiche of everything evil and wrong about the US,

I wasn't the one who expressed admiration for the principles the country was founded on. However, I'm sincerely happy to hear that you didn't mean it.

but as the song goes [url]I'm the cult of personality[/url]...or something. I just wanted an excuse to use that song since apparently I'm being made into this big figure

Delusions of grandeur are an internal problem.

I also believe I have the freedom to use whatever silly terms and ideas I have in my head to mock stupid arguments

Who has argued otherwise? Has someone been trying to censor you?

such as the one in question where an ill-informed woman made her views known to the world via youtube and made several rather silly rationales of support. She didn't espouse the virtue of Mitt's tithing to the Church of LDS, or his economic policies, or any of his record in Massachusetts. No, her main arguments were that Mitt is "hot" and that he shares a root name with her cat.

See how easy it is to do this without adding to the problem of the depersonalization of already-marginalized sex workers?

Therefore I felt that an equally silly statement should be used to describe the silliness of her public statement.

I appreciate your explanation. I happen to disagree: the problems of sex workers are many things, but 'silly' does not come to mind as one of them. Of course, you have the right to be as bigoted and exclusionary as you like as long as you have the permission of Max Barry and co.; they're your words, and it's his site. Conversely, I have the right to criticize them, subject to the same restrictions.

So....rather than look at the link and video in question you're going to simply pick phrases and argue semantics.

Good to know.

[The Black Forrest]

Okay...at what point did I ever explicity or even tacitly imply that I look down upon others simply based upon their occupation or means of attaining cashflow?

When you made "$5 hookers" the butt of your joke. I don't see how you could be confused about this.

In no way do I hold sex workers in any sort of contempt. If anything I feel the criminalization of sex workers is short-sighted, uninformed, and does more harm than good, and that's just a start.

Well, good. You should modify your rhetoric so it lines up with your beliefs.

As far as your other assertions that I'm a fan of genocide and land grabs (which BTW I'm not a fan of either. Were it up to me I'd be happy to give the remaining tribes a large cache of weapons and say "Have at it, take back what you wish.", but that's not happening either), slavery (anyone who screams "southern pride" should be wrapped in their own confederate flag and set on fire), or other sundry things, I appreciate you turning me into this pastiche of everything evil and wrong about the US,

I wasn't the one who expressed admiration for the principles the country was founded on. However, I'm sincerely happy to hear that you didn't mean it.

but as the song goes [url]I'm the cult of personality[/url]...or something. I just wanted an excuse to use that song since apparently I'm being made into this big figure

Delusions of grandeur are an internal problem.

I also believe I have the freedom to use whatever silly terms and ideas I have in my head to mock stupid arguments

Who has argued otherwise? Has someone been trying to censor you?

such as the one in question where an ill-informed woman made her views known to the world via youtube and made several rather silly rationales of support. She didn't espouse the virtue of Mitt's tithing to the Church of LDS, or his economic policies, or any of his record in Massachusetts. No, her main arguments were that Mitt is "hot" and that he shares a root name with her cat.

See how easy it is to do this without adding to the problem of the depersonalization of already-marginalized sex workers?

Therefore I felt that an equally silly statement should be used to describe the silliness of her public statement.

I appreciate your explanation. I happen to disagree: the problems of sex workers are many things, but 'silly' does not come to mind as one of them. Of course, you have the right to be as bigoted and exclusionary as you like as long as you have the permission of Max Barry and co.; they're your words, and it's his site. Conversely, I have the right to criticize them, subject to the same restrictions.

So what do all your tangents and non-sequiturs have to do with a thread on the Presidential elections?

[Free South Califas]

So....rather than look at the link and video in question you're going to simply pick phrases and argue semantics.

Good to know.

Why would I need to watch Lindsay Lohan bloviate about Mitt Romney? I already know she's an ignoramus and you've described all the important parts anyway. And I already know how I feel about making impoverished sex workers the butt of your jokes. I can roughly infer what Lohan looks like in the video, but I also know how I feel about people who judge women's opinions by their physical appearance.

The relevance to the presidential election is fauxgressivism: the tendency for Democrats and their advocates to betray their conservative beliefs about women, underrepresented minorities, sex workers, poets, or what-have-you, while pretending that we are a united front with a common vision for the country. There is an important distinction between leftists, who stand in solidarity with the working class, vs. Democrats, who seek every opportunity to sell it more efficiently to Republicans and "centrists".

[Quebec and Atlantic Canada]

So....rather than look at the link and video in question you're going to simply pick phrases and argue semantics.

Good to know.

Why would I need to watch Lindsay Lohan bloviate about Mitt Romney?

Actually that was some random blonde, not Lindsay Lohan. Thanks for an implicit admission that you're overreacting about something which you didn't watch in the first place.

[The Black Forrest]

So John Sununu was on CNN blathering the usual.

When the question of the tax cuts came up with an R and R administration came up. He talked about loop holes being closed to offset that.

Anybody really buy that lie?

If you have a President who gladly used tax loopholes to offshore assets and ran a company which excelled at find loopholes, why would he be remotely interested in doing that?

Then again, I am thinking the tradition definition of "loop holes" maybe they consider mortgage deduction a loophole......

[The Emerald Dawn]

So John Sununu was on CNN blathering the usual.

When the question of the tax cuts came up with an R and R administration came up. He talked about loop holes being closed to offset that.

Anybody really buy that lie?

If you have a President who gladly used tax loopholes to offshore assets and ran a company which excelled at find loopholes, why would he be remotely interested in doing that?

Then again, I am thinking the tradition definition of "loop holes" maybe they consider mortgage deduction a loophole......

Sununununununununununununu just talks out his ass anyway.

The "loop holes" they intend to close are most likely the kinds of tax relief pointed at anyone making under 100k a year.

[The Black Forrest]

So John Sununu was on CNN blathering the usual.

When the question of the tax cuts came up with an R and R administration came up. He talked about loop holes being closed to offset that.

Anybody really buy that lie?

If you have a President who gladly used tax loopholes to offshore assets and ran a company which excelled at find loopholes, why would he be remotely interested in doing that?

Then again, I am thinking the tradition definition of "loop holes" maybe they consider mortgage deduction a loophole......

Sununununununununununununu just talks out his ass anyway.

The "loop holes" they intend to close are most likely the kinds of tax relief pointed at anyone making under 100k a year.

Of course the more money we throw at the upper classes will mean faster economic prosperity right? As I said you have to admire the social programming. If you can't get yourself out we dug, you have only yourself to blame.

Hmm CNN is running Republican ads with some Hungarian immigrant rags to riches story talking about the evils of Socialism and stop punishing the successful because they will go Galt...

Of course, ignore the bit about Soviet and all........

[The Emerald Dawn]

Bwah ha, Romney is not willing to go on "The View", because it is "high risk because of the five women on it, only one is conservative and four are sharp-tongued and not conservative." Oh noes! I may actually have to handle four non-conservative women! WHAT CAN I DOOOOOO!

[The Black Forrest]

Bwah ha, Romney is not willing to go on "The View", because it is "high risk because of the five women on it, only one is conservative and four are sharp-tongued and not conservative." Oh noes! I may actually have to handle four non-conservative women! WHAT CAN I DOOOOOO!

He is sending his wife

[The Emerald Dawn]

Bwah ha, Romney is not willing to go on "The View", because it is "high risk because of the five women on it, only one is conservative and four are sharp-tongued and not conservative." Oh noes! I may actually have to handle four non-conservative women! WHAT CAN I DOOOOOO!

He is sending his wife

So when he has to deal with heads of state that are not conservative, will he send his wife there too?

[Ashmoria]

So John Sununu was on CNN blathering the usual.

When the question of the tax cuts came up with an R and R administration came up. He talked about loop holes being closed to offset that.

Anybody really buy that lie?

If you have a President who gladly used tax loopholes to offshore assets and ran a company which excelled at find loopholes, why would he be remotely interested in doing that?

Then again, I am thinking the tradition definition of "loop holes" maybe they consider mortgage deduction a loophole......

if the republican congress should hand president romney a bill that lowers taxes but doesnt close loopholes, will he sign it anyway?

[The Emerald Dawn]

So John Sununu was on CNN blathering the usual.

When the question of the tax cuts came up with an R and R administration came up. He talked about loop holes being closed to offset that.

Anybody really buy that lie?

If you have a President who gladly used tax loopholes to offshore assets and ran a company which excelled at find loopholes, why would he be remotely interested in doing that?

Then again, I am thinking the tradition definition of "loop holes" maybe they consider mortgage deduction a loophole......

if the republican congress should hand president romney a bill that lowers taxes but doesnt close loopholes, will he sign it anyway?

Highlighted key words. He'd sign a pair of tits if it was handed to him by a Republican.

[The Black Forrest]

So John Sununu was on CNN blathering the usual.

When the question of the tax cuts came up with an R and R administration came up. He talked about loop holes being closed to offset that.

Anybody really buy that lie?

If you have a President who gladly used tax loopholes to offshore assets and ran a company which excelled at find loopholes, why would he be remotely interested in doing that?

Then again, I am thinking the tradition definition of "loop holes" maybe they consider mortgage deduction a loophole......

if the republican congress should hand president romney a bill that lowers taxes but doesnt close loopholes, will he sign it anyway?

He would probably set the paper on fire by the speed of his signature.

But I will predict the loopholes if any are closed will be the ones that benefit the lower classes.

[Ashmoria]

if the republican congress should hand president romney a bill that lowers taxes but doesnt close loopholes, will he sign it anyway?

Highlighted key words. He'd sign a pair of tits if it was handed to him by a Republican.

and thats why it doesnt matter so much what mitt romney secretly believes and would advocate as president. no matter what, he will sign what the republican congress sends him.

[Free South Califas]

Why would I need to watch Lindsay Lohan bloviate about Mitt Romney?

Actually that was some random blonde, not Lindsay Lohan. Thanks for an implicit admission that you're overreacting about something which you didn't watch in the first place.

Then the video was poorly described. I wasn't reacting to the video in the first place. I was talking about the "$5 hooker" joke. I have maintained that it is always a bigoted, classist, sexist and racist thing to say, regardless of the target's appearance. Watching the video will and should have no effect on how I feel about making impoverished sex workers the butt of one's jokes, and how progressive the joker is likely to be. It is interesting, however, that "some random blonde" is defined by her hair color, and the other aspects of her individuality are seen as interchangeable.

Joker: Look at this nigger, he looks just like a thug.
Respondent: I don't think it's OK or very progressive to talk about Black people that way.
Third person: You obviously haven't even seen the video - he totally looks like a thug.
R: Well, if you put it that way...

[The Black Forrest]

Highlighted key words. He'd sign a pair of tits if it was handed to him by a Republican.

and thats why it doesnt matter so much what mitt romney secretly believes and would advocate as president. no matter what, he will sign what the republican congress sends him.

Oh don't get me wrong. I think his claim is one of his endless lies.

[Ashmoria]

and thats why it doesnt matter so much what mitt romney secretly believes and would advocate as president. no matter what, he will sign what the republican congress sends him.

Oh don't get me wrong. I think his claim is one of his endless lies.

me too. i have no idea who he really is, what he really believes, or what he might advocate as president.

[The Black Forrest]

Colbert answers the question and a few others.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colber ... itt-romney

[Northern Dominus]

He is sending his wife

So when he has to deal with heads of state that are not conservative, will he send his wife there too?

Looks like Ann Romney would be going on a massive Euro trip then.

[The Emerald Dawn]

So when he has to deal with heads of state that are not conservative, will he send his wife there too?

Looks like Ann Romney would be going on a massive Euro trip then.

If she pulls a Michelle Trachtenburg and there are no cameras around I will consider it a crime.

[New Chalcedon]

Remember the op-ed where Paul Ryan - following in the footsteps of his inspiration, the sainted Ayn Rand (until she became politically inconvenient) - took the chance for a photo-op at the local soup kitchen?

Turn out that it's....ahh, got some problems.

First, the pan he "scrubbed" was already clean.

Second, neither he nor his staff let the volunteers at the soup kitchen know he was coming.

Third, the soup kitchen had already shut down for the day when he got there - basically, it was already closed when he "showed up to help".

Fourth, the head of the charity is furious that Paul Ryan stopped by - and not because of any opinions he held about Mr. Ryan:

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”
...
Antal, a self-described independent voter, said that he “can’t fault my volunteers” for letting the campaign in but said that the campaign “didn’t go through the proper channels.”

He noted that the soup kitchen relies on funding from private individuals who might reconsider their support if it appears that the charity is favoring one political candidate over another.

“I can’t afford to lose funding from these private individuals,” he said. “If this was the Democrats, I’d have the same exact problem.”

So, it appears that the Romney campaign can't even arrange a photo-op competently. And they think they can run the White House? The mind boggles that such a politically-inept bunch of fools think they can run the toughest political job in the world.

[Alien Space Bats]

First, the whole Republican position on tax cuts is a steaming pile of horseshit.

There aren't enough tax deductions in the code to compensate for a 20% across-the-board cut without hitting the big ones: Mortgage interest, State and local taxes, charitable contributions, medical expenses, and certain employee benefits (mostly health insurance and qualified pension contributions).



Here's another view of the situation:



The problem here is relatively simple: First, for those Americans not currently subject to Federal income tax (but subject to other taxes), reducing the marginal rate in return for slashing deductions can never be anything but a loss. If you have no taxable income at all, and the government eliminates enough of your deductions to expose you to taxation, any marginal rate will result in you paying more in taxes than you did before (because you now have taxable income, whereas before you did not). Consequently for Mitt Romney's hated 47%, his plan will necessarily mean a tax hike.

Second, for all of the talk of how the rich are exploiting the mortgage interest deduction and the deduction for charitable contributions, slashing or even getting rid of those deductions altogether won't cover the reduction in taxes due to a reduction in the marginal rate. If fact, because there's a multiplicative effect between the two (the marginal rate and the value of the tax deduction that shields income from that marginal rate), in many cases wiping out the deduction completely won't make up for the reduction in rates (and this is doubly true when you consider another Republican policy goal - eliminating the alternative minimum tax, which itself limits deductions under the current code). No,if you want to find $5 trillion worth of deductions to cut, you have to go after the ones that create opportunities for the intergenerational transfer of wealth by the working and middle classes.

The biggest are non-taxable employee benefits - especially contributions to pension plans, but also contributions to health care plans. These are an important components when it comes to efforts by the working and middle classes to help their kids do better than they did for a couple of reasons: First, pension contributions often supplement life insurance as a legacy when people die before exhausting such funds. Second, supporting your parents when they're too old to work is a legal requirement in all 50 States when and if your parents can't support themselves; thus, anything which reduces the burden children need to pay to support their parents allows those children to pass along more of their wealth to their children, thus increasing intergenerational social mobility.

Home ownership figures in here as well: For many families, their home will end up becoming one of the biggest assets they have. That asset is a tremendous lever for intergenerational social mobility: It can be remortgaged to help a child pay for college, it can be sold to augment an aging homeowner's retirement savings, and it (or the proceeds from its sale) can be passed along to the next generation as a legacy. Yes, the home mortgage deduction was one of the factors fueling the real estate bubble; but take it away, and both home ownership and intergenerational wealth accumulation drop sharply.

Finally, while the rich may benefit tremendously from charitable contributions, the poor and working classes also benefit from them. After all, who do charities largely serve? Why, the lowest income brackets - the very brackets that will be hit hardest by government cutbacks. If a policy of slashing deductions for charitable contributions at the same time as government expenditures on social causes are cut seems regressive to you, rest assured your not alone: To cut government spending "because charity should be handling that sort of thing" is one level of mean and stupid; but to cut tax deductions for charitable giving - and thus encourage less charity - at the same exact moment as government spending is slashed is yet another level of mean and stupid beyond that. It's doubling down on mean and stupid; indeed, it could almost be thought of as mean and stupid squared.

The counter-argument that this will stimulate investment is disingenuous to the point of being evil. There's nothing in the Romney-Ryan tax plan to encourage such increased investment here in America; indeed, the elimination of tax barriers that prevent American investors from bringing their foreign gains home tax-free (which is what the so-called "territorial" tax system proposed by Romney and Ryan will do) will actually encourage greater overseas investment by the American rich, since no tax barriers exist to making ones money overseas and then bringing it back to enjoy here at home. And with National Right-to-Work as the very least we can expect from the GOP should Romney and Ryan claim the White House, that pressure to move jobs offshore will collapse American wages in record time.

Declining American personal income and the end of the mortgage interest deduction will crash the real estate market for good - and take state and local government down along with it. Urban municipalities will buckle and break under the financial strain; streets will be left with police, lighting, or even maintenance, spurring crime and blight on a scale not seen since the 1960's. George Romney had to deal with riots in Detroit that were largely someone else's fault; Mitt will face riots on a national scale, and he will very much be the one to blame for that.

Of course, when Republicans speak of "loopholes", they are speaking of more than just deductions from income; they are also speaking of tax credits. The biggest credits are, as shown above, those issued for child care, or care of a dependent elderly or disabled person; those issued for college students paying for books and tuition; and those issued for working families with dependent children. Again, each of these credits contributions to social mobility, both intragenerational and intergenerational: These credits subsidize work by parents with children, contributions to our children's education, and our obligations towards elderly and disabled family members. By reducing the cost of the activities they subsidize, they enable earning, saving, and intergenerational support within families; eliminating them will further reduce the opportunity for each generation to boost the next up onto its shoulders in an effort to work towards a better future.

Past generations of Republicans understood this and supported these credits; this generation of Republicans rejects biological evolution as contrary to its faith while embracing the Darwinian notion that each of us is in mortal competition with our fellow citizens as fundamental to its faith, both on our own and on behalf of our children (the right having, in essence, adopted neo-Calvinism as its heresy of choice, thereby confusing the rich with the Elect and believing them and their children destined to build the New Jerusalem - on the bleeding backs of the poor). The new Republican rich understand that it's not enough to win the game today; they must ensure that their children have the wealth and power to lord over society for centuries to come. Their goal is the construction of a lasting plutocracy; to that end, social mobility is their bane.

Finally, eliminating the deduction for State and local taxes is an attack aimed at the "Blue" States, all of which have more government than their "Red" counterparts. Mind you, it's not like the current deduction "subsidizes" big local government in the "Blue" States at the expense of the "Red":



No, the idea here is to further undermine government simply for the sake of undermining government - which advances the GOP's Social Darwinian agenda, since government essentially exists to protect the weak and self-restrained among us from the strong and ruthless among us; fancying itself, the latter, Republicans hope to eliminate government in order to feast on their neighbors.

[Northern Dominus]

Looks like Ann Romney would be going on a massive Euro trip then.

If she pulls a Michelle Trachtenburg and there are no cameras around I will consider it a crime.

Oh god, the crass jokes I could make about mormon polygamy and a teen sex comedy right now....

But the thought police, and more importantly the mods are always lurking so I had better refrain from proceeding as I wish.

Remember the op-ed where Paul Ryan - following in the footsteps of his inspiration, the sainted Ayn Rand (until she became politically inconvenient) - took the chance for a photo-op at the local soup kitchen?

Turn out that it's....ahh, got some problems.

First, the pan he "scrubbed" was already clean.

Second, neither he nor his staff let the volunteers at the soup kitchen know he was coming.

Third, the soup kitchen had already shut down for the day when he got there - basically, it was already closed when he "showed up to help".

Fourth, the head of the charity is furious that Paul Ryan stopped by - and not because of any opinions he held about Mr. Ryan:

Brian J. Antal, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, who stopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antal said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there, and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”
...
Antal, a self-described independent voter, said that he “can’t fault my volunteers” for letting the campaign in but said that the campaign “didn’t go through the proper channels.”

He noted that the soup kitchen relies on funding from private individuals who might reconsider their support if it appears that the charity is favoring one political candidate over another.

“I can’t afford to lose funding from these private individuals,” he said. “If this was the Democrats, I’d have the same exact problem.”

So, it appears that the Romney campaign can't even arrange a photo-op competently. And they think they can run the White House? The mind boggles that such a politically-inept bunch of fools think they can run the toughest political job in the world.

For the lova...Really? What's next, Paul Ryan supporting a personhood amendment?...

Waitasec...yup he's done that already. With none other than Todd Akin no less.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/0 ... rol-pills/