Could Romney's handlers write a BETTER SCRIPT than for FR to "attack Romney from the right"?

[Faryn Balyncd]

So Jim Robinson threatens to "not be involved" in supporting a Romney campaign. ?





And, as usual, the corporate media will take this noise from the right at face value, allowing every corporate "news" outlet to peddle the false RW meme that Romney is a "moderate", or, horror of horrors, a "liberal".


The strategy of the RW has always prioritized the false framing of Romney as a "moderate". . . . . . . . That is, in fact, the SCRIPTED ROLE, not only of Free Republic, but of the entire RW hate radio/Fox "News" machine.


The Republican RW propaganda Wurlitzer is, as we know, the most effective propaganda machine ever ginned up anywhere in the world since 1930's Europe.


And the most effective thing Free Republic and the rest of the fringe RW can do to elect Romney is to raise hell screaming the myth that Romney is a "Liberal".


It is not just that the RW haters will vote for him come November (which they will):


The much more important reality is that Jim Robinson and his fellow fringe wingers have a much BIGGER job to do for Romney RIGHT NOW:
Specifically, to attack him from the right, so that the corporate media will dutifully take the cue and continue their coverage from the FALSE PERSPECTIVE of portraying Romney as a "moderate".


Romney's corporate schemers could not have written a better script than for Free Republic to take this position.








(Actually, falsely framing Romney as a "moderate" or a "liberal" is perhaps the only way the entire campaigns of Bachman, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum makes sense, or to make sense of Sheldon Adelson pouring $15 million into an already braindead Gingrich "campaign".)

[LiberalLoner]

1. I think it's great because they will force him to remain solid on extreme positions that way,

and President Obama will appear as what he truly is - the only sane person and grownup in the room.

[RZM]

2. Are you saying the other candidates were in on a vast conspiracy to make Romney appear moderate?

Because if so, that's quite a stretch.

The main reason Freepville isn't happy with Romney is that they really do believe that he is too moderate. It's the same reason that some here don't much care for the president.

This sounds less like some orchestrated campaign and more like people being people.

Of course, Romney's handlers will try to move him to the center now, but that's business as usual. Candidates always run differently in the primaries and in the general.

[Xipe Totec]

4. By the current standards of the right, Regan was a Flaky California Liberal nt

[RZM]

5. That wasn't what I was asking though

It seems the OP was arguing the other candidates were just placeholders whose purpose was to make Romney look more moderate. I find that pretty hard to believe.

[Faryn Balyncd]

12. ...& Goldwater a member of the Communist Party!

[Faryn Balyncd]

7. That would be quite a stretch, as you say.....

And conspiracy theories are almost always a caricature of reality.

These candidates probably could not work together in an intentionally coordinated fashion if they wanted to.




But it does seen that the only way the 2012 Republican nominating charade makes any sense, from the Republican perspective, is as a process which repeatedly attempted to move the parameters of public debate further and further to the right, and falsely portraying Romney as a "moderate".

For many of the various challengers to Romney, there was the more personal reality that their actions raised their profile among their true believers, and also their financial prospects, whether by overtly paying themselves from campaign coffers (a la Newt) or by padding their resume for the professional right wing author/pundit/Fox "News" commentator.

The changes in campaign financing have created a toxic environment in which it can be profitable for politicians in this fashion (not just in the fashioned corruption of being in bed with lobbyists, then becoming one after office).

In this environment, the specific political goals of the deep pockets like Adelson may not totally translucent, but both the deep pockets and the candidates probably view that it is to their advantage to take ever more extreme positions, and that they may view that on the rhetorical wedge issues they are "pushing Romney to the right" (which, on the SUBSTANTIAL real issues he could not be more RW than he is). On some level all the players probably realize (even if Frank Luntz hasn't explicitly spelled it out in one of his periodic talking point briefings) that falsely "smearing" Romney as a "moderate" actually helps Romney in the general election.

The result is that these folks function as a grand choir. (but to view it as a conscious "conspiracy" I would agree would be a stretch.)

[arely staircase]

3. yeah, im sure demoralizing his base and depressing

conservative turnout is exactly what romney wants.

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. eeeyup. It's all part of the Overton Window theory, which is the central strategy of RW think tanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_Window

[Faryn Balyncd]

8. bingo

[Aerows]

10. Romney is unacceptable

to many people. It's just the way it is. There are people that will vote for Obama before they vote for a Mormon. I don't mean to dig at Romney's religion, but it's just not sane to a lot of people. It's like asking them to vote for a Scientologist.

[Aerows]

9. Right wingers

will burn in hell before they vote for Romney, at least the Southern ones will. Does anyone honestly think a Baptist will vote for a Mormon? I am laughing my behind off at this election because when it comes down to it, Romney couldn't win in the South no matter how much money he spreads around.

[Kalidurga]

11. Funny you should say that...

The Church of my youth was a liberal leaning Baptist Church. But, the pastor would have definitely had the position that Romney was unfit because of his being a Mormon. They also spoke out against Catholicism, and Pentecostals. They were ok with Methodists though.