Dick Morris is thanking God and Mother Nature. So is Karl Rove.
Yes, Sandy has been a godsend for the conservative con men who have been spinning straw into gold for their true-believer followers.
On October 30, Dick Morris was predicting a Romney landslide.
Once everyone discovers that the emperor has no clothes (or that Obama has no argument after the negative ads stopped working), the vote shift could be of historic proportions.
But by yesterday, he saw
"danger signs" for Romney, citing Sandy as the cause:
Whereas before the storm, Rasmussen showed Romney two ahead, he now has the race tied at 48-48.
...
More troubling, Rasmussen shows a two point gain for Obama in job approval rising from 48% to 50% in the current poll.
All of these changes are, no doubt, related to hurricane Sandy.
(Of course, what Morris glosses over is that in his article touting a Romney landslide, he also made a prediction for the Senate claiming that Republicans would be a net +6, ending up with a 53-47 advantage. That ain't gonna' happen, either, Sandy or no Sandy.)
On November 1, Karl Rove was confidently predicting a Romney victory.
It comes down to numbers. And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney.
The
very next day on November 2, Rove
sets up Sandy as the reason for a potential Romney defeat:
Question: In your view, has Sandy given Obama a chance to win that he otherwise wouldn’t have?
Rove: “Yes. If you hadn’t had the storm, there would have been more of a chance for the Romney campaign to talk about the deficit, the debt, the economy. There was a stutter in the campaign. When you have attention drawn away to somewhere else, to something else, it is not to his [Romney's] advantage.”
Of course, Rove has a lot at stake here. He has
fleeced his deep-pocket SuperPAC funders of hundreds of millions of dollars on the promise of dethroning Obama and
winning back control of the Senate for the GOP.
Neither is going to happen. So Karl made millions off the suckers rich, crusty, old white guys who believed his fast-talking sales pitch, the same crusty, old white guys who won't see anything resembling a Romney presidency or a GOP-dominated Senate. Bernie Madoff is sitting somewhere in a cell thinking, "I am such an idiot. I shoulda' been a political consultant!"
Over at Red State, Erik Ericksen doesn't exactly blame Sandy, but he claims that whatever happens Tuesday is okay because it's all part of God's plan to make the world "go to hell in a handbasket." So we can only assume that Sandy was part of God's "bigger plan."
My world view is pretty simple. I think this world is destined to go to hell in a hand basket by design. I think things are supposed to go to pot. So if Barack Obama wins, I won’t be upset. If Mitt Romney wins, I won’t be running through the streets cheering. I think, either way, it is all part of the design. The world is going down hill. Barack Obama re-elected just gets us down the slippery slope faster in my view. For others, it is Mitt Romney who does.
God is sovereign and He is in charge and He will return. That is my hope and my ever present expectation.
Nice, eh? I feel sorry for Ericksen's kids.
I guess in Ericksen's world, God sent Sandy to punish the godless, heathen liberals in New York and New Jersey so that Obama wins and the world goes to hell faster because it's all part of God's plan. Or something. (I mean, who can keep this crazy shit straight?)
But some conservatives may be looking for a more earthly scapegoat for their endless, "the-race-is-a-dead-heat" prevarications. As Josh Marshall points out, Chris Christie is emerging as the human excuse to cover the asses of the GOP liar class.
Rupert Murdoch has weighed in with this gem of tweet:
Thanks Bloomberg right decision.@Now Christie, while thanking O, must re- declare for Romney, or take blame for next four dire years
So even Murdoch is preparing to use Sandy -- through Christie -- as the excuse for his, and his network's, never-ending, whole-cloth fabrications on the state of the presidential race.
As the conservative snake oil salesmen consultants, media and punditocracy try and cover their asses with pre-election excuses as to why their steady stream of lies predictions didn't pan out, perhaps we should revisit Dick Morris' landslide piece for a moment of supreme irony:
Once everyone discovers that the emperor has no clothes...
Yes, we are quickly approaching an "emperor has no clothes" moment for the likes of Dick Morris, Karl Rove, Erik Ericksen, the loudmouths at Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Joe Scarborough, David Brooks, that little twit, Dylan Byers at
Politico, Rupert Murdoch and many more.
Sadly, my guess is that the suckers who watch Fox News, and the rich plutocrats who have lined Karl Rove's pockets with millions of dollars only to have his promises go down in flames will believe this hokum... That Sandy saved Obama. That Chris Christie's treasonous embrace of the President turned the tide. That God has a bigger plan that involves destroying the human race, and the only impact an Obama victory will have on this Grand Plan is to hasten the arrival of "the end."
(One could certainly link the conservative attacks on Nate Silver this week to the inane, anti-science, anti-fact mindset that allows much of the conservative faithful to ignore actual truths in favor of blatant lies.)
It's all quite fun to watch in a schadenfreude sort of way, but it's also a sad commentary on the incredible ignorance of such a wide swath of the American population.
A final note to Erik Ericksen: I don't share your grim world view. I feel sorry for you. What a way to go through life...
UPDATE
Now it's not just the conservative grifters and pundits using Sandy as an excuse for Romney's pending defeat, it's the Romney camp, itself!
And can you spot the double bullshit spin here?
Campaign sources concede superstorm Sandy stalled Romney's momentum. For eight straight days, polls showed him picking up support. The campaign's internal polling, which is using different turnout models than most public polls, had him on solid ground in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Iowa. He had a slight lead or was tied in Ohio, New Hampshire and Wisconsin and was in striking distance in Pennsylvania, a state Republicans hadn't won since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
What "momentum?"
For eight straight days, polls showed him picking up support.
Did the CBS reporter even question this fib? Or at the very least, ask what polls these "sources" were talking about that showed Romney "picking up support?"
Hilarious.
"We lost because of Sandy!"
Now, even Mitt and company are using it! Looks like they're throwing in the towel. What a weak, cowardly way to go out.