Linkage Is Good For You: Sayonara Edition

Well, this is my last post until after the new year.  It has been fun these last few months writing at Your Big Girl Pants.  I look forward to seeing what the new year brings.  Now on to linkage:

Friday Follies: Cliff-Diving Edition

Eddard Stark.  Every Week.

So there are some saying it's not a cliff, it's a slope.  There are some saying let's go over.  But no matter what direction, the imagery of the Fiscal Cliff just begs for some Follies...

Let's Make a Deal: Top 4 Reasons We're Still Headed for the Cliff

The Fiscal Cliff/Slope/Happy-Fun-Ride is still coming.  It's self-made, and totally avoidable.  So why is it barreling towards us?

Come Sail Away: Our Top 3 Take-Aways from the 2012 Election

So there has been over 24 hours of sobbing, crowing, whining, gloating, and finger-pointing.  And that was just on Facebook.  Now that we have a bit of distance from the emotion of the night, what are our top take-aways from the election?  We will each give you our top 3.



Emily:

1. Women Matter -

My Blue Heaven

It was a very good night for we YBGP ladies.

It's so hard to pick the best memes, there are so many.  But since both Mandi and I are spent this morning from a loooong live-blog day, memes it is.  And hopefully they will capture a bit of the feeling.


1. Yay.

Friday Follies: One Step Beyond!

Hey, it's the Last Follies Before the Election!

I believe this calls for some music, and some video madness.  So without further ado...

Live-Blog 1.0: This Debate Is Fabulous!

Ahh, it's starting!!!  Follow along live below the fold...


So we're brand-new at live-blogging, but since we spend most political events texting, this shouldn't be too mind-bending for us.  We've decided to favor CNN with our presence, since we wanted to go main-stream and as much as I love PBS, CNN is more main-stream-y.

I can't wait to see which ties the gentlemen are rocking and whether Romney will be his Univision-shade of orange tonight.

Oh, and for those who get bored easily by policy, Maddow has a Lingo Bingo game up (preview below, real-size at link)...

Follow the debate below the fold....

Friday Follies: Snakes on a Plane Edition

So I'm most of the way through drafting a Friday Follies about Unions and the NFL.  And then I see this video (caution: there is swearing - obviously, if you've read the title):




...And just like that, I decided to change my post.

Now it's about funny viral videos from this election.  I picked the funniest five I could find.  So send the kids or your boss in the other room.

How Mitt Can Get His Groove Back

As Emily noted yesterday, Mitt Romney's campaign appears to be foundering, much earlier in the election cycle than normal. The polls generally agree that Mitt is following further behind. In purely anecdotal ways I can also tell that many people feel that defeat for the Republicans is nigh. My conservative friends and family have stopped posting about the presidential race on Facebook. In some cases they have given up talking about the election until after it is already over. In contrast, most of my more liberal friends have been in full political frenzy, sharing posts, photos, and writing screeds for Obama. Even some of my less politically engaged liberal friends have been doing this. So the outlook seems gloomy for Mitt. But I think it is very premature for Obama supporters to start celebrating a victory party quite yet. Mitt still isn't that far behind in some polls. And given the nature of politics in the United States, he still has plenty of time for a comeback. Follow me below the fold to see how Mitt can still win this thing...

If Karl Rove Were a Democrat: 5 Fake Ads and 1 Punt

So you may have noticed that Karl Rove is a Republican.  And also that he has a special kind of genius for running aggressive, fairly-unethical, but also fairly effective ad campaigns.  He's trying to do that right now - for a SuperPAC he runs, called Crossroads GPS.  They run ads like this one:



Let's take a look at the words on the one, lasting image from this ad:

Get it?  "Arab" on one side, "Lazy" on the other, and the we've got "Luck, Headwinds, and Control..."

Now that's subtle, Karl.  Right up there with the "Rats" ad.

Friday Follies-Taste the Obama Rainbow

Obama gave a very stirring keynote address  where he made the case for why he should be given another 4 years.  See the speech below:

The best part of the speech for me was this:

We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk-takers who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system – the greatest engine of growth and prosperity the world has ever known.


But we also believe in something called citizenship – a word at the very heart of our founding, at the very essence of our democracy; the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another, and to future generations.

Obama has been the source of many memes over the course of his presidency.  Follow me below the fold as we examine the many pro- and anti-Obama memes floating around the internet.

Friday Follies-Ranting At An Empty Chair Edition

The Great RNC Chair Debacle of 2012.  Last night Romney gave a speech accepting his party's nomination to be the Republican standard-bearer for president in 2012.  And no one cared.  Because Clint Eastwood gave a speech, where he ranted at a chair (which was supposed to be stand-in for Obama).  It was...uncomfortable to watch.  See the speech, below:

                      

The internet, predictably, had some fun with "Invisible Obama", as did Obama himself.  Follow me below the fold...

Convention Speeches: 9 Good, 1 Bad, and 1 Ugly

 

There is an art to a good convention speech.  The best of them live for years after the convention, cemented in the political memory as an encapsulation of a moment in time.  They create catchphrases that become the rallying cry or the main narrative line for the fall campaigns that follow.  And even when the campaign fails, a good convention speech lives on.  So here I give you 9 good convention speeches, and a couple of very bad ones.

The Singing Politicians (updated)

The rare two-post day.

I just had to put these up - back-to-back - because I was taken by the differences in these ads, and I want you to be able to evaluate them:

Obama's Big Fat Gay Wedding Strategery

Mandi:  Ok, so I know that it is crass to ask this question, when we are all celebrating freedom, love, tolerance and whatnot, but from a purely political perspective, what has Obama gained by coming out so firmly in favor of gay marriage?  I can’t help but think of LBJ, pushing through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, after which he is said to have remarked, “We [Democrats] have lost the South for a generation.”  Did Obama gain any voters that he would not have already had?  I think he may have lost a tiny number of votes from the anti-gay crowd that he may have gotten otherwise, but not enough to make much of a difference.

I know by taking this “courageous” stand, Obama now looks decisive, and he can employ the weak flip-flopper meme against Romney to greater effect, as that is one charge which seems to have stuck against Romney.  The questions from reporters on this subject before the President spoke about it were unusually harsh, and they seemed to be building up to labeling Obama as the flip-flopper.  So he neatly evades that, and thanks to the Romney bully story, also manages to make Romney look like a raging homophobe loon to boot, as a bonus.

Mawwiage

Note: Mandi and Emily started this conversation before President Obama came out in support of marriage equality, but after North Carolina voted to enact a State Constitutional Amendment that not only bars gay marriage, but also civil unions.  The President had made his statement by the time Emily replied to Mandi's first post.






Emily:  Do you think the anti-gay marriage (and anti-gay civil union) amendment passed in NC so handily because some black churches are fervently anti-gay?

Dog Whistle?

Background:  Karl Rove's super PAC, American Crossroads, has come out with a video that has been getting a lot of coverage this week.  Here it is -



Emily:  I call racist.  Thoughts?