I Think the Wheels Just Came Off the Romney Campaign Today

This is another purely US Presidential Elections blog, sorry to my regular followers, but I do have to comment on this as it is a passion of mine. I do think that on Monday 17th September the Romney Campaign collapsed. And I truly feel torn. I have been captivated monitoring every twist and turn of the world-record-setting train wreck of a business disaster, that is Nokia under Elop. And suddenly this year we have the parallel unprecedented world-record-setting political train wreck that is the Romney campaign. But yes, like the previous blog about US elections, I'll do this as an extended blog so feel free to skip this blog article unless you'd like to read my thoughts about why and how..

(continuing)

 

I really had felt this year, 2012, had the makings of an epic clash of powerful parties, fighting for the center, with two highly intelligent, technocratic, pragmatic centrists, from the left, but by no means the communist-socialist-ultra-liberal that he is accused of being by the right wing blogs, comes President Obama, under troubled economic conditions, very vulnerable, but with high personal favorability, a powerful political machine and an impressive record under the situation; and from the right, I expected that Romney would veer more to the center after he won his party's nomination, and would by now be very similar to the centrist Republican who governed left-leaning Massachussetts. Romney would step in as the challenger, the business man and the Mr Fix-It guy, almost perfect for the US economic problems, but as a candidate not as electrifying as Obama had been. Where Obama's campaign was strong on the ground, Romney had essentially unlimited money to balance that out. This was promised all Spring to be a 50/50 election that would have its twists and turns, going 49/51 and back to 51/49 every week until November. The convention and the debates should have been epic and this could have gone down in history like the Lincoln-Douglas debates nearly two centuries back. 

But as I explained in my previous blog, Romney the candidate this year 2012 is a weak version of what he was in 2008. The Romney campaign has been inept and even incompetent. And Romney has squandered two of his three big chances to change the game (his VP choice and the Convention). And I don't see Romney's chances as strong to do it in the last of the three chances, the debates either.

That blog was only a week ago. And I said I felt it a tough struggle for Romney to make a fight of it. But since then, we have seen just a parade of mistakes and disasters, from the rushed and mistaken comments about the Libya killings to now the panic relaunching of the Romney strategy. Over the weekend stories emerged of big internal fights - we are still 50 days from the election, this is not the time a struggling campaign should see the rats start to jump from the ship.. 

The situation is getting so bad, that it looks like all the Obama campaign needs to do, is to cut advertisements using Romney's (and Ryan's) actual words, and repeating those, will only turn the electorate ever more against the Romney ticket. The reaction to the Libya/Egypt situation is typical now, as many Republicans came out saying it was a mistake. Seven weeks from the election and your own side is critical of your comments? That is bad. And what does Romney do? He does NOT apologize or correct his mistaken statements.

So it looked like the SS Romney was a sinking ship already, and nothing more clearly showed it than the utterly confused re-launch of the campaign earlier on Monday, when it was supposed to focus more on the details, but then not give any details, even of when there would be details. And massive confusion about which direction the details would be coming, is it more foreign policy, or social issues, or the economy. If the campaign is not focused, it cannot win. And most pundits keep telling the Romney campaign quite openly in public, both from the Republican side and the Democratic side, that every day that Romney spends talking about anything else than the economy, is a good day for Obama.

Ok, that is the usual bump and grind of the campaign. And every candidate has good days and bad days. It could easily just have been a bad patch, and next week it could be that Obama had a bad patch and Romney could be back about even and so forth.

Except for today, the 47 percent.

A video emerged today (17th, I am writing this on Asian time so for me its already the 18th) that is getting huge attention towards the end of the day. The video is secretly recorded from a Romney private speech to investors in May. In it he says that he doesn't really care about the 47% of America who will vote for Obama, and who are addicted to government payouts and who don't pay income taxes.

THE VIDEO OF THE 47%

Note, this is a real video, Romney admitted to it in a hastily-set-up press conference. He didn't even refute the statements and did not apologize.

So Romney is now on video saying that nearly half of Americans don't pay taxes, that those nearly half of Americans are lazy who take government handouts, and that Romney is not even interested in being the president for those 47%.

A few facts here first. Most of the 47% who don't pay federal INCOME taxes do pay other taxes such as social security taxes ie they work. Romney's leap of logic, that these 47% are somehow leeches who take government handouts to pay for their food and housing and don't pay 'ANY' taxes is totally 100% wrong and Romney is smart enough to know this is true. Yet he said it to his investors to his campaign. He is feeding the popular Republican myth that the USA is divided near evenly between those who work, and those who leech off the workers and take government handouts.

Yes, there also are people who truly get government money in that 47%. A significant part of it is RETIRED people who yes, get their social security and medicare payments - money they have already paid taxes for DECADES before. They have earned that money. Then it includes very low income families - who work - but whose family tax deductions are such, that their federal income tax burden is zero. These people work - hard - for very low income - and are families - and pay state and local taxes, and social security taxes but their federal income tax is zero. Romney accuses them of free-loading.

Then there are students who work hard to graduate and get yes, government loans etc, but will become producting members of society soon. Romney is openly hostile to their work. Then there are those who have lost jobs - in the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes - a crisis created mostly by the policies of the previous REPUBLICAN administration under Bush 2, and now these who collect unemployment insurance or food stamps etc, are also clearly at fault in Romney's vision.

So while in every society where there is a social safety net, there will be some who manage to game the system and 'take advantage of it' - that is nothing like 47% of the US population. It won't be 4.7% of the US population even. But what Romney has just now done, is insulted the elderly - the only segment he still held a demographic lead over Obama. Plus most who receive various types of welfare support in America are poor WHITE families in mostly Southern states - that vote predominantly Republican. Romney has insulted his base support.

WHY THIS IS FATAL

Every politician makes 'gaffes'. Every politician has bad days. But this is different. There has been a long nagging growing meme that Romney is an elitist, who cares about the 1% and - bizarrely - actually wants to tax the poor and the middle class. He just over the weekend said that 'middle class' income includes family incomes to 250,000 dollars - several times more than the median income and massively above what most Americans think as middle class, which would typically be thought of somewhere nearer 100,000 dollars at the ceiling. Voters have had this growing uneasy feeling about what is Romney saying, can he really be that clueless, like claiming he built his life from scratch, when in reality he had huge loans and massive stock portfolios from his rich parents. Or when Romney felt that 350,000 dollars was not much money (what he was paid in speaker fees one year) and that Romney only paid 13% in taxes one year, and the Ryan budget would cut Romney's taxes down to 1% per year.

The normal sensible American will find it hard to believe, that anyone could be that selfish and so divisive. So while Obama and the Democrats have tried for nearly a year to paint Romney and the Republicans as wanting to be 'reverse Robin Hoods' by stealing from the poor to pay the rich - most Americans find this hard to believe. Nobody could really be that dumb. Its a suicidal political position so Romney can't be seriously suggesting that, even though it often sounds like it.

Now we have Romney on video saying he thinks that half of America is a parasite, leeching off the rich 'job-creators' and the real workers (ie the Republicans) and that Romney isn't even interested in caring about that 47%. Suddenly earlier comments by Romney sound very revealing 'I don't care about the really poor' for example. Because this video was from a private closed-door meeting with contributor-partners of the Romney campaign, Romney is 'truthful' here. If this is what he told his campaign-contributor millionaire-friends, then it is what he believes.

It sounds exactly like what we normal people think rich spoiled millionaires WOULD be saying to each other about the commoners, the little people who really don't matter to them. That is you aren't a millionaire, then obviously you are a parasite to society and a failure and a victim and dependent on government handouts. Handouts that come from those wealthy 'hard workers'. Then all the Paul Ryan favorite Ayn Rand theories about rewarding success and punishing those who are weak start to make sense. The ultra-libertarian view. If you are poor, its your fault. And the successful people should not even bother to give them hand-outs, it only creates 'dependencies' so yes, suddenly after this video, it is frighteningly believable, that yes, Romney WANTS to tax the poor and middle class people more, and to cut their benefits, cut money to students, turn medicare into vouchercare etc.

I think Romney cannot recover from this. I think this is one of the most damaging statements ever in US politics (on line with VP candidate Eagleton who admitted he had been treated for mental illness). Romney cannot walk this statement back, or if he tried, he would never be believed (and he'd face an instant revolt among the Tea Party).

These statements and this video will be played back at him in advertisements and by the press and all Democrats. It will come up in the debates and Obama will press Romney on it. Romney has effectively admitted he is an elitist. He admits he wants to divide America into half, the good half and the bad half. And it become completely believable now, for voters to believe, that Romney truly intends to stick it to the poor half by increasing their taxes to give tax cuts to the (1%) richest Americans. The whole horror of the Ryan budget and Romney's 'I like to fire people' etc becomes real. These are Romney's words, spoken to a private meeting of 'his peeps' - fellow millionaires. The evil world-domination plot. How to enslave the US population. Its a poison that spreads everywhere - so now it makes sense why the Republicans want to deny the poor people the chance to vote. Now it makes sense that the Republicans want to enslave the women and bring womens' health issues back 50 years or more.

All other questionable parts of Romney (and Ryan) and their 'plan' (which fails Arithmetic as Clinton said) and even Romney's refusal to release his own taxes are only amplified in this situation. Romney's campaign admitted the video. Romney had a press conference agreeing to what he said. Even Republican party leader Reince Priebus joined in saying he agrees with this position. Romney has painted himself into a corner.

Before today the election was according to the average of recent polls by Real Clear Politics about a 3 point race, ie Obama at 49 and Romney at 46. Obama was ahead in 9 of the 10 battleground states. Now Romney becomes a laughing stock, like Sarah Palin did on Saturday Night Live. The undecideds will flock to Obama. Many who otherwise were leaning to Romney, ie Republican-leading Independents will now start to go back to 'undecided' and by election day most of those will end up voting Democratic. Some of the extreme Tea Party Republicans and Ayn Rand Libertarians will love this position but many other Republicans will be repulsed and some will stay home. The overall Republican turnout will suffer, but the Democratic turnout is only energized by the sheer hostility of the statement.

The honestly neutral and fair-minded pundits, editorialists and commenters will mercilessly abandon Romney now. If he says in public he doesn't want to be president for 100% of Americans, he does not deserve to get the endorsement. If he shows obvious stated contempt for half of Americans - he is not worthy of endorsement. If Romney attacks retired people, students, the sick, the war veterans, those who have become unemployed, and especially those who work several jobs on minimum wage and yet raise a family - then Romney cannot get honest fair-minded support. Not after today.

Of course the right wing and Fox commentators will strongly support Romney, and the whole left-wing liberal side will crucify him. (Note, Republicans are a smaller group of the voting electorate than Democrats so even this is a losing proposition). But that whole argument about who is waging class warfare - is settled now. Obama keeps saying very publically, he wants to be the president for all of the USA, even those who didn't vote for him. But Romney, is now caught on video - and he admitted to it - that he only wants to govern 53% of America and doesn't care for the other (arguably weaker) 47% which includes the retired, the students, the injured war veterans etc etc etc.

A MIRACLE MAY HAPPEN

Again, it is possible that an outside effect still changes things, like a terrorist attack, a nuclear bomb, an Eurozone disaster etc. But if no totally external factor changes this election, the hole Romney finds himself in now, is too deep for the domestic US politics to change in the next 50 days. Obama is too good a politician to make such massive blunders to let that happen. The Obama campaign is too disciplined and well-run to make such a mess. The Obama money and the Democratic party support is too well harmonized. No, the Romney ticket will now really start to rip itself apart, there will be accusations, some dramatic reorganizations or even firings. Some billionaire donators will make nasty noises etc etc etc. We saw the first statements of the concession speech of the Romney campaign today, on 17th September. 

And just to be clear - I felt BEFORE this video, that the Romney campaign had become the most incompetently run campaign that I have ever seen. But yes, today I think the Romney campaign died.

Comments

[John Ross]

I could not disagree more. This is almost an exact replay of 1980, when Carter led Reagan in the polls up to the week before the election and the "experts" said Reagan should tone down his rhetoric, which he DIDN'T. And then won by a landslide.

We have a President who is MASSIVELY in over his head, steering our country toward economic ruin domestically and third-rate status internationally. Romney has not apologized for his comments, and shouldn't. We need more of the same, not less.

We need another Reagan, not, as you seem to wish for, another John McCain.

[Stoli89]

Yes, we need another Reagan; a President who increased the national debt from just under $900 Billion to over $2100 Billion. A president who pushed his CIA analysts to publish Soviet Military Power reports annually to Congress that severely overstated the challenge. Yes, I used to read and memorize them at the US Naval Academy...before joining the nuclear submarine force. Am I accusing the CIA of lying to scare Congress into supplying the funds? NO. I don't need to accuse anyone because the CIA already admitted to Congress of the lie while under oath in the early 1990's. If we look at the last 30+ years, it was Reagan who left the USA with huge debt and projected annual deficits. His successor, Pres. GHWB, added a cool $1000 Bio, making it just about 3300 Bio when Pres. Clinton took office. Clinton kept the debt FLAT and delivered 4 successive surpluses in his second term while handing over 10 years of $200Bio annually projected surpluses to Pres. GWB. It was the Republican, GWB, that turned these surpluses into $5000 Bio of additional debt with off budget wars paid via supplementals, huge tax cuts to the rich (thanks dude), and a prescription drug plan to Big Pharma that made us tobacco executives (living in Switzerland) envious. Pres. GWB not only left Pres. Obama an economy in free-fall, but also a FY2009 budget with a $1200Bio deficit GWB signed into law! The GWB math is 3300 + 5000 + 1200 = $9500 Bio. (Note: Putting GWB and math together in the same sentence should be illegal.)

The Republicans want the nation to think it was Obama who caused the trillion dollar deficits. No, it was GWB who signed our first huge trillion dollar deficit into law in Sept 2008. Of course, most of these huge deficits are now caused by automatic triggers that have kept the economy from completely imploding. In fact, most of Obama's FY2010 budget overrun was the result of these automatic triggers.

I am not happy with Pres. Obama's performance when measured against his campaign promises. But on balance, when measured against an obstructionist Republican Congress that has filibustered more than any Senate minority in history, his performance has been pretty damn good.

I'm hoping Romney's Republicans continue to devour themselves to the point where the bloodbath spills over into both House and Senate races. In order to get the USA back on track, we need a Republican minority that is castrated and unable to filibuster. We need a House majority that represents the people, not the 0.05%. We need a Senate that can support Obama in stacking this ultra right wing court so that the US Constitution's principles can be restored. Citizen's United is the beginning of the end of the great US democratic experiment.

PS: A point of trivia. Who gave Karl Rove his first big start? It was Philip Morris USA. Karl was the bag man who ensured the PAC money got to the friendly Texas Republicans. Look it up.

PPS: Karl Rove has been putting money behind Senate and House races becasue he knew early on that Romney was a bad bet, even for him.

[boooring]

those leeches were not going to vote for romney anyway so who cares?

[vladkr]

I don't know if this video is a real problem for Romney. I don't pretend to know the US well, it's only a country I cross (for business or leisure), so I don't take time to talk about politics there (and I have no reason for doing it).

But, I can compare with Canada... Canada is quite different of the US : taxes are quite high, there is a social system for everyone... but still many people consider "socialism" as a bad thing, even if they enjoy this system.

It's a mistake to think that voters are objective; maybe many are, but it's not the majority. People vote with their guts, with their feelings.

Some retired people may agree with Romney, even if they benefit from this system; they will agree, because if the system is good to them, they'll consider they deserve it, whereas their neighbour, who benefit the system too, doesn't... just because they don't like him.

I'm not the one who will judge all that : I was born and raised in a country with a strong socialist tradition, Americans have another tradition and it's okay. Still, it's heart-taking for me to see shanty-towns in West O'Ahu, Michigan or New England. All businesses we used to work with and which close.

I still think the game is not over, that everything can happen on Nov. 6th

[vladkr]

@Stoli89:

Your first paragraph reminds me of a legend about the Harrier :

When Hawker introduced the Harrier, engineers invited a Soviet team from Yakovlev to study their new "baby". Hawker's executives hopped Soviets would design a competitor, what would result in the need of the development of a new Harrier (and more funds for the company).

I don't know how true is this story - Russians actually confirm it - but it's still interesting.

Cold war was a good excuse for incredible and useless spendings, based on lies and cheating.

[KPOM]

There's a grain of truth in what Romney said. There is a set percentage of the population who will vote for one candidate over another, primarily based on the letter D or R after his name. In addition, both parties, but particularly the Democrats as of late, have used expanded government spending as a way to foster dependence on government, which is a relatively new phenomena in American culture (the last 2-3 generations). Social Security and Medicare have become "third rails" that politicians are afraid to touch, even though the programs need massive scaling back and restructuring.

I don't think Romney is a 1% "elitist" any more than John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, or even Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. He's just not a good campaigner, and the long primary hurt him. Like most politicians, he doesn't really have solid principles and is more of a weather vane, but unlike Bill Clinton or Barack Obama he does a bad job of covering it up. Bill Clinton could say with a straight face that the "era of big government is over," and Barack Obama could "evolve" from being against same-sex marriage to being for it (3 years after neo-con Dick Cheney), or from being against Bush's use of "executive imperialism" to launching drone strikes on US citizens and get away with it because they know the drill. Reagan was the last GOP president who was good at it. Bush I wasn't. He was competent enough to get elected the first time but struggled to relate to people during a recession. Bush II squeaked by barely, primarily because his opponents (Al Gore and John Kerry) were awful candidates.

The 2012 election is turning out like the 2004 election. An unpopular president is coasting to re-election primarily because the public doesn't like the alternative. Again, that should teach the parties to avoid out-of-touch candidates from Massachusetts (Dukakis, Kerry, Romney).

[decentralist]

There are two factions within the US Power Elite that have lined up behind Romney and Obama. "Big War" and "Big Oil", respectively. The Bush family tried to balance both sides, and despite the buffoonery and atrocities in other areas, Bush family did that balance well.

So "Big War" wants an incident to incite war with Iran vs. Israel and US. Big Oil would rather keep oil and profits flowing predictably in the Middle East.

Watchout as there are whispers that Big War wants to engineer another event like the Iran Hostage Crises of 1979 that guaranteed Carter lost in 1980, so that Romney has a better chance in 2012.

[KPOM]

@Stoli89, the GOP congress is mostly obstructionist because Obama rammed everything down their throats when his party had a super-majority. Unlike Clinton, he didn't move to the center after getting beaten back in the first mid-term election, but instead doubled down. Plus, his thumb-his-nose strategy fired up the base of the GOP, which got a lot more extreme candidates elected in 2010 than in 1994 (though Boehner is a lot more centrist than Newt Gingrich, and Clinton still managed to work with Gingrich a lot better than Obama with Boehner).

There's only so much that Obama can blame on the GOP congress. By the time they took power, he had already passed most of his agenda. The only major item he didn't get passed was immigration reform, and I get the sense he was never serious about that. Since 2010, he's just overused his executive power the way most presidents do, naturally without any complaints from the Left, who used to decry Bush's "imperial" use of executive power.

European audiences seem enamored by Obama for reasons I don't quite understand. The extreme elements of the GOP don't help matters, but Europeans don't seem to care that Obama views them with disdain. Look at how relations with the UK deteriorated, and yet Britons would elect him in a heartbeat (much like the abused spouse stands by her man). Obama is of the "spend money now, worry about it later" philosophy that has gotten much Europe into trouble. Someone is going to need to deal with the structural deficits that entitlement spending has left us, and unfortunately, it is neither of the two candidates, but especially not Obama, whose crowning achievement is creating yet another, even bigger entitlement.

[Rune]

"Then all the Paul Ryan favorite Ayn Rand theories about rewarding success and punishing those who are weak start to make sense. The ultra-libertarian view."

The quote above is entirely wrong about ultra-libertarianism. The whole point of the ultra-libertarian is that s/he doesn't want anyone to do any rewarding or punishment. Ayn Rand would claim that success follows naturally from the intelligent, decisive action, if only the state (and similar institutions) would get out of the way. She wouldn't want you to vote for Paul Ryan, but would want the abolishing of politics in general.

[John edwards]

This is the very conversation that we should be having. Romney has set the table for a feast! I think the presentation was clumsy but the truth was told. The left will parse the words and make a false assertion. However, We have far too many people living on the dole. If we do not get our fiscal house in order then we become a socialist society. We cannot have more people taking a handout than people paying taxes and have a democracy.

Obama wants to distribute weath and Romney wants to create wealth. Romney should take this message right to the American public. He should not back down – he should instead double down. If he backs down then I agree with you – he has lost.

[Winter]

Nice how the commenters from the USA all work hard to show Tomi's analysis is right. Thank you.

It is revealing that none of the commenters addresses the point that retired people tend to pay no federal taxes and hence are leeches in the eyes of Romney cs.

This whole voting demographic is alienated by the GOP candidate. When these pensioners remember that during the next house/senate elections, the Republicans might be in for a nasty surprise.

Personally, I expect other GOP candidates to drop this issue (and candidate) like a piece of burning coal (hot potato seems to weak).

[bjarneh]

John edwards>We have far too many people living on the dole.

how many in the US is on the dole? and how much does it cost to have a person on the dole, i.e. how long do the benefits last etc..

[MK]

@Winter

It's interesting you bring that up about retirees. There is a larger point that can be generalized from Romney's more specific statement about Obama voters.

Yesterday, on NPR, there was a story done at a retirement home (I believe) where just about everyone was using some kind of government aid. A Romney supporter, when asked about the 47% statement, replied that it didn't refer to people like him because he paid his taxes to Social Security and Medicare all his life. When pressed, he claimed that Romney was taking about "voters" when referring to the 47%. Just goes to show the cognitive dissonance that humans exhibit from time to time...

Also, I find these viewpoints fascinating simply because ultimately, things like the Ryan plan do not care about this "nuance" since it would cut benefits to all people under these programs, not just from those who "don't deserve it".

[Stoli89]

This whole discussion about the "lazy" 47% who are, in Romney's eyes, on the public dole is not only politically deadly, but factually incorrect. First, of the lazy 47% who Romney thinks will be with Pres. Obama no matter what, 23% pay payroll taxes (which means they are working and paying into Social Security and Medicare), 10.3% are the retired elderly living off of Social Security (to which they paid into, lest we forget). Maybe Romney is talking about the 6.9% who are earning less than 20K per year. The under/unemployed poor, the newly graduated college students who cannot find jobs in this market, or the war torn soldiers returning home to joblessness?

But wait, is the income tax the only tax that funds the federal coffers? No, the income tax makes up about 42% of gov't revenue. The majority (58%) is comprised of Payroll taxes (40%) + Corp Income Tax (9%) + Excise Taxes (3%) + Other (6%: import duties, licensing, etc.). Note that Social Security is not part of the gov't revenue as it's self-funded by its trust fund, to which workers contribute. In the broader sense, nearly everyone is paying some form of federal taxation and certainly state taxes (which include income, sales/excise, licensing, and other forms of tax).

Ten Republican states depend on the Federal government because they take in from the federal government more than they submit in federal taxes. Is Mitt calling the folks residing in these states lazy? How about the white male veteran retirees who vote disproportionately for Republicans. Are they also lazy? What about 55% of the large corporations that paid NO income tax from 1998 to 2005? Corporations are people too Mitt...are they also lazy?

Did Mitt pay any income taxes in 2009? If no, then would he also fall into the lazy 47%?

[Winter]

The funny thing wrt the "leeches" comments is that the main support base for the Democrats (and Obama) is in states that are net payers of federal taxes (eg, both coasts). The main support base for the Republicans is in states that are net receivers of federal taxes.

It is like those Tea Party demonstrators yelling "Keep Government out off my Medicare".

[lokanadam]

when are you going to write an article that says obviously htc 8x and 8s are much better nokia; so more competition; so nokia is dooomed ?

[Decade]

@Baron95 Wow, even in a discussion about US politics, you take the time to fire off a bunch of non-sequiturs, and then you pump for Windows Phone. Well, in the real world, people are getting concerned how all these Windows Phone *devices* are appearing, but no details about the Windows Phone 8 *operating system* have been released. Even the Ars Technica Microsoft expert, Peter Bright, who is usually so bullish about anything Microsoft, is concerned about whether Windows Phone 8 will be ready on time. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/09/where-oh-where-is-windows-phone-8/

Personally, I got bored of this election when Romney got the nomination. We keep getting centrist flip-floppers. Even Bush, Kerry, and Gore are largely centrist, by US standards. It would have been exciting to get a veto-happy ideologue, like Ron Paul. But I know that that is practically impossible at the moment.

[Decade]

I was remembering it wrong. Kerry isn't centrist. McCain is centrist.

Kerry was just incredibly boring. Somehow, some obscure detail of his conduct when he was young managed to overshadow his past 30 years of accomplishments. Which says something about what he has accomplished. It felt like he was nominated because he is tall and has good hair.

Four years ago, I favored Obama in the primary election because he campaigned on "Hope" and "Change," but then he selected Biden, of all people, to be his running mate. I've never voted for a Democrat or Republican candidate in the November election.

[Winter]

@baron95
A phone OS with 3% market share or less that is all but abandonned by its parent for more sexy tablets? Why would that be important?

Any Bada anouncement warrants more attention. Unless you are recompensated to write about it.

[Winter]

@Baron95
Because MS paid Samsung for marketing?

MS did the same for Nokia. Actually, phone networks have earned nice extra income from advertising Lumia too. They dropped it immediately afterwards as no one wanted the phones. But the marketing money was welcome.