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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy I think Mitt got punked hard
First of all, Clint Eastwood must have sat down with the Republicans (who have been planning this convention since before Romney was even picked to be the nominee) and convinced them that:
1) He could give a good, rousing political speech;
2) He would be a good surprise to drum up excitement;
3) He was worth showing in prime time right before the most watched speech of the convention;
4) He didn't need to show them his speech beforehand;
5) He could speak without using the teleprompter;
6) His whole schtick would be speaking to an imaginary Obama in an empty chair;
7) He could go out there with his hair looking like a total mess (you know there's a small army of people in the back to make sure that the clothes, hair, and makeup are looking right); and
8) As a known Ron Paul supporter, he wouldn't use the speech to promote Ron Paul in any way, shape, or form.
Clint Eastwood is still acting in movies, and some of his greatest performances have been in the last few years. They only announced that there would even be a special guest two days ago, so Clint was clearly lucid this week. If the Republicans had believed that he was some senile, doddering old man who was likely to show up in full "Grandpa Simpson" mode, they never would have given him a spot, and certainly not a spot that half the country was likely to be watching on live television.
Secondly, there's the content of the speech.
There were the digs at Oprah, Biden, and Obama, but for what appeared on the surface to be a rambling mess, there were quite a few uncomfortable points made.
Romney is known for firing people, but there's also the underlying assumption in this statement that it's the role of government (and not private business) to create jobs. Clint said that the administration "hasn't done enough," implying that Obama should have been more aggressive with his policies. He capped it off with "I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along," which is a stunningly tepid call for a change in leadership.
The Republicans built Gitmo; it was their idea. Romney has never (to my knowledge) said anything about closing Gitmo. The implication in this phrase is that almost all Republicans want to close Gitmo and it's an idea that a few Democrats have gone along with. Then Clint twisted the knife by saying that we'd spent a bucket of money on it--an overt dig at military spending.
What Clint said here is that being against the Iraq War is perfectly reasonable, and only a crazy person like Obama would support the war in Afghanistan. He made it sound like Romney was being the adult in the room in calling for a complete and immediate pullout. Again, this is about as far from mainstream Republican thinking as you can get.
Here Clint was saying that all lawyers are flip-floppers. Clint knows perfectly well that Romney has a law degree. Bush ran for office as a businessman, and nobody has forgotten that.
Romney mocked the President by saying that he was worried about climate change, and on the surface this sounds like the same dig, but it's not. Clint was saying that the President is worried about nonsense like, um, student loans. The official Republican platform calls for the end to federal student loans. This is a huge issue nationally, but not one that the republicans are exactly parading around.
We own the country? Politicians are our employees? They pander for votes every few years? I LIKE TO FIRE PEOPLE?
Saying outright that you don't have to vote for someone you don't like in front of a convention center full of people who are going to have to hold their noses in November is just the icing on the cake.
Finally, Clint must have known that going out there and talking like that would completely and utterly deflate the polished, competent, unified narrative that the Republicans were working so hard to create this week. What did Romney even say during his speech, other than mocking climate change? I saw the whole thing and that's all I remember. But Clint's speech... it's all over Twitter, it's spawned several different memes, and the spectacle of it was dominating DU last night and is still dominating DU today. It's going to go down in history along with Stockdale's "Who am I? Why am I here?" and Michael Dukakis in the tank as one of the greatest political blunders ever, and the beauty of it is that Clint Eastwood's not even the candidate.
As a pro-Mitt Romney speech, it was a complete and utter disaster. The only Romney policy that Clint seemed to represent accurately was the doctrine of American Exceptionalism.
As a stealth Ron Paul speech, though, it was brilliant.
Had Dirty Harry gotten up and made a Ron Paul speech, he would have been pilloried by the Republicans. But since Clint Eastwood, 82-year-old with "senile dementia," got up and made that speech, nobody can really attack anything he said without looking like they're attacking old people in general. I doubt the Romney campaign is even going to try to repudiate any of it, but we all heard what he said.
Clint couldn't have done a better job if he'd rolled onto the stage inside a giant wooden horse.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)exactly as Clint had planned. It was an acting role for him, the whole thing was an act.
azlatina
(60 posts)I will have to go back & watch his speech. I think you may be spot on...
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)filters off. What he did was very clever.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)I don't know if it was just rambling stream of consciousness that brought him to this point but he got an entire party that worshipped those two wars (except for the Paulists) to cheer against them by associating Obama with those wars to the point they thought they were cheering against Obama.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)janx
(24,128 posts)And they didn't even notice.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)librechik
(30,678 posts)after all, the Superbowl thing he did seemed to support the recovering auto industry--which Obama saved and Romney condemned. And that is STILL driving them nutz
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)Spike89
(1,569 posts)The problem with all the "problems" Clint's speech potentially brings up for the republicans is that they are nuanced and subtle, exactly the type of content that flies right over the heads of the red-meat base. As a celebrity rather than the candidate, Clint could say just about anything as long as he didn't flat-out say "Do not vote for Romney" and the overall effect is the same--Dirty Harry endorses Romney! Hey, didn't he also endorse Reagan? Is Romney more Reagan-like than I thought?
Pointing out Clint's inconsistencies with the Romney/Ryan positions will just make it look like we're picking on an old man, and one who isn't even running for office.
I don't think Clint's performance helped, but I don't think it harmed anyone much either.
ailsagirl
(22,907 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)...is just an 82-year old man talking to an empty chair.
REP
(21,691 posts)I've been to Carmel a bunch of times; they're not known for 97-dimensional chess there. Republican voters, by definition, are not deep thinkers.
I'd like to be wrong, though.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Including his sons, seems to tell stories that passive aggressively benefit Obama. Dog on the roof. Kids faces in butter. Cutting in line in front of everyone. Tripping his daughter-in-law to win a race. Now Clint.
Frankly, he seems like an egotistical asshole, and most of them would rather he just retire with his millions and shut up, but Mitt's ego won't allow it. He thinks that at the end of the day, he will somehow prevail.
Personally, I think Clint's speech was a jab at the horrible treatment that Ron Paul supporters got at the convention. It would be about like everyone pissing on Bernie Sanders at the DNC, then expecting people to be overjoyed.
He could just be senile, but I tend to think Clint is more clever than that. He has always been his own person, and one of my favorite sayings by him is "Extremism is easy. You know what you believe and that's it. When you go extreme, though, you meet the same idiots coming around from the right meeting the idiots from the left."
I truly believe that this was his way of talking about how fucked up the Republican party has become. I could be wrong - he could also just be losing it.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)the point of what it was all about. As you said, "He has always been his own person ..." He knew people would look at it with political filters on and he punked everyone. It was an act!
Clint Eastwood is not some senile incompetent. He's an artist, and a very good one.
He knew what he was doing. He had that crowd applauding political policy that they themselves abhorred. He abhorred policy that they advocated, and still they laughed and clapped.
He made lewd, crude comments at their national convention--more laughing ensued.
It was political performance satire on an international level.
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)He could simply spoken the truth. Instead he looked like a stupid old man.
Ppossom
(1 post)Nine minutes and 20 seconds into the Youtube "full" video, Eastwood kicks off discussion for cutting Obama's throat and seems to say "..Whether you are a Democrat, crook Republican, or Libertarian..."
Are my ears deceiving me?
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)"whether you're a Democrat or a (pro?) Republican"? It's at about 9:23.
Care Acutely
(1,370 posts)could be wrong, but that's what I hear.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)RKP5637
(67,112 posts)Delphinus
(11,847 posts)It is quite odd that Clint is what everyone is talking about, not Romney.
You said he's got "senile dementia" - is that true?
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)If he was that demented, he wouldn't be working any more.
handmade34
(22,759 posts)loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Whenever interest they have is not strong enough, and I think possibly now it may be time for somebody else to come along and solve the problem.
Somebody else? Why not MITT ROMNEY!!!?
janx
(24,128 posts)I'm not sure it was a pro-Paul act as much as an anti-far right one.
janx
(24,128 posts)http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-camp-refers-clint-eastwood-questions-salvador-dal%C3%AD-031705947--election.html
We may not be the only ones who noticed.
randome
(34,845 posts)Clint FAILED. He is old and misguided. Ray Bradbury was a hard-core conservative, too.
Not everything has subtexts and secret clues hidden inside other secret clues. I think it's a BIG stretch of the imagination to think any of this was 'planned'.
Still love his westerns, though.
janx
(24,128 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)But he is a long-term Republican. And Bradbury was hard-core. I think associating yourself with Republicans for any length of time shows your true colors.
Eastwood isn't one of our 'spies'.
gordianot
(15,253 posts)That he has issues with Obama no doubt he has other issues no doubt. This was planned no doubt. Find another uncombed picture on line.
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)Agnosticsherbet
(11,619 posts)They should make it their new symbol.
They are the party of Old White Men who yell at chairs.
I don't know if he did it on purpose, but he is still capable of making sharp, memorable movies, so I don't think he is that deep into Senile Dementia.
And no matter what, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is still my all time favorite anti-war movie.
spanone
(135,924 posts)ibegurpard
(16,685 posts)...sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Knowing his past history of comments on what issues he's spoken about, though, I'm surprised they agreed to let him give an off-the-cuff speech like that.
Monk06
(7,675 posts)fiasco that allowed the dismissal of 10 Maine delegates who supported Paul. He most certainly knew Paul was not invited to speak. Third the contrarian side of Eastwood would want to punish those who did it publicly. He could have gone on Leno but he got the R convention instead.
Reasonable scenario.
JI7
(89,287 posts)cynatnite
(31,011 posts)Not only that, Clint thought since he was Clint Eastwood, he didn't need a script.
As much as I'd like to believe he punked all of them, he didn't. This was him and he made an ass of himself in primetime.
lame54
(35,345 posts)PufPuf23
(8,854 posts)and he is an asshole who lost my fondness.
PS Did you know he has/or once had property in Shasta county and had an illegitimate child born in Redding Medical Center?
I watched his 11 minutes online and wanted to barf at the has been that I had some fondness regardless of politics.
There used to be sane GOPs (like Nixon, a minor league stooge, even though I would never had thought so at the time)
I do really really want to hope you are correct.
I would vote for Ike given the choice but am 100% Obama given any conceivable ballot 2012.
PS On my first honeymoon in a marriage I thought would last forever my college sweetheart and we saw Clint with a chimp at an Incline Village theatre back in December 1977. We laughed.
Clint was pathetic in his cheap shots at an empty chair. GOP 2012.
Vote Democratic there is no other sane choice.
pacalo
(24,721 posts)His daughter, Alison Eastwood, looks an awful lot like Sondra Locke but her mother is listed on the internet as someone else. Eastwood & Sondra Locke had a bitter break-up, if I remember correctly. When I first saw Alison in a Dirty Harry movie as a child, I immediately thought she was probably Sondra's daughter -- & Alison looks more & more like Sondra Locke as she ages.
pacalo
(24,721 posts)how he mercifully ended his freak-show act with support for civility between Democrats & Republicans ("We're all great." . I wondered if Romney (or, perhaps, the entire convention) had gotten punked by Eastwood. The whole thing was just so bizarre.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)you are onto something...if he wasn't deliberately ambiguous then he was totally nuts (which I doubt).
"Saying outright that you don't have to vote for someone you don't like in front of a convention center full of people who are going to have to hold their noses in November is just the icing on the cake."
Some Rethug campaign managers are feeling badly hungover right now....
unc70
(6,125 posts)This the best description I've seen so far.
When watching Clint live, instead of an empty chair, I thought of "The Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison, connecting to conditions to that past idealized past they wish to restore. All that racism that was at the convention and throughout the GOP base. Time to step aside.
The shut up piece was an obvious echo of the silencing of Paul supporters.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)Yeah-- "The Invisible Man"-- they want to return to those days...
I didn't realize Clint was such a big Paul supporter, but when you know that, it all comes into perspective...
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)It was supposed to be a quick endorsement and nothing else.
I honestly don't know if he was trying to torpedo Rmoney or not but it seems unlikely to me. The idea that you would make a total ass of yourself and present yourself as senile just to try and do damage to a political candidate is pretty far out there.
Humans are hardwired to see patterns, even when none exist. I think you are making connections that are not really there.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)What he did to the RNC has plausible deniability written all over it..
I even predicted that's what he'd do..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1231610
bemildred
(90,061 posts)nanabugg
(2,198 posts)who was likely to show up in full "Grandpa Simpson" mode, they never would have given him a spot, and certainly not a spot that half the country was likely to be watching on live television"... because they could have picked any man on the floor of the convention who fits the bill.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)That is just so f-ing funny. I sent my mom an email saying "Did you see Clint Eastwood talking to the empty chair?" She doesn't follow politics as close as me, but I bet she got a laugh out of it.
KansDem
(28,498 posts)I mean, Clint implied that Invisible Obama said it in reference to Visible Romney. The crowd laughed hysterically; a crowd comprised of members of The Party of Personal Responsibility and The Party of Family Values.
So if the GOP, made up of these members, can laugh at and accept the suggestion of an invisible president making such a insult, then the next step would be the ability to say the insult outright.
And who said the GOP is the party of no progress!
scottsdalebubbe
(4 posts)was something that Romney's campaign staffer said to the press at least twice during Romney's European trip. So, perhaps everything that Eastwood said was surfacing and mirroring what the Republicans and the campaigns have been saying and doing ever since Obama was elected. Because as a take-down of an imaginary Obama, it was ambiguous, to say the least. Some of it sounded like an ironic John Stewart type comment that was masked because it was supposed to be directed at Obama. Kind of like, "I'm criticizing Obama overtly but my meta-message and criticism is really directed at the double-think and dissembling of the non-Paul Republicans."
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)the first time, and I think you are on to something. It is a far cry from an endorsement of Romney. Eastwood gave no reason to vote for Romney other than he is not Obama. His criticisms of Obama were really mild and off focus. Attributing statements to Obama that are obviously out of character further reduces the effectiveness of the strawman approach. To get support from the RNC convention for Iraq being a bad idea and bringing our troops home from Afghanistan was a master stroke.
On the other hand a cigar may just be a cigar, and Eastwood is losing it.
Overseas
(12,121 posts)TNLib
(1,819 posts)I love Clint eastwood films and think he's a great director. I just don't agree with his conservative beliefs.
Clint supports Romney and the GOP. He tried to help out his buddies and he failed. He still may be able to act and direct for feature films, he should he's been doing it for a long time, but stumping on stage live takes a different kind of talent.
It looks pretty clear to me Clint, is getting old and a little senile and the GOP fucked up by putting him out on stage like that, because they were so eager to have a celeb with Clint's creds endorsing them.
Clint's cool and they were hoping the coolness would rub off on Mitt. That didn't happen they fucked up.
But as sad as this is it's also really funny.
PotatoChip
(3,186 posts)After reading and thinking about your post, I decided to take a stroll through one of the Ron Paul sites. I won't link to it since as you can imagine, the site was more than a little unpleasant.
However, many of the Paulites there seemed to be speculating about this possibility too.
Not sure if I'm totally 'there' on this theory, but you make a very compelling case. If indeed you are correct, it was a brilliant move on the part of Eastwood.
With a few exceptions, I never cared much for the types of movies that he acted in and/or directed, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize talent when I see it. And as far as I can tell, he still seems to be as sharp as ever in that regard. This fact alone lends credence to the possibility that he did indeed 'punk' Romney/Ryan and the GOP big wigs in general.
Either way, it's good for us. Certainly didn't hurt anyway.