The 2012 US Election

[axordil]

If they're looking to build stuff to keep people employed, there's a pretty long list of things that would be more appreciated...

[Holbytla]

The rub is that it's Congress that wants them and not the army.

[Túrin Turambar]

Not that it matters, I guess. But if Obama is a secret Muslim-Kenyan-Socialist, can't we make something out of the polygamy thing? Sins of the fathers, etc?

As a side note, I never really understood Orwell's Doublethink until I saw some of the President's less sane critics. People who manage to believe, at the same time, that he's a member of the East Coast liberal elite, a Black Panther under the influence of a radical black preacher, a secret Muslim and an Mau-Mau inspired atheist African Marxist, depending on the immediate circumstances before them.

[Dave_LF]

Given that 538 is showing President Obama's chances of winning sinking like a stone (down over 16% in just five days), I'm not very comforted by it right now. It is a great site, though.

The whole thing is very incongruous. The numbers have proven so resistant to change this year; until now the only substantial movement was in Obama's direction after his convention, and that was very gradual. There must be some mystery factor here that the debate revealed, either on Obama's part or Romney's.

[axordil]

The rub is that it's Congress that wants them and not the army.

It's worth remembering that the first draft of Eisenhower's farewell address warned of a military-industrial-Congressional complex.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Really? I never that, Ax. That is very interesting!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Okay, any info here would be helpful. I've poked around a bit trying to find info, but I haven't found anything substantive.

Where are Obama and Romney on the issue of fracking?

(I ask about such a specific issue because Romney is saying something in his Ohio commercials that makes me a bit nervous.)

I would give Obama about a C on environmental issues. He has pushed successfully for higher fuel standards, and less successfully for clean energy development (at considerable political cost). His administration has walked back most of the worst abuses of the Bush administration in terms of preventing the EPA from doing its job (again at some political cost). He did block the Keystone Pipeline. On the other hand, he has failed to push hard for a cap and trade legislation, although that is perhaps understandable as it would be a waste of time in the current political climate. And, as the article that Holbytla posted indicates, he has walked a fine line on regulating fracking.

However, Romney would be so far below an F on environmental issues that there is no comparison. In the balancing between business interests and the environment, he would side with business interests every time. That is a significant reason why I feel it so important to defeat him.

----------

On another subject, as much politicians in general are willing to play fast and loose with the truth, I have never seen one so adept at it as Romney, to the extent that he literally has it both ways at the way time. This pattern that keeps occurring in which he says something, and then his campaign immediately puts out a statement saying the opposite is the most amazingly brazen thing that I have ever seen in politics. The latest example is on abortion. In an interview with the Des Moines Register's editorial board he stated "There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda," specifically contradicting statements that he made during the primary. That, of course, is not that unusual, for a candidate to swing to the middle from the primary to the general election. What is unusual is that later the same day, his spokesperson put out a statement saying ""Gov. Romney would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life." But most reports just focus on Romney's statement, not the subsequent walk-back. Amazing. Regardless of which side of the debate on abortion you on are on, how can this level of hypocrisy not offend you?

Of course, the real issue with abortion is not legislation, it is the Supreme Court. The likelihood of Ruth Bader Ginsberg leaving the court over the next four years is quite high, and who gets to replace her will obviously have a huge say over whether Roe v. Wade gets reversed or not, as well as so many other issues. That might be biggest reason why people who lean at all to the left should actively work to ensure the president's reelection.

[Teremia]

I'm afraid I keep going back in my mind to one aspect of that debate: where Romney said, approximately, "you can't say I'm going to increase the deficit with my 5 trillion dollar budget cut, because I said I'm NOT going to increase the deficit."

If you don't say HOW you're going to do something (like HOW you'll make up trillions of dollars of tax cuts), then your utopian claims just can't be taken seriously. And everything should be pointing that out, not letting it pass, as if he "won" that part of the argument!

It amazes me that a candidate is allowed to get away with that sort of thing.

Basically, I can't stand this stuff. It stresses me out.

[Frelga]

IAWT

Practically everybody agrees that Romney "won" the debate. Yet, as far as I can tell without watching, it seems to refer to the way he "came across" - appearances, superficial stuff. If he has announced some plan to overcome the problems he points out, I haven't heard. All I heard was "this is a problem and I will fix it." How? No information.

Critical thinking, voters. Use it.



A thing is going around Internet suggesting variations on the debates that invlude instant fact checker where lies are instantly penalized by a buzzer/shock collar/a sign lighting up invisible to the candidate. I wish! (well, maybe not the shock collar. Yet.)

[yovargas]

Email I just got from my company's president:

...As you are aware, the U.S. healthcare system is the world’s most expensive with spiraling costs that have risen over four times the rate of inflation, and nearly four times the average wage increase during the last decade. As a result, healthcare reform is one of the top issues in the November 6th election. [My company] is unfortunately not immune to rising costs and our renewal discussions with the carriers have been very challenging, resulting in a substantial increase over the 2012 premiums totaling 25%. ...

25% single year increase. It occurs to me that regardless of who or what is actually to blame, this sort of thing is surely quite bad for Obama.

[Primula Baggins]

Obama who's been trying to do something about the problem, or Romney who has no specific plan beyond taking away the good bits of Obamacare that have been implemented so far?

[yovargas]

Of course, but whoever's in office gets blamed for whatever's wrong right now. I'm betting a whole lot of people see something like that and conclude that "Obamacare" failed or is to blame. "He tried to fix it and look what happened!"

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You're right, Yov. Even though most of "Obamacare" hasn't even come into effect yet.

[Griffon64]

Most of the ones who would conclude that is already in Romney's pocket, I would bet. The others are more likely to think: "Yeah, this is exactly why healthcare reform is needed."

[River]

Don't the healthcare regs require insurers to justify that sort of stuff?

[Holbytla]

IAWT

Practically everybody agrees that Romney "won" the debate. Yet, as far as I can tell without watching, it seems to refer to the way he "came across" - appearances, superficial stuff. If he has announced some plan to overcome the problems he points out, I haven't heard. All I heard was "this is a problem and I will fix it." How? No information.

Critical thinking, voters. Use it.

That sword swings both ways. One could ask why we have these issues still if the plan to fix them is the correct one?

The American voters, or any voters really, are not the most in tune to what's going on in reality. They vote based on stupid things sometimes, they are all, to a degree, ill informed and misinformed and blinded by a lack of impartiality, and unfortunately bias. They back broad party lines and at times vote based on a single issue.

It seems to me that this years crop of voters aren't especially different from any other year. These issues have often been the case during elections and things seem little different to me this time around.

Yet the voters aren't completely stupid. Generally elections favor the incumbent party while things are going good, and not so much if things aren't.

If those things are true, then I have to ask myself why a lying, flip-flop artist, who purportedly only cares about the well to do, is against a woman's right to choose, anti gay marriage, anti healthcare, anti Big Bird, has a chance (though probably slim at best) to win this election?

Plain and simple, people are dissatisfied with how things are today.

We aren't any stupider or more biased than we were. We aren't any more ill informed than we were.

Someone please tell me why we are a hair's breadth away from undoing a lot of the good that has occurred during the last four years.

My own opinion? It was too much too quick in the shift from right to left, that has left many disenfranchised. Maybe that could have been swallowed if the economy didn't suck, but the economy sucks.

Most everything revolves around the economy. Nobody cares if it was Bush's fault in the beginning. That was four years ago. Nobody cares about the dysfunctional Congress.

People want jobs to take care of their family, buy health insurance, put food on the table and the ability to buy a big screen tv to watch Monday Night Football or Dancing With the Stars.

It was the economy stupid. It is the economy stupid. It will always be the economy. Stupid.

[Teremia]

I guess I'm sort of utopian, in that even if "it's the economy, stupid," I really wish my fellow citizens would not be stupid about the economy.

And it does seem less than smart to decide that someone looking good on TV and coming across as aggressive should outweigh (and make irrelevant) the facts of the case and What Really Happened in recent history.

I'm not satisfied with the way things are, that's true--and Holby, our way-too-slow exits from Afghanistan and Iraq are a big part of my frustration--but I do have to say it's hard for me to see how another person could have done much better with the country, the economy, and etcetera, given the circumstances.

How many of us said, "better him than me!" when Obama was elected? Do we remember those days? The economy was in diving-off-the-cliff mode!! And what do we say now? "The jobless rate isn't what it should be." But we are no longer about to hit the rocks at the bottom of the cliff and go splat. So now the guy gets all blame and no love, when he did what he could to keep us from going splat. Of course I have my own ideas about what would have been EVEN BETTER: basically channel Paul Krugman and do MORE stimulus + get us all on Medicare, so that we aren't being eaten alive by insurance bureaucracy skimming profits. (and stop killing people with drones and oh, there are lots of other planks in my program . . . . . . . )

Now what if Romney had been president? There is no chance in the universe that things would be one whit better, and, I think, significant chance they would be worse, because the official line of his Party has become tax breaks for the wealthy and austerity for the rest of 'em-------and that, as we've seen in Europe recently, is a recipe for the Downward Spiral.

Now, however, Romney promises the moon, without ANY explanation of how he's going to lasso that moon and bring it down out of the sky, and then when challenged on that, he says, "but when I said I'd bring you the moon, I also said it would be An Easy Thing To Do, didn't you hear me? And if I said it, IT MUST BE TRUE." And everyone just rolls over and says, "oh, okay, he says IT MUST BE TRUE, and he looks really confident and Presidential when he says that, so okay."

It makes me want to move extremely far away. Like Mars, but alas the air's not so good there. Or the Last Homely House, but alas alas it's fictional.

[vison]

Apparently there are going to be over 1 million jobs created in BC over the next 5 years and there are simply not enough engineers, miners, chemists, plumbers, mechanics, tech geeks, etc., to fill those jobs. Only 650,000 people will be graduating FROM high school (notice the FROM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ) in that time.

Go North, Young Person!!

[vison]

Apparently there are going to be over 1 million jobs created in BC over the next 5 years and there are simply not enough engineers, miners, chemists, plumbers, mechanics, tech geeks, etc., to fill those jobs. Only 650,000 people will be graduating FROM high school (notice the FROM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ) in that time.

Go North, Young Person!!

[Holbytla]

I guess I'm sort of utopian, in that even if "it's the economy, stupid," I really wish my fellow citizens would not be stupid about the economy.

And it does seem less than smart to decide that someone looking good on TV and coming across as aggressive should outweigh (and make irrelevant) the facts of the case and What Really Happened in recent history.

I'm not satisfied with the way things are, that's true--and Holby, our way-too-slow exits from Afghanistan and Iraq are a big part of my frustration--but I do have to say it's hard for me to see how another person could have done much better with the country, the economy, and etcetera, given the circumstances.

How many of us said, "better him than me!" when Obama was elected? Do we remember those days? The economy was in diving-off-the-cliff mode!! And what do we say now? "The jobless rate isn't what it should be." But we are no longer about to hit the rocks at the bottom of the cliff and go splat. So now the guy gets all blame and no love, when he did what he could to keep us from going splat. Of course I have my own ideas about what would have been EVEN BETTER: basically channel Paul Krugman and do MORE stimulus + get us all on Medicare, so that we aren't being eaten alive by insurance bureaucracy skimming profits. (and stop killing people with drones and oh, there are lots of other planks in my program . . . . . . . )

Now what if Romney had been president? There is no chance in the universe that things would be one whit better, and, I think, significant chance they would be worse, because the official line of his Party has become tax breaks for the wealthy and austerity for the rest of 'em-------and that, as we've seen in Europe recently, is a recipe for the Downward Spiral.

Now, however, Romney promises the moon, without ANY explanation of how he's going to lasso that moon and bring it down out of the sky, and then when challenged on that, he says, "but when I said I'd bring you the moon, I also said it would be An Easy Thing To Do, didn't you hear me? And if I said it, IT MUST BE TRUE." And everyone just rolls over and says, "oh, okay, he says IT MUST BE TRUE, and he looks really confident and Presidential when he says that, so okay."

It makes me want to move extremely far away. Like Mars, but alas the air's not so good there. Or the Last Homely House, but alas alas it's fictional.

I don't really disagree with anything you said. Excepting, maybe, absolutely "knowing" what the flip flopper will really do. I know he will say anything, but he does achieve some commendable goals notwithstanding his penchant for saying what he has to, to whomever at any given time. I've been surprised by him before.

That said, I don't trust him, and trust is something that should be inherent in a president.

My issue is that no one seems to be able to succinctly, or not so succinctly, answer my question. Why are we where we are? Why is Willard Mitt Romney, for all of his many warts, a state or two away from the presidency, if Obama is clearly the lesser of two evils?

At some point the American people, and Obama himself have to look inwards and stop playing the "he is worse than me" game, or the "It's Bush's fault" game. Where has this president failed to capture the American public, and why?

Yes, Romney's reasoning for instituting healthcare in this state had nothing to do with caring about people. It was all about the affect that the uninsured had on the system. But we have a universal system that works here. It really does. Do I really care what his motivations are if he was successful in achieving this endeavor?

Why is it not possible for him to succeed where Obama has failed, despite of what he says and what he accomplishes?

Why has the Obama administration failed to connect with a significantly more than 49.9% of the populace?