Good times were had at the Obama Rally at George Mason University. I emailed my brother to see if my nephew, a student there (remember the twin with Joe Biden at Tech?), had attended. My brother said no, too early for the DMan but he had gone. Good for my brother!
He had a great spot. I hope all the young voters don’t take after my nephew who considered it too early to deal with.
So what are the symptoms of Romnesia?
Haha! Good one! You really have to wonder what Romney’s position on anything because he changes his mind so frequently. His only firm position is that he should be president.
he really has been king of the flip floppers. I find it amazing that his own party hasn’t eaten him alive over some of it.
I have never seen an incumbent spend so much time demonizing his opponent. An election involving an incumbent president is usually a referendum on his accomplishments during the last four years, which of course provides a dilemma for this administration since the economy and U.S. foreign policy are in such shambles.
I have been predicting an Obama victory for the last year, but poor debate performances by the president and continued personal attacks have allowed Romney climb back into this thing. Whoever wins Ohio will probably win the election, and Romney actually leads there right now.
@kelly, you must have Romnesia. Remember a guy named John Kerry? I seem to remember him being destroyed by a Republican assault, includeing being swiftboated. I rememeber horrible assaults on Bill clinton including accusations of murder.
Obama has certainly outlined his accomplishments. Many of you don’t think his successes are accomplishments however.
I have no clue who is going to win. I just hope it is Obama. Continued personal attacks? You just hear what you want to hear. Frankly, I am glad to hear him beef it up. Republicans have done nothing during this election cycle but attack. First they attacked their own, then the had their news channel attack everypne Democratic, and now Romney, the packs and surrogates are doing it. The worst was when our consulate was being attacked.
Don’t need to invent a word for Obama…….”Desperation” isn’t new.
Too bad his delivery is never all that funny. It’s not the first time Obama has gotten personal with his opposition. I don’t care who did it in the past–it’s unseemly for a sitting President to behave so petulantly.
@Emma, I guess it all depends on one’s sense of humor.
I suppose one should just roll over and play dead?
I think the bottom line is, you either like Obama or you don’t. Then there are degrees of dislike. In some cases, I think it depends on where you grew up. I think southerners like Obama better.
I haven;t heard anything all that awful out of him. I have heard the disgraceful remark from Romney which did it for me. Timing was everything.
@Moon-howler
Actually my recollection is pretty good — you are just incorrect in this case. The Swift Boat ads against John Kerry were done by a 527 organization, which prompted President Bush to call for the ads to stop. By definition, the 527s were required to remain independent from the campaigns. President Bush refrained from making personal attacks and even removed a volunteer from his campaign that appeared in one of the ads.
Bush always appeared very presidential in 2004 by staying above the fray.
Which of their many ads? Its great when someone else can do your dirty work for you. Their definition might have been apart but I always look at who profits. I sure don’t recall bush ordering them to stop. But maybe he did, in a real soft voice. When I was in school the maintainence crew used to always whisper “man on the hall.” And I do mean whisper.
I don’t think Obama is vilifying romney and if he is, they are both doing it. First he wouldn’t fight back and hhe was weak. Then when he did he was a bully. Sort ofhard to walk that tightrope.
And no, I am not wrong. Opinions aren’t right or wrong. They are opinions. Our opinions differ.
I guess there is a difference between flip-flopping and “evolving”.
Good point, Clinton. I think evolving is one directional. flip flopping involves a lot of back and forth. Romney has really evolved on a lot–to the point of being a new species. Frankly, I liked the old Romney.
You mean the one about “people clinging to their guns and religion? Yeah, that pissed me off, too. Oh…wait a minute….
No, that one didn’t piss me off. What Romney said was about the commander in cheif during a crisis. I can’t imagine you can’t see the difference. It was unacceptable and in my opinion, made him unsuitable for office. Contrast that remark to what Obama said when he after he was elected and before he took office: There is only one presidentof the United States at a time, and right now it is President Bush.
I agreed with the guns and religion comment. No problem there. Was he lying? I don’t think so. Not from what I have seen over the years. I own guns and I have some religion. I don’t vote with either.
Here is the exact quote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxXUufI3jA
Tell me what you find offensive.
It seems that everyone’s missing the point of this thread, which was “Romnesia.” The point being that Romney has no core beliefs. He has, in the past six or seven years, gone from passing Romneycare and promoting it as a model for the nation to promising repeal of Obamacare. He has gone from promoting Cap and Trade for greenhouse gases to promising to repeal Obama’s stronger auto fuel economy rules, which he also uses in his economic model as a job creator. He has gone from support for women’s choice to eliminating Planned Parenthood.
Just in the past few weeks, he has backtracked on many positions he took in the primary’s such as tax cuts for the wealthy and the “47 percent” issue. There is no “core” there, just pandering to the audience he’s in front of at the time. All politicians do this to some degree, but with Romney it’s obvious he won’t lead, but will bend to the strongest winds, which in his case will be the extreme wing of the Republican Party. Which means he will be making decisions counter to the preferences of the majority of Americans.
Ah, you guys are looking for a politician with core beliefs. Good luck with that search.
I’m actually looking for a politician who will represent the American people, not a fringe group like the Tea Party or Grover Norquist. According to polls, the majority feel that the military budget is too large, environmental protection is important, the ultra rich should pay their fair share, the banks should be reined in, Obamacare should stay (a slim majority here, but that will change with time just like in Mass.), student loan money should go to students and not banks, returning military should be taken care of, women should get equal pay, civil rights should be protected regardless of sexual orientation, etc. The incumbent has shown core values on these issues and more. The challenger has no core values.
That’s an excellent list of core values. Who here objects to any of them?
Yep, I guess I will step forward and compliment middleman on a list of ideals that have more than one answer, but proves nothing. So, I don’t agree with the incumbent’s methods of dealing with the problems.
Parts of Obamacare are good, (but even proponents don’t point to new taxes as being a great benefit), certainly responsible environmental protection taking into account the costs versus benefit and not making it a hidden tax, parts of the military budget (especially those weapon systems that are funded for political –by both democrat and republican–rather than military reasons) is too large in some cases, too small in others, ultra rich (I hope middleman doesn’t think $250 K is ultra rich) should pay their fair share but then so should everyone (define fair share), women should certainly get equal pay for equal work, civil rights should be protected and I think you can grant civil rights by passing civil union legislation (I don’t ask my friends how their sex is, nor do I expect them to wear it on their sleeves).
Oh and the banks, they tick me off also–but anyone that thinks the fiscal crisis was caused by one thing or another will always repeat the same mistakes regardless of the regulations. It just ain’t that simple.
As an example, why didn’t the stimulus work? Certainly piling money into the economy has worked before. But this crisis also had the problem of tight credit. And if government is funding things by credit, will borrowing more money ease credit or restrain it? So rather than try to attack the root causes, they went with an answer that has “worked” in the past. Many economists even now are of the opinion that World War II spending for the military did not bring us out of the Great Depression. TARP, which went after the credit problem, was successful (oh and started before the current administration). But we also had the real estate issues that are still with us. Improving? Yes, but it didn’t have to wait 4 years and its rebound is still suspect. Try refinancing if you think it is working.
And I don’t give a twit about the Tea Party or Grover Norquist, nor do I care about MoveOn or George Soros. No one appointed these people as an authority. So why should I care about their opinions?
If I were calling myself “middleman”, I think I would try to at least be fair to both side–lay blame equally and give kudos equally.
Not so sure I even heard blame in there. I thought Middleman more or less presented a wish list.
TARP losened credit to banks. Had it not taken place, many payrolls wouldn’t have been met.
There are no quick fixes in a financial free fall like we just had. I am not blaming any one source and I am blaming no persons and that includes Bush. I believe he did what he could do to stop the free fall as did Obama. There is only so much a president can do, as FDR would tell us. I believe Tea Party and Norquist play a different roll than Move on or Soros. Moveon is fairly insignificant. Soros is a liberal benefactor to causes he believes in. Tea Party…well…we sure heard out of them, didn’t we. We know about Norquists pledges and what happened to folks who didn’t mind. They got primaried. Fairly simple people tackling huge problems…easy fixes for very complex financial situations. We can sure tell they know all the answers. They all marched right in there and performed miracles after the 2010 elections, didn’t they?
I am still waiting.
Those are some polls, Middleman.
“According to polls,”
WHOSE polls and who were they polling? Because the polls that I see say differently on many of those topics.
“Who here objects to any of them?”
What’s the point? You won’t pay attention to any actual argument against those poll claims. You’re still ignoring the fact that only the House elected many Tea Party people, and their programs never make it past the do-nothing Senate. Until you’re ready to admit that the Democrats are, at least partially, at fault….why try to present you with any facts? Your partisanship makes you blind.
I’m still waiting on you, or anyone else demanding a “fair share” to actually define what that amount is.
That entire “wish list” is a call for more gov’t control. No thanks.
I never saw a poll.
I am not ignoring that only the House elected elected TPP. Thank goodness. I am glad it is self contained. Thank goodness their ideas don’t get past the senate. I can see it now, thinking back to brinkmanship, defaulting on our loans. I don’t think the Tea party has a very realist grasp of the big picture, just some unpleasant facts.
You are a fine one to talk about partisanship. Do you why I am partisan? I have gotten to the point where Tea Party and culture warrior politics make me sick!
Sorry. I was responding to Middleman about the “polls” and also to your question. It was those polls.
I don’t have a problem with partisanship. It’s nice that you finally admit it. I, on the other hand, WILL admit that the GOP has problems. You, on the other hand, do nothing but blame the Tea Party for the failures of the Democrats to control spending, thus resulting in a downgrade…..just like the most recent one that happened BECAUSE of that spending.
The Tea Party crowd are the only ones looking at the big picture, with a realist view. Our spending is completely unsustainable. Inflation is here. No improvement in the GDP.
But, thanks for proving my point.
Culture warrior politics? What’s your definition. so that I don’t misunderstand?
No, tea party people don’t look at the reality of what must be done to run a country. They don’t see the entire picture. If they do, they chose to ignore it.
I do blame the tea party for a great deal. My partisanship tends to be anti tea party and anti culture warrior.
I think you missed my point about WHY I have moved into being partisan. You also don’t understand that it hasn’t always been that way.I actually voted Republican for some candidates as late as last election. It sure won’t happen today after what I have seen.
Mr. Long, the question from Slowpoke was regarding core values, and I laid out what my observation of Mr. Obama’s core values are according to what he’s done in office. You seem to have some disagreement with how the president has addressed those situations, but the point was that he has core values (with which you apparently don’t disagree), and Mr. Romney does not.
Mr. Long, you posit that the stimulus “didn’t work,” and that “many economists” don’t think that WW II spending ended the Great Depression. While there is certainly no way to prove a negative (do a back to back comparison with and without stimulus on our economy), we can compare our economy to Europe. They have yet to inject stimulus and are still in recession (contraction) and we have been out of recession for two years (growing at around 2%/year) after stimulus. The stimulus also has helped create the growth industry of the future in clean energy and provided a lot of tax breaks for small business. As to the WWII claims, I’m no economist, but to try to prove that the largest industrial build-up in human history didn’t jump-start our economy would seem to be a high hurdle indeed.
As to my “name,” it has several connotations in my mind (admittedly a scary place!), but it doesn’t require me to be “fair” by inventing core values for a politician who has none. I think Mr. Romney has some good traits and has had many accomplishments, but that was not the issue. I think if you read everything I write (stay tuned!), you may find I’m pretty “middle” oriented.
Hey there, Cargo old buddy!
Which polls, exactly, do you disagree with? I can go to the trouble of providing links, but you can make it easier on me if you home in on your disagreement. We can have a poll extravaganza! I’ll do it just for you!
In your little rant on Tea Party influence, you seem to be saying that they don’t have an influence because their bills don’t make it past the Senate. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Grover Norquist stranglehold on congressional Republicans uses the threat of Tea Party primary candidate challengers to keep Republicans from ever allowing one dollar of added income to come into the Federal Government. The Tea Party-induced “fiscal cliff” shenanigans over the debt increase (for money already spent, by the way), caused our rating downgrade (according to the people who actually downgraded the rating). No question, Democrats are part of the overall problem in Washington, but the R’s are the problem here.
As to “fair share.” As I’ve said, a wage maker should be taxed the same as someone making income from a trust fund or capital gains or anything else. Seems simple to me, Cargo.
“caused our rating downgrade (according to the people who actually downgraded the rating).”
I remember it differently. At the time, I even presented the quotes from the rating agency that they downgraded because Congress refused to reduce spending. We don’t have an “income” problem. We have a spending problem. NO amount of increased taxes will help this deficit/debt unless spending is cut first.
One tax that I would agree with: 1% tax completely and irrevocably dedicated to paying down the debt. And that is a tax on EVERYBODY. Heck…make it a fed’l sales tax.
I agree that a wage maker should be taxed the same. Sounds like a nice low flat tax to me. 15% across the board on all income above the poverty level or some other arbitrary line.