Waiting Game

It's pretty much waiting  for the debates now.  It will still be tight.  Obama should still be ahead, especially in the battleground states. The pressure on Romney will be intense, which may help him. Obama may find it difficult to find the right tone.

Mano a Mano, sort of

I didn't actually see "60 Minutes" but from what I read, it appears that whichever guy you liked going in, you still probably like coming out.

Whatever the merits of the idea, means testing Social Security doesn't seem like such a great issue for Romney.  They don't call it the third rail of politics for nothing.  And latching on so doggedly to the notion that the President should meet with Netanyahu at the UN doesn't seem like such a winning idea either.. I kind of liked Obama's response to his opponent's carping on Sytia and Iran.  "If  Governor Romney is suggesting that we should start another war, he should say so."  Romney's neo-con advisers feel now and have always felt that a bellicose foreign policy is a winning strategy.  I want to remind them of Barry Goldwater.  All the polls reveals a war-weary electorate.

On the other hand, Obama's apology for failing to change the tone in Washington seems wrongheaded to me, although it's clearly sincere, and it fits into their new tack of running as an "outsider."  That's hard to sell given his street address, even if it's an attempt to play off the voters' deep disdain for Congress.  Maybe this approach will find more felicitous expression, but for now I think it's a mistake to apologize for anything.

Mitt's Money (cont.)

I find the Romney taxes for last year quite unremarkable.  He's a very rich guy. Relatively speaking he pays a low rate of taxes.  For some reason, he still won't release more than two years worth of returns.  There's something missing there that he'll probably never reveal. End of story.  We know what the man is all about.

 Now, just waiting for his next screw up.

One Hundred Percent ... and Counting

Mitt now  says:  "My campaign is about the 100 percent of America." Trouble is, when he says that, people hear "47 percent."  If he had never talked about the 47%, he wouldn't have to brag on being for the 100%.  So, now when he says his campaign is about the 100% the natural reaction is, "Oh, no it's not."  And it's not.

The 47%: Day Three

The Boca Video was viewed 2 million times the first day.  As we know, watching and listening to Sir Mitt has a far greater impact than reading about that notorious appearance in Florida.  Because so many have seen it, I thnk the video may help the president really stretch out his lead in the polls.  He is already in the lead, but I am beginning to think that lead is about to become very large.  Which means Romney's  going to enter the debates in a state of panic, whereas Obama will be in total cool mode. As we McLuhanites know, cool wins.

The 47%: Day Two

I didn't get it at first, but now I get why Kristol and Brooks, Scarborough and Noonan dissed Mitt today.  They're writing him off.  Peggy Noonan said he needed an intervention because "this isn't working."  They are trying to save themselves. They are pulling the life rafts back into the boat. 

He himself is, of course, unapologetic.  He's added a word to his defense..  "Redistribution."  He's against it.  He seemed to be telling the execrable Neil Cavuto that this is the big difference between him and Obama.  Now I always thought the progressive income tax was an example of income redistribution.  Which would mean that he's against the progressive income rax, which of course he does ignore in his personal accounts.  I guess Mr. Romney believes in only regressive taxes.

The Prez went on Letterman and calmly and cooly said that he believed in working for everyone.  That's going to be the WH reaction to the Boca Tape:  You can't write off half the population and say they're  "victims". Some of those inssulted people will now vote for Obaama, who was already ahead.  Nightmare.

Caught in Boca

Always assume there's an enemy in the audience with a camera.  Always.

At a fundraiser in Boca Raton, Mitt Romeny spoke his mind, and the camera caught him.  He claimed that 47% of us don't pay taxes, that we think we're "victims" who believe  we're "entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it." He added that we won't vote for him because we don't take responsibility for our  lives.  Later, he allowed that his remarks were not "elegantly stated," but otherwise stood by them.

These secretly recorded remarks will stay iin the news for days,  sharing the spotlight with the already damaging story of dissension at the top of Romney's campaign.  And the candidate's new stump speech emphasis on "specifics" doesn't seem so promising either, since it sounds remarkably devoid of specifics.

Whether by bad luck or ineptitude (both), Mr. Romney seems to be caught in quicksand and sinking fast.

On the Ropes

These are not good times for Mitt Romney..  The CBS News/ NYTimes poll finds Obama nosing ahead of Romney on the question of which candidate will do the most to restore the economy.  That's remarkable, Mitt losing his only real edge.  The same poll, by the way, found that Bill Clinton is now more popular than at any time since he left the Oval Office.

My guess is that these two stories are related, that Clinton's full-throated affirmation of Obama's achievements at the DNC, gave a big boost to the President's stewardship of the U.S. economy.

Shot in the Arm

QE3 soundst o me like the name of a ship. Instead it has to do with low interest rates.  I didn't  think there could be further quantitative easing, since rates are already near zero.  The Fed is also buying up mortgage bonds at the rate of $40b a month.  This is supposed to make it easier to buy a house.  Skeptics -- and there seems to be a lot of them -- think the Central Bank's action will affect the economy only minimally at the margin.  The stock market was very happy though.  It's possible that this will awake the sleeping giant.  There's a lot of cash in the corporate lockbox, and a lot of jobs if applicants can be quickly trained.  Sounds like a long shot.  But maybe not.  Bad enough that Mitt Romney is acting like a jackass on foreign policy, he's also denying the value of what just might be a vital economic spark.

What a Jerk

Mitt Romney's intemperate, opportunistic, inaccurate, insensitive, craven statements on the tragedy in Benghazi, hit a new low in what has long  been a bottom-feeding campaign.  Mr. Romney is turning into Barry Goldwater before our eyes.  He is completely unqualified to be president.  He is simply too dangerous.

With Friends Like This

With the entire Conservative Intelligentsia (trans. the right wing gabbers) arrayed against him, Romney will have to start offering more "details."  Trouble is, of course, that he's so painted himself into a corner that to go wonkish will only open himself to all the obvious questions.  Like if he restores the Medicare cuts and identifies some tax loopholes, he will drive over his own fiscal cliff.  He'll keep hearing the word "arithmetic." If he gets more ideological, as Will and Ingraham and Kristol want, he will continue to narrow his constituency.  As Romney knows, elections are won in the center, but the cons and neo-cons won't let him get there.  His answer will be very costly negative ads at the end.  But Obama has no swift boats in his past.  The Mittsters will play the race card, but they will probably also get caught playing it.  In pursuing the base, Romney will probably transform it into too small a base to give him a win.

Mitt's Teetering

Romney turned his once in a lifetime appearance on MTP into an attempt to Etch A Sketch himself toward the middle.  It won't work.  Jim Lehrer in the first debate will throw all his old positions back at him, and if he fudges, Obama will pounce.  For example, he's not going to be able, in Romneycare II, to cover pre-existing conditions without the individual mandate of Obamacare and Romneycare I.  And his endorsement of BillClinton is going to be swatted down by Bill Clinton.

Romney's conservative "supporters" like Joe Scarborough, want him to offer more "details." Don't count on it.  The devil lurks in those details.  An Etch A Sketch is not the ideal instrument for filling in details.  Team Obama, with much help from the Right, has painted Mitt into a difficult corner.  Romney depends on getting people to trust him, to believe he can make things better.  So far at least, he's not succeeding.

The Closer

I was disappointed.  I wanted big ideas, but they never came.  I wanted a bold plan that sounded like the New Deal.  Instead I got boilerplate.  Both Michelle and Bill were better, much better.

It got a lot better toward the end, especially in the part that began with "you were the change,' and then reeled off some major accomplishments, presented anecdotally against the refrain "you did that."

And finally he found some poetry, after many pedestrian paragraphs.  A stirring patriotic riff barely concealing his harshest attack on Romney/Ryan.

Because we understand that this democracy is ours, we, the people, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government."

"A freedom which only asks what's in it for me."  that's the basic charge,  The basic choice.  It's clear.

Bill

It was long, too long.  Yet no matter where you tuned out, you heard a good speech, and it really didn't matter if you heard the rest. As long as you heard some of it, which you didn't if you watched the Cowboys beat the Giants.

Bill Clinton's address to the Democratic convention was part go to hell speech and part lecture.  He hit every point, every single one.  Highways, health care, education, Hillary, and of course the economy.  He took apart Romney/Ryan, and he accused them of unprecedented hate.  It was a complete annihilation,and I suspect a lot of undecideds would have bought it.  And he looked touched by Obama's embrace at the end.  No more of what the former president called "blood sport."

Clinton's speech should be made into a pamphlet that gets passed out to campaign contributors.

FLOTUS Rocks

First of all, she looked fabulous, radiantly beautiful now fully grown into her own face.  A great haircut and that dress -- that great pink dress.

She was strong.  She felt great about herself and really great about her husband..  She was just as good as, probably better, than Ann Romney on the Love Story.  But then she pivoted: "It's not politics, it's personal," and then reviewing the president's domestic accomplishments, including health insurance reform.

It was a brilliant performance, well-written and superbly delivered.