GOP Nominee 2012 - Who Will It Be?, Pt. 3

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Except apparently this line has appeared numerous times in his stump speech.

I have actually seen excerpts from Republican blogs and message boards where the anti-Romney contingent is now saying how this proves that Mormons aren't Christians since no Christian would say something so deeply contrary to Jesus' teachings. These are not criticisms coming from the left.

I just think that it's a tone-deaf statement made by a candidate who is beyond wealthy and already seems out of touch. We live in times where it's just a particularly insensitive thing to say. And as always, it's not what you say as much as how it's perceived. It's pretty clear that this isn't going be perceived well by most. :shrug:

Well, tone-deaf, he may be, but problem is it's all about optics already, which does not bode well for November.

If Romney's, IMO, completely uncontroversial comments (and for the record I doubt if I'm even in the top 5 income earners of those that posted in this thread, let alone the 1%, and certainly didn't go to a $50k a year college, or ever, in my life, get a job through family connections) create such a reaction, then what happens if he starts tackling really controversial isues such as the pay and entitlements of government workers (and contrary to the impression created by some on the left, some categories of government workers are overpaid and/or underworked). Not all, but some.

The guy actually said that if the safety net for the very poor was broken, he would fix it. He did not in any way throw the poor off the bus or anything like it. Yes, he also said that his main interest was in attracting the votes of the 90% in the middle rather than the very rich or the very poor. So what. Big deal. Unlike the Dems, he is honest enough to admit that people from low income groups, on average don't tend to vote as much as middle class people, so any candidate for election, obviously, is primarily focused on the middle class votes.
 
Yes, he also said that his main interest was in attracting the votes of the 90% in the middle

Do you think that it's a fair assessment of the current American economic situation to say that 90-95% of Americans are middle class?

Because I think that is a huge problem with his statement (aside from the optics and the amateurish "go to the other party, they care about you" comment).
 
According to the Census Bureau, as of September 2011, 15.1% of Americans (46 million) live below the official poverty line ($11,100 for an individual, $22,300 for a family of four). That's the highest number of Americans living in poverty since the Census Bureau started tracking that data 52 years ago. Not to mention how many of those 84.9% "middle" Americans (and I don't know of any economists who define the poverty line as where the "middle class" begins) are all too aware right now that they're just one crisis away from swelling the ranks of the 15.1%. That's an awful lot of people to dismiss as apolitical mooches. Why not grant them the respect of assuming most of them, too, want to hear the case for how and why your economic plan gives them a better chance at a job with a living wage than your opponent's, as well as your reassurances that the safety net will be protected. Shouldn't be that tall of an order. It's hard not to hear in this a reflexive bias on his part that poor people aren't 'good, honest, hardworking Americans' like the :bow: middle class are. It's not irrational or superficial to distrust politicians who come across like that, which is why conservative pundits also assailed Romney's comments. One statement isn't going to make or break him, no, but he can't afford to repeatedly say things like that either.
 
It's okay :hug:. I may be getting a bit heated here, too, so I need to remember to keep my cool as well. When an issue touches people personally, it's tough to not let one's emotions get in the way of everything.

And now I'm rambling. *Shuts up and sits down and lets someone else talk*

Don't worry, i didnt take your words the wrong way and i certainly wasn't heated in my previous post. Just a "friendly" rant :hug::hug:

Not one person in here said there was anything wrong with wealth. I have to say you're coming off a little out of touch yourself... :shrug:

C'mon now, "i'm" out of touch because you disagree with me? Whats that about? :huh:

Honestly i just want to see jobs created and people getting back to work. However that happens or whatever it takes, i guess im for it. If Obama can get it done, well, its sure high time he do it. IF he can't then i hope the next guy (Mitt and not Newt) can get it done.

I don't see the poor people opening businesses and creating jobs for others, i think thats part of what Romney was saying perhaps. They will be dependent (hopefully on jobs and not govt assistance or "safety nets") on the middle class and the rich to do this. The rich could probably hire a lot of people if they weren't busy hoarding their money or trying to weather the current economic storm. Everyone is suffering in some way i suppose.

That's my take on what Romney said...


As to what Financeguy said about govt workers, yes, there does need to be some changes. I wont get too much into that here and now, but i work for the DOD and this country is at war. And yet somehow in my office there are a few individuals who don't have enough work to do and earn too much money to sit around and post on facebook all day. I see this everday at work. And then there are people like me, who do the job that 2-4 people previously would have done, im constantly busy and putting out fires and dealing with the latest emergency that seems to pop up every 5 minutes. Rather than freeze our pay for another 3 or 4 years, why not just go on a hiring freeze and stop bringing in the dead weight? Im pretty sure i could make more money managing contracts and purchasing for production in private industry than i do for the govt. But that's not the point.

Personally ive had a strong work ethic since i was a kid, bagging groceries at the supermarket afterschool or mowing lawns in the neighborhood so i could afford a new pair of tennis shoes...or after high school when i joined the Army. Im proud to run circles around some of the dead weight in the DOD. What i don't like is when interacting with some of them it clearly pisses some of them off, because when i need something done "now" or "yesterday" to them that's off-putting....afterall they have much more pressing stuff to do like feed their face all day long and update their facebook status, in between maybe accomplishing 1 or 2 tasks for an 8 hour day. This is whats wrong with the govt, but heck that's another story. And i don't want to get back into rant territory again. :hmm:
 
According to the Census Bureau, as of September 2011, 15.1% of Americans (46 million) live below the official poverty line ($11,100 for an individual, $22,300 for a family of four). That's the highest number of Americans living in poverty since the Census Bureau started tracking that data 52 years ago. Not to mention how many of those 84.9% "middle" Americans (and I don't know of any economists who define the poverty line as where the "middle class" begins) are all too aware right now that they're just one crisis away from swelling the ranks of the 15.1%. That's an awful lot of people to dismiss as apolitical mooches. Why not grant them the respect of assuming most of them, too, want to hear the case for how and why your economic plan gives them a better chance at a job with a living wage than your opponent's, as well as your reassurances that the safety net will be protected. Shouldn't be that tall of an order. It's hard not to hear in this a reflexive bias on his part that poor people aren't 'good, honest, hardworking Americans' like the :bow: middle class are. It's not irrational or superficial to distrust politicians who come across like that, which is why conservative pundits also assailed Romney's comments. One statement isn't going to make or break him, no, but he can't afford to repeatedly say things like that either.

If this is all true, then shouldn't the focus be on Barrack Obama instead of something Romney said? Obama is the President....what about all of the "HOPE & CHANGE" stuff? I hope this isn't what he meant by that. Either he lied, is in over his head, or just doesn't have a clue how to get the economy going again. He's be in office 3 years now, and he's done some really good things that i pointed out a couple of pages back, but he's also failed in creating jobs as you have pointed out here. Why would anyone vote for this guy again? Unless he's got some trick card up his sleeve, or maybe a real jobs plan (finally) this time, i don't see why he gets another shot come November, barring an economic miracle. And i will be praying for one, mind you, just like i hope i win the lottery. :twocents:
 
^

I think that you think that the President can do a lot more than he actually can. I am not sure when it became commonplace to think that a President creates jobs, for example. I am also not sure what anyone expects with an obstructionist Congress that is interested in nothing but making every policy Obama's Waterloo.

Look, Obama has made some mistakes - the two that I fault the most is not properly reforming the financial system when he had immense popular support to do so (instead he gave Goldman Sachs guys jobs in the administration) and spending too much political capital on a healthcare bill that was mediocre at best.

But to imply that the economy is bad because of him, or that he should be shouldering the burden of a housing bubble that collapsed due to policies that he had nothing to do with and a financial system that went under long before he was even in fedeal politics is very shortsighted and only sets him up for automatic failure.

And no, I don't think that voting for the GOP on some sort of misguided notion that if we only had a GOP House and Senate good things would get done is any sort of a solution. The Bush years of absolutely no meaningful oversight were a good example of why.

Truth be told, there is really no way that anything will get fixed by this election - America is a completely politically divided country of ideologues and until some kind of major third-party shake-up, it will just be business as usual. Everything is politicized - just take a look at your judiciary - short of dictatorships and authoritarian states in the world, you won't find another jurisdiction whose judiciary is politicized to such an extent that you can predict Supreme Court decisions with probably a 99% accuracy. Sad state of affairs all around.
 
I think that you think that the President can do a lot more than he actually can. I am not sure when it became commonplace to think that a President creates jobs, for example. I am also not sure what anyone expects with an obstructionist Congress that is interested in nothing but making every policy Obama's Waterloo.

I thought that this was quite an interesting article that appeared in the New Yorker some days ago:
The Obama Memos: How Washington Remade the President : The New Yorker

George C. Edwards III, a political scientist at Texas A. & M., who has sparked a quiet revolution in the ways that academics look at Presidential leadership, argues in “The Strategic President” that there are two ways to think about great leaders. The common view is of a leader whom Edwards calls “the director of change,” someone who reshapes public opinion and the political landscape with his charisma and his powers of persuasion. Obama’s many admirers expected him to be just this.

Instead, Obama has turned out to be what Edwards calls “a facilitator of change.” The facilitator is acutely aware of the constraints of public opinion and Congress. He is not foolish enough to believe that one man, even one invested with the powers of the Presidency, can alter the fundamentals of politics. Instead, “facilitators understand the opportunities for change in their environments and fashion strategies and tactics to exploit them.” Directors are more like revolutionaries. Facilitators are more like tacticians. Directors change the system. Facilitators work the system. Obama’s first three years as President are the story of his realization of the limits of his office, his frustration with those constraints, and, ultimately, his education in how to successfully operate within them.

Now I need to find an article I spotted last week that mentioned that under Obama more private sector jobs have been created up to now than under the entire W. Bush presidency.
 
If this is all true, then shouldn't the focus be on Barrack Obama instead of something Romney said? Obama is the President....what about all of the "HOPE & CHANGE" stuff? I hope this isn't what he meant by that. Either he lied, is in over his head, or just doesn't have a clue how to get the economy going again. He's be in office 3 years now, and he's done some really good things that i pointed out a couple of pages back, but he's also failed in creating jobs as you have pointed out here. Why would anyone vote for this guy again? Unless he's got some trick card up his sleeve, or maybe a real jobs plan (finally) this time, i don't see why he gets another shot come November, barring an economic miracle. And i will be praying for one, mind you, just like i hope i win the lottery. :twocents:
I don't think it takes just four years to fix the clusterfuck we had in the fall of 2008.
 
I don't know why anyone would want Trump's endorsement-least of all Romney. There are already ads saying they both like to fire people.

I think it hurts him, especially with his corporations are people and poverty gaffes.
 
To anitram's post I'll just add that my post above wasn't intended as an endorsement ("...so, vote Obama instead!"). As several conservative pundits have pointed out in criticizing Romney, if you actually believe your own party's professed economic philosophy, then you'll believe it offers the best opportunities for everyone, not just the middle class, and you should say so. Obama, too, overrelies on invoking "the middle class"--as do most all American politicians, of both parties; that's a longstanding gripe of mine about our political culture--but he's either savvy enough about "optics," sincere enough about believing his economic policy's ability to improve everyone's lot longerm, or both, to grasp that most poor people want more than just assurances that a safety net will always be there and are quite willing to work hard for that. Whether Obama's justifications, and he'll doubtless be making a lot of them on the campaign trail, for why recovery hasn't come faster are convincing...that's up to the voter to decide.
 
^

I think that you think that the President can do a lot more than he actually can. I am not sure when it became commonplace to think that a President creates jobs, for example. I am also not sure what anyone expects with an obstructionist Congress that is interested in nothing but making every policy Obama's Waterloo.

No, honestly i really don't think that. But Obama did run on HOPE & CHANGE...."CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN". Presidents are often judged on the economy...

I am well aware of the obstructionist congress, whom i agree i would run out of town...all of them...if i could. But until that happens nothing will change. They will keep blocking everything Obama tries to do, in effect, making him a failure (for lack of better words). Why do we choose 4 more years of this?

He was the one who was supposedly going to fix this mess, and now he owns the mess.

Sadly I have yet to hear a rational argument in here as to why we should re-elect him this year.
 
Presidents are often judged on the economy...

My friend thinks the same way. He once said to me: "As long as I have a job, I'm happy with whoever is President".

As a result, my friend liked Reagan, hated Bush Sr., liked Clinton, hated Dubya, and now likes Obama.:lol:
 
Don't worry, i didnt take your words the wrong way and i certainly wasn't heated in my previous post. Just a "friendly" rant :hug::hug:



C'mon now, "i'm" out of touch because you disagree with me? Whats that about? :huh:

Honestly i just want to see jobs created and people getting back to work. However that happens or whatever it takes, i guess im for it. If Obama can get it done, well, its sure high time he do it. IF he can't then i hope the next guy (Mitt and not Newt) can get it done.

I don't see the poor people opening businesses and creating jobs for others, i think thats part of what Romney was saying perhaps. They will be dependent (hopefully on jobs and not govt assistance or "safety nets") on the middle class and the rich to do this. The rich could probably hire a lot of people if they weren't busy hoarding their money or trying to weather the current economic storm. Everyone is suffering in some way i suppose.

That's my take on what Romney said...


As to what Financeguy said about govt workers, yes, there does need to be some changes. I wont get too much into that here and now, but i work for the DOD and this country is at war. And yet somehow in my office there are a few individuals who don't have enough work to do and earn too much money to sit around and post on facebook all day. I see this everday at work. And then there are people like me, who do the job that 2-4 people previously would have done, im constantly busy and putting out fires and dealing with the latest emergency that seems to pop up every 5 minutes. Rather than freeze our pay for another 3 or 4 years, why not just go on a hiring freeze and stop bringing in the dead weight? Im pretty sure i could make more money managing contracts and purchasing for production in private industry than i do for the govt. But that's not the point.

Personally ive had a strong work ethic since i was a kid, bagging groceries at the supermarket afterschool or mowing lawns in the neighborhood so i could afford a new pair of tennis shoes...or after high school when i joined the Army. Im proud to run circles around some of the dead weight in the DOD. What i don't like is when interacting with some of them it clearly pisses some of them off, because when i need something done "now" or "yesterday" to them that's off-putting....afterall they have much more pressing stuff to do like feed their face all day long and update their facebook status, in between maybe accomplishing 1 or 2 tasks for an 8 hour day. This is whats wrong with the govt, but heck that's another story. And i don't want to get back into rant territory again. :hmm:

:up:
 
I am well aware of the obstructionist congress, whom i agree i would run out of town...all of them...if i could.

It's worth remembering that the "obstructionist congress" was sent there to stop the failures and spending explosion that 2 years of a "non-obstructionist congress" had produced.

Otherwise, (and I hope I don't embarrass you) but I've enjoyed your posts of late.
 
A question for Romney supporters.

When is the last time an ex-governor was elected president without carrying the state he governed?

I don't know the answer by the way, it may never have happened. I only bring it up because "the most electable candidate" is trailing Obama in Massachusetts.
 
Reagan could have easily lost CA and still won both of his elections.

Keep in mind in 84 he won 49 states.

Romney or any GOP winning MA is not likely. It is quite an accomplishment that a Republican was able to win the MA Governorship. Romney has a more likely shot of winning NH, IOWA. If he can win FL, OH, PA, those are toss up states, he can win. MA was/is never considered a potential GOP pick up.
 
Don't worry, i didnt take your words the wrong way and i certainly wasn't heated in my previous post. Just a "friendly" rant :hug::hug:

It's cool :hug:. I know yours wasn't an angry rant, either.

Man, I wish people could talk this calmly in real life. We might actually get a lot more done.

Truth be told, there is really no way that anything will get fixed by this election - America is a completely politically divided country of ideologues and until some kind of major third-party shake-up, it will just be business as usual. Everything is politicized - just take a look at your judiciary - short of dictatorships and authoritarian states in the world, you won't find another jurisdiction whose judiciary is politicized to such an extent that you can predict Supreme Court decisions with probably a 99% accuracy. Sad state of affairs all around.

Yep. So long as the lobbyists and corporate bigwigs run everything, we're not going to move very much in any decent direction. I saw a thing on Colbert tonight about 22 of the biggest donors to PACs in general. Surprise, surprise, rich old white guys and corporations.

Obama, too, overrelies on invoking "the middle class"--as do most all American politicians, of both parties; that's a longstanding gripe of mine about our political culture--but he's either savvy enough about "optics," sincere enough about believing his economic policy's ability to improve everyone's lot longerm, or both, to grasp that most poor people want more than just assurances that a safety net will always be there and are quite willing to work hard for that.

:up: I also like that bit Diemen shared, his analysis of Obama's leadership. Most of the "he'll save everyone" image was created by those around him. And as for his slogan, I do think he genuinely believes it, but...of course every politician's going to have an inspirational slogan. It won't get you much in the way of votes if you say, "Life's shit, but I'll do what I can", or whatever.

(Or maybe it would. Refreshing honesty, and all that :wink:)

Fully agreed on the "middle class" talk, too. Looking at that census data shared a couple pages back, and looking at my W-2, I am WELL below the poverty line according to that. Add in my mom's income and we're still probably in that section. Which is really depressing, and really should be talked about a hell of a lot more often.
 
When is the last time an ex-governor was elected president without carrying the state he governed?

I don't know the answer by the way, it may never have happened. I only bring it up because "the most electable candidate" is trailing Obama in Massachusetts.
It's happened twice: Polk lost TN but won the 1844 election. Wilson lost NJ when he won his second term in 1916.

Agreed with deep though, the likelihood of losing MA isn't in itself serious cause for doubting Romney's chances.
of course every politician's going to have an inspirational slogan. It won't get you much in the way of votes if you say, "Life's shit, but I'll do what I can", or whatever.
:lol: That could make a great premise for a movie, though.
 
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I only bring it up because "the most electable candidate" is trailing Obama in Massachusetts.

True, but isn't Massachusetts one of the most liberal states in the country? From checking Wikipedia, it looks like their 160-member House is currently 127-33 Democrat and their 40-seat Senate is currently 36-4. Obama could lose in a landslide and still probably win there.

The point is that Romney puts many states in play that no other Republican does- OH, PA, NH, IA, WI, MI. He may not ultimately win most of those, but it's more states that Obama has to spend money to defend.
 
Very positive and unexpected jobs report out today. Stock market futures immediately jumped.

I'm sure Obama will get a lot of credit for this from the GOP. If you saddle him with job losses, then you saddle him with gains too.
 
Very positive and unexpected jobs report out today. Stock market futures immediately jumped.

I'm sure Obama will get a lot of credit for this from the GOP. If you saddle him with job losses, then you saddle him with gains too.

I just glossed over the press release. Employment Situation Summary

In January 243,000 new jobs were created. There have now been 23 straight months of job growth. Unemployment is down to 8.3 percent, the lowest it has been since February 2009 (with this trend continuing Obama might even be able to claim that unemployment is lower then when he became president.

And oh...
Government employment changed little in January (though I read somewhere else that 14,000 public-sector jobs were lost in January - Popmartijn). Over the past 12 months, the sector has lost 276,000 jobs, with declines in local government; state government, excluding education; and the U.S. Postal Service.

So I think Obama will also get credit from the GOP for making government smaller.
 
Very positive and unexpected jobs report out today. Stock market futures immediately jumped.

I'm sure Obama will get a lot of credit for this from the GOP. If you saddle him with job losses, then you saddle him with gains too.

When over one million people give up hope last month, naturally the unemployment rate will fall. Does Obama get credit for this, or only the gain of 243,000?
 
at this rate, with Obama's centralized European-style socialism and soul crushing statism, perhaps we'll eventually get down to a positively European unemployment rate of 5.5% like they have in Germany. :up:

Romney's argument just got tougher to make.

what are the Republicans going to do? they've done everything possible to crush public sector job growth in order to keep the unemployment rate higher than it needs to be under the guise of "deficit reduction" ... are there any tools left? do we need to manufacture another debt ceiling crisis?

time to panic?
 
When over one million people give up hope last month, naturally the unemployment rate will fall.

Sure, if we accept your analysis of what's happening.

It's quite possible that we'll see an unemployment rate of under 8% before election day. You can spin it anyway you like, but optics matter.
 
When over one million people give up hope last month, naturally the unemployment rate will fall. Does Obama get credit for this, or only the gain of 243,000?

What is your basis to spin that over one million people have given up hope last month?
Yes, the # of people not in the labour force has increased by over a million (seasonally adjusted), but the # of those who want a job (which is a subset of not in labour force) has decreased. And that includes those who were discouraged from looking for a job. So I don't see anything about people giving up hope.
 
Yes, the # of people not in the labour force has increased by over a million (seasonally adjusted), but the # of those who want a job (which is a subset of not in labour force) has decreased. And that includes those who were discouraged from looking for a job. So I don't see anything about people giving up hope.
Also, the press release you linked points out that this is the first unemployment report to base its models on the 2010 census figures rather than 2000. I'd assume that's directly relevant to the jump in the number of people not seeking work.
 
Boston Globe, Feb. 3
Mitt Romney accused President Obama this week of ordering “religious organizations to violate their conscience,’’ referring to a White House decision that requires all health plans--even those covering employees at Catholic hospitals, charities, and colleges--to provide free birth control. But a review of Romney’s tenure as Massachusetts governor shows that he once took a similar step. In December 2005, Romney required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, even though some Catholics view the morning-after pill as a form of abortion. He said he was acting on his legal counsel’s interpretation of a new state law--one passed by lawmakers despite his veto--but he also said that “in his heart of hearts,’’ he believed that rape victims should have access to emergency contraception.

Some Catholic leaders now point to inconsistency in Romney’s criticism of the president and characterize his new stance as politically expedient, even as they welcome it. “The initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from the Romney administration,’’ said C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. “President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.’’
The series of events in 2005 involved several legal and political turns at a time when Romney was shifting from moderate positions on social issues he had taken when running for governor to prepare to run for president in a Republican Party that is far to the right of the Bay State electorate. Romney had angered reproductive rights advocates in July 2005 when he vetoed a bill to make the morning-after pill available over the counter at Massachusetts pharmacies and to require hospitals to make it available to rape victims, even though he had supported emergency contraception during his 2002 campaign for governor. He justified his veto in a Globe op-ed article in which he clearly accepted the view of some opponents of emergency contraception that it can be a form of abortion. Nonetheless, the Legislature overrode his veto. In December of that year, days before the law was to go into effect, Romney’s public health commissioner determined that a preexisting statute saying private hospitals could not be forced to provide abortions or contraception gave Catholic and other privately run hospitals the right to opt out of the new law on religious or moral grounds. That ruling sparked widespread criticism, including some by Romney’s lieutenant governor, Kerry Healey. Days later the Romney administration reversed course. His legal counsel concluded the new law did not provide any religious exemptions. Further confusing voters on his position, Romney said he supported the use of emergency contraception by rape victims. “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information,’’ he said.
 
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