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miles henderson

Romney Vows to Deliver Country From Economic Travails - 3 views

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    This article stood out to me because of how badly Romney attacks the Obama campaign. Romney takes a shot at the president by saying, "If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama?" I enjoyed the article because it shows that Romney has a plan that he thinks will genuinely work, but I dislike like fact he was not giving the Obama administration credit for anything positive. Romney briefly gives Obama credit for giving Seal Team 6 the order to take out Bin Laden, but then blames him for making every American less safe because of his failure to secure Iran's nuclear threat.
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    I agree that this speech did a good job attacking Obama and evoking the harsh economic conditions of his term. One thing that really bothered me, though, about this speech was Romney's claim that the Republicans made a good faith effort to support president Obama. I understand what he was doing, trying to identify with disillusioned Obama voters, but the fact is that the Republicans, in Congress and elsewhere, did everything they could to spite Obama while he was in office. Mitch McConnell, a Republican senator from Kentucky, gave a speech where he said his "number one priority" - above the economy, above welfare reform, above literally anything else - was to make Obama a one term president. In my eyes, it looks like Romney's claim that he and the Republican party wanted Obama to succeed is just blatantly untrue.
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    I agree with Cody's last point, and I would definitely extend it beyond the presidential race. From what I can tell, a widespread Republican tactic during the past four years has been obstructing Obama's policy with filibusters, etc. I would totally understand trying to put your opponent down during a race, or even opposing his policy decisions during the term if there are viable alternatives, but I see this comment as lying about the partisan track-record here. The point Miles brings up about Romney's plan seems like a strong direction for his campaign to me, especially with the new spin being put on the governor's background. This is genius to me. At face value, he shuts down all of the criticism Democrats throw at his about his distance from the middle class by using his business background as an asset. So when he presents a plan he thinks will work, like you said, it comes from a guy whose credentials make him appear like he knows what he's talking about and can "get it right."
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    I enjoyed reading this article because it shows that Romney is doing something I have wanted him to do for a long time, which is humanize himself. This election is going to be won by speeches and connection with voters. President Obama is, by far, one of the best speakers I have ever heard and that is why he gets a lot of his votes. While I am slightly upset that Romney attacked Obama in such a harsh manner, I don't get the sense that that was it's main purpose. The way I see that speech is that it was an attempt to reason with and connect to voters in a way Romney has not done before. I posted before about the importance of connection and I still believe that it is charisma and connections that will provide an edge in this election and I am happy to see Romney is starting to realize that.
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    Cameron, I really don't see Romney winning on his ability to connect on a human level with the electorate. Obama will beat Romney on likability right up until election day and that will not change. I don't think that Romney going down the route of telling his life story help him that much either. Much of what was said about him was an attempt to make it look like he is a normal, which he frankly is not; he won't even release his tax statements. Romney will win on coming across as someone that is ready to take on the economic problems not on who is more likable.
Cameron G

Importance of Connection - 1 views

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    I was looking on the WSJ and I found this general article about how President Obama is leading in most of the swing states. I think this is interesting because it reminded me of a thought that I have had for a while which is that perhaps one of the reasons that Romney isn't as popular as Obama is that he can't connect as well. When I hear Obama speak, while I might not agree with his views, I feel drawn to his charisma. On the other hand, Romney appears stiff and uptight. While this article does not address that point directly, I think that it shows some of the repercussions that a lack of connection can have.
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    I agree: stiff is definitely a good word for his presence on stage. The point you brought up speaks a lot what I look at as a competition between the candidate in terms of relatability. With jobs being arguably the most central issue of each campaign, and "middle class" being the buzzword, I've noticed both Obama and Romney striving to fit this image. While Romney's income puts him as far from working class as it gets, I think that the difficultly we have relating to him has much more to do with his stiff and uptight presence, like you said. Similarly, I think the way people relate with Obama has much more to do with the charisma you mentioned than his actual relationship to the middle class.
John West

Obama Can Say 'Climate' After All | The Nation - 5 views

  • “yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet, because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They are a threat to our children’s future.”
  • Even George W. Bush, for all his resistance to tackling climate change, never made fun of it.
  • president’s own statements, before last night, have not been terribly reassuring either, if only because there have been so few of them.
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  • Obama appears not to have brought up “climate change” publicly a single time in 2012.
  • promised to “be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way.”
  • Even as his own government’s scientists were affirming climate change’s connection to the extreme weather events of 2012, the president declined to use his bully pulpit to make the connection clear to the public, much less attempt to rally Americans to action.
  • assumed that talking about climate change turns voters off: it’s too dark, too controversial, too complicated
  • “Three out of four Americans now acknowledge climate disruption is real, and more than two out of three believe we should be doing something about it,
  • In 2008, it looked as though Barack Obama would be the hero to lead such a quest. Now, his speech in Charlotte has raised hopes among some environmentalists that Obama, after an extended absence, may be ready to rejoin the battle
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    This article addresses a point that hit home with me from the Democratic National Convention: Obama brought up climate, but did not champion it in the same style and with the same conviction that he used to. Even while I was struck by his lack of gusto on the subject, the article is surprised that he brought it up at all. This issue has seen barely any coverage at all, with Romney in particular suggesting that even caring about climate change is shallow and ungrounded. He has continued to basically ridicule Obama's (self-proclaimed) devotion to the issue, which is not typical even for mainstream republicans. Obama himself has been almost entirely silent on the issue for the entire campaign (he brought up the term once in 2012). This article makes a really good partner for the first one Eli posted, which dealt with the variety of issues that the radicalization of parties has effectively silenced the debate over. As with the issue of immigration, we see the Republican Party leaning extremely right and making any productive discussion of the issue difficult. If Romney himself treats climate change as a joke and mocks environmentalism as a cause, how can the sides even begin to discuss specific issues of policy? I am honestly really doubtful of Obama's stance as an environmentalist: after the failure of one of his recent cap-and-trade policies, the term "climate change" was entirely avoided in his speech. I remember Dan saying in class that if Obama didn't claim to champion these issues during his presidency, you wouldn't be able to tell by his policy. From this article's description of his rhetoric for the last year, I would say that now he is neither talking the talk nor walking the walk, leaving his affiliation to this cause simply to the fact that he is a Democratic candidate and climate change is a "Democratic issue". To me, there is concrete proof that neither candidate has been taking climate change seriously this election. If both candidates are treating this
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    Climate change is just one of many issues that Obama must discuss in a specific way as to not seem too revolutionary nor liberal (I like how this article mentions that "Democratic politicians have shunned the "L word": liberal"). Every mention has to be well-tailored and as non-controversial as possible as to not offend a sensitive audience, which reminds me of how Obama addresses his views on social issues in front of more conservative audiences, where he either evades the topic at hand, whether it be about abortion or marriage equality, or presents his opinion in a simple and placid way. When discussing climate change, Obama employs a similar attitude, which I personally find maddening, especially since the article mentions that "the public... finally see for themselves... the reality of climate change" and that even if Obama took a more powerful stance on the issue, it would doubtfully make a big impact on his supporters, most of whom are already agree with Obama's alleged opinions. Beyond the very toned-down attitude Obama brings, it's also interesting what he chooses to note when mentioning climate change. Instead of honing in on details, he talks about events of the past few years that vaguely reference major problems and then focuses in on the aspects that could appeal to a broad range of voters, like when he talks about the "threat[s] to our children's future." This also serves to combat Romney's rather ridiculous claim that by focusing on the climate, it is impossible to also care about the American people themselves.
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    I think that Obama has been smart to stay mostly silent on climate change. Yes, it's a big issue, but had he made it a major cause of his campaign he would have been even more vulnerable to depiction by Romney as a head-in-the-clouds kind of guy. During an economic crisis, the voters want the president to be focusing on immediate steps for the good of the American middle class - more jobs, lower taxes, cheaper healthcare. Climate change can and obviously does evoke strong emotion in certain voting blocs, but for the majority of middle-class Americans who are still reeling from the recession, they want their president to be focused on their immediate recovery. I think Obama only brought it up here as a direct response to Romney's challenge - to not address it would make him seem weak in his stance. I also think it's worth noting that in this brief mention, he ties it to the immediate future, to help ward off that daydreamer image that Romney evoked.
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    I recently heard an interview with Michael Lewis who wrote an article for Vanity Fair that involved spending a lot of day to day time with Obama. One of the things he talked about was Obama's view of his ability to use his position as president as a "bully pulpit." Obama told Lewis that his experience had been that he, in particular, was such a lightning rod for negative response, that when he took a position conservative journalists and politicians automatically responded so negatively that it was more useful for him to operate more subtly. I would imagine that he was using his speech at the convention to let voters know that he still wants to do something about climate change, and takes it seriously. Hopefully, he will be in a position to do this when he is not thinking about re-election.
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    I think the way Obama has treated climate change as an economic issue is very compelling. One of the main issues that people have with renewable energy is that isn't currently economically sustainable. I think Obama can work on the issue of climate change with the economy in mind and that is what he is doing. The issue that Obama faces on bringing the climate change issue into the economic realm is the Solyndra investment that the government made under his administration. Obama needs to walk the fine line between championing climate change and doing what's best for the economy.
cody s

Why George W. Bush Will Decide the 2012 Election - Newsweek and The Daily Beast - 3 views

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    This article addresses the effect of George Bush's legacy on the current election and how it was reflected in the conventions. Clinton, in his speech at the DNC, compared the net job creation of the two parties. This article says that ultimately, not just this sentence but Clinton's entire speech came down to that point: evoking the successes of the Democrats while reminding voters of the many failures of George W. Bush. Clinton's presence, the article says, turned the race into Obama and Clinton vs. Romney and Bush. The article cites some interesting historical examples of presidents who were able to win despite the temporary unpopularity of their parties at the time, and how those candidates distanced themselves from the failed policies with concrete, factual differences in their philosophies. Romney, the article says, has failed to do so.
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    I'd also add that it's no coincidence, like Eli's article mentions, that Bush wasn't even at the Republican National Convention, contrasting Clinton's overwhelming presence at the DNC. In the same way that Obama is using Clinton to his benefit, I agree that Romney needs to distinguish himself from Bush in a deeper way than physical distance. For me, this comes down to his fiscal policy. He hasn't painted his plan for recovery (as a "fix-it man") in any terms other than blanket conservatism. One strategy I saw a little of in the Romney speech, like you mention, is the use of history. I'm wondering which would work better for his image: evoking situations where a fiscal conservative US thrived before Bush, or separating himself from Republican party of the past in any way he can. From what I can tell, creating his own distinct image seems like Romney's best bet.
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    It is interesting how past presidents influence voting. At the DNC, Obama compared his deep doubts and controversy to those experienced by Lincoln. I doubt voters today have any idea that Lincoln was a Republican. I think I remember Romney quoting FDR in his speech even though his position about government's role in solving economic problems is in many ways the opposite of FDR. The article suggests that the only way for Romney to shake the ghost of Bush would be to define himself as a strong, distinct character like Eisenhower. Can a successful businessman do what a successful general did? It's hard to imagine how.
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    Great post. I really enjoyed reading this article because I do believe that the legacy of the last elected party plays a major role in future elections. If a president from a particular party succeeds in his own term, his political party gains more credibility because people will connect a president's success with his party. For example(hypothetically speaking), If a democratic president successfully relieves the U.S from economic depression, in the future if depression occurs people would begin to think a democrat is the right candidate to fix the problem.
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    I agree that the Republican's avoidance of anything too heavily Bush-related is not working in their favor, and like this article notes, whenever a political sensitivity makes a candidate vulnerable, ignoring it is certainly not the best course of action. But this article also shows how Romney is just not well-suited to actually addressing the past failures of Republicans, both because of the early failures in his campaign to sell himself as the type of economically-focused candidate voters want and his unclear values and opinions, and makes it clear that the Republican who will erase the legacy of Bush will not be Romney.
John West

Week 4: A teachable moment for the United States on its role in the Middle East | Danie... - 0 views

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    Week 4. This opinion piece looks at the foreign policy credentials of both candidates, especially in light of the embassy storming in Libya and other similar incidents in the Middle this past week. The author paints this interval as weak for both Romney and Obama: Romney for his bizarre and inflammatory comments just after the murder of the ambassador and members of his staff, and Obama for not painting a clear picture of American intentions regarding the attack ("the only thing that can be said for Barack Obama's leadership this week is that he's not Mitt Romney"). He points to the increasing public unease about our presence in the Middle East as the perfect opportunity, a "teachable moment," for Obama to make his position clear. The author presents a conflicting message: as a foreign policy advisor, he would suggest this type of speech, but as a campaign advisor, he would warn against it. With all the talk of the Bush legacy in mind, I think this topic could be of huge advantage to both candidates (more so for Obama) if it were used properly. Obama has the chance to distance himself from the early-2000's surge that much of the public regards as a disaster, and distinguish the profile he plans on having in the region from bumbling foreign policy. I think the strides he has made in his first term toward ending our conflicts are pretty questionable. However, he seems in a prime position right now to ride out whatever he has accomplished for the next few months. Romney kind of made a fool of himself after the attacks, and Obama is not really capitalizing on this. It seems he's been doing good work on this front (the way he has been handling the protests in Egypt, according to the article, has been really skilled and professional) and he should flaunt it more. Similarly, a really strong statement of purpose in the Middle East might help Romney recover. The way he described foreign policy during the RNC does basically nothing to distinguish him from Bush for me. As
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