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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.

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.

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.

While I think the ideology behind this article would be hard to debate productively on a forum like Diigo, a conversation about the portrayal of each candidate as a champion of "class warfare" might be a little more fruitful. Class is definitely an issue that any comment, by Romney or by Obama, could incite claims like these. The issue I have with this article is the wordplay it involves: while taking minor quotes from Obama (or just referencing what he's saying) makes him sound like this class-warfare champion, I would be interested to see this author write the same article about Romney. For every spending figure the author cites, I believe a similar one could be drummed up to paint Romney as a villain. The wildly controversial video of Romney, in which he basically divides the country into two halves, those who are dependent and those who are not, strikes me as the very definition of class warfare. If the author wants Obama held accountable for his words, the same can be done with Romney (I don't think it's a coincidence that this article was published shortly after the video leaked). I generally have a problem with using ideology to paint one candidate as hero and another as villain: I would rather take on faith that each candidate truly and honestly thinks his plan will work, and find which one I agree with. The idea that, next month, we will permanently decide the "vision of America" seems like a distraction to me.

Eli, I understand your concern with details of this article, but the point I was more concerned with is the representation of the upper class in modern America. I tried to get an article I read in Fortune, but it was not online, so this was the best I could do. I do think that the rich are often portrayed as the villains. Why should people be concerned with "spreading the wealth" and not with learning how to get more themselves. It is true that less well off individuals tend to favor the Democrat candidate. I just think that everybody needs to stop accusing the rich and learn from them.

I agree with a lot of what John and Eli said, not only because of the inaccuracy of the comments made in this article but also as a liberal "idealistic young [woman]," I didn't know before that I only like Obama because of some misguided desire to be nice to people! Otherwise, Cameron, I think that you are delegitimizing this article further by pointing out that the details are irrelevant. The details are only irrelevant because they are so broad-sweeping and false that they end up outlandish and almost humorous. In actuality, they represent the ignorance that defines this article and the lack of respect for real people in the United States who might not be as privileged as the upper class Americans you also referenced. This is something that I often see as flawed in Republican values, very few poor people have the resources to simply "learn" from the rich and completely pull themselves out of their situations which are exasperated by entire social systems inherently working against them.

This article is pretty long and gets technical in parts, but I really like it because it gets at the heart of an issue I have with both debates. Each candidate, VP included, throws around "studies" with impunity. Each one has multiple testimonies to back up his point. The main point from the article that stuck with me is that any blogger or op-ed author can call his analyses a "study," and the candidate can cite these less-than-credible sources without much distinction. The author reaches the conclusion that Romney's plan does not simply need to reach a net zero, but instead needs to generate a massive surplus to work. If the numbers are possibly these for the first scenario, the author argues, they definitely are not for the second. In the second half, the piece basically tears apart the six studies citied by the Romney campaign to support the tax plan as not affecting the middle class. I like this piece because, with Romney and Obama often referencing the "arithmetic" behind the truth and urging each other to "do the math," I see this article as actually following through. The author does just that: he uses pretty objective figures to poke holes in the Romney tax plan, suggesting that the "alternatives" Romney would be to tax the middle class or grow the federal deficit. I honestly didn't understand the tax jargon entirely, but the points the author brings up about the six cited studies are compelling to me. The holes he pokes in them highlight two main ideas for me. One, with all the desire for facts that I feel during debates and speeches, it's important to remember that these statistics and values are often conflicting, loaded, or contested. The way he tears down studies is fascinating to me not because they are blatant lies, but because they are often misrepresenting totally true information. The second point I took away from it, which will color my view of the next debate, is the incredibly difficult position the candidates are in with regard to the studies.

This article exposes how few candidates who run for office are from blue collar backgrounds even though most of the electorate are not white collar workers . Although I think so many election related articles focus too much on who the candidates are and not what specific policies and plans they have, the statistics and the implications Nicholas Carnes exposes are worth considering. With 90 million blue collar workers in this country, is it possible that not one former blue collar worker is qualified to run for office? He can only give two example of former blue collar workers who have been elected to federal offices. I agree with him that where you come from must influence your priorities and this means that important experiences are not being represented. Carnes says that it's unclear why this discrepancy is so huge. It could be campaign money, free-time, or party gatekeepers. Citizen United could only have made this discrepancy and the possibility of fixing it worse. Some possible solutions could include required public financing of elections, strict spending limits, and a very short election season. I wonder whether someone who tried to run for office and was be clearly cut out of the process because of job related time constraints and lack of funding could argue that his civil rights were denied. Has this been argued before?

I disagree, Cameron, mainly because of the staggering disconnection I see a lot of the time between Presidents and the people they hope to serve. Obama and Romney both try to play up their connection to the middle class. I see this as a performance, but the emphasis they put on it certainly makes it seem like an essential quality of an elected official. If blue collar workers ran and were elected, an authentic connection to the way policies play out for a huge part of our population might be possible. You seem to suggest in your article that no blue collar workers are as qualified as those with white collar backgrounds. The article suggests that, if even a fraction of a percent of the working-class population were qualified, if office "suited them," as you put it, they would "fill every seat in Congress and in every state legislature more than 40 times." No one is saying that only blue-collar workers should be elected, but it doesn't seem fair to attribute this discrepancy to every blue collar worker "not knowing as much about politics" as his or her white collar counterpart.

It seems like having wealthy politicians is just natural. Politicians have to be educated and ambitious, and someone who is both of those things typically isn't a blue-collar worker. The world of politics is also really based on connections, some through family and some though college (Harvard law for Obama) and it makes sense that most of those connections would go to the wealthy. Honestly, this article seems like it's raising kind of a silly point. Sure, there are blue collar workers who absolutely have the intelligence necessary to be president. But the educated tend to be wealthy, and so do the ambitious.

This article is from the website of a conservative think tank, The Manhattan Institute. It's interesting to read a conservative criticize Romney for being out of touch with the American people when he focuses his economic argument on only the "four sore years" of the Obama administration. She highlights the number of times Romney referred to 4 years during the debate missing his opportunity to acknowledge that Americans know that the economy crashed well before 2009. She aptly states that Americans remember well the "white as a ghost" President Bush, "the panicked Congress", the "helpless" GOP standard bearer, McCain. She also points out that Americans are feeling like we already hit bottom and that it's not the time to focus only on the negative. Given that she seems more nuanced in her thinking, I was particularly interested to read her criticisms of Obama's reaction to the financial crisis, especially, according to her, his missed opportunity to encourage states to fix their pension and benefit problems, by bailing them out temporarily with the stimulus money.

I am glad you posted this, as it offers a different type of critique of Romney. I read an essay like this from another conservative think tank criticizing Romney's energy policies and they both have expanded my perspective, it seems that more disparaging reviews of candidates from within their parties are more productive. It's interesting to consider what Romney would be like as a more positive candidate and how he might end up like an Obama from 2008. The benefits of an optimistic, or at least more constructive, campaign are great. This article also highlights something which comes up a lot for me when thinking about the election, in which candidates really under-estimate their constituencies' intelligence. There is definitely a difference between selling the perspective you want to use to win and ignoring the reality of what people know.

After the election, it's pretty clear that "four sore years" didn't work. I wonder if there was really much else Romney could have focused on. I think Romney dug himself more holes than he holes he really dug for Obama. There were Republican governors running for reelection talking about how great the economy was while Romney was running for president talking about how bad it was. It really shows how you can spin a situation any way to suit you.

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.

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.

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.

This article originally appealed to me because of my huge interest in Hillary Clinton; but as much as I love her, the idea that the Democratic National Convention was so defined by her absence and the possibility of her running in 2016 was worrisome. The constant desperation to be aware of what will happen in the future of politics is certainly understandable, but always in thinking in terms of the next step can take away from the urgency of a current issue, like the difficulties Obama faces as he campaigns for another four years. While rumors about whether Hillary will run or not are generally not too wrapped up in the political party of the next president, whether it be Obama or Romney, the hope to get a Democrat in there as much as possible can cloud the issues that should be taking precedence. This might just be the nature of having such short terms and the seemingly unsolvable partisanship, but I like how this article also mentions how discussion of Hillary can serve the Democrats well as just another way to steer clear of attacks on Obama's economy and make it more difficult for the Republicans to frame the focus of their campaign on "only Obama." This article had a link to another one about Hillary and the convention (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/world/asia/not-by-design-another-clinton-watches-charlotte-from-afar.html) which I really enjoyed. It's also pretty short, but talks about "foreign policy [remaining] 'nonpartisan,'" and how despite a Republican claim that Romney could handle foreign policy better than Obama, the United States' relationship with other countries remains rather non-political, which means Hillary might actually be " done with politics" (a tangent I might be the only one interested in).

Two things interested me in this article: the description of Hilary as the comeback kid and the quote "a setback is merely a prelude to redemption," reminded me how extraordinary her path through politics has been. This was written before the tragedy in Libya. Seeing her with President Obama at the memorial service instead of the DNC added to her important position outside the political game. She has established herself as not only a strong woman, but a thoughtful, nuanced leader. I'd like to see her run for office. Quickly, the other part of the article that was interesting was the number of centrist democrats who stayed away from the convention because they were running tight races in states like Nebraska and Missouri. This seemed to reinforce the notation that the conventions are targeted for the base. Convincing more moderate voters comes later.

This is interesting, especially considering the implications for Hillary 2016 of the recent incidents in the middle east. Obama has been largely uncriticized for the (what I believe to be) serious failures to respond to threats and protect embassies sufficiently, probably due to the number of Romney gaffes in the last couple weeks, but as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton could be held partially accountable for the gaps in security and poor management of the situation. I don't think we know enough about the circumstances of the attacks yet, but it's interesting to think about.

As I watched the video of Romney making those inflammatory remarks (here: http://www.motherjones.com/transition/inter.php?dest=http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser) about these "freeloaders," I wondered how this would play out politically. I loved this op-ed piece, because it did a nice job of explaining the political impact of Romney's remarks. Conservatives have been bashing Obama and the democrats for criticizing success and instigating class warfare. To me, this is actual class warfare; Romney has divided Americans into two categories of "makers and moochers" that is completely un-American. If the Romney campaign thinks he can win running on ideas like this, I think they are truly mistaken.

I agree that Romney should not have said those things about Americans and that using terms such as free-loaders suggests a lack of understanding, but reading this article reminded me of an article I read in Fortune magazine called "Is It Still OK to be Rich in America?" This article offered a different perspective on recent ideas about the American economy and the "1%". Overall it talked about how instead of trying to bring the rich down we should not make them out to be villains, but instead try to see what they did to become successful. There are a lot of people in this country who have had things handed to them and that needs to change. People need to realize that the American Dream is not equal outcome, but equal opportunity. An interesting statistic in the article was that even if all of the money that the 1% made was split with the 99%, as some people have wanted, the income would be less than half the income that people would make if they had a college degree, and by that I mean a legit degree, not French Art Underground Gothic History Degree.

Cameron, I understand where you're coming from in terms of people needing work hard if they want to succeed, but where do you expect people that work hard but don't come from wealthy families to get the money for college? Someone on student-aid at at a public university would fall into that 47% that Romney referred to. This money for college is not a hand-out, but rather should be looked at as a right. If people in this country work hard enough to get into college, America needs tap into those hard workers by paying for their college education. So if we take a look at how those people in the "1%" were successful, they probably went to college. In order for people in this country to go to college, a lot of them need aid from the government. On another less important note, your comment about a "French Art Undergound Gothic History Degree" frustrates me. There is nothing wrong with someone pursuing a career in art if that is what they are interested in. Art is an extremely important part of self expression and as a country, I believe we are too focused on the conventional notion that success means being wealthy.

I think this video is interesting because it demonstrates not only Romney's hope that he can move past the negative press that the video Mother Jones released brought to his campaign, but also how he will try to pose the statements in a way that will benefit his campaign. Trying to avoid talking about the comments would make him seem weak and I can understand why Romney would want to face them head on so as to prevent even more anger (I don't think he has actually been that successful in doing this). Romney discusses his comments as opinions he has always held and while he originally states that he was referring mostly to the campaign and voters, at the end of the video he mentions that he carries this opinion "day in and day out" and it is "the course of America" that he is concerned with. Discussing the negative comments only in the light of the race would seem like a smarter idea, so I wonder why Romney would even end with this comment? Another perplexing part of this video is how Romney starts off by saying he knows there are some voters he simply will not get, about half of the nation, but then goes on to say that he will do whatever he can to get as many votes as possible. Obviously I understand the desire to collect as many votes as he can, but he is more aware than anyone that there are some Americans who simply will not vote for him, especially after the comments he made about the country's dependents. Though this is a pretty clear dichotomy, it is interesting to see how Romney so blatantly speaks of it and how the faulty logic comes right out of the governor struggling to get his opinion across during the interview. This reactionary type of response is also seen when interviewer tries to steer Romney towards a specific issue and Romney bounces back to classic conservative rhetoric.

Yeah, I think the 47% comment really sealed the deal on Obama winning the election. The Republican's attempt to humanize Mitt Romney at the convention was destroyed by the release of this video. The comments are clearly offensive, and like John said, there is no way that Romney can look good when talking about these comments. It completely fulfills the stereotype that lots of Americans have about Mitt Romney being out of touch and disingenuous when he talks about helping the middle class.

Yeah he's definitely scrambling to recover from that comment. I don't have much to say, but check out this ad from the Obama campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B9xCCaseop4. Pretty harsh. Romney's had a bad couple weeks.

This article talks about conservative Super PACs working to unify their message to keep away from uncomfortable blunders that bring the entire party down, to avoid letting "their message [become] diluted," and to maintain Romney's full-throttle attack when the Governor is not in a position to do so himself. The subtle moves that keep Super PACs legal is demonstrated really well in this article, like how the different groups can talk to each other and follow the "themes being emphasized by Mitt Romney's campaign," but cannot "coordinate with Mr. Romney's strategists," which certainly seems like it would be a challenge, since the Romney campaign keeps switching its focus. One of the most interesting aspects of this article is the reference to the Super PACs making sure that they all use the same numbers and statistics when attacking President Obama. It's crazy that there is so much confusion about what seems like the simplest part of pro-Romney advertising, especially when some groups actually think that connecting Obama with "Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and the minister's 'black liberation' theology" is a good idea. The paragraph about how these Super PACs' more cohesive vision will affect Obama's campaign is also really interesting and demonstrates a lot of what seems unfair about large-scale campaign finance issues, since Romney's vision and campaign can literally move beyond him and keep up their work without him or his funds.

What you highlighted from this article emphasizes how shady the distinction is between coordinating a message with a candidate and presenting one independently. From what this article says, along with the presentation in class about campaign finance, the difference between these two methods of supporting a campaign seems pretty arbitrary. This is especially true if, like you said, the groups that can't coordinate with Romney can coordinate with one another. This strategy is the part that scares me the most: Super PAC's are trying to avoid "diluting" their message, but they seem to be diluting the messages of the candidates as a collective. The need to present a cohesive message, like you mentioned, seems to explain why a lot of the criticism in these ads is so vague, simply attacking Obama "as a failed leader" rather than highlighting specific policies or mistakes. In a campaign like Romney's, where the key focus is often a bit of a moving target, sticking to general criticism like this seems like a winning tactic. I agree that the engineering of advertisements is unfair, especially given the cause and effect relationship of ad dollars and poll results that the author suggests.

This article addresses the potential of Obama's second term. Andrew Sullivan is a great writer (you all should look at his blog) and in this piece he predicts that in the event of an Obama win, several things would happen. First, he says, the Republican party would (might) experience a kind of whiplash from its extreme radicalization and loss, becoming more moderate. This - the cooperation of the Republicans in the Senate - could allow Obama to become a bi-partisan hero, dealing with the deficit and immigration reform. Why he chose Reagan to compare to I don't really know, but it's an interesting read.

I like the idea in this article that you brought up Cody, about Obama becoming a widely supported bipartisan President if he wins again, but it is pretty debased throughout by the constant references to today's great polarization between left and right. While the great partisanship between states and people and politicians is mentioned about other ideas, it seems pretty dreamy to think Obama could sidestep this in terms of his own legacy. Though Obama may not be able to change how the right perceives him, I think the difference between Sullivan's prediction about Republicans becoming more centrist compared to earlier ideas we have discussed where Republicans just become further absorbed in their sparsely-supported and deeply conservative views is really interesting and I am fascinated to see how that plays out. I can see how another win for Obama would lead Republicans to reconsider their platform and targeted voting blocs, but also the idea of withdrawing into their misguided viewpoints in a protectionist-type way also makes sense.

Well, it looks like what Sullivan predicted is right. The Republicans did experience a "whiplash" for all of their super right wing policies. I heard an interesting statistic that if the Republicans hadn't been able to do so much redistricting for their house seats, demographically, they would have lost the majority in the house.

This article is about the importance of voting and how voting for a third party candidate or no candidate at all will solve no problems. Just because a candidate does not always persent the best ideas the whole picture has to be viewed. In the case of Obama-Romney many people say that Obama has not had a "good" term and will therefore not vote for him, but my feelings towards that is Romney is not going to do any better and no third party candidate will have a chance to win. The author brings up the point that even if you are in a state that will surely vote one way that you should still cast your vote. Being in California for most of us what is the incentive to vote if we know the state is going blue? I think that in this system with the electoral college it is hard for me to see the point in voting if my vote will not really count that much. Just wondering thoughts on this topic of voting.

This article is pretty interesting. I think that the "third-party debate" is an interesting one, and I don't know exactly where I stand on it. On one hand, I really do think that the two-party system and the electoral college, together, hurt the purity of the American democratic policy. On the other hand, in an election like this, I think it would be irresponsible to vote for a third-party candidate as a liberal. Romney could win, and every vote that goes to a green-party candidate is a vote taken away from Obama. It really is a bad situation for voters, but that's just how it is.

This is a little unrelated, but I see the best bet at third party happening in America is the formation of a new party for the Tea Party. The Tea Party is very different than the mainstream Republican party. Michelle Bachman is in a whole other universe than Mitt Romney politically. If Mitt Romney loses the election, I really think the Republican party has some serious thinking to do about how they want to shape their party. It is completely unhelpful to the democratic process to have people like Michelle Bachman and Mitt Romney in the same party. Michelle Bachman has basically absurd views, stating things like the number 2 to Hillary Clinton is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mitt Romney is much more reasonable. I don't know how if this will actually happen, but I could definitely see a Tea Party forming as their own party.

I was most interested by the first and last paragraphs in this New Yorker article about the first Presidential debate. The beginning paragraph talks about how expectations made by the "expectorate" largely came true and how political interpretations and actual situations can be so utterly dominated by the media and other politicians' assumptions. It seems so simple that this sometimes anonymous group of "journalists, columnists, bloggers, television commentators, politicians, and 'strategists'" can have such a great impact on not only the perception of a political event but also the actual happenings because a candidate can just work to fulfill their expectations. People expected Romney to do well and he prepared and he won. (Though this article also makes the interesting distinction that not only did Romney win, Obama lost). The last paragraph frames Romney's flip-flopping tendencies in a different and more positive light. By constantly changing his viewpoints, both in his political career and as of late, Romney cannot be pinned down and sold as a specific type of bad person to the electorate. When Romney alters where he stands on the political spectrum and often successfully pulls himself into the center, the Obama campaign can again and again maintain that "all the evidence indicates that Romney has no 'core beliefs,'" but it makes their negative campaign much more difficult.

I personally find post-debate coverage helpful to determine who "won" the debate. As a decided voter, it's really hard for me to determine who "won" a debate, because I support what Obama/Biden say. That said, I'm not sure if it is helpful to the overall process. Post-debate coverage and polls are here to stay though, so we should get used to them and try to understand them better.

It is hard to look at who one and who lost a debate because it formed by the media. Yes we can all say that Romney came out harder and ready to play, while Obama was in the back seat watching the show. But no debate is going to change the mind of a decided and educated voter. With three debates prior to the election I think we have to wait until all three are finished to really form an idea of who won or lost the debates because then the majority of topics will be put on the table. Bottom line is you can be a great debater, but a not so great leader.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/us/politics/gary-johnson-the-libertarian-partys-presidential-nominee-worries-republicans.html?pagewanted=all I read these two articles in tandem and was really interested by the intersections and the role that finances play in American politics and the two-party system. Gary Johnson is a really interesting politician and I sometimes consider him a liberal libertarian. I can't see myself ever voting for him, but I think he offers a unique perspective. The idea that he could be a Ralph Nader "to Mr. Romney's Gore" is interesting, though unlikely considering Johnson's radical views. Furthermore, the idea that Democrats are supporting Johnson is pretty unfounded. The paragraphs about Johnson's limited finances and management of his campaign are especially telling after reading this op-ed piece, which details the way virtually every politician (both now and in early American history) comes from a white-collar background and how that creates these blocks in terms of understanding their constituents and making learned decisions. Two lines that I especially enjoy comparing are: "Would you like to be represented by a millionaire lawyer or a millionaire businessmen?" and "Mr. Johnson said he had no problem being labeled a potential spoiler in an election that he views as "a debate between Coke and Pepsi." (He said he viewed himself as Perrier.)" Trying to understand why there are not more blue-collar politicians around is certainly difficult ("Scholars haven't yet confirmed exactly what that is. (Campaign money? Free time? Party gatekeepers?)"), but as this article notes, determining why we are in the current situation is vastly important. The ending analogy, about the rise of female politicians since the '40s is helpful in demonstrat

Gary Johnson definitely seems like an interesting guy, and I'm all for the unravelling of the two-party system. I don't think I agree with a lot of his ideas, especially his economic policies, but I think any article written about a non-Romney/Obama candidate is a good thing. The Romney/Obama choice is a limited one, and people should obviously be able to pick a candidate who represents their beliefs, not just one who is affiliated with their party or who comes closest.

Articles like these always trouble me. How will this ever change? It is unlikely that it ever will. When we are adults, we will still probably have a two party system with most political candidates being wealthy. I think one of the issues we have in America is the small spectrum on the political scale that the two parties represent. While Democrats and Republicans have their differences, they are still philosophically the same when it comes to what the government should basically do. In other countries, they have more radical thought like liberterians and socialists.

This article looks deeply into what we talked about last week regarding Ohio being the key state to win for both candidates. The author examines the importance of the state even more closely by narrowing in on five specific counties that have historically helped decide which party Ohio swings to. In this sense, the article is also useful as a profile of important undecided voter demographics in the country. In Wood, Ottawa, and Sandusky counties, the population is small but they serve as an indication of which candidate the entire state will vote for. Full of both elderly whites and union members/auto workers, the counties have been notoriously difficult to predict but paint a larger picture of the state as a whole. Tuscarawas serves as a bridge between the industrial, union-heavy north and the more rural south, and has gone with the winner of every presidential election in the last twenty years. Finally, Hamilton is worth watching because it has a much larger black population than the rest of the state, which the article suggests will indicate if Obama has a large turn out of this demographic. I am interested to see the results from Ohio come in on Election Day, and after reading this article, I'm going to keep a particularly keen eye out for these counties. I normally look at the enormous emphasis given to certain states as a flaw in our campaigning process, but this article is a good reminder that these states themselves are very diverse and a pretty good representation of the country as a whole. That being said, I still feel like the issues put forward by the candidates in the coming weeks are going to favor swing states like Ohio. This article was also informative to me as a California voter because I don't normally think of there being a hierarchy within the swing states, and I particularly don't consider the counties within these states. The magnification that this article takes to Ohio makes me wonder how carefully the candidates themselves look: do they fo

What intrigued me about this article was the need to examine four small counties in the state of Ohio in an effort to predict the outcome of a national election. More and more, as we've talked about, candidates are micro-targeting specific groups to hone their message to that groups specific concerns. Its become the way to win an election, but more and more it seems that it's just about convincing someone to vote for you and not about convincing them that important policies will help the country.

There has been a lot of talk around this election that has been about how bad Obama's term has been. People are always so negative when it comes to polotics and when something does not work right away they jump to conclusions. Here is an article about something positive that Obama has been doing. It is nice to see evidence of success from Obama's term. With four more years he could do a lot of good for this country and its future.

I agree with John. I cannot remember any talk about Race to the Top or the Clean Car program in a debate or a commercial. When you consider that voters think education is an important issue, certainly not as important as the economy and jobs, but very important, it seems like Obama's campaign should have highlighted this success. Race to the Top involves policies that reflect many of the same ideas given by the Republicans and is pretty controversial with the Teacher's Union. That may be why they haven't brought it up. I wonder how the auto-workers and the automobile industry feel about the Clean Car program. It may have been that these programs were not supported by important, Democratic groups.

I read an interesting piece on environmental sustainability being actually cost effective. It talked about how Regan go people on board to confront the holes in the ozone layer by talking about the economic impacts of more people getting skin cancer with such a thin ozone layer. I think the climate change debate has the potential to go in that direction. Storms like Hurricane Sandy cost the economy tremendously, and it is pretty clear that storms of that proportion are happening due to climate change. I think the economic impact of climate change could certainly change the debate. Maybe Obama should go in that direction.

When Romney mentioned he would quickly do-away with PBS as President during his debate with Obama, he not only upset those who take advantage of this great resource, which directly benefits children, but also once again showed his ignorance of crucial facts. He pegged PBS as an unnecessary expense of the federal government and made it seem like getting rid of the organization would have a great "impact on the nation's debt," both of which are greatly inaccurate facts. This PBS statement discusses the oddity of Romney's comments well and explains clearly that there is no need for PBS to become a "political target."

I saw a really interesting survey - in this article. http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/romneys-attack-on-big-bird-sows-confusion-abroad-and-feeds-it-at-home/?smid=tw-share. It says, " The results of that survey, which asked respondents to estimate what share of the federal budget was spent on certain programs, found that just 27 percent of Americans knew that the money for PBS and NPR was less than 1 percent of government spending. Remarkably, 40 percent guessed that the share was between 1 and 5 percent and 30 percent said it was in excess of 5 percent - including 7 percent who said that more than half of the federal budget was spent on television and radio broadcasts." I just wanted to note this. It's interesting how programs like PBS are being used by the Republicans as an example of government excesses while they're actually a tiny percentage of the federal government, compared to, say, Social Security and Medicare/Medicare (60% taken together).

If we focus on something specific like Sesame Street, it is clear that cutting funding to these kind of programs would disproportionately affect poor people something I find that a lot of Mitt Romney's platforms do; I loved Obamas statement that Romney policies were "thinly veiled social Darwinism." Anyways, over the summer, I read Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. There was an entire chapter on the success of Sesame Street to actually get kid's to pay attention and retain the educational information that they are being presented with. Low income families don't have the same means as middle class or upper income families to provide intelectually stimulating material to their kids. Because of programs like Sesame Street, both a child in a low income family and a child in an upper-income family can watch the same educational programming on PBS. Low income children need this programming more! By the time low income children are in kindergarten, there is a ton of evidence that they are already so far behind upper-income children educationally that they just can't compete. With access to programs like Sesame Street, this achievement gap can start to become smaller. Will a high-income kid be affected by the loss of Sesame Street? Probably not. This attitude seems to correlate with a lot of the problems I have with Mitt Romney's platforms. On the surface level, they may seem like good ideas but they disproportionately affect low-income people.

As the election approaches, each candidate is doing anything in his power to obtain more votes. In Colorado,Florida and Nevada the Latino voting population could possibly determine who wins the 2012 election. President Obama has a "leg up" on Romney with the Latino voters, but will Romney be able to do anything to make himself more appealing to Latino voters? If not, how devastating will the outcome be for his campaign?

They are chasing the latino votes, definitely. Their discussion of this in the last debate was interesting - Obama accused Romney of considering the Arizona immigration law as a "model for the country," which as far as I can tell just isn't true. Who knows with Romney, though - he certainly has been associating with the guy who designed that law. In response to John's point, I think the Romney campaign is kind of forced to stick to the economic aspects of gender discrimination and Hispanic issues. The fact is that the Republican party has a worse record on rights for minorities, so they're playing up their statement that the improved economy under Romney would help get rid of the gender/racial inequities in the country.

It's clear now that the Republicans have a serious problem with Latino support. I wonder how they will deal with this problem in the future. I think bipartisan immigration reform could be a big deal. I see that being the big issues in the next couple years. It seems like demographically, if the Republicans can't get any support from people of color, are going to have an issue as Latinos are the largest growing population in America.

I chose this article, from The Economist. It's long, and pretty boring, but I think it addresses the issue of Obama's economic record from an (as far as I can tell) objective standpoint. Obama and Romney are making conflicting claims about the state of the American economy under Obama, both of them citing statistics, and, unsure of who to believe, I went in search of an article like this.      The article neither adulates nor lambastes Obama, which I think adds to its credibility. Interestingly, it seems to support Mitt Romney's characterization of Obama as a starry-eyed idealist, saying "Mr. Obama's personal priorities carried the day... Mr. Obama has always portrayed himself as a pragmatist, not an ideologue. In practice, though, he usually chooses bigger government over small."      The articles casts Obama as having arrived to the Oval office with unrealistic goals, but still having made progress despite not living up to those goals. These unrealized goals, though, can still be used against him by the Republicans to win disillusioned Obama voters over to the right.

The point Cody brought up about unrealized goals, but goals with progress, is one that I see being key to the arguments both sides are making. It's a good summary of what's at the heart of Obama's hope to "finish the job" and Romney's sad portrait of the last four years. I think the article really gets at the tough place he is in: are we supposed to criticize or praise Obama for doing basically everything a president should do, but not delivering what he promised? The way it talks about the mini-recession that occurred just because of the transition sort of sells me the claim that a lot of went wrong can't be pinned on him. Granted I don't know that much about economics, the decisions he made for sections of a tanking economy (stimulus, etc.) seemed level-headed, and seemed like they came from a pool of options limited to a "Democrat" choice and a "Republican" choice. Also, debt vs. deficit?

I thought it was interesting to read the description of Obama's unique position as a president influencing the US economy. Comparing him to FDR's response to the Depression shed new light on the difficulty of Obama's position and the complexity of his response. Being reminded that the months between FDR's victory and his inauguration were the worst months of the Depression put perspective on Obama's need to both quickly gain credibility and take some serious risks. It was interesting to read that The Economist felt that his stress tests were more effective because they were tougher and more transparent that those set up in Europe. In fact, the only clear criticism they make is that he didn't take the risk to spend a lot of money on the mortgage crisis. I would have thought a more conservative magazine, like The Economist, would think the government should have spent less. It is interesting to think that with all these complicated decisions, Obama's biggest mistake may have been that he promised too much. I think that might be right. Listening to him now, he seems to understand that. His speeches are less inspirational, but in may ways more realistic.

Both campaigns and much of the news coverage has focused on how the two candidates must convince the small group of undecided voters to vote for them. This article analyzes how Obama's convention acceptance speech sought to appeal to the more centrist voter. It was interesting to read that Romney's target voter was, "a married, middle-class, middle-aged woman who had voted for Obama in '08. These kinds of simplistic characterizations like "hockey-mom" seem to help campaigns focus their messages. But do they oversimplify what these voters want to know? The Ecomomist writer clearly dislikes what he sees as Obama's "leftish pandering" about globalization", but found some of the speech convincing, specifically his attempt to present the role of government in a more nuanced way. It's not "either/or". This makes me wonder whether the debates will give a platform for each candidate to be more specific about their vision for the role of government. When I've heard undecided voters interviewed, they all seem to be very interested in specifics and tired of the simplistic partisan fighting.

I agree about a space for debating the role of government in not strictly Democrat or Republican terms. In the long run, I think this would help both candidates. For Obama, I see this helping him take back the disillusioned first-term voters that you mention. If he can present a position on the role of government that's "nuanced" (either backing up his policy these last for years or differing from it), he could be able to paint the next four as brighter. For Romney, this specificity about the role of government could be huge. If he distinguishes himself from Bush's, as Cody's articles suggests, he can avoid appearing as a generic Republican and create a more center argument than wishing that the government would "get out of our lives." I think this could make up the minds of the undecided voters you mention, and would be a relief from the debate that's going on.