Dole Group

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.

This piece talks about why the South continues to be extremely conservative politically. I've never been to the South and have always wondered what's going on with the political conservative climate, because it seems to me that conservative economic policy actually hurts a lot of regions in the South. These "Room for Debate" pieces on the NY Times are awesome, because they provide a lot of different perspectives. I'd love to hear all your guys take on this: San Franciscans and Atlanta peeps alike.

Great post Eli. I think this article makes many valid points because in the south, the conservative history is very apparent. Being from Georgia especially during election, President Obama is not widely respected and people often criticize his policies harshly. I hate to say it but I do believe that racist southern ideals are partially the reason for some of the unpopularity of Obama in the south. Relating to the conservative tendencies in southern states, I believe the reason the south has remained predominantly right sided is because tradition is such a big part of southern culture, and with southern tradition comes conservative values.

For me this brings up evidence to support people not being able to move past their moral compass even if it means progress in their socioeconomic outlook and progress in the nation. It makes sense to stay true to their self, but it is not justifiable to hurt yourself and your nation by preventing forward progress. In theory it makes sense to try and change their minds, but it is a lot easier said than done and would take a great amount of time and we have to be patient about it.

This is an article by a conservative columnist, Pat Buchanan, that my dad turned me on to. It addresses the fact that Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration allegedly knew about the attacks in Benghazi for a while and didn't take action. I do think that the administration mishandled it, and I think it's interesting to read the conservative perspective on the attacks. I think this is a direction that Romney's rhetoric is going to take in the coming weeks, especially during the foreign policy debate. I agree with what this writer says about many liberals wanting to absolve Obama and his administration from all blame for anything, especially at this stage in the election, and I think that reading articles from both sides of the argument will help form an objective understanding of the issue.

I completely agree that there was some sort of intelligence gap in the State Department. Whether or not Obama/Biden knew is open for debate, but I'm not sure that is really important. In reality, both candidates have pretty similar foreign policy stances. I highly doubt the Romney Administration would handle embassy security any differently. We saw it in the VP debate. Biden would challenge Ryan to talk about actual differences in foreign policy and Ryan couldn't really find any. I'm really bothered by this statement, "And lest we forget, we invaded Afghanistan to eradicate al-Qaida after 9/11. Yet today, we read of al-Qaida in the Maghreb, al-Qaida in Iraq, al-Qaida in Pakistan, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Qaida in Syria. And Ansar Dine, an al-Qaida affiliate, has taken over northern Mali, a slice of land the size of France." This is a huge exaggeration of Al-Qaida's current power. They are doing really poorly, not well. I think that it is just a political tactic to relate America somehow being unsafe to the attack in Libya.

Today Hilary Clinton tried to take responsibility for the lack of security in Libya. John and Cody are right about this being the beginning of the Republican attack on Obama's foreign policy. This morning I heard a Romney advisor talking about how little influence and control we have in the middle east in the face of rising terrorism. His examples and questions included many cited in Buchanan's editorial. Buchanan was an early advisor to Nixon and encouraged him to stand against abortion even though it was different than Nixon's original view. It seems like Buchanan is a lot like Carl Rove, finds a weakness and an opening and goes for it.

The is an article pre vice presidential debate about medicare. It talks about Paul Ryan's medicare a lot in comparison to the current system and Obamacare. I understand each side and there plans for this system. but I think that the problem is the unwillingness to make compromises between parties which is really holding the government back right now. Just wondering thoughts on medicare and the opposing plans.

Yeah, Romney's plan and Obama's plan are still in the phase of theory, because neither has been enacted. I've read economic analysis that supports both; it really comes down to the economist being a liberal or a conservative. I think we can do as much speculation as we want, but the key difference is that Obamacare worked in Massachusetts, while Romney's current plan has never really worked anywhere.

I agree with Eli. Although this article gives some specific information about why the market based approach to medicare could be more effective in lowering costs than the political. They're both theoretical. Obama's board of experts have had much of their power taken away by Congress, so it will be very difficult to see how effective it could really be if it were given the right kind of power. The vouchers lowering the cost of medicare drug benefits is encouraging, though hard to imagine how something like that would work with a much more complex medical system.

This editorial written by Danielle Pletka, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute criticizes Romney's foreign policy speech on Monday October 8th for offering little in the way of either vision or specifics to separate himself from Obama. Plettka writes that Romney, "sensed an opening" in foreign policy after the Obama administration appeared to bungle the September 11 Libyan attack. She says that Romney needs to show voters that "he's not simply George Bush retread" itching to declare war on Iran and Syria. It is interesting that this conservative thinks that no Republicans have made a case that they will actually do anything differently than Obama. She suggests that Romney help voters connect American global power with prosperity, its dominance of the world's important waterways with flourishing trade and the exporting of democratic ideals with more open "nourished markets. She refers to the importance of the US's "benign" influence since WWII. Look up benign..it doesn't mean the war, death and violence we seen in Iraq and Afghanistan . What she means is that the U.S. has never interfered for 'malevolent" reasons. It's hard to imagine how the US would be perceived as benign in all of the military intervention.

This article shows pretty well a lot of what we've seen of Romney. It seems like his campaign is just based on criticizing Obama, and since there's an opening in the foreign policy area he's moved away from the economy. He's looking for criticisms to make without offering substantive policy proposals, and I think that's because Obama's policies are basically centrist policies. It's a weird situation that Obama, as a moderate, has this unique ability to inspire so much vitriol among the conservative right, and Romney's trying to capitalize.

I'm in the foreign policy group for the issues project at school, and I can tell you with certainty that the differences between Obama and Romney in terms of foreign policy are very small. It is more of a philosophical difference. In reality, the troops will leave Afghanistan in 2014, we will most likely not send troops to Syria or Iran, and we will continue to support Israel, regardless of who is president. Romney is really just trying to create a contrast between his foreign policy and Obama's, but there aren't any major differences, so he has latched onto this whole Libya thing.

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.

The Obama Campaign finally responds to the attacks made by Romney about his inability to "keep America safe". This post is important because Romney attacks Obama's National Security during his term in office, claiming Obama did not do a good job of keeping Americans safe.

The comment that the author cites from adviser Michèle Flournoy, that Romney has "no credibility since he's been both for and against our Libya policy," seems like a strong tactic for Obama to be using. This can't be the only aspect of Romney's foreign policy stances that the President could target as not very resolute. The other thing I can't help but think about whenever foreign policy is brought up during the debates is the unequal position the two candidates are in. The claim that you cite Romney making, that Obama has failed to "keep America safe," is an impossible claim for Obama to make about Romney. He has had no substantial hand in foreign policy as governor of Massachusetts. His foreign policy record is made up of things he has said, while Obama's is made up of things he has done and real circumstances he has led the country in. He has much more to criticize by default. In this way, I don't see accusations by Romney or defenses by Obama as that informative during debates and campaigning.

I really enjoyed this article going through examples of past Vice Presidential debates. The fact that Vice Presidential debates mean so little for the actual campaigns but can really affect the career of a potential Vice President is a little off-putting. While I understand how people like to focus on the big names, Romney and Obama, the importance of their running mate should not be disregarded. If the President really "leads the free world" or at least has such influence over the United States, then it is obvious that the Vice President has influence as well and if something were to happen to the President, they would be in charge. If the candidates' performance in the debate can make or ruin a career, as detailed in this article, their actions should also be considered through the lens of being a President.

I hadn't thought of it like that, Mabel. I have always had a sense that a VP is crucial behind the scenes, but rarely a very prominent public figure. During Obama's term, I heard almost nothing about Biden, although I remember Cheney being a much bigger deal the eight years before that. I agree that how debate is downplayed is a little disappointing, especially in the way that the author's last few sentences turned out to be right: it would have taken an enormous upset or incredible performance for the VP debate to have any impact on the campaigns whatsoever. From what I can tell, this turned out to be true. Like Eli said in class, everyone pretty much agrees that it was a draw, and that Biden and Ryan basically filled the roles assigned to them. It bums me out how little it seemed to matter.

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.

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.

This article, about Obama's relationship with the economy, discusses the reality of policy work and the difficult task of assessing how he has handled the deterioration of the economy after the financial crisis. What is interesting in this article are the several dichotomies and contrasting, multi-faceted issues that are often highlighted when discussing the recession. First, there is Obama's assumption that with enough "policy help... on the way," the economy could sustain itself and not follow "the disturbing pattern of financial crises." Thinking that strong and focused policies could completely prevent the well-known aftershocks of an economic crisis left the Obama administration unprepared for "the downturn" that was "fundamentally different from a big, relatively brief recession." The article quotes Obama saying that his main mistake as President has been losing sight of the fact that there is more to fixing a problem then creating laws. Another interesting contrast mentioned in this article is that Obama has not failed in presenting the reality of the economy to the public, but "the story he and his advisers told themselves" was falsified. Related to the first point, Obama and his administration decided how they thought the economy would survive and while the information they used and told others was not factually inaccurate, they consumed and interpreted the facts incorrectly. This altering of understanding obviously has had large impacts and the article concludes by saying that while Obama says he has "done as well as could reasonably have been expected," the truth is he mistakenly avoided harder-to-accept concepts and construed them in an unrealistic way.

I'm sure that sometimes the conflicting desires of presidential candidates do interfere with economic recoveries. On one hand, they want to present a positive image of the economy, especially if they've been in office for a while. On the other, sometimes they have to take drastic measures to help the economy's recovery. It seems to me that these two things would necessarily conflict with each other, and I wonder which one is prioritized most often.

I have heard that the "bubble" that Obama has been in during his 4 years in the white house has really had an effect on him. I was watching CNN the other night and James Carville, one of my favorite analysts who worked in the Clinton administration, was on doing some after debate coverage. He talked about how presidents are constantly surrounded by people telling them that they are doing a great job and sheltered from negativity. Although I'm sure this is an over simplification of what goes on at the white house, I'm sure there is some truth to the fact that it is easy to become out of touch as president.

This article is a great explanation for the article that Miles posted last week, "Romney Adopts Softer Tone in Critique of Obama." Obamacare is the epitome of a centralist solution to healthcare, but the Republicans in the house are too caught up in politics to admit that it is actually a good compromise. It is interesting looking at Romney's own plan for Massachusetts in comparison to Obamacare, because they are essentially the same plan. Because Romney has taken up the issue of "repealing Obamacare," he has really dug himself a hole, because what is the conservative alternative? No healthcare plan? It seems to me that this kind of partisan politics is the reason that Romney is doing so poorly in the election.

This article is the best. It provides such a clear, concise explanation of Obamacare. And it really does, if you know this, invalidate Romney's entire platform. Obamacare is a centrist healthcare plan, and it's just like Romneycare. Romney is running on a platform of "anti-Obama," and all he's saying that he'll do is remove and replace Obama's policies -- but with what? Romney isn't saying. It really is astounding how much vitriol there is in America directed towards Obama, who is largely a centrist in his policies.

This article, like the Obamanomics, shows how too often politics takes precedent over policy. It's very disturbing that when something is as critical as health insurance for as many people as possible, is lost in a political battle. It sounds like even though the Democrats and Republicans agree on the most important aspects of Obamacare, it became mired in its present battle because the White House "rammed the bill through Congress." And the Republicans "lashed back with a vengeance." These political battles seem so petty when so much is at stake and everybody basically agrees on policy.

This article describes Romney's "demographic bind," which has him falling seriously behind in the non-white vote. The Latino and black electorate, the author describes, have begun the process of making strictly red states (like Georgia) into possibly competitive areas of the country in the future. The author points to the 2008 election, when McCain won a safe majority of America's white vote while Obama won 66% of the Latino vote and a whopping 95% of the black vote, as a signal for two different strategies for Romney. On the one hand, he can and is trying to woo thee Latino vote in states like Nevada and Florida (the RNC had really concrete evidence of this in its choice of speakers). Second, and a little more frightening, he can concentrate his efforts on winning an even greater majority of the white electorate. This is a significant challenge, because it would mean a serious effort at reconciling the generally more socially liberal views of white youth with the social conservatism of the Republican Party's. In the case of immigration reform, embracing a more liberal position would be a win-win for Romney: he could win a greater share of the Latino electorate, among which immigration is a serious concern, and a greater percentage of the younger, more socially liberal white vote that has traditionally voted Democrat. This would almost certainly come with consequences among older and less educated white voters, who would see immigration reform like this as a threat to legitimate control of illegal immigration in the future. Of the two, trying to expand the portion of the white vote seems like the losing option. While the example of immigration reform I mentioned could be a place for compromise, I have trouble seeing how Romney or a future Republican candidate could champion a pro-life and pro-choice stance at the same time, for instance. Rather than focusing on incredibly divisive issues, trying to appeal to the Latino electorate seems like a wiser choice. For Romn

This editorial written by Michael Sovern, the former president of Columbia and Mondale's "Reagan"during his preparation for the presidential debates, reveals some interesting things to look for in the presidential debates. Though both Mondale and Reagan used public funding for their campaigns and "were spared the money raising frenzy", Sovern predicts that there will probably be similarities: Candidates challenging the incumbent has an advantage by merely sharing the stage with the President of the United States on equal terms and giving a good performance. He also says that the person answering the 1st question second begins on better footing because they have time to think and settle in. According to Sovern, besides appearing presidential, they each must get their message across even if the question doesn't ask for it AND avoid seeming to dodge the question. They will probably quickly answer part of the question and then follow with their message. It will be interesting to watch for these techniques in the debates tomorrow.

This is an interesting article. I like its analysis of the strategy of debates, and its assertion that the incumbent is at a disadvantage is, like Mabel said, interesting to hear explicitly stated. It's interesting because I feel like the incumbent has an advantage in the election as a whole, but I guess the debates provide such a good platform for aggressive criticism that the challenger usually comes out on top.

I really enjoyed this article, one because it was short and sweet, but also because I agree with what is being said. I just started my school's first Public Forum Debate team this year and my partner, Frankie DeBorde, and I know exactly what this article is talking about in terms of debate strategy. Since the debate has happened, I think that Romney won based on the criteria that the author offered up, which I agree with. I think that Romney was able to win in an area that Obama usually has done well in by appearing more in control and taking advantage of Obama's mistake. For once Romney just didn't make a mistake which worked out well.

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 very interesting because of the timing of Romney's softer tone in the critique of Obama so soon after many voters heard about the 43% comment Romney made. I think if Romney wants any chance of winning, he really needs to watch what he says and make sure he isn't made out to seem like more of a bad guy in the media. Although Romney compliments Obamacare he still points out what he does not like about it, showing his strong stance on what he thinks is positive and what needs change. It is unique that Romney is pointing out positive aspects of Obama care, because the GOP have often used Obamacare as one of the reasons why he should not be president again.

Yeah, this is an interesting call for Romney. I'm happy about it, but it certainly does seem calculated, especially his response of that he wants to keep "the part about pre-existing conditions." The phrase pre-existing condition is such an agitative buzzword, and it seems that this is a move intended to remove that specific buzzword from Obama's arsenal of rhetoric intended to pump up the base.

I agree with what you said John about how this could be part of a Romney tactic of moving towards the center and I am curious what aspects of Obama's policies and ideas Romney would consider taking on. It's interesting to think about this in the context of your comment Eli, because it seems like a lot of the concepts that Romney latches onto simply don't work with the reality of a policy or with the Republican platform. Saying that he supports coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions could make Romney more appealing on a human level, but if it is so detached from his general stance, it ends up being useless. I think a more well-thought out focus on centrists could be really beneficial.

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.

I have been hearing a lot about the "60 Minutes" appearances by both candidates on Sunday night. This article picks apart the key points that both candidates made in what the author describes as the "pre-debate." While Obama and Romney were interviewed separately, the juxtaposition of their interview was a clear struggle for undecided voters. The author highlights a controversial handling of foreign policy questions by Obama, as well as a pretty spectacular gaffe by Romney, in which he suggests that emergency room care is an effective way to take care of the 50 million uninsured Americans. From what the author says, the interviews were a compelling look at the candidates without their armor. The article includes a link to the video (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57518495/campaign-2012-obama-vs-romney/?tag=contentMain;contentBody) With a lot of rhetoric from each candidate that we've had to decode in stump speeches and at the conventions, it's nice to see content that is a little more upfront. The opinions the candidates voiced, while they have stirred up critics in either party, strike me as a more honest representation than their own descriptions of themselves. Obama's commentary on the Middle East was complicated for me. While I don't think it was very tactful and clearly on the spot, it seems to coincide with his policy quite well. After the discussion we had in class concerning his drone-strike campaign, the comments he made about Israel as peripheral and our alignment with democracy strike me as more satisfying for more liberal Democrats. I have trouble thinking of the way Romney handled the emergency room question as anything but a mistake. I know very little about healthcare policy, and it's totally clear to me that what he proposes isn't sustainable on any level. From the maintenance of a healthcare system that runs like this to the cost on the individual family, his proposal demonstrates very little thought to me, which might be

Very interesting to see Obama's full quotes and partial quotes used out of context to support his position. Romney's answer on health care and emergency room seems to show his lack of economic sense.

This is an old op-ed piece from one of my favorite economist's, Paul Krugman. I think what he says still rings true. When we hear politicians talk about debt, it always seems so simple; countries borrow money and then owe that money. Krugman explains that it isn't that simple. Ever since reading this piece, I've had a much different take on the idea of "national debt." Let me know if guys find him convincing.

I really like this guy. To me, he paints a really compelling picture of what is becoming a massive issue in this election, and the way he shoots down the image of the US "deep in hock to the Chinese" is both funny and really troubling. Honestly, the way the idea of national debt has been explained to me in the past has been, according to Krugman, entirely fictional. I agree with you, Eli, that politicians talk about debt in this way intentionally: they are able to convince people like me, with no background in economics, of very simple truths that line up with their platforms. That being said, Krugman does leave me with a lot more questions than answers. I am unclear about a lot of the mechanics of his description (the US owing money to itself, how these massive "debts" are even paid off), but it seems to me like the general message is that it isn't a really big deal. From what I can tell, this is a pretty convincing message.

Krugman says "Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we are impoverished by the need to pay back the debt." They think it's like a mortgage-that's how i see it. He says that we don't have to pay it back, just make sure it grows more slowly than the tax base. We owe it to ourselves, but I still think national debt is money owed that needs to be paid back and can inhibit economic growth. Dollars paid to the debt could be used for tangible things like infrastructure and education.

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.