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This article quotes Paul Ryan being extremely confident that he and Romney will win the election. He accepts that they have made mistakes but also adress that they will make it clear in the upcoming debates that the American people are choosing between a brighter future and failed policies of the past four years. I particularly noticed this quote: "Ryan said Romney has been specific, but declined to say which loopholes, saying, "It would take me too long to go through all of the math."" I think this is interesting because as he is saying they are specific, he is avoiding being specific. The article continues to talk about Obama commenting on to Republican Campaign not being specific as well.

Yadira touched on this, but they HAVE to be confident: if you say "I don't think I'm going to win" you're definitely not going to win. The article says "Paul Ryan acknowledged Sunday the campaign has made some missteps"; I'd be interested in knowing exactly what he considers those missteps to be.

Yeah I agree Sabrina. Putting on the confident face definitely makes you a more attractive candidate. But I think he has not been very specific with his campaign which makes me trust him less. His confident persona matched with his flakey statements leave me confused!

"The president's ad barrage seems to have succeeded in bringing blue-collar women into his coalition -- and boosting his chance at reelection"

I liked this quote: "Beyond the opposition's portrayal of Romney as obtuse to the problems of working families, both sides agree that he has been hurt among blue-collar women by the skirmishes over defunding Planned Parenthood and access to contraception in health insurance." It makes sense why these women would want a president who would benefit their health/reproductive needs. Sabrina, I think this is probably one of the main points why they know Obama is right for them and why they don't like Romney.

It is really interesting to me how much thought goes into the advertisements. Not only are they thinking about a specific group "the blue-collar women", but also increased numbers in certain states (swing states) ect. I also think it is interesting how much advertising there is. Because we live in San Francisco, we don't see many of the presidential campaign advertisements because we are not a place they should waste money on since it is almost certain they will win our votes. This has made me feel like my vote here does not count and I found this realization with seeing all of the advertisements lately to vote yes or no on a particular proposition for California (the education ones are the two main ads I have been seeing lately) What this tells me is where my vote actually has a sway, or could potentially swing the results, I will be seeing a lot of ads and a lot of money will go into me. Where I don't, I have to go looking to find my information or to be reached.

This article is about how the debates lifted moral for those supporting Romney and Ryan. To me, the article provided an interesting perspective because I usually follow the moral of the Democratic party. Do you think the lifted spirits of GOP members will affect the election? It was also interesting because towards the end, the article states that the debates show the "real Romney-Ryan agenda," although after watching the debates I thought that Ryan was unable to name specific agendas for the Romney-Ryan campaign. Do you think that, because I as a more liberal-leaning American find it hard to see a "real" Romney-Ryan agenda through the debates while conservatives argue that their agenda is more clear than that of Obama and Biden, the debates have little to do with showing people the beliefs of the candidates and more to do with lifting the spirits of the candidates' supporters?

I definitely think that being a more liberal American makes it harder to see the Republican campaign's policies. I agree that in the debate, Ryan seemed to be avoiding questions about policy and did not make it clear. But, I think that if you agree with the general premise of what someone is saying, it is much easier to look over specifics knowing that the principles behind it are what you believe in. When they are not, you are more likely to question them and scrutinize them until you find they haven't told you any specifics.

I completely agree with Abby - you hear what you want to hear. I was also interested in this quote from Romney: "People recognize this is not an ordinary campaign, this is a critical time for our country." Is this true? Or do we always say this? Doesn't every time seem critical?

This article highlight's Romney's lack of specificity on the issue of immigration at a speech where he had a hispanic audience. This also slightly goes into a comparison of Obama and Romney's views on immigration. 

I think that this same message applies to many other parts of the campaign. Giving only ideas without any propositions of how it is going to happen as well as being extremely vague.

Yes, Romney isn't specific at times, but then again, he is a politician. Like Obama, or other smart politicians, he is shifty on his politics to appeal to the masses. When Obama gives speeches to colleges, he talks about tax cuts for the middle class and "spreading the wealth around" (direct quote from 1998 speech) and then when he talks to the DNC he talks about how he isn't nessicarily in favor of increasing taxes for the wealthy. So what if Romney is shifty, Obama is too.

This is  short piece which predicts a few questions the candidates will have to answer in the coming debates. It claims that an exceeding expectations tactic "doesn't even fool anyone". Do you guys agree? Will the winner of the debates actually be the person who gives the soundest answers or will it be the most successful politicker? What other questions have to be answered? 

It's interesting that all the questions pretty much boil down to "What would you do differently than Obama has been doing?". I think that this type of question could give Romney an advantage because it's easier for him to separate himself from Obama's last four years that it is for Obama to separate from himself. I really hope, especially because there's been a lot of craving for specifics, the candidate with the soundest answers will win.

It will be interesting to see how the candidates do answer questions like these. The one that stood out to my was Romney and health care since it really is a vast change in viewpoint that he will be forced to discuss. I think the debates will give new perspective to the specifics of both candidates which in many cases through the campaigns have been avoided.

This article describes Obama paying tribute to Cesar Chavez. There are some speculations about where it was and opportunity to campaign or an actual stop to pay tribute.  

I really think it was both. Does he want to honor Caesar Chavez? Probably. But would he gone if it was somehow bad for his campaign? Probably not. I like Sami's comparison to college apps - every good thing could be seen as sucking up.

The Latino vote is crucial, and Caesar Chavez being the figure that he is, I believe that Obama was doing this more for the vote rather than solely honoring such a great man.

In this article, the question is raised of if Romney has two different sides, one that appeals to voters and one that appeals to donors. I found two parts of the article very interesting. One, that Romney answers a lot of questions from the donors but avoids them from the voters. And the second, that Romney actually goes in depth with his policies with the donors when tends to be vague with the voters.

While I would love to think that a candidate's statements remain solid no matter who the audience is, I know that isn't the truth. I think that it is somewhat inevitable that certain points are highlighted and others are downplayed in someone's platform when trying to win the support of a certain group.

A reason I can think of for this is that when you are trying to convince someone to vote for you, it's more about the big picture, "what direction do you want for our country" kind of campaigning. A vote for you means a vote in the right direction. When speaking to donors, it's about what their large donations are going to go towards specifically. It's much more of a commitment than just a vote, so it makes sense that there would be more information. I'm not saying this is the right way to handle it, and I agree that messages should stay consistent, but it might be a reason why.

These are graphs that show the different demographics that voted for which presidents.  It also shows the results to which states both Obama and Romney won. I think it's interesting that this year Florida did not play much of an important part as it usually does. 

The question about about handling medicare, the economy and the deficit are really telling. The implication of such a vast majority of voter agreeing with their candidates view on these specific issues is that a vast majority of voters based their choice on these issues.

I find it shocking that the african american community voted significantly more in favor of Obama than any other community combined. I side red with a ton of these issues. I'm still a little confused why people think that Obama's foreign policy is considered as being good considering that he completely covered up the fact that they CIA had been to libya two weeks before the attack and requested help, yet nothing was done. This is infuriating to me. I do not trust Obama to handle foreign policy, he is far to loose with Ahmadinejad, Iran's nuclear program has skyrocketed since 2008. Nothing about that seems 'successful' to me.

I warn you now this piece is extremely opinionated but I am interested to hear all of your thoughts on the subject. Scott Paulson, a political commentary for the Examiner is making the claim that the early voting in Ohio is ridiculous and unnecessary. He mentions that a lot can change in 35 days (from when early voting starts to election day) and that it is giving Obama a huge advantage which could potentially win him the state. What are you thoughts on the early voting laws?

Early voting is a wonderful democracy inhibitor, just look at how different Romney and Obama were 7 weeks ago, that was before both presidential debates. If they allowed California or Utah to vote early then it wouldn't matter because its not like either of those states are unpredictable or anything, but the fact that it is Ohio makes it crazy, there is no way that swing voters could be expected to make a valid decision considering how eventful the last 7 weeks have been, just look at their precedent in the debates. Of course Obama thinks it will facilitate democracy, it will probably end up in his favor more than Romney's.

Savannah, I think that the people who are voting early are the ones who likely aren't going to change their opinions on Obama or Romney based on debates or any "October surprise". Also, I'm interested as to why you think it'd end up in Obama's favor. Wouldn't this suggest that Obama is, in fact, more popular than Romney?

Article talks about Romney's BIg Bird comment. It brought a lot of controversy in Woodstock , Connecticut the home town of Big Birds creator.  It just further more proves how the debates are more of a chance to observe the candidates.  

I think that it was more inappropriate that he directly told Jim Lehrer that he was going to cut his job. Yes Big Bird is an icon, but he is fictional. Jim Lehrer is a real person who was specifically told that he is going to get fired if Romney wins.

Will brings up a good point. Romney's campaign is all about making jobs, but should we think about those who work for federally run businesses? Jim Lehrer would just be one of many to actually lose their job if government spending was decreased...

Romney is using Obama's failed promises to lower the unemployment rate below 8% as one of his most convincing points against the president's last four years.

Yes job creation is not the only question in "are you better off than you were four years ago?" but it is a big one. Having a job is a key to having a good life. It is one of the issues that most directly affects each American person. Even someone who pays no attention to politics or policy whatsoever is directly affected by jobs. So if Obama cannot create jobs now, I can see why the Romney campaign would choose to focus on criticizing that so strongly.

Unemployment has become such a pressing issue for many families that Romney is smart to bring up Obama's failed promises to lower the unemployment. Because having jobs is important to everyone, it makes sense that Romney is using this to the best of his advantage. That said, there is only so much control that Obama has and I don't think his "failed promise" leads directly to "are you better off than you were four years ago?"