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This article is about the struggle to win Ohio-a very divided state that seems to be necessary for either candidate to win. It outlines the tactics that each candidate is taking there while campaigning this weekend.

It seems like both candidates are criticizing the other pretty harshly. Do you think this tactic will convince Ohio either way? It's hard for me to get my confusion cleared up when there's all this political "punching".

I feel like this article makes me think there is something seriously wrong with the electoral college. Hearing that one state, Ohio, is the main focus of both candidates' campaigns as well as the part of the article that stated that no Republican president has ever been elected without winning Ohio made me feel like Ohio has an unfair say in the election which leads me to believe that the electoral college system needs to be reformed.

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.

Slate comes through, as always, with a very critical description of GOP politics. In this article, William Saletan picks apart Romney's RNC speech and uses it to predict the remainder of Mitt's campaign. Read with a grain of salt, as Slate often tries to trick you into thinking its articles are objective. 

I, personally, found the article to be very similar to our class discussions, especially on the topic of tactics that Romney used in his speech, including calculated jabs and heart-warming stories. That being said, this article is pretty critical of Romney.

I felt like this article broke down Romney's speech very well. I felt like the tone was not necessary liberal, but more of a neutral tone that was trying to explain Romney speech was trying to accomplish in his speech.

This article is highlights the need for this coming week's Democratic Convention to mimic the optimism that Obama's previous convention in 2008 had. Being that Obama's speech is after that of Romney's, it will be interesting to see if he subtly responds to anything that Romney said. Regardless, it is clear that Obama must recapture America.

I agree that is is impossible to recapture the hope Obama had four years ago. I found it interesting to read this article after listening to his speech because I was able to compare what Obama did to what the article was suggesting. Again I agree that Obama attacking Romney is slightly disappointing and not what I expect or want to see from him normally. I think in his speech he did do a little bit of attacking with his various jokes, the one standing out to me at the moment being when Romney called Russie the nation's greatest enemy.

It was interesting to see the different tactics that are suggested that Obama needed to do so that he would perform well at the Democratic convention. After seeing the convention I feel like Obama did follow all of these tactics, but not to his fullest ability. I felt like his attacks on Romney were not as intense as when Romney was attacking Obama at the republican convention. I feel like this is a good thing because the fact that he was not constantly attacking Romney showed that he had an agenda in his speech rather than Romney who consistently attacked Obama in his republican convention speech.

What's interesting about this article is that it seems to criticize the campaigning tactics on both sides as being too negative and relying too much on garbled quotes from the other side.

This article was interesting as it really showed how the election is a back and forth of a negative comment from one party to the other party coming back with a defense to the claim and a new negative comment about the opposite party. This article definitely focused more on the negativity of the Obama campaign.

I also found this article super interesting because it shed light on the pettiness of campaigning.

This article describes the shift that everyone has seen in Romney as the elections near.He has shifted from a more aggressive stance to a more moderate stance, attempting to show himself to be a candidate that appeals to all different voters. Do you think this shift will help or hurt Romney in this election? Does this shift show inconsistency or does it show his willingness to compromise his ideas for the betterment of America?

I think that this is an extremely good tactic for Romney: he appealed more to the far right and the people who were very set in their conservative values earlier in the campaign, and is now appealing to the more moderate undecided voters. People who were really excited about him as a candidate aren't going to change their minds about him now, so there's no downside for Romney. However, I'm not sure if his values are actually changing or if he's simply trying to appeal to a wider voter base.

Romney wouldn't be this far in the election if he weren't going to 'compromise' because he would be pro-choice and for same-sex marriage and have little support from the republican party at all. Compromise is great but only to a certain level. There has to be some point which people can't across and which we, Americans can depend upon to know that Romney won't change his views on. I would not be comfortable voting for President who changes his viewpoints to line up with the votes he needs the most just because who knows what positions he will hold if he actually does make it into office.