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This article talks about the second presidential debate, which will be happening tonight. It explains how Obama will get a second chance to make up for his first debate. What do you guys think about this second chance? Is it really a chance? 

I mentioned this in Abby's article but I think a better performance can help Obama, it can't undo what has already happened. When I think about his attitude during the first debate it makes me question: Is he tired of being President? Have the hardships gotten to him? The article also mentions, "Obama needs strong support from women voters if he hopes to beat the Republican" and in my opinion if someone is voting based upon rights for women...they would have to vote for Obama.

This part of the article stood out for me: "Both sides claimed victory". Both sides think they won, whereas after last week's debate Obama admitted that he had lost. Why do you guys think this is? Do they both legitimately think that they won, or do they just want to seem confident?

This article talks about Obama's calm and collected response to the upcoming storm hitting back east. Obama has expressed concern about the storm to America but not in a panicked manner. I think made the right move by not focusing on the election here but rather everyone's safety. Having a president who makes Americans feel safe is important. One question that I have is will the weather affect the polls next week? 

Well, if Obama didn't do anything about the storm, then he would have probably lost votes in a lot of states affected in the area. Just look at how much bad press Bush got after Katrina. Obama needed a standing for America moment after skipping out on national security matters to go on TV.

I think people will always like a candidate that tends to pressing issues instead of campaigning because this is another sort of campaigning: actions speak louder than words! Obama made the right move in helping with the hurricane, but it was a political decision as well.

This article discusses the how the rate of unemployment has decreased and it's affects on Obama's campaign.  Although this is good according to Romney, it is not the best that we can do. Does the fact that the percent it decreased is not a lot? Is it still an accomplishment?

I agree. I think what is key about the article is the quote, "Indeed, the economy has added jobs for 24 straight months." What resinates with me which the article touched on and our speaker on the economy in class went in detail with is the idea that because of the growth in population, to have job growth, not only does Obama have to create more jobs than before, but he has to do that on top of an addition number of jobs that account for the increase in population. This is something I never really thought about before but makes a huge difference in how I look at his success in making more jobs.

However, unemployment inequality has increased and college students are coming out of college with jobs that they are vastly overqualified for. Also, long term unemployment rates have increased, which in my opinion is a more important number than the short term. If Obama wants to be respected in my opinion, he has to create more long term jobs, which he hasn't done. He has only made our country more dependent on government influence. Just because unemployment is 7.8 does not mean that the economy is actually getting better. The 7.8 is taking into account part time employment, which does not indicate economical well being, especially since 2 million will be laid off before the holiday season. And I'm curious to hear what this speaker you are talking about said, please explain.

"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 explains where each of the candidates stand in polls after the debate. Interestingly, according to the polls shown here, 51% of voters like Romney and 56% like Obama, meaning there are a significant amount of people that like both. Also, it definitively says that Romney won the debate. Who do you think won?

For me, the most disappointing thing was Obama's lack of enthusiasm. I also think Romney won this debate and clearly made himself seem like a more appealing candidate. Although he did do that on this one particular night, I think the candidate's personality overall, and not just in one night, is more important. I liked this quote from the article because I think it sums up what happened well: "This suggests to me that while the debate was effective in energizing the Republican base and giving Romney a boost, it didn't fundamentally change perceptions of either man a great deal."

I, too, would argue that Romney won the debate especially due to both his enthusiasm and Obama's lack of enthusiasm. I think this article raises a good question of whether the debates/policies of the candidates are more important to the election or the likability/relatability of the candidates are more important. While we are being educated in all areas of the candidates and are basing our views off of this educated standpoint, many voters might not know a lot about either Romney or Obama, so do you think the outcomes of the debates will have as big of an impact on the election as one might hope?

Obama Tied With Romney

yeah I am starting to find polls less and less useful especially in a close race where there is no way for them to be super reliable

Yeah especially after reading that article about polls, I think we just have to wait this election out.

This article outlines many of Romney's Ryan's views on Obama and his plans and policies for the country. I found this to be especially interesting: "Obama is simply offering more of the same." Do you think this is true? Is Obama offering exactly the same plans he did four years ago?

The quote you pulled out also stood out to me, Sabrina. While I think Obama in many ways will be the same, I think being in office for four years will inevitably change him. From listening to the issue presentations we have seen that many of his policies have changed. For instance his policies on Israel have shifted and he is still working on his immigration policy. I don't think we should expect a totally new president, but rather one that has learned and grown from his past experience with his same ideals.

Logically, we should not expect the same president. Romney probably isn't the only one noticing Obama's mistakes, and I believe that he will use things that he was not successful in to improve his skills.

Yet another failed company under the Obama Administration. I think what frustrates me the most about these investments isn't that Obama has picked some winners and some losers, but that he has picked only losers, wasting 340,000,000$ so far. Do you guys think that the government should have this big of a role in investing in society, or should it just let green energy succeed or fail on its own? While Green energy is better for the environment, I feel that if the government is only capable of making bad investments or not making investments, then it shouldn't be wasting taxpayer dollars on companies that do nothing but fail. 

Hmm. I'm conflicted about this as well. I think that it's great that the government is supporting green energy, but gambling with taxpayer's money does not sound like a good idea. Interestingly, this is a kind of similar idea to privatizing Social Security, which Obama is very strongly opposed to but Republicans (including Romney) have supported in the past.

In my opinion, this becomes an issue of rights vs. economy. Is green energy a right or an economic luxury? Is it the government's job to ensure energy rights or to let it become an issue of the market? From a broader perspective, do we need regulation to prevent the long-term issue of the destruction of our earth? Sometimes when we think "business, business, business", we forget about ethics/morals. It also becomes an issue of whether or not we want to lead the world in a clean-energy revolution. At the same time, our economic issues present moral issues as well. It is a hard thing to think about because our priorities get all jumbled up. I guess it depends on what the individual thinks is important.

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.

Something that I find interesting in this article is that it seems that Cunningham, who has been less-than-successful in the past four years, attributes his failings in life to the Obama administration. I don't know if this is true or not, but it seems that this is the way a lot of people look at the election: if you have been happy in the past four years, reelect Obama. If you have been unhappy, elect Romney.

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.

Obama is really emphasizing the Auto-industry bailout and the positive outcomes that have resulted from his revenue injection. Also, Romney is gaining ground.

I understand why Obama's campaign continues to focus on their success in the past four years because it is a lot easier for people to pick out the negatives themselves than the positives. That being said, I agree that it is important that he focus a lot on future progress which I think he usually does tend to do.

I feel like this speech that Obama made at the car maker factory is similar to what Romney was doing at his stump speech at the oil company. They were both relating to their audience. This makes sense since North Carolina is a swing state. Obama was trying to appeal to them and gain their vote.

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 article lists each of the factors that are going to decide the last 2 months of the election, including money, debates, and swing states, all of which I expected. However, one factor that I didn't think about is Johnson's influence in the overall election. He seems to be gaining votes from republicans more than democrats, which could harm Romney more than I would have thought.

It's interesting to me that which candidate people vote for seems to have nothing to do with ideas or plans for the country, just how much advertising there is. Are people really this easily influenced by advertising? Also, it's funny that they have mock debates, Obama going against John Kerry as Romney. And, Savannah, I was surprised about Gary Johnson, too. I've never heard of him before.

I'm really bothers me that "Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney have to build substantial room into their schedules for fund-raising, including more time than they would like traveling to places that are not competitive politically but are flush with wealthy donors, starting with New York and Los Angeles." I don't like how so much of the election is spent raising money rather than making more explicit platforms and addressing important issues.

This audio clip could serve to do just what Romney's blunder did: Solidify the other party against him. It has a video of Obama's Speech, saying that he wants to "spread the wealth" and that he "believes in re-distribution", very communistic remarks in general. Now, the republicans are going to be calling him a communist more than ever. This will definatly defiantly isolate moderates just like Romney's mixup will do.

The big difference between this clip and Romney's are that this is from years ago, whereas Romney's is much more recent. I think that we all need to just move past these video clips and focus on what the candidates are really putting out there rather than something they just said once.

Yes, but you could easily argue that Obama's clip still holds true today, look at how socialist as a country we've become. We're getting pretty close to numerically socialist, our spending to GDP is 42%, 8 short points from official socialism. Medicine is socialized. The alarming part is that Obama still seems like he is holding true to this. He hasn't changed. And while Romney's 47% statement wasn't exactly politically correct, it is accurate. 47% of Americans don't pay taxes, and, this statement is taking into consideration the SSI and retirees. You can even do the math yourself, just go to Obama's government sponsored Debt Clock and plug in the numbers.

This article talks about Obama's and Romney's responses to the recent violence in Libya. Obama is criticized with not speaking forcefully and being too apologetic in regards to the recent situation as well as some of the recent stuff going on in the Middle East. The article then goes on to say that despite the foreign affairs news, the economy is still the pressing issue of the election (not sure if I agree with that fully).

If things continue to escalate in the middle east, as they have been lately, than foreign policy will continue to be a major issue in the election. Danielle, I feel like you are right and that most americans will focus on the economy, but the two issues are intertwined, and bad news for one is bad news for the other if things continue to escalate. How much money are we willing to spend dealing with other countries? We already have out of control spending, but if things get worse then we will have to decide what is more important to our country: security, or money.

What seems frustrating to me about this whole situation is that both sides seem to be using Libya as an excuse to say "look at me, look at how good I am at foreign policy!" I wish that they would work together to actually solve problems instead of trying to prove what good problem solvers they are.