Presidential Politics

Anyone want to lay odds on the general public's memory of the rhetoric of the primaries? Or of the general media's ability/desire to keep candidates to it?

ddt

The only problem with hoping for the Tea party to shut themselves out is that during the last election, many of them won. And not just small offices. The Governor of Wisconsin was one of those nut jobs.

The general public won't pay attention to the primaries, nor will the media remind them of it (presuming anyone pays attention to the media anyway), but the attack ads WILL highlight everything that's being said right now, and that's something people actually pay attention to. Remember when Meg Whitman was leading the race for Governor because nobody knew anything about her, then these ads showed up?

Echo

Why I Came To California

Hmmm... What's interesting from those graphs in the Washington Post is that slightly more voters blame republicans in congress for the current mess than Obama and a large majority oppose budget cuts (i assume that means they'd prefer taxes on the wealthy - [edit] yup 75% of the electorate does).

That said, a 35% presidential approval rating is pretty disastrous.

Obama has to get a clear message out there other than the "hopey changey" feel-good crap. Time for real-politic - he needs to do a Nixon and divide the country and pick the biggest half.

I wonder who the 24.5% of the electorate are who oppose tax increases on millionaires are? Oh wait, that would be the tea-party mob following the Fox-news meme that it "hurts america" or whatever...

This popped up on my podcasts. Ron Paul being asked how on one hand we can have occupy wall street and on the other the "1%-er" Steve Jobs' death bringing about such worshipping.
Mr. Paul makes some good comments on 'the wealthy'.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dr.-ron-paul-on-michael-smerconish/id349446608?i=100150117

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dr.-ron-paul-on-michael-smerconish/id349446608?i=100150117



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2011 10:49AM by El Jeffe.

Steve Jobs became a 1% by creating things that immeasurably bettered the world without stomping all over the other 99% to do so.

It's the Kenneth Lays, the Richard Fulds, the Henry Paulsons, the Donal Trumps, the Paul Wolfowitz's that the 99% have a problem with...

On a another note:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/ragtag-popular-movement-is-angry-at-the-right-people-20111007-1ldxe.html

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In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst - but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers' sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis.

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Rich Yeselson, a veteran organiser and historian of social movements, has suggested that debt relief for working Americans become a central plank of the protests. I'll second that, because such relief, in addition to serving economic justice, could do a lot to help the economy recover. I'd suggest that protesters also demand infrastructure investment - not more tax cuts - to help create jobs. Neither proposal is going to become law in the current political climate, but the whole point of the protests is to change that political climate.

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But Democrats are being given what amounts to a second chance. The Obama administration squandered a lot of potential goodwill early on by adopting banker-friendly policies that failed to deliver economic recovery even as bankers repaid the favour by turning on the President. Now, however, Obama's party has a chance for a do-over. All it has to do is take these protests as seriously as they deserve to be taken.

Food for thought...

It's really remarkable how taxes are always seen as an evil that damages society and the economy. Until of course they are used to bail out reckless financial institutions. Privatised profits and socialised lossess.

The world is upside down and this will hold not much longer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2011 08:05PM by tliet.

I just don't see how Obama can make "4 more years" seem appealing.

I'm sure he doesn't want to be remembered as "well, he was better than Bush" but centre-left parties have all made the mistake of trying to "out-redneck" the redneck parties...

As if the real Elizabeth Warren weren't ass-kicking enough: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/elizabeth-warren-announces-her-bid-senate

ddt

Is it just me, or does this indicate a complete disconnect with the concept of "unemployment" as understood by most Americans?

I would say that that's beyond the pale, but crap like that is becoming so commonplace that it's hard to tell what's fringe anymore.

I swear, that's a Marie Antoinette quote if I ever read one. Sooner or later the Bastille's going to get stormed, and then won't Louis XVI be surprised.

Her logic really doesn't resemble our earth logic, does it?

"Lost" his job? Um, no. He quit his job. Big difference...

I sorta wonder if he doesn't feel the same way. He had that whole drawn out "deliberation" last time, when he started by saying "this is not the right time for me", and his Hawiian "retreat" to decide what to do. He won't have that sort of "grand entrance" this time around. His efforts to head to various "battleground states" and even "core constituencies" have come off as either "preachy" or "opportunities for a shared bitch session". Not good...

Though unless attack ads suddenly lose their remarkable power to move Americans I suspect Romney's ties to "fat cats" and LDS will be enough to keep the voters from going with the devil they don't know...

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Tony Leggett
I just don't see how Obama can make "4 more years" seem appealing.

I'm sure he doesn't want to be remembered as "well, he was better than Bush" but centre-left parties have all made the mistake of trying to "out-redneck" the redneck parties...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66537.html

“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” Jobs told Obama in a meeting last year where he asserted that the White House needed to be more friendly toward business, according to the Huffington Post, which obtained a copy of the Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming book, “Steve Jobs.”

You know, the writer of that article (geez, just a paraphrase of another article which summed up original research? way to rock it, Politico) took a logical and unsupported leap by conflating Jobs' warning about one-term and his objection to some regulations. I see Jobs saying that he's musing about change to education hiring, some burdens on companies, that this could put the U.S. at a disadvantage with China, and that this could affect the U.S. economy, which in turn wouldn't help Obama's re-election chances.

Perhaps I'm parsing too closely, but the writer's summation seems to imply Jobs said, "if you don't ease regulations, you won't get re-elected". Not the same thing. This latter ties regulation to re-election; the former sees the problem as economy, with changes to regulation one possible solution.

ddt

Apple was (and is) pushing pretty hard for a "tax holiday," where they can bring overseas profits home without paying taxes on them.

Two-thirds of their cash hoard is overseas. I'd support a corporate tax holiday with a discounted rate, but tax-free rubs me the wrong way. I'd feel better about tax-free if it was spent immediately on infrastructure/new hires/things that stimulate the economy more quickly than giving executives bonuses and waiting for it to theoretically trickle down.

I'd rather they just start taxing the foreign cash wherever it lies, and stop talking about holidays altogether.

Can anyone with actual working experience break down the challenges with that? We can't dictate law in a sovereign state (well, theoretically we can't), what's in our tax code that allows companies to do this (such as incorporating in a P.O. box somewhere), I'm sure that doing so willy-nilly would destroy the economies of many client states... ?

ddt