The above is a good link to see the state of play in the US election. Things were slowly moving Romney's direction but in the last day, things look like they are leaning to Obama in the swing states.
Republicans are more likely to vote. Obama and the Democrats have really worked hard to get the Democrat vote gets out and to improve voter registration. Hence, Obama voting today. The Democrat organisation on the ground is much better than the Republicans. You get the feeling as well that the Democrats have more enthusiasm for Obama then Republicans have for Romney.
The arrogance and amnesia of Republicans like the one a few posts above is staggering, but not at all surprising, their man GWB cratered the economy and took them into two utterly pointless and ruinously expensive wars and what is their response? Blame Obama!
Utterly cynical and extremely dangerous.
Thank goodness no one would take the UK into two such utterly pointless wars.
No doubt this is a close race, Romney hopefully will pull it off. It's a pity that most of the political commentary that reaches England from here comes through the left-leaning press. Another four years of Obama will be disastrous, ask anyone here who has to work for a living. Those on any kind of government hand-out will vote for Obama again, that's roughly 47% of the populace, the rest of us are paying all of the mis-spent taxes. The per-household share of the national debt is now over $47,000, the REAL unemployment rate is over 12%, health insurance rates are climbing daily, and fuel prices have doubled during Obama's term. Try living here for the last four years and then hope for four more of Obama, unless you work for the government or are on the doll, that is.
I work for a living so you can ask me. Answer: Romney would be disastrous. Now, I wonder where you got that 47% figure from! :-)
Another critical factor is the on-the-ground organisation that each candidate has - this is probably Obama's single, biggest advantage.
After the 2010 mid-term elections Obama released his top logistics guy David Plouffe out into 'the field' to start deployment of his campaign offices in the critical swing states like Ohio, Virginia, Florida, etc.
As a result Obama now has 130 field offices in Ohio - compared to just 60 for Romney - and, more importantly, those offices are dedicated solely to getting Obama re-elected whereas the Romney offices are split between the presidential, congressional and local elections going on.
My now sadly deceased friend Hershel worked for Hillary in the 2008 Democratic primaries, he was in Iowa for the first and game-changing primary where the Clintons thought that their 'brand' was going to crush Obama.
Iowa has a 'caucus' system for the primaries where people don't vote but rather gather in a commnunal place and literally form groups, caucuses, behind whichever candidate they are backing, so all Obama supporters go to one corner of the hall, Clinton's to another, etc....
Hershel says they were all confident that Clinton would win a close race until about 6PM on the night of the caucus when they were all hanging around the car park of a school in Des Moines where one of the biggest caucuses in the state would be held.
There were a couple of hundred Clinton people there waiting for the caucus to start when they heard a low mumble in the distance which grew louder and louder and finally came into view, a huge, huge procession of Obama's supporters that they had been putting together at university campuses etc, all done very quietly and with minimum publicity.
Hershel told me that as soon as Harold Ickes, one of Clinton's top lieutenants, saw the huge crowd (which was on a planned march to the caucus site) coming down the road he turned to Hershel and said, "Hershel, we're fucked!"
The arrogance and amnesia of Republicans like the one a few posts above is staggering, but not at all surprising, their man GWB cratered the economy and took them into two utterly pointless and ruinously expensive wars and what is their response? Blame Obama!
Anyone notice how GWB has been airbrushed from history? Say what you like about Bush but at least he was a consistent Conservative, you at least knew where he was coming from.
Romney? Here's a guy who tells all the redneck, religious, rightwing nutters in the primaries how he's going to sort out Iran and use the might of the millitary to re-assert American power - he then turns up at the 3rd debate and performs a John Lennon/Yoko Ono impersonation.
Utterly cynical and extremely dangerous.
George W. Bush had eight years to ruin the economy, turn the Clinton surplus into a huge deficit, and lead the US to its worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. But they will say that it is Obama's fault that things haven't been fixed fast enough, and what we need to do is put the people that created the mess in the first place back in charge. Romney supporters accuse Obama supporters are always blaming Bush, and do act as those Bush never existed.
But if you want to silence a Republican on the issue, just ask these two questions: 1.) Who took us into a War on false pretenses? 2.) Who cut taxes while at the same dramatically increasing spending, especially on two unfunded wars, to cause the economic collapse.
If they have a response, it usually has to do with being anti-abortion. Because the pro-life advocates will vote for the Republicans, even when nothing else is in the own personal best interests.
The late Joe Baegant wrote a brilliant book "Deer Hunting with Jesus" which looked at many of the reasons why these white, working-class Republicans were so vehemently right-wing.
He was looking at the hard-scrabble towns of Appalachia, the same type which Senator Jim Webb looked at in his brilliant book "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" which also examined the mentality of the poor, white working-class and how they had come to be so pre-dominantly right-wing.
As the late, great George Carlin once said, "They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it."
Blackforestreds said: Where I think Obama has failed is that he under-estimated the strength of the opposition to him and the tenacity. From day one the Republican party has tried every tick to de-rail his presidency and embarrass him politically from blatant obstructionism to dragging out the birth certificate thing to the point where it became a joke.
Obama hasn't helped himself either, he's tried to be a bit above politics and hasn't stooped down and got his hands dirty fighting it out over health reform and budget extensions. As a consequence he lost control of the headlines and has looked too defensive.
The benefit that LBJ had over Kennedy was that he had been a Senator and Congressman for over two decades and knew everyone in Washington and knew enough about them to get them on his side. So powerful was he in Congress in the late 50s that many people were surprised that he agreed to run as Kennedy's VP which to all intents was a demotion.
But who knew that he's up with the top job after Kennedy's assassination...
agree I work for a US company and regularly chat to colleagues about the Presidential race and ask their opinions about the candidates and it is interesting. The general feeling is that Obama has failed and that is mainly because of the issues BlackForestReds described he may be President but effectively he has no power to change things as he is blocked at every turn. The comment I get is that people feel that when a big issue arises he comes out and makes a great speech and then nothing happens, which is probably connected to the last point so he has an image of all talk no do! Also Americans don’t much care for government so the less interference they get the happier they are, their aim is to pay less tax (isn’t anybody’s?) and leave people to run their own lives which is why his health reform proposals were so monumentally unpopular as most Americans saw that as another welfare benefit they have to pay for those who can’t be bothered to work for themselves, unfair but it is true.
That said he gets a credit score for eliminating Bin Laden which was very popular and surprisingly his stance on Iran has met with general approval as one colleague said to me “The last thing we need is another shooting war in The Middle East with more US troops being killed he needs to tell the Israelis to calm down and let diplomacy take its course for the time being, mind you if I was living in Tel Aviv I might have a different opinion”
Romney is not liked at all by most folks I talked to there is a high level of distrust due to the fact that he is a Mormon and that he appears to blow with the wind to garner popularity often being creative with the truth, there is also the opinion that he has no empathy or indeed connection to the poorer section of the society there. Without doubt there is a huge amount of embarrassment related to his disastrous visit to the UK just before the Olympics and the comments he made on safety etc. it was felt to be insulting to the US closest ally and uninformed demonstrating his complete lack of experience and knowledge in the Foreign policy arena, something that a number of US presidents have suffered from, George W Bush being the last notable example of this tendency.
Romney is ultra-parochial with a one eyed view of the world, with little worldly experience the fear is he will be manipulated by The Hawks and walk the US into confrontation with both Iran and North Korea and all that could entail. Somebody mentioned Ronald Reagan as an idiot well I can say that he remains one of the most popular Presidents of modern times, he was an intellectual lightweight for sure but he was surrounded by a team of very smart people who used Reagan the great communicator to get the policies and messages across whether we like it or not his presidency is seen as highly successful. So in conclusion I think Obama will win narrowly because this really is a case of the devil you know.
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
Oh, but you did'nt mind your taxes going toward the farcical wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on achieving what?
An Iraqi government that is now pro-Iranian and Afghanistan as fucked up as it has ever been through its long, tortuous history. Well worth the money and deaths, eh?
So funny how none of this stuff troubled you wingnuts until a black Democrat entered the White House, whilst Bush was in charge fucking the country over you Tea Party morons never uttered a word.
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. " - Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. " - Thomas Jefferson
The arrogance and amnesia of Republicans like the one a few posts above is staggering, but not at all surprising, their man GWB cratered the economy and took them into two utterly pointless and ruinously expensive wars and what is their response? Blame Obama!
Anyone notice how GWB has been airbrushed from history? Say what you like about Bush but at least he was a consistent Conservative, you at least knew where he was coming from.
Agree on fivethirtyeight, it's excellent.
The tea party types dislike GWB almost as much as they do Obama.
I think religeous views in politics can be dangerous - decisions should never be influenced by these.
Sound's like you'd have been at one with Jefferson then Muttley:
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State".
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes".
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law".
So much for the US Government's habit of printing the insidious message, In God We Trust, on anything that doesn't move.
The arrogance and amnesia of Republicans like the one a few posts above is staggering, but not at all surprising, their man GWB cratered the economy and took them into two utterly pointless and ruinously expensive wars and what is their response? Blame Obama!
Sound familiar? Does to me when you listen to Ed Balls all he talks about is the bad job this government is doing with the economy. All this from a man who was the centre of the Labour governments economic policies that took the country to the verge of bankrupcy. It's like an arsonist setting fire to a building and then complaining that the fire brigade can't put it out!
Hey, this is scary - I've just done a back of an envelope calculation and if I'd never ever had an alcoholic drink I would now be as rich as Romney. I assume his religion is silent on old men/vanity/hair dye?
Of course that isn't to say that a president or prime minister shouldn't have a religion - just that it shouldn't play any part in decisions they make. The more religious they are, the harder this is.
I wonder to what extent politicians are influenced to make decisions based on their religious beliefs, or to what extent they just say they are to please the electorate. Blair was very religious, but knew to shut up about it because the British are by and large secular, or at least want religion out of politics, whereas to many Americans religion seems to be the be all and and all.
But in the States, state and church and separated to such an extent that it is very difficult for a President to force religious policies on the public. Take abortion - there have been a number of religious presidents since Roe v Wade in the 1970s but the position remains as decided by the Supreme Court.
Would Bush and Blair have been so quick to take us to war if they were not influenced by religion? I don't have the answer to that, but it is a valid question and it shouldn't be.
Blair changed his religion after he left Downing Street.
But surely that suggests he had a religious belief WHILST in Downing Street or you would say he FOUND religion after leaving Downing Street.
He converted to Catholicism after he left Downing Street and became a left footer like his dear Cherie. I doubt very much he would have done it if he was seeking re-election.
Blair changed his religion after he left Downing Street.
But surely that suggests he had a religious belief WHILST in Downing Street or you would say he FOUND religion after leaving Downing Street.
He converted to Catholicism after he left Downing Street and became a left footer like his dear Cherie. I doubt very much he would have done it if he was seeking re-election.
Blair changed his religion after he left Downing Street.
But surely that suggests he had a religious belief WHILST in Downing Street or you would say he FOUND religion after leaving Downing Street.
He converted to Catholicism after he left Downing Street and became a left footer like his dear Cherie. I doubt very much he would have done it if he was seeking re-election.
Would Bush and Blair have been so quick to take us to war if they were not influenced by religion? I don't have the answer to that, but it is a valid question and it shouldn't be.
I'm an atheist but I think the answer to the question is obviously "yes" and that it's a stupid question. Neither of them gave a feck about the Taliban until 9/11 and Saddam was barely even religious.
Comments
http://reallybigdecision2012.com/
The above is a good link to see the state of play in the US election. Things were slowly moving Romney's direction but in the last day, things look like they are leaning to Obama in the swing states.
Republicans are more likely to vote. Obama and the Democrats have really worked hard to get the Democrat vote gets out and to improve voter registration. Hence, Obama voting today. The Democrat organisation on the ground is much better than the Republicans. You get the feeling as well that the Democrats have more enthusiasm for Obama then Republicans have for Romney.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/obamas-edge-the-ground-game-that-could-put-him-over-the-top/264031/
Calling Romney 'a bullshitter' is not helpful though, even though there is an element of truth in it.
Its looking like Obama's election, bar some last minute, foot in mouth or negative surprise.
I hope Obama wins it.
After the 2010 mid-term elections Obama released his top logistics guy David Plouffe out into 'the field' to start deployment of his campaign offices in the critical swing states like Ohio, Virginia, Florida, etc.
As a result Obama now has 130 field offices in Ohio - compared to just 60 for Romney - and, more importantly, those offices are dedicated solely to getting Obama re-elected whereas the Romney offices are split between the presidential, congressional and local elections going on.
My now sadly deceased friend Hershel worked for Hillary in the 2008 Democratic primaries, he was in Iowa for the first and game-changing primary where the Clintons thought that their 'brand' was going to crush Obama.
Iowa has a 'caucus' system for the primaries where people don't vote but rather gather in a commnunal place and literally form groups, caucuses, behind whichever candidate they are backing, so all Obama supporters go to one corner of the hall, Clinton's to another, etc....
Hershel says they were all confident that Clinton would win a close race until about 6PM on the night of the caucus when they were all hanging around the car park of a school in Des Moines where one of the biggest caucuses in the state would be held.
There were a couple of hundred Clinton people there waiting for the caucus to start when they heard a low mumble in the distance which grew louder and louder and finally came into view, a huge, huge procession of Obama's supporters that they had been putting together at university campuses etc, all done very quietly and with minimum publicity.
Hershel told me that as soon as Harold Ickes, one of Clinton's top lieutenants, saw the huge crowd (which was on a planned march to the caucus site) coming down the road he turned to Hershel and said, "Hershel, we're fucked!"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/18/mitt-romney-gallup-poll_n_1979318.html
The election news has started to take a back seat to the "Hurricane Sandy" news, an "unprecedented storm" due to hit the East coast this weekend.
But they will say that it is Obama's fault that things haven't been fixed fast enough, and what we need to do is put the people that created the mess in the first place back in charge.
Romney supporters accuse Obama supporters are always blaming Bush, and do act as those Bush never existed.
But if you want to silence a Republican on the issue, just ask these two questions:
1.) Who took us into a War on false pretenses?
2.) Who cut taxes while at the same dramatically increasing spending, especially on two unfunded wars, to cause the economic collapse.
If they have a response, it usually has to do with being anti-abortion. Because the pro-life advocates will vote for the Republicans, even when nothing else is in the own personal best interests.
Guns, Gays and God, right?
The late Joe Baegant wrote a brilliant book "Deer Hunting with Jesus" which looked at many of the reasons why these white, working-class Republicans were so vehemently right-wing.
He was looking at the hard-scrabble towns of Appalachia, the same type which Senator Jim Webb looked at in his brilliant book "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" which also examined the mentality of the poor, white working-class and how they had come to be so pre-dominantly right-wing.
As the late, great George Carlin once said, "They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it."
Obama hasn't helped himself either, he's tried to be a bit above politics and hasn't stooped down and got his hands dirty fighting it out over health reform and budget extensions. As a consequence he lost control of the headlines and has looked too defensive.
The benefit that LBJ had over Kennedy was that he had been a Senator and Congressman for over two decades and knew everyone in Washington and knew enough about them to get them on his side. So powerful was he in Congress in the late 50s that many people were surprised that he agreed to run as Kennedy's VP which to all intents was a demotion.
But who knew that he's up with the top job after Kennedy's assassination...
agree I work for a US company and regularly chat to colleagues about the Presidential race and ask their opinions about the candidates and it is interesting. The general feeling is that Obama has failed and that is mainly because of the issues BlackForestReds described he may be President but effectively he has no power to change things as he is blocked at every turn. The comment I get is that people feel that when a big issue arises he comes out and makes a great speech and then nothing happens, which is probably connected to the last point so he has an image of all talk no do! Also Americans don’t much care for government so the less interference they get the happier they are, their aim is to pay less tax (isn’t anybody’s?) and leave people to run their own lives which is why his health reform proposals were so monumentally unpopular as most Americans saw that as another welfare benefit they have to pay for those who can’t be bothered to work for themselves, unfair but it is true.
That said he gets a credit score for eliminating Bin Laden which was very popular and surprisingly his stance on Iran has met with general approval as one colleague said to me “The last thing we need is another shooting war in The Middle East with more US troops being killed he needs to tell the Israelis to calm down and let diplomacy take its course for the time being, mind you if I was living in Tel Aviv I might have a different opinion”
Romney is not liked at all by most folks I talked to there is a high level of distrust due to the fact that he is a Mormon and that he appears to blow with the wind to garner popularity often being creative with the truth, there is also the opinion that he has no empathy or indeed connection to the poorer section of the society there. Without doubt there is a huge amount of embarrassment related to his disastrous visit to the UK just before the Olympics and the comments he made on safety etc. it was felt to be insulting to the US closest ally and uninformed demonstrating his complete lack of experience and knowledge in the Foreign policy arena, something that a number of US presidents have suffered from, George W Bush being the last notable example of this tendency.
Romney is ultra-parochial with a one eyed view of the world, with little worldly experience the fear is he will be manipulated by The Hawks and walk the US into confrontation with both Iran and North Korea and all that could entail. Somebody mentioned Ronald Reagan as an idiot well I can say that he remains one of the most popular Presidents of modern times, he was an intellectual lightweight for sure but he was surrounded by a team of very smart people who used Reagan the great communicator to get the policies and messages across whether we like it or not his presidency is seen as highly successful. So in conclusion I think Obama will win narrowly because this really is a case of the devil you know.
An Iraqi government that is now pro-Iranian and Afghanistan as fucked up as it has ever been through its long, tortuous history. Well worth the money and deaths, eh?
So funny how none of this stuff troubled you wingnuts until a black Democrat entered the White House, whilst Bush was in charge fucking the country over you Tea Party morons never uttered a word.
Bloody colonials.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. " - Thomas Jefferson
The tea party types dislike GWB almost as much as they do Obama.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State".
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes".
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law".
So much for the US Government's habit of printing the insidious message, In God We Trust, on anything that doesn't move.
Sound familiar? Does to me when you listen to Ed Balls all he talks about is the bad job this government is doing with the economy. All this from a man who was the centre of the Labour governments economic policies that took the country to the verge of bankrupcy. It's like an arsonist setting fire to a building and then complaining that the fire brigade can't put it out!
I assume his religion is silent on old men/vanity/hair dye?
Don't you watch Downton? :-)