On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
Ohio going toward Obama now, apparently Florida as well. Barring any ridiculous slip-ups by Obama or things that could be considered acts of God, I think the election is pretty much at a close.
Yes, you can call me mean things for saying the election is over like other so-called qualified pundits, but this week looks like the one where Romney's campaign went from merely trailing to falling behind without any real prospect of a comeback.
On September 27 2012 01:07 JinDesu wrote: Those are some big leads in Ohio and Florida. In PA, it's also a big lead, but the voter ID ruling is still up in the air..
The voter ID ruling has already passed in 23 states, I will have to re-check my sources, but I am pretty sure I read about that yesterday.
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
Actual statement: If you own a business, you didn't build that Actual meaning: If you own a business, you didn't build the roads, bridges, etc.. Actual statement: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about those people. Actual meaning: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about getting those peoples votes
Neither statement needs defending.
Since you edited your post, I'll edit mine:
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
This is an actual fact, 47% of people actually pay no income tax.
True or false? Much of Romney's statement relies on assumptions about one demographic: The 47 percent of Americans who he says "pay no income tax." So is it true that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income tax? Essentially, yes, according to the the Tax Policy Center, which provides data showing that in 2011, 46.4 percent of American households paid no federal income tax. The same data shows, however, that nearly two-thirds of households that paid no income tax did pay payroll taxes. And most people also pay some combination of state, local, sales, gas and property taxes.
On September 27 2012 01:07 JinDesu wrote: Those are some big leads in Ohio and Florida. In PA, it's also a big lead, but the voter ID ruling is still up in the air..
The voter ID ruling has already passed in 23 states, I will have to re-check my sources, but I am pretty sure I read about that yesterday.
At this time, the State Supreme Court has upheld the Voter ID law, but gave a caveat: The state judge must determine, in two weeks, if the state has done enough to provide state IDs to residents that lack those IDs. If there was not enough done, the State Supreme Court will bar that law from taking effect.
I believe there are testimonies going on at this time to give evidence for/against voter disenfranchisement. So until the two weeks are up, the issue is still up in the air.
Ohio going toward Obama now, apparently Florida as well. Barring any ridiculous slip-ups by Obama or things that could be considered acts of God, I think the election is pretty much at a close.
Yes, you can call me mean things for saying the election is over like other so-called qualified pundits, but this week looks like the one where Romney's campaign went from merely trailing to falling behind without any real prospect of a comeback.
Taking a few Obama-positive polls as the article does is a little bit misleading. 8% or 10% +-3% seems a bit to the high end. Another poll at the same time gave Obama a lead of 1% +-4.3%! Since the MoEs do not cross there is something going on! A better view is through a bigger selection of polls. It is actually correct that there seems to be an advantage for Obama, but 8 and 10% are far more than what seems to be the concensus: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/oh/ohio_romney_vs_obama-1860.html The Florida-poll of 9% advantage is a clear outlier. 4 other polls in the same period are showing 3 to a 5 point lead for Obama... Intentional or not, it seems like the journalist has chosen the most biased numbers to push the topic. In reality the numbers seem to support the headline, but the numbers used in the article are not representative for how close it actually seems to be,
On September 27 2012 01:07 JinDesu wrote: Those are some big leads in Ohio and Florida. In PA, it's also a big lead, but the voter ID ruling is still up in the air..
The voter ID ruling has already passed in 23 states, I will have to re-check my sources, but I am pretty sure I read about that yesterday.
At this time, the State Supreme Court has upheld the Voter ID law, but gave a caveat: The state judge must determine, in two weeks, if the state has done enough to provide state IDs to residents that lack those IDs. If there was not enough done, the State Supreme Court will bar that law from taking effect.
I believe there are testimonies going on at this time to give evidence for/against voter disenfranchisement. So until the two weeks are up, the issue is still up in the air.
Ok yeah, just read another article confirming the same thing, as well as the one you gave. Guess we will have to wait to Oct. 2 to find out.
When looking at poll averages and electoral predictors I use this webpage.
It uses everything from Fox News and Rasmussen polls to PPP. To be honest, it does look quite troubling for Romney at this point, the last month has not treated him well in Florida, Ohio, etc. (the places that matter).
On September 27 2012 01:11 paralleluniverse wrote:
On September 27 2012 01:01 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
Actual statement: If you own a business, you didn't build that
No, actual statement: "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that."
On September 27 2012 01:16 kmillz wrote: Actual meaning: If you own a business, you didn't build the roads, bridges, etc..
Yes.
On September 27 2012 01:16 kmillz wrote: Actual statement: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about those people. Actual meaning: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about getting those peoples votes
That's not the only thing he said. Let me refresh your memory:
“Well, there are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right? There are 47% who are with him. Who are dependent upon government, who believe that– that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it. [...] I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for for their lives.
This is not something that is taken out of context. This is Romney saying that 47% of Americans don't have any personal responsibility and don't care for their lives, and that it's the 47% who vote for Obama. If you don't see anything wrong with that, you're hopeless.
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
It is an obvious and pointless statement. We all pay the government to build those roads and bridges so we should all be allowed to use them freely.
On September 27 2012 01:11 paralleluniverse wrote:
On September 27 2012 01:01 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
It is an obvious and pointless statement. We all pay the government to build those roads and bridges so we should all be allowed to use them freely.
The world actually existed before you started paying taxes, you know.
Just for fun, do the Romney statement next, JonnyBNoHo. I want to see if you're as delusional as kmillz or not.
On September 27 2012 01:11 paralleluniverse wrote:
On September 27 2012 01:01 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On September 26 2012 23:33 Mazer wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:55 kmillz wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:36 ticklishmusic wrote:
On September 26 2012 11:19 kmillz wrote: I think what you (Defacer) said has some merit, but it seems Karl Rove isn't quite ready to give up on Romney:
Karl Rove
This Too Shall Pass, but What Follows Is Crucial Romney has had a bad week, but he can recover—if he tells voters more clearly what he would do as president.
It's over. Gov. Mitt Romney's statements last week about the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, followed by the release this week of a video of Mr. Romney at a May fundraiser, have brought the 2012 election to an early end.
At least that is what you'd take away from some pundits. But this is a classic example of the commentariat investing moments with more meaning than they deserve.
Mr. Romney's comments about Americans who don't pay taxes were, as he admitted during a Monday press conference, "inelegant." But every campaign has its awkward moments that the media magnify. Mr. Obama had his after saying on July 13, "You didn't build that." For a while thereafter, Team Obama could do little right. Then it passed.
This moment, too, will pass for Mr. Romney. More important, the past week's events have not significantly altered the contours of the race. A month ago, Gallup had Mr. Obama at 45% and Mr. Romney at 47%. On Wednesday, Gallup reported 47% for Obama, 46% for Romney. A month ago Rasmussen said it was 45% for Mr. Obama, 43% for Mr. Romney. In its Wednesday poll, Rasmussen reported 46% for Obama, 47% for Romney.
Presidential races can look one way now but much differently on Election Day. In mid-September 1980, President Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan 44% to 40% in the Gallup poll. By late October, Reagan had slumped to 39% in Gallup, while Mr. Carter had risen to 47%. Reagan won by nine points.
As for the here-and-now, one key number to watch is Mr. Obama's vote share. In the past month, there have been 83 national polls and daily tracking surveys. Mr. Obama reached 50% in just nine and his average was 47%. That is bad news for an incumbent when attitudes about the No. 1 issue—the economy—are decidedly sour.
This isn't to suggest the Romney campaign doesn't have big challenges. But both camps do.
In the two weeks before the presidential debates begin, Mr. Romney must define more clearly what he would do as president. In spelling out his five-point plan for the middle class, he'll have to deepen awareness of how each element would help families in concrete, practical ways, and offer optimism for renewed prosperity.
Mr. Romney and his team (and supporters) must also steel themselves for more brutal attacks. The Florida fundraising video will not likely be the last surprise. The Romney campaign has largely refused to respond to attacks as a waste of time and resources. But in politics, sometimes the counter punch is stronger than the punch.
There's little tolerance among Republican donors, activists and talking heads for more statements by Mr. Romney that the media can depict as gaffes. But concerns about avoiding missteps must not cause Mr. Romney to favor cautious and bland. To win, he'll need to be bold and forceful as he offers a compelling agenda of conservative reform.
Mr. Obama's challenges may be more daunting. His strategy hasn't worked. Team Obama planned to use its big financial edge to bury Mr. Romney under negative ads over the summer. From April 15 to Labor Day, they spent an estimated $215 million on TV. But this was more than offset by conservative groups (principally American Crossroads, which I helped found). While Mr. Obama drained his coffers his own negatives climbed, and Mr. Romney partially repaired his image with voters.
Mr. Obama needs a different strategy, but his team seems stubbornly focused merely on disqualifying Mitt Romney by whatever argument or means necessary. Yet as Rahm Emanuel has repeated for most of the year, Mr. Obama must, as he put it on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 2, "lay out an agenda and a clear vision of the next four years" or he'll lose.
The blunt fact is that Mr. Obama's economic policies are still not working. And in a tacit declaration that they won't, the Federal Reserve has announced a third round of quantitative easing. Team Obama realizes this is a serious indictment of its handling of the economy, so it is intensifying attacks on Mr. Romney as an economic royalist.
The campaign's next likely inflection point will be the debates, which start Oct. 3. Both candidates will be under intense pressure. Mr. Romney, a skilled debater, must reassure voters he's up to the job of being president. Fluid and agile, Mr. Obama will be expected to command each encounter. If he doesn't, polls may slowly shift against him.
I'm sorry, I can't take any article that cites "You didn't build that" as a gaffe seriously. It's pretty clearly a quotation out of context.
It only cited the "You didn't build that" gaffe to say that, while Obama supporters may deny it, it was a small blow to Obama, similarly to how the "47%" gaffe is a small blow to Romney, both were not very tactful, and that Romney's 47% gaffe will pass over time (which is the whole point of the article) and not be game-ending, just as Obama's gaffe did not totally screw him over.
Calling the two incidents 'gaffes' as though they were somehow equivalent is complete bullshit. Anyone with a brain understood exactly what both people were talking about when they heard the full clips. Obama got taken out of context (which was then abused to the max for gain). Mitt showed his true colours and took a dump on half of Americans (it did not need to be spun in any way).
If the two 'gaffes' ultimately result in similar hits in the polls then it really is an indicator of how terrible American politics are.
I don't understand why people try to defend Romney on this one. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minnimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
It's funny, I remember Bush saying to a group of billionaire "people call you the elite, I call you my base". What is very surprising is that Republicans get more than 1 or 2% votes. That's what weight the interests they represent in the demographic.
I don't understand why people trying to defend Obama on his "you didn't build that" quote. He said what he really thought. You can agree with him, or you can find it plain disgusting, but trying to minimize it as a "gaffe" doesn't make sense.
See how easy that was?
No, I don't think either person meant what they said. It is one-sided distortion of comments taken out of context in BOTH cases. You are completely ignorant if you actually don't realize that Romney was actually saying he doesn't care about trying to convince those people to vote for him. You hear what you want to hear, and what you want to hear is that Romney simply doesn't care about those people AT ALL.
This has already been hashed out and both sides in these forums have agreed that there is a spin on both comments.
What Obama said doesn't need defending. It's a self-evident truth.
If you own a business you didn't build the roads and bridges. Do you disagree with this obvious statement?
Actual statement: If you own a business, you didn't build that Actual meaning: If you own a business, you didn't build the roads, bridges, etc.. Actual statement: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about those people. Actual meaning: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. My job is not to worry about getting those peoples votes
What Romney said was that 47% of people feel entitled to government handouts, and that he can't convince them to take personal responsibility. The Obama quote was taken out of context and even deceptively edited in the Republican convention to change it's meaning. Ironically, it was even plastered on the walls of the convention center, built with mostly government money. The Romney quote wasn't taken out of context, the context is in the video.
This is an actual fact, 47% of people actually pay no income tax.
True or false? Much of Romney's statement relies on assumptions about one demographic: The 47 percent of Americans who he says "pay no income tax." So is it true that 47 percent of Americans don't pay income tax? Essentially, yes, according to the the Tax Policy Center, which provides data showing that in 2011, 46.4 percent of American households paid no federal income tax. The same data shows, however, that nearly two-thirds of households that paid no income tax did pay payroll taxes. And most people also pay some combination of state, local, sales, gas and property taxes.
You're just lying to yourself over this one and it's kinda disgusting.
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
He summed up exactly what he was talking about if it wasn't clear enough.
Given the polls in the article are rather Democrat-favored, it stands that Obama's consistent narrow lead seems to be widening in a way that doesn't suggest it will narrow again except for some unforeseen circumstances.
On September 27 2012 02:17 xDaunt wrote: Before y'all start popping champagne corks, you may want to have a closer look at the samples of these new polls.
The same results are happening in polls that don't weight by party ID.
Party ID is kinda a weird variable. Its trends don't always line up with actual party registration numbers. Many people call themselves "independent" even though they vote for the same party every time, or 90% of the time. We know that only about 6% of the electorate is in play this time around; everyone else made up their minds long ago.
In 2010, which was a route, equal numbers of voters in the exit polls self-identified as Democrats and Republicans. Remember, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to call themselves "Independent" (the opposite trend holds for partisans calling themselves "moderate").
The only time I think party ID is worth paying attention to is if they include leaners in with the self-labeled partisans. In that case, each party should have between 45-48% of likely voters with only a small number of true independents.
EPT
