2012 Presidential

[JDN]

McCain was a war hero.

What awards did Obama win? Order of the golden coke spoon? The Jermiah Wright hate sermon good attendance award?

Let's compare Alaska under Palin to your crashing 3rd world cesspool of a state. Underwater on your McMansion yet?

"McCain was a war hero".  

With all due respect, so what?  Does that make him qualified or intelligent enough to be President?  
I've never questioned his sincerity and I acknowledged that I respected him as a person.

But I notice you are off the "intelligent" comparison.    

It's easy to criticize Obama.  But his raw intelligence is not the issue.  I concede, you have lots of other areas to focus though.

And Palin did what?  Please don't tell me she wins the Republican nomination.  I'll be forced to vote for
Obama again.  

As for CA, that has what to do with the intelligence level of anyone being discussed?

However, as a side note, even in a sinking mess, cream still floats.  Certain areas, affluent areas, have noticed minimal depreciation.
Other areas in Southern California are a ghost land.  Average to below average socioeconomic areas have been hard hit by the
housing collapse.  But I'm fine, thank you for asking.  

[DougMacG]

A war hero has no meaning (but eating in real Chinese restaurants with the proper utensils is foreign policy experience) - with only that information I believe I could pick the poster out of lineup. 

Neither side has any recent track record of moving rocket scientists to the top of the ticket - Dole-Bush-McCain, the only things worse were Gore, Kerry and even the scholar Obama -they have all tried to hide their lousy records.  There is hardly grounds for partisan bragging in either direction.  You have to go back to Clinton being a Rhodes Scholar and still he still learned more in one day about economics by losing congress than he did in all of college and DLC thinktankland.

I'm not endorsing Palin, nor is she running(?), but (JDN) to say you would choose Obama over Palin while endorsing the  economic plan of Huntsman, the polar opposite of Obama and likely to the right of Palin, is to me to have no interest in  policies or governing philosophy.  I suspect a hate crime in progress.

Palin is an intuitive conservative, not a scholar or academic.  She was competent in her executive position before Governor and highly rated and approved before the ups and owns of national stardom.We don't any of us know how good a President she would be but her insights and directions on policies have been far more informed than the incumbent IMO.  I don't want her to run because she didn't finish the job that gives her the credibility to be considered. (Neither did Obama BTW)  She offers at least some upside risk of being a good President and he does not.

To trivialize (Perry) the leadership of a state the economic size of (G8) Russia for the longest duration of anyone in history and have a strong record of performance ahead of the other 49 states doing that is to (further) trivialize this discussion.  If chief executive of one the largest states for a long steady duration and having an excellent track record isn't a pretty good qualification... what is? 

Perry has weaknesses, I have posted 12 of them.  Why trivialize his strengths? If doing less with government is what improved private sector economic results, maybe there is something there you are missing... If producing oil and natural gas and not having big government choke that off was economically helpful, again, maybe you are missing something with his record.

Wouldn't we have a better chance at success for this country in the White House with a random name out of the phone book than with the one person proven to stubbornly and dogmatically lead us in the wrong direction no matter the consequences?

On Tuesday Romney will weigh in with his economic/jobs plan.  On Thursday we will see Obama's. We have seen Pawlenty, Huntsman and Cain.  I have posted mine for the most part.   I would love to hear what others here, moderates, especially moderate Dems, favor for an economic plan going forward at this point in American history.  Is it more borrow and spend?  Have government go even further picking winners and losers?

[Crafty_Dog]

As is well documented here, I had and have a rather low opinion of McCain.   That said, concerning "War Hero" IMHO it is something that shows character and character is more important than IQ.

For example, here are some indications of something quite distinctive about Baraq's character:


To the King of Saudi Arabia:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd425zfw5Ew&feature=related
 
To the Emperor of Japan with comparisons of how leaders of other countries handle introduction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6fL7Y4BZA&feature=player_embedded

To Chinese leader http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2NtkYOeWow&NR=1  and a second occasion with the Chinese Leader http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2010/04/hu-too-obama-bows-to-chinese-leader-hu-jintao-again/
 
To the Mayor of Tampa FL:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2NtkYOeWow&NR=1 this one contains clear shot as a still photo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXNMLf9yAS0&feature=related   and one in context http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKeE4dFqmiE leaving now doubt of the bow
 

[JDN]

While I agree character is most important, being a "war hero" does not qualify you for being President or anything else.  You can be a sargent, risk your life, charge the hill and win the Medal of Honor.  While of course I respect you, it doesn't mean you are qualified to be president of a small business, much less President of the United States. 

Regarding character, while I'm sure you can find numerous faults with Obama, what in the world matters IF he bows a little to the Saudi
King, the Chinese Leader, the King of Saudi Arabia or even the Mayor of Tampa?  He's President, not Pope or King.  If he thinks it makes his host/guest feel more comfortable, well, why not.  He's not being subservient, nor agreeing to obey them, he's merely being polite.  If anything, being President, he is showing character by putting the other party are ease. 

If you do business in Asia you see it all the time.  It's like shaking hands here.  Or shouldn't the President shake hands with anyone either? 

[G M]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6fL7Y4BZA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U6fL7Y4BZA&feature=player_embedded



You obviously don't know much about doing business in asia, JDN.

[JDN]

GM; no offense, but I have forgotten more than you will ever know about doing business in Asia (China, Korea, and Japan).  

[G M]

Really? If you did, you'd know that bowing is something you as a non-asian don't do. Mainland China got out of the bowing business quite a while ago, though I'm sure they take great pleasure watching Obama debase himself and America with his pathetic groveling.

I guess you managed to forget all the important things.

[JDN]

Actually GM non Asians if they have any manners bow.  It's a sign of respect and courtesy.  But most Americans don't know how to bow.  It's actually a learned skill; different with the person's position and the relationship and the issue at hand.  Americans seem to prefer to hug or shake hands.  It's pretty funny watching the American trying to hug the Asian, while the Asian squirms and tries to escape.

Now a days you see a silly combination of handshake and bow.  I agree, bowing is not as popular in Mainland China (it still is in Taiwan), however even there among older affluent and educated people, a bow is always appreciated.  It shows respect.  American's want the deal, so do Asians, but Asians place on importance on respect as well.  America is transactional, Asia is based upon relationships.  We used to do business that way, remember when the banker knew his customer? but those days are long gone.

And in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, well bowing is still quite prevalent in business and social situations among adults.

Don't worry GM, I still remember the "important" things.....       Like courtesy and respect.....

I think we should drop the subject; it doesn't have anything to do with 2012 Presidential. 

[G M]

"I agree, bowing is not as popular in Mainland China"

It's not a matter of not being popular, it's just not done by the Mainland Chinese anymore than it's done by midwestern Americans. Being polite and showing respect is fine, but you don't bow. If you are bowing in Japan, not being Japanese, you are certainly fcuking it up, but the Japanese are too polite to correct your big-nosed barabarian self, though I'm sure it's a source of some amusement for them.

[JDN]

Hmmm I don't agree.  Those in WI and MN don't bow, most don't even know how, and older people and educated people in China may or may not (it's still very popular in Taiwan, Korea and Japan), but they will still respect you and appreciate it if you do.  Just do it casually and comfortably.  Within reason; it's like trying to speak their language.  If you are truly terrible, and can't pronounce anything, don't do it.  Better to avoid than make a fool of yourself.  But if you can pronounce it reasonably well, a few words, a greeting perhaps, again shows warmth and respect.  Then quickly revert back to your interpreter.     The same is true of bowing.  No one expects a perfect bow.  But don't make a fool of yourself either.  Amusing for them is a hug.  Save the hugs for family and I don't even mean in-laws.  Frankly, once you get used to it, bowing isn't so bad.  All this touchy-feely stuff in public and with strangers is overrated. 

[G M]

JDN,

I'd like you to take your ideas into a basketball court in Compton. You can walk onto the court and say "Wassup mah brothas" and try to get some daps.


Nah, keep your multicultural fumbling confined to the Japanese. It's safer.

[Crafty_Dog]

I think we are getting on a tangent here gentlemen.  Let's return to the merits please.   My point with the multiple bowing clips is that they seem to reveal something about Obama himself. JDN, For the sake of argument, lets put aside the bows to the Chinese leader, the emperor of Japan, and the King of Saudi Arabia-- why on earth would he bow to the mayor of Tampa?!? As one of the clips clearly shows, he greeted several people normally, then, when he got to the Asian woman, he bowed.  Does this not seem weird too you?

[JDN]

An Asian woman?  No that doesn't seem weird to me.  An AMERICAN Asian woman?  The lowly Mayor of Tampa?  That's weird.  

That said, and REALLY stretching the point, if she is from and/or born in Taiwan, or Japan, or Korea, maybe.....

But the President, bowing to a nobody (no offense to her) American Mayor?  In America?  I get your point....
It's kinda (IS)  "Weird"...  

By the rules, she should be bowing first (she's not) and a lot deeper IF there is going to be any bow at all.
Just very Weird.....

That all said, I don't think it shows lack of character.  That was your point that I disagreed with; now weird,
maybe we can agree!   

[G M]

The mayor of Tampa at that time was Pam Iorio, a daughter of an Italian immigrant father. That makes sense, we all know how the Italians are big on ceremonial bowing.

Buraq must have been stoned out of his gourd in some undergrad cultural anthopology 101 course and developed this delusional behavior thinking somehow it demonstrated his cultural sensitivity.  

[G M]

O-BOW-ma




It's an Italian courtesy.

[G M]

Oh yeah, she could easily be confused as being asian. He was just tired from doing coke all night traveling and though she was a communist dictator or some other enemy of America he needed to use his "gift" on.

[JDN]

I think we are getting on a tangent here gentlemen.  Let's return to the merits please. 

[Crafty_Dog]

"Buraq must have been stoned out of his gourd in some undergrad cultural anthopology 101 course and developed this delusional behavior thinking somehow it demonstrated his cultural sensitivity."

Inuitively to me this seems pretty close to the mark.

"The mayor of Tampa at that time was Pam Iorio, a daughter of an Italian immigrant father. That makes sense, we all know how the Italians are big on ceremonial bowing."

She looks Asian in the picture with Obowma, but not in the headshot provided by GM.

All in all, WEIRD-- and , , , out of character for what we want in a President of the United States of America. 

[prentice crawford]

 
  Rick Perry's "Fed Up!" may actually win him some votes
Unlike the bulk of campaign books, Rick Perry's "Fed Up!" has something to say – and is winning some praise in the press.

 
States, Perry thinks, are simply more capable at solving problems, than the federal government. “Most problems get better solutions when they’re solved at the local level,” he writes in "Fed Up!".


 By Husna Haq / August 16, 2011

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you may be able to judge a campaign by its book.

Political books, those god-awful, ghostwritten, self-aggrandizing publicity contraptions masquerading as books are usually, well, awful. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein calls them "autohagiography," since most politicians are about as close to being saintly as Thaddeus McCotter is to winning the GOP nomination.

 “These books are autohagiography,” writes Mr. Klein. “[T]hey have to appeal to everyone, exalt the author (or supposed author), and offend no one. That’s basically impossible. So they throw the need to be appealing overboard and instead settle for boring.”

Take former Minnesota governor (and now former GOP presidential candidate) Tim Pawlenty’s recent book, “Courage to Stand,” as Klein suggests. In the following passage, Pawlenty describes meeting Ronald Reagan (well, sort of):

10 best classic political novels

“I didn’t have a chance to interact with him, but it was meaningful to me just to be in his presence.... What struck me most as President Reagan spoke to that crowd was his smile. He seemed genuinely happy and joyful and pleasant.”

Genuinely dull. Boring. Uninspired. A flop. Kind of, sadly, like Pawlenty’s campaign, which crashed this weekend before it even took off.

“Pawlenty’s attacks are fairly limited,” Politifact writes about T-Paw’s tome. “[H]is book is hardly the full-throated attack on a political opponent like Romney’s 'No Apology' was. It’s not a law professor-ish primer on policy positions, either, like Barack Obama’s 'The Audacity of Hope.' And it doesn’t have the campaign trail scoops and score-settling digs of Sarah Palin’s 'Going Rogue.' ”

He’s no Romney. Certainly not Obama. Not even Palin. Sounds like Pawlenty.

“I tried to read former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty’s ‘Courage to Stand,’ book,” writes Klein, “which was perhaps the worst book I ever read in my life.”

Pawlenty became the first GOP hopeful to bow out when he exited the race this past weekend. If we had read his book, we might have seen it coming.

Meanwhile, a new cowboy – er, candidate – has entered the ring, toting his own political book. Incredibly, according to some reviews, it’s not half-bad, either.

As soon as Texas governor Rick Perry entered the race this Saturday, his book moved into the top 400 on Amazon.com and is out of stock until Friday.

“ 'Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington,' ” is Perry’s 240-page manifesto on turning America around, Perry-style. (Ironically, the book’s forward is written by Newt Gingrich, now Perry’s rival in the GOP race. Klein suggests, Perry’s book is essentially about the Tenth Amendment, the one that states “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

And unlike Pawlenty, Perry takes a stand. A pretty radical, one in fact.

He thinks Congress and the federal government should butt out of regulating the environment. And regulating guns. And protecting civil rights. And Medicare and Medicaid. And minimum wage laws. And labor laws. And education.

States, Perry thinks, are simply more capable at solving problems, than the federal government. “Most problems get better solutions when they’re solved at the local level,” he writes.

To his credit, Perry stands by his bold proposal.

In a November 2010 interview with NPR, he offers a state-led solution to the healthcare crisis.

Rather than forcing people to buy health insurance from a "Washington-devised program," he said on the show, states should be allowed to compete to devise the best programs.

"You let California, New Mexico, New York, Texas and Florida compete against one another, and they'll be laboratories of innovation," Perry said in the interview. "They will come up with the best way to deliver health care."

And in a fall 2010 interview with Newsweek, he didn’t budge when Newsweek’s Andrew Romano pressed him to explain how programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security would work without federal government involvement.

“I think the states are the ones who should be making the decision on whether or not they want to be spending their dollars on those types of programs – not having it made in Washington, D.C.” Perry said. “I would suggest a legitimate conversation about [letting] the states keep their money and implement the programs.” He continued, “But I didn’t write the book and say here are all the solutions. I think the first step in finding the solutions is admitting we have a problem – and admitting that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.”

Brash? Maybe. But it’s big, bold, and, to borrow a word that was once associated with our current commander-in-chief, audacious.

Let’s see if Perry can say as much of his campaign.

Husna Haq is a Monitor contributor.

             P.C.

[prentice crawford]

  
  By STEVE PEOPLES - Associated Press |
Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, speaks to guests at a house …
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — He may have been 2,000 miles from the border, but Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry's immigration record in Texas quickly became the focus in New Hampshire Saturday afternoon.

Speaking to hundreds of Granite State voters at a private reception, the Texas governor was asked whether he supported a fence along the Mexican border.

"No, I don't support a fence on the border," he said, while referring to the long border in Texas alone. "The fact is, it's 1,200 miles from Brownsville to El Paso. Two things: How long you think it would take to build that? And then if you build a 30-foot wall from El Paso to Brownsville, the 35-foot ladder business gets real good."

Instead, Perry said he supported "strategic fencing" and National Guard troops to prevent illegal immigration and violence from Mexican drug cartels.

The answer produced an angry shout from at least one audience member. And it exposed an ongoing rift with some conservative voters over Perry's immigration record.

Tea party activists in Texas have been particularly upset by his steady opposition to the fence. He also signed a law giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition for Texas universities. And Texas tea party groups sent Perry an open letter this year expressing disappointment over his failure to get a bill passed that would have outlawed "sanctuary cities," municipalities that protect illegal immigrants.

Perry has surged to the lead in national polls since joining the presidential race just three weeks ago. But New Hampshire Republicans are just getting to know him.

"I think there are a lot of questions out there still," said tea party activist Jerry DeLemus, chairman of the Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC. "We don't know him very well."

Even in New Hampshire, he said illegal immigration is a key issue with his members and raised concerns about Perry's immigration policies. DeLemus said a border fence should be part of any policy.

"Any deterrent is a good deterrent," he said after Perry's second private reception in Chichester.

Saturday's visit marks the third time Perry visited the first-in-the-nation primary state since joining the race.

Despite having deep Southern roots and conservative social positions, the Texas native has indicated he will compete aggressively in New Hampshire, where both Republicans and independents vote in the primary election.

 [The above is why I prefer Bachmann over Perry. I don't want another Bush, that thinks a weak border and 20 million illegal aliens running around is A' O.K.]
                                 P.C.

[prentice crawford]

 by Michele Bachmann

A More Secure Nation:
  Beyond the basic task of defending our borders and our homeland, it doesn’t take a Nobel Peace Prize to recognize that preserving our security comes down to one simple maxim: stand up for our friends … stand up to our foes … and know the difference.

Understanding those tenets is especially important at a time of unprecedented flux and instability in the Middle East and the rise of powerful competitors including China and Russia.

Instead, we have a President who devalues the special relationship with our most trusted ally, Britain, even as he bows to kings, bends to dictators, bumbles with reset buttons, and babies radical Islamists. We have a President who tells our true friend, Israel, that it must surrender its right to defensible borders to appease forces that have never recognized that nation’s right to exist.

We have a President who stumbles into Libya, without a clear mission or exit strategy, to protect its population, but can’t or won’t devise a strategy to secure our borders. We have a President who has taken his eye off the ball when it comes to the true threat in the Middle East: a potentially nuclear-armed Iran.

We have a President who – in unprecedented fashion – is ravaging our military strength and structure at a time of war, while elevating political correctness over readiness in its ranks. And we have a President who is declaring a premature end to the war on terror against the advice of his own generals.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will do whatever it takes to fulfill the federal government’s foremost responsibility under the Constitution: to keep you safe in an increasingly dangerous world. I will uphold America’s values by standing shoulder-to shoulder with those who share those values and our interests and standing tall against those who don’t. I will devote the resources necessary to maintain our fighting forces as second-to-none, while being judicious in the use of our power. I will ensure our borders are fully secured. And I will not rest until the war on terror is won.
      
Michele Bachmann for President:

 Michele Bachmann is running for president to bring a new voice to the White House -­ a voice of constitutional conservatism, limited government, and a safe and secure America.

Elected in 2006, Michele is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota. From the beginning, she has demonstrated bold reform, pushing to fix Washington's broken ways.

Michele is a leading advocate for tax reform, a staunch opponent of wasteful government spending, and a strong proponent of adherence to the Constitution, as intended by the Founding Fathers. She believes government has grown exponentially, with Obamacare being the most recent example of its uninhibited growth. Michele wants government to make the kind of serious spending decisions that many families and small businesses have been forced to make. She is a champion of free markets and she believes in the vitality of the family as the first unit of government. She is also a defender of the unborn and staunchly stands for religious liberties.

Prior to serving in the U.S. Congress, Michele was elected to the Minnesota State Senate in 2000 where she championed the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. Before that, she spent five years as a federal tax litigation attorney, working on hundreds of civil and criminal cases. That experience solidified her strong support for efforts to simplify the Tax Code and reduce tax burdens on family and small business budgets. Michele also led the charge on education issues in Minnesota calling for the abolishment of Goals 2000 and the Profiles of Learning in its school. She recognized the need for quality schools and subsequently started a charter school for at-­‐risk kids in Minnesota.

Michele sits on the Financial Services Committee (FSC) and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. This experience has given her keen insight into the housing crisis and credit crunch, leading Michele to be a staunch opponent of the taxpayer-­‐funded bailout of Wall Street and the Dodd-­‐Frank legislation. Serving on the Intelligence Committee, she has consistently advocated peace through strength to ensure America's national security. She has proudly taken a vow to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

In July 2010, Michele hosted the first Tea Party Caucus meeting. She is seen as a champion of Tea Party values including the call for lower taxes, renewed focus on the Constitution and the need to shrink the size of government.

Michele is a graduate of Anoka High School and Winona State University. She received her J.D. at the O.W. Coburn School of Law at Oral Roberts University and an L.L.M. in Tax Law at the College of William and Mary. She has been married to Marcus for more than thirty years and they live in Stillwater where they own a small business mental health care practice that employs nearly 50 people. Michele and Marcus have five children, Lucas, Harrison, Elisa, Caroline, and Sophia. In addition, the Bachmann family has opened their home to 23 foster children, which has inspired Michele to become one of Congress' leading advocates for foster and adopted children, earning her bipartisan praise for her efforts. Michele Bachmann: A Leader with Midwestern Roots
  Elected in 2006, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is the first Republican woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota. In only her first term, Congresswoman Bachmann developed a reputation as a "principled reformer" who stays true to her conservative beliefs while pushing for real reform of the broken ways of Washington. Her strong advocacy for her constituents earned her additional terms in Congress in 2008 and 2010.

Bachmann for President
P.O. Box 96891  |  Washington, D.C. 20090-6891
855-624-7737 | 855-MB4-PRES
info@michelebachmann.com

Paid for by Bachmann for President

Not produced at government expense. Contributions to Bachmann for President are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes.
Michele Bachmann for President

                                                   P.C.

[prentice crawford]

PC:  You surprise me man  
 Crafty-Dog

Woof,
 It's just that I'm tired of being forced to vote for watered down Republicans that are more Progressive than Conservative, that despite their assurances that they believe in smaller government, individual freedoms, and the principles' of the Founding Fathers when it comes to applying the Constitution, act in a manner that is the exact opposite of those principle's. It's like standing neck deep in horse crap then having someone scream, "duck!", when a bucket of sheep sh%t is thrown at you. If there are that many Republicans that think Progressive, Liberal, Socialist ideas are O.K. just so long as those ideas are inside the head of someone that has a an "R" by their name then I think they need a wake up call.
 Look at the mess we are in right now with Obama and his ideas, his agenda. They are the exact same ideas and agenda that are in the heads' of people like Snowe and McCain and yes Huntsman. It's my opinion that voting for one of them encourages more of the same and I don't want any part of that. If my fellow citizens can't see how bad these ideas are right now, maybe it will take four more years of Obama to convince them that these ideas in any form, coming from any head, watered down or dressed with an "R", will ultimately destroy our Constitutional Republic. So yes, I will vote for Obama if there is not a Conservative on the Republican ticket because evidently things are going to have to get even worse before people start to see these ideas as the poison they are, and one drop of a poisonous lie can contaminate a whole lake of truth. The Republican Party has been contaminated and if I'm going to be forced to dunk my head in horse sh%t I want it to be from a Liberal Thoroughbred not a jackass that thinks like one.
                                                                 P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

PC:

To quote my 1992 Congressional campaign slogan as a Libertarian candidate, "If you continue to vote for the lesser of two evils, you will continue to get the evil of two lessers" so I get what you are saying , , , in part.    Where I think you go off course though is in saying that you would vote for Obama.   On the whole, politicians are whores who go where the votes are.  To vote for the anti-American liberal fascist crap of His Glibness is to feed the system a profoundly wrong signal.  If you can't bring yourself to vote for a particular Republican, then at least vote for a third party candidate whose positions on the whole you do respect.

Concerning Bachman and Perry:  I like Michele a lot.  The utter lack of executive experience is a real problem though and it is why Perry is sucking up her oxygen.  Not only is it quite sound, but I think Perry's Tenth Amendment strategy has the potential to be rather , , , crafty; it allows him to finesse contentious issues that in some states could be a problem for a conservative Republican candidate e.g. leave gay marriage to the states (though I gather he has waffled on this a bit.)

[prentice crawford]

Woof Guro Craftydog,
 Shock is exactly what I'm going for here; people need to be shocked into realizing that it's not Obama the person that's the problem, it's the failed ideology. The same failed ideology that is shared by Liberal Republicans and I'm making the point that voting for one of them is just as bad as voting for Obama. Do you really think we would be in better shape had McCain won? He was trying to out do Obama with stimulus proposal's. At that time, before he did his chameleon trick and changed back into a Conservative to save his Senate seat, he was all for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens (and he still is). He wanted to close Gitmo. He wanted to pull out of Iraq. He wanted to scale down operations in Afghanistan. He likes the UN, gun control, and on and on. Why? Because he is just as big a Lib as Obama! Wake up folks. It's the same mindset, the same ideas with the same results. You might as well be voting for Obama. It was the same with Schwarzenegger; Physical Conservative my ass, he's a Lib that doesn't mind lying to get Republicans to vote for him. Huntsman and these others are no different, if you vote for them you are voting for the same ideas that got us into this mess.
  For you doe eyed Republicans out there that think you are protecting the Constitution and defending freedom when you pull the lever or push the button to elect one of these lowlife Lib, political Trojan Horses, you couldn't be more wrong and we can't afford your gullibility anymore. So hear this, you are part of the problem and you are helping to destroy our Republic. Please don't let these lying hacks fool you just because they have an "R" by their name.
              P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

A fair point, but my point remains.  If you vote for Baraq you send the message to the sluts that run for office that the fascist-socialist excrement is what wins.  By all means vote for third party, but don't vote for fascism-socialism

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 Hopefully a Conservative will get the nomination and enough Independents will have their fill of Obama to stop the lemmings' race over the cliff but I'm telling you if the Republicans put up a snake in the grass Lib, I'm voting for the candidate that can defeat them and if that's B.O., so be it, then I'll do my best to make sure he's locked up on the Hill by supporting Conservative Senators and Representatives across the country and do my best to unseat any Libs with an "R" by their name. I'll remind everyone that it was Lib Republicans that gave Obama the cloture vote to bring the Healthcare bill to a vote.
                               P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

Though we agree on most things, I am not persuaded in the slightest by your reasoning on this point at all.

TAC!

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 In the normal course of things I would agree with you too but the Republican leadership and these Lib Republican candidates are syphoning off funds and misleading the rank and file and they are coming into the Party in record numbers. We need to get their attention somehow and if by making sure they don't get into office and sending copies of the checks I send to Obama to the RNC with a note telling them why and enough people do it then we might win the Party back. There is no viable third Party and if we are not willing to fight to get control of the Republican Party then all is lost and the Libs know it.
                                P.C.

[prentice crawford]

  Tea party bulling its way into 2012 GOP race
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD - Associated Press,STEVE PEOPLES -
  BERLIN, N.H. (AP) — Bulling its way into 2012, the tea party is shaping the race for the GOP presidential nomination as candidates parrot the movement's language and promote its agenda while jostling to win its favor.

That's much to the delight of Democrats who are working to paint the tea party and the eventual Republican nominee as extreme.

"The tea party isn't a diversion from mainstream Republican thought. It is within mainstream Republican thought," Mitt Romney told a New Hampshire newspaper recently, defending the activists he's done little to woo, until now.

The former Massachusetts governor is starting to court them more aggressively as polls suggest he's being hurt by weak support within the movement, whose members generally favor rivals such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Romney's shift is the latest evidence of the big imprint the tea party is leaving on the race.

Such overtures come with risks, given that more Americans are cooling to the tea party's unyielding tactics and bare-bones vision of the federal government.

After Washington's debt showdown this summer, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that 46 percent of adults had an unfavorable view of the tea party, compared with 36 percent just after last November's election.

It could give President Barack Obama and his Democrats an opening should the Republican nominee be closely aligned with the tea party.

Yet even as the public begins to sour on the movement, Romney and other GOP candidates are shrugging off past tea party disagreements to avoid upsetting activists.

That includes Perry, who faced a tea party challenger in his most recent election for governor and who has irked some tea partyers so much that they are openly trying to undercut his candidacy. Instead of fighting back, Perry often praises the tea party.

In his book "Fed Up!" Perry wrote: "We are seeing an energetic and important push by the American people — led in part by the tea party movement — to give the boot to the old-guard Washington establishment who no longer represent us."

There's a reason for the coziness. Voters who will choose the GOP nominee identify closely with the movement.

A recent AP-GfK survey showed that 56 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning people identified themselves as tea party supporters. Also, Republicans who back the tea party place a higher priority than other Republicans on the budget deficit and taxes, issues at the center of the nomination contest.

Last year, the tea party injected the GOP with a huge dose of enthusiasm, helping it reclaim the House and end one-party rule in Washington. These days, they are firing up the campaign trail in early-voting Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

It's little wonder, then, why many of the White House aspirants are popping up at rallies by the Tea Party Express, a Sacramento, Calif.-based political committee that's in the midst of a 30-city bus tour. That tour ends Sept. 12 in Tampa, Fla., where the group will team with CNN to sponsor a nationally televised GOP debate. Every Republican candidate faring strongly in the polls is set to participate.

Some grass-roots activists will cringe. They consider the Tea Party Express uncomfortably close to the GOP establishment. Nonetheless, "it's a moment of political arrival" for the tea party, says Bruce Cain, a University of California, Berkeley political scientist.

Five months before the first voting in the nomination fight, a Gallup survey of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents last week found Perry pulling strong support from voters who identify themselves as tea party supporters, with 35 percent, followed by Romney and Bachmann at 14 percent.

That may help explain why Romney decided to speak Sunday at a Tea Party Express rally in New Hampshire and appear Monday at a forum in South Carolina hosted by GOP Sen. Jim DeMint, who oversees a political committee that has supported tea party candidates.

DeMint said the tea party is "one of the best things that's happened to our country and to politics, because there's a broad cross-section of Americans involved in citizen activism today. And some are called Tea Party; some are not."

Rather than anointing any candidate, DeMint said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that he's looking to see which one "really catches the attention and inspires the average American, who has gotten involved with politics and the political process."

Perry, Bachmann and others in the 2012 planned to appear at DeMint's event.

Some tea party groups plan to protest Romney's appearances. They are irked that as governor, he signed a bill that enacted a health program mandating insurance coverage. It served as a precursor to Obama's federal measure that the tea party despises.

"Mitt Romney is a poser," said Andrew Hemingway, chairman of the New Hampshire Liberty Caucus, which helped coordinate an anti-Romney rally in Concord. "He's a fraud trying to stand on a tea party stage."

Romney has stepped up his courtship in recent weeks. At a veterans' hall in Berlin, N.H., a voter asked how Romney would handle the "right-wing fringe" that, the questioner said, had taken over the GOP.

Romney's answer: "I'll take a bit of exception with that. ... You're not going to see me distance myself from those who believe in small government, because I believe in it too."

Other candidates are also rushing to defend the tea party.

Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, recently ridiculed a Democratic congresswoman who said the tea party should "go straight to hell." Americans on the political left "absolutely despise the founding principles of this country," he said.

When Democrats accused the tea party of holding the GOP hostage during the debt debate, Bachmann sent out a fundraising letter that said, "Only in the bizarro world of Washington is fiscal responsibility sometimes defined as terrorism."

The tea party is felt in other ways.

At an Iowa debate in August, every candidate on stage signaled opposition to a debt-reduction deal if it included as much as $1 in tax increases for every $10 in spending cuts. Tea party groups oppose tax increases.

The early exit of former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty from the race can be attributed in part to his failure to earn credibility with the tea party movement. Bachmann's entire candidacy could, perhaps, be attributed to encouragement she received from tea party backers; she's courted them since the party's founding.

Each time a candidate is linked to the movement, the Democratic National Committee gleefully works to brand the candidate, and the Republican Party in general, as outside the mainstream.

Tea party activists are emboldened after helping get 30 like-minded House members elected last fall. Their victories changed the direction of Congress so much that demands from tea party-aligned lawmakers nearly halted government during this summer's debt debate.

Aside from the presidential race, tea party leaders have no less than 100 congressional primaries in their sights as they look to expand their influence on Capitol Hill.

Whatever happens, the party is leaving a stamp on the presidential race, and Democrats hope it will last.

                                                 P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

Amen on the Tea Party, but this:

"We need to get their attention somehow and if by making sure they don't get into office and sending copies of the checks I send to Obama to the RNC with a note telling them why and enough people do it then we might win the Party back. There is no viable third Party and if we are not willing to fight to get control of the Republican Party then all is lost and the Libs know it."

seems a temper tantrum to me.  Increasing the vote for Baraq seems a really counter-productive way to me to increase the ideological clarity of the Rep Party.  Again, the message received will be that the TP is too fg radical.  The Libertarian Party may not be "viable", but there is little doubt what a vote for it, what a check to it, means.

[G M]

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/poll-81-say-obama-economic-policies-not-working


Poll: 81% say Obama economic policies not working


by Byron York Chief Political Correspondent

 


Follow on Twitter:@byronyork



There's a lot of terrible news for President Obama in new polls by the Washington Post-ABC News and the Wall Street Journal-NBC News.  The number of Americans who say the country is on the wrong track has risen to its highest level since just before Obama took office -- into what one commentator calls the "incumbent death zone." His job approval rating is down.  The number of people who disapprove of his handling of the economy is rocketing upward.  And then there is this question, asked by the Post-ABC:
 

Do you think Obama's economic program is making the economy better, making it worse, or having no real effect?
 
Just 17 percent say the president's program is making the economy better, while 34 percent say Obama's program is making the economy worse and 47 percent say it is having no real effect.  Combine those last two numbers, and 81 percent say the Obama economic program is not working -- a devastating number in a country in which economic concerns top all other issues in voters' minds.

[Crafty_Dog]

I watched Huntsman on Piers Morgan the other day and saw much there to like.  Apart from the issues on which we disagree, he was absolutely horrendous on last month's game of chicken over the budget-- parroting hook, line, and sinker the Dem talking points about how the Tea Party and radical Republicans were willing for the US to default and how he was the only Rep candidate to oppose that.  There was something else that slips my mind at the moment that I also found quite bad, but overall his schpiel about Reps being too radical really grates for me.  The truth is that they are not radical enough-- as we are about to discover when Boener's "super committee" fails to come to terms leading to the gutting of US military , , , all for $21B in cuts this year.

PS:  On the human side I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he had dropped out of school to try to become a rock musician (keyboards) and that his favorite musician was , , , drum roll please , , , Captain Beefheart!-- about whom he spoke knowledgeably-- quite surprising for a Mormon!  Both Huntsman and his daughter played some piano and both are seriously good.

=================
  By JON HUNTSMAN
Last week, immediately after I announced my vision for economic revival in America, we saw the report that zero jobs were created during the month of August. Zero. This number isn't simply depressing. It's unacceptable. It represents the final verdict on this administration's failed policies and the overall lack of leadership in Washington.

Behind our nation's unemployment numbers are human tragedies: families torn apart, relationships pushed to the brink, and men and women struggling to maintain self-esteem and the pride that comes with self-sufficiency.

President Obama believes we can tax and spend and regulate our way to prosperity. We cannot. We must compete our way to prosperity. To do that, we must equip the American worker and the American entrepreneur with the tools to compete in the global economy.

Restoring our competitiveness will not be possible without first recognizing our constitutional commitment to limited government, a precondition for unleashing the spirit of American entrepreneurialism.

In the long term, this will mean dramatic education and immigration reform, but in the short term, tax simplification, regulatory reform, and changes in energy and trade policy will jump-start the American economy and allow us to export more and import less, creating sustainable growth and jobs.

We need a revenue-neutral tax overhaul modeled after Ronald Reagan's 1986 tax reform package—which will require taking on sacred cows. This means eliminating special interest carve-outs, loopholes and deductions while lowering rates across the board so our tax code is flatter, fairer, simpler and more conducive to growth.

This is similar to the reforms we implemented in Utah, which allowed our state to lead the nation in job creation and our economy to grow at triple the national rate.

For individual taxpayers, we will introduce three drastically lower rates of 8%, 14% and 23%. Eliminating deductions and credits in favor of lower marginal rates will yield a simpler and more efficient system, decreasing the taxpayer burden. We'll also use the increased revenue from closing loopholes to make business tax rates globally competitive and eliminate double taxes on investment, both measures that will encourage hiring.

Our entrepreneurs are harmed as much by overregulation as by overtaxation. One recent example is the National Labor Relations Board's effort to prevent our largest exporter, Boeing, from operating a plant in South Carolina because of its right-to-work law. As president, if the NLRB were to continue pursuing this antijobs policy, I would replace its general counsel, who has not been confirmed, and also its board if necessary. The Dodd-Frank financial regulation law is another regulatory sin—a 1,600 page monstrosity that creates massive compliance costs.

Dodd-Frank also perpetuates "too big to fail," all but guaranteeing more bailouts, massive regulatory oversight and preferential funding for the biggest banks. Protecting taxpayers, community banks and their small-business customers will ultimately require the biggest banks, which are in danger of becoming public utilities, to choose between downsizing or facing much higher capital ratios to fend off more public rescues and even more regulation.

We cannot stabilize our economy without stabilizing the housing market. Washington inflated the housing bubble in part through the misuse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Today, the White House continues to use these institutions to perpetuate a failed intervention in the housing market that is preventing a natural stabilization. As president, I will privatize Fannie and Freddie, and let the housing market clear in order to lay the groundwork for renewed growth.

With respect to energy independence, the Environmental Protection Agency can fulfill its mission of guarding America's clean air and water by increasing opportunities for clean, domestic fuels. Every year America sends more than $300 billion overseas for oil, much of it to unstable and unfriendly regimes. That accounts for half of our trade deficit. We can redeploy that capital in this country, immediately creating jobs by harnessing domestic energy opportunities and eliminating subsidies and regulations that discourage clean American energy sources and technologies such as natural gas, biofuels, coal-to-liquids and electric cars.

As president, I would expedite the approval process for safe, environmentally sound projects involving our oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska and appropriate federal lands. I would offer continued support for the Keystone Pipeline, which brings oil from Canada. We will also remove barriers between those resources and consumers such as the Obama administration's newly issued fuel economy regulations, which effectively bar heavy-duty trucks from converting to cleaner, domestic natural gas.

Despite the fact that 95% of the world's customers live outside our borders, the U.S. is party to only 17 of the more than 300 existing trade agreements world-wide. Opening more markets for American businesses will immediately spark growth. For two and a half years, the president has failed to act on trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. I'd make them a priority.

We must also seek new trade opportunities, giving American businesses and workers access to consumers around the world whom are eager for quality American products. We are right to pursue a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, but this is not ambitious enough. As president I will immediately start pursuing free-trade agreements with India, Japan and Taiwan and strengthen our relationship with our European trading partners, who will be critical to America's success in the years ahead.

Around the world, other nations are making the tough choices necessary to compete in the 21st century economy. America must do the same.

Mr. Huntsman, formerly a governor of Utah, Huntsman Corporation executive and ambassador to China and Singapore, is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post of morning:

By LARRY J. SABATO
Straw polls, real polls, debates, caucuses, primaries—that's the public side of presidential campaigns 14 months before Election Day. But behind the scenes, strategists for President Obama and his major Republican opponents are already focused like a laser on the Electoral College.

The emerging general election contest gives every sign of being highly competitive, unlike 2008. Of course, things can change: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were both in trouble at this point in their first terms, and George H.W. Bush still looked safe. Unexpectedly strong economic growth could make Mr. Obama's re-election path much easier than it currently looks, as could the nomination of a damaged Republican candidate. But a few more weeks like the past couple, and Mr. Obama's re-election trajectory will resemble Jimmy Carter's.

Both parties are sensibly planning for a close election. For all the talk about how Hispanics or young people will vote, the private chatter is about a few vital swing states. It's always the Electoral College math that matters most.

Voting is predictable for well over half the states, so even 14 months out it's easy to shade in most of the map for November 2012.

Barring a Carter-like collapse, President Obama is assured of 175 electoral votes from 12 deep-blue states and the District of Columbia: California (55 electoral votes), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New York (29), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington state (12) and Washington, D.C. (3). Three more states are not quite as certain, but still likely Democratic: Maine (4), Minnesota (10) and Oregon (7). Even though Minnesota is competitive enough to vote Republican under the right set of conditions, it is the state with the longest Democratic presidential streak, dating to 1976.

Enlarge Image

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 .Four other states usually vote Democratic for president, but they're hardly a sure thing: Michigan (16), New Mexico (5), Pennsylvania (20) and Wisconsin (10). A low Hispanic vote in 2012 could flip New Mexico, as Al Gore carried it by only 366 votes in 2000 and a dedicated effort by George W. Bush flipped it in 2004. In Michigan, economic problems might cause voters to cool on Democrats. Wisconsin, narrowly Democratic in 2000 and 2004, is a cauldron of unpredictable countertrends. And although Pennsylvania has frustrated all GOP attempts to win it over since 1988, recent polls have shown weakness for Mr. Obama there. These 51 electoral votes will be GOP targets if conditions in the fall of 2012 approximate today's.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have their own firewall. Almost any sentient GOP nominee will carry Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Kansas (6), Kentucky (, Louisiana (, Mississippi (6), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Utah (6), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3). These 18 states have 105 electoral votes.

The Obama forces have bravely boasted that they can turn Arizona (11), Georgia (16) and Texas (38), mainly because of growing Latino voting power. But with the economy in the tank, electoral claims on these big three will likely go the way of John McCain's early declaration in '08 that California was within his grasp. Count another 65 red votes here.

Four years ago, even optimistic Democrats didn't think they would pick up Indiana (11), North Carolina (15), or an electoral vote in Nebraska (which like Maine awards one vote per congressional district), yet all three went for Mr. Obama by small margins. In 2012, Indiana is likely to desert him, as is the one Cornhusker district. To keep North Carolina, the Democrats chose Charlotte for their national convention and will make a big play statewide. As of now, it looks tough for them. Thus Republicans are in the lead to win 26 more electors. Missouri was the sole squeaker that went for McCain; few believe it will be tight next year, so the GOP will likely have those 10 votes, too.

Republicans therefore are a lock or lead in 24 states for 206 electoral votes, and Democrats have or lead in 19 states for 247 electoral votes. That's why seven super-swing states with 85 electors will determine which party gets to the magic number of 270 electoral votes: Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13).

Prior to Obama's 2008 victories in each of these states, several had generally or firmly leaned Republican since 1980. Virginia, which hadn't voted Democratic since 1964, was the biggest surprise, and its Obama majority was larger than that of Ohio, which has frequently been friendly to Democrats in past decades. Massive Hispanic participation turned Colorado and Nevada to Mr. Obama, and it helped him in Florida.

The GOP has gotten a quiet advantage through the redistricting following the 2010 Census. The Republican nominee could gain about a half-dozen net electors from the transfer of House seats—and thus electoral votes—from the northern Frostbelt to the southern and western Sunbelt. Put another way, the Democrats can no longer win just by adding Ohio to John Kerry's 2004 total. The bleeding of electoral votes from Democratic states would leave him six short of 270.

Of course, the best-laid plans of Electoral College analysts can be undone overnight by the rise of one or more third-party or independent candidates, as shown by George Wallace from the right (1968), Ross Perot from the middle (1992), and Ralph Nader from the left (2000).

Right now, though, a troubled President Obama—so far unopposed for re-nomination—has the luxury of keeping both eyes on the Electoral College, planning his trips and policies accordingly. By contrast, the leading Republican contenders are forced to focus their gaze on delegate votes in a handful of early-voting states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Still, quietly they're already seeking admission to the only college that can give them the job they want.

Mr. Sabato is director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, author of Pendulum Swing (Longman, 2011), and editor of the Crystal Ball newsletter, www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball.

[ccp]

"Republicans therefore are a lock or lead in 24 states for 206 electoral votes, and Democrats have or lead in 19 states for 247 electoral votes. That's why seven super-swing states with 85 electors will determine which party gets to the magic number of 270 electoral votes: Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13)."

Depressing that it is close at all.  Big or little government is not winning the debate.

It should be a landslide.  The repubs still don't get it.

[DougMacG]

First re. super swing states: "Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13)."

If this is a landslide, those and more (new Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan...) all go one way, it's just about 14 months too early to say that.  States like MN and CA are meaningless only because if Republicans win them, it was already clinched in the above.
--------------------
A couple of signs that Romney has finally started to run for President from very different sources Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/romney-has-his-best-outing-in-south-carolina/2011/03/29/gIQAZHt44J_blog.html  and this from Byron York in the Washington Examiner.

I am not endorsing, just trying to get to know the candidates.  I am happy to see any positive signs coming out from any or all of them.  Romney has a 59 point plan coming out today ahead of the debate and the Obama speech.
------------
After Perry bails, Romney shines in South Carolina forum
By: Byron York | Chief Political Correspondent | 09/05/11 8:05 PM
...
Had Perry shown up (missed to deal with Texas wild fires), he would have had his hands full dealing with Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor originally turned down DeMint's invitation and decided to appear only after seeing Perry rocket to the front of the Republican pack. But once on stage, especially when faced with a series of questions on financial regulation -- Dodd-Frank, Fannie and Freddie, the Community Reinvestment Act, Sarbanes-Oxley -- Romney delivered a masterful performance. Asking Romney about financial matters and the economy is like asking former Sen. Rick Santorum about abortion -- it's something he seems to understand deep inside himself.

And even on the issue of abortion, on which he has famously flip-flopped, Romney found a way to shine. Conservative Princeton professor Robert P. George, one of the questioners, asked each candidate about a hugely unlikely scenario in which Congress, relying on the 14th Amendment, would pass a law overturning Roe v. Wade and set up a constitutional showdown with the Supreme Court over abortion. Repeated over and over, the question had the feel of a personal cause rather than an urgent national issue. Romney's carefully phrased answer was, in effect, no thanks. "I'm not looking to create a constitutional crisis," he told George.

Could Perry have outperformed Romney? After the forum, one Perry partisan said the Texas governor could have "out-commonsensed" Romney. Perry would certainly have scored some points, and perhaps delivered a good show, but it's hard to see him beating Romney on the substance of the issues.
...
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/09/after-perry-bails-romney-shines-south-carolina-forum#ixzz1XC9zO8NR

[Crafty_Dog]

Interesting. 

Someone have a URL of the whole debate?

[prentice crawford]

Amen on the Tea Party, but this:

"We need to get their attention somehow and if by making sure they don't get into office and sending copies of the checks I send to Obama to the RNC with a note telling them why and enough people do it then we might win the Party back. There is no viable third Party and if we are not willing to fight to get control of the Republican Party then all is lost and the Libs know it."

seems a temper tantrum to me.  Increasing the vote for Baraq seems a really counter-productive way to me to increase the ideological clarity of the Rep Party.  Again, the message received will be that the TP is too fg radical.  The Libertarian Party may not be "viable", but there is little doubt what a vote for it, what a check to it, means.

Woof Guro Crafydog,
 Not to worry, if things keep going the way they are now the check will bounce anyway.

                                              P.C.

[DougMacG]

http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2011/09/video-full-palmetto-freedom-forum-from-columbia-sc/
-------
Romney Economic Plan:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/Romney%20for%20president%20jobs%20plan.pdf

If elected, Romney says he would submit a jobs package on his first day in office consisting of five proposals. That legislation would reduce the corporate income tax rate to 25 percent; implement free trade agreements with Columbia, Panama, and South Korea; and direct the Department of the Interior to work with energy companies to survey energy reserves and lease all areas currently approved for exploration.

He would also immediately cut non-defense spending by 5 percent, reducing the federal budget by $20 billion. He would also cap spending at 20 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

Romney also reiterated that he would work to repeal Obama’s health care law, as well as the “Dodd-Frank” Wall Street reform law co-authored by US Representative Barney Frank of Newton.

Romney would also restructure the tax code, eliminating the so-called estate taxes on inheritances, as well as taxes on interest, dividends, and capital gains for low- and middle-income taxpayers. His plan does not offer a specific plan on the marginal income tax rate, saying only that he would “explore opportunities” to lower it.

[Crafty_Dog]

Mitt Romney rolled out a major chunk of his economic agenda yesterday, and we'll say this for it: His ideas are better than President Obama's. Yet the 160 pages and 59 proposals also strike us as surprisingly timid and tactical considering our economic predicament. They're a technocrat's guide more than a reform manifesto.

***
The rollout is billed as Mr. Romney's "plan for jobs and economic growth," and it rightly points out that to create more jobs requires above all faster growth. This may seem like common sense, but it's a notable break from the Obama Administration's penchant for policies that "target" jobs rather than improving overall incentives for job creation. So we have had policies for "green jobs," or construction jobs, or teaching jobs, or automobile jobs, or temporary, targeted tax cuts for jobs—even as the economy struggles.

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Mitt Romney signs copies of his jobs plan for supporters in North Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday.
.Mr. Romney seems to understand that the private economy will inevitably produce millions of new jobs—in industries and companies we can't predict—when it resumes growing at 3% or more. This is an important philosophical distinction that drives most of the Romney agenda.

So it's good to see the former Massachusetts Governor endorse the House GOP effort to review and approve major new regulations that cost more than $100 million. Mr. Romney also joins the other GOP candidates in vowing to repeal ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank. He'd pull the Energy Department from the role as venture capitalist that it has pursued since the Bush Administration, re-focusing it back on basic research, rather than backing solar companies that go bankrupt.

His section on "human capital" is also laudable, pointing out how little sense it makes to educate the world's smartest young people in our universities only to send them home after they graduate. He'd offer more visas to keep more of them here. The former Bain Capital executive would also apply his management skills to revamping the vast federal job-training archipelago, with its 47 programs. His proposal for "personal reemployment accounts" for laid-off workers isn't a new idea but it is worth trying.

Where the Governor is less persuasive is on the larger issues of taxes, spending, entitlements and trade. Here he ducks and covers more than he needs to.

Related Video
 Editorial board members Mary Kissel, Mary O'Grady and Joe Rago on Mitt Romney's economic plan.
..On taxes, Mr. Romney would immediately cut the top corporate income-tax rate to 25% from 35%. His advisers say there's already a bipartisan consensus that the U.S. rate hurts American companies, and they're right. Even Mr. Obama agrees.

But on other taxes, Mr. Romney shrinks from a fight. He says he favors tax reform with lower individual tax rates but only "in the long run." His advisers say that means in the first two years of his Presidency, but then why not sketch out more details?

The answer may lie in his proposal to eliminate the capital gains tax—but only for those who earn less than $200,000 a year. This eviscerates most of the tax cut's economic impact and also suggests that he's afraid of Mr. Obama's class warfare rhetoric. He even picked Mr. Obama's trademark income threshold for the capital gains cut-off.

If Mr. Romney thinks this will let him dodge a class warfare debate, he's fooling himself. Democrats will hit him anyway for opposing Mr. Obama's proposal to raise taxes on higher incomes, dividends and capital gains in 2013. Perhaps Mr. Romney feels that his wealth and background make him especially vulnerable to the class charge, but if he won't openly make the economic case for lower tax rates he'll never get Congress to go along.

On spending, Mr. Romney joins the GOP's "cut, cap and balance" parade, setting a cap on spending over time at 20% of GDP. What Mr. Romney doesn't do is provide even a general map for how to get there, beyond cutting spending on nonsecurity domestic programs by 5% upon taking office.

He praises Paul Ryan for making "important strides" on Medicare but says his plan "will differ," without offering details. He also says there are a "number of options" to reform Social Security without endorsing any of them. We are told those specifics will come later. It's hardly unusual for candidates to avoid committing to difficult proposals, but it won't help Mr. Romney contrast his leadership with Mr. Obama's.

By far the most troubling proposal is Mr. Romney's call for "confronting China" on trade. This is usually a Democratic theme, but Mr. Romney does Mr. Obama one worse by pledging to have his Treasury brand China a "currency manipulator" if it doesn't "move quickly to bring its currency to full value." He'd then hit Beijing with countervailing duties.
(Marc:  I am not without sympathy to this idea)

Starting a trade war is a rare policy mistake that Mr. Obama hasn't made, but Mr. Romney claims it is a way to faster growth. His advisers say he doesn't favor a 25% tariff on Chinese goods as some in Congress do, but once a President unleashes protectionist furies they are hard to contain.

His economic aides say this idea comes directly from Mr. Romney himself, which is even less reassuring. It looks like a political maneuver to blunt the criticism he'll receive because some of Bain Capital's companies sent jobs overseas, or perhaps this is intended to win over working-class precincts in Pennsylvania and Ohio. But giving Americans the impression that a trade war will bring those jobs back to the U.S. is offering false hope. It also distracts from the other fiscal and regulatory reforms that are needed to attract capital and create jobs.

***
The biggest rap on Mr. Romney as a potential President is that it's hard to discern any core beliefs beyond faith in his own managerial expertise. For all of its good points, yesterday's policy potpourri won't change that perception.

[Crafty_Dog]

I'm listening to the Tea Party "debates" (actually a series of job interviews).  I'm very pleased with the format, the quality of the questions, and the quality of the answers so far (good job by Cain btw) -- just starting to listen to Newt.

[JDN]

One of the great things about President Reagan was that he WAS willing to compromise.


The real Ronald Reagan may not meet today's GOP standards

The pragmatic side of the former president, who was willing to compromise when necessary, is overlooked as he becomes a conservative icon.

By Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times

4:51 PM PDT, September 6, 2011

When the Republican presidential hopefuls gather to debate Wednesday night in Simi Valley, one thing seems certain: Lavish tribute will be paid to Ronald Reagan.

That is fitting: The event is being held at Reagan's presidential library and burial ground, high on a bluff overlooking the Santa Susana Mountains.

It's also smart politics. Reagan has become a sainted figure within the GOP who, not incidentally, is the most successful and popular of the party's modern presidents.

But the Reagan reverie will doubtless overlook much of the Reagan reality.

As president, the conservative icon approved several tax increases to deal with a soaring budget deficit, repeatedly boosted the nation's debt limit, signed into law a bill granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and, despite his anti-Washington rhetoric, oversaw an increase in the size and spending of the federal government. Before that, as California governor, he enacted what at the time was the largest state tax increase in American history. He also signed into law one of the nation's most permissive abortion bills; any Republican who tried that today would be cast out of the party.

The fact that Reagan often took the actions grudgingly speaks to what, by modern Republican standards, may be one of the greatest heresies of all: At bottom, Reagan was a pragmatist, willing, when necessary, to cut a deal and compromise.

"He had a strong set of core values and operated off of those," said Stuart Spencer, a GOP strategist who stood by Reagan's side for virtually his entire political career, starting with his first run for governor. "But when push came to shove, he did various things he didn't like doing, because he knew it was in the best interests of the state or country at the time."

Spencer, with characteristic bluntness, dismissed the current vogue of Reagan revisionism: "A lot of those people running out there don't really understand what he did. It's just a matter of attaching themselves to a winner."

Reagan's transformation from man to myth is, to some degree, calculated. The passage of time almost invariably casts a warm (or at least warmer) glow on recent past presidents. Thanks to their good works, Democrats Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter have risen in the public's esteem. Even Richard Nixon, who resigned in disgrace, has ticked up in opinion surveys.

In Reagan's case, there has been an orchestrated campaign over the last several years by acolytes eager to glorify his image and affix his name to as many public markers — airports, mountains, roads, bridges, buildings — as possible.

But Reagan is also celebrated because he achieved big things, both domestically, where he revived the nation's flagging self-confidence, and abroad, where he helped drive the Soviet Union to extinction.

After a deep and stubborn recession early on, the economy thrived for much of Reagan's two terms and, though partisans may debate the causes and the ultimate costs of that boomlet, those frothy times compare quite favorably with today's anxiety-ridden environment.

"It wasn't like pushing a button and the machine just took off," said Lou Cannon, a retired Washington Post reporter who wrote several books chronicling Reagan's career, starting with his two terms in Sacramento. "It took some calibration" — the top income tax rate was cut drastically while various tax breaks and loopholes ended — "but Reagan was practical and willing to calibrate."

Many also extol Reagan for his command of the presidency — both its power and trappings — in further contrast, they say, with the current occupant of the White House.

"He came into office with a strong set of principles and, with some digressions and a few failures, fought for them, represented them and stood by them," said Ken Khachigian, a former Reagan speechwriter and political strategist. (Reagan was also a fabulously gifted politician, even if that description made him blanch. "He had a way of seeming steadfast," Khachigian said, "even when he was bending.")

The Republican Party has obviously changed greatly since Reagan first ran for president in 1968, and even since he left office with a solid 63% approval rating in January 1989. It is hard to imagine a governor with Reagan's record on taxes and abortion faring very well in today's GOP nominating fight, even if he did repudiate those positions.

Reagan's willingness to compromise has also fallen badly out of favor in a Republican Party fired up by its give-no-quarter "tea party" ranks.

"People that pragmatic now are what they call RINOs," said Spencer, using the epithet, "Republican in Name Only," that is flung by keepers of the faith at those deemed less than pure.

If, however, the Reagan of real life seems less welcome on Wednesday night's debate stage than the Reagan the candidates are likely to conjure, not every admirer seems as ready to restyle the 40th president to suit today's political fashion.

"You can make someone so iconic and so near divine that you lose the essence of the man," said Craig Shirley, a longtime conservative strategist and Reagan biographer. "If you are faithful and you want to do the man justice, then you have to accept the whole body of knowledge," compromises and all.

"I don't think," Shirley said, "you should cherry-pick history."

[Crafty_Dog]

Partially true.

a) "After a deep and stubborn recession early on, the economy thrived for much of Reagan's two terms and, though partisans may debate the causes and the ultimate costs of that boomlet, those frothy times compare quite favorably with today's anxiety-ridden environment."

Snarky and inaccurate.  Volcker, listening to Dem foolishness that tax rate cuts would be inflationary, slammed on the monetary brakes and politically Reagan had to phase in the tax rate cuts over three years, thus prolonging the recession as many business decisions were postponed in order to take advantage of impending tax rate decreases.  The acid test came the January when the final cut became effective.  Milton Friedman predicted a contraction, Jude Wanniski and the other supply siders predicted a big surge.  Working from memory, the surge was something like 10% growth!  Supply side was vindicated and monetarism had to get back to the lane where it has relevance.

b) Worth noting that Reagan's compromise on illegal aliens included Dem promises to control the border.  I suspect at this point he would say "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."


c) Reagan's mental acuity was beginning to decline at the time of the 1986 compromises on the tax code and illegal aliens.

=================
If nominated, this business about Perry not believing in evolution is going to hurt him in the general election I think, especially when coupled with the turbulent state of public thinking about global warming.

Cheap shot by Romney on Perry's "Ponzi scheme" comment on SS.  It IS a Ponzi scheme-- but if Perry is not careful this will get painted as meaning PERRY wants to welch on SS.
==========
An internet friend keeps sending me material on this:  www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/09/the_real_perryaga_khan_curriculum_is_bad_for_children.html

Any thoughts?

[DougMacG]

Posing an obvious question here that follows from the discussion on Glibness and Energy:

JDN, Your writings of your views on economics, taxation and now energy IMHO fit far better with Obama than with Huntsman.  Unless other big differences emerge, these are the key issues.  You can handle that dissonance any way you want, but from nearly everything you write I would say that Republicans once again would gain nothing by offering up a so called moderate.  We should continue to vet out a real conservative leader to nominate for President, let all the left leaning voters go all the way left, and then defeat them all the way up and down the ballot and begin to rebuild the foundations of this once great country.    

[G M]

"Cheap shot by Romney on Perry's "Ponzi scheme" comment on SS.  It IS a Ponzi scheme-- but if Perry is not careful this will get painted as meaning PERRY wants to welch on SS."

It's worse than a Ponzi scheme, a Ponzi scammer can't use the force of law to compel you to participate in it.

[DougMacG]

Crafty posted this link to a piece soft on Islam in Teas curriculum asking for comment:
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/09/the_real_perryaga_khan_curriculum_is_bad_for_children.html
-------
If the main job of a President was how to teach people about Islam, this piece might expose naivete and weakness.  Considering this election is going to be about shrinking government other than defense and growing the economy and jobs, I highly doubt this will derail anything.

If Perry looked weak on defense, weak on the war against terror or weak on support for Israel, this might be used to undercut him.  I don't think he has those vulnerabilities. 

Most people don't want to learn or believe that Islam is by definition a war against us.  People want to believe, even if false, that the violent few are misinterpreting the teachings.  Writings in our own Holy Books are not assumed by most to be taken 100% literal. Any candidate who attacks him against the peaceful side of Islam will become the one painted as extreme IMO.  And no one will.

The piece is interesting to me because it is the first I have read that explains the allegedly controversy that he has.   Perry has either a friendship or political tie to anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist, a Methodist whose wife is of Palestinian descent  That was the onlything I saw previously that showed some tie to Islam.  Especially as compared to his general election opponent.  Perry looks rock-solid on his faith and that allows him to move forward to other issues.  There are leftists, atheist and moderates who hate Christians,  buy they wouldn't be voting for him on the issues either.

One of Perry's good qualities has been the ability to say he was wrong as he did with the forced immunization issue.  If a missing chapter in a Texas k-12 textbook becomes the key issue and there is something fundamentally wrong here, he can apologize, separate himself from it and move on, because it didn't fit some  pre-conceived image or weakness he was trying to shake. (IMHO)

[G M]

What's the left going to do, accuse Perry of being soft on the global jihad? 

[G M]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276859/perry-and-ponzis-stanley-kurtz

September 12, 2011 4:00 A.M.
Perry and the Ponzis
Until a half a minute ago, liberals called Social Security a Ponzi scheme, too.


Is Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry a courageous and welcome truth teller for calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme, or is he being needlessly provocative instead? Or maybe you think Perry’s Ponzi comparison is just plain wrong. I favor the truth-teller option, but the debate will surely go on.
 
In any case, it’s certain that Perry’s Ponzi-scheme claim is in no way original. Not only have a raft of conservatives called Social Security a Ponzi scheme over the years, quite a few very respectable liberals have done so as well. It is clearly wrong either to treat the Ponzi-scheme analogy as unprecedented or to rule it altogether out of legitimate public debate. A historical tour of the use of the Ponzi-scheme metaphor will make the point.
 
Jonathan Last has already identified a 1967 Newsweek column by liberal economist and Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson as perhaps the earliest use of the Social Security/Ponzi-scheme comparison in public argument. Samuelson was actually drawing on the Ponzi analogy to defend Social Security. His claim was that the perpetual succession of human generations establishes the conditions for a sustainable Ponzi scheme. Regardless of whether Samuelson was the first commentator to use the Ponzi analogy, he has clearly been the most influential. Policy briefs and books churned out by conservative think tanks such as Heritage and Cato have cited Samuelson’s Ponzi column for years. This is likely how the comparison made its way into public debate.
 
Samuelson’s idea that Social Security could best be understood as an enduring and rational Ponzi scheme grew out of his “overlapping-generations model,” introduced in a seminal 1958 paper. Samuelson’s model implied that public debt in general, and Social Security in particular, could be financed over successive generations without major tax increases. In the 1980s, Samuelson’s overlapping-generations model was seized upon by Keynesian economists to serve as a microeconomic foundation for their favored theories and plans.
 
The unfortunate weakness of Samuelson’s model is its assumption that a growing economy will produce continual population increase. In an April 1978 follow-up in Newsweek to his original 1967 column, Samuelson acknowledged that demographic reality was disproving this assumption. Samuelson repeated his use of the Ponzi analogy and continued to defend his hopes for Social Security as best he could. While Samuelson hung onto some slim indications in 1977 that U.S. fertility might be on the upswing, it grew increasingly clear to critics that the post–Baby Boom decline in births was not going to be reversed. Increasingly, Samuelson’s Ponzi-scheme analogy was seized upon by those who doubted Social Security’s long-term soundness.
 
In an April 1999 Los Angeles Times op-ed titled “Ponzi Game Needs Equitable Solution,” for example, Stanford University economists Victor Fuchs and John Shoven hark back to Samuelson’s 1967 column, noting that his demographic optimism had proved wrong. While turning the Ponzi analogy into a criticism of Social Security’s soundness, Fuchs and Shoven nonetheless argue against private investment accounts — a favorite solution of conservatives. Fuchs is hardly a rightist; for instance, he co-authored an ambitious and controversial universal-health-care proposal with Obamacare architect Ezekiel Emanuel. Apparently, Samuelson’s Ponzi analogy has shaped the Social Security debate for figures across the political spectrum.
 
A watershed moment in the public realization that low population growth spells trouble for Social Security was the 1987 publication of Ben Wattenberg’s book The Birth Dearth. Wattenberg, who once worked for Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey, was by the late 1980s a centrist Democrat, hawkish on defense and otherwise alternately allied with the right or left, depending on the issue. Although many rejected Wattenberg’s claim in The Birth Dearth that a crisis of population decline loomed, time has vindicated his warning.
 
In a U.S. News & World Report cover story excerpting The Birth Dearth, Wattenberg sums up his argument by saying: “In short, Social Security is a Ponzi game, a pyramid scheme, a chain letter.” In a December 1995 column, Wattenberg makes the point again, calling both Social Security and Medicare “chain letter games.” Implicitly echoing Samuelson, Wattenberg adds, “There’s nothing inherently wrong with a Ponzi game. Life itself is such a game.” The problem, Wattenberg continues, is that the success of the Ponzi game called life hinges on higher birth rates than we’ve been able to produce.

**Read it all.

[G M]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/perry-campaign-remember-when-romney-compared-social-security-criminal-enterprise_592931.html

The Perry campaign blasts out a pretty clean hit on Mitt Romney:
 

Last night, Romney said, “Under no circumstances would I ever say, by any measure, it’s a failure. It is working for millions of Americans.”

However, in his book “No Apology: The Case For American Greatness”, which was published just last year, Romney compared those managing Social Security to criminals, saying:

“Let’s look at what would happen if someone in the private sector did a similar thing. Suppose two grandparents created a trust fund, appointed a bank as trustee, and instructed the bank to invest the proceeds of the trust fund so as to provide for their grandchildren’s education. Suppose further that the bank used the proceeds for its own purposes, so that when the grandchildren turned eighteen, there was no money for them to go to college. What would happen to the bankers responsible for misusing the money? They would go to jail. But what has happened to the people responsible for the looming bankruptcy of Social Security? They keep returning to Congress every two years.”
 

Even better, the Perry campaign points out that Romney said just two weeks ago that he didn't know of a single Republican who actually wants to cut Social Security or Medicare for people in or near retirement:

[G M]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_saUN4j7Gw[/youtube]


He's usually not this dynamic.

[Crafty_Dog]

Republicans have been more frustrated than usual with their Presidential candidates, and last Tuesday's debate exchange on Social Security between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney shows why. One candidate seemed to taunt his critics by showing disdain for anyone who supports the entitlement for seniors, while the other candidate sounded like a Democrat defending it.

Mr. Perry was asked about a passage from his recent book in which he called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. The question was inevitable, yet the Texas Governor gave the impression he hadn't given it more than a few moments of thought.

"Anybody that's for the status quo with Social Security today," he said, "is involved with a monstrous lie to our kids, and it's not right." Young people who "expect that program to be sound, and for them to receive benefits when they research retirement age" should be disabused of that notion, Mr. Perry added, repeating the "lie" bit as if he had little more to say.

Give Mr. Perry credit for addressing one of the third rails of American politics, but that doesn't mean he has to invite electrocution. The problem with his hot rhetoric is that it can turn off many voters before they even get a chance to listen to his reform proposals, assuming he eventually offers some.

He's even technically right that Social Security is a species of Ponzi scheme (if not a criminal enterprise) in the sense that young people today are putting more into the system than they can possibly get out in retirement.

Enlarge Image

CloseAssociated Press
 
Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.
.Part of the problem is that current seniors get more than they put in thanks to the formula for increasing benefits over time. Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane of the Urban Institute estimate that a two-earner couple both earning an average wage who retire in 2010 will get $906,000 in benefits having paid $588,000 in payroll taxes. The same couple who retires in 2030 will get $1.23 million (in constant dollars) while having paid $796,000.

Even a pyramid system such as this could be solvent if it took advantage of compound interest. But the overriding problem is that not a dime of the payroll contributions the government collects over a lifetime is saved and invested for a worker's retirement. Social Security's pay-as-you-go financing model means that 12.4% of all wages are transferred to current beneficiaries, the surplus dollars are spent by Congress on other things, and Social Security gets an IOU from the Treasury.

In other words, the program is building up debt even as benefits become less sustainable as the baby boomers begin to retire and the ratio of workers to seniors shrinks. The feds will then have to pay out of other tax revenue to meet Social Security's obligations. This is the long-range problem Mr. Perry should attempt to explain, and the danger is that his rhetoric will scare the elderly rather than reassure them that reform is necessary for the sake of their grandchildren. He's now running to represent Republicans as their Presidential nominee, not hawking a book on conservative talk radio.

As for Mr. Romney, he seems to be taking Social Security assaults a notch or two beyond even the Democratic playbook. At the debate he implied Mr. Perry was "committed to abolishing Social Security," and he has since made this a major campaign theme.

His press shop followed up with a memo claiming Mr. Perry "Believes Social Security Should Not Exist," and Mr. Romney told a talk radio show that "If we nominate someone who the Democrats can correctly characterize as being opposed to Social Security, we would be obliterated as a party."

We'd give Mr. Romney more credit for his professed political prudence if he were at least proposing some Social Security reforms of his own. But his recent 160-page economic platform avoids anything controversial on the subject. If Mr. Romney rides to the nomination by sounding like President Obama on Social Security, he will make any reform he would eventually need to attempt that much harder to accomplish.

The key point is that, unlike a Ponzi scheme, Social Security can be reformed and it will have to be if current workers are to receive any return on their current taxes. Everyone serious knows what the reform options are—from changing the benefits schedule, to "progressive indexing," to raising the retirement age. We'd prefer private accounts so that young people could build wealth as a property right and not depend on the promises of politicians, while the money would be put to productive economic use in the meantime. Herman Cain mentioned it in last week's debate. But if that's too politically adventurous for the two Governors, maybe they can meet somewhere in between their rhetorical positions.