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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 18:59:55 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 19:00:33 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 19:00:49 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Blaming Obama: Presidential power ain't what it used to beBy DAVID HORSEY | 6:55AM - Friday, September 21, 2012Voters hold presidents responsible for everything that occurs on their watch, as evidenced in this Horsey cartoon. In reality, the commander in chief actually has few things he can easily command. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.PRESIDENTS get the praise or blame for everything that happens on their watch, but, as Barack Obama has learned, the things the commander in chief can actually command are limited in number, thanks to James Madison and Newt Gingrich.
Madison and his brilliant colleagues who invented the American system of government disagreed about many things, but they fervently agreed about one big thing: the coercive power of government needed to be held in check. They accomplished this by spreading the power around between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.
With the advent of the Cold War and the rise of the national-security state, this balance tilted when it came to making war and conducting foreign affairs. In that realm, presidents are now nearly kings. In setting domestic policy, however, presidents still need to make bargains with other power players in order to achieve success. Lyndon Baines Johnson was a genius at getting what he wanted from senators and representatives because, as a senator himself, he had mastered the game. Johnson knew how to reward or coerce every committee chairman, and he knew they could deliver once he bent them his way.
That is where Newt Gingrich comes in. In 1995, when he became speaker of the House, Gingrich eliminated the long-standing system that had invested most institutional power in the chairmen of the various House committees. Gingrich also brought a more confrontational kind of politics to his caucus that has only become more strident and ideological in the years since he stepped down as speaker.
In the legislative world Gingrich has left us, even a president like LBJ would have a tough time brokering a deal on legislation. Offering the traditional perks or penalties would not have the same effect. Today's chairmen have neither the absolute power to deliver on a deal nor, in a time when cutting government is their highest goal, do they have the same interest in bringing home the bacon. Most are from safe districts where their most fervent supporters would rather see them confront a president than compromise with him.’
There is an interesting article written by Michael Lewis in the October Vanity Fair that sheds light on this new power reality. For several months, Lewis was given extraordinary access to President Obama, and he came away with a insightful portrait of a man who is a bit of a sphinx-like character for many Americans. Perhaps the most revealing passage in the article details how Obama plays basketball — smartly running a tough, competitive game with players much better than himself. At another point in the Vanity Fair article, though, this very competitive and canny president talks about how difficult it has been to eke out victories in match-ups with members of Congress who no longer play by the old rules:
"[Obama] badly underestimated, for instance, how little it would cost Republicans politically to oppose ideas they had once advocated, merely because Obama supported them. He thought the other side would pay a bigger price for inflicting damage on the country for the sake of defeating a president. But the idea that he might somehow frighten Congress into doing what he wanted was, to him, clearly absurd. ‘All of these forces have created an environment in which the incentives for politicians to cooperate don't function the way they used to’, he said. ‘L.B.J. operated in an environment in which, if he got a couple of committee chairmen to agree, he had a deal’. Those chairmen didn't have to worry about a Tea Party challenge. About cable news. That model has progressively shifted for each president. It's not a fear-versus-a-nice-guy approach that is the choice. The question is: How do you shape public opinion and frame an issue so that it's hard for the opposition to say no. And these days you don't do that by saying, ‘I'm going to withhold an earmark’, or ‘I'm not going to appoint your brother-in-law to the federal bench’."
Madison's vision of checks and balances has served us well, but I wonder what he would think about a government with so many checks on power that prudent balance has given way to partisan gridlock.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-presidential-power-20120920,0,3143414.story
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 19:01:06 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Mitt Romney seems trapped in a rich man's illusionsBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Monday, September 24, 2012IT WAS a clear sign the campaign has gone on too long when I had a dream about Mitt Romney a couple of nights ago. Other than the fact that the Romney summoned from my unconscious was sitting at a breakfast table with me and was willingly answering questions, the dream was pretty realistic. The candidate was dressed in his ubiquitous Brooks Brothers checked shirt and relaxed-fit jeans. He seemed relaxed, too. But when I asked him a softball question about the personal strains of campaigning, he answered with a generic policy statement.
Like I said, it was a pretty realistic dream.
Sometimes I wonder if Romney really thinks about the questions he is asked or the words that come out of his mouth, or if he just plugs in the lines he's been fed. When asked to offer a new, detailed plan for turning the economy around, he rattles off his "five-point plan" that consists of the same conservative bromides about cutting taxes and regulations and unleashing the job creators that we have been hearing at least since George W. Bush mouthed them in the 2000 election. Does he not understand the meaning of the words “new” and "detailed"?
In the midst of the attacks on American diplomats in Cairo and Benghazi, Romney said President Obama was sympathizing with the attackers — an outrageous statement that was contradicted by Obama's actual tough talk and four years of relentless drone strikes against terrorist targets. Would Romney have said such a thing if he had taken a minute to mull over subjects, verbs and adjectives before he said them out loud?
The same questions come to mind when viewing the surreptitious video of Romney's now-infamous 47% monologue. In a comfy setting, surrounded by his wealthy peers, he maligned nearly half the people in the country because they do not pay income taxes. Romney called them "victims" who want government to supply their every need. Why did he not stop to think that 47% is a lot of people? Is he not savvy enough to know half the American electorate could not be welfare bums?
As soon as the video came to light, critics — including many conservatives — pointed out that the 47% is composed mostly of disabled veterans, retired people, the working poor, a few thousand millionaires with good tax lawyers and millions of former members of the middle class who have lost their jobs. Some further noted that the policy that gives them a break from paying taxes was an idea championed by many Republicans, such as President Reagan. Only about 15% of the 47% are underemployed poor families who receive food stamps and other government assistance.
These facts did not seem to faze Romney. He acknowledges that his words were "inelegant," but he and his campaign continue to stand by his premise that there is a vast swath of Americans who are increasingly dependent on government. Indeed, there are more people receiving food stamps and unemployment checks, but that has a great deal to do with the economic calamity Romney's friends on Wall Street brought down on the country in 2008 and is no proof half the people of this country want to become permanent wards of the state.
Such facts do not matter to Romney. He shares the illusion of the rich — people such as those in the room where he spoke of the 47% — who find it comforting to believe money is a reward for virtue and those who do not have money are, therefore, lacking in virtue, brains and drive. Helping out those who struggle with financial challenges, therefore, simply rewards sloth and is bad policy — especially if it means millionaires and billionaires have to pay higher taxes.
Mitt Romney's biggest liability in his run for president has been the public perception that he is an out-of-touch rich guy. The reason that perception has been so hard to overcome is that it is the truth. Mitt’s father and mother — both wealthy, but liberal, Republicans — tried to teach their kid the value of personal frugality and empathy for people of modest means. The lesson, apparently, did not stick with their country club brat of a son.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-romney-illusions-20120923,0,7389502.story
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 19:01:22 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Republicans have a medieval mindset about climate changeBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Wednesday, September 26, 2012Republicans have become the party of climate change deniers. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times/September 25, 2012.AMSTERDAM — On an early morning flight coming out of the clouds above the North Sea, the first objects that come into view as the coast of the Netherlands approaches are the windmills. No, not the quaint, creaking, wooden windmills that, along with wooden shoes and the little boy with his finger in the dike, are the cliches of Dutch culture; these windmills are sleek and modern and so huge they dwarf the container ships passing by.
There are phalanxes of them just off the Dutch coast, and on land there are many, many more planted like daffodils along the wet rural stretches of this low-lying country that looks as if it could, at any moment, be inundated by the sea.
In fact, the Dutch could be swamped as sea levels rise due to global climate change. Wisely, they are doing something about it before it happens. The windmills are providing a source of energy that is not dependent on fossil fuels. Billions of euros are being spent on re-engineering the coastline. They are constructing “floating communities” that can withstand rising tides and sudden floods, expanding rivers and canals and relocating farmers from flood-prone regions.
Some have accused the Dutch of surrendering to climate change. Rather than finding ways to cope with global warming, many environmentalists argue, the world should be fighting harder to turn it back.
Certainly, it would be nice if that could happen, but it will not, unless the big countries, such as the United States, China, Brazil and Russia, start building their own ranks of windmills, curbing industrial pollution and preserving the ecology of the Siberian steppes and the Amazonian rain forest. If the Dutch waited for these major powers to act, though, they would soon be underwater.
In the U.S., some states have begun to prepare for the inevitable. In California, plans are being made for the decades ahead when coastal highways are swamped, Yosemite waterfalls run dry, agricultural areas turn to dust, the San Francisco airport floods and the famous beaches near Los Angeles are reclaimed by the Pacific. But states cannot do it alone; the federal government needs to become fully engaged.
And that will not happen as long as the Republican Party stands in the way. Partly to do the bidding of the industrialists who are their benefactors and partly because they seem to have abandoned belief in science, Republicans have become climate change deniers. Even in a year when the West is aflame in wildfires and extreme weather batters the East, Republicans continue to insist there is nothing unusual going on — just a little blip in the weather.
If we lived in a rational society, any Republican who insisted climate change is not real would be as shamed and ostracized as the backwoods snake-handlers in the GOP congressional caucus who say a woman cannot be impregnated if she is raped. As a country, we should all be embarrassed. Americans, not the Dutch, should be leading the world in dealing with the imminent calamities being brought on by the rise in global temperatures. But we will not be able to take the lead until one of our two major political parties stops shilling for the big energy companies and abandons its medieval scorn of science.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-medieval-mindset-20120925,0,6709952.story
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2012 19:01:58 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2012 15:29:12 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Obama and Romney find little common ground on energy productionRomney embraces greater reliance on fossil fuels — the greatest contributors to climate change. Obama sees a future increasingly tied to renewable energy.By NEELA BANERJEE - Washington Bureau | 4:23PM - Friday, September 28, 2012Black smoke rises from the ConocoPhillips oil refinery in Los Angeles. President Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney tout an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, but the candidates emphasize different fuels. — Photo: Jonathan Alcorn, Bloomberg/September 15, 2012.WASHINGTON — No matter who wins the 2012 election, the next president will take office as the United States faces vast new opportunities in energy production and profound challenges to environmental protection.
After decades of growing dependence on imported oil, the U.S. is moving to energy self-sufficiency, thanks to greater domestic supplies of oil and natural gas and reduced demand. Coal, which once fired most American power plants, is being edged out by natural gas, renewable energy and stricter efforts to cut pollution — a trend that has touched off bitter political fights.
At the same time, climate change has gone from distant threat to palpable reality, as ice caps shrink, winters shorten and drought spreads. Climatologists and policymakers warn that unless the United States and other industrialized nations move to rein in emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 2020, most aspects of life — from the food chain to the oceans to communicable disease — could be altered, largely for the worse.
With the stakes so high, President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney offer starkly divergent ideas on how to proceed. The split between the candidates on so many energy issues might be traced, in part, to a fundamental disagreement over the reality of climate change. Romney has said he is unsure of it. Obama has called it a "threat to our children's future."
Both tout an "all-of-the-above" energy strategy that would utilize everything from coal to wind, but the candidates emphasize different fuels. Romney embraces greater reliance on fossil fuels, including coal — the greatest contributors to climate change. Obama sees a future increasingly tied to renewable energy, like wind and solar.
The Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency has implemented rules to reduce air pollution that will further crimp coal usage. Romney has vowed to repeal those rules.
"The rhetoric of ‘all of the above’ is the same," said Michael A. Levi, director of the energy security and climate change program at the Council on Foreign Relations. "But the vision is very different."
Obama's record over the last four years reveals an agenda most analysts expect him to stick to if he gets a second term.
He failed to secure passage of sweeping legislation to address climate change, disappointing many supporters. Nonetheless, he has taken steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants.
The administration also funneled federal funds to renewable energy, helping to bring more alternative sources on line and making the country the leader in clean energy investment. But it has left itself open to political fallout from failures like Solyndra, a solar equipment maker that won $535 million in federal loan guarantees and then went bankrupt.
When Romney was governor of Massachusetts, from 2003 to 2007, he articulated an agenda similar to Obama's current one. Romney's staff included prominent environmentalists who developed a state climate action plan and a regional cap-and-trade system.
In his 2010 book "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness", he wrote: "I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor."
But none of that hints at how Romney might govern as president, because he has retreated from those positions. Romney's website makes no mention of the environment or climate change, unlike Obama's. His ideas instead echo congressional Republicans whose narrative over the last four years is that environmental regulations kill jobs.
"Romney is where the Republican Party is," said Joshua Freed, head of the clean energy program at Third Way, a centrist Washington think thank.
Romney and Obama vary markedly about the fuels the country should rely on for electricity. Romney has pushed for coal, a cheap and abundant domestic fuel, and he has accused Obama of "waging a war on coal."
Obama's campaign rejects that notion, and it has run ads trumpeting the increase in recent years of coal production and jobs in swing states like Ohio. Domestic coal usage is in fact falling, driven mostly by cheaper natural gas prices.
Behind the pro-coal rhetoric, the Obama administration has passed or is considering regulations that would further cut coal use, including reductions in smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide, mercury and other pollutants and limits on mountaintop removal, a controversial mining method.
Romney has pledged to repeal or scale back many of those initiatives, particularly the reductions in carbon dioxide and mercury emissions. "If Romney's elected, it's not so much what would happen as what wouldn't happen," Freed said. "His plan seeks to cement the status quo at a time when the energy sector is in the midst of huge upheaval."
The Romney approach would also bolster oil. For instance, Obama highlights significant increases in passenger vehicle fuel economy from 2012 to 2025, almost doubling gas mileage and sharply cutting greenhouse gases. Romney has said he would undo the 2017 to 2025 standards, which he characterizes as onerous and unrealistic. Increased gasoline consumption would help oil companies, but it would undo the progress the country has made toward energy self-sufficiency, analysts say.
Romney would also open more federal lands than Obama has to oil, gas and coal development. "Under Romney, I have the full expectation that a lot more federal lands will be under production," said Jack Gerard, a Romney advisor and chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil lobby.
Obama and Romney overlap in one area: the development of natural gas reserves through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The domestic energy boom of the last several years stems from the widespread use of fracking to tap oil in North Dakota and gas in Texas, the mid-Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains.
Concerns have been raised about possible water contamination and air pollution from high-volume fracking, which involves injecting millions of gallons of water and sand laced with chemicals deep underground to crack shale formations and unlock oil and gas. So far, the Obama administration has introduced new fracking regulations that independent analysts say would not hinder production. The EPA is also conducting a study of possible environmental effects of fracking, due out after the election, whose findings might lead to new regulations if Obama wins a second term.
But industry has bridled at increased federal oversight of fracking. Romney has said he would hand greater regulatory authority over oil and gas development to the states, which could speed the permitting process but could also lead to lax oversight.
Fossil fuel interests have lined up with Romney. His top energy and economic advisors include the petroleum institute's Gerard; Oklahoma oil magnate Harold Hamm, who is also a major donor; and Jim Talent, a former Missouri senator whose lobbying firm worked for Peabody Coal. Romney would do away with federal subsidies for renewable energy, such as the production tax credit. Obama would do away with long-standing tax breaks for oil and gas companies.
If Obama is reelected, the question is whether he would take bolder steps to address climate change, such as the introduction of a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. Conservatives who accept climate science, like former South Carolina Congressman Bob Inglis, think a "carbon tax" would be more acceptable to a wider range of people than a complex cap-and-trade system.
Now executive director of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, a Virginia think tank, Inglis sees some signs that Romney might circle back to acceptance of climate change and a willingness to act on it. Some top Romney economic advisors, like Greg Mankiw, have in the past backed a carbon tax. And Romney might have a better chance of getting such a tax passed than Obama: Democrats would probably back any sound climate initiative, while Republicans would probably thwart an Obama effort.
Said Inglis, "The reason I could hope that Romney could have a Nixon-going-to-China moment on energy is because it may be that Romney could be the only one who could act on climate change."
So far, the Romney campaign has given little indication that its approach to global warming might change after election day. Said Romney spokesman Ryan Williams, "Governor Romney opposes a carbon tax on emissions of carbon dioxide."www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-election-energy-20120929,0,7774789.story
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2012 19:58:27 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....More problematic GOP voter forms are found in FloridaElection officials report dozens of potentially fraudulent registrations in the state, in a blow to the Republican National Committee's get-out-the-vote operation.By JOSEPH TANFANI, MATEA GOLD and MELANIE MASON | 10:04PM - Friday, September 28, 2012U.S. Representative Connie Mack, right, speaks to a crowd of supporters during a campaign stop at the Bay County Republican Party headquarters in Panama City, Florida. Mack is running for a U.S. Senate seat. — Photo: Heather Leiphart/Associated Press/The News Herald.WASHINGTON — Election officials in at least 11 Florida counties have uncovered potentially fraudulent voter registration forms submitted on behalf of the state GOP, a debacle that has punctured a hole in the Republican National Committee's get-out-the-vote operation less than six weeks before election day.
By Friday, elections supervisors had found dozens of forms turned in by the party that had wrong birthdays or spellings of names that didn't match signatures. In other cases, multiple forms were filled out in the same handwriting. One voter in Palm Beach County was registered to an address that is a Land Rover dealership.
"It was that flagrant," said Ann W. Bodenstein, the elections supervisor in Santa Rosa County, where officials found 100 problematic applications — including one for a dead voter. "In no way did they look genuine."
The controversy comes at an odd time for the GOP. Republican lawmakers across the country have proposed or enacted tough voter ID laws, arguing the legislation is needed to combat voter fraud. Democrats are battling the laws in the courts and say they are designed to discourage Democratic constituencies, such as African Americans, from voting.
The Florida GOP had contracted out its registration efforts to a newly formed company called Strategic Allied Consulting. The RNC had urged party organizations in seven swing states to hire the firm, directing at least $3.1 million in payments to it.
The RNC and its state affiliates hastily cut ties with Strategic Allied Consulting when the first questionable forms were discovered in Palm Beach County. On Thursday, the Republican Party of Florida, which paid at least $1.3 million for the voter registration work, filed a complaint of voter fraud against the firm. And the state Division of Elections turned over the problematic forms to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Strategic Allied is run by an Arizona-based consultant and Republican Party activist named Nathan Sproul, who has been dogged by charges in the past that his employees destroyed Democratic registration forms. No charges were ever filed. But his reputation is such that Sproul said RNC officials requested that he set up a new firm so the party would not be publicly linked to the past allegations. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.
Sean Spicer, an RNC spokesman, disputed Sproul's contention. "To my knowledge, no one requested that," he said.
Spicer said the national party evaluated several proposals and carefully reviewed records of past investigations of Sproul's work, determining there was no evidence of wrongdoing. "After looking at the additional quality-control measures he put in place, we had no problems using his firm," Spicer said.
Along with its voter-registration work, Strategic Allied had been hired to do door-to-door voter outreach in Wisconsin and Ohio, efforts that have now been called off. Spicer said losing the firm "is not going to have any effect on our ground game."
In a statement released Friday, Sproul said his company hired more than 2,000 people to do voter registration in Florida and thousands more nationwide. He said the questionable forms were the work of just a few individuals.
"The reason we have quality-control measures in place is because we recognize that with projects this large, there will be isolated incidents of individuals trying to cheat the system," he wrote.
Florida elections officials said they would have to scramble to clean up their registration books before election day.
"I don't think we've ever had this number of counties that have had this number of cases all at the same time," said Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections.
Davis said she had heard from elections officials in Lee, Bay, Clay, Santa Rosa, Escambia and Okaloosa counties who had also identified problematic voter registration forms turned in by the Florida GOP. Chris Cate, spokesman for the state elections division, said possibly fraudulent forms had also been reported in Charlotte, Walton, Miami-Dade and Duval counties.
The state GOP turned in 45,917 voter registration forms, according to the state elections website.
The way the forms were filled out — and the fact many were missing key pieces of information — immediately caught the attention of elections officials.
"It's a gut feeling," said Beth Fleet, director of candidates in Duval County, which found about two dozen suspicious forms. "You put several side by side and see the handwriting and the way the forms are filled out, and it looks like it may have been the same person doing it."
Strategic Allied told Palm Beach County officials that the suspicious forms found there could be traced to one worker, William T. Hazard of Boynton Beach, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Officials identified 106 forms submitted by Hazard. Most of those forms have problems, said Susan Bucher, county elections supervisor.
In a telephone interview Friday, Hazard, 50, denied he had forged any applications and stressed that he never wrote on any of the forms he collected.
"I did nothing wrong," said the former assistant auto parts manager, who lost his post at a Jaguar dealership about a year ago. He said he got the voter registration job after responding to a Craigslist ad placed by a company called PinPoint Staffing seeking people to do "voter surveys." The ad specified that all applicants had to be registered Republicans and active voters.
Although he reported to a PinPoint Staffing office in West Palm Beach, he said, "I thought I was dealing with the Republican Party."
Hazard said he was paid $12 an hour and not compensated for how many forms he turned in, so he said he would have no incentive to forge applications.
He said he was given "zero training." His only instructions were to approach people and ask whom they supported in the presidential election. When people answered with President Obama, he said, he wished them a good day. If someone said Mitt Romney, he asked if they were registered to vote. If not, he handed them forms to fill out, he said.
"I'm expected to register Republicans," said Hazard, who worked for the company from August until about two weeks ago, when he left over a pay dispute.
"I have nothing to hide," he said. "They're just finger-pointing, I'm sure."
Strategic Allied's faulty registrations were snared by legislation aggressively promoted by the firm's client, the Florida GOP, through an election law overhaul championed by Republicans in the state Legislature last year. The law required a unique identification number for every third-party group (including parties and other organizations) that sought to register voters. It was that number that was used to trace the potentially bogus forms to the Republican Party of Florida.
If fraudulent forms were inadvertently processed, they could create obstacles for voters at the polls. Poll workers can challenge voters if their signature is different than that on their registration. Voters can cast a ballot if their address has been changed within the same county, but only once poll workers are able to establish that they are in the correct precinct.
"It's another step the clerk, the poll worker and the voter would have to go through in order to cast a vote," Davis said.
In Palm Beach County, besides the dealership, forms listed voters as living at a gas station on Miami Beach and a seaport administration building, Bucher said.
There have been isolated reports of registration irregularities in other states where Strategic Allied Consulting had been hired.
In Colorado, an attorney for the firm alerted the secretary of state's office last week that an employee had torn up a completed voter registration form; the elections office sent that report to state prosecutors for investigation.
In Nevada, the secretary of state's office is investigating a complaint from Gina Greisen, a Democrat and animal rights activist. Earlier this month, she said, she witnessed a man tear up a woman's voter registration form that identified her as a Democrat and instruct her to fill out a new form without any party affiliation. Greisen said an employee from the Clark County Department of Elections determined that torn form (which Greisen retrieved from the trash) was registered to Strategic Allied Consulting.
The Nevada secretary of state's office would not confirm or deny that there were ongoing investigations.• Megan O'Matz of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel in Boynton Beach contributed to this report.www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-voter-registration-20120929,0,2318037,full.story
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Post by Deleted on Sept 29, 2012 19:59:57 GMT 10
Those RIGHTIES are bloody crooks alright. Just like when Florida righties cheated and got that clown George W Bush into the White House twice. That's the only way righties can win....by cheating!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2012 23:55:29 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Obama and Romney try to hide their presidential debate skillsBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Wednesday, October 03, 2012THE expectations game that has been going on before tonight’s presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney has been hilariously goofy. It is as if each side is trying to pretend their guy just wandered in from a life of solitude in a monastery where talking is not allowed.
President Obama, at his best, is one of the most eloquent speakers ever to take up the big chair in the Oval Office. He may not be a stellar debater, but he held his own with Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2004 Democratic primary debates and easily outshone Senator John McCain in the fall trio of face-to-face encounters. And despite the right wing blogosphere’s weird insistence that he cannot utter a coherent sentence without the aid of a teleprompter, Obama is far more articulate in unscripted situations than the last three Republican presidents.
For his part, Mitt Romney has a long debating history, starting with his failed Senate run against Ted Kennedy, his successful race for governor of Massachusetts and two runs for the Republican presidential nomination. After watching every debate of Romney’s career, Atlantic magazine’s James Fallows concluded that Romney is a very tough debater, as long as he is not forced to stray too far from well-rehearsed lines.
Despite their strong credentials, both the candidates and their surrogates have been trying to drive down expectations. Romney’s running mate, Paul D. Ryan, argued that while Obama “has done this before,” this is Romney's “first time on this kind of stage.” Well, not really, Paul, but nice try. Meanwhile, ex-Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, an Obama supporter, said, “The president is going to lose the first debate. He’s not a great debater.”
In reality, both men can be expected to handily respond to any questions that are thrown at them. But it is not their words that count as much as the image they project on TV. We know that Richard Nixon’s sweaty upper lip and lack of makeup did him no good when he stood next to a suntanned John F. Kennedy in 1960. George H.W. Bush’s glance at his watch during his debate with Bill Clinton in 1992 made him appear too anxious to exit the stage. Al Gore’s audible sighing as George W. Bush spoke annoyed voters in 2000.
So, what will it be this time? Will a sarcastic Obama smirk betray too much arrogance? Will a nervous Romney shuffle combined with a couple of awkward eye blinks come off as befuddlement? Will the expectations game before the debate and the spin room analysis afterward prove as important as whatever the candidates do on stage? We will see.
The pressure is on. One errant sigh, one drop of sweat, one garbled thought have sunk candidacies in past debates. In truth, it is that single killer mistake we will all be watching for as the debates begin.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-skills-20121002,0,1418945.story
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2012 23:55:44 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Obama fans are shocked by Mitt Romney's dominance in debateBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:02AM - Thursday, October 04, 2012I WATCHED the Wednesday night's presidential debate with a group of wine-sipping West Coast Obama fans who were stunned by the way Mitt Romney dominated the stage.
Over the 90 minutes of the debate, Romney submerged the right-wing image he had adopted in the Republican primary race and came off as a reasonable, moderate technocrat who differs with President Obama only about the means to get to the ends they both seek.
For his part, Obama was pleasant and professorial, as if he were merely engaged in a ponderous academic discussion, rather than a political grudge match with enormous consequences. Faced with the chance to deliver the coup de grace to Romney’s flailing campaign, Obama appeared to have left his rhetorical weapons at the door.
Without the president calling him on it, Romney expressed a newfound concern for the poor that differed dramatically from the disdainful tone of his private remarks about the 47% of Americans he describes as dependent, indolent victims. He rolled over debate moderator Jim Lehrer and took the fight to Obama on everything from green-energy funding to Obamacare.
To be fair to the friends and acquaintances who gathered around the TV with me, they are not knee-jerk acolytes of the Hope and Change Messiah. Highly educated, they hold a range of political views and come from diverse backgrounds. Still, I'm pretty sure there were no Romney voters in the group — at least not when the debate began.
When it was over, we went around the room and everyone offered an analysis of what had just happened.
Our hostess, Cindy, had been whispering under her breath throughout the debate that Romney was wiping the floor with Obama. Cindy is a Hillary Rodham Clinton fan and has never believed Obama possesses the same political skills as either one of the Clintons.
This night, she said she thought the president had missed numerous opportunities to go on the attack, instead merely waiting to respond to whatever Romney threw at him. Romney, meanwhile, was smart, calculated, well-coached and commanding, she said. If she were an undecided voter and all she knew about Romney was what he showed in the debate, she would vote for him.
Cindy, by the way, was probably the most liberal person in the room.
Colleen observed that Romney looked like he wanted to be there while Obama did not. Her husband, Richard, was a little harder on Romney. Sure, Romney was good on the riposte, he said, but he is unconnected with the real life of the country. "Mitt Romney is as inauthentic as I can imagine," he said. After months of speaking nary a word about his healthcare program in Massachusetts, suddenly he was embracing it on debate night in his guise as a reborn moderate.
Lisa thought body language was a huge factor. "Obama was listless," she said, while Romney was expansive and "advancing." Lisa invented a new word to describe Romney's facial expressions: "schmearziness" — the half-smiling, smarmy look Romney gave Obama as he listened to him talk.
Natalie thought people uneducated on the issues would have a hard time deciding who won the debate, but Ed said it was not hard to pick a winner. "Obama was in the driver's seat this morning," he said, "I don't think so anymore." For those without a command of policy details, "facts are facts, but perception is reality." The perception of Romney as a winner will inspire people to start writing checks for his campaign, Ed concluded.
Stan agreed, observing that the big money from conservative political action committees that had been moving away from Romney will now move back.
One big question in the room after the debate was whether Romney would get away with what amounted to another round of flip-flops and denials of plain facts — such as his contention that his trillions of dollars of proposed revenue reductions would not reward the rich and add to the deficit.
It is not always easy to predict how a debate performance will play among the broader electorate, but if the reaction of the folks in my friends' living room is an indicator, it appears that a race that had been running the president's way has just taken a sharp turn in the opposite direction.
A few days ago, Obama told a crowd that Romney is a very good debater while characterizing himself as just "OK." Apparently, he was not just being modest.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-romneys-debate-20121004,0,6115541.story
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2012 23:56:25 GMT 10
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Post by garfield on Oct 5, 2012 3:58:44 GMT 10
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Post by garfield on Oct 5, 2012 3:59:52 GMT 10
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Post by garfield on Oct 5, 2012 4:01:34 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2012 13:49:40 GMT 10
Okay....so your tiny pea-brain has finally worked out how to post SPAM. Do you want us to give you some applause, or something?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2012 13:50:08 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Romney would ground Big Bird but send military spending soaringBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Tuesday, October 09, 2012MITT ROMNEY may have won the first presidential debate, but what stuck in many people’s minds was his threat to fire Big Bird. Apparently, Romney thinks America’s debt problem can be fixed by picking up pennies along Sesame Street.
Pressed to explain how he would balance the federal budget while cutting trillions of dollars in taxes, the allegedly masterful debater offered up just two specifics: He would repeal “Obamacare” (even though the Congressional Budget Office says the healthcare act actually reduces deficit spending) and eliminate the federal subsidy to the Public Broadcasting System.
Directly addressing beleaguered debate moderator Jim Lehrer, the former anchor of the PBS "NewsHour," Romney said, “I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS.... I like PBS, I love Big Bird, I actually like you, too, but I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.”
Romney went on to say he would save additional money by tossing popular federal programs back to the states (the same states that do not have enough money to operate the programs they already have) and by making “government more efficient” (the same boilerplate assurance that every candidate for even the lowliest office offers up when he has no real clue how to fix a budget).
So, after many long months of campaigning and promising to cut the deficit while also cutting taxes, the single genuine and specific spending reduction Romney has stipulated is the one one-hundredth of a percent of federal expenditures that helps pay for Big Bird, Downton Abbey and the rest of the PBS lineup. Defenders of PBS were quick to point out that eliminating the federal subsidy for public television would trim an amount equal to just six hours — 360 minutes — of spending at the Pentagon.
It seems as if it would be more effective to leave PBS with its minuscule piece of federal largess and, instead, cut six hours — or maybe 24 or 48 hours — of military spending, right? Apparently not to Romney. Rather than trimming the Defense Department budget, he has proposed a radical spike in defense outlays that would take military spending to the highest level in 60 years.
On Monday, in his foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute, Romney attacked President Obama, saying the U.S. cannot play an effective role in the Middle East “when our defense spending is being arbitrarily and deeply cut.” Since there have been no arbitrary and deep cuts for the military in Obama’s first term, Romney must have been referring to the automatic reductions that could kick in if Congress and the president fail to reach a budget deal by January. Whether or not that happens, it is crazy to suggest the United States does not spend enough money to keep the country safe.
The 10 nations with the biggest defense budgets spend more than $1 trillion a year on military might. Americans shell out 60% of that amount. In other words, the United States spends more than everyone else combined.
If reining in excessive military spending cannot be part of the budget balancing equation, then bulldozing Sesame Street is a pointless exercise that will do exactly nothing to stop American borrowing from China or head off fiscal calamity. Muppet he may be, but Big Bird is more real than Mitt Romney’s fanciful scheme to balance the budget while sending Pentagon spending into the stratosphere.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-big-bird-20121008,0,3335434.story
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2012 13:50:36 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2012 18:30:42 GMT 10
From SFGate.comWhy won’t Obama step up?By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 7:21PM - Tuesday, October 09, 2012IS THIS not the plea? Has this not been our innermost wail, our collective hew and cry when we watch Obama sort of meekly, sort of halfheartedly go at it lo these past mostly so-so, only occasionally encouraging, but oh my God they could be so much better past few months/four years? You bet it has.
Because oh, what fun it wasn’t to watch in sort of jaw-dropped disbelief as Obama let opportunity after opportunity whoosh on by like a sweet softball from heaven during that first debate, countless chances to unleash some devastating intellectual whoop-ass all over Mitt Romney’s oily head and wooden heart, not to mention his endless falsehoods and pathetic open threat to giant talking birds who help children learn to read.Lookin’ tired. Lookin’ listless. Needin’ some balls-out fire.Theories abound as to Obama’s reluctance, inability, outright blindness when it comes to seriously throwing down in F2F encounters. Maybe it’s because he’s an introvert. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t really enjoy that kind of gloves-off, high-pressure combat (unless, apparently, he’s playing basketball with the Secret Service). Maybe it’s because he has no stomach for badass mud-slinging, and is far better suited to calmly thinking through his points before articulating a savage counter offensive that actually contains a semblance of truth.
Or maybe we should simply join with little Sasha Obama in wondering why the hell her dad was acting like such a pussy on national TV.
So we scream and throw things at the TV. We shake our heads and sigh in frustration. Knowing Obama is so much more intelligent, conscious, awake to the world than Romney makes the heart hurt, causes consternation and even mild panic. It seems so easy! It seems so obvious! Why doesn’t he nail it? Why doesn’t he jump down Mitt’s lying throat with a wink, a dazzling statistic and a 20-megavolt cattle prod?
“Barack!” we want to wail. “Look! It’s YouTube! It’s Australia’s fiery prime minister no one in America has ever really heard of, Julia Gillard, effortlessly kicking ass all over her sexist conservative counterpart! And it went viral in, like, 20 seconds flat! Mr. President! That’s how you do it, OK? Look! Please?”Julia Gillard eviscerates. Obama could learn.Alas, it might not help. No matter what you make of Obama’s tepid performance, it reminds us of a tragic design flaw those of us on the left have been living with since the impossible glory highs of 2008: this has been, unfortunately, the Obama we’ve always had. Solid, impressive, coolly respectable, articulate to a fault, but not really up for a white-hot, blood-boiling beat-down right when he needs to bring it most.
After all, this is the guy we all thought would roar into office on a delirious wave of eloquent cool, shake the place to its core and remake the White House into some sort of awesome 18th-century European salon packed with radical ideas and inspiring redirections, and instead has basically replaced the stemware, brought in some live jazz and put a basketball court where Bush’s inflatable kiddie pool used to be.
This is the guy who had an army of world-class photographers, biographers, journalists, historians and philosophers clamoring to record every gesture and detail of his historic march to the White House, only to sit on the sidelines this time around in sort of shrugging, bloom-is-off-the-rose resignation, an admission that it’s really all just a wobbly, fairly thoughtful, sometimes impressive, often lopsided, hugely flawed sort of Kindle Fire of an administration, when we were all hoping for an iPad 3.
Do not misunderstand. I am no turncoat. I’m still a dedicated advocate. Obama has achieved remarkable accomplishments. He did nothing short of restore America’s respectability across the globe, stabilize a free-fall economy, advance women’s and gay rights, sort of reform health care, and push through a rather stunning list of progressive legislation. He’s a masterful president in many ways and right now, with the notable exception of Hillary (or, for that matter, Bill), there’s no one who could do it better.
Hence, we shall not dwell in pits of negativity for long: The guy is going to win another term. Romney’s little post-debate poll bump has already faded and he’s coasting on nothing but a whole bunch of not very smart people thinking for a few days that he might not be quite as inept, incompetent, and Bush 2.0 as they imagined, even though he is.
But there’s a vital difference. The first election, Obama won on the sheer force of propulsive, electric momentum fueled by his intellect, charisma, how wonderfully not-Bush he was, all coupled to the wild-hewn fantasy that at least some of the radical changes he promised were going to come true. A few did.
This time, he’s going to win on sheer gut instinct. Not his — ours. He’s going to win because no matter what little bump Romney enjoys in a handful of polls, no matter the sad truism that Obama just won’t bare his intellectual fangs and go full throttle at the GOP’s homophobia, racism, misogyny and appallingly awful economic agenda, he has been able to build a beautifully wrought foundation of rock-solid energy lo these past four years.
It’s the reassuring feeling that he’s got it, that when it comes to pulling the trigger on Osama, finally supporting gay marriage, or responding appropriately to nearly any global crisis you can name, Obama’s intellectual acumen hooks right into the still-incredible sense that the man actually has a functioning soul, and you just know: the lights are on. He’s got it under control. There’s tremendous sense of competence where we need it most.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Romney radiates the exact opposite vibe, that he believes half the country is a bunch of whining losers, that he might just be a bit too creepily Mormon for the fundamentalist Christian base to stomach, that he has yet to offer up a single radical or interesting new idea anyone can identify, and that he values his stable of trophy horses more than anything you possibly care about.
Hell, at this point, we’ll take every advantage we can get.blog.sfgate.com/morford/2012/10/09/why-won%e2%80%99t-obama-step-up
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2012 11:19:50 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Mitt Romney leads a party packed with paranoids and fabulistsBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Wednesday, October 10, 2012Americans are divided between paranoids and the rest of us. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times.PERHAPS only a man of elastic convictions like Mitt Romney can successfully navigate the polarized and paranoid battlefield of contemporary American politics. It is no longer merely a contest of Republicans versus Democrats or red states versus blue states, it is now a confrontation between two versions of reality.
Romney's latest incarnation as a relative moderate is reminiscent of the other Mormon candidate in the Republican primaries, Jon Huntsman. But the reason Romney is the nominee and Huntsman is just an occasional third-tier guest on political chat shows is that Romney was willing to bend his beliefs toward the paranoid, conspiracy-mongering right wing of his party and pretend to be one of them. Now, understanding that he could not stay forever in the alternative universe of the tea party and talk radio and actually win the presidency, he has bounced back toward the center.
Should he become president, though, he will have to contend with those in his party who operate with a different take on reality.
Todd Akin, the Missouri congressman who famously said women cannot get pregnant in a "legitimate rape," will not be bringing his curious ideas back to Washington if he fails to win his bid to become a U.S. senator, but there are plenty more like him on the roster of Republican senators and representatives. There is, for instance, Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia who, in a speech at a Baptist church in his district, said evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of Hell” that keep people from understanding they need a savior.
Interestingly, Broun is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. He joins a long list of GOP members of Congress who really do not accept scientific evidence of such things as climate change or an Earth that is a few billion, not a mere thousands, of years old.
Besides biblical literalists, Romney would have to contend with those both inside and outside of Congress who seem never to have seen a conspiracy theory they did not love.
These are people such as Jack Welch, the former boss at General Electric who, this week, sent out a tweet that insinuated the Obama administration had cooked the books to make the monthly jobs report come out more favorably for the president.
Welch offered no proof, and people who actually know how the process works said it is pretty much impossible to twist the statistics one way or another, yet Welch’s absurd contention got plenty of traction among conservatives who are predisposed to believe that President Obama is an illegitimate usurper who hates America and will do anything to retain power so he can continue his relentless drive toward socialism.
The weirdness in the Republican ranks gets even more stark at lower echelons of politics. The chairman of the Arkansas GOP recently had to rebuke two Republican legislative candidates for outrageous remarks. In a self-published book, one candidate, Republican Jon Hubbard, argued that slavery was a “blessing in disguise” for African Americans. The other candidate, Charlie Fuqua, also authored a book. In it he said all Muslims should be expelled from the United States.
There is abundant evidence that at least half of those who call themselves Republicans believe things that are either far out of the American mainstream or are patently false (Obama is a Muslim, Obama was born in Kenya, Obama is conspiring to confiscate everyone’s guns, etc.). The question is whether Romney will resist the loonies in his party should he become president, or whether he will go along with the crazier impulses of the right-wingers in Congress.
The answer to that depends on what Romney really believes and, given that he has been on all sides of most issues in his political career, it is nearly impossible to know what that may be.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-paranoids-and-fabulists-20121010,0,4529763.story
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2012 13:55:57 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....In presidential debates, toughness is more valued than truthBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:21AM - Thursday, October 11, 2012If only Bill Clinton could be Obama's debate surrogate. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times/October 11, 2012.WINNING A presidential debate is a lot like winning a belching contest. Sure, it takes a peculiar sort of skill, but is it anything to be proud of?
Mitt Romney was universally acknowledged as the "winner" of his first debate with President Obama, but what did he actually do to claim victory? He reversed positions he had taken through the entire campaign. He failed to give any serious detail about how he planned to make up for the huge revenue losses inherent in his big plan to cut taxes. He attacked his opponent with a stream of false or exaggerated characterizations of administration policies. And he bullied moderator Jim Lehrer with relish akin to the enthusiasm he must have displayed when he gave that gay kid an involuntary haircut back in his prep school days.
Why does any of that make him a winner?
And what qualified Obama as a loser? The president told supporters this week he had been too polite in the debate, but it was more than that. Having been reminded over and over again not to come across as an arrogant, angry black man, he bit his tongue and let Romney get away with one unanswered untruth after another. Personally, I would like to have seen an angry black man flipping Romney's trash talk right back at him. Instead, Obama looked like a sleepy community college teacher trying to get through the last class of the day.
Maybe the president of the United States considered it demeaning to be expected to perform like a contestant on "Family Feud" while tolerating Romney's sanctimonious, smarmy gaze. Maybe he felt he had more useful things to do — like an anniversary dinner with Michelle.
It is too bad for Obama that he cannot just find someone to take his place in the debates; someone who is quicker with a retort, handier with facts and tougher in a fight. Someone like the guy who gave the best speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte: Bill Clinton.
Not only would a Clinton-Romney debate be more entertaining, the ex-president could do the one thing the current president has been coached not to do. It was often said that, because of his personality, background and appeal to African Americans, Clinton was our first "black president." Unlike Obama, he could play the role of angry black man and get away with it.
After all, it is clearly not truthfulness or consistency that are hallmarks of a debate winner. There seems to be one primary trait that is rewarded in these encounters: being a badass.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-in-presidential-debates-20121011,0,667727.story
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2012 10:41:27 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Joe Biden throws smirks and sharp elbows debating Paul RyanBy DAVID HORSEY | 5:03AM - Friday, October 12, 2012VICE PRESIDENT Joe Biden was all smirks, smiles, laughs, sharp elbows and impolite interruptions in his debate with the No. 2 guy on the Republican ticket, Paul Ryan. It is always a risky tactic to let Joe be Joe, but it seems to have paid off.
After President Obama’s passive, lackluster response to Mitt Romney’s energetic assault during the first presidential debate, demoralized Democrats were praying that Biden would come out swinging at Ryan. They got what they wanted and, as a result, Democrats should be reinvigorated as the closing days of the 2012 campaign tick away.
That matters because, after weeks of gaffes and goof-ups, Romney finally got Republican blood pumping with his debate performance. There is a good chance that the party that is most motivated to turn out and vote will win the election. Sure, all the speculation in recent days has been about the tiny number of undecided voters in swing states who could push the election one way or another, but the fact is that enthused partisans on both sides could play an even more crucial role by driving the ground game of voter turnout.
Biden’s rude behavior certainly turned off some voters who prefer their politics to be more cordial. CNN wired up a group of undecided voters to dial in their feelings throughout the debate, and they showed little enthusiasm for Biden’s aggressive style. But, when interviewed after the event, these voters split right down the middle when asked whom they would vote for if they had to vote today. Biden’s contentiousness did far less harm than Obama’s politeness.
Ryan put in a good performance that pleased Republicans. Biden kept him from being too good, though. An uncritical voter might be inclined to believe everything Ryan says simply because he says it with such assurance. The vice president’s constant sniping made it impossible for the Wisconsin congressman to make any point without being challenged. If Ryan had not been called out on his smart-sounding but factually dubious assertions, he could easily have come away from the debate looking like a winner in the same way Romney did. That would have been a disaster for the Democrats.
The best performer on the debate stage was not either of the candidates, it was the moderator, Martha Raddatz. Unlike poor old Jim Lehrer who lost control of the presidential debate, Raddatz allowed a lively exchange but stayed in charge by posing intelligent, detailed questions and sharp follow-ups. It shows that it may be better to let a seasoned field reporter run these affairs rather than someone who has spent too many years sitting in an anchorman’s cushy chair.
Biden and Ryan both walked onto the debate stage ready for battle and, after 90 minutes, walked away with most people calling it a draw. But Democrats had the most to lose Thursday night, so a draw is nearly as good as a win. Joe Biden did what he needed to do. Now, President Obama is on the spot to prove he wants a second term badly enough that he will lose a little of his cool and show some fight next Tuesday night.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/lat-na-tt-biden-debating-ryan-20121011,0,7228296.story
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2012 16:36:35 GMT 10
Okay....so your tiny pea-brain has finally worked out how to post SPAM.
Do you want us to give you some applause, or something? Well??
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2012 16:36:54 GMT 10
From the Los Angeles Times....Presidential debate: Will Romney make the ultimate flip-flop?By DAVID HORSEY | 5:00AM - Tuesday, October 17, 2012Presidential debate: Mitt Romney runs out of flip-flops. — Cartoon: David Horsey/Los Angeles Times/October 16, 2012.MITT ROMNEY is going into the second presidential debate with almost everything going for him: fresh momentum, an enthused Republican base, improved polling numbers, his own impressive array of debating skills and an opponent desperate to make people forget his own limp-noodle performance in the first debate.
But Romney could face one very big problem: He has nearly run out of flip-flops.
The man has, of course, made a career out of changing positions on just about every major issue. In the first debate, though, he took it to a serious new level. The primary candidate who described himself as severely conservative was suddenly a reasonable guy who, as president, would do nothing rash. He would not cut taxes for the rich if it would add to the deficit. He would still kill Obamacare, but he'd keep all the good stuff in it that people like. In fact, after a year of barely mentioning he was governor of liberal Taxachusetts, suddenly Mitt was bragging about his governing days in Boston working with Democrats to get things done — things like Romneycare, Obamacare's twin.
The Republican nominee came prepared to disavow his own nasty comments about the allegedly government-dependent 47% of Americans, but President Obama failed to bring it up, so Romney had to do the disavowing on his own the next day. Perhaps Obama's failure to fully engage in the debate can be ascribed to the shock of seeing Romney abandon his entire campaign persona with such ease.
And Romney has been rewarded for it. Apparently, undecided voters admire a candidate who can turn on a dime and abandon yesterday's convictions in favor of today's more convenient ones. But what happens if Romney has run out of convictions to abandon? Is there anything left, any small principle to which he still clings?
Well, there is one.
In tonight's debate, look for yesterday's Mormon to show up as a guy who can't remember ever visiting Salt Lake City.www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-ultimate-flip-20121015,0,2192597.story
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Post by garfield on Oct 17, 2012 17:25:39 GMT 10
Ever had an original thought yourself by any chance?
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