Debating the Chameleon: Obama vs Romney

Mitt Romney, in his first debate derailed the President by embracing the idea that government regulations are necessary to the operation of a free market and he also said he would not resist taxing the billionaires.  "I never said I wouldn't be open to that."

So how do you argue with the man who suddenly agrees with you on the two most important points you have been hammering him on?  

You might point out this is a jail house, a death row, conversion, and no more convincing. 

Suddenly Mr. Romney is only against bad government regulations, and he will not specify exactly which regulations those might be--although you can expect him to have a list this Tuesday.  Until now, Mr. Obama might point out, Republicans have been saying all the only thing standing between prosperity and the American people are government regulations and interference, but now, regulations are a good thing.

And suddenly, after adamantly refusing to tax the billionaire, who Mr. Romney has insisted is the "job creator," after saying you don't want to burden these rich people who might react by simply not hiring any body, suddenly, he is open to this idea.

Well, Mr. Obama might say, since you agree we need some government regulations and we need to tax the billionaires so they pay their fair share, you really can concede right now. 

I'd love to hear Mr. Obama heap scorn on this man, who is and always has been and always will be in the pockets of the big money men who have bought and paid for the Republican party, senators and congressmen and presidents, suddenly, he is willing to tax these big spenders.

The big question is: Does Mr. Obama have it in him to trade punches with a slippery and dishonest opponent? 

U.S. Elections Global Perspective

Mad Dog is stunned to see how many viewers follow Hampton, New Hampshire from Australia, France, India, Korea and places most people in New Hampshire could not reliably be counted on to be able to find on a map. 

(Mad Dog has found the little function key which shows where people viewing his blog are located. Viewing does not mean following or even liking, but at least Mad Dog can see, there were some people out there watching.)

Here in the Shire, the rest of the world is just some blurry smudge over the horizon, and on the Seacoast, the farthest we can see is, on a clear day, the Isles of Shoals, which are 15 miles off the coast, but on a clear New Hampshire day, they look as if you could reach out and touch them, if you just waded out a little way into the surf.

Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Silvio Berlusconi are names which mean nothing to most of the folks here in Hampton. They may have heard of Dominique Strauss Kahn, but they could not tell you he was a likely next head of state of France, until his behavior in a New York hotel made headlines.

So why would a reader in Korea care about what a Mad Dog Democrat in New Hampshire thinks?  Why should someone in Australia log on to Mad Dog's blog?

It cannot be our politics are more interesting than those in Europe, Asia or Australia.

Maybe we are  simply bizarre enough to be entertaining.  After all, we elect a half Black man, whose middle name is Hussein, following a half witted Texan/New England dunce.  This new President, is, like the rest of us, from nowhere, or from everywhere, from Indonesia, Hawaii, California, New York City, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Chicago, and he emerges, this chimera, who is one of the finest writers of his time, who is thoughtful, elegant and incapable of bombast, and he gets elected in a country of Joe Sixpacks, guys who love guns, women who watch American Idol and the Karkashians, and as soon as he starts, before he can even start, he has to grab of wheel of an economy which is careening toward the cliff, headed straight for the next Great Depression. Somehow, at the last moment,  in a scene worthy of American Graffiti, he swerves us clear of the abyss, rejecting the "Austerity" solution of Europe and driving us down the middle road to a slow but steady recovery.

But then, a chameleon of a Republican, who says the only thing standing between America and a booming economy is government intervention and regulation, until his first debate when he denies all that, and the chameleon accuses the President of not being a good dance partner, not wanting to be bipartisan when for almost 4 years his the Republican party has been cleaving to the Tea Party of no compromise, no cooperation, government is bad and gridlock is good, which makes it the President's fault for not cooperating.

I guess, I can see it now. This American soap opera beats even the hijinks of  Berlusconi and DSK, the stupidity of Cameron and Merkel, the resentment of the Northern Europeans over the indolence of the Southern Europeans. 

We are simply the best show in town. 

Chrystia Freeland and the One Percent

Karl Marx said capitalism grows with a poison pill embedded in its roots: Eventually the winners will take all, leaving the rest, the 99% frustrated and ready for revolt.

At the Democratic national convention they showed a very effective cartoon of people climbing up rope ladders and reaching the cliff at the top and some pulled up those ladders and tossed them back into the abyss while others leaned down and offered hands to pull up those behind them. The Democrats did not have to say who the people who were offering the helping hands were, or who the people who did not were.

Chrystia Freedland in todays New York Times (10/15/12) notes that there is historical precedence for states which fail when the winners are allowed to throw away those ladders so others cannot join them atop the mountain: She cites 14th century Venice.

But history is one long argument and who really knows what happened in Italy in the 1300's?  What she does provide is information about what is happening in the USA in the 21st century, where of the 400 richest Americans in 2009,27 paid 10 percent or less, none paid more than 35% (the top bracket) and  6 paid no federal income tax at all. 

Most people here in New Hampshire stop listening when numbers are trotted out, but they can understand this:  The truth is when Mitt Romney talks about the 47% of Americans who are caught in a habit of dependence on the federal government, he means those people who do not pay income tax because they are either not making enough to reach even the lower brackets, or soldiers who are on active duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.  He does not mean the upper 1% who have Republican candidates and Congressmen in their pockets, who are dependent on the sweet deals and the laws their bought an paid for Congressmen and Senators have sent their way, ensuring they continue to live off the fat of the land while the middle class folks labors under the weight of having to carry those fat cats on their backs.

Inexplicably, the Democrats have never shown that cartoon from the convention again, as far as I know.  It's another example of the Democrats simply failing at mass communication--snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Hopefully, President Obama will have the presence of mind to mind America of all this, Tuesday night, and hopefully he'll find a way to say it forcefully enough to get the message down to the least educated Joe Sixpack.

Memo to The President #24

Why do we watch spectator sports? Why do we agonize over the Red Sox, or thrill to Rocky punching Apollo Creed?  Because we identify, and we live vicariously through those on stage.  As kids in the back yard we announced our own heroics: "It's the bottom of 9th, two outs, and Mad Dog is coming to bat."

And when we tune in, we hope not to be disappointed.
So here is Mad Dog's back yard announcer, looking forward to Tuesday:

On Waffling:
Mitt Romney, and his entire Republican party of lemmings, have been telling us for years the only thing which stood between economy boom times and the American people is government regulation. "Government is the problem, not the solution." Then last week, Mr. Romney comes out and looks the camera in the eye and tells us he's all for government regulation. We need government regulation for free markets to function, he says. Suddenly Mr. Romney, a Republican, is the great champion of government regulation. And what regulation? Well, whatever is not the regulation of the Obama administration.  Specifically what regulations have been so damaging, he cannot, he will not say. Just anything we've got now. His proposals are secret. Like Nixon's secret plan to win the war in Vietnam, and after he was elected that Republican President, who as a candidate said, "Just trust me," invaded Cambodia and the war dragged on for years. If you want to trust in that Republican pixie dust, I got the man for you right here on this stage. You deserve him.

On Bipartisanship:
Mr. Romney attacks me for not reaching out across the aisle to Republicans. He passed Romneycare in a legislature that was 87% Democratic. Well, that says something about the Democrats in that legislature, not about Mr. Romney. Look at the Republicans I've got to deal with in Washington. Tea party fanatics who don't believe in government. Men who say they want to shrink government down to the size they can drown it in their own bathtub at home. Well, think about that. Do you think Medicare and Social Security will fit in that bathtub? The leader of the Republicans in the Senate refuses to vote for a bill which would help the economy because by doing so he says, he might help re elect President Obama, so why would he do that?  Ever heard of doing what's right for your country? These super patriots, who wear American flags on their lapels are working for government failure because they want to blame that failure on the Democrats. There is no possible bipartisanship with these Tea Party Republican anarchists. I've learned that much. So if you vote for me alone, you've wasted your vote. You've got to vote in some Democrats who believe in Social Security and Medicare and the possibility government can help. Government, by itself cannot be the only solution, but it can be part of a solution.

On Kvetching:
Mr. Romney says he disapproves of what I did in Libya and what I'm doing in Syria and Afghanistan. Oh, he has lots of criticisms. But ask him what he would do now, not what he disapproves of past things, and he is mute. He simply has no ideas. A man who cannot point clearly in one direction is not a leader. He says he would not let Al Queda know we have a departure date in Afghanistan. Does he mean he would simply stay there? What would happen, if in 2014 the country erupts? Would he send in a new surge? He won't say what would make him stay in country, because he doesn't know. It's a secret. When he doesn't give you details, he doesn't know. When we trapped and killed Osama Bin Laden, what did Mr. Romney say?  Did he say, well, job well done? No, he said anybody could have done that. He could have done that. This is not the reaction of a real leader. When the other guy hits a home run, sinks a nice shot, you say, "Good shot. Now I'm coming back at you." But Mr. Romney is not a big enough man for that. He's not a big enough man to President.
[Note: Look him right in the eye when you say that, and smile.]

On anarchy:
Mr. Romney, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Boehner and Mr. Ryan, Republicans, T Party to their souls, all the same. They really do not like government. They want to drown government in their bathtub. They will kill Medicare as they tell you they are just saving it. Well, Medicare does not need them to save it. Same for Social Security. Those programs have done and will continue to do, just fine, unless you elect a Republican President and Congress. And if you do that, you can kiss legal abortion good-bye. They will vote in Supreme Court justices as conservative or more conservative than the four horsemen of the Thirteenth Century we've got in there now. This is the Republican court which has given us billionaire sponsored political shadow groups which are pumping billions into TV ads to keep their Republican henchmen  in office. Mr. Romney and the entire Republican party is in the pocket of the billionaire lobby. Mr. Romney is all lathered up about that horrible pestilence, the deficit, but would he even take a first step toward killing that deficit by taxing billionaires? Oh, no! These men are the job creators! Well, how many jobs have they actually created? Mr. Romney parks his millions off shore and he'll tell you that's good for you because he'll use his money to create jobs. Is that what he's done? Ask the workers who lost their jobs, saw them sent over seas when Mr. Romney's companies took over.  You want to believe this rich guy is a member of a club you can join? Just vote for him. Live your fantasy out. 
A woman asked Benjamin Franklin, what sort of government the Constitutional Convention had given them. "A Republic,"  Franklin replied. "If...you can keep it."
It is now up to you to decide if you want to keep it.

Joe Biden and Political Debates: Wishful Thinking

Here's the line I'd like to see Joe Biden sling tonight:

"You know, you Republicans ought to just pick one lie and just stick with it. It would make it easier to talk with you. Like, 'Turning Medicare into Coupon Care is saving Medicare, not destroying it.' At least then we could have a conversation."

Churchill Not Gandhi: Barack Obama and His Fan Base

"This is a cause I am willing to die for. But there is no cause I am willing to kill for."
                                 --Gandhi

"We will fight them on the beaches. We will fight them in the fields...But we will never surrender."
                                 --Winston Churchill

"Why should I vote for this? It might improve the economy and get Obama re elected. Why should I vote for anything which might get him re elected?"
                                 --Mitch McConnell

"Why is the economy not recovering? What got us into this mess? Government regulation. I am for regulation of the markets. You need regulations for a free market."
                                  --Mitt Romney


One thing about the long process of running for President in this country, it does eventually allow a picture to emerge.  The picture of a docile Obama, a sort of American Gandhi emerged in the debate, and it really was no surprise.

For all his enormous virtues, the capacity to confront his adversaries and do battle, the capacity to use his bully pulpit, is not one of them. He should have been putting Republicans to shame over this Medicare Coupon Care and so many other issues and he has simply failed to do battle. 

He needs to learn how to use imagery and analogy to his benefit. Medicare into Coupon Care is destroying the village to save it, the rotten fish made into the catch of the day, whatever you like, but something which will make the morning news clips.

The next few weeks will show if he can lead troops or simply exchange quips at the Law Review debate.

Romney and Obama Onstage: Stranger Than Fiction

Hendrick Hertzberg, as usual, had the most concise and useful summary of how the debate went down, and how it changed the campaign. He pointed out that Romney portrayed himself as the champion of Wall Street regulation, the savior of Medicare, the friend of the middle class and Hertzberg says, "If Obama's debate performance had been half a strong as Romney's or Romney's half as weak as Obama's the result might have been a complete collapse not just of the Republican campaign but of the whole Republican project: the House , the Senate the state legislatures, the fund-raising--everything."

Intriguingly, it is women who were most dismayed by Mr. Obama's weak kneed performance. The poll that caught my eye was women with no college education showed the greatest shift away from Mr. Obama post debate. Maureen Dowd was apoplectic as was Ann Bernays.

Is it that women like the Bad Boy who will stand up to the bully, and they cannot abide the man who may wilt under fire. Why is this? 

Is it some elemental thing--I need a man who will not collapse, but who I can count on to protect me?  That would be to postulate women look for protection, which is not at all politically correct. I'm just thinking out loud here. 

Maud, where am I going wrong?