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It’s About Us, Not Obama
It’s been a little painful to read and hear all the complaints about how poorly President Obama presented his case in the first debate in Denver. I have no idea why he was “flat” or “didn’t show up,” as some commentators have described it, but it made me think about his nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic Party Convention in Charlotte, N.C. He did not hit that speech out of the park either. He was a little flat there, too, and used a theme that we had heard before. “It’s not about me, it’s about you, it always has been,” or words to that effect. A lot of his supporters hoped he would mop the rhetorical floor with Gov. Romney the other night, but he did not. There are more debates to come, but the larger question is whose responsibility is it to make the case day to day and to make it in a bigger way when an election is coming. If you stand with the President, he didn’t let you off the hook Wednesday night. The situation became more urgent. The campaign is not over. The national Republicans are regrouping and spiritually reinforced by Gov. Romney’s energetic presentation of his views. His performance doesn’t make the views any more acceptable to those who see American life differently, however, he rallied his backers for another political assault. Give him credit for that, and for daring to “shake the Etch A Sketch,” as one of his campaign advisers said. President Obama has been making his case for four years. On balance, he has been effective, as I see it. Democracy is not an individual sport. He likes basketball. It’s a team sport. He had a bad night. Had a cold hand. When that happens somebody else has to take some shots. He’ll be back.
This is from Joe S, which somehow got llinked to a different posting by me. So here it is:
From Joe S
Submitted on 2012/10/05 at 7:02 am
It is difficult to debate a schemer. Romney was prepared to back away from his 47% comment during the debate, but Obama never brought it up, so Mitt followed up the next day saying it was an error, thereby muting any future attack.
Romney touted his 20% across the board tax reduction previously, with compensating actions that would apparently only affect the rich (closing loopholes), but it should be clear that the middle class will be included in those actions (greatly limiting deductions that families need, like mortgage interest, property taxes, State taxes, education costs, etc.) Here is a case where the public should insist on full disclosure, and not be taken in with the “I’ll work with Congress on the details” crap. Let’s take on his carried interest preference, Cayman Islands fronts, Swiss bank accounts and Chinese factories employing 20,000 underpaid workers.
Let’s make sure the public knows that his promise to restore $715B to Medicare will go to the insurance companies, not the elderly, and will shorten the Medicare Trust Fund life by 8 years in doing so. Let’s make sure that the public understands that his Medicare voucher program will end up covering only healthy people, and as people age and get sicker they will be dropped or forced to pay premiums far above the voucher payment, while being left on their own to battle the insurance companies.
Let’s make sure that the public understands that Big Bird will not be the only casualty of a Romney administration – will our own Lowell National Historic Park be on the chopping block along with Big Bird?
Let’s make sure the public understands that it will not be the servicemen that benefit from his proposed increase in defense spending, but rather General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin shareholders.
And if we can’t trust him to tell the truth in domestic debates, who will trust him on the international stage?
For all the heat that the President has taken relative to the job situation, let’s look at where we are now compared to when he took office.
In Jaunuary 2009 the unemployment rate was 7.8%, and in September 2012 it is also 7.8%. No improvement, you say?
In January 2009 we were losing jobs at the rate of 818,000 jobs per month, whereas in September 2012 we gained 114,000 jobs. That is a significant turn-around, notwithstanding the continued opposition by a Republican House to kil jobs bills while holding out for continued tax breaks for the rich (Yes, and this includes our junior Senator).
Dems have a large problem because they seem incapable of saying working and class in the same sentence let alone side by side – working class – working class….FDR could do it folks.
How the hell can you fight two wars and taxes not go up. You just can do that ! Now we want to fight a war with Iran and go deeper debt.