Magox

I disagree 100%. You think those rural folks who have names on their shirts and when they go to work and cling to their guns and are use to voting for D's in the general election, who are on the verge of not supporting Obama couldn't be swayed with this line of attack? And say what you will about Karl Rove, he wins elections. Having said that, this isn't coming from Rove, Rove is going after Obama's record.

It evens out the playing field from the corrupt public sector unions. ANd no, it would't be a winner for Obama, if done right and targeted in the right geographical areas.

Being a liberal AND a numbers guy? That would be an oxymoron. No, really .

Romney is playing this beautifully, he is distancing himself from this. However, just like the WAPO assisting Obama with character assasination hit pieces or MSNBC doing bigoted anti mormon segments, I'm sure Romney has no qualms with the SuperPacs shedding more light on this. These sort of ads will work well in certain parts of SOuther Virginia, NC, Ohio, PA and cental and panhandle Florida.

To be honest with you, I hope that the one of the super pacs do explore this a bit further. If Obama is going to recieve help from media outlets such as WAPO, with character assasination hit pieces, that have inconsistencies in the story, then it is fair game to explore Obamas past a bit further . Unlike the McCain campaign, who was too soft and tepid in responding to Obamas attack machine from California, The Romney campaign ever since they have entered into general election phase has been impressive. They have hit back hard on Obamas record, they've been instituting a bracketing strategy, where they follow Obama around on the campaign trail with their surrogates to immediately respond to their claims on the campaign trail. How do you think those photos of all the empty seats in Obamas first campaign speech in Ohio emerged? It was Romneys guys who took those photos and then sent them out. Look how fast they responded to the Hillary ROsen deal, you can see that the fever pitched Faux war on women campaign has tamped down ever since that occured. Don't get me wrong, Obama has basically become a woman over the past couple weeks, with his blatant pandering of that constituency, but hey, that's how they wanna roll. But back to the Jeremiah Wright deal. Obama attended his sermons for over 20 years, all the way up to 2008. I think it's fair to take another look into his past, it's not as if they are digging up his high school record, we are talking about looking into his past all the way up to his presidency. You have to believe that their is influence of some sort there right? I think is fair game, and the Obama machine and media desperately doesn't want anyone exposing more than what has already been released. It's fair game, and in the age of the SuperPacs, they shouldn't be intimidated of being placed on the Presidents enemy list. Axlerod admitted months ago that their strategy was to "kill" Romney's character. You fight Fire with fire, and if they don't like it, well thats too bad. They cast the first stone, and I would fully support seeing the SuperPacs take it to them. I saw that, and as god as my witness, I made the same connection before I heard Krauthammer or anyone else make this point. Hell I even commented on Politico about it this morning making this exact same case.

Dude, you've lost me. Love is good.

Lets see here, my edit was at 5:01 and your post was at 5:05 are you sure you wanna go with that? Where did your post go?

Pretty self-explanatory, I'm sure you are bright enough to figure it out.

Just makes you wonder how they've won 5 out of the last 8 presidential elections and won one of the largest historice "thumpings" in the 2010 midterms with this observation of yours? I suppose they are a monolithic bunch.

Your friend is in the minority, there will be alot more people who voted for Obama that will switch to the GOP than people who voted for McCain switching to Obama.

I'm a 36 year old Latino, Im very socially liberal and fiscally conservative. What was the point of this comment?

I am a political junkie and policy wonk, so I like keeping up with these sort of things. But yeah, it is a bit early, however I do believe it does reflect the success and/or failures of each election campaign and does guage how each campaign is performing so that they can either continue to keep going along with their present strategy or if that they need to change course.

Last three polls show Walker up 5,6 and 9 points, and now the DNC/Obama campaign are abandoning the Walker recall election by not sending in funds for the Barret election efforts. I'd say that this race is slipping away. Prediction Walker wins by 7 points in a landslide.

So out of the last 10 polls released, Romney is up anywhere from 5 to 13 points with independents, with the FOX poll registering with the lowest. So, probably Romney is up somewhere between 7-10 points with independents, and the undecided independents tend to break away from the incumbent, so I'd say Romney is doing much better than what many would of expected this soon after the bruising primaries. Also, new polls that came out yesterday show Romney and Obama tied in Wisconsin (appears Walker recall is really helping ROmney out) and ROmney up 8 in North Carolina. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/elections/ N.C is most likely gonna switch back to the GOP unless the economy really improves from here and Wisconsin is the shocker. Even a PPP/Daily Kos poll that was just taken this week shows Romney only down one, and the PPP polls have historically favored Democrats by a to 3-5% average and in some cases much more than that. It appears that Romney can make a real race out of WIsconsin, Bush only lost it by .5% and they did win an overwhelming amount of seats in the 2010 election, and by all accounts, Walker is going to spank Barret. If Romney were to win Wisconsin, his path to victory becomes considerably easier. I also saw a poll released showing Romney down in Michigan by only 5, I don't believe he'll win it, but if he does, then without a doubt Romney becomes the next president, and the surprisngly close distance between the two in the Michigan race probably means that Obama wll have to expend more resources than he wanted to here. I always felt that ROmney would win over he independents, but at one point during the primaries he was losing independents by an average of 5-7%, now he's up an average of 7-10%. That is a remarkable turnaround of 12-15% in just a period of 6 weeks. I suspect this trend will continue, unless the economy markedly improves. My guess is that ROmney will win the independent vote by the time its all said and done by around 10-15%. Another point that I'd like to make, I predicted that Romney would run a much better general election campaign because this would be closer to his natural core. So far that has been the case, they have put the Obama administration on the defensive,they have been punching back, it's been quite impressive. I am very impressed with the campaign that they have been running so far. To be winning the independents by this margin in such a short time period is a sign of the anxiety independents feel about Obama.

Sure why not? Thats what the people of California want, higher taxes.

Google up Bain Capital, and ignore the political sites and blogs. He's a tremendously accomplished man. Everywhere he went, he succeeded.

No you dipshit, first and foremost it helps the company, then the investors. You see in your little tard-filled world, private equity firms are "vulture capitalists", they exist to destroy companies and make middle-aged white guys rich as hell at the expense of poor shleps like yourself. Whereas that couldnt be further from the truth. Private equity firms are created to help companies that are already on the verge of bankrupcy, that are in dire need of cash infusions and also help start up new companies. Mitt Romney was one of the best, he turned around many companies that were on the verge of failing and he helped start up some really successful companies. Some of the companies were in such bad shape they werent able to emerge stronger, in more cases than not they were able to. Only in dumbassville would someone believe that The Salt Lake City Olympic committee would tap Gordon Gekko to turn around the Olympics. Nevermind that they were riddled with inefficiences, scandals and on the verge of it becoming an embarrassment for the US in the eyes of the world. But you go ahead and keep believing that Mitt Romney got subsidies, in the meantime we'll just continue to mock you. Fair enough?

Dude, the steel company got subsidies, not Mitt Romney.

Ok, I'll take DC Tom and New Bills you can have Marcel on your team.

I don't know if I'd say its "impossible", depends on how you quantify or judge the outcome. If you spent a trillion dollars and raised taxes some, Im almost certain that over the short to possibly medium term you'd have more growth. However, spending alone doesn't solve our economic structural woes. I wrote alot about this here on PPP and about the healthcare law. I'll give you an example, look at the first stimulus bill under Obama. Basically it was comprised of very little "shovel ready" infrastructure projects, but alot of keynesian short-term tax cuts and bailouts for state and local governments so there wouldn't have to be so state/local government layoffs. Well, those layoffs occured after the stimulus ran out anyway, and we're still seeing them occur now. Those layoffs had to occur, simply because most states are obligated to balance their budgets. If it wasn't for the pressure of the public sector unions, coercing lawmakers in exchange for campaign funds, then you wouldn't have all these obscenely ridiculous unfunded pension benefits, massively overemployed public sector workforce (before the 'great recession') and crappy educational standards that we've seen over the past few decades, all at the expense of the taxpayer. So of course there is alot of anger out there against the public sector unions and the corrupt politicians who bend over their constituencies in order to protect these entities. Do you think its fair to use Federal Taxpayer money to bail out these individuals? What happens when the stimulus money runs out, ask for another bailout again? Of course when the money runs out, liberals, the very same ones who crafted these backroom deals with these public sector unions, cry foul that conservatives don't want to bail out their corrupt deals. I gotta tell you, I absolutely loathe the politicans and public sector bosses who put all these states in the dire situation that they are in today. Just look at Chris Christies approval rating in the blue state of NJ, a state where there constituency is notoriously tough on their elected leaders. To your second point, "direct cause and effect?" If you raise taxes in this economy, is that the question? Yes, I mean obviously it depends how much and to who. You raise it on everyone, then yeah, it would have a profound effect. If you raise taxes slightly on the "wealthy", it still would apply, but not nearly as much. Why would anyone want to raise taxes on anyone in this economy? Why would you want to, for what purposes? Do I think it's overblown? What, raising taxes in a down economy? No, I don't. Our structural debt issues have more to do with spending than revenues. Im not advocating that we start hatcheting away at spending now. What the hard right doesn't understand is that if you start cutting massively now, the economy will certainly fall back into a recession. The economy is too weak to pull back now. The debt markets will most likely continue to give us breathing room, IF: 1) They believe we are going to begin to start growing at an adequate enough, sustained pace without short-term keynesisan programs. 2) If we put in a credible medium-long term deficit reduction plan that includes addressing the entitlement programs, which president Obama has no desire to do. We need structural solutions to repairing this economy and this president doesn't have any of the tools in his toolbox to get the job done. He doesn't understand business, I don't care how much you protest and dislike this comment, but that is the absolute truth. He is a creature of the "community", he places the concepts of "fairness" over economic prosperity. He believes that wealth distribution should be included in economic policy. ANd I hate to break it to you, that scares the **** out of many small businesses and corporations. Small businesses cite regulations as the number one impediment to job hiring. http://www.gallup.com/poll/152654/health-costs-gov-regulations-curb-small-business-hiring.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/150287/gov-regulations-top-small-business-owners-problem-list.aspx This is what small-businesses are saying, the engine of economic job growth, not those dastardly corporations. I lost my career because of Dodd Frank. Im one of the victims of this regulation, and there were many others as well that were personally connected. Turn on CNBC, its business after business after business that cite regulations as the main roadblock they face. That's why when you hear the saying from small businesses owners, " I don't need assistance from the government, just let me keep a little more of what I earn and stay out of the way", that's all they are looking for. Corporations right now are sitting on over $2 Trillion, just sitting there. If you want a powerful stimulus plan, that doesn't cost the taxpayer a dime, then all one would need to do is sit with these corporations and figure out a way how they can unleash that into the economy. And again, this president doesn't have the innate sense to make that happen. These corporations are looking for a friendlier business climate and more certainty, if you provide it to them, they will unload some of that, and it will be ALL funded by private sector dollars. That's what the administration should be obsessing about day after day. How do I get these corporations to unleash all that money? But nope, they would rather go out campaigning on the Buffet rule, which would do nothing to grow the economy and pay for about 9 hours of government service.

First I would say there is no immediate sustained beneficial outcome for the long-term. Having said that, first and foremost it begins with the body. 1) How do we promote healthier living, better eating habits and more exercise and effectively filter this into the economy? There needs to be an emphasis on this, if we can smoke less cigarettes, eat less unhealthy foods, and exercise more as a society bending the cost of health care will go down over time. 2) There needs to be more medical file sharing. A central database for all medical providers would be helpful, it would promote more efficiency. 3) Tort Reform. There is a tangible impact and then there is an unquantifiable psychological impact. We do know that Doctors are scared shitless about getting sued, it is hard to judge exactly how many wasted and useless tests are performed by doctors simply because they dont want to get sued, but Id venture to guess that it isnt a negligible overall cost. 4) What about moving more towards a pay-for-performance sort of structure as opposed to the traditional fee-for-service system. Lets concentrate more on quality rather than quantity of care. 5) More preventative health care programs. Those are a few ideas.

I don't know. But what I do know is that the answer wouldnt be north of what it is today, considering how anemic economic growth is.

Of course those elements of the health insurance bill poll well, those are the benefits. Who doesnt like benefits? However, once you factor in the unintended consequences of the conglomeration of those benefits and the rest of the bill, people dont like it. Im sure if you took a poll that asked: 1) Do you like that the bill will cost over a trillion dollars over the next 10 years? 2) Do youlike that the bill will end up causing some people to have to drop their own doctor for another one? 3) Do you like that the bill will cause more uncerainty in the economy, therefore possibly slowing the economy down? 4) Do you like that the bill will cause an even larger shortage of primary care doctors, therefore making your doctor visits even longer than what they are today? 5) Do you like that the bill will add to the deficit? (and dont bring that CBO score that was based on input provided by Democrats in order for it to not add to the deficit, we all know that it will) 6) Do you like that the bill will raise taxes? People wouldnt respond favorably. I could go on and on. The point is that those poll tested portions that you linked is a bit silly to bring up. I mean think about it, who is going to say that they don't like benefits? Also, THENEWBILLS says Sure, I believe its necessary, but that doesn't mean any legislatively crafted Healthcare reform is necessary. It needs to be done right, and other than the total cost of the bill and the potential economic risks it poses to the economy, the biggest area where this bill fails is bending the cost curve of health care. People and businesses need relief with the cost of health insurance premiums, and no, that does not mean more subsidies to offset those rising premiums. If there is one thing that rational thinking people have learned about increased subsidies, is that it adds to the price of the underlying subsidized product. The way you bend the cost curve is by addressing the cost of health care, not by reforming the health insurance industry, which is what this bill attempts to do. It was a horrible piece of legislation, that struck out on cost, premiums and the potential negative impacts on the economy. I'd much rather scrap this bill and start over.

No, you are wrong. At this time we need growth, and raising taxes in this economy is a bad idea. However, at some point in the future, when growth comes back, raising taxes I would say will have to be part of the solution.