Comments on: Public Service Announcement

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 07:35:57 +0000

The never again Obama vote leaves us with the choice of Romney. However, the debate and seeing Romney and Ryan live have given me a clear choice for change and hope as they have laid out a very clear path. No candidate ever can hope to get into the specifics of each and every part of the plan because when one gets into office in a Republic, one has to make some compromises and laying out the full details of one’s position on every issue allows the other side to move you further away from the goal. Also, most of the electorate lives in the world of soundbites and twitter and thus little is to be gained by a serious exposition on every issue. The media grabs one small part and makes that the story. However, if big bird was running against Obama, we would be smart to support Big Bird over the empty chair/podium.

By: Kate Pitrone

Kate Pitrone — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:40:37 +0000

A couple of ideas about this with my morning coffee.
1. Romney knows we will trust his economic advisers more than we trust Obama’s. Obama’s guys have proven such disasters that even he is saying he will replace at least Geithner in the second term.

2. Corporations, all large businesses are sitting on large cash reserves because they aren’t sure they won’t need them. They are not confident of what Obama & Co. will do (to them?) and they are behaving defensively. Really, who can blame them? But Romney is coming in as pro-business and those funds will become aggressive capital for those businesses then, won’t it? That will grow the economy and economic growth will make some things possible that aren’t possible now.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 01:23:07 +0000

Look under the ‘tax’ and ‘spending’ headings. He cannot reconcile all of the conflicting impulses manifest therein and I would wager he knows that. I will cast a ballot for Romney in the wan hope that he conceives of this as so much cotton candy and will propose a serious plan for fiscal consolidation once he enters office (something the current incumbent simply refuses to do).

By: Kate Pitrone

Kate Pitrone — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:02:07 +0000

The “Issues” link I offer above has more specific information on more subjects.

I am trying not to think of the election or any of this that I wrote about as depressing. I read somewhere that more people are interested in this election than usual. Are they frightened or are other things less entertaining this year? The good news was that those more interested than usual were more likely to vote Republican by a good margin. We can hope that’s good news. No, I’ll put that differently. I feel I need to hope that’s good news.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 23:08:49 +0000

I will wager “Mitt Romney’s Plan” was written by an advertising copywriter who would not know ordure from apple butter.

This sort of thing is depressing. Now recall the counsels of the lapsed professor of political science who used to edit this publication: “independent voters” tend to be low-information voters who make the most superficial judgments about candidates (e.g. “she reminds me of my first wife”). The intelligence they have is invested in matters other than civic life.

Campaigns stink because the candidates are competing for the attention of the uninterested.

By: Joseph Marshall

Joseph Marshall — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 17:50:40 +0000

Thanks Kate. I don’t think this all that bad (though the fact that you had to dig for it is really bad). What I think it lacks is some sensible organization in terms of cause and effect. It would seem to me that the logical order in terms of cause and effect would be this:

Cut the Deficit

Champion Small Businesses

Energy Independence

Trade That Works

Skills to Succeed

More Jobs and More Take Home Pay

Organized this way, the fact that most of these proposals are so vague and ambiguous would be a lot less bothersome.