Now that the GOP field has settled down, the nomination is Mitt Romney's to lose. In fact, I can't see anyone else getting the nod at this point. So, since it's Mitt vs. Barry next year, here are my initial thoughts.
First of all, I like Mitt Romney. I think it's cool that he is uncomfortable in some social situations. So what? It shows that he's a person with faults. I also think that if he wins the election next year, he won't govern any differently than President Obama. He talks a good game now on the campaign trail but the health care bill will remain law, we'll still be pursuing the same national security policies, and the economy will still be the same.
The central problem I have with Mitt is he's too Wall Street. That's going to turn a lot of voters off who blame Wall Street second (behind George W. Bush) for our economy. Moreover, the base is not going to take kindly to a Romney candidacy and some will stay home.
This says to me that the race is going to be tight. Polls right now say the president and Romney are tied 48-48 with 4 percent undecided. How will those 4 percent break and in what states? As is usually the case, it might come down to Florida and Ohio. But will the lack of conservative voters put Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico in play with its Latino population and anti-Mormonism. Or will the liberal base, smoldering from Obama's centrism, stay home as well?
It's going to be an interesting year, folks!
13 comments:
>he won't govern any differently than President Obama.
and
>and the economy will still be the same.
Boy, won't that be wonderful. :)
Romney will not govern the same as Obama. He'll be forced to do a lot of stupid things that Republicans will demand of him. In particular, Romney pledged to increase defense spending. This makes it all but impossible to get any kind of control over the budget. The United States already spends as much as the rest of the world on defense. How much more do we need?
Also very telling is that he announced his foreign policy team, and it's all Bushies. Yeah, Romney is picking up many of the the same nitwits who endorsed the invasion of Iraq.
And given Romney made his money pulling dirty tricks with corporate takeovers (Bain Capital Ventures), Wall Street will be almost certain to implode once again under a Romney administration that will do everything it can to destroy federal regulation over the financial markets.
A Romney presidency would bankrupt America by overspending on defense, undertaxing the wealthy and corporations, and inflating another bubble that will collapse and leave us a third-world nation of have-nots surrounding tiny enclaves of haves.
>A Romney presidency would bankrupt America
Just like Obama is busy doing. See, Mark was right, they aren't much different.
Remember, Hap, only 4 percent of the debt is technically his responsibility.
>technically
I imagine you have to work pretty hard to come up with that number. Tell me though, Mark, is the president responsible for budgets, or is Congress? I can't remember. I know this is how you and Nikto like to play your game, because it makes D's look better, but seriously? Try acting like an adult. For once in your post pubescent life.
Here's what I want to hear out of your keyboard, Hap
Our current financial problems are due to Bush Administration policies (tax cuts, unfunded wars, Medicare D) and the GOP controlled Congress that existed from 2003-2007.
This is reality, Hap. I could pretend that the Democrats were just as culpable but we both know that they weren't. You guys cheered for Bush and got him in office but he turned out to be a complete incompetent. As is usually the case, you can't admit fault and so we continue to play this game.
>Our current financial problems are due to Bush Administration policies (tax cuts, unfunded wars, Medicare D) and the GOP controlled Congress that existed from 2003-2007.
You're telling me that prior to Bush, Social Security and Medicare were not on the path to meltdown? That debt financed spending was not the norm in Washington? Mark, here is the difference between you and me, even leaving aside the fact that Democrat's weren't exactly 100% lined up against all those items you blame the Bush admin for. I don't lie to myself about how my preferred party (very marginally preferred in my case) isn't absolutely awful when it comes to spending. Of course the R's were bad on spending, but have the D's given any indication, at all, that they have an interest in changing that? Of course not. They started a new war. They continued the tax cuts started under Bush. They haven't uttered a peep about doing something about Medicare's unfunded liabilities, or Social Security's. They pushed through a 900 bn stimulus that created/saved 1 job for .. what was the figure? something like 400,000 per? Yeah. That's some fiscal rectitude there.
>You guys cheered for Bush and got him in office but he turned out to be a complete incompetent.
Never cheered him I'm afraid. Thought he'd be marginally better than Kerry though. Of course, you then turned around and elected a guy who thinks that the economy is powered by rainbows, (and you believe the same thing), so you might want to be careful throwing around charges of incompetence there tough guy.
Here's what I want to hear from you, Mark: "I acknowledge that various commenters here have conceded that the GOP has a bad record at keeping federal spending down. I also recognize that this in no way excuses the Democrat's similar lack of interest in keeping spending down." If you wanted to be all grown-uppy about it, you could even concede that it's pretty childish to 1. count spending only by which party controls the WH and while ignoring Congress and 2. act like Obama and the D's bear no culpability for programs that started under Bush but were continued or expanded under them.
And for god's sake Mark, before you mention Clinton and the 90's as an example of D seriousness on fiscal matters:
-It was a bubble
-R's had Congress
-There was only a surplus if you get creative:
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
Wouldn't it be crazy if there was a political party out there that really wanted to change the way DC works, rather than two parties that just act like it to get votes?
I have plenty of problems with Democrats, Hap. Here's a short list.
1. How can they claim to be for civil rights and support abortion? This makes no sense to me whatsoever.
2. The farther left you go in the party, the more naive you are about how the world works. People like Dennis Kucinich and Michael Moore, for example, have no clear understanding of how we much the world depends on our military in providing security in the world.
3. The former point on security means that we have to be able to be allowed to innovate and we are indeed over regulated in some areas in industry. Clearly, this needs to change and it seems that the left often works in contradiction to this point. Note, I am speaking specifically about manufacturing and the tech sector here and not the financial services industry which is woefully under regulated.
4. They claim to want cleaner energy and then proceed to crap all over nuclear power. Huh?
5. I don't understand how the left claims to be champions of women's rights yet suddenly becomes timid and overly PC when it comes to Islamic countries.
There are other issues I have with the Democrats as well. Now, here we are talking about our debt and that's on Bush and the GOP. If you want to talk about deregulation and the meltdown in 2008, that's on everybody. The repeal of Graham-Leach-Bliley was supported by both parties and set our disastrous course towards catastrophe. I have no problem blaming Democrats for things they actually did. But this issue of debt is due to 8 years of a completely incompetent executive branch who made an awful situation with the economy (created by both parties) catastrophic.
Haplo, its like congress just stopped doing budgets after 2007!
They'll blame Bush as long as they need to for the sake of debate on this blog...which will probably be right up to the point where the unemployment rate drops a little - then they will give credit to Obama for that.
They need them on the wall.
Actually, they are the wall and that's the problem.
No Jeff, the wall is called the Assign Blame wall. Rememeber the 2008 financial crisis? Just go back to that month on this blog and you'll see gems like this from Mark...
Wednesday, Sept 24, 2008 comments of Through the Looking Glass
>My main concern, and maybe you can answer this for me, last, is how does a bailout affect the insane amount of spending that has been done under Bush? How much is this going to add to the problem, in light of the fact that everyone seems to want to cut taxes?
I wasn't aware that insane amounts of spending were a bad thing. Looks like it was a problem when GWB was president. Now, not so much. Obama even extended the Bush tax cuts.
Wednesday, Sept 17, 2008 comment section of Obamanomics
>Asking questions is something I always look for in a candidate. Someone who makes up his or her mind and sticks with it forever and ever...not so much.
Did Obama ask questions about Solyndra or was it full speed ideology ahead? Was ANOTHER loan really in the works up until recently?
Friday, Sept 5, comment section of Friday Potpourri
(regarding Palin and legislative achievements while in office) >In other words, it doesn't matter what her policies are or her list of achievements...as long as she believes what I do. It's belief first and qualifications second
Next time any of you want to pontificate on people like Chris Christies qualifications, I’ll just chuckle and remember that statement.
You see Jeff, all credit goes to Obama and all blame goes to Bush. It's a really easy narrative to pull off.
This makes it all but impossible to get any kind of control over the budget.
Hello N, I'd like to introduce you to reality. The Defense budget, bloated as it is, accounts for 20% of the total budget. An awful lot of that money is not used to you know, actually defend this country, but to project our power all around the world. Seems there is some sort of bipartisan consensus to do that - with only some minor out-of-power critiquing from one party or the other. Anyway, as things stand, you could completely eliminate that 20% of the federal budget (at least in your alternative universe) and guess what - you STILL haven't solved the budget problem. But you go all Code Pink there N and fantasize away that it is all the problem of defense hawks and eat-the-poor conservatives.
Huh, I'd think N would like most defense spending, since personnel costs are the single biggest portion of the defense budget, quite a bit bigger than procurement. Is N a heartless lefty version of Gov. Walker? I would guess not, since soldiers, sailors and marines aren't union members, so they can go hang.
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