Objective review of the US 2012 Presidential and Congressional general campaign

[kishnevi]

I saw today that 40% of Republicans have a negative opinion of Michelle Obama. Really? What exactly does she do, anyway? Grow a vegetable garden, get children to exercise, touch the queen, be black... I'll be charitable and say it's the royalist element.

The standard GOP portrait of Mrs. Obama is that of a woman who obtained a high paying executive job at a hospital as a political plum, that she used her connections and her husband's connections to steer more poltical plums and federal largesse to her employer,  that she shared the questionable friendships and political alliances of her husband (the Ayers, Rezcko, etc.) and the same pastor of course (remember Rev. Wright? I assure you the GOP faithful still do),  and now tries to be the US's chief nanny, her main competition being the Mayor of New York.  IOW, she combines crony capitalism with leftist do goodism, the two things the Tea Party associates with the Obama administration, and also the two things the Tea Party says it hates most. 

That this portrait is inaccurate is not truly relevant; its what the GOP believes, and the question should be not "why forty percent of Republicans have a negative opinion" but "why only forty percent of Republicans have a negative opinion".

[Todd]

I saw today that 40% of Republicans have a negative opinion of Michelle Obama. Really?

Hillary Clinton aside, I have no idea why anyone ever cares about any first lady, and when the time comes, about any first gentleman.  They're basically irrelevant.  Hillary Clinton, however, was put into a position influencing policy, so she was a bit different.

[Brian]

Mitt Romney might have just had his "clinging to their guns and religion" moment.

http://www.youtube.com/v/XnB0NZzl5HA

[Gurn Blanston]

Mitt Romney might have just had his "clinging to their guns and religion" moment.

Well, not that I support him, but do you not agree with what he is saying? I mean, do you think his math is wrong maybe? Must be that, because the point he's making is quite valid. There ARE a large number of people in this country who feel that the government has or should have adopted them. There is no way that they are ever going to vote for any candidate who suggests that they need to get off their dead asses and do something for themselves. Even if that was a Democrat who made that part of his mission, he would be dead to them. It is one of the worst parts of our society, IMO.   

[Todd]

I mean, do you think his math is wrong maybe?

Pretty much, otherwise he was right. 

[Karl Henning]

Of course, we could all be rich like Romney if we'd just work our lazy asses.

[Gurn Blanston]

Pretty much, otherwise he was right.

It is a question of manipulating the numbers, just as it is with the unemployment numbers (is it 8 million or 23?).  In this case if you subtract all retired people living on social security, that 47% number comes down to 18%, which is probably more realistic. Of course, the Mittster, if he had even thought of the ramifications of that item, would have said to himself "self, do these retired people view me as a threat to their social security? Hmmm". 

Otherwise, he was right.

Of course, we could all be rich like Romney if we'd just work our lazy asses.

True, but is it the issue in this case?  I work my ass off, I pay my taxes with minimal grumbling, I see a lot of that money go down the toilet. I can see the appeal of that particular message to a lot of people who have a fairly narrow focus; IOW, his target audience.   

[Karl Henning]

True, but is it the issue in this case? . . .

Only obliquely, one allows.  It's reciprocal class warfare.

[Florestan]

I work my ass off, I pay my taxes with minimal grumbling, I see a lot of that money go down the toilet.

Only obliquely, one allows.  It's reciprocal class warfare.

Guys, may I ask you a question? Do you feel "exploited" in the US society?

[mc ukrneal]

Guys, may I ask you a question? Do you feel "exploited" in the US society?

Me personally - no.

[Karl Henning]

Guys, may I ask you a question? Do you feel "exploited" in the US society?

Not at all.

[Gurn Blanston]

Guys, may I ask you a question? Do you feel "exploited" in the US society?

No. My only feeling of negativity comes from other people who are as well-off or (much) more so, and don't pay their fair share.  If you want services from your government, then you have to pay for them. Even a moron can understand that (well, maybe not the woman on the news the other night that said "let the government pay for it").  But what I've seen is that the people who screech the loudest about paying taxes are the same ones in many cases who scream the loudest about reduced government services provided. Can't have it both ways. 

[Todd]

Of course, the Mittster, if he had even thought of the ramifications of that item, would have said to himself "self, do these retired people view me as a threat to their social security? Hmmm".

Entitlement programs need to be reformed - ie, cut - over the long term.  Such proposed actions are bound to cause a negative reaction amongst interested groups.  The AARP runs ads and tries its best to mobilize old coots anytime someone says anything about changing social security, and it largely works.  Social Security is one of the easiest programs to make permanently solvent from a policy perspective, but then, you know, granny will starve.  Can't have that.  Retirees are simply another interest group consuming public resources.  It definitely makes more sense to hold off on proposals that affect the old for non-election years. 

In a way, Romney both overstated and understated the problem.  Nowhere near 47% rely on government to pay all their bills, but the number of people who rely on government money in some way is higher than 47%  Not only should one consider transfer payments, but tax deductions and credits, subsidies, loan guarantees, loan programs, etc.  People, rich and poor, and companies all feed at the public trough. 

Do you feel "exploited" in the US society?

Exploited, no.  Overtaxed, well, for what I get, yes, though more at the state level than the federal level.

[Florestan]

Me personally - no.

Not at all.

Thanks. The reason I asked that questions is the following. Last year I had an exchange with a philosophy professor at the Bucharest Polytechnic. She turned out to be economically a die-hard Marxian of the old school and politically quite a Trotskyst (two species I would have thought extinct long ago, at least in a country that had the dubious privilege of seeing both doctrines at work...) She told me that she scientifically proved (that's exactly what she said) to her lectures audience that exploitation is a constitutive feature of capitalism and it could not be any other way. "So," I asked, "according to you an engineer or a simple worker in a Western nation, whose standard of living and whose level of personal liberty was far superior to anything that their colleagues in the Eastern Europe could aspire --- are they too exploited? " "Yes," she replied, "because the very fact of their having to sell their workforce to another person in order to make a living, and the fact that the other person's gain is superior to theirs and makes him rich constitute the essence of exploitation." I was absolutely shocked to hear such inanities being seriously professed in AD 2011 and ex cathedra no less. I am well aware of the fact that social sciences professors everywhere tend to be rather left, if not far left, but at least those in the West have the (lame) excuse of not having witnessed and being affected directly by the practical application of the doctrines they uphold; but for a Romanian philosophy professor to cling to Marxism seems to me the height of folly, or stupidity, or both...

Personally I couldn't care less about some persons getting rich, even monstrously rich, as long as the vast majority of the people lead a decent life and enjoy their freedom.

[Karl Henning]

Entitlement programs need to be reformed - ie, cut - over the long term.

By cut do you mean "reduced" or "eliminated"?

[Florestan]

Gurn, Todd

The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else. --- Frederic Bastiat.

IMHO, rigorously true about the modern welfare state. 

[Brian]

Me personally - no.

Whoops, I thought you lived in the UK. Not sure why.

[Karl Henning]

http://www.youtube.com/v/XnB0NZzl5HA

"47% of the [American] people beleive they are victims"?

Oh, and that invidious belief that one is entitled to health care!  And so richly amusing coming from the former Governor of Massachusetts who rightly ensured that a delivery system for that entitlement was set in place.

He'll "never convince" that 47% "to take responsibility for their lives" . . . this guy is further out there than the Mars Rover.

[Todd]

By cut do you mean "reduced" or "eliminated"?

Depends on the program.  Social Security needs to be reduced.  Medicare and Medicaid need to be reduced, and significantly restructured, or replaced.  Veteran benefits need to be better managed, and possibly reduced.  Corporate welfare, er subsidies, should be mostly eliminated, with favorable tax treatment for R&D a major exception.  Farm subsidies should be reviewed case by case, and some of them should be reduced and some eliminated; a whole lot of that money goes to agribusiness, not the small farmers of yore.  (There is no good reason that US taxpayers should continue to subsidize the sugar industry, for instance; 200 years is enough.)  The one thing all of these programs has in common is vested interests that will fight to stop cuts, and often they can come up with all manner of seemingly persuasive arguments.

47% of the [American] people beleive they are victims"?

Remember, he was speaking at a fundraiser, and adjusted his message accordingly.

[Karl Henning]

Argh, can't believe I misspelt believe.

Remember, he was speaking at a fundraiser, and adjusted his message accordingly.

But then, that's always been part of his problem, isn't it? He'll say anything to anyone, when he thinks that's what they want to hear.

Chances are, though, that's what he genuinely believes.  This decade.