Houshphandzadeh wrote:I don't think it's online so this will probably fall on deaf eyes, but Thomas Frank (who is awesome) really blasted Obama in Harper's this month. it's not a new case that Obama is more status quo politician than the revolutionary some of us bought into in 2008, but he clarifies it pretty well

So how have the Republicans been so effective, from the minority, in dragging the center toward their positions? Is this where they have simply exploited Obama’s love of bipartisanship and his stated goals of working together to find compromise?
Right, it’s not just that he’s a conciliator, but that he announced it. This is what his whole life has been about. He’s not just a conciliator, he’s an intellectually committed conciliator. He’s a philosophical believer in bipartisanship.

And when that’s announced in advance, it is hard to negotiate.

Well, it compromises your position right off the bat. It almost by definition makes you a bad negotiator, yes. But if you do this as a sort of mental exercise, if you have one side that has already announced that it believes in bipartisanship as a philosophical goal, this is their greatest commitment, how is the other side going to play that? Well, if the other side decides, we’re not going to give an inch on anything and make them come to us all the time, they’re obviously going to win. The thing is, centrism of this kind, the reason that it is celebrated by pundits and columnists alike, the reason they celebrate it so is because it’s so sophisticated, and it’s supposed to be the way to play the game. What I wanted to do in this column is point out how that’s absolutely contrary to reality.

Obama thinks he is reaching across the aisle, the Republicans move farther to the right, and as he stretches and stretches for compromise, he’s being dragged to an entirely new part of the political spectrum.

Yes, which they have done. And that’s the thing that nobody understands, which is when you declare — which Obama did and Clinton partially did before him — that the two parties are the only thing that matter, and bridging the differences between them and the distance between them is what matters, it makes the issues themselves kind of secondary. It’s the centrism that comes first, and the bipartisanship that comes first. Everything comes down to this sort of geometrical relationship between the two parties. If that’s the case, then everything is freed from its moorings and the Republicans are allowed to move whichever way they want. Obviously that’s going to be to the right in order to drag the debate with them.

It’s not just game theory, of course. The Republicans were presented with the same challenge as Obama, which is how do you deal with the financial crisis and this incredible economic setback. And they actually came up with a compelling answer to this question. Obama came up with an answer to the question of what should we do about partisanship, because like many people here in Washington, he thinks partisanship is the real challenge. He thought the real problem with America is that we have these parties and they fight with each other over every little thing. And he’s right to some degree. It is a problem, and it’s annoying if you turn on the TV and here’s Fox News, and you turn on another channel and here’s MSNBC. They’re both insulting and stupid in their own way. Yes, it’s a problem, but it’s not the main problem. It’s not even in the top 10 problems, as far as I’m concerned, but for Obama it’s the No. 1 problem.

Now the other side looks out at what is actually the real problem, which is economic catastrophe. What the public really wants is not someone who is going to reach out across the aisle and shake hands with the other side and say that “we aren’t red states and we aren’t the blue states, we’re the United States.” No. They wanted an answer to the problem at hand, and here’s the crazy thing: the Republicans came up with one. It’s a fanciful answer, the answer that we deregulate more, that we have to reach out and achieve that perfect capitalism that’s eluding us.

Their solutions are the same policies that got us into the mess. More deregulation, more tax cuts. And somehow it’s taken as a serious position.
Right, they’re doing it with the very policies that got us into trouble in the first place. The idea of deregulating Wall Street is absolutely insane, but that’s their answer to the question. At least it’s an answer. Reaching across the aisle and making friends with the other side is in some ways precisely the wrong thing for the moment. The public is in the throws of this revolt against elites, and against insiders. Against Wall Street insiders, Washington insiders, whatever you want to call it. And this is both left and right; this is Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party movement. And here’s Obama saying, you know, if we just put experts in charge they’ll fix everything, and we all need to get together here in Washington and fix everything. It’s exactly the wrong message for the moment.

So what is the lesson to take from that? That things are so impossibly broken, that there is this ruling class that cannot be defeated?
Well, I don’t know. They haven’t been defeated by my team, you know, by Team Liberal. Let Paul Ryan get in there and do his tricks … No, that’s a really cynical, awful thing to say. I’m very disheartened these days, let me put it that way. I don’t mean to be cynical, but I don’t see any other way to talk about this. I myself will probably vote for Barack Obama, almost for sure, because you know, getting Paul Ryan and company in power would be a disaster for this country, there’s no question about it. We need look no further than Todd Akin to remember why.

But yes, I am coming to a very cynical place … I mean, that’s what happens when that kind of idealism sours. That is the result, it congeals into a kind of cynicism. Now I was never as optimistic about Barack Obama as a lot of people were, but at the same time I did certainly expect that there would be a kind of intellectual transition in this country, that change would come. And instead it’s been the exact opposite, you know? It changed the other way.

And yet, the right’s caricature of Obama is the exact opposite — that he has led us to European-style socialism.
Yeah, it’s a hoot isn’t it? I think the reason why they say that is just because they can. It’s like going for his strong point, which was his centrism. To deny that in such a counterintuitive way, to look at a guy like Barack Obama and instead of seeing this born conciliator, which is what “The Audacity of Hope” is all about, to depict him as exactly the opposite. But it’s also about, that’s what Republicans do. That’s historically how they’ve approached their opponents.

It’s almost impossible to imagine Democrats being this effective in opposition, ever.

It’s because they don’t believe in fighting. They’re campaigning much more effectively this time around than they have in the past. I mean, John Kerry just took it, you know? They’re not doing that this time, they’re fighting back hard, and I like to see that. And Obama, he’s doing the populist thing, which is the right thing to do when you’re faced with a guy like Mitt Romney, one of the richest men in America. That is certainly the right way to play it, and I’m enjoying it a lot. I mean, I’m loving watching this campaign unfold. It’s a lot of fun. But that’s a spectator sport, and it shouldn’t blind us to what he has actually done in the White House in the last four years. He hasn’t been he kind of president that his political rhetoric would imply. It would be nice if in his second term maybe he’ll come around. Maybe he has changed his ways; it wouldn’t surprise me if the rough handling he’s gotten from Boehner and co. taught him a lesson.

allentown wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Thanks to both A-Town and Rich for proving the point.

No, my point is that I'd expect this to be the case in every reelection situation--why vote for the challenger unless you think the country is worse off or moving in the wrong direction--so I'm not sure that the data in that form can demonstrate a change in polarization without historical data showing same.

I think the extent of the polarization is remarkable. You think it's not. I know I'm not going to convince you it is and that you're not going to convince me it's not. IOW, we're even polarized about polarization.

The polarization is extreme, but the answer to that question doesn't prove that point. You do realize that the color of the bars has nothing to do with the registration of the person responding?

"I think the challenge that I'll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true," Romney said. "I've looked at prior debates. And in that kind of case, it's difficult to say, 'Well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren't quite accurate? Or am I going to spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about?"

Bucky wrote:so basically it's a cause vs. affect argument

An impressive 84% of the 2.85 million-strong Indian-American community voted for Mr Obama in 2008, second perhaps only to African-Americans as a minority group.

Has he still got their love? It appears so.

According to a Pew Research Center survey released in June, 65% of Indian-Americans approve of the way Mr Obama is handling the presidency.

Of all the Asian American groups surveyed, Indian-Americans
...

Today 70% of Indian-Americans have a college degree or more, and two-thirds have management jobs.

They have the highest median household income at $88,000 (£55,500) - the national average is $49,800 (£31,400).

Again success and riches should drive them to the Republican fold but they aren't going, at least, not yet.

The well-educated community has a certain political sophistication, a generous bent, which embraces a world view with more than 50 shades of grey.

It allows empathy for the less fortunate.

Soren wrote:

"I think the challenge that I'll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true," Romney said. "I've looked at prior debates. And in that kind of case, it's difficult to say, 'Well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren't quite accurate? Or am I going to spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about?"

Soren wrote:

"I think the challenge that I'll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true," Romney said. "I've looked at prior debates. And in that kind of case, it's difficult to say, 'Well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren't quite accurate? Or am I going to spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about?"

One reason their rivalry may try our patience is that the candidates speak such different languages that they seem to be talking past each other, like separate halves of one lobotomized brain. This is more than a breakdown of civil discourse; it’s a failure of mutual comprehension. Ideological divisions account for some of it—ours is an age of politicized everything, in which even chicken sandwiches cause controversy—but the breakdown is also a matter of linguistics. Obama’s poetry and Romney’s prose arise from disparate intellectual faculties and address incompatible sensibilities. When the president tried, with figurative rhetoric and multidimensional moral reasoning, to demonstrate that building a business requires a sturdy social platform, legions of linear thinkers took offense. When Romney asserted, flatly and reflexively, that “corporations are people” because, presumably, they’re composed of people, his insufficiently nuanced metaphor caused sophisticates to snicker. For those who process speech with the wrong lobe, the president expressed himself too fancily, his challenger too literally, and both statements seemed tone deaf in a way. No wonder there have been so many gaffes: Between the candidates’ clashing stylistic instincts and the electorate’s partitioned brain, utterances that seem succinct to one camp strike the other as nonsensical.

The candidates are campaigning in mirror worlds. Simple partisanship and ideology cannot fully describe the split; it seems to originate in competing modes of cognition and perception.
...
Obama is interpretative, Romney analytic, and their contest strikes us as garbled and annoying because these two kinds of mental music don’t mix; together on the same stage, they just make noise.

Soren wrote:

"I think the challenge that I'll have in the debate is that the president tends to, how shall I say it, to say things that aren't true," Romney said. "I've looked at prior debates. And in that kind of case, it's difficult to say, 'Well, am I going to spend my time correcting things that aren't quite accurate? Or am I going to spend my time talking about the things I want to talk about?"

And many of those people - 63% of registered voters - want more details about what a Romney presidency would look like, according to our latest ABC News/ Washington Post poll.

The former governor cited his 59 point - and more than 150 pages - economic plan that he released, but acknowledged that "people aren't going to sit down and read a book."

"So that means that in the speeches I give over the coming weeks I need to lay out some of the principles that were described in that book. And I will in more detail," he said.

Democrats say Romney's plan would cause a $2000 tax hike on the middle class - something Romney disputes and points to a number of studies that say his plan to cut taxes will not increase the deficit, including one by Harvard professor Martin Feldstein.

Feldstein says Romney's math will work, but he would have to eliminate the home mortgage, charitable, state and local tax deductions for incomes greater than $100,000.

When I pressed Romney on that point, he conceded that he actually hadn't read the Feldstein report that he and Paul Ryan cite on the campaign trail.

"I haven't seen his precise study," he said.

"I said that there are five different studies that point out that we can get to a balanced budget without raising taxes on middle income people. Let me tell you, George, the fundamentals of my tax policy are these. Number one, reduce tax burdens on middle-income people. So no one can say my plan is going to raise taxes on middle-income people, because principle number one is keep the burden down on middle-income taxpayers," he said.

Romney defined middle income as $200,000 to $250,000 a year and less.

The IRS data show that taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes over $100,000 (the top 21% of all
taxpayers) made itemized deductions totaling $636 billion in 2009. Those high-income taxpayers
paid marginal tax rates of 25% to 35%, with most $200,000-plus earners paying marginal rates
of 33% or 35%.
And what do we get when we apply a 30% marginal tax rate to the $636 billion in itemized
deductions? Extra revenue of $191 billion—more than enough to offset the revenue losses from
the individual income tax cuts proposed by Gov. Romney.

Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal's board of contributors. He advises the Romney campaign.

"No one can say my plan is going to raise taxes on middle-income people, because principle number one is (to) keep the burden down on middle-income taxpayers," Romney told host George Stephanopoulos.

"Is $100,000 middle income?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less," Romney responded.

td11 wrote:bbc:

An impressive 84% of the 2.85 million-strong Indian-American community voted for Mr Obama in 2008, second perhaps only to African-Americans as a minority group.

Has he still got their love? It appears so.

According to a Pew Research Center survey released in June, 65% of Indian-Americans approve of the way Mr Obama is handling the presidency.

Of all the Asian American groups surveyed, Indian-Americans
...

Today 70% of Indian-Americans have a college degree or more, and two-thirds have management jobs.

They have the highest median household income at $88,000 (£55,500) - the national average is $49,800 (£31,400).

Again success and riches should drive them to the Republican fold but they aren't going, at least, not yet.

The well-educated community has a certain political sophistication, a generous bent, which embraces a world view with more than 50 shades of grey.

It allows empathy for the less fortunate.

Youseff wrote:I agree it's the top end of things, but two family members making 50K is still middle income by any model.