Romney’s no dope. He knows that he can’t win over with the more-crazy wing of the Republican Party, so he’s tacking left in the hope of scooping up the less-crazy wing. If he succeeds, things may not go well for Obama, or for us.
Real unemployment (as it was measured prior to Clinton rejiggering the books), is currently close to 20% and rising. Obama may have finally given up on Herbert Hoover policies, but he seems to have embraced circa-1937 FDR belt-tightening policies – which were a disaster in 1937, and will likely be no better today. So, by election day, there will be a lot of unemployed people, even more than today, and they will have been unemployed even longer than they are today, and they will not be happy with the status quo. They’ll be looking for Change.
Obama can’t get much traction over Romney on health insurance reform: after all, Romney invented RomneyObamaCare. While Obama’s not in the same league as Romney when it comes to flip-flopping, Obama still has a serious problem in that category, and so he’s not likely to pursue that avenue. Romney announced tonight that we should withdraw from Afghanistan ASAP, while Obama seems to be wanting, at best, to withdraw only the troops he added since taking office. Romney’s even embracing man-made global warming, something that Obama’s done almost nothing to attack.
To sum up: people will want change, and Romney will be difficult to paint as a nut – in some ways, Romney may even be able to pass himself off as being to the left of Obama, a prospect both amusing and terrifying. This may be ugly.
To be blunt, I think Obama has been an awful President, triangulating at every turn when our country needs real leadership. Sure he was dealt a bad hand, but he squandered the good will he brought into office on fighting fiercely for the 1% while tossing a few trickle-down scraps to the 99%. But as bad as Obama has been, Romney is infinitely worse.
Somebody talk me down, please.
Would you really go “infinitely” on that?
Frankly I don’t know if Romney would be all that much worse than Obama. Better President Romney than President Bachman, it Gingrich.
Seriously, Manny? Who is the idealized president you have in mind that would have been better?
Here is the link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-10/mission-training-grooms-mormons-to-pursue-presidency-ceo-suite.html
The premise in the Bloomberg article is that the way men are brought up in Mormon families, at least the ones that serve missions and follow “the party line” grooms them to work hard, take responsibility, and avoid “Weiner moments”. Note that Romney is depicted as a spoiled brat within the Mormon community.
What is also true is that Obama has failed to impress many of us – seeming to not know “when to hold ’em, and when to fold ’em” under pressure.
Further, the failure to protect “The four Freedoms” http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs36b.htm or even the bill of rights has been disheartening.
That does not mean I support Romney, mind you; I am a native of Michigan, and lived in Massachusetts during Romney’s absentee, Narcissistic governorship.
Call me a cynic, but it seems like the antics with all the Nut Job Republicans are taking place to groom Romney for the nomination. And I think that Romney could win — I think that if they ran him in 2008, he’d be the president today, despite being a Republican. He looks and sounds presidential, and his policies don’t seem radical at all, they are the natural progression of Reaganism today (i.e. cutting taxes, making government smaller, removing government regulations). In fact, most of the bashing of Obama fits perfectly with Romney.
However, I just don’t believe that the policies of Romney or the progression of Reagan will help this country. Sure, they sound nice — lower taxes, smaller government and less hoops for businesses to jump through and they will resound with people who don’t think to the “and then what happens…” level. But thinking to that level, that’s where things break down.
Smaller government means that more people will have to do things by themselves. It means that people can’t pool their efforts anymore. Privatization of governmental functions means that the cost of profit will be added to the price of the service. Savings from such efforts are achieved in two ways — cutting employee wages and cutting employees via consolidation.
Romney is a near-perfect Corporate Capitalist — but think about what perfect Corporate Capitalism would look like: There would be only a handful of large companies in the country, with just a handful of accounting departments (very efficient); a handful of corporate offices (very efficient); a handful of workers (automating is very efficient); workers who work for almost nothing (there would be no safety net to drive up the amount that workers would be willing to accept); There would be no leverage among consumers — things like class-action lawsuits would be banned (already on the way to this). The very concept of democracy would be less relevant — dollars replace votes, and if you’re richer, you get more influence. The marketplace would be a lot of little guys who could not act together against a few huge players on the other side who would even be able to collude or create monopolies (since Corporate Capitalists believe that a monopoly is the most efficient way to deliver goods).
See, Romney believes all the same things as the Nut Jobs do — he just knows how to say them better. He knows what topics to avoid. He doesn’t say certain things out loud (like “Medicare” or “Social Security”) though you know that he wants to privatize them. So under a Romney presidency, we would see more dismantling of government, we would see more corporate-friendly policies, we would see more concentration of wealth among the top and more setbacks for everyone else. Why? Because that is what conservatives really, really want – even those who would surely be hurt by these policies somehow believe that if we just do those things, everyone will be rich beyond belief. Yes, it’s a puzzling phenomenon, one which we need to understand more (I don’t know how my relatives, who barely finished high school, have never worked a regular job, and are even on food stamps, can rail on and on about “socialism”).
The one way I think that Romney can be defeated is if we focus on stuff like free trade and manufacturing — though Obama isn’t much better on that. Romney believes in Chinese serfs making all of our goods. He will not stand up for US manufacturing. He believes in the global market. He has shut down companies and sent jobs overseas. That resounds with people from both parties.
I see large organizations as inherently inefficient (excluding some large capital intensive industries) . As an example I don’t think BofA is efficient, it’s just big enough to lobby for special regulations. The smaller banks make more money and treat their customers much better.
I buy my beer from a small brewery, my food from a small grocery chain and my car from a medium size auto maker. All offer better products.
On the public sector side, small and medium towns deliver services to their residents much more efficiently than large cities.
If the economy is still crummy, and gas is still at $4 a gallon next November, then Obama is toast, regardless of who is opponent is.
1) Romney will govern to the left of Obama
Really if at the end of the day you’re disappointed he wasn’t a Kucinich when he didn’t run as one than its your fault not his. Secondly if I had to choose between center-left Obama and far right Romney I’d pick Obama. Not sure how wanting to double Guantanamo, repeal Obamacare, cut taxes for the wealthy, cut aid to the poor, rebannng gays from the military, banning abortion, and doubling defense spending is a progressive agenda. Even if Obama’s agenda has been too mild for your far left tests Romney’s would certainly be a step in an entirely different direction. At least what Obama has done is better than nothing at all, and certainly better than the regression we would have under Romney. Drawdown in Iraq, victory in Afghanistan (in terms of OBL getting killed and a drawdown there this summer), multilateralism at its finest on Libya and around the world on a host of issues, letting gays serve openly, the first step to universal healthcare, plans to reduce the deficit without gutting social safety nets, the most successful auto bailout in history, successful stimulus, really Obama has a ton of great accomplishments. He has fallen short on civil liberties, education, immigration and entitlement reform but thats the reason to give him a second term and a Democratic Congress. Letting Romney in the White House is a massive step backward for progressives and the country.
2) Romney is the inevitable nominee
I honestly think that the current race will stay the way it is or grow shorter-no Perry, no Christie, and ultimately no Rudy or Huntsman by Iowa. I think Gingrich and Santorum get out, once Cain realizes he is losing money, then it becomes a TPaw, Bachman, Romney, Paul race on the eve of Iowa. TPaw is the only candidate capable of winning IA and SC, two of the trifecta for GOP nominees, and I suspect he will compete well in NH if Romney overexposes himself (like Dean did). When T-Paw wins IA he knocks out Bachman, and I think the other right wing candidates flock to TPaw as an anti-Romney bid. The Tea Party types, a solid 40% of the party, would never vote for him. This is why Hillary lost on our side, since Obama became the second choice of Richardson, Biden, Edwards, and Dodd supporters.
3) Lastly I don’t think Obama can be beaten, even if the economy numbers are bad, because his opponent will be driven to the unelectable right.