(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
.
For your other Halloween leftovers, commentor Origuy points out that Operation Gratitude will gladly take all that calorie-laden sweetness off your hands and send it to our soldiers in Afghanistan. (They also take dental products, if you prefer.)
Neil Irwin, at the Washington Post Wonkblog, explains why it’s such a problem that “Rich people think the economy is doing just fine“:
… The American Affluence Research Center surveys families in the top 10 percent of net worth twice a year, selling studies on, for example, their opinions of various luxury brands that might help marketers. Along the way, they ask how these rich families are feeling about the economy.
Pretty good, is the answer. The survey’s economic sentiment index is up to 93 this fall, rising 22 points since the spring. It’s also the highest since the fall of 2007, before the recession began, when it was at 108. The researchers, who survey 327 affluent households, consider an index above 100 as a “positive” view of the economy and the 93 level as “neutral”. Still, surveys of the rest of the masses of Americans reveal views on the state of the economy that are anything but neutral…
… In the last couple of years, any sense of urgency around getting the economy on track has almost disappeared within Congress. In last year’s fiscal cliff debate, for example, there was no strong push from either party to extend a payroll tax holiday or find another mechanism to help out low- and middle-income workers. The debate over the latest fiscal bargaining is all about how to reduce the deficit, with little discussion of interim measures to try to boost growth.
Members of Congress tend to be relatively wealthy themselves, and tend to associate with big donors and other prominent folks who would also fit in the researchers’ survey definition. And to those people, the economy is pretty much back. This helps explain why Congress has seemed less interested in finding ways to propel stronger growth than the overall surveys and economic data would suggest…
I for one can see why Dan Savage chose to highlight a (probably too optimistic) interview with a staunch “old school” progressive blogger:
Duncan Black’s neighbors probably can’t hear him tapping away on his laptop in his Philadelphia row house, but he has been doing his best to become Townsend’s modern heir. An economist and former college professor, Black—who goes by the pseudonym “Atrios” online—is one of America’s most popular political bloggers; his typical output consists of short, snarky quips on the news from a liberal perspective. But in late 2012 he embarked on a sustained crusade, on his blog and in a series of columns for USA Today, to inject a single idea into America’s policy discourse: “We need an across-the-board increase in Social Security retirement benefits of 20 percent or more,” he declared in the opening of a column for USA Today. “We need it to happen right now.”…
***********
Apart from sugar hangovers, what’s on the agenda for the end of the standard work week?
raven
We’re trying to absorb what an additional one year delay on our serwer/addition nightmare is going to mean. We can leave the back yard like it is and we need to put some stairs and fence back up so the pups can get out. We’ve been in this house for 14 years and have done extensive renovations, much of it I did with the help of my father-in-law. In the last couple of weeks I have noticed my bride talking about selling this house and our rental and finding something else. I always thought with the BS&T we had in this that we would never move but now I don’t know. Having refinanced with a 15 at 63 years old seemed like an ok idea but now I don’t know.
Keith G
And a happy Día de Muertos to all – if happy be the correct wish.
When I first began working with the hospice years ago, I found it interesting that the staff did a full-on Halloween decoration. Ghosts and skeletons hanging from the walls of an AIDS hospice, yup, but no one seemed to notice or take exception. That is part of the genius of the now 25 year old non-profit located in a modernized, rambling 1920s American Foursquare house – it’s a home.
billgerat
Of course the rich think the economy is booming….they’ve been making money hand over fist with their investments in companies that are making record profits while refusing to hire more workers. They also think the lower classes are just bums who refuse to get a job and want welfare the rest of their lives. Cognitive dissonance doesn’t even begin to explain it.
Hal
Rachel Maddow featured a piece on Mitt Romney writing on Facebook about how he never intended the Mass Healthcare Law to be used nationwide. How it was specific to Mass only. Then played two clips of him talking about the law as a great blueprint for the rest of the country, one clip featuring Lindsay Graham nodding alongside him in agreement. Romney still hasn’t grasped the concept of youtube has he?
Baud
@Hal:
No, he hasn’t grasped the concept of being questioned by his lessers.
Baud
I’ve never been able to get into Atrios, but he can pull this off, then good for him.
Everything is hard, but nothing is impossible.
c u n d gulag
Mom’s SS Survivors benefits hit the bank this morning!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!
We can go and get some groceries today!!!!
We ran out of money over a week ago – local taxes, car and home insurance, and the electric and water bills all hit in the same month.
Don’t worry, we didn’t go hungry – I’m a pretty good shopper, so I stocked-up over the last month-and-a-half, knowing the timing of those bills.
And tonight – our once-every-quarter treat – a large pie from a terrific little local pizza place, with fresh garlic over the whole pie, and pepperoni on half of it (for Mom).
With my homemade chicken soup, and a salad I’ll make after shopping, that’ll last us two dinners.
Note to self – and to others who may end up having no other recourse at some point, but to eat the rich:
Never, ever, don’t make your rich person anything but well-done!!!
Those big vermin are bound to be swimming with tiny vermin.
I’ll be stewing or slow-braising mine if the day comes.
The rich don’t have much fat on them, what with their healthy diets, and gym memberships.
But remember, even if you score the ‘filet mignon of rich guy,’ grill it until it’s well-done.
Hal
I’m deeply disappointed the original Halloween wasn’t in heavy rotation on tv yesterday. I didn’t have to go to work until 11pm last night and was looking forward to catching the flick yesterday afternoon on AMC, but they kept showing all the other terrible Halloweens first. The original came on at midnight. Fine, I guess that makes sense, but who the hell wants to watch any of those other horrible sequels? That third one with the masks doesn’t even make any damn sense.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
I feel for you. Having bought our place just 5 years ago we were able to pay off our mortgage because of a somewhat substantial inheritance I received (substantial to me $135K, small compared to the rich) and I still have a considerable amount left over (we bought a foreclosed place that had been on the market for 1+ years). We are 55 and 54 and I can’t imagine going back to scratch.
Hang in there.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Yea fuck it, the princess is only 54 so she’s got that goin for her.
OzarkHillbilly
@billgerat:
In truth, it is not that they refuse to hire more workers, just that they don’t need to. They are making money hand over fist and hiring new people ‘costs’ a lot of upfront money so why not wait?
‘Job creators’ my ass. Every time I hear those words I just want to scream. If they are ‘job creators’ can we fire them and get some new ones that will actually do the job? Why didn’t we fire them back in ’08 when they were ‘destroying’ all those jobs? Yeah, job creators are right up there with the Loch Ness monster, Sasquatch, and unicorns in the list of mythical creatures.
Good economies create jobs, bad economies destroy them. What we have now is neither.
CarolDuhart2
Help me understand. Just how relevant are Presidential approval ratings for a President in a second term anyway? He’s never going to run again, and even with low ratings he’s going to be pretty effective for the Democrats as a fundraiser.
No donations last night :((. And no feedback on my site either. :((
Certain holidays-ones that can’t be leapfrogged over to the weekend-are awkward coming on Thursdays. Halloween seems to be one of them. Since the next day is a school/work day, you can’t really go all out with the parties or the trick or treats. Folks have to go to bed and stuff, and school and work takes up too much of the day.
JPL
@raven: If you sell it, would you have to landscape the back yard? I’ve always enjoyed the pictures that you have shared with us. Your current house and property has so much character. I remodeled an eighties ranch and it’s still an eighties ranch.
Schlemizel
@Baud:
The blog used to be a must read (though never comment – the comment section is a sewer of people trying to be oh so cool, hep and insider). Mid-decade he did great work on the economy and economics right up to the giant collapse in 08. SOmewhere around there he seemed to lose interest. Today the thing is a zombie, alive but not really living. Rarely if ever is there a posting with anything like the insight or power he can bring.
I am glad to see his idea about SS getting play in Useless Today. We need to elevate talking point to counter the bullshit that has become common wisdumb on the economy and government.
daveNYC
@CarolDuhart2: They’re kind of important to whichever Democrat ends up running for the job. They also don’t hurt as far as trying to get stuff done, though with the House like it is that’s not going to make much of a difference.
So… How about those SNAP benefits?
CarolDuhart2
@Schlemizel: And it is bullshit. I think we can fund SS with current benefits with a few adjustments. I certainly think we can afford a 10% increase at least up to living wage standards without foreclosing the future of young people.
CarolDuhart2
@daveNYC: I’m not totally sure what I will get. I’ve been doing a dance with unemployment and can only hope that my benefits manifest in my account today. (I’m waiting for them to be posted). In the mean time I don’t even have enough for pop or anything other than barebones food (I’ve been eating off the kindness of strangers and family)
But what can a Republican really reverse? By 2017, there will be over a couple of million folks on Obamacare, and the entire insurance industry will be humming along with the new profits. DOMA and Don’t ask, don’t tell are history-even gay marriage will be mostly legal.
We are not going back to Iraq/Afghanistan anytime soon.
I can see what you mean in terms of whether or not he can have a successor affirm his achievements proudly or not.
Poopyman
Speaking of eating the rich, has anyone seen Villago Delenda Est anytime in the past week or so?
Matt McIrvin
@OzarkHillbilly: “Job creators” isn’t a hopeful promise, it’s a threat. “I created your job and I can take it away if you don’t behave. See, I took away this guy’s.”
Keith G
@CarolDuhart2: Definitely what Dave said.
Also, it is a metric about how well a president is doing his or her job and more broadly how well the executive branch as a whole is doing its job (or at least the perceptions thereof). If the metric was valid in 2006 it’s also valid in 2013.
CarolDuhart2
@Matt McIrvin: Aren’t we in the era where most folks are expected to be “entrepreneurs” anyway, for at least part of our lives? So why worship “job creators” instead of helping people create their own jobs?
Poopyman
Oh, and a good Samhain to you, if you happen to swing that way.
Botsplainer
@raven:
I’m toying, at 51, of giving up my now-empty-and-too-big exurban house and large woodsy lot for an upscale loft 2BR condo in a rapidly gentrifying urban hipster neighborhood about 10 blocks from my office. Between losing my commute expense, half of my wife’s commute expense, drop about $100 a month off basic utilities, YMCA payments (the buildings have exercise rooms), trash hauling payments, packet sewage treatment plant maintenance payments, regaining 2 hrs a day in expected commute times, even with a bigger mortgage and condo maintenance shares, I do better. Plus, there’s the benefit of walking to work and having a shitton of great bars and restaurants to walk to, as well as losing the responsibility and time suck of outdoor maintenance.
The greatest benefit would be in getting rid of most of our stuff.
Downsides – we lose the yard for the dog, and he’d be crated most of the day (although I could frequently get home to walk him). The indoor/outdoor old cat would definitely be an issue, but he has occasionally spent extended time in the garage and demonstrated that he will use a litter box. Other downside – when kids come home for holidays/summer break, I guess it would be sleeping bags.
I dunno. Wife thinks I’m a little joke-y on this.
Matt McIrvin
@CarolDuhart2: I still believe, in my heart, that Obamacare will be repealed.
Everything I’ve seen in 40-odd years of watching American politics tells me that we can’t just win this one. It doesn’t happen. The right-wingers always win this kind of thing in the end. Always.
Maybe this time is different. But I can’t really believe it’s different. And it seems like, now, with the publicity about the website problems and the horror stories of people who “lost their coverage”, they’re getting the people on their side.
The people who matter, at least. See, the problem with Obamacare is that the people who benefit from it are the people who don’t matter. They don’t vote (enough, especially in midterm elections). They don’t have money. They don’t have a voice. You don’t hear about them on the news. And the people with bogus stories about how Obama took away their wonderful crap insurance and they’ll have to pay a jillion dollars have powerful people willing to give them the world’s biggest megaphone and broadcast their stories uncritically.
So the vast middle, who figure aren’t really affected because they have employer-based plans, will believe the Republicans, and not the people who don’t matter. And the Republicans will take over again because FREEDOM, and health insurance for all those other people will just go away.
gene108
@Hal:
Poor Mitt Romney. He had laid out a great political strategy to become President.
Be a Republican governor of a highly Democratic state, with a Democratic legislature proving he’s able to be bi-partisan.
Pass a revolutionary health care law – addressing one of the pressing problems in our society – that moves towards universal coverage using “free market” principles, which would undercut a Democratic challenger and maybe grab some of those voters.
Have extensive business experience in finance, with close ties to Wall Street types, proving he’s more than just a career politician.
And then 2008 happened and all his strengths went down the crapper, with regards to what sells in the Republican Party.
Compromise and bi-partisanship became a dirty word with Republicans. Anything that doesn’t hurt poor people became anathema and Wall Street types became hugely unpopular.
Applejinx
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, it’s not like this is a country that would elect a black dude twice or anything.
I think it’s like Dutch tulip frenzies or the dot-coms. The traditional wisdom goes on being unquestionable forever, until it breaks, and then it breaks hard. You’re assuming people trust the media after many years of the media being manifestly untrustworthy. There’s always that assumption of ‘all the other people are REALLY stupid’ so people go along with the big lie as long as they possibly can, until they have to jump ship over something.
My own feeling is that the backlash against capitalist over-reach will be nasty and unhelpful, but then so has the capitalist overreach been. Can we set up a tripartite system in the economy, since that worked fairly well in politics for many years? Accepted entities set against each other, pursuing their own self-interests but with grossly different agendas.
Money kinda sucks, guys. Goes wrong too easily.
amk
@Keith G:
Nice shrub 2006 is the same as kenyan 2013 false equivalence there.
NorthLeft12
@Matt McIrvin: Uhhh, the examples of Social Security and Medicaid might make you think the Right does not always win in the end.
Unless you are so pessimistic that you think they will successfully repeal those two programs?
IMO the wingnuts are looking to wear down and achieve their goals by apathy. They have proven time and again that they will fold if the Left holds firm and argues forcefully, and unceasingly. Do you guys not see this?
Southern Beale
Wingnut anti-government Tennessee attorey demands the court refer to him as “Captain Justice,” “Guardian of the Realm” or “Leader of the Resistance”:
Fucking loon. He’s begging to be disbarred.
C.V. Danes
The rich, which represent capital, have successfully leveraged the economic downturn to do what they always do, crush labor. I’d be quite happy, too, if that was my goal.
Poopyman
@Southern Beale: “The Resistance”? Let’s apply a couple hundred volts and find out.
C.V. Danes
@Matt McIrvin:
And, unfortunately, most of those with employer-based plans are still experiencing significant increases in their premiums, so many of them are not realizing the benefit of Obamacare, either.
Matt McIrvin
@NorthLeft12: Those were back in the old days, before the Right started winning everything.
I don’t know. Maybe we really are entering yet another political regime. I’ve felt optimistic about it before. I’m not seeing it today.
Baud
@amk:
It’s worse than false equivalence. Bush took us from a decent economy to calamity. Obama took us from economic collapse to a passable economy (while most of the time dealing with an opposition party whose sole policy goal was to defeat him politically). The baseline for comparison is not at all the same.
C.V. Danes
@CarolDuhart2:
All we have to do to fix the SS funding issue is to remove the cap on the payroll tax. Problem solved.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Obama has three more years to go in his second term. When do you expect Obamacare to be repealed? 2017, after it’s been in effect for 3 whole years?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The Right doesn’t win everything. It’s a false meme that we just need to jettison.
jayackroyd
Here’s a direct link to dday’s piece.
psmag.com/business-economics/frustrated-blogger-made-expanding-social-security-respectable-idea-6722…
Keith G
@amk: Now that is pure bull shit my friend. Saying that the act of measurement is equivalent does not imply that the two things being measured are equal
C.V. Danes
@Baud:
The richest 400 families now control more wealth than the GDP of Russia. Me thinks that while they might not be winning everything, they’re certainly winning all the important stuff.
amk
@Baud:
Not just on economic front, shrub was a total disaster on war front, defence front, social justice front, judicial front, executive front etc.. And the kenyan usurper turned the boat around in all those issues. And yet somehow his 50% approval rating is somehow the same as shrub’s 22%. Left is their own worst enemy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Matt McIrvin:
Once the middle class get their teeth into it it will never die. At least not until single payer gets a leg up.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Sure, if the next three years are a time of such universal calamity that a right wing that promises to throw everything out and start over will sound attractive.
Botsplainer
@Southern Beale:
What he’s doing isn’t so much loony, but he’s being a smartass. Rettig was reacting to how far Tennessee has gone down the rabbit hole, with so many untalented, ideologically stunted wingnut lawyers sneering “the Government” as an epithet in every criminal action. His response was to be a smartass.
If the judge has any sense, he’ll quietly deny Rettig’s motion without elaboration, and will fuck the wingnut on discretionary calls. As the wingnut gets ever more pissy, he can make an oblique reference to “as Defender of the Realm, you should expect that you have to work at it”. The wingnut will get it, and will stop, that message percolating out to the other wingnuts.
Frankly, judges needed to mudstomp some of these idiots years ago – but they were white, some from fine families or fine schools, and thus were coddled on idiot arguments and idiot crusades.
amk
@Keith G: And yet you have been concern trolling here about Obama’s approval ratings (which are pretty good) and his successor’s chances.
OzarkHillbilly
@C.V. Danes:
Heh. Hard to argue with that. Of course, they were saying the same thing just before the French Revolution. ;-P
gene108
@CarolDuhart2:
What New Deal and Great Society programs did Reagan reverse? None.
He just set the tone for laying down the conventional wisdom of the last generation that “government is the problem” that has been hurting us for 30 years.
We’re just seeing a nascent movement towards liberal / progressive issues getting some kind of traction, such as raising the minimum wage, income inequality being a major problem, etc., but so far there has not been enough time to build popular support to make it happen.
Republicans are completely entrenched to opposing these goals. Full stop. No compromise.
A Republican President would kill whatever momentum there is to address the inequity that has cropped up into our society over the last 30 years.
Plus being able to appoint SCOTUS and other judicial appointments, as we’ve seen, can tilt the framework of our society for decades and Brier and Ginsburg, especially Ginsburg, may not make it to 2020, if a Republican wins in 2016, along with giving a window for Scalia, Kennedy and/or Thomas to step down and a younger right-wing Justice to get appointed and sit on the SCOTUS for decades, which would make undoing the right-wing tilt of the court impossible for another 30 to 40 years. I mean think about Roe v Wade getting overturned and states being able to directly ban abortions that a heavily right-wing SCOTUS would definitely enable.
Also look at all the push back Holder’s done on the voter ID laws that are all the rage in Republican controlled states. A Republican DOJ would back those laws up, as much as possible, which would make it harder to unseat Republicans.
The damage a Republican President would do would be immense.
Keith G
@Baud: If Obama’s job approval ratings are falling, then they are falling. It doesn’t mean that he’s a bad person or that the world is out to get him. It means that some decisions made by his administration are not seen as having desired or optimal outcomes.
He may work to change that or he may not. It’s within his power to do so. But don’t blame the evaluation itself or those noticing the results of the evaluation.
C.V. Danes
@Matt McIrvin:
History both echoes and rhymes. This new Gilded Age will come to an end when labor has finally had enough and rises up as they did in the early part of the last century. Oh, and there will probably be a global economic depression in there somewhere, too, so you better stock up on 5 cent apples and pencils :-)
Matt McIrvin
@amk: Actually, Obama’s approval rating is pretty much exactly the same as Bush’s at the same point in his second term.
Which was after Katrina.
It turns out that Obama saying something arguably incorrect about the interaction of a grandfather clause with a three-year time delay in health reform implementation, while saving people from ripoff insurance plans against their will, really is as bad as the Iraq war and the destruction of New Orleans combined.
Bush’s popularity really went into the toilet later.
CarolDuhart2
@Matt McIrvin: Where are the signs of such a calamity? And the demographics that do support Obama have no interests in common with the right wing. Perhaps if the right didn’t sound these days like the stuff we used to find in the back of the National Enquirer, there might be a chance. But the Republican Party are busy trying to create Armageddon for their aging, (rural-means low population and low money) demographics. Suburbanites want stability and reasonableness, and the Republicans aren’t offering any of that these days.
C.V. Danes
@Matt McIrvin:
Actually, the sense I have of Obama (and I voted for him twice) is someone who is not in charge. Too many of the inmates appear to be running the asylum under his watch.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Matt McIrvin: You need to get out of your bubble and read other sites.
The latest shiny to fill the blogs and time on TV isn’t the big picture.
“Demographics is destiny.”
“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
Getting people to vote is the key. Noise that disillusions them and causes them not to bother is the enemy.
Don’t support the enemy.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Keith G:
I have enough stamina not to fall to pieces over fluctuations in approval ratings.
When his approval ratings were rising, did you make the same type of comparison?
debbie
@Baud:
Absolutely, along with the others: Republicans are better at waging war; Republicans are more fiscally responsible; Republicans are always fair-minded and bi-partisan, Republicans truly care about the little guys, women…and on and on.
gene108
@Baud:
The Right has lost pretty badly on social issues like gay marriage, integration, etc. On issues like abortion they’ve undone the gains made by liberals in many states.
On economic issues liberals have not come close to winning and putting in a liberal blue print for the economy. We’re just nibbling at the edges of the status quo Reagan established.
Keith G
@amk: Concern trolling, eh? So you don’t think that there are loyal Democrats right now inside the White House and other offices around DC looking at these numbers and wondering if they are a one-off thing?
Baud
@gene108:
The right was winning social issues before they lost them. The same thing will occur with economic issues if we don’t take ourselves out of the game (as we did in 2010).
Xantar
@Matt McIrvin:
Oh for fuck’s sake. Obamacare is going to be repealed? Seriously? I’m more optimistic than that, and I struggle with deadly depression. We’ve been in crisis before. Remember when Obama was going to be doomed because of McCain’s “celebrity” ad? These things pass. And if you can’t get over yourself, then go out there and do something.
amk
@Keith G: yeah, I am sure they are having nightmares about these numbers.
OzarkHillbilly
@gene108: That’s it. If Christie wins in ’16 it’s ritual seppuku for me.
aimai
@c u n d gulag: CUND I’m so happy for you guys. You are such a good son. I know your mother feels, with all the terror and uncertainity she faces, that she is not alone and she is well loved. I am thinking of you two all the time and wishing you a safe and cozy winter with nothing shut off and nothing scary. But I know that whatever happens you will persevere.
aimai
@CarolDuhart2: National Enquirer? Hell, they sound like the National Front.
aimai
@Keith G: Its so ridiculous, though–he’s not running again. Its like madly studying your stock “wins” and “losses” when you aren’t planning on selling.
Cervantes
Not a good comparison. Drama queens come by their over-reactions honestly, not in bad faith.
CarolDuhart2
Another thing. I have seen Obama’s reasonableness, his toughness (not enough people say that), and his long game. He’s steadfast, the Right isn’t, which adds to his Teflon. And the right can’t find anything on him that matters.
Yes, there are problems with the rollout. But the problems are fixable and are being fixed. I bet by December 1st, the right will go to something else, and something else, and something else.
As for the Katrina narrative: It was Bush’s indifference and incompetence that made it pretty devastating for Bush. People died screaming for help. The healthcare thing? Obama is handling it and looking for even more help to handle things; It’s clear he cares and knows what to do and is doing it. And nobody will die because this rough rollout of Obamacare.
Keith G
@Baud: Dear goodness. Go back and read the original comment. I wasn’t proclaiming the end of the world or celebrating. I was noting that if the numbers have meaning for one person, they should for the next person as well.
If the numbers are a blip and improve on their own, great let’s party on. If they are duplicated and deepen, things will get very interesting and not in a good way.
raven
@JPL: The real destruction is just the immediate backyard behind the house where the addition is/was going so, yes, we’ll have to do that. Right now the trenches for the footings remain open and there are a couple of piles of soil. The real bummer is that I moved tons and tons of granite that served as a patio and planters. I think in the short (a YEAR) run we’ll grade the yard and then, if we decide to bolt, do more.
Cervantes
@CarolDuhart2: Help me understand. Just how relevant are Presidential approval ratings for a President in a second term anyway?
They might be relevant to his would-be successors.
OzarkHillbilly
@Xantar:
Here is a handy dandy chart showing the winners and the losers in the Obamacare debacle.
Hint: 3% are losers, 14% are winners, and 83% have no real change.
Valdivia
Why is there an assumption that Obama’s approval ratings will just keep going down?
After the media have been relentlessly trying to make Obama take some sort of hit they have achieved it. He always manages to get out of it, because no matter how much the Village assists the GOP they always always shoot themselves in the foot. My recommendation: take a break from the incessant the sky is falling on Obamacare reports, and check back in February. If it’s not working then freak out, if it is this whole we are doomed parade will not matter. And by this time next year we will be hearing mostly about the people who for the first time where able to get saved from cancer instead of getting a letter that tells you you will get a better insurance deal but oh noes you have to let go of your present crappy insurance.
Keith G
@aimai: Correct, he is not running again. And a president’s job approval ratings have direct implications on Congressional elections and the election of a successor president. And those elections have direct implications on the legacy of President Obama and his policies.
Obama may not be running again, but in a sense his accomplishments certainly are.
Baud
@Keith G:
You specifically made the comparison to Bush by invoking 2006. If you just wanted to make a statement about the usefulness of presidential approval polls, you could have just said that.
Kirbster
I am really irritated by today’s Google News headlines about how only a few were “able” to “sign up” for healthcare insurance on day one of the healthcare.gov website. You’re not officially signed up for insurance until you authorize payment, and why would you pay three months in advance? These policies don’t go into effect until January 1, 2014. This is not a Black Friday/while supplies last “sale” situation. Insurance is a serious financial product that requires careful consideration. It’s not an impulse buy like some shiny new gadget for one’s immediate gratification. These headlines are pure sensationalism and clickbait.
aimai
@Botsplainer: Mr. Aimai has a plan, though its not that detailed, that we will sell our house sometime right after we turn 60 and move into smaller quarters. At any rate its in the cards. We don’t need all this space, though to my mind after 60 is when we have a slight chance of having grandchildren and wanting to have enough space for them to stay with us when they come to visit. Our area doesn’t have any convenient lofts/apartments–not more convenient than our house anyway–but if I could trade (which I can’t) for something in san francisco or new york I would. Houses are overrated.
CarolDuhart2
In many ways, the Republicans shot themselves in the foot a long time ago with Presidential term limits. While no one anticipated an Obama, the fact that he doesn’t have to run again means he doesn’t have to compromise so much. He can stand back and take the blows without worrying about his own political fate. An Obama running in 2017 might have more reasons to worry about his right flank in Congress. But there will be another name at the top of the ballot, and that name can distance him and herself from things (unless it’s Biden, and believe it or not, I think it will be).
NotMax
@raven
So when are you moving to paradise in the Pacific?
Baud
@Kirbster:
Most people signed up for Romneycare last minute. The only numbers that matter are enrollment for coverage starting Jan. 1 and enrollment when open season ends on March 31.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
Living in NJ, I can tell you that unless Hillary runs in 2016, there will be no Democrat who can beat him. NJ will definitely go for him, plus he’ll peal of enough Philly suburban voters that PA may will go Republican.
He has the same Teflon quality Reagan had. Sure there’s stuff that might be questionable about him, but damn it folks just like
Reagan’s folksie charmsChristie’s straight talk.He has a Democratic legislature that has kept him from sticking a transvaginal probe in every woman’s vagina. He’s just as right-wing as Corbett, Walker, Scott or any right-winger that seems to have sort of self-destructed, with a Republican legislature.
He’s also bought off the Democratic power brokers in NJ, so there’s very little pushback against Christie from NJ Democrats. His anti-poor union busting agenda will thus stay safely under cover, since the opposition party does not really want to oppose and bring up those issues, because each one of the Dem party bosses got bought off.
People talk about McCaullife possibly winning in VA as being news, because Christie is up by 25% in polls.
A Republican cruising to victory in a blue state is going to be a huge boost for his Presidential ambition. The MSM will anoint him as their Great White Bi-Partisan Hope. Chris Matthews will give him a nightly tongue bath.
Hell, my mom was visiting me last weekend and said “Christie’s doing a pretty good job, isn’t he?” Of course she lives in NC, but the fact is Christie’s image seems to be etched in stone as the guy who stood by his ravaged state in the aftermath of Sandy and the guy, who has a Muslim friend, who he gave a judicial appointment to and told the crazies to STFU about talking crap about his Muslim friend.
Forget cutting the Medicaid eligibility requirement from $25,000 to $5,000, the fact he’s staunchly anti-abortion, when faced with the choice of rolling back the 1% increase in sales tax or the tax on incomes over $1 million passed in Corzine’s tenure, he chose the millionaire’s tax and left the sales tax increase in place. The fact he’s been stalling gay marriage in NJ, including vetoing the legislature’s passage of a gay marriage bill.
Christie has a lot of Reaganesque qualities that will get the MSM all hot and bothered about him, which mostly boils down to not doing anything to help the middle class, pissing on the poor and telling them it’s raining, while making folks feel like things are getting better for them, when he hasn’t done much.
Kay
@CarolDuhart2:
Perceptions of the healthcare law will be harmed if Democrats in Congress continue to tremble in fear and continue to allow Manchin to be the spokesperson for “the Democrats in Congress” on the health care law. You’re seeing so much of him because he’s filling a void left by panicked Democrats.
Obama’s defending the law. Congress isn’t.
Democrats in Congress will then whine that Obama isn’t “leading” and this might be persuasive, if I hadn’t watched Democrats in Congress bolt like fleeing gazelles every single time Clinton hit a rough patch.
They choked on Clinton’s health care law. They choked on the impeachment. They choked on Al Gore, and advised him to run against Bill Clinton’s record.
Good, confident advocates don’t run away from a difficult argument to make. They make it, and let the outcome take care of itself. Democrats in Congress can’t control media and they can’t control Republicans. The one and only thing they can control is themselves.
Are they doing a good job defending their law? I would say “no”.
raven
@NotMax: Ha! I don’t think I could hack it.
gene108
@Valdivia:
Who’s going to do the reporting? Right-wing media isn’t. The MSM has proven that they are more than willing to ignore human interest stories that make Repubiicans look like the heartless monsters they are and paint Democrats in a good light.
There are million of children, with pre-existing conditions, who are receiving life saving treatments for the last couple of years because of Obamacare. There hasn’t been much reporting on this.
I don’t see why that would change in a year, when adults get the same benefit.
danielx
And if you associate with people like that all time, their problems (or lack thereof) become your own. So no, it doesn’t exactly come as a shock that “any sense of urgency around getting the economy on track has almost disappeared within Congress.” After all, they don’t know anybody who is unemployed or underemployed.
Jay C
Surprised that no one has mentioned it, but I found this unpleasant surprise in New York City’s court fight over the NYPD’s “Stop-And-Frisk” program to be moderately disturbing.
Not so much on the “legal” grounds: I had expected the City’s appeal to be adjudicated one way or another: it just seems to me that the appeals court’s decision had an unnecessarily personal edge to it: basically charging the judge in the original case with bias and “forum-shopping” (which of course, we know, never happens!). Which to me, looks like an attempt to taint/discredit the whole case and appeal, and, as collateral damage, Judge Shira Scheindlin as well. Whose rep, AFAICT, doesn’t really deserve the knock.
Not to mention that it (as I read it: obligatory IANAL notice!) kinda/sorta skirts the whole “racial profiling” issue which is at the bottom of the whole affair: which to my eye, kinda/sorta vindicates the concept. Not good news.
NotMax
@raven
Year-round fishing, and Morning Joe comes on at midnight, so never have to watch it again. :)
amk
@gene108:
Nope, he doesn’t. He is giulianiesque. He’ll flame out in the same manner.
raven
@NotMax: Many pulses but by the time I can retire. . .
amk
@Kay: This. Boneless dems their own enemy.
Valdivia
@gene108:
local press, which is always ignored but makes a difference in the states that we need. I also believe that they have been so relentless in the negative roll out that at some point the narrative will flip, it always does, even if it isn’t at the national level.
The only wrinkle will be scardy cat dems who run away from the law. Which is why I am cosigning what @Kay: said.
C.V. Danes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Indeed, indeed :-)
Matt McIrvin
@Valdivia:
We just had a post the other day about how the US is on the verge of food riots. How do you think that one will play in the media? Angry brown people everywhere, Agnes, get the shootin’ iron!
Matt McIrvin
fuck, I’m feeling like mclaren this morning. Assume I just wrote sixteen paragraphs about Shithole America.
Keith G
@Baud: I am sorry to do this this way but nonetheless… I shall explain slowly… I wasn’t saying, or mean to say, that Obama is the same as Bush. What I was noting is that lowered polling data has meaning whether it is their guy or our guy.
For the first time in his presidency, Obama’s personal approval ratings are upside down. If this were to continue, this would be very unfortunate for things the Democrats would like to see done over the next year at least. The good news is I think these numbers are very pliable for Obama. To the degree he wants to try I think that he can be successful improving them
Kay
@amk:
I love how they’ve rewritten the Clinton years. They hung him out to dry constantly.
Still waiting for a strong leader, I guess! Just milling around in the foyer, wondering what to do next!
They’re really going to let Manchin be the lead? A West Virginia Democrat who only remains in office if he periodically denounces the President? Great! Good idea. His entire role in the Senate is to proclaim over and over how he’s not…really a Democrat. I guess he was the obvious choice now that Joe Leiberman no longer fills that role. They had to replace Leiberman with the West Virginian.
gene108
@Kay:
Democrats and liberals, in general, lack any sort of cohesive message discipline. They just seem to push whatever’s on their mind, without any cohesion.
Republicans get their blast fax with the days talking points on it and run with, so any Republican talking in public will say the exact same thing.
Occasionally there’s a change in this free-for-all habit, like the debt ceiling fight, which Democrats win, but the lesson of being cohesive and having each other’s back, and especially having a Democratic President’s back, just seems to not sink in.
Running from Carter, Clinton and Obama hasn’t helped Democrats, yet the politicians never seem to learn.
Chyron HR
@Keith G:
“Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue… A-y-y-y!”
Bush’s approval ratings consistently slid downward over most of his second term in office. One bad data point in Obama’s polling isn’t statistically comparable. Let’s see what it looks like in a month, if you can wait that long.
Elizabelle
Catching the last (?) TCM Vincent Price flick as star of the month (of October) —
Theatre of Blood.
Someone is killing the great theatre critics of London.
VPrice, Diana Rigg, Robert Morley and two pet poodles.
Great fun.
gene108
@amk:
Why do you say that?
He has none of Rudy’s baggage. No marital affairs / divorces. He’s staunchly anti-abortion, but is in a state where he can’t act on those beliefs. There’s nothing about him that materially veers from Republican orthodoxy.
Republicans have been saying their problem isn’t their message, but the fact they don’t have someone, who can sell it effectively to the people.
Christie can be that person to sell the notion that Republican policies won’t be a clusterfuck for anyone but the 0.1%.
EDIT: The base will realize a President Christie can tilt the courts to repeal Roe v Wade, for example, which would get them on board. He maybe the Savior, who can tame the craziness of the Republican Party and put a shine on the shit sandwich they are trying to sell.
Steeplejack
@gene108:
And he nixed the tunnel project, which is not only sorely needed but would have been a huge, shovel-ready infrastructure project that would have greatly benefitted the state’s economy.
Kay
@gene108:
I asked Sherrod Brown this when he was here last, a week ago or something. I said “we got killed at the state level because national Democrats allowed Republicans to run on “Obama cut Medicare” – which is what 100% of the campaign was here. It’s bullshit that it had anything to do with “Obamacare”-Republicans ran as defenders of Medicare.
He said “we were unprepared” (good so far, ‘we” – taking responsibility!)
I guess I should have followed up with “are you prepared now, or do you have some plan to be prepared at some indeterminate point in the future?”
This is a long term problem with them. Presidents come and presidents go, but this is a long term problem.
rikyrah
If We Can’t Have It, You Can’t Have It Either
David Kurtz – October 31, 2013, 10:58 AM
There’s a lot of backstory to today’s showdown in the Senate over President Obama’s nominees to DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Sahil Kapur reports on much of it here. There’s no question that the showdown implicates the filibuster, or the abuse thereof by minority Republicans. We have more on the historical trendlines on the filibuster of judicial nominees here.
But there’s more to this particular face-off than the usual opposition to judicial nominees or the fight over whether the use of the filibuster has crippled the Senate. In this case, the underlying battle is just as if not more important than the supposedly larger issues it implicates.
What’s happening in this case is Senate Republicans are blocking wholesale the confirmation of any new judges to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. The reason is simple: The D.C. Circuit tilts conservative right now and so long as the empty seats on the bench remain empty, that conservative tilt remains.
Republicans — and the anti-regulation crowd they represent — are particularly concerned about the D.C. Circuit because it has jurisdiction over many of the rules and regulations that the federal government writes. That makes it the front line in the battle between regulators and the regulated, between consumers and business, and between the liberal and conservative legal establishments over the scope and power of the administrative agencies who implement the laws Congress passes.
Republicans have now transcended the usual political debate over who should occupy the seats on this court and moved into the realm of blocking anyone nominated by a Democratic president, regardless of their merit or qualifications, from sitting on the court. It’s a scorched earth policy. If we can’t have it, you can’t have it either.
Republicans now prefer to break the court than let Obama exercise his constitutional prerogatives. To try to obscure this fact, Republicans have invented basically from whole cloth an argument that there are too many judges on the D.C. Circuit, that there’s not enough legal work for them. No matter that the law provides for the current number of seats on that bench. Senate Republicans don’t have the votes to change the law. And that’s not even getting into the chronic underfunding and understaffing of the federal judiciary writ large.
One of the many ironies of this showdown is that Republicans have begun accusing President Obama of trying to “pack the court,” which is a phrase with powerful historical connotations that have zero bearing here. It’s like arguing that the Voting Rights Act is a tool for discriminating against white people. Argue the precise opposite of the truth and you confuse the casual observer.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/–100457
beth
@Hal:
And he’s going to be the guest on Meet the Press this Sunday. How much you wanna bet he repeats this lie with absolutely no pushback at all from Dancin Dave? Maybe Senator Pittypat will even come on to agree with him again.
gene108
@Steeplejack:
And how’s that hurting his re-election chances?
He screwed up in getting additional Federal funding for NJ schools by his cronies screwing up a Race to the Top application. He cut $800 million from education funds, which led to districts laying off teachers because of the millionaire’s tax cut.
This is shit that got people mad initially, but none of it has had any lasting effect on his popularity.
He hasn’t done much for the state, but the Turnpike is getting expanded under his watch, despite it being something that got going under Corzine.
The economy is relatively better than it was in 2009, so people are feeling better. He’s reaping that sense of relief that’s happening across the country over the last four years.
Plus none of his screw ups stick to him. There are plenty of other examples. None of it matters. The people like his straight talk and strong leadership.
Keith G
@Chyron HR: Of course, yes, certainly, you bet.
Nothing I typed is inconsistent with your general premise. This is one point in time. What happens next is important.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: It reminds me of the claim (which I’ve been hearing a lot lately) that Reid got the ACA past the Senate through “underhanded parliamentary tactics.” When the ACA had a Senate majority all along–the “underhanded parliamentary tactics” were to get the 60-vote supermajority that Republicans decided is the new normal under their universal-filibuster regime.
It’s the way they operate. Establish outrageous new rules, claim they’re hallowed tradition and insist that anyone who tries to act normally is cheating. In this case, it’s now accepted practice for these judge seats to remain eternally empty, and appointing judges to them is now “court-packing.”
Kay
@gene108:
I think Christie will be a good candidate, but governors get oversold, particularly from people in the respective governor’s state.
Going from governor to national candidate is a huge jump. I don’t have any idea how he’ll perform.
Do you remember the chatter around Rick Perry? He was gonna knock us dead.
People said the same thing about Mitt Romney that they’re saying about Christie, blue state governor, etc. Romney was a terrible national candidate.
Woodrowfan
@C.V. Danes: my wife’s check hit the cap a couple weeks ago. We really like the extra large checks at the end of the year. (my check doesn’t come even CLOSE to hitting the cap) . But I’d be happy if the cap was lifted. My one set of grandparents depended on Social Security so i know how important it is…
Steeplejack
I hope to pick up my new glasses today. My old ones have seen eight years of pestilence, famine and war and have a sort of permasmudge on the lenses that has really been bugging me since I ordered the new ones a couple of weeks ago. I got a message that one pair is in; I need to call to make sure the other pair has arrived, so I don’t have to make two trips into the city.
I splurged and ordered a pair of prescription sunglasses—the height of sybaritic luxury. Although as I write this it is so dark outside that I’m having trouble typing and I need to turn on a lamp. The TV news last night said “chance of rain” today and made it sound like a light shower, but right now the sky looks like it’s winding up for a big storm.
rikyrah
Dear Dems: Like it or not, your fates are tied to Obamacare
By Ryan Cooper
October 31 at 11:45 am
Democrats have been taking a beating in the press over the bungled Healthcare.gov rollout. The president and his senior staff were clearly not aware of the problems bedeviling the website beforehand, and Republicans, sensing blood, have been baying for…something. (What exactly is not clear, unless you count total capitulation and repeal.) This is leading to a sense of rising panic in the party — today, the White House is sending some top aides to Capitol Hill to try to calm anxious Senate Democrats.
The Democrats should hang tough. Though it may be necessary to patch the law at some point, they shouldn’t stampede themselves into passing a fig leaf bill that would harm the proper functioning of the law. Like it or not, Obamacare is the hill the party has chosen to fight or die on. No fig leaf will save them, should the administration be unable to make the law work.
washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/10/31/dear-dems-like-it-or-not-your-fates-are-tied-to-oba…
gene108
@Kay:
I think the difference between Christie and Romney is Christie has nothing to walk back that veers from Republican orthodoxy. In order for Romney to win the nomination he had to walk back being pro-life and run away from his signature accomplishment, which started him off on a bad foot that he just kept stumbling over.
Christie’s selling point is “straight talk” and he has nothing to walk back that would conflict with that.
There’s a big jump for any state level politician to become an effective Presidential candidate and very few can do it. I just think Christie can become a viable candidate, if he can get through the Southern Republican base with a wink and nod to their agenda, without a full throated endorsement of their world view.
The Republican base seems to not want to be content with a wink and nod anymore. They want their agenda vocally supported and enacted, no matter how unpopular it might be.
It might be the saving grace for Democrats in 2016.
Matt McIrvin
Sorry about the ridiculous gloom earlier, folks, I was both sleep-deprived and in the process of arguing with multiple wingnuts about the menace of Obamacare. You can only bang your head against the wall for so long.
Kay
@gene108:
My general sense is “regional” candidates are over-sold, so I think there is a valid comparison between Christie and Giuliani, although Christie is the better politician.
This is me personally, but I also think there is a bit of over-estimation of the skills of Republicans in very blue states, and part of that is driven by Democrats in those blue states who have to explain why the Republican wins.
I actually disagree with you about Christie getting thru the primary as a barrier. If they think he can win he’ll get thru the primary. We had lots of people here saying southern Republicans would never back a Mormon “from” (one of his addresses!) Boston. They all did, and they will again. They want to win. I generally think the spilt between the Tea Party and the “libertarian” Right and the GOP is exaggerated. I don’t think it’ll have any practical effect in 2016. The Tea Party will fall in line and so will libertarians. They always do.
WereBear
I have joined NaNoWriMo.
I know there are others here, so will post updates once I figure it out…
And blessings to those who said they would be joining, perhaps that is what is behind the first page of the novel that popped into my head this morning and so captured my imagination I drove right past the dentist’s office and made me late for my appointment.
Worth it.
Steeplejack
@gene108:
There was an interesting story in the Times yesterday: “Christie Embraces Budget Strategies He Scorned as a Candidate.” It went into lengthy (and depressing, if you live in New Jersey) detail on how Christie has papered over the state’s fiscal problems.
You would think that at some point this stuff has to start to sink in with voters. Okay, maybe not the esoteric financial stuff, but surely the crumbling infrastructure, etc.
But Christie has an ace in the hole!
Kay
@gene108:
Christie is one of the reasons I’m sort of bullish on Clinton in 2016. She can beat him in Ohio. I make no claims about other states, but she can beat him here. She has really resilient support and they aren’t going to be swayed at this point.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
I called the optician and found out that the other pair of glasses is still not in. This is three weeks now (grumble, grumble). They said they would call the lab and get back to me.
I was looking forward to having new glasses for the weekend, but it’s looking like Monday at the earliest now.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack:
And every dime of it from the poor and middle class.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Rich people do their gambling on Wall Street where tax policies are much more favorable.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: Isn’t Christie’s health still a huge problem? Hillary had issues with the grinding campaign (“sniper fire”, etc., etc.) and looked haggard by the end. Running for president is hard. It wasn’t that long ago that Christie supposedly couldn’t walk 10s of yards from a helicopter to a microphone at a campaign event and had to be driven.
Sure, his cholesterol numbers and blood pressure were good in the recent report after his stomach band surgery, but does he have the stamina for a national campaign? All the evidence thus far says no.
I think he’s doing the “I might run for president” tour simply to increase his stature and have more political power in NJ. Why refuse the attention (and money) that some people are willing to throw at potential candidates?
I don’t think he’ll run for president. And if he does run, I expect the knives to come out for him in a way that makes the attacks on Rmoney look like a spitball fight. Why? Because the Teabaggers will be even more unhinged by 2015-2016.
But who knows. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
Did everybody eat too much candy last night?
@gene108:
I think Christie comes off as an asshole and a bully not as a straight talker and strong leader. I doubt he plays well nationally – either in the primaries or (if he get through) in a national election.
beth
@Kay:Totally anecdotal but I’ve got a bunch of friends from high school from NJ and many of them are teachers or police officers or firefighters. They’re always posting anti-Christie things on their Facebook pages yet many of them are still going to vote for him. When I ask them why, they talk about what a weak candidate Buono is (I think she just looks weak next to the bombastic Christie) or they bemoan the fact that the Democrats didn’t do too well running the state either. However, they’re very clear that they would vote for Clinton over Christie in a presidential election. I’m not too sure Christie could even win NJ in a presidential election.
Jay C
@Steeplejack:
You’re absolutely right about Chris Christie’s budgetary sleight-of-hand – and, of course, how this is right out the historical playbook of virtually every New Jersey governor in modern history. It seems to be a permanent truism that the sole, unique and only issue any candidate on the Garden State can, or ever will run on is “[local] taxes”: Jerseyites are perennially griping about it: they seem to believe a First-World country can get along on a Third-World budget: and are quick to punish any politician who might tell them otherwise. Almost as quick as they are to sour on any particular Governor…
Big Chris has lucked out immensely this year: his post-Sandy “heroics” got him a ton of favorable exposure; his budget fiddling has not blown up on the state just yet, and -this time – the Democrats have been MIA in terms of a viable campaign.
Whether they think Christie’s popularity is just too high to beat, or (my own belief) through corrupt deal-making, the NJ Dems have put up a lackluster candidate, who has run a lackluster (and badly underfunded) campaign, and has hit Christie on the tax and budget stuff only when it’s been too late to make much of a difference.
Chris
@gene108:
I have no idea if Christie can win (either the primary or the general), but I continue to think if anyone can do it, he can. He’s the only one I can think of who can thread the needle between the far right and the mushy moderates (or at least a sizable portion of them).
He’s got enough of a moderate image (even if it’s 50% MSM bullshit and 50% the constraints of New Jersey politics) to interest milquetoast centrist voters – he’s got
blackMuslim friends! He accepted Hurricane Sandy relief and stood with Obama while doing it, what a bipartisan man! He’s from New Jersey, not some backwoods culture warrior like Palin or Bachmann or Santorum!And he’s got enough of a bullying, abrasive personality to make the entire far right base love him, as long as he directs it at the right people. (Because fundamentally, it’s not cultural issues that they care most about – it’s getting a candidate that they’re most convinced is going to stomp hard on These People and laugh uproariously while doing it, which if nothing else is something he has in spades).
Again, no idea if he can actually make it. I just think he’s their best bet.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Health care was always a huge risk. There’s a reason no one ever did it. I don’t think of myself as excessively risk-taking, but even I know once I’m “in” there is absolutely no benefit to waffling. None.
What does Durbin think people hear when he whines about HIS “lack of confidence”? Prudence? “Straight talk”? All I hear is self-interest and cowardice.
Really? He’s having a confidence crisis? Now, like Wall Street, Senators need constant reassurance? Jesus. Grow up, Senators. You’ll get thru this somehow.
catclub
@Matt McIrvin: Heighten the contradictions!
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Matt McIrvin:
You just need to stop. Bush was at 41% at this point in his presidency.
dww44
@gene108: Not only did 2008 happen, but so did 2012 in which Romney proved to anyone paying attention that he was an inveterate and blatant liar. I prefer to believe that that matters in the end. Just as I hope that Rand Paul is done in by his plagiarism, and Ted Cruz is done in by his lying, his cruelty, and his willingness to attack those who should be his allies.
Matt McIrvin
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
The NBC/WSJ poll has Obama at 42%. Gallup has him at 41%, same as Bush. His job approval has been closely tracking Bush’s in the Gallup for more than a year.
Those two polls do seem to be toward the low end of the range right now.
The reasons aren’t the same. But I do think the Republican strategy of throwing crap everywhere, sabotaging the government to make people hate the government, then reaping the rewards has been working pretty well for them. Of course people hate the Republicans more than they hate Democrats, certainly more than they hate Obama, but I don’t think that really matters; if they can frame themselves as anti-Washington they still win.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@gene108:
Not speaking for anybody else. Christie is a sneering ass hole the same way rudy was a sneering ass hole.
C.V. Danes
@Woodrowfan:
My sense is that most people (myself included) feel the same way, especially those who expect for SS to make up some percentage of their retirement :-)
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@gene108:
Giuliani’s candidacy didn’t fade away because of his baggage. It faded away because his particular kind of abraisive assholery only plays well in the tri-state area. It does NOT play well in the rest of the country.
Sorry, but this is a serious regional difference. Southern, Midwestern and Western conservatives may all be assholes in their own special way, but they are not going to love Christie because he’s his own region-specific kind of asshole. Reagan and even Bush II had enough surface charm to sell the asshole policies they wanted. Where is Christie’s facile charm?
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Matt McIrvin:
Hmm. Sorry to snipe, then. I don’t pay attention to presidential polling, so I didn’t know it had fallen so sharply.
Not worried.
ruemara
@Keith G:
You wonder why so many, to your mind, feel kneejerk attempts to defend Obama for some of your, again, to your mind, honest criticisms. You have no idea how condescending you sound. That phrase sounds like a disappointed middle school teacher talking to a parent about a student with so much potential-sigh-but he simply prefers to goof off and draw comics. It’s your right to do whatever, but really, that’s why.
Matt McIrvin
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): No worries. I’m cranky mostly because I hate it when trolls with bad-faith arguments seem to be winning the national discussion.
And it feels like it’s what’s been going on for most of my life, with rare exceptions. The shutdown/debt-ceiling drama ended with what seemed to me like an actual exception! But it couldn’t last.
Matt McIrvin
About Christie, I don’t see how (barring the kind of general calamity I was worrying about earlier) he does any better than any other recent Republican at threading the needle between the crazy he needs to embrace to win a primary campaign, and winning the general. To get nominated, he’s going to have to bring out his hardcore winger tendencies, and people will notice that and play back the video later on, just like they did with Romney and McCain before him.
I think it’s fascinating that Obama didn’t go after Romney with the “flip-flopper” charge that would have been the obvious way to go, given Romney’s history; he just attacked him as an extreme right-winger, and it seemed to work. Romney couldn’t get away from that because he’d had to portray himself as an extreme right-winger.
Original Lee
@WereBear: I’m glad I’m not the only one. I was going to skip it this year for various reasons, including the fact that I have NEVER finished, after 10 years of trying, but a friend who is doing this for the first time asked me to be her writing buddy – how could I say no?
Ruckus
@c u n d gulag:
I prefer my rich to be eat burnt to a crisp. Here’s the recipe:
1. Burn to crisp.
2. Lift lid of trash wheelybin, not recycle bin.
3. Deposit
4. Enjoy takeout from anywhere. It will be better.
Ruckus
@gene108:
It’s easier to make lies into bumper stickers than actual helpful policy.
Ramalama
@WereBear: Thanks for the reminder. Going to do this too!