Interesting piece in the WaPo. Matt Miller imagines Romney’s next Big Lie:
So here goes. Imagine we’re 15 minutes into the town hall and a 30-something woman named Sandy is given the microphone. “Governor Romney,” she says, “my husband and I earned $75,000 last year. We have trouble saving up for a down payment for a house. We have trouble putting away money for our kids’ college education. And we can’t even think about saving for retirement. It’s hard enough making ends meet as it is. I’ve learned in this campaign that we pay taxes at a higher rate on our income than you pay on the $20 million you earned last year. How can that be right or good for America?”
Romney steps toward her as he responds. “I’ve thought about this a lot, Sandy,” he begins. “I’ve met too many families struggling to make it, thanks to the awful recovery the president’s policies have doomed us to. And, as you know, I believe there’s a pro-growth argument for taxing savings and investment at lower rates, which is where virtually all of my income now comes from.
“But I also think there are questions of fundamental fairness involved. The more I’ve traveled the country, the more I’ve come to think that it’s important not only that the direction I propose be effective in restoring jobs and growth, but also that my policies be seen as fair by all Americans so we can move forward to renew this great nation together.
“So here’s what I’ll pledge. Once we’ve done all we can sensibly do to restrain federal spending – which we absolutely must do – and we still need resources to balance our budget and fund things like infrastructure and research to build for the future, then people in my fortunate position should absolutely be asked to contribute something more in taxes. And I’ll make the case to the country that this is needed. I know that’s different from what I’ve been saying, but on reflection I think it’s the right thing for the country.”
I don’t know that Romney would do this. But I do know that he will lie tonight. Over and over and over. Lie and distract.
Miller maps out a potential Obama response:
Back to the town hall. “It’s a little remarkable to hear you say this, Mitt,” Obama says. “I’ve been saying it for two years while your party’s called me a ‘socialist.’ If you’re agreeing with me now, I wonder what you’ll say tomorrow. Or the day after the election.”
Will this suffice? Here’s the point: Team Obama shouldn’t be planning to refight the first debate. It should be prepared for a Romney who’ll show up with new surprises. That means tying Romney to the extreme conservatives who’ve brought him this far, even if he’s tacking madly to the center at the end. Above all, it means laying out a bolder vision for a second term than the poll-tested small ball that passes for Obama’s agenda thus far – an agenda designed to help the president limp to victory, rather than address the country’s real needs.
That’s not fair. Not at all. Indeed, of the all the criticism of Obama, the most unfair, I think, is the notion that he doesn’t have a bold vision for the second term. Implementing ACA. Raising taxes on the wealthy to begin a process of addressing income inequality. Continued strong environmental regulation. This is already a robust agenda. He’s already mapped out a large number of difficult and contentious fights. The idea that boldness always requires new, radical policies is just bizarre.
But that said, Miller’s other point is interesting to contemplate and really highlights the challenge for tonight. We just have no idea what Romney will say. Will he come out with some sort of immigration amnesty proposal to help grab Hispanic votes? Will he come out in favor of pay equality? Will he soften his pro-life stance? Who knows?
Hawes
I bet he comes out in favor of immigration reform. He won’t touch taxes, too radioactive.
In some ways, Obama has a tough job. But in another way, he just has to show up and demonstrate that he’s ready to fight for people. Yes, calling out Romney’s lies in real time will help, but Obama hasn’t seemed like he WANTS the job.
A little “Fired up, ready to go” would help about now.
ericblair
To these dipshits, “boldness” means “high volume doctrinaire Republican bullshit” and not much else. Going after Bin Laden with the failed Iranian hostage rescue and Black Hawk Down staring him in the face took a lot of balls. A lot of progressives may not think so, but getting through the minefield of the government shutdown and debt limit deals took a lot of balls. Spouting conventional Villager wisdom does not: in fact, it’s the easiest damn thing in the world.
SP
“of the all the criticism of Obama, the most unfair, I think, is the notion that he doesn’t have a bold vision for the second term.”
Thank you for not buying into the Drum/Klein axis of BS on this. Very Serious People know that if you don’t propose some “bold” radical change- Privatize SS! Voucherize Medicare! Invade a couple countries!- then you don’t really have “vision.” Here’s my vision- keep the other guys from fucking up the good things we somehow managed to achieve and fix the things they have fucked up.
paradox
It’s entirely, totally fair and accurate, and I find this whiny denial soaked in dishonesty to be dismaying.
Obama has laid out zero vision and rhetoric for raising taxes and lowering inequality. A political geek can see it that way, I suppose, but to to state that Obama is a tax-raising liberal for equality is laughable.
Nobody gives a fuck about this guy and his regulations for the environment when he can’t even put a solar panel on the white house. Climate change is our great challenge, Obama is nowhere.
Nowhere on jobs, too, so he fucked up and lost Congress and gee they won’t pass his jobs bills. We’re all so shocked. What we need to know is how 10 million jobs are on the go next Spring whether he has Congress or not. A real leader could do it.
Tweak Social Security, you idiot from another galaxy, and watch our Party get torn apart.
This guy doesn’t have shit for vision on a second term. Don’t you dare sit there and clutch your god damn pearls that it couldn’t be so, man the fuck up with the truth. Well, get out of Afghanistan and Pakistan with those kill committees in the west wing, then man the fuck up. My god.
geg6
@paradox:
JILL STEIN 2012, BITCHEZ!
jwb
I see the Koch machine is paying for a new batch of faux firebaggers.
FlipYrWhig
@paradox: Yes, Obama should definitely run on raising taxes, redistribution, and tackling a long-term problem that half the country denies even exists. People would love all of that and he’d win easily. Because leadership, that’s why.
Henry Bayer
Romney has been shaking that etch-a-sketch ever since the last debate, and Ryan’s line is whatever plan you say won’t work, well, that isn’t their plan. This all goes back to Romney’s days as a Mormon missionary. Standard evangelical method: “What have you heard about us? Oh no, we are nothing like that!” Lies in the service of a greater good are blessed.
sherparick
I think he will mouth the platitudes and aspirations that are on his web site (the only concrete proposals being wet dreams from the Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Agriculture to get a temporary, semi-slave work forrce imported without rights to compete with U.S. labor) and then emphasize President Obama’s failure to “control the border” (despite illegal immigration being the lowest in decades) and pass “immigration reform.” It won’t be outright lies, so much as gobblygook. I expect he will soft pedal no amnesty/self-deport language and it will up to Obama to remind people of it as well as stand by his Executive Order and the Dream Act.
He can also go after the “bi-partisan” bit by stressing how he will work with Democrats or Republicans when neither side really trusts him. And that his most significant bi-partisan achievement in Massachussetts was model program that became Obamacare, which he advocated for the whole country in 2008, but which he is now urging be replaced with “Emergency Room Option.”
PreservedKillick
He must be boxed as the smarmy salesguy who will tell you whatever you want to hear.
There is no other way – he’ll say whatever it takes. That’s clear. And it has been for a long, long time.
eric
Allow me to bloviate: If i am obama, i say the following:
“Everyone, ask yourself this: why the phase in of vouchers? if vouchers are so great, why not get all our seniors on vouchers now? I will tell you why because it is so bad that the mass of protest would get the law changed in 15 minutes. But if they can keep it to one group of young seniors at first who dont know the real benefits of medicare, they can sneak it past you. remember the parable of the boiled frog, well america you are the frog.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@paradox: Wow, so you can get enough monkeys to string a bunch of words together.
You missed DADT. Even this straight guy knows that was a big eff’n deal.
Hill Dweller
Kessler, of all people, decimated Willard’s bullshit claims of creating 12 million jobs in 4 years over at Kaplan Test Prep. As with their “6 studies” deflection, they try to deceive by using numbers that project out for 10 years, as opposed to 4.
gnomedad
I’d like to hear something like this:
dan
It’s like playing whack-a-mole, but one time it’s a mole and the next time it’s an alligator and the next time it’s an eagle and the next time it’s a tiger. You never know what’s going to pop up, not just minute to minute, but second to second.
John O
I’ve been thinking that the WOD could be Obama’s ace in the hole for “big ideas.” He needs the younguns to get out and vote.
Romney is impossible to debate. The man’s been on both sides of every major issue for so long he can argue it, whatever “it” is, persuasively.
lacp
Willard’s going to be slinging the horseshit by the truckload. I don’t know if there is any good way of countering that without getting into a shouting match, and that wouldn’t look too good either.
Comrade Javamanphil
Apparently the campaigns’ debate agreement included “no pledges” so this piece of concern trolling can be filed appropriately…unless of course, Romney decides to break his word which is never, ever, ever going to happen.
dedc79
@eric: Could not agree more. Keep it simple and easy to understand. The themes throughout should be 1) that Romney is not leveling with the American people 2) that America and the economy are recovering and 3) that Romneys plan is a gift to the wealthiest americans that will set our government/economy back into crisis
Davis X. Machina
Either that, or sing a song about a monorail…
It’s a toss-up.
Citizen_X
@paradox:
I kind of wish you weren’t already a joke, because if you were deadly serious? That shit would be hilarious.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@lacp: At a fundamental level, Romney is a bully. What needs to happen is for this to come out on television.
dr. bloor
Whatever happens, I’d really appreciate it the Dem spinmeisters at MSNBC and elsewhere leave their pearls and fainting couches at home.
Robin G.
I want to hear Obama say, “I admit, I was not ready for the late debate between Governor Romney and myself. I came prepared to discuss the vision for America’s future that the Governor had been espousing for the previous eighteen months. It did not occur to me that the Governor would discover an entirely new vision for the future in the half hour before we went on prime time.”
I’m not kidding, I want to hear something like this. I think it would be absolutely devastating.
Robin G.
@dr. bloor: You may as well wish for a pony.
hildebrand
After you give your vision of the the next term, you pivot and say – ‘Don’t pay attention to what Gov. Romney says tonight, because what he says in public changes depending on the audience. Pay attention to what he says when he thinks nobody is listening. That is the test, for that is where his heart truly is.
LGRooney
I agree with Miller here, at least at the rhetorical level on your final point. I don’t think Obama has pushed hard enough on what he will do – and, he does have ideas. I also don’t think he has pushed hard enough on what he has accomplished – and, he has accomplished a great deal. He is too often in defensive or reactive mode.
That is the point that Miller is trying to get across, I think, i.e., Obama needs to have quick quips ready to throw back at Mitt the dizzying number of pivots on any given issue he has taken while quickly segueing on to his own promotion of past and future.
As for big ideas, I’d love to hear him say that the deficit is not one of the primary problems for this country if we don’t get people working again and don’t start reinforcing the safety net.
FlipYrWhig
@Robin G.: That’s good. Real good.
ericblair
@dr. bloor:
Oh come on, they already have the “With Friends Like These” banner printed and ready to hang.
jwb
I’m not ever aware of a case in politics where Obama has made the same error twice. In the first debate it looked like he had not been prepared for a complete reboot of Romney and so had to improvise a strategy to respond. I’m quite sure that he will go into this debate not only prepared for the new Mitt, but also prepared for Mitt to be changing on the fly. Whether the Obama team has devised an effective strategy to counter Romney’s deployment of the Gish Gallop remains an open question, but we can be quite sure that thought has gone into it and Obama will have several options ready. I would also not be surprised to see Obama do a little dice rolling of his own tonight in order to draw the inevitable right wing attack onto the ground where the Obama campaign wants the rest of the campaign to be waged.
Robin G.
@gnomedad: Oops, you beat me to it — and said it in a much more articulate fashion.
More coffee for me.
kindness
I had to turn NPR off this morning it got so obnoxious. I swear the NicePoliteRepublican network essentially parroted every thing the Repub talking points guru’s have said. If Obama fights to hard he’ll lose independents and if he doesn’t fight at all Romney’s ‘momentum’ will build. Not one word of Romney lying his ass off and apparently in a national contest it is only fair that the Democratic member fights with one arm tied behind their back.
Thank God for my car’s ipod.
RSA
@dedc79:
I agree. It’s a mug’s game to try to predict exactly which lies Romney will come up with and figure out how to counter them. Obama needs to get the simpler message across that they are lies. That’s a hard job, but it should be doable.
Hill Dweller
@jwb: Speaking of wishing for a pony, Willard and Ryan should pay a price for being inveterate liars. Obama has to have a good defense for the Willard’s lying in the debate, but it shouldn’t rest entirely on his shoulders. The media has a job, and they should do it.
gnomedad
@Robin G.:
Glad you agree. :) Let’s hope we hear this.
I’d really like to hear generous use of phrases like “when he thinks no one can hear him except his super-wealthy contributors …”
Kane
Romney is asking voters to trust him, but he doesn’t trust the voters enough to be honest with them about anything. He is the modern-day Wimpy, promising that he will gladly tell you where he stands on Tuesday for a vote today.
Patricia Kayden
Romneybot 2.0 signed Grover Norquist’s no tax pledge so he cannot come out and lie about raising taxes on the rich tonight. I think he’ll lie about something relating to women since he needs to keep President Obama’s lead among women down.
The key is that no matter the lie, President Obama needs to pounce on The Bot and expose the lie.
jwb
@kindness: I’ll give Bill Safire this much: he did say back in the early 1990s that the best thing public broadcasting could do was go independent of government support and set itself up as an independent liberal media voice. I doubt he was being sincere at the time, but in retrospect I think it was spot on. I haven’t given to NPR now in almost a decade.
1badbaba3
@paradox: It is such a shame that there is no one worthy of being your leader. You must be so sad. Wah.
Robin G.
@gnomedad: The nice thing about it is, unlike most of our happy place imaginings, this kind of attack is realistic. I’d actually be a little surprised if we don’t see some version of it, especially given the stump speeches Obama has given in the last week. It’s incredibly advantageous to point out that debate!Romney bears no resemblance to primaries!Romney, or even summer!Romney — not to mention closed doors!Romney. I just hope Obama gives it to him in a pithy, smile-to-your-face shiv-in-the-back kind of way. He’s not always good at that.
gnomedad
Here’s the big thing: it’s impossible to prepare to refute every possible lie; Obama should keep reminding people what “the real Mitt Romney” says.
jwb
@Hill Dweller: Well, you can’t count on the media since their job is to preserve the capital of their owners. We should be able to count on Obama supporters, however, not to target Obama. And those of us on the internet need to study carefully how conservatives acted after Ryan’s performance in the VP debate.
We all know the narrative that the Obama campaign has been working hard to establish on Romney, so our job—on Twitter, on blogs, talking to folks around the water cooler—is to figure out the best way to force his debate performance back into that narrative no matter how hard he tries tonight to spin himself out of that narrative.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@1badbaba3: Actually, I believe Chairman Mao did a pretty good job of giving everyone a job. A low paying, degrading job, but a job.
pk
@paradox:
Well don’t vote for him then. It really is that simple.
Ash Can
@gnomedad: Great suggestion, and what’s more, I can easily imagine Obama doing something like this.
@LGRooney:
I would too, and I’d like for him to frame it as an issue of how Keynesian economics has been proven to succeed and supply-side bullshit has been proven to fail (with even those formerly championing it admitting as much). We need to get people back on board with the entire idea of the New Deal, including how it works and why.
gnomedad
This is awesome: RomneyTaxPlan.com
RaflW
I agree that Obama has a strong agenda for his second term. Cementing in the gains we struggled mightily against an evil and recalcitrant GOP is crucial.
But Americans want new and improved soap flakes every 2.7 years, so unfortunately Obama has to do some hopey-changey-visioney things tonight, or the Village and the marketing-obsessed punditocracy will skewer him for not adding some new lavender scent to blow up the punter’s asses.
catclub
@Davis X. Machina: Did they sing in Atlas Shrugged? I did not know that.
catclub
@gnomedad: Hilarious.
It would amuse a cat.
japa21
In addition to calling out Romney for being a Janus in steroids, I think it would be good for him to point out how, even just after the last debate, his campaign staff had to walk back many of Romney’s statements during the debate, i.e. pre-existing conditions.
chopper
@hildebrand:
that would be a great fuckin’ line.
Chris
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Sounds suspiciously like the Republican recovery plan in Texas and elsewhere. Sure, You People can have jobs, but only if they suck hairy orangutan balls. A living wage is too good for you.
Ideological fucking nutjobs of the far left and far right: sides of a coin. But only one side holds any kind of sway here.
jibeaux
I know he’s a flip flopper of the highest order, but in what universe is Mitt Romney going to endorse infrastructure (spending, bridges to nowhere), research (pointy-headed intellectuals) and higher taxes for the rich, phrased to boot as “contributions”? Mitt is highly skilled at seeming moderate and unthreatening without going so far as to actually SAY anything, much less something as common sense as that.
maye
Obama should say the words “Bush-Cheney” every chance he gets. Call all Romney-Ryan plans Bush-Cheney policies. We can’t go back to Bush-Cheney government. That’s what we’ll get if we elect Romney-Ryan.
also, too, be ready for audience people to be unemployed and ask what, specifically, Obama is going to do for them. He needs to be ready with a “go to whitehouse.gov to find out about retraining and relocating help.” And if such a web page does not exist, create one immediately.
1badbaba3
@RaflW: They will skewer him regardless, for they must have their horserace. Ratings and clicks, baby, cha-ching! They can’t turn a turd into Prince Charming but all that UNLIMTED CORPORATE CASH sure can give the illusion that it is close, even though our senses, common sense, experience, and intelligence tell otherwise. At some point the bill will come due, and they’ll have nothing but cash and excuses and then I want to hear all the trash-talking suckers come around here wolfin’.
You got three more weeks to talk shite, morans. Enjoy it while you can.
wrb
@SP:
The strategy Chiat laid out yesterday is pretty damn bold.
I hope we see it realized.
catclub
@RaflW: Obama has pretty much mastered the ‘Do not whine’ aspect of politics, so he has not presented any second term agenda that would be squashed by a GOP House. Just do not bother.
Would be great if he presented his second term agenda:
“Two or three sane supreme court justices.”
“Breitbarting Scalia”
Ash Can
@jibeaux: He did much of that last time and not only didn’t lose the base, he was rewarded for it by a bump in the polls. He’ll certainly say it if he thinks it will help him. Obama just needs to be prepared to throw it all back in his face this time (along with, as another commenter above said, pointing out just what and how much his campaign had to walk back the day after the last debate).
Cacti
I think President Obama should follow all of the numerous pieces of conflicting advice available on the internet.
VICTORY!
maye
When Obama says “we inherited the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression,” I don’t think he realizes that 90 percent of the people who hear him don’t know what that means. The people who lived through the 30s are dead, and the rest of America slept through that lesson in history class. Seriously. Most people do not understand why this recession is any different from other recessions in their memory. The Obama administration has never explained it. Assuming that people know U.S. history is a huge mistake.
gene108
@LGRooney:
At some level politicians don’t sell their accomplishments to the people.
They have supporters in the media, who do this.
A few decades ago it was the editorial pages of local and national newspapers and magazines.
Now it’s the 24/7 cable news shows.
This is where President Obama is at a disadvantage. His opposition has dedicated media outlets. His supporters are sort of leasing time from MSNBC and aren’t always focused on supporting President Obama and crushing the opposition, the way Fox News and other right-wing media types are.
The MSM has decided to not actually research and report facts, but rather parrot whatever partisan points get shouted out the loudest. In this the right-wing media is inevitably louder and gets to dictate the narrative.
Mark
Another possible response:
Obama: “Vice President Biden said it last week. Trust your instincts. Behind closed doors to his wall street donors, the governor says half the people in the country see themselves as victims and won’t take responsibility for themselves and so his job isn’t to worry about them. In our discussion two weeks ago he said he cares about the middle class and has no plan to give the top 1% a 5 trillion dollar tax cut which will raise taxes on the middle class by $2000 a year and he’ll also somehow balance the budget. So which is it? I say trust your instincts. When he was courting the republican base for the nomination he wrote an op-ed and said ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt’. Well, if he were president that decision would have had consequences. Now that we did not follow the advice of that op-ed, and the American auto industry, led by the American workers, has come back, the governor wants a do-over on that op-ed. He wants to say “I didn’t literally mean let Detroit go bankrupt.”. Trust your instincts. When Governor Romney said “it’s not worth moving heaven and earth to get Osama bin Laden” but then, after our military conducted the exercise to kill bin Laden, Governor Romney says “Anyone would have made that call”. Well, again I’d ask you to trust your instincts. The fact is, and this can be easily verified, Paul Ryan’s budget, which converts medicare to a voucher program that makes seniors pay $6000 more per year, was passed by the Republican congress twice. Governor Romney called that plan “marvelous”. Now today he may be saying something else, but trust your instincts. The fine print he likes to hide behind when you’re on the short-end of one of his “I never said that” excuses won’t be much comfort when medicare is destroyed and the middle class is paying higher taxes. And if you’re wondering if a man who won’t reveal his tax statements, who has bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands is all of a sudden a champion for the middle class, I’d ask you to just trust your instincts.
jibeaux
@Ash Can: If Mitt Romney said he’s going to raise taxes on the rich at any point in time, I want to see a link to that.
Villago Delenda Est
@gnomedad:
“Awesome” is inadequate a word to properly describe how awesome it is.
It’s so awesome I can’t hear myself think over the sound of its awesomeness.
gene108
@maye:
What’s the point of paying reporters, whether through hits on a webpage or subscribing for bunches of dead trees, if each partisan group has to produce and distribute their own news?
When the stimulus bill passed and they decided to give everyone a tax cut each pay period, instead of a big check, shouldn’t the MSM have reported this?
Shouldn’t those reports be enough to at least connect with the people, not exclusively plugged into Fox News?
The problem is the Republicans have a very strong media apparatus that can control the narrative in a heartbeat, such as the ACORN videos, Shirley Sherrod, etc., while Democrats are really out in the wilderness, with regards to having a media apparatus to push their talking points.
The end result is our failed media experiment has chosen not to counter the stream of verbal diarrhea from the right-wing media. At some points they chose to swim in it, such as with ACORN or even Whitewater 20 years ago.
pluege
that scenario WILL NOT HAPPEN. romney will never say he would consider having the rich pay more. He will never concede that there is any possibility that his non-math, math doesn’t work or that his same ole, same ole republican plan will do anything but make the economy soar so the moochers and takers can be rich like him.
The vision repubo-romney weave (deceive) is that everyone will be rich. And the stupes believe it not knowing that it is not possible; that the way the system works is that it takes many stupes to make one rich person; the richer the one person, the more stupes it takes. So in repubo-romney world where the rich get rich, the fact is that more people MUST get poorer in order to make that happen.
danimal
It’s not Obama’s job to sell the American people that his opponent is a liar. He can address the lies by drawing contrasts with ‘Mitt Romney and the Republican congressional leadership’ about one thousand times. Mitt Romney and the Republican congressional leadership oppose health care for all citizens…Mitt Romney and the Republican congressional leadership want to reduce access to contraception…Mitt Romney and the congressional leadership oppose common-sense infrastructure investments…
Mitt has opposed Obama on everything, it’s time to take advantage of his lies by tying him to Senator Turtle and the Orange Avenger.
Obama gets to pick which Mitt to run against.
SatanicPanic
I’ve got no advice for Obama. Despite his somewhat weak performance two weeks ago, I’m pretty sure he’s got a good strategy this time. He’s not going to let Mitt get away with that crap again.
pluege
“fair” is not a republican value.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
I think the main thing should be Obama should be ready to debate. It sounds the way he let Romney take control of the first debate is what really hurt him (plus the MSNBC pundit freak out)
Anyway, I gather the press is bored with Romney Bounce(tm) so they will want another bit of drama.
maye
@gene108: Obama himself should explain it every time he opens his mouth. Whining about the right wing media does not negate the poor communications efforts coming out of the white house the last 3.5 years. Bill Clinton did a better job of explaining in a 45 minute speech in August than any member of the O. admin for the entire term.
Cris (without an H)
Sing me some harmonies. “It’s a small picture in a shop somewhere / and I know who it is / it’s Mormon Judy and cow people.”
gene108
@maye:
I think people underestimated how hard it is for Democrats to push out their positives, when a few billionaires have invested big-bucks in having their own media outlets.
And many Americans have decided, voluntarily, that an alternative right-wing reality must be the actual world they live in.
How else do you explain the run on guns and ammo in the fall of 2008?
This makes message discipline on the part of pro-universal healthcare supporters, for example, absolutely critical.
You have one side willing to lie about death panels. I
f you are for universal healthcare and come out against the PPACA because of no public option or you see it as a give away to insurance companies, it just makes it that much harder for Democrats to get their points across about the positives of what they’ve done.
Democrat: The PPACA does a got lot of good things and will help 10’s of millions of Americans and will enable us to reach the goal of universal healthcare that President Truman tried to implement in 1948.
Right-winger: DEATH PANELS! DEATH PANELS! SOCIALIZED MEDICINE! GOVERNMENT TAKE OVER OF MEDICARE! OBAMA GUTS FUNDING FOR MEDICARE TO KILL OLD PEOPLE!
Liberal Corporate Democrats obeyed their corporate masters and created a huge give away to the insurance companies, by adopting a Heritage Foundation plan. NEW AND BETTER DEMOCRATS! PUBLIC OPTION!
How exactly does a Democrat cut through the noise?
A typical person is going to listen to maybe what? One or two minutes of news and if that news is “Sarah Palin Tweets about death panels in Obamacare” and “Jane Hamsher, a liberal blogger, Tweets NEW AND BETTER DEMOCRATS! PUBLIC OPTION!”, how do the Democrats cut into the conversation?
It’s a lot more complicate, to me, for Democrats to push out the positives of what they’ve done than folks think.
ruemara
Ever consider that what someone thinks should be asked or could be asked complete with a fantasy Romney/Obama interchange is just setting people up for disappointment? I do. Maybe we should dissect what happens, not fret about what has not happened.
catclub
@maye: No, we were all just listening, for a change. I bet (I have not actually read it, mea culpa) most of those things are in Obama’s stump speech.
Have you read or heard Obama’s full stump speech? It is certainly never broadcast.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@gene108:
Agreed.
Above and beyond the media structure issues, and the not all Dems are Liberals issues, liberal Dems struggle to get out a simple coherent message for two reasons, IMHO.
The first problem is that being policy oriented, liberal Dems like to talk about policy. But talking about policy almost always means getting down into the details because let’s face it, the really simple liberal stuff was mostly done a long time ago by FDR and LBJ. Liberal policy making today is more like tuning an engine than it is like building a house from scratch.
But as soon as you get into the details of policy, rhetorically you’ve lost. Too much logos and not enough ethos and pathos. Most listeners just aren’t going to follow along with you. It has to be kept really simple, as if you are talking to a 4th grader, and too many liberal policy goals are just plain hard to talk about that way, especially when you talk about how to actually go about getting something done via the existing US govt rather than via the pony-wishing fairy. The only way to do it is to simplify issues down to the point where you are turning them into clear cut moral issues and demonizing the other side as evil, and liberals just don’t feel comfortable taking that scorched earth domestic-politics-as-civil-war road.
The second problem is the liberals tend to be glass-half-empty people. They look at a situation and ask “how could this be better, what can we improve?”. That mindset is a good fit for an opposition party but makes it harder to defend an incumbent administration because liberals just can’t do the whole everything-coming-up-roses song and dance and come across as sincere doing it, because in their hearts they are still thinking about what’s wrong with the picture.
HumboldtBlue
So a writer imagines a scenario, just makes the shit up and we’re supposed to take this seriously? Just watch the fucking debates, it’s the same shit we see every four years and has about as much impact on an election as any other debate.
Voter suppression, however, could turn the election, not the fevered imagination of Matt fucking Miller.
trnc
Gnomedad, comment 14: I was thinking the same thing, except Obama shouldn’t remind people how the last debate went. He could basically say, “I realized during my preparation for this debate that it’s difficult to prepare when you have no idea what your opponent will say. Will he claim (primary claim) as he did for 18 months, or will he make brand new (post nomination claim). Mr Romney probably had an easy time preparing for me – my positions haven’t changed, and here is what I’ve accomplished as President that I said I would do as candidate …”
NR
And don’t forget cutting Social Security. Oh, sorry, “tweaking” it.
Joel
@Hawes: I think Obama just has to push through whatever Romney is saying and demonstrate positivity for his choices. He’s still leading (slightly) so he needs to be conservative here. Either way, I have faith in the president this time around.
fuckwit
I canvassed this weekend. I found it surprisingly easy to make the case for the President.
1) We’re out of Iraq, which was a big campaign promise the President made– and kept.
2) We’re getting out of Afghanistan, which wasn’t even promised– bonus!
3) I can get medical coverage now, and private coverage will soon be something I can afford. Friends who have pre-existing conditions (cancer survivors, people who’ve been in accidents, among others) are no longer screwed.
4) The economy has stopped shedding jobs, and my life is definitely better than it was 4 years ago. I now have some work, even some savings, whereas 4 years ago I was in deep shit.
5) I think everyone in the real world understands that you need a middle class to have an economy. No middle class, no economy. Nobody should be proposing tax cuts for the rich and deregulation for Wall Street anymore, and yet, here comes RMoney and his sidekick trying to sell us exactly that same old crap. We tried it and it failed. No more.
6) Finally, I’ve said it before, but anyone who is female, or retired, or young, or black/latino/middle-eastern/asian, or non-christian, or gay, or poor, or middle class should not even be thinking of anything other than supporting the President. That covers a huge majority of our country in 2012, and that’s my point.
I didn’t encounter anyone undecided who wanted to go back to the Bush years, which is where RMoney would take us: more wars, more tax cuts for the rich, more unregulated gambling on Wall Street, and more hard times for the rest of us. Enough is enough.
It’s time to stand strong with the President. You need to talk to people one-on-one to overcome the noise in our miserable, disgusting corporate propaganda mill of a media. Get out there and talk to people one on one. It’s fun. It’s a surprisingly strong antidote to depression.
nemesis
There is a saying in sports: Dont let one loss turn into two. Or dont let one bad play turn into two.
The first debate is over. If we go in fighting yesterdays battles, mitt will be waving to us from Air Force One.
Joshua
So, this is what political journalism has come to now? Is it all just going to be fanfiction from here on out?