Campaign Rough-and-Tumble

[David G]

This has been my impression, too. Seems like the Dems are more willing this time to break out the brass knuckles - instead of playing defense:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...0a0_story.html

The umbrage industry is working overtime this week.

Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ presidential standard-bearer, is so outraged by President Obama’s attacks that he called the president a hater: “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”



Forgive me, but I’m not prepared to join this walk down Great Umbrage Street just yet. Yes, it’s ugly out there. But is this worse than four years ago, when Obama was accused by the GOP vice presidential nominee of “palling around with terrorists”? Or eight years ago, when Democratic nominee John Kerry was accused of falsifying his Vietnam War record?

What’s different this time is that the Democrats are employing the same harsh tactics that have been used against them for so long, with so much success. They have ceased their traditional response of assuming the fetal position when attacked, and Obama’s campaign is giving as good as it gets — and then some.



It’s true that Romney is in a weak position to be complaining that the other side has been mean and nasty. He won the nomination by eviscerating his rivals with negative ads and accusations, and an ad his team aired last week that falsely claimed Obama was gutting welfare-to-work requirements injected racial politics into the campaign.

[wardd]

This has been my impression, too. Seems like the Dems are more willing this time to break out the brass knuckles - instead of playing defense:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...0a0_story.html

bout time

[Kaa]

Be careful of what you wish for.

Kaa

[Norman Bernstein]

Mitt Romney, the Republicans’ presidential standard-bearer, is so outraged by President Obama’s attacks that he called the president a hater: “Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”

Insulting Chicagoans is probably NOT a good idea, for a candidate

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

And what exactly is the demicans plan for the country?

To make certain the 99%ers are not enslaved by the 1%ers.

[BETTY-B]

It's about time. They should HTFU even more. Call the POS liars out for what they are...dirtbags.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

I don't know where you get your data but the biggest personal donaters to the Democrats are in the $2-$3 million bracket. Romney has one contributer that has popped for $35 million already with more to come. Plus several biggies from Texas in the $10-$15 million bracket. Plus there is Rove and the Koch brothers who conceal their campaign lucre with 501(C) 4 certificates. Plus Romney himself could probaby chip in $30 million or so without squandering the familly fortune.
Your turn.

[Arizona Bay]

To make certain the 99%ers are not enslaved by the 1%ers.

or the ignorant, selfish and bigoted.

[wardd]

In the last three years, we've added about 3,000,000 jobs.

That's three times more than in all of Bush's 8 years.

Think about it.

Paul Ryan just blamed Obama for the closing of an auto plant in Wisonsin. The plant closed in December, 2008.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...08.php?ref=fpb

if mit can do things retroactively so can obama

[elf]

People like Rod don't hear you, ljb. There's no use in trying to even get thru. Their minds are closed.

A closed mind is the sign of a troll. Don't feed the trolls, not even with government handouts.

[John of Phoenix]

One nasty picture deserves another.

[John of Phoenix]

If things are so great then why is the unemployment rate over 8%?

Why are you people so stupid? What satisfaction do you get from it?

MCCONNELL: The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

Not jobs. Not the economy. Not hunger. Not healthcare.


"SCREW THE COUNTRY! OUR SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT MISSION IS FOR OBAMA TO FAIL AND WE'LL DO ANYTHING TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN."

Get it? They can't make any clearer.

[John of Phoenix]

You're going have to point out the millions of jobs lost during dubya's reign to get the point across. Remember the financial meltdown? Those were the years the "job creators" had all those tax breaks and the jobs vanished.

How do you explain THAT Tall Boy?

[David G]

Are you saying that tax breaks caused the melt down.....really?

Actually, yes. The type of tax breaks that we enacted DID cause the meltdown. Along with a bunch of other factors. Everything that we did to allow the healthy dynamism of capitalism to swing too far toward the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism helped create the meltdown. It's a pattern that has played out many times. Usually we rein ourselves in sooner that we did last time. The largest factor in that failure was the almost religious belief that government is the problem and the market holds all the solutions. That's a tricky one... cause it's partially true. But only in certain circumstances, only to a point, and then the equation flips.

It's that pattern that Lord Acton was talking about when he said, in 1877, 'When there is an accumulation of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, people with the mentality of gangsters come to the fore. Absolute power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'.

[John of Phoenix]

Remember the financial meltdown? Those were the years the "job creators" had all those tax breaks and the jobs vanished.

I'm saying the economy melted down in spite of the tax breaks and the "job creators" didn't do anything to PROTECT jobs when they were needed most. If they didn't help then, what makes you think they'll do anything just because they get to keep them?

Remember the goal -

MCCONNELL: The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

And how has that been working out for the last 3 and half years, pray tell?

Well, you can probably catch up given you seem to have been away. Google is your friend.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

That would be like me getting hit by a car while walking down the street and blaming the curb I hit on the way down for the whole thing. A jury full of idiots might buy it......

I didn't know you had a lot of brothers and sisters.

[Meli]

Be careful of what you wish for.

Kaa

Truely spoken.
When everyone throws dirt, everyone gets dirty.

Left wing start to mud sling, they lose me.
They have enough brains to find real weak points and hit hard at repub policy. If only they'd use smaller words and sack speech writers

[David G]

That would be like me getting hit by a car while walking down the street and blaming the curb I hit on the way down for the whole thing. A jury full of idiots might buy it......

Well... I've noticed in the past that you seem to have a bit of difficulty following an abstract train of thought. So maybe that's why you don't grasp the connection. Or maybe it's a lack of background in economics and history.

Take it from me - capitalism CAN get overheated, and go sour as a result. The tax cuts along the way were both a symptom and a cause of that overheating.

[David G]

Capitalism, in and of itself isn't wasn't the problem.
Overheating was caused by the gov spending more than it takes in, no backing of currency with anything of value except a promise since 1971 and low interest (cheap) fiat currency being pumped into the system allowing wall street/banksters to take/push bigger risks i.e. the housing bubble .com bubble, AIG. , MF Global ...ad nauseam. This trickled down to the general populous who took advantage(taken advantage of?) all that cheap cash and used their homes as banks, just like the big boys. Only they didn't have their buddies in the whitehouse and congress to bail them out, not to mention it being illegal for them to print money out of thin air.
But then, you already knew that.

Rod - have you ever heard the parable about the 6 blind monks and the elephant? I'm afraid you have ahold of one tiny piece of the puzzle... and want to extrapolate it very very narrow applicability.

Your insistence upon your vision brands you as a stubborn old coot... rather than a seeker after truth. I strongly suggest (without the slightest hope that you'll actually take the suggestion) that you read more widely, test your worldview against that of knowledgeable folks. Do you have a University near you? An economics or finance department? I bet a call would net you an appointment with a professor - who would critique your ideas, and provide you with a reading list for further study. Until such time as you take some similar action... your just upping the noise/signal ratio.

[David G]

So dumping trillions of fiat dollars into the economy,whether the market wanted it or not, is not going to cause things to"overheat"?
Spending more money than you have through an unending credit line won't cause problems of "overheating"?
School me professor, lets hear it?

You don't take a hint very well, do you? I'm not willing to school you. You haven't shown enough interest or aptitude. And way too much attitude. Again... I suggest an unbiased, random professor to bounce your ideas off of, and who can steer you toward a survey type self-taught course in the subjects that interest you. As for ME teaching you? There ain't enough money in your overheated fantasies to induce me to take on such a task.

[Keith Wilson]

So dumping trillions of fiat dollars into the economy,whether the market wanted it or not, is not going to cause things to"overheat"?

Oh, yeah, things are sooo overheated, and contractionary polices are working so marvelously well in southern Europe. Sure. And hyperinflation is just around the corner.

Gentlemen, what we see here is a theological potion: asserted without evidence, maintained in the face of all contradictory evidence, and impervious to any future evidence.

[Garret]

...complete with extra helpings of arrogance...

There's a difference (sometimes subtle I will admit) between arrogance & simply having far more education & knowledge on a subject. Folks who have spent years learning a topic/field tend to get rather testy when they hear obviously repeated talking points for the umpteenth time. Stop & think on the monks/elephant reference - it certainly strikes me as apt.

[LeeG]

And one day you will grow to be a man

[Kevin T]

That day came and went.....I turned it down.

So what did you decide to go with? . . . Whiny little girl?

Sorry but if you set em up like that, in the words of Chris rock, I just gots to jump in.

[Kevin T]

Whiny little girl? Pretty big talk for a little fellow...sniff.....sniff...I smell a little estrogen too....you may want to double check that prescription.

Okay, you've proven little in the way of a sense of humor, got it. Carry on.

[RodSBT]

Oh, yeah, things are sooo overheated, and contractionary polices are working so marvelously well in southern Europe. Sure. And hyperinflation is just around the corner.

Gentlemen, what we see here is a theological potion: asserted without evidence, maintained in the face of all contradictory evidence, and impervious to any future evidence.

Keith, DaveyG was the one who stated the over heating in past tense, stay on task.
So tell us, the cheap money coming out of the fed all through the bush admin. along with the banks handing out subprime loans as required by Clinton admin. regulations DIDN'T help cause the housing bubble?
Or is this just more assertions without evidence?

[pipefitter]

There's a difference (sometimes subtle I will admit) between arrogance & simply having far more education & knowledge on a subject. Folks who have spent years learning a topic/field tend to get rather testy when they hear obviously repeated talking points for the umpteenth time. Stop & think on the monks/elephant reference - it certainly strikes me as apt.

Do you mean like the educated knowledge base that is also in charge of these issues who cannot figure out the solutions to it? It was in great part, the same who created the problem. Otherwise, we wouldn't have these repeated talking points. It's less a fault of the ignorant, when the so-called educated and knowledgeable willingly fail at their craft repeatedly.

[David G]

Garrett, I tend to agree with you, however the assumption here is that individuals such as DavidG have the the cred. to back up such knowledge and yet he hardly if ever expresses that "education and knowledge" during the debate. Instead, in typical progressive/socialist fashion, he throws out condescending insults and personal attacks by the bucket load in order to sidestep the question, making those involved question whether he actually knows anything about the subject at hand.

Rod,

I have a little 'cred' as an economist. I studied economics as an undergraduate, and economic history and economic development in grad school. I didn't finish my PhD program, though. I continue to read and keep up after a fashion. I figure that makes me a Junior Economist... and I've got the beanie w/propeller to go with the title!

It appears that you haven't been around long enough, or somehow missed my various previous posts. I have expounded at length on my views on economics. I'm sure you can find them, if you're interested. I've also explained that I've run out of patience with ignorant yahoos who only want to argue their preconceived notions, and who aren't interested in viewing their own ideas as provisional... aren't interested in finding the truth in what the other guy is saying... who aren't interested in a collegial discussion couched in a respectful mutual search for truth (wherever that may lead, ideologically or theoretically).

As you may recall... our first interactions were - at least from my end - approached in such fashion. While I found your conclusions naive... I was happy to base my hope for an intelligent conversation on the fact that you were at least THINKING about the issues, and concerned about the state of the economy. Having not been met halfway, you have been assigned the role of Bootless Goof, and are now being treated accordingly. I'm absolutely willing to change my view... and re-engage in a serious and respectful manner. All you have to do is change your approach. As I suggested earlier... you might start with some perspective gained thru education. I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that you limit serious consideration to sources that already agree with you. I'd suggest you widen your scope of sources... and - most importantly - open your mind. Until you show some signs of something similar, you will continue to get short shrift from me. My impression of you - while not good at all at this point - is not at all cast in stone, and I'd be quite happy to change it based upon additional evidence.