[worry]

I think the female marines thing is getting traction in venues like 60 Minutes, so I wouldn't say it's a buried issue. But while I personally think it's certainly a political matter for some of the reasons you bring up (setting a national tone, dismantling patriarchy, and even who gets nominated for high up judicial positions), I just don't think most people -- even people who think it's an important issue -- think of it in terms of voting for president. So yah, as far as the campaigns go, it's not coming up at all, because as far as most voters believe it's a pretty clear-cut criminal issue. They just do not make the sociological connections across the board.

[Illuyankas]

Nice little video from a Simpsons animator of Obama talking about how trickle down economics don't work.

This post has been edited by Illuyankas: 07 October 2012 - 04:55 PM

[Terez]

The Monday polls:

http://www.realclear...obama-1171.html

Looks like Romney got a slight bump from the debate. Over the weekend Rasmussen had him up by 2 points (Rasmussen is notorious for oversampling Republicans, compared to the other polls and to actual election results), but now they've got him at a tie, and the average is Obama +1.1.

PS—Obama is also way down on Intrade (64/36 when before he was in the 70s) but clearly he's still got the advantage there.

This post has been edited by Terez: 08 October 2012 - 04:17 PM

[worry]

From what I can tell, Obama has been going hard in his campaign appearances, and pretty effectively so, while right wing punditry has basically countered with a "why didn't you say it to his face?" kind of response, which is both juvenile and kind of a fair point, all at once. I'm not particularly scared overall, but that sour note is still gonna linger until it gets replaced by something. Hopefully Biden brings the juice.

[Gnaw]

worrywort, on 08 October 2012 - 07:43 PM, said:

Hopefully Biden brings the juice.

Oh, how sad that statement makes me.

Visions of Dan Quayle dancing in my head.

I'm going to blame you for tonight's nightmares.

[Terez]

More and more I get the feeling that all this pressure is just going to push Biden into making an ass out of himself on Thursday. Not that Ryan is likely to do much better. But Biden is pretty good at making an ass out of himself.

[worry]

Biden is occasionally a goofball when he's shooting off the hip, for sure. But if you've ever seen him in a serious debate, he can more than hold his own. I think you'll both be pleasantly surprised. At least I hope so! He's very knowledgeable about policy and law-making, he's got a very strong personality, and unlike Obama, he's not at all ponderous in the way he speaks. Which is occasionally part of the problem, but the debate is gonna be strictly on message I think. Plus as far as I can tell, Ryan has a lot of the "professorial" problems Obama has in terms of off-the-cuff speaking, and also has the disadvantage of being a Randian Social Darwinist AND a liar -- and Biden has no problem (and no hint of falseness) when evoking the populism at heart of most of the country. (I don't believe the US is largely center right, as Fox News would tout -- I think it's mostly populist moderate with slight leans to the left or right and a huge streak of anti-authoritarianism that is easily -- way too easily -- tweaked to dominate, as it blows up like an airbag to smother everything else).

[Terez]

57% of lower-income Republicans don't think the government does enough for the poor.

http://www.usatoday....romney/1618381/

This post has been edited by Terez: 09 October 2012 - 12:48 AM

[Gnaw]

worrywort, on 09 October 2012 - 12:38 AM, said:

Plus as far as I can tell, Ryan has a lot of the "professorial" problems Obama has in terms of off-the-cuff speaking, and also has the disadvantage of being a Randian Social Darwinist AND a liar -- and Biden has no problem (and no hint of falseness) when evoking the populism at heart of most of the country. (I don't believe the US is largely center right, as Fox News would tout -- I think it's mostly populist moderate with slight leans to the left or right and a huge streak of anti-authoritarianism that is easily -- way too easily -- tweaked to dominate, as it blows up like an airbag to smother everything else).

My comment was a joke. I have seen Biden doing off the cuff debate on tv. As you say, he's very good. I think his problem, if any, will be over preparing. I'm going to watch this one. The potential for "losing temper and going postal" is high. On both sides.

[Terez]

Maddow was very, as she says, 'down to earth' about the poll numbers today, saying it's a clear shift for Romney, but she's quoting registered voters instead of likely voters. "This race is now tighter than Dan Rather and that phrase about a tick that nobody understands."

PS—For CF again, the SNL debate skit parodied Maddow's style of spin rather well, I think. It's definitely a highly exaggerated parody, but that still about sums it up. I love how Al Sharpton owned it and played his bits on his show today.

This post has been edited by Terez: 09 October 2012 - 01:16 AM

[worry]

That's such an interesting statistic. I think it falls, at least in terms of how perception shapes reality, a good amount along racial lines. I imagine most poor Republicans are white. And I feel like they very likely feel left out of the conversation. While in fact federal social programs are taken advantage of mostly by whites -- even if it's just a sheer majority/minority numbers thing -- it very rarely seems like that's perceived to be the case. And I do think that's largely the fault of Democrats who generally fail to sell their issues to working poor whites or below. And so the Democrats' rhetorical failings are very happily pointed out by Republicans, so that you get deliberately racially polarizing phrases like "welfare queen" and "food stamp president" regardless of the reality they represent. Of course Republicans don't offer any answers that aren't Darwinian, but where are the Dems to point that out, specifically to the very large portion of poor whites who aren't exactly reading much at all, let alone What's the Matter With Kansas?

That said, I do think then-candidate Obama addressed this issue really well and most notably in his 2008 race speech, which I still consider among his strongest by far. Yet now, on this campaign trail, it's once again all about the middle class, so when poor people come up, it's usually Republicans like Newt Gingrich filling up the vacuum left by Dems, with the same racial dog whistle stuff. Not to mention the fact that poor whites really are openly and regularly derided by just about everybody, including on TV...it doesn't shock me at all that the notion of "limousine liberals" is so easy to sell. Bill Clinton had a very particular natural advantage against this line of assault, and Obama doesn't have it (though all things considered he should), and I don't hear anything out of congress Dems that is very encouraging. And to bring this around to my earlier point, this is a gap that Biden is fairly effective at closing, but there's no telling if he'll get or take the opportunity to do this at the debate.

[Terez]

I don't think it's quite a misperception. Most poor white Republicans I know pride themselves on never applying for welfare—the ones who vote, anyway—and they tend to buy into the Republican spin that lower taxes for rich people and vaguely-defined 'help for small businesses' and fewer regulations will help poor people more than welfare. For example, my stepmother was a poor white divorced woman with 3 kids on welfare when she met my dad at church. She campaigned for Clinton in '92, but my dad converted her; now she is your average Sarah Palin fan. She's never held a job for a full year since; my dad brings home the bacon. He takes care of her instead of the government, and there's some kind of religious principle of traditional families or whatever caught up in it.

[worry]

That faction certainly exists, but how do you account for that statistic?

[Terez]

Well, what I was trying to imply is that Republicans generally believe that the government should do x things for the poor, while Democrats generally believe that the government should do y things for the poor. And both probably agree that the government should do z things for the poor.

[worry]

Ah, I see. And I get what you mean by pride and not accepting help (as if it's charity). I guess what I'm getting at is there's a sizable faction that agree with Dem principles on what the government should do, whether they know it or not for PR reasons, and they feel left out because they a) don't know that Dem policies would help them, and aren't courted or even reasonably informed by Dems about how those policies would help them. There is also the fact that most of the 47% don't think they're in the 47%, which I think straddles both of our points.

[worry]

Pretty good article, I'd also recommend the comments section: http://nation.foxnew...times-run-walls

[Terez]

I'd rather pretend people like that don't exist, thanks.

[King Lear]

worrywort, on 09 October 2012 - 02:56 AM, said:

Pretty good article, I'd also recommend the comments section: http://nation.foxnew...times-run-walls

I read it, and I'm not sure I'll ever forgive you, worry

[HoosierDaddy]

worrywort, on 09 October 2012 - 01:56 AM, said:

Ah, I see. And I get what you mean by pride and not accepting help (as if it's charity). I guess what I'm getting at is there's a sizable faction that agree with Dem principles on what the government should do, whether they know it or not for PR reasons, and they feel left out because they a) don't know that Dem policies would help them, and aren't courted or even reasonably informed by Dems about how those policies would help them. There is also the fact that most of the 47% don't think they're in the 47%, which I think straddles both of our points.

This population is courted by Dem's all the time. It's their basic ideology. The elephants and, even more honestly, inherent racism of many people of normal voting age (25+), have convinced them that it isn't.

What's wrong with Kansas? It thinks it's Britain in 1940 and Washington D.C. is Nazi Germany. Wherein reality it is Britain in 1940 and Washington D.C. is Lend and Lease, money for promises, America.

[worry]

I don't see it, like pretty much at all -- everything is middle class middle class middle class -- but I also don't live in FLYOVER COUNTRY, so I guess I can't speak on this on that regional level. I just think Dems have failed to communicate on some fundamental level, if 57% of poor (and vast majority white) Republicans think the government doesn't help enough. Sure there's a poisoned pool already, but I can't believe that explains wholly that stat (not that I'm beholden to a single stat, but 57% is a shocking number to me -- not that people need help, but that they'd admit it -- after taking into consideration the situations you and Terez mention).