It's Still About The Economy, And We're Not Stupid

[Politico]

Somebody needs to tell Joe Biden that this election is not about gay marriage and Bin Laden.

Somebody needs to tell the Democratic talking heads that this election is not about religion, contraception, abortion, gays, etc.

This election is about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEPTzurLLhE

This is why Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee instead of a far-right social conservative like Rick Santorum. This is why Barack Obama will be joining George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter among the ranks of one-term presidents.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

Joe Biden was at a gay couple's house.  He was asked by the couple if he was "comfortable" with their relationship.  He said "absolutely."  How do you possibly extrapolate that to him making the election about gay marriage?  I know the Republican Party would prefer not to talk about gay marriage, because they are absolutely full of crap on the issue, but this is a stretch.  And, frankly, even if Biden were bringing this up intentionally, your response is "let's not talk about that because THE ECONOMY"?  Charming!

(Joe Biden, of course, is also probably full of crap on this issue, although in a different sense -- i.e., he's lying about his actual position for political expedience.)

[Lief]

We're Not Stupid

[King]

Joe Biden was at a gay couple's house.  He was asked by the couple if he was "comfortable" with their relationship.  He said "absolutely."  How do you possibly extrapolate that

It should have gone something like this...

Q: "Hello, Governor Romney, I'm Jack and this is my partner, Mark.  Are you comfortable with our relationship?"

A: "Mittbot detects issue to be 'homosexual' and 'relationship.'  Your relationship is of no concern.    Data indicates the election is about 'economy.'  Mittbot must only talk of 'economy.'  Homosexuality is not related to 'economy.'  Conversation terminated."

Q: "But governor..."

A: "Apprehension detected.  Loading anecdote for 'gay.'"

Q: "Mitt?"

A:  "I like the movie Hairspray.  Movie studios create jobs.  Hairspray manufacturing creates jobs.  Jobs are good.  Mittbot understands."

Q: "..."

A: "Human anecdote complete. You are welcome. Goodbye."

[Svensson]

We're Not Stupid

Totally necessary post, right here. Totally.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Magical Mitt will create 500,000 new jobs every month as President.

[LINCOLN REPUBLICAN]

Magical Mitt will create 500,000 new jobs every month as President.

It's true.  But how did you know that already?

[Beet]

The number of job openings has been headed in a steadily positive direction since mid-2009.



This comes despite a number of external shocks including an ongoing euro crisis, the Fukushima dai'ichi disaster, the Arab spring (raised oil prices), the debt ceiling brinksmanship by Boehner, and so on. The US recovery has proven quite resilient.

[Nagas]

The number of job openings has been headed in a steadily positive direction since mid-2009.



This comes despite a number of external shocks including an ongoing euro crisis, the Fukushima dai'ichi disaster, the Arab spring (raised oil prices), the debt ceiling brinksmanship by Boehner, and so on. The US recovery has proven quite resilient.

BUT EUROPE IS EVIL AND WILL BE THE DEATH OF US ALL.

[A dog on every car, a car in every elevator]

Biden knows.  He's he guy who coined "Bin Laden's dead. General Motors is alive."

Obama's approvals are 10 points higher than HW's and Carter's were when they lost.

"We're not stupid" is Romney's umbrella lie since he obviously thinks everyone is.  I agree with his belief though.  As do you, Politico.

(And demographic trends will bring equality for gays soon.)

[So the Heroes Fall]

(Joe Biden, of course, is also probably full of crap on this issue, although in a different sense -- i.e., he's lying about his actual position for political expedience.)

So you're saying that you believe Biden personally does have issues with gay marriage? Do you seriously believe Obama legitimately opposes it too?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

...of course it's about the economy. But are people really stupid enough to believe Obama won't be successful at making it about something else? This man could walk on stage and talk about yesterday morning's crap and people would jump and cheer. It's sorty of sickening.

Obama can flounder his way through his poor record as long as the economy slowly improves. But if things get worse, even Obama can't make something from nothing.

[Grad Students are the Worst]

(Joe Biden, of course, is also probably full of crap on this issue, although in a different sense -- i.e., he's lying about his actual position for political expedience.)

So you're saying that you believe Biden personally does have issues with gay marriage? Do you seriously believe Obama legitimately opposes it too?

No, sorry for being unclear; I'm saying the opposite.  I don't believe that Obama or Biden have opposed gay marriage for several years, if they ever really did.

[NHI]

Somebody needs to tell Joe Biden that this election is not about gay marriage and Bin Laden.

Somebody needs to tell the Democratic talking heads that this election is not about religion, contraception, abortion, gays, etc.

This election is about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEPTzurLLhE

This is why Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee instead of a far-right social conservative like Rick Santorum. This is why Barack Obama will be joining George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter among the ranks of one-term presidents.

Here, here!

[Secretary Polnut]

I hope someone is bringing cookies to this support group...

[pbrower2a]

...of course it's about the economy. But are people really stupid enough to believe Obama won't be successful at making it about something else? This man could walk on stage and talk about yesterday morning's crap and people would jump and cheer. It's sort of sickening.

Obama can flounder his way through his poor record as long as the economy slowly improves. But if things get worse, even Obama can't make something from nothing.

Nobody says that the Republicans have no ideas of how to squeeze a little more economic activity out of America. Such depends upon further degradation of life for working people , further concentration of economic power in fewer hands, and ravaging the environment for quick bucks.  

You underestimate your adversary.  Begin with the obvious: Dubya was arguably the worst President that we ever had.  He ignored intelligence and allowed 9/11; he suborned perjury to get a war for his own glory that he wanted; he pushed a corrupt economic boom based upon easy credit through predatory lenders, making a mockery of thrift and caution necessary for the smooth functioning of business. In the end his economic policies led to a gigantic collapse of the financial system that required the massive nationalization of giant businesses in the financial industry. All of this would have been inexcusable for a bleeding-heart liberal. Yet this is by a conservative. Dubya the cheat and liar, Dubya the demagogue, Dubya the warmonger, Dubya the war criminal, Dubya the destroyer of Big Business, Dubya the Socialist.  

President Obama has done right about everything that Dubya did wrong except to preserve the Dubya-era tax cuts for the super-rich. Sometimes one must make sordid deals with powers-that-be. The most dangerous meltdown of the American economy in nearly 80 years came to an abrupt end. The President has been able to sell off many of the rescued assets at a profit. He has gotten us out of one nasty war that his dreadful predecessor got us into. He whacked Osama bin Laden (and as it turns out, he really had no alternative). The anti-Americanism that flourished when Dubya was President is no more.

So we have no potential for a boom in real estate. Such is for the better. We need to know what we are doing before we have another one. Maybe you don't want  a drunk driver getting behind the wheel of a car that replaces the one that he totaled by driving into a tree to avoid the pink elephants that he saw on the road. Maybe you want him to give up his pathological drinking before he drives again.

... Most of the left-right divide in history has been between debtors (Left) and creditors (Right). Debtors want an over- heated economy, perhaps with severe inflation, that eases paying off loans or even trivializing them. Creditors want debt to hurt so that it makes debtors go more under the heel of those who own the notes. Such is so even on a small scale: someone who lives in a cr@ppy apartment yet holds a whole-life insurance policy and a balance of a few thousand dollars in savings sees the world very differently than does someone who lives in a house that he struggles to meet payments on and is heavily in debt. As it is now, being heavily in debt is the norm for working people and a comparatively-small number of people have the Shylock role.

But you wouldn't know that.            

[Purch]

So basically Obama's the savior and Bush was the anti-Christ?


It seems like the only people I can listen to on this forum are people In Green, Yellow or Orange.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

My God, pbrower. That fit of rhetoric was even worse than Obama's new ad ("we know that people who see this commercial become more likely to vote for the President").

[Beet]

That's tl;dr, but Obama's hardly been a disaster on the economy. In early 2009, General Electric was going bankrupt. Now, at least we're consistently generating 100k-200k jobs per month. That's probably an underestimation, because during upturns in the business cycle, BLS tends to underestimate job growth. I'm far from convinced Mitt could do it any better.

[Emperor SJoyce]

Was part of that intended to defend Obama's foreign policy? Afghanistan? Libya? Defense spending? PATRIOT Act? NDAA? Assassination of citizens without a trial? Guantanamo? Cause all I saw on that was "No combat troops in Iraq and no Osama. Plus, I'm not Bush."

[Lief]

Afghanistan is ending, Libya was a success, defense spending has been cut by hundreds of billions of dollars, only silly libertarians on the internet are mad about NDAA, Congress didn't let Obama close Guantanamo. I guess you wanted him to somehow get a PATRIOT Act repeal through Congress also?

[pbrower2a]

So basically Obama's the savior and Bush was the anti-Christ?


It seems like the only people I can listen to on this forum are people In Green, Yellow or Orange.

No, it is more that George W. Bush was an awful President by every standard other than "how conservative he is" and Barack Obama is much better. Perfect? Hardly. He isn't Lincoln and he isn't FDR.

[Korwinist]

Afghanistan is ending, Libya was a success, defense spending has been cut by hundreds of billions of dollars, only silly libertarians on the internet are mad about NDAA, Congress didn't let Obama close Guantanamo. I guess you wanted him to somehow get a PATRIOT Act repeal through Congress also?

Afghanistan is ongoing, Libya is looking like its going to split into about a hundred tiny pseudo-countries, defense spending is several times higher than it was during the Cold War, apparently silly liberals don't care about the US government being allowed to completely circumvent the legal process if it just calls the suspect a "terrorist", and Obama didn't make even minor attempts to close Gitmo. He then turned around and outright supported the new version of the PATRIOT act, happily signing it into law without any complaint or modification requests.

[ShadowOfTheWave]

You know, stupid slogans like this bring out just a little of the Democrat/liberal that I used to be. 'The recovery is too slow' is an idiotic talking point, we could just as easily be getting no recovery, could we not? The Romney campaign is basically going to have to run a completely dishonest campaign if they are running on a poor economy message, and people aren't going to fall for it.

[Emperor SJoyce]

Afghanistan is ending, Libya was a success, defense spending has been cut by hundreds of billions of dollars, only silly libertarians on the internet are mad about NDAA, Congress didn't let Obama close Guantanamo. I guess you wanted him to somehow get a PATRIOT Act repeal through Congress also?

Afghanistan is ongoing, Libya is looking like its going to split into about a hundred tiny pseudo-countries, defense spending is several times higher than it was during the Cold War, apparently silly liberals don't care about the US government being allowed to completely circumvent the legal process if it just calls the suspect a "terrorist", and Obama didn't make even minor attempts to close Gitmo. He then turned around and outright supported the new version of the PATRIOT act, happily signing it into law without any complaint or modification requests.

This. We're still in Afghanistan till at least 2015, Libya was another foreign war about oil (not a success), defense spending has not been cut anywhere near reasonable amounts, I'm certainly concerned about the detention and murder of Americans by the state (you conveniently forgot to post your 'defense' of murder of American citizens), I don't like broken promises, and the PATRIOT Act is, as the name would suggest, an act, specifically one that comes up every few years to be signed again/expanded/vetoed. He, obviously, did not do so.