Uh-oh! Romney has lost the Halperin vote.

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://thepage.time.com/2012/08/03/romneys-puzzling-answer/

In my follow-up question to Mitt Romney at his Friday press conference, he seemed within the space of one reply to give a hyper-partisan response in one breath and a broad call for bipartisanship in the next.

Asked about how long it would take a President Romney to get major tax reform through Congress, the candidate said:

    “The length of time for tax reform if I became president is dependent, in part, upon whether we elect Republicans in the Senate and the House, and by what number. And so I can’t give you a precise prediction of how long it would take to put in place a full tax reform program until we have those individuals in place…”

That seems like an extraordinary statement for a man who has criticized the incumbent for pushing through an agenda with Democratic-only votes. Romney is basically suggesting that the more members of his party win in November, the easier time he will have muscling through his kind of tax reform. It flies in the face of the notion that major tax reform, like all landmark legislation, requires a bipartisan compromise, both for passage and implementation.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Lol, well after leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate has spent the last week claiming you haven't paid any taxes in the last decade, the prospect of him being a cooperative partner on anything is dubious at best.

[Lief 🗽]

But it's okay for Romney to criticize Obama for not working closely enough with a Senate Minority Leader who publicly stated that his job was to make sure Obama lost re-election.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

But it's okay for Romney to criticize Obama for not working closely enough with a Senate Minority Leader who publicly stated that his job was to make sure Obama lost re-election.

Every opposition leader states that they want to attain the majority (if they don't have it) and the Presidency for their party in the next election. Very few have poisoned the well before a President is even potentially elected by calling into question the legality of their finances.

[Lief 🗽]

Every opposition leader states that they want to attain the majority (if they don't have it) and the Presidency for their party in the next election.

[citation needed]

Mitch McConnell said: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” I doubt any minority leader has ever been that brazen in his refusal to do his job of legislating in service of defeating the opposition party.

Also Reid isn't claiming Romney did anything illegal, just that he used legal tax loopholes to ensure that he didn't pay any taxes.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

But it's okay for Romney to criticize Obama for not working closely enough with a Senate Minority Leader who publicly stated that his job was to make sure Obama lost re-election.

Every opposition leader states that they want to attain the majority (if they don't have it) and the Presidency for their party in the next election. Very few have poisoned the well before a President is even potentially elected by calling into question the legality of their finances.

No, every opposition leader has not publicly stated that their single legislative goal over the next congressional term was to make sure the sitting president served only one term. Not creating jobs or working to fix the country's problems, but filibustering him at every term.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Yankee has been pretty desperate the last days.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

But it's okay for Romney to criticize Obama for not working closely enough with a Senate Minority Leader who publicly stated that his job was to make sure Obama lost re-election.

Every opposition leader states that they want to attain the majority (if they don't have it) and the Presidency for their party in the next election. Very few have poisoned the well before a President is even potentially elected by calling into question the legality of their finances.

No, every opposition leader has not publicly stated that their single legislative goal over the next congressional term was to make sure the sitting president served only one term. Not creating jobs or working to fix the country's problems, but filibustering him at every term.

The extent to which it is being used to affect congressional operations is different, to be sure. But statements "desiring a different man in the White House" from the Congressional leadership of the opposite party are quite common. I think you would be hard press to find a situation where at least some similar statement wasn't made.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yankee has been pretty desperate the last days.

If I am desperate about something, it is on a board at the opposite end of this forum from this one. Usually it involves torturing nine people in my chamber of hell to get them to do their jobs.  Would you care to cite a particular example that you have in mind that you consider desperate, and what is it desperately trying to achieve?

If there is anyone who is desperate on the 2012 board between the two of us, it is you. I keep this place at arms length and intervene only in a strategic fashion designed to move the needle in a direction I find to be a positive change. The reason I do so is because frankly it is usually dominated by ridiculous threads claiming outrageous nonesense about how Mitt Romney is the devil incarnate and responses given by militant Romney devotees that are often counterproductive and stupid. And you are often guilty of perpetuating the former.

[Likely Voter]

If anything Romney made the old gaffe by telling the truth thing here. In our current climate, bipartisanship has gone out the window. He knows that, like with Obama, he wont get anything major through without a congress controlled by his party.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I much prefer this realism over the hopey-changey nonsense Obama lied about in '08 to score political points. That man could barely even pass health care reform in a Congress that should've made it easy.

I'm more concerned about Obama's ability to work with Congress in a possible second term.

[Sbane]

I really don't get why Republicans expect bipartisanship from the Democrats after the last 4 years. If Romney wins, things are going to stay just as partisan as they are now. You reap what you sow pubbies.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I really don't get why Republicans expect bipartisanship from the Democrats after the last 4 years. If Romney wins, things are going to stay just as partisan as they are now. You reap what you sow pubbies.

Reason number two why it is very reasonable for Romney to state that more Pubbies he has in Congress, the "faster" things would go.

Remember something, he wasn't even talking about whether he would be getting stuff done or not, he was talking about the time frame, which obviously won't take as long if you control both chambers.

This gets my point from earlier in my post with px about this board. We take these statements, we over-analyze them and then make a big deal out of what is essentially nothing. It is frankly the same thing that is going on in the general media and it contributes to the partisanship.

[DrScholl]

You don't concede that you won't be able to get things done without having majorities in both houses, even if it is likely to be difficult without those majorities. You have to be willing to work with what you have and compromise.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You don't concede that you won't be able to get things done without having majorities in both houses, even if it is likely to be difficult without those majorities. You have to be willing to work with what you have and compromise.

He didn't concede that.

[AmericanNation]

You don't concede that you won't be able to get things done without having majorities in both houses, even if it is likely to be difficult without those majorities. You have to be willing to work with what you have and compromise.

He didn't concede that.

right, he didn't say that.  That is what you want to hear for some reason.  To score political points at the expense of honesty and productiveness? ? ?  I don't mean that to be mean, I just pose the question because it completely destroys your argument because you're guilty of the same thing you are trying (desperately) to rail against.