Talk Elections

I doubt they really believe this....but I do love this gem.

Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 supported then-candidate Obama over then-Republican nominee Sen. John McCain in 2008 66% to 32%, according to CNN exit polling.

But former senator and University of Colorado President Hank Brown said Romney is a "younger and more dynamic Republican candidate" than McCain.

Lmao.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/24/romney-camp-why-we-will-get-the-young-people/

65 years old = young, dynamic.
 

Uhuh.

Of course he'll win the youth vote. He can appeal to them with his modern musical tastes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDwwAaVmnf4

Calling Mittens "young and energetic" is like calling Jim Inhoffe "genial and kind-hearted".

Romney will surely do better than McCain among young adults if only because of economic conditions. Four years ago, Obama's youth brigade did not hope for "yes, we can" to transform into "yes, we can (live in our parents' basement forever)"

Wow, you're clever!

Alas, not as clever as the members of the Obama youth brigade who cannot find a quality job yet expect to find one at some point over the course of four more years of Obamanomics. Such quintessential cleverness cannot be denied!

If the youth of American want a future that is bright and prosperous, then Mitt Romney will be the candidate.

This, or perhaps they prefer four more years of "do you want fries with that?"

Correct!

Too bad he won't. Everyone who was tepid is now fired up and ready to go. Sorry but Romney's endorsement of the Ryan bill and then the waffling of every position he's held from 2002 to now is a major turn off.

He won't. Obama will retain some of the young adult vote because he has shown a strong feeling towards lowering tuition costs.

Romney's more likely to win back the Latino vote than the youth vote. The trend of youths moving to the Democratic Party has been more stable and consistent than the recent Latino surges of Democratic support.

Neither is gonna happen, though.

The only youth subgroup that will vote for Romney will be the Evangelical youth. I know he's a Mormon but they're politically active enough to not sit home and vote for the "lesser evil" in their POV.

Hell I'm right in that 'evangelical, likely-voter camp', and I ain't voting for Mitt.


Mitt ain't gonna win squat. He might win over 65.

Good for you.

So I assume you're going to stay home?

The good news for Governor Romney is that I can't see anyway the youth vote turns out in the numbers they did in 2008.

Why would I do that? I'm going to vote for R-Money. He's a righteous dude. Write-In, unlike that poseur fraud Romney.

I could have sworn you're a Canadian, Ben

How's soixante-neuf? I wouldn't know.

...

I did not expect such a dirty joke from you, Nathan. :P

The Republican solution for America is that such jobs as America will develop will continue to be ill-paid jobs with no economic security and few prospects for improvement. The fastest-growing sector of employment will be 'domestic service' in which one gets to live in some grand house as a subordinate to everyone else within except to fellow domestics.  They will be superior only to the rodents and insects within the household.

 
The joke was the incredibly obvious one, of course, but what made it enjoyable was the pretentious, LH defying French, and the 'I wouldn't know'.  The prim lad!

My first thought when I saw the title was that Romney had picked Paul to be his VP...

Because fighting inflation above all else and promoting tax cuts and capital preservation over economic growth are a positive agenda for young people...

The 25 years old and living in mommy's basement vote certainly won't go for Romney. They stand to gain too much from Uncle Barry providing for them.

The 25 years old and working vote has too much to lose from outrageous current and future taxes to pay for current levels of spending.

He's doing serious drugs if he thinks he'll get their vote.  I don't think youngs will vote at all in comparison to how many voted in 2008.....which might be like a vote for Romney though.

LOL krazen. I guess I'm a likely Romney voter.

They're not going to be keen on having their future taxes go up because Romney cuts taxes for people in their 40s and older, increasing the deficit while removing the burden of caring for it from older generations who incurred it.

Yeah, you might want to get that checked out.

Mittens should chat about how means-testless Obamacare jacks premiums up for the youngs to subsidize rich olds like Torie. The youngs seem to be in love with a man who is screwing them. Odd.

Certainly you are voting against your own interests if you are otherwise.

Social Security is now set to run out of money in 2033. Sorry to be you I suppose!

The youngs (<26) will be thrilled that, thanks to Obamacare, they can stay on their parents' insurance and that their parents' employers will be paying those premiums whereas before they were less likely to be able to get insurance at their entry level jobs.

Romney's promised increases in defense and tax cuts at the upper brackets will contribute greatly to Social Security's stability.

Yes, and then the hammer drops after the election when the insurance premiums for those over 26 shoot up to keep mine at a "fair" rate. Oh, and I forgot to mention the debt thing with the attendant AWOL-ism of Obama on entitlement restructuring on a more means tested basis for the olds that the young will have to contend with as the debt service cost begins to eat the US budget alive when interest go up from their current near zero percent rate. Mittens should chat about that too - a lot. Hey, he should take a campuses tour!  :)

You haven't heard the good news that cutting my taxes creates jobs? Mittens shouldn't talk much about foreign policy with the youngs actually.  He should just do that with that old former warrior Clarence in a soundproof room.  :P

Yes, we can (never find our own quality job with healthcare insurance)?

Well, we've already seen what has happened to such under current policy. In addition of course, trillions of dollars of spending to provide additional healthcare spending by the government will have to come out of the pockets of BTRD, who I would think seeks to be an upper bracket taxpayer in the years ahead.

The paul ryan plan does an excellent job of reducing medicare and medicaid spending.

I strongly encourage Romney to campaign heavily on the Paul Ryan plan, which cuts medicare and medicaid spending by decree (we will cut x%, and cut everything else by 80%) without explaining how that would happen or would translate into changes policies. But if Romney wants to lose the one age group he's guaranteed to win against Obama, running on cutting Medicare would be helpful, which is why he's not going to do it.

this is one of the more hackish threads I've read on this forum. The election is near!

Yes, we can (fine 26+ year old young adults for not buying mandatory insurance because they cannot find employment to pay for it, but don't ask us how we expect them to pay the fines. I guess we will have to imprison them to enforce the mandate.)

Obama's America sounds more and more like the land of hope and dreams for America's youth!

How many people are in that predicament - over 26 and paying an individual insurance rate which is much lower than it is for people of median age? I'm asking because I've had health benefits since my early 20s and my age never influenced how much my company spent on me. What is the volume of individual insurance holders in their late 20s vs. those getting it through their companies?


A question asked of Republican presidential candidates: if Democrats offered you a compromise that entailed $10 in spending cuts for $1 in tax increases, raise your hand if you would reject it outright.

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You can blame Obama for not seeking compromise with these people, but I can't.

We've gone from "the youngs" to "young people older than 26 who don't have employer-provided health insurance and don't want to go in the individual market, but have to." What share of the electorate is that? I bet Obama can afford to lose them.

Yes, we can (screw over a whole generation)?

Do you think the current "youngs" are never going to grow up? Four more years of Obamanomics, and a whole generation is lost. Like Torie said in so many words, a whole generation of young people are in love with a president whose policies are screwing them over, potentially for life.

I remember in the early 2000s how I was certain that Bush's policies would crash the dollar and then, only then, would voters see that he couldn't get away with his irresponsible policies. He might win elections, but the laws of economics were going to cause a disaster, and then they'd see.

Of course, who knew that the deluge would come in winter '08-'09 and from a different source, early enough to cause the Republicans to lose, but late enough for job loss numbers in Feb and March that year to be blamed squarely on Obama by the candidates this year.

This is not clever. Please stop.

As for your other point, the youngs I know are thrilled to have the opportunity to have insurance through their parents or to be able to afford individual insurance which was not previously on offer except at exorbitant prices because of the adverse selection problem.

I don't know what percentage of youngs are part of company plans, but obviously indirectly if the premiums shoot up for the employer that cannot help the balance of the youngs' compensation package. What I do know, is that medical insurance premiums even with state regulation that imposes some cross subsidies to the olds are really cheap. My nephew got a plan for $60 a month or something. Those days will be ending baby - big time. Mine even with the cross subsidies are about $450 a month.


Fixed!  :)

You've mentioned your nephew's plan before, I just don't know how common that situation is or what that insurance actually buys. Not Ameriplan by any chance is it? :) What are the benefits - is it catastrophic primarily with high deductibles?

But the EVAL RICHEZ like you just stuff those tax cuts under your mattress!

The youngs I know would like to find a halfway decent job once they are done college. I feel sorry for them if there is four more years of Obamanomics. The Obama Jobless "Recovery" is destroying the hopes and dreams of America. No, America can't afford four more years of Obama.

I don't recall at the moment the company, but yes, it is a sound plan. I know because it has since been used - big time. We just dodged a bullet actually, because when he moved in with me I found out he did not have medical insurance, and went ballistic. About 10 months later, his world fell apart.

Was it catastrophic only? How do you think the company stays profitable?

You're right. We need to return to the successful "red" policies illustrated in this chart.

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No, it was not catastrophic only, but a "normal" PPO plan. Obviously, the company took a bath on my nephew. If it had too many of my nephew types, the company would have new "management," to wit, the CA Insurance Commissioner.

Well, I can't speak for his case, but I do wonder how prevalent or available $60/month plans are, what the copays were, and why everyone wouldn't have them if they could. Nothing that inexpensive was available in Massachusetts and rather than write that off as bad state policy I'd ask about the circumstances of that plan and who would be allowed to apply for it. You need a lot--a lot--of healthy young people to balance out the one bad bet like your nephew. Individual health insurance on the open market was unaffordable for young people because of adverse selection and lack of bargaining power.

Yes, let's compare the start of a recession to the best of the Obama Jobless "Recovery." Or how about we compare the Obama Jobless "Recovery" to past (real) recoveries:

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Trying to convince young people that this is what a healthy economy looks like is absurd. No wonder young people are losing faith in America.

Who was President in 2007 and 2008?

Charts are just so much fun.  I mean it is not as if they prove any cause and effect by themselves. The Pub chart on this little topic would have two lines, one for a "normal" recovery from a deep recession, with the line up from the trough having a nice steep slope, and below it the Obama "recovery" line, with the kind of slope that I could run up on for about 3 miles without feeling any pain, and written above the next "best" thing to the flat line, would be the word "stimulus." And oh percentages would be used, with a chart scaling to emphasize the point. You might have another line from the word "stimulus" to three little circles, with one of the big fat ones  having the words "public employees" written in it, and another circle would have the word "unaccountable for/lost" inserted. And somewhere might be written the words "cost per job created" and next to that "$400,000" or whatever the number is.

The next chart would then show the percentage of the budget going to debt service over the years when interest rates return to "normal" levels.

See how this game works?  :)

There you go again. The old "Blame Bush" routine. How did that work out for Democrats in 2010?

For the record, I supported Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama. I am not proud of my past support, but it is there. I still like Barack's personality, but his record as president is not worthy of re-election. His economic philosophy, in particular, is a loser for America. I expected Bill Clinton, a pro-business/pro-free market Democrat, not Jimmy Carter. At least Barack got most things right on the foreign policy front, instead of being a complete failure like Carter, but it's not good enough.

Yup. I was responding Politico's line about four years of Obamanomics etc., blah blah. The truth is the 2008-2009 recession was not a normal recession, induced by a demand or supply shock or by high interest rates, but was a different one requiring long-term delevering of, yes, too much debt by individuals. Recoveries from recessions like that are slow and painful because you can't juice demand through interest rates that are already at zero. Having government debt displace absent private debt to keep demand from falling through the floor and leading to a depression was the right thing to do, and the stimulus and auto restructuring contributed heavily to unemployment not being higher and the economy sinking into a tailspin.

Now the U.S. is doing better than any comparable country - those that tried austerity recommended by Republicans are faltering badly, look at the UK, sinking back into recession today, not good for people claiming this is Obama's fault. Look at Europe.


AKA, "not throwing teachers into the unemployment line to compete with others for jobs because tax revenues are down," unquestionably good policy in a recession. They should promote that. Laying off public employees when demand for their services is constant, their wages have a multiplier effect, and we're trying to reduce unemployment, is counterproductive.


Not going for the "waste, fraud, and abuse" line, are we? How honest is that?


Yup, that's why we need the Romney plan of cutting taxes, increasing defense spending, and reducing the budget deficit.

You posted a chart. Look at the chart. Answer my question.

Handwringing about youth unemployment with no credible policies to remedy it, and with stated policies that only make it worse, is tough to respond to. It reminds me of when John Kerry would go to shuttered factories in Ohio in 2004 to talk about the decline of manufacturing. We knew he couldn't bring those jobs back. At some level, he knew it, too. The economy was in decent shape and manufacturing employment was still shrinking. But it was good politics to blame George W. Bush and so he did. So we'll get criticism of Obama for not doing more to reduce unemployment than what he's already done, while Republicans propose austerity and capital-protection policies that serve the interests of people who are not the unemployed. I respect the politicial strategy but not the piousness with which it's expressed.

The problem is that economic agents, whether we are talking about households or firms, are afraid of how the deficit will be taken care of down the road. They anticipate tax increases, rather than spending cuts, if Obama gets re-election. This is taming spending and hampering the recovery. Furthermore, Obamacare is a federal mandate gone too far. A health insurance mandate works for some states (e.g., Massachusetts) that wish to fund such a mandate, but it does not work for every state and should not have been forced upon every state. Romney recognizes this. Hopefully the Supreme Court will shoot Obamacare down. Of course, anticipated costs associated with Obamacare are hampering business and consumer confidence since tax increases are anticipated to pay for much of Obamacare.

I suspect this recovery would look more normal had Obamacare never been passed, had Obama not run around telling businesses how to do business, and had the Obama Administration spent the stimulus more prudently.


Unlike Europe, we do not have a debt crisis. However, four more years of Obama is sure to lead to our own debt crisis. As Cameron put it earlier today, the solution to a debt crisis is not more debt. The UK has incurred a recession in the short-run to better their health in the long-run. It is the fiscal policy equivalent to Volcker's monetary policy in the late 70s/early 80s. Volcker tamed the inflation beast here and Cameron is taming the debt beast there. The UK is ultimately doing the right, but painful, thing for the UK. Obviously we do NOT want to be forced into the same corner as the UK, but we will have no choice if we continue four more years of Obamanomics.


Paying public sector workers more than their counterparts in the private sector is unsustainable, not to mention unfair.

If the Romney camp is as connected to youthfulness as the Romney supporters in this thread...

Um... Good luck.

No, a quite shocking amount off the stimulus money was just "lost" by states and localities.  They simply cannot account for it. (Just why the Pubs are so in love with state and local governments  has always kind of "amazed" me - all too often they are just cesspools of waste, fraud, abuse and back scratching.) Sure, it is not a huge percentage, so probably an absolute number should be used rather than the percentage, which might look a bit anemic.

Hey, our little "debate" has been fun Brittain33. You are getting quite good at this you know. Have you ever considered becoming a lawyer? You have a nice logical mind, and a good instinct for the other guy's Achilles Heel.  :)

I guess Torie is the kind of youth vote that Romney aims at.

I thought Republicans were complaining that Obama was going to ban fries?

Well I feel and act young (sometimes almost like a teenager). Chronological age is for the "little people."  I have transcended such trivialities - for the moment. :)

Certainly Medicare and Medicaid are programs where youngs and poors have to pay more and more tax while the the far wealthier Tories collect more and more benefits.

One very smart commentator correctly described Medicare as a transfer program from black males to white females.


It's very prudent for Romney to correctly strike a balance where he can compete for the votes of non-basement dwelling 25 year olds while still retaining a landslide majority of seniors.

Government can create a lot more jobs than you can as evidenced by the stimulus bill - it takes government $400,000 for one job, but how many millions does it take for Torie to create a job?

Torie's assistant earns more than $400,000, maybe even millions? Is Torie actually Steven Spielberg incognito?

Saving this thread for November 7th.

The objective is simply to discourage the youngs from coming out to vote, not necessarily to win them over. Fortunately, the economy by itself is doing most of the heavy lifting on this front.

No, but not every Torie will hire an assistant or contribute to the economy at all with the taxcut. Also Torie's assistant wont create infrastructure, or give a payroll taxcut to the poors.

What do you think people do with their tax cuts? Withdraw it in the form of cash, and stuff it under a mattress to do nothing? No, of course not. People use their income to consume and/or invest. All else equal, this generally leads to further production/consumption, and economic/employment growth.


Torie's assistant won't pay taxes to be used on infrastructure? Torie's assistant won't possibly donate to charities that help the poor?

By the way, what grand infrastructure projects have been created as a result of the Obama Stimulus? Do you think Solyandra is infrastructure? Do you think giving away billions to go unaccounted for at the state level (Thanks California/Illinois) is infrastructure?

Our infrastructure is not being rebuilt. Freeways are in rough shape across the nation. It seems to me, and many others, that tax dollars nowadays are mostly being wasted by overpaid bureaucrats whether we are talking about their salaries or the allocation of resources by them. Europe is proving that this shell game cannot go on forever.

There's a reason why America is the best. Some people want us to wither into a wimpy shade of our former self. Others like myself want America to continue being the best.

And you expect Romney to fix that with... tax cuts?
This looks like another thread that will have to be bumped in the future.

You do realize that in order to invest in a particular nation abroad you generally have to trade American dollars for the foreign country's unit of currency, right? And do you know what happens to those American dollars you exchanged? Hint: Foreigners do something with them (No, they do not request cash to eat and light fires with)

As for the point about Romney's tax cuts, nobody said Romney is ONLY going to do tax cuts. Don't worry: Under the Romney Administration, bureaucratic apparatuses will either be useful and efficient, or they will be terminated. That's how Mitt rolls. If a federal worker does not like it, they can hit the bricks.

Hopefully things will go well, and a revitalization of Eisenhower's Interstate dream can take place. Freeways ought to be taken care of before the end of the decade if possible. They are a key part of our infrastructure, something that markets do not provide adequately, and they are starting to fall apart. So much for Barack's stimulus package remedying the situation...

I would wager that Obama does very well among the under 30 year olds with no children who have a job and what not. Think the existing CA 53.

No, not fixed.  The original was correct.  See transcript:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/08/ames-debate-romney-bachmann-paul-huntsman-santorum-gingrich-pawlenty-cain.html (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/08/ames-debate-romney-bachmann-paul-huntsman-santorum-gingrich-pawlenty-cain.html)

In particular:

The Republican party is officially nuts. The sad thing is that if they asked the same question to Democrats with the parties reversed, the Evan Bayhs and the like would raise their hand.