Round II

It's all starting to sink it after all these months of trying to decipher talking points. I'm pretty sure I know what the Mitt Romney's tax strategy is and what's behind his foreign policy. Mitt Romney's sudden shift to the middle is being masked by having his surrogates telling the media that the debates allowed the country to see Romney in a different light, other than the one painted in the Obama ads. Since he made a strong showing in the debates, his base didn't make any noise about him moving to the middle. The Romney camp has Tony Perkins on speed- dial assuring him that Mitt Romney is severely pro-life. It's been said that Mitt Romney is rehearsing his" connect with the crowd" technique since a lot of tonight's debate questions will come from undecided voters. He is being prepped on how to smile and feel the questioner’s pain. President Obama already knows how to deal with a crowd, so he is being drilled on countering Mitt Romney's statements without seeming too aggressive.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are saying that their tax plan is the framework of a 20% across the board tax cut. They use the words" broaden the base and growth" which is basically saying," make more people pay income taxes and believe me this will work" because six studies, I have selected said so. Paul Ryan said that this had been done twice before, but that's not true. The tax brackets under President Reagan and Kennedy were a lot higher than they are today. Republicans will go to their graves saying that cutting taxes will promote growth because it puts more money into the hands of the people and job creators but that is not a proven fact. President Clinton raised taxes in the 90s ,and those years were known to be prosperous. There are no studies (only assumptions) that prove rising or lowering taxes will automatically lead to growth. Mitt Romney will not talk about eliminating the home-mortgage deduction because it will be political suicide, so he'll allow Congress to put it out there. He will then have the cover Congress to cover a campaign promise that went unfulfilled. I have to give credit to Chris Wallace for telling a Romney spokesman that of the six studies Romney is claiming, two of them are bloggers and one is a former George W. Bush staffer, and another comes from an editorial not a study. We might hear another version tonight.

Mitt Romney's foreign policy so far has been that he will do what the current administrations doing, but he will be more boisterous about it. He says that the Obama's Syria response is reprehensible, but he doesn't say what he'll do besides arm the rebels. There's a front-page story of the New York Times, stating that the arms that are meant for the Syrian rebels are falling into the hands of Islamic extremists.

I still think the White House is vulnerable to charges of incompetence in handling the deaths of our ambassador and three other Americans. We still don't know why our ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice,was sent out to the Sunday talk shows to say that a video caused the deaths of four Americans. Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham said that the White House was in a mist of a giant cover- up and tried to emphasize that Al Qaeda in is now larger than they have ever been. That's all Fox News wants to talk about. There are a lot of misleading claims out there because our Marines guard embassies because of information that stored there not consulates or outposts. We know that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, was stationed in Tripoli  and was visiting Benghazi when the attacks occurred. We also know that the State Dept gets requests for more security all the time, and that is a bureaucracy request that probably wouldn't filter up to the White House. It's more likely to go through an appropriation committee in Congress. On the other hand, the fact that a CNN correspondent found Ambassador Stevens journal is a sign that the investigation was handled poorly. That whole area should have been sealed. I'm sure the president will be asked about all this tomorrow night because this issue is being politicized. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has taken blame for the whole incident, but some conservatives are saying that the White House has thrown Clinton under the bus.

The president mustn't let the Republicans say that Social Security is going bankrupt because it's not and can't. Social Security is and has always has been a promise to supplement seniors when they retire. It was always meant that the younger workers would contribute, so the retirees could benefit from the program, and the cycle would repeat itself. As we know, the Social Security tax revenue was put into the general fund, and no administration ever stopped the practice, and we are living longer today which in itself and has a crippling effect on the Social Security trust fund.

Will this be the debate of debates? I don't know, but it's a well-known fact that some people have already voted, and the majority have already made up their mind. I have to go along Saturday Night Lives’ skit describing those people who were still undecided. You have to tell those people who's running, where to vote, and the day of the election because there's more than enough information out there.

A Pew Research Center poll stated that 20% of social media users had been recently unfriended someone because of political discourse. I can believe that and I think it's going to increase as we get closer to Election Day. I just read a response to a local newspaper article from someone who describes himself as a white, bible beating gun- toting red neck. The poster had the audacity to lecture black voters because they supported President Obama. The poster would've loved to vote for black man (wink*wink) of his own choosing who met all his qualifications, but black people aren't allowed to do that. In the year where 16 voter suppression laws were either stopped or temporarily blocked; the poster doesn't think that black people need support groups like the NAACP. Matthew Courage (if that's his right name) said black people will never have a man of honor serve as president. If the Republican Party doesn't purge its ranks of those who think like Matthew Courage; it will go the way of the Whig Party.

I encourage everyone to view Jon Stewart's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkljREAaDa8 on the VP debate. I was not aware that Fox News got so upset over the antics of Joe Biden. If you do watch it, you won't have to believe the two out of the three polls that stated Joe Biden was the winner because Brit Hume and Charles Krauthammer both said “if you would've listened to the debate on the radio, you would come away thinking that Joe Biden was the clear winner.” This was not a high school debate where a style is given a preference over substance. I have not heard the opposition arguing about Joe Biden's facts and fact checking; just his laughs.Fox brought out a doctor that said he could not evaluate Biden by viewing the tape of the debate but said he could be showing signs of dementia. Jon Stewart came back and said "yeah,the kind where he remembers facts."

I can't help it, even though I have full confidence in the president, I will be nervously watching tonight's debate. I've started watching the debates while following my Twitter feed. The comments are hilarious and insightful.People are quick on their feet and up on the issues ,which gives me feed back I might not of had. This is the future because people no longer trust the press to give us up to date information and the pundits rarely challenge the politicians. 

My liberal friends are freaking out

I expected my wife to start freaking out because this is her first rodeo, but some of my liberal friends are starting to get a little nervous as the race is tightening. They're not listening when I try to tell 'em that Romney can't win the election without winning Ohio and Obama still has a 4 point lead in that crucial state. I can't remember who said it but my friends remind me of what was said yesterday “when conservative Republicans hear bad news; they want to kill the pollsters but when liberals hear bad news; they want to kill themselves." It may not be quite that bad, but some people think that this election should be a blowout, one way or the other.

This is the fun part where I try to match wits with public perception. I was wrong last week when I thought the jobs numbers would outweigh Romney's good debate performance. Most of the polls are moving favorably toward Romney, but we still have 27 days to go.

I've heard so many strategies of what Obama and Biden has to do but very little of what Romney and Ryan's plans are. Yes, it's obvious that the Obama campaign will take an offensive approach, but I'm pretty sure the Romney camp is expecting that, and they will have an answer. It'll be whether that answer is enough.

Joe Biden won't have the same problem President Obama in his debate tomorrow night because it's easier to walk away from ideas like Romney did, than it is from current proposals. Joe Biden's opponent, Paul Ryan, has submitted two budgets with substantial numbers on them. Paul Ryan might say that he is now running on Romney's plan but what does that say to his colleagues who took a political risk voting for his controversial proposals? If Mitt Romney loses, Paul Ryan, will likely be the budget director again, but he might not get as much support if he waivers too much on his proposals tomorrow night. Paul Ryan will get his first challenge tomorrow night because, so far he's only been preaching to his choir. Paul Ryan is getting a little testy, as he showed yesterday in an interview with a local television host. Paul Ryan was asked about guns and their relation to crime, and his answer was a standard “we need to enforce what's on the books." He also disappointed those that think that the president is a threat to the Second Amendment ,when he said “even President Obama is not asking for new gun laws." Paul Ryan as he typically does, tried  turning the gun issue into an economic issue by saying that more financial opportunity will reduce crime. When the interviewer asked if “tax cuts" were the solution, the interview came to a sudden stop, and Paul Ryan told him not to put words in his mouth. He seemed to be visibly angered. This is the time in the campaign where one gaffe or misspoken word dominates a two or three days negative news cycle.

The next debate between the presidential candidates will be about foreign policy where the president will have a lot to work with. Mitt Romney just gave a foreign policy speech where he said he would ask for 15 ships to be built along with three submarines. He has already asked for 100,000 more troops, so the question that should be asked is pretty obvious. Why is Romney requesting more than the Navy current plan? "The current Navy plan is to build 34 ships over the next four years — 10 in 2013 — including seven submarines as part of its goal to reach at least 300 ships by 2019. " Mitt Romney claims the president is weak in his support for the rebels in Syria. Our intelligence sources tell as that al-Qaeda forces are helping the rebels, so I wonder if Romney has the system to make sure that the arms we're supplying aren't going to Al Qaeda. Many of the things that Mitt Romney said he would do in the Middle East are already being done through back channels under the Obama administration. The president will have to walk a fine line between revealing our current strategy and combating political rhetoric.

PBS had a pretty good Frontline special about President Obama and Governor Romney last night. I learned a few things. For example,I didn’t know Mitt was involved in a near fatal auto accident. The special showed a lot of the  president’s college friends  although the conspiracy theorist said none existed. I didn’t know that Obama’s maternal grandparents were alcoholics.

Dish Network is offering their long-time customers a free movie. I see Obama 2016 is an option. Since it's free, I'll probably see it this weekend and blog about all the discrepancies in it next week; or not.

It's always interesting to see another opinion on how the Biden v Ryan debate tomorrow night will turn out and their reasoning behind it; knowing that a gut feeling is acceptable. I've stated my opinion; tell me your opinion.

29 Days & Counting

I'm glad it's Monday because I had a trifecta of disappointment last week. First, there was Monday night where Tony Romo and the Cowboys stunk up the place. Then, there was the debate where President Obama didn't show up and then Saturday night, my Longhorns failed to make an open field tackle when they needed to. It's a brand new beautiful day. The temperature is 54° so it's time to turn those three pages and prepare for the next 29 days.

Before I move on, I want to give my take on Daniel Ellis's letter to the editor last week. It was a rare Obama complementary letter which I knew, would be attacked. I can't get angry because the letter got contradictory remarks because that would be hypocritical, so I'll try, to sum up, the points used by his detractors.

In Mr. Ellison's three short paragraphs, the  letter writer stated that he liked President Obama’s Christian like approach in handling problems, his humble beginnings contrary to Mitt Romney's and a plea for patience to complete the job.

I believe Mr. Romney, and President Obama are both God- fearing men but that's not for me to say because I can't see into their hearts, and neither can anyone else. Some will continue to use a single DVD that was shown on a continuous loop on Fox, to judge Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his parishioners as radical racists, and they will associate the president with them. That issue was settled in 2008, and 69 million people chose Barack Obama to be the 44th president of the United States. It would take a vivid imagination and a consumption of loads of propaganda to convince  even the  most guidable people that the president and Michelle didn't come from humble beginnings.

I agree with Mr. Ellis final assessment . Consumer confidence is up, and people are aware that we have a long way to go, so it's no time to start all over.

I started my weekly watching of the Sunday talk shows with a very spirited debate moderated by George Stephanopoulos on ABC Sunday. Peggy Noonan can write an excellent speech and a decent column, but she's no match for Paul Krugman when it comes to economics’, and it showed. Mary Matalin is also great using scripted talking points, but she was stunned when a panelist said that consumer confidence was up. Mary Matalin had to resort to rolling her eyes in obvious disgust. She even stooped to name calling, telling Paul Krugman " "You're hardly credible on calling somebody else a liar" when he said that Mitt Romney's incredible performance was theatrical and based on lies.

I noticed a pattern that's been used by Republicans. Mitt Romney cited the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) as his source for saying that we would lose 700,000 jobs by taxing the wealthy. First of all, NFIB, is an ultra- conservative think- tank that’s to the right of the United States Chamber of Commerce, so the fact that they are independent businesses is laughable. Every Republican surrogate will try to use the NFIB numbers and dismiss the Tax Policy Center as a left wing source, when the Obama team says that Mitt Romney has a $5 trillion dollar tax plan that's geared to the wealthy. Mitt Romney will often cite six supporting economists who agree that he can give a 20% tax cut across the board without raising the deficit. The economists he cited, like the American people and President Obama's team, have not been told the deductions that Romney will cut, to remain revenue neutral.

I think the onus is on the Romney team to repeat a stellar performance Thursday night and the rest of the debates. I also think that Joe Biden will get the ball rolling Thursday night, and it's going to be interesting to see if Paul Ryan does a complete 180°on his views because he has actually put out two budgets that failed to pass the senate. Is Paul Ryan going to say, that his ideological views were wrong, and they are now going with a more moderate point of view? Mitt Romney has effectively killed the Ryan budget because Mitt Romney said he would restore the $716 billion Ryan used in his budget proposal. Romney has also said that he will not increase the budget with tax cuts, so what happens to the Bush tax cuts and defense spending Ryan wants? It is surprising to see those who were criticizing Romney not being fazed with his moderate stances he is now taking.

I don't know if facts matter anymore because the waters have been muddied so much that people think that the Dept. of Labor and Bureau Statistics, and the Federal Reserve can be manipulated by the White House. Liberals don't have any confidence in the Supreme Court, and we all seem to be playing a zero-sum game. It's been that way for while; did anyone believe the color-coded terrorism threat advisory scale? Many thought it automatically went up to orange when President Bush approval numbers started dropping.

I still believe that this election will be about the role of government. I heard a good line, this weekend that went something like this “we the people made this government and we the people can fix what's wrong." That statement was supported with a good example of how a small  private startup company came together and built an app that helped the city of Philadelphia with their bureaucracy. It seems that Philadelphia was trying to get input from its citizens who use their children's park to see what they could do to make it better. Typically, they had a city council meeting were 150 people showed up on a weekday night. They would get about 10 ideas and then they would go through the bureaucracy of setting up committees for approval. By using a text-messaging system, the start-up received over 750 responses with new ideas that didn't require a weekly meeting. To make a long story, short, the app saves the city two million dollars and was implemented in two days. After that success, the start-up company received many more requests from cities across the nation. It goes to show that people want effective government.

I hope this election is not about sound bites, quotes taken out of context, 30 second ads or anything but well informed opinions. I hope we don't allow ourselves to think that the 3/10 of 1% job numbers drop are rigged for election purposes. We shouldn't let the politics of Big Bird confuse or influence us; that program costs $450 million or as I like to say, 6 hours of Pentagon spending. Mitt Romney did a wonderful job of mudding the waters on green jobs. That $90 billion for green jobs was just a proposal figure that never materialized.  Not even half of that has been spent because Congress only allocated $34 billion of it.  Mitt Romney said half of the green companies went bankrupt but that is not true.  Only three of the companies went bankrupt.  Check out the facts because if a candidate will lie about something that can be Goggled in 5 minutes; what else could he be lying about?

A Wake up call?

There's no way to sugarcoat it, Mitt Romney gave President Obama a good old-fashioned country butt kicking. Mitt Romney put on his establishment Republican moderate game face and was relentless in his attack on the president's policies. Last night Mitt Romney showed how he became the governor of Massachusetts. I'm not going to whine or make excuses, I'm going a step further and tip my hat to him for getting the job done. I looked forward to the debate, but I was very disappointed of how it transpired. The panel at MSNBC was angry and made no bones about the president being soundly defeated by his challenger. Bill Kristol of Fox News said it was the best Republican debate performance since Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The great thing about debates is that people can come away with different opinions and still be correct in their analysis. I think Mitt Romney took over the debate when he ran roughshod over the moderator, Jim Lehrer, and got away without naming the deductions in his tax plan that he would eliminate. . Mitt Romney went immediately after "green jobs" although Jim Lehrer never asked him about that. President Obama never challenged the obvious contradictions in the statements of last night's version of Mitt Romney. I think the Obama prep team over emphasized the “staying above the fray “part. The undecided voters may have looked at the debate and came away wondering if that's the way the president negotiated with the opposition.

Mitt Romney won on style and performance, but he left a lot of material that the Obama campaign will use in their 30-second ads. I think the president could have used Romney's characterization of himself as being one who could get along with the opposition. The president could have said, “yes Mr. Romney you gave the Democrats what they wanted; and if I was to offer a big tax cut for the wealthy; I'll have 87% of the Republicans with me." The idea that Mitt Romney will be the one to get the parties to work together is laughable. As the president said," you'll repeal Obamacare on day one; Democrats will not be in the negotiating mood." The president never mentioned Mitt Romney's 47% comment, the intrusive methods of stopping abortion favored by Republicans, pay quality, the obstructionist Congress, or Mitt Romney's self-deportation comment. The president even lost the closing statements because I said to myself, how can you convince people that you will fight for them if you didn't do it in the 88 minutes you had to expose and demolish your opponent?

The president did a good job in explaining how Medicaid recipients would lose 30% of their benefits if the federal government were to send the states ,block grants. He did get Mitt Romney to admit that we do need to regulate Wall Street,  and that he would keep Pell grants but most importantly; that there is not a situation imaginable where Romney would raise taxes on the wealthy. The president President Obama did a good job of explaining health care, Medicare and he did get Mitt Romney to admit that his Medicare plan is a voucher program. The president didn't make to the point that might have made Mitt Romney stutter a little. The Romney plan will give those over 55 a choice of traditional Medicare or a voucher system; those under 55 will not get that choice. The president just took it for granted that we all know Romney's plan would not get off the ground if he included current Medicare recipients in his plan.

There's no question that Mitt Romney had a terrible September but this debate gives him a chance to pail out some water and duct tape some of the leaks in his sinking ship. When the Tea Party wakes up from their sugar high of last night's debate win, they are going to say, “He said what!” Mitt Romney did sprinkle in a little of state rights, cutting off the funding for Big Bird, but he also said that he would fund education programs.

My final analysis is that President Obama was blindsided by a well-prepared Mitt Romney. I don't know how you can prepare for someone who doesn't give details of his plans because you can't contradict something he doesn't produce. Mitt Romney got away with plausible deniability. I also realize that the president hasn't been challenged for four years; he got a rude awakening last night. For example, and Paul Ryan and the GOP Congress passed two budget proposals that totally contradict Romney's plan. Romney will have a harder time negotiating with his own party. The thing that annoyed me the most was the president allowing Mitt Romney to use "growth,"  as a way of raising tax revenue. Growth or the lack thereof is a result of a policy and not part of the calculation. For instance, if a boat salesman included all the fish that you would catch as part of the selling price, you probably wouldn't accept it.

Today, the fat cats will write out the checks to Mitt Romney, the polls will tighten and the Republicans will have that twinkle in their eye as they speak fondly of their candidate. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the right wing blogs will all have a bounce in their step today. Republicans like bellicose, substance and facts come in a distant, second and third.

The Obama team can't afford to hang down their head in defeat but instead have to look ahead to the rematches and the vice-presidential debates in two weeks. They don't have to worry about Joe Biden going on offense because that's what he does best. He's already calling the Republican's version of Medicare..." Voucher care." As even Ryan Paul admits, the gaffes Joe Biden makes are usually in informal settings, so there's no doubt that he'll bring his “A” game. It reminds me of Dick Cheney beating John Edwards after an obvious President George W. Bush loss. Despite losing the debates, President Bush won the presidency.

Pre-debate Hype

After 45 years of marriage, my wife will sit down and watch her very first presidential debate with me, from start to end. She watched a little of the 2008 debates, but tonight she told me that she would watch the entire 90 minutes because she's tired of hearing of what others think. She's behind Obama 100% but, she’s relying on what she will see tonight, instead of what the pundits will say tomorrow.

The pre-debate hype is as high as I've ever seen it, and I guess that's due to 24/7 media coverage of what to expect. Yesterday, Matt Drudge and Tucker Carlson tried to influence the media by digging up yet another exclusive Obama bombshell. Fox News picked up a tease and advertised it as breaking news tonight on Sean Hannity. As usual, it was nothing more than a 2007 Obama speech where he gave a shout-out to his Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Sean Hannity said he sounded blacker than usual. The people who are behind this must think that their viewers are pretty gullible because this video has already been hashed out by Tucker Carlson when he was a host on MSNBC.

Yesterday, I read an article by George Will, which puzzled me because I think the conservative columnist is a pretty smart man. I don't usually agree with him, but I like to hear or read his viewpoint. He said that although the economic figures are dismal, and our foreign policy is in shambles; President Obama shouldn't even be close to being reelected. I don't agree with that analysis, but I can understand why someone would see it that way. It's the reason he gave for the president being reelected that left me puzzled. He said that President Obama would get a second chance because voters are reluctant to throw out the first black president. He went onto say that Frank Robinson stayed on as the Cleveland Indian manager because the owner didn't want the fire the first black manager in major league baseball. George Will knew that he would be criticized and would be called a racist for having those views. I wouldn't say that he was a racist, but I know there's not a measurement of how many people who would vote that way. This is just my opinion, but I don't think there's that many people who think that way.

This morning the panel on “Morning Joe” were discussing the most-recent polls where it showed that the race is tightening prior to tonight's debate. Joe Scarborough started the discussion by mentioning what he thought was a gaffe by Joe Biden that was similar to Mitt Romney's 47% comment. Joe Scarborough went into a laughing fit mocking Joe Biden for saying, “This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest. How can they justify raising taxes on the middle class that’s been buried the last four years? How in the Lord’s name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts?” Joe Scarborough said it was an indictment on the president's policies because they were in office. I guess you could see it that way, but I've been saying that the middle class has been suffering for over 10 years. It's no question that they suffered the most because their companies have either laid them off, cut back their hours and benefits, and many have lost their homes. Joe Biden's comment will get some blowback because people act on sound bites and how they are portrayed.

I don't think you can compare Joe Biden's remarks to the 47% comment that was reinforced by Paul Ryan's words in November when he told a conservative crowd that 30% of the people don't share the American dream. Those two comments are accurate depictions of what the Republican Party really thinks. It hasn't changed much throughout the years. I saw a clip of the 1976 debate between James L. Buckley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, where Buckley constantly accused his opponent of supporting a welfare state. The GOP is proud of their “takers and makers" mentality. For example, the other day a Paul Ryan supporter asked the Congressman if there was a way to make sure everyone paid something “have some skin in the game." Paul Ryan had a chance for redemption, but he made it worse by saying, " we want to make those people taxpayers by making jobs available to move them into the middle class." A lot of the 47% are seniors, returning veterans, students working part time while attending college, so making more jobs attainable will not get them out of the 47%.

Joe Scarborough hates to be corrected, but he doesn't realize that non conservatives don't think that Ronald Reagan was perfect. Joe was saying that if Mitt Romney could have Reaganesque results if he uses the same tactics that the late president did against Jimmy Carter. He got angry when someone pointed out that Ronald Reagan never had a plan on how to release the hostages in Iran, he famously said, “we only have one commander in chief at a time" but he did give a great optimistic closing speech backed by an economy that was showing no sign of improvement. Mark McKinnon, political strategists for President George W. Bush tried to say that the debates won the election for his candidate. He showed a little anger when someone pointed out that Al Gore won the popular vote by 600,000 votes, and it was left up to the Supreme Court. It's funny how those little facts play into the picture.

The Romney camp is saying the people will finally get to know the real Mitt Romney. I thinks that's just spin like the one saying that people are just now starting to get interested in the election. I disagree because the 2012 GOP primaries were viewed by many and many people are requesting early voting ballots. 

I'm eagerly awaiting the debate tonight, and I don't expect get much sleep because I'll have to watch the post-debate analysis. About 45 million people viewed Sarah Palin and Barack Obama's acceptance speech and that many will probably view tonight's debate.

Hanging by a Thread

The Sunday talk shows centered on what Mitt Romney needs to do to get back in the presidential race. They all made the Wednesday night debate the pivotal point in his campaign. The pundits would have us believe that if Mitt could make the president angry by calling him a liar, or if he just threw out a memorable line, the race would be knotted up Thursday morning. Those were just two of the many opinions that were used yesterday to make Wednesday night's debate, the mother of all debates.

The debate will be about the economy, health care and the deficit. The Romney campaign hopes that Mitt can do better than Paul Ryan did in trying to explain a tax plan that cuts marginal tax rates by 20% for everyone, yet somehow it's revenue neutral. It's easy to tell when Ryan is stumped because he'll say," I don't have time to get into the details." Paul Ryan would never tell Chris Wallace (although he was asked three times) the cost of Mitt Romney's tax plan because he would have to divulge the deductions that he would eliminate in order to make it revenue neutral. I'm waiting to see what side of health care Mitt Romney will be on Wednesday night because he's flip- flopped so much just in the last three weeks. They'll also be interesting to know how Mitt will handle the deficit, since raising taxes is off the table, as well as defense spending. Inserting growth as part of a financial solution is more of a wish list than an economic policy.

It will be incumbent on the president to say what he will do in his second term. He will have to say that a 1.3% growth rate is terrible, and the job numbers reflect that but the housing market seems to be recovering, a new source of cheap energy(natural gas) is a plus, as is the stable stock market. He can also say  consumer confidence is coming back and that’s a reason to have some optimism. He must then emphasize that going back to the policies that got us into this mess is not the way to go. The popularity of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)rose to 48% after the Supreme Court ruling, this gives the president some wiggle room when he paints his opponent as one who will repeal Obamacare, which will take away the popular " pre existing" provision and the fact that CBO said that when fully implemented, ACA would lower the deficit. He'll have to say that Mitt Romney was one of the presidential candidates who raised his hand signifying he would not take a deal which included $10.00 in spending cuts for $1.00 in taxes.

The Republican representatives did not disappoint because they all pulled out their Reagan card, they keep close to their vest pocket saying “Reagan pulled us out a recession in a lot less time.”I expected the talking point and I wasn’t surprised when they didn’t admit that Reagan’s recession was not as severe. Our deficit is 7% of GDP and the GOP Congress won’t consider raising taxes, even thou Ronald Reagan raised taxes when the deficit was 4% of GDP. President George H. W. Bush ruined his chances of a second term by raising taxes when the deficit was 3% of GDP. No economist worth his salt thinks that we can get out of our financial doldrums without raising taxes. it has to be part of the equation.

I think Mitt Romney will and should do well in the debate Wednesday night. I don't think the voters are rejecting Romney as much as they are the Republican brand of today. I think any of the 2012 candidates would be in the same shape or worse if they would have won the primary.

 I forgot the pundit who quoted a rapper who said, “don’t get high on your own supply." That's what the right wing of the GOP does when they double down on what they think are conservative principles. How many years do Republicans have to go down in flames before they realize that America does not want to give up or consider Social Security and Medicare alternatives? The GOP had a 20% old- folk advantage over Democrats but that as dwindled down to 4% in Florida. A recent poll in Florida showed that people by 70% want to keep Medicare and Social Security; as it is. I remember after a storm, Eric Cantor initially rejected FEMA aid for his own state, without cutting other programs to pay for it. He quickly changed his mind after all the blow-back.

Mitt Romney's presidential hopes took a downward trend after a convention that was built on a theme of " you didn't build that" to mock the president but little else to show the country what they would do to get the job market going besides the same ol'trickle-down economics. It's not always about taxes. People want to hear optimistic visions of the future in education, innovation and infrastructure. We can get committees to tackle the deficit, and the debt but tunnel vision is never a plus. The Democrats can keep their gun holstered because the hard-line conservative Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot by not realizing that there are other opinions out there.

It's going to be a close race to the end unless something drastic happens. Early voting has started in Iowa  and Ohio will begin this week before the debate Wednesday night .