2012 US General Election Discussions: Start to Finish

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Reader

Come on you guys, the empty chair thing was just one moment in an otherwise stellar career. Seriously, "The Bridges of Madison County" was a superlative film, by far his best work. It was well-written, made me cry at times and really left me wanting more; I've seen it a dozen times! It was so romantic, so touching and really very realistic. I even have it on DVD and it's almost worn out. Oh. Uh, wait, wait, I think I got confused. Yeah, I did. I meant to say "Dirty Harry", yeah, that's it. "Dirty Harry". I love that flick. I've worn that sucker out!

Quite honestly, I'm not going to let Eastwood's very strange, Grandpa Simpson ramblings get in the way of enjoying his movies. For the most part, I find the political utterances of all but a very small sliver of actors to be worthless and I wish they would shut up. That applies regardless of political leanings.

I think that there are very few playwrights of the last half-century that can best David Mamet's (Glengarry Glen Ross) dialog work and he recently (last five years or so) lost his damn mind and has become an Obama-hating right-wing populist masquerading as a conservative. I *still* watch his work because he can write dialog like no one else. I love Samuel L. Jackson but find most of his political pronouncements vapid even though he's of my political tribe, more or less so I certainly see what you're driving at.

Cheers
Aj

[Kobi]

The Republican presidential candidate came under fire from Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday for politicizing the outbreak of deadly violence in the Middle East, including the breaching of the American Embassy in Cairo and an attack on the American Consulate in Libya, which claimed the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other diplomatic workers.

The danger for Romney is that his response to the Middle East attacks feeds into a consensus among the news media that his campaign to unseat Obama is in serious trouble. For the fourth time in recent months, prominent conservatives have gone public with fretting over the direction of Romney's campaign—a panic set off most recently by conservative radio host Laura Ingraham's suggestion Monday that if Romney can't beat Obama then the Republican Party should be "shut down." On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal editorial board piled on, suggesting Romney could lose the election because he's been too vague when it comes to explaining his policies.

"Mistakes like this happen when a campaign begins to feel under pressure," Schmidt told Yahoo News. "The Democrats had a more successful convention, the president's opened up a lead in the polls, there's been a lot of criticism by conservative commentators about campaign strategy. … They acted too quickly, too rashly, too politically—looking obviously for a way to change the narrative, the dynamic in the race."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/r...-election.html

[Gráinne]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...ate-fundraiser

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by guihong

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...ate-fundraiser

This is like pure schaudenfreude mainlined right into the body. Romney's had such a horrible week that I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

Cheers
Aj

[chefhmboyrd]

what if....


all the money spent on these campaigns was applied to the National Debt?

[Miss Scarlett]

Got first robo-call of the season yesterday...answered office phone only to hear "Hello, this is Mitt..." that's all i heard...couldn't hang up fast enough...lol

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Miss Scarlett

Got first robo-call of the season yesterday...answered office phone only to hear "Hello, this is Mitt..." that's all i heard...couldn't hang up fast enough...lol

What you didn't want to hear how if you aren't a millionaire you live only to collect your government check? I can't imagine why!

Cheers
Aj

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by chefhmboyrd

what if....


all the money spent on these campaigns was applied to the National Debt?

Wouldn't make a dent. Wouldn't even really show up. The national debt is at 14 trillion dollars, combined the campaigns are going to spend ~two billion all told. That's .007 (1/7000th) of the national debt. To put it in perspective, over the course of a year if you made, say, 50K last year it would amount to $7.15. Sure, on any given day 7.15 might be the difference between buying lunch out or eating something you took from home or it might be two extra gallons of gas in the car but over the course of the year, that works out to about $.60 a day. Do you notice $.60 a day? Probably not.

If we're going to actually make headway against the debt then we're going to have to do something about military spending (the 1000 pound gorilla in the budgetary room). Almost anything else we do, outside of simply eliminating Social Security and Medicare, would be like trying to scoop out the Pacific ocean with a Dixie cup.

Ironically, the investment we could make that would actually help the deficit go down eventually, is one of the things that there is very little public support for; public financing of political campaigns.

Cheers
Aj