Sentence of the morning from the Economist's Democracy in America blog:
Mr Romney was far from perfect as a candidate. But a party's presidential nominee is, inevitably, its standard-bearer, and his party dragged him down.
Romney was too Northern Eastern for the Gop and he couldn't compensate that fact with evangelism and a track record as a true believer. In short, moderation becomes a burden instead of a virtue in politics when it is believed to be a proof of vacuity and of cynicism.
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From Sean Collins at Spiked:
In a campaign devoid of ideas, people fell back on identity. Obama’s victory was a victory for the Democrats’ strategy of winning on social values and cohering support among women and minorities, an approach which was very pronounced at their national convention in September.
Identity politics is very much the present and the future of not only American politics, but of world politics. That said, I think Obama's victory was impressive!
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Best stuff I read all weekend on Nate Silver's assertion that there is a 80.9% chance that Obama will win Tuesday's election and is thus, the favorite, from Justin Fox :
Silver has repeatedly, and not very convincingly, tried to explain his percentage forecasts in the context of a football game: Romney is behind, but could still win with a last-minute touchdown. The problem with this metaphor — as, of course, Silver has acknowledged — is that we don't actually know the score of the game. We're standing outside the stadium and guessing the score based on crowd noise. So the source of uncertainty resides at least as much in the potential for mismeasurement as in the potential for last-minute game changers.
What Silver's 80.9% forecast technically means is that, if the Obama-Romney 2012 election were contested 1000 times, he thinks Obama would win 809 of them. This is a way of thinking derived from games of chance, which is where modern ideas about probability originated. In poker or blackjack or roulette or craps, you can (until you run out of money) repeat many iterations of the same gamble. But this particular election is only being contested once. So the closest approximation to the games-of-chance approach would be to expect that, if Silver forecasts four-fifths odds of victory in five different elections, he should correctly pick the winner four times. That's a ridiculously tiny sample size, though. You'd really want to look at dozens or hundreds of elections to judge Silver's reliability. Maybe, if he keeps doing this for another couple of decades, we'll be able to judge him by that standard. In the meantime, it's Silver's reasoning that probably offers the best clues to whether his forecasts are credible.
I agree with both Silver and Fox.
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I take issue with this from Amy Davidson via the New Yorker:
Romney has said that he does support exceptions to an abortion ban for victims of rape and incest, but, as I’ve written before, that does not make him a moderate. Who would a woman have to appeal to to prove that she had been raped in order to be allowed to end her pregnancy? How long would that take, how vulnerable would she have to make herself to legal machinations, further exposure to her rapist, or the condescending disdain of men like Mourdock? Or is that what he supposes he is sparing survivors of rape by taking the whole question of access for them off the table? How, for that matter, would Richard Mourdock and his cohort want her to prove that she might die if she saw the pregnancy through? Would a small but significant risk be enough? If she was denied access and did die, or was left disabled, where would God’s intention be?
There isn't such a thing as a moderate position on Abortion and people who argue that there is are usually trying to make another point and in this case, Davidson's point is that Romney is an extremist. She should just say it instead of using abortion to prove what is for her, obviously, a res ipsa loquitur literally.
It is alarming to assert but in America and elsewhere, there is only a right and a wrong position on Abortion, which means that there is no middle ground for it is impossible to be a little pregnant. For that reason, Abortion is no longer in my opinion a political issue, but solely one of human rights.
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Best comment on last night's debate from Gregor Peter Schmitz over at Spiegel:
Romney and Obama exchanged carefully prepared platitudes as though they were trapped in a world order created for them by White House predecessor George W. Bush.(...) Indeed, it appears as though Stevens' death in election year 2012 has been enough to overshadow the killing of Osama bin Laden and several other top terrorists from al-Qaida and other networks. It has been enough to keep America fixated on the war on terror and preoccupied with the Middle East.
The paradox of this fixation shown by both candidates is that neither Obama nor Romney have shown a real interest in the Muslim world. Despite overtures early in his term, the president did little thereafter to ensure that progress was made. The only regional issue that appears to be high on his priority list is Iran's nuclear program. Romney's plan for the region appears to consist almost entirely of unconditional support for Israel. Both candidates want to continue using drones unhindered.
There is so much cause for concern and the scariest thing is the paralysis of the American media.
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I agree totally with Tony Junod on this:
We have been told, many times, that each killing carried out by the administration is accompanied by vigorous and even agonized debate about its legality, advisability, efficacy, and morality. That debate, however has remained staunchly internal — has remained secret — and it has become clear that the only way to find out what our two presidential candidates think about the implications of the Lethal Presidency is to ask them, tonight, at the debate in Florida. President Obama has limited his comments to all but the most self-serving circumstance, and Governor Romney has spoken only through inference and through the often confounding comments of his foreign-policy surrogates. Bob Schieffer should know that if he does not ask a question about targeted killing tonight, he is — we are — unlikely to get another chance.
Unfortunately,the main concern of most journalists and of most Americans is to protect America by whichever means necessary. Thus, until Americans feel secure, they are going to be willing to let the president do whatever it takes to keep them safe even if they sense that the means used are wrong and will mean apologizing and regretting them in the future.
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Interesting stuff from Jennifer Vanasco:
Most every story covering the debate mentioned how Romney’s “binders full of women” instantly became a social media meme, including a snarky Tumblr, an anti-Romney Facebook page, a website bought by a Democratic group, and a proliferation of original songs or mashups on YouTube.
Some good reporting from the Associated Press revealed that Romney actually didn’t ask for those resumes - instead, he was approached by the Massachusetts Government Appointments Project, a coalition of women’s groups that had requested and culled them because they were trying to boost “the number of women in top state government jobs.” However, a terrific Washington Post opinion piece explored why, even if Romney had requested the binders, the fact that he didn’t know any qualified women offhand from his days at Bain Capital suggests that he thinks of women as token hires. Writer Jena McGregor says that his answer during the debate gave the impression “that he thinks such groups [as MassGAP] hold the keys to special ‘binders full of women’ who can’t otherwise be found through normal human-resources channels such as leadership development programs, succession plans, and internal and external recruiting.’”
My only question about the issue is whether acknowledging the problem isn't as important as trying to fix it. The question is in my view critical because I believe that both parties treat women as children who can vote and who will always value candy (pun intended) over anything else
. It may be small of me, but I don't believe that just because Obama is pro-choice and pro-equal pa he is more pro-women (what does that mean?) than Romney.
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Sugary excerpt of the day from Joey Fishkin:
Publicly, we are told that Clarence Thomas, for instance, was chosen simply because he was the best jurist for the job, and without any consideration at all of the optics of replacing Thurgood Marshall with an all-white court. Publicly, we are told that Sarah Palin was simply the most meritorious candidate for the job of Vice President, for reasons that had no connection to any efforts to diversify the Republican ticket. I find these assertions silly—and I say that as someone with tremendous respect for Justice Thomas, who (contrary to ill-informed liberal stereotype) has turned out to be a powerful and important voice on the Court.
And so I appreciate that Governor Romney has come out and said that he practiced affirmative action. Perhaps it is an easier thing for him to say in the case of sex than race, I do not know. But he said it, and that’s important.
It's hard to disagree with Fishkin, I'm tyring to, but his conclusion is on point.
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What about the second debate? Well before its start, I wrote:
Obama will be proclaimed just seconds after the end of the debate, the comeback kid unless the sky falls over or Derek Jeter miraculously recovers and leads the Yankees to a win over the Tigers.
I was right, but the most disturbing aspect of it all is the predictability of the post-debate commentary, which just drowns out the already meager substance of the process. I hated the format and the fact that the candidates were debating in New York instead of a swing state. But at least, Robert Wright is happy.
So? Obama still has a slight edge for until Romney proves that he can win Ohio, he will just have to accept that he is going to lose a close race.
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Robert Wrght on what Obama needs to do tonight:
So Obama has to do two things on Tuesday: (1) convert the new "smooth, sure footed Mitt" meme into the "suspiciously slick Mitt" meme--get Romney's energetic, articulate self-assurance, which so wowed people in the first debate, to start creeping them out; and (2) drive home the "heartless plutocrat" meme in spades.
Honestly, I think that Obama is going to be great tonight, but I think that what matters is how good or bad Romney will/appear to be comparing to him. If the question after the debate is about Romney's inability to relate then he 'lost' the debate, but if it is about the fact that he didn't cede any ground to the Potus, then he will be fine until he loses barely on election night.
My prediction: Obama will be proclaimed just seconds after the end of the debate, the comeback kid unless the sky falls over or Derek Jeter miraculously recovers and leads the Yankees to a win over the Tigers.
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Ian Leslie demonstrates that Obamabots and Obamaniacs are mostly spoiled brats who can't stand disappointment and failure:
It must have been hard for the people who have been busting guts to get him reelected, and who have done such an exceptional job to get him into pole position, to watch their candidate step in and screw it up all by himself. It must be depressing for all the volunteers in swing states who have been knocking on doors and throwing themselves into a cause for which they feel, in their heart of hearts, less enthusiastic than they did last time - because it turns out the man on whose behalf they're working appears even less enthusiastic than they are.
An Obama email to supporters this week was entitled "I can't do this on my own". To which Andrew Sullivan, one of the president's most influential and passionate supporters in the media, replied, "Oh, yes you can, Mr President. You just did. All by yourself. And we watched you live."
Come on! Obama is neither perfect nor exceptional! Get over already it and accept his faults! Give the guy a break, he is just another bad president not Michael Jordan refusing to play basketball to be a baseball player!
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Sugary excerpt of the day from Hendrik Hertzberg:
All the evidence indicates that Romney has no “core beliefs” beyond a gauzy assumption that the business of America is business and an unshakable, utterly sincere conviction that he, Mitt Romney, ought to be President, deserves to be President, and, for the sake of the country, must be President. His ideological rootlessness, which excites the mistrust of the Republican hard right, is what makes him the most dangerous opponent Obama could have drawn.
Interesting for what Hertzberg expresses is my belief about Obama: the conviction that he has no or rather few core political beliefs.
But to address the real issue, I think that neither Romney nor Obama are ideologues and that the biggest differences between them is about how comfortable they are at faking it. Obama fakes extremely well and is worshipped for it while Romney doesn't and is accused of being an arrogant and empty rich guy. I'm on the side of the guy who, at the very least, doesn't make America cheer for mediocrity because it is flashy and comforting.
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Words of the morning from llya Somin on last night's presidential debate:
(...)by nominating the father of Romneycare, the GOP cost itself an opportunity to attack the most politically vulnerable part of Obamacare. That’s what happens when, as economist Bryan Caplan once put it, the Republicans nominate the John the Baptist of Obamacare to run against the program’s Jesus Christ.
Because he was never believed to be god or his son, John the Baptist would have made a better American president than jesus.
Presidential debates don't matter for they are too manufactured. Their impact is minimal at best for both the media and voters have attention deficit disorder and will focus as soon as they can on the next shinny object , a gaffe, a poorly constructed and thought out scene or whatever else will feed their need to be stimulated and to prove their biases and presumptions right.
Thus, I am counting the hours before the next hysteria over a Romney gaffe that will once again mean that he has already lost the election.
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Sugary excerpt of the day from Henry Farrell over at Crooked Timber:
On key foreign policy and human rights issues, Obama hasn’t been a disappointment. He’s been a disaster. You can make a good case, obviously, that his main opponent, Mitt Romney, would be even worse. But it isn’t at all clear that the consequences of voting for Romney over the longer term, would be any worse than the consequences of voting for the guy who was supposed to be better on these issues, and was not. Indeed, the unwillingness of American left-liberals to criticize the opprobrious foreign policy of a Democratic president (and the consequent lack of real public debate over this policy, since most of the right tacitly agrees with the bad stuff) weighs the balance in favor of voting against Democrats who you know are going to sell out.
I have to say that the fact that the election coverage, so far, is done as if Obama doesn't have a record and as if he was the (sugar) pill that Americans have to swallow to cleanse their country's soul drives me nuts.
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Interesting stuff from Walter Shapiro :
The biggest gap, though, between Romney and those who chronicle his political fortunes is cultural. Michelle Obama, during her speech to the Democratic convention, spoke about how her husband had “started his career by turning down high-paying jobs.” Everyone wearing a press credential in Charlotte could relate to Obama’s economic choice, since no one brighter than a dead flashlight battery goes into journalism for the money.
Romney, in contrast, predicated his life before politics on profit maximization. (....) This is all about values, not conservative political ideology. (...)“Bias” is an explosive word to use in describing the media’s attitudes toward Romney, so I want to be precise about what I mean. I am not describing any deliberate effort by the media to “get” Romney, or to reelect Obama. It’s just my sense that—like watching a smug banker slip on a banana peel in an old-time silent movie—campaign reporters appear to derive a special glee out of every Romney pratfall.
Have I mention that I like Mitt Romney? I like his discomfort in this age of plastic authenticity. I love the fact that pseudo intellectuals such as David Brooks neither like or get him. I don't agree with his politics (I hope that the Romney of 1994 is still out there somewhere) but something tells me that just like Obama, he is too much of a pragmatist to be an extremist.
Sarkozy and Obama have shown that awesome campaigners don't make good presidents and actually make bad ones, Romney may just be tepid enough to soothe America if he makes it, but that is another question.
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Sugary excerpt of the day from Stanley Fish commenting on the dishonest, vile and more importantly willfully stupidly ideological 'documentary' on Obama from Dinesh D'Souza who must have perfected at Dartmouth what seems to come naturally to him, prostitution :
(...) the meaning of America is continually contested in essays, books, backyard conversations, talk shows and, most of all, in elections. It is often said, and it is true, that the opposing parties in an election have “different visions for America.” There are many ways of describing the alternative visions offered to us in a year like this; but describing one of them as un-American and its proponent as a foreign intruder is not to further discussion but to foreclose it and to replace the contest of ideas with the rhetoric of demonization. (Democrats have been as guilty of this as anyone.) Obama may have a vision for America that you don’t like, but it is a vision for America put forward by an American. If you don’t like it, vote against him, not in the name of Americanism but in the name of the ideas and outcomes you, also an American, prefer.
Via Professor Bainbridge, a pick to illustrate this point and the futily of the attempt to de-americanize Obama:
In short, Obama is as American as apple pie. Unfortunately that fact isn't enough to make him a good president.
I found it thought-provoking, compelling and even morbidly ironic that Obama is considered "foreign," European, and even socialist when it is Mitt Romney who spent critical parts of his youth in France. It tells me that Romney is actually more worldly than Obama and that fact explains, in great part, in my opinion, his obvious discomfort with his political 'family.'
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I agree strongly with Martha Nussbaum when she says this (hat tip: Norm Geras):
(...) And there’s the argument that the burqa objectifies women. I think the fact that women are often treated as objects for male use and control is a real problem. But let’s also think about porn magazines, the treatment of women in advertising and in the media, where women are treated as consumer objects and are encouraged to package themselves for male use and control in a way that eclipses their individuality. If you go to a high school dance, girls are wearing identical micro-skirts and packaging themselves as objects for a simulated group sex ritual that takes the place of dancing. There are lots of practices in our society that objectify women, unfortunately. To complain about one that happens to be the practice of the minority religion and not to examine yourself and the many ways in which you participate in such practices is terrible, especially when the force of law is brought to bear. In America, fortunately we don’t have bans on the burqa and the headscarf. But the French would ban you from walking down the street in a burqa, while you could wear a micro-skirt and your 4-inch heels and they’d think nothing of that. I think it’s just an ugly inconsistency.
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I almost agree totally with Alex Massie on this;
Romney's problem is not Mississippi or Alabama. Nicolas Sarkozy is as likely to win in the Deep South as Barack Obama. Mitt Romney's problem is whether cultural conservatives in other states - Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio most especially - will rally to him in November. Nevertheless: would you measure a candidate's appeal to Middle America by his performance in Alabama and Mississippi? I doubt it.
My source of disagreement with Massie comes from his assertion that Sarkozy couldn't win the South, I think that he could if he were an American politician for two reasons. The first one is that Americans, to the contrary of the French, are dreamers and don't mind their president liking bling and not behaving like a King.
The second reason is Sarkozy has a lot of Bush in him (he is blunt, can be inappropriately friendly/confrontational and is anti-intellectual and despises culturedness), which means that he wouldn't have any trouble doing what Mitt Romney (to his credit in my opinion) seems to be unable to do: pander and dumb down.
In short, one of the major problems of Sarkozy (making it difficult for him to win reelection in May0 that Pal Sarkozy, his father immigrated to the wrong country when he should left Hungry to come as all ambitious dreamers to America!
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