The Republican Nomination For President: The Race For The Race For The White House

“Look, I’m at the start of my administration. One nice thing about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I’ve got four years. And, you know, a year from now I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress,” Obama said. “But there’s still going to be some pain out there. If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

“there’s no silver bullets” for the economy and that it’s “going to take some time for us to be able to dig ourselves out of this hole.”

Brad Pitt had an earlier beef with US President Barack Obama over issues he felt were not being persued strongly enough by Obama, but now says he still supports him.

His wife Angelina Jolie added that she is "disappointed" and "frustrated" with Obama on a "few things" as well.

Is that enough to drive him to Newt Gingrich?

While the fading GOP presidential hopeful may not believe Pitt is ready to campaign for him, the Georgia politician would love to have Brad Pitt play him in his life story.

Wait - what?

While a movie about the life and times of Newt would surely be a box office dud even Brad Pitt couldn't save, Gingrich was asked who should play him in a film about his life by a radio host and immediately focused in on Angelina Jolie's handsome beau.

“Brad Pitt,” Gingrich told syndicated radio host Rick Stevens late Wednesday when asked.

Many have accused Gingrich of delusion in many areas - does he think he looks like Pitt?

“No, I don't look like him at all," Gingrich said. "He's thinner, he's better looking, he's younger.”

“But you asked me if I could have anyone who could play me in a movie,” Gingrich mused, “why not go for Brad Pitt?

I have no doubt he can argue it. I'm just hoping that he can argue it well enough to get the couch-sitters off their asses and into the booths.

The problem with promising a magical future is that people expect you to actually follow through with it. While those of us that aren't actively arguing against another Obama term can see obvious signs of improvements (despite the GOP's attempts to sabotage the country and keep job growth down via congressional stonewalling) it's still not the fairy-tale ending that we were sold at the beginning of his campaign.

Fingers crossed here.

What does 'fixed' mean?

“The Newt Gingrich campaign announced today that it was appealing to Florida Republican officials to award the delegates from their primary last Tuesday on a proportional basis, rather than the winner-take-all formula that gave all 50 to victor Mitt Romney,” the Boston Globe writes. Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said, “The existing rules that the (Republican National Committee) already agreed upon were that any contest held before a certain date, those contests need to award their delegates proportionally to the outcome of the election. So, we are asking the state party of Florida to enforce that rule.”

Questioner wrote:

I have no doubt he can argue it. I'm just hoping that he can argue it well enough to get the couch-sitters off their asses and into the booths.

The problem with promising a magical future is that people expect you to actually follow through with it. While those of us that aren't actively arguing against another Obama term can see obvious signs of improvements (despite the GOP's attempts to sabotage the country and keep job growth down via congressional stonewalling) it's still not the fairy-tale ending that we were sold at the beginning of his campaign.

Fingers crossed here.

To be fair to Obama's team, the economy contracted FAR more in 2008 than any analyst had previously imagined. Three times as bad. So, when your economic projections are based on numbers that then turn out to be more than double as bad as you thought they were, the projections are never going to be correct.

Cycloptichorn

I honestly don't think you've worked the numbers out correctly.

Moreover the high tax, high spending, expanded regulatory policies

Problem is, President Obama is hardly the regulation lover the GOP's presidential candidates make him out to be. As Bloomberg News has reported, Obama approved 5 percent fewer regulations during almost three years in office than did his predecessor, George W. Bush. The cost of those regulations, meanwhile, hasn't hit the same peak cost as those approved by George H.W. Bush in 1992. And looking across the past three decades, the cost of Obama's regulations is nearly the same as the presidents before him when adjusted for inflation.

What's more, a November study by the Center for Progressive Reform found that the Obama administration had watered down more regulations than the George W. Bush administration did at the same point in Bush's first term as president. Obama's regulatory aides changed 76 percent of rules coming out of federal agencies, the study found, while Bush aides tweaked 64 percent of rules.

On Saturday, in fact, the Obama administration's propensity for whittling away at regulations was laid bare on the front page of the New York Times. After a multimillion-dollar lobbying blitz by the for-profit education industry, the Department of Education decided to weaken new rules overseeing for-profit schools, a regulatory tweak seen as a victory for industry.

Obama is no worse, in other words, than his Republican predecessors on issuing new regulations. While the US economy faces plenty of hurdles on the path to recovery, a unprecedented surge of new regulations is not one of them

I think questioner was entirely correct in pointing out the gap between Obama's generally vague campaign promises, and, in particular about the rather more specific promises he made about the wonderful effectiveness of the medical care and the vigourous new green energy economy he forecast.

In January, health care employment continued to grow (+31,000). Within the industry, hospitals and ambulatory care services each added 13,000 jobs.

Moreover the high tax, high spending, expanded regulatory policies he pursued and continues to pursue have had exactly the sclerotic effect on our economy that many analysts forecasted when he proposed them.

I doubt that. Five or so years ago, when Congress enacted a stepwise raise of the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25, the Wall Street Journal had an article about the percentage of workers affected. Before the raise, as best I remember, two percent of workers earned 5.15, two more percent earned between $5.15 and $7.25. (I can't verify the numbers because I don't subscribe to the Wall Street Journal anymore.) We know the raise didn't dis-employ a lot of the workers affected (which, by the way, contradicted my libertarian predictions and is one of the reasons I have backtracked a great deal on my libertarianism). I doubt that reversing the raise, or going even further, would re-employ a lot of workers.

The depth of the economic contraction underway when Obama took office was indeed a bit greater than what SOME analysts forecast, but not all of them.

Moreover the high tax, high spending, expanded regulatory policies he pursued and continues to pursue have had exactly the sclerotic effect on our economy that many analysts forecasted when he proposed them.

What 'high tax' policies?

Quote:

What 'high tax' policies?

I'd like to know what taxes Obama raised. Let's look at simple facts before we even get to causation.

This myth of how Obama has "raised taxes" just because the RW fools want to believe it needs to be pointed out as being completely false. In george's case he can't argue ignorance. It is an outright lie on his part, told with the knowledge it's a lie.

Economic Pessimism Is Still Romney’s Best Bet

By Jonathan Chait

The biggest victim of today’s blowout jobs report – aside from the millions of Americans who still lack jobs, of course – is Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. Romney has rested his entire case for election on the sluggish economy. Intel Dan thinks he needs a new theme, and Romney’s campaign seems to have been stunned into silence, taking an unusually long time to come up with any reaction at all. But I think going all-in on economic pessimism remains Romney’s strongest chance.

Romney has been claiming that President Obama’s policies have “made the economy worse.” Journalism fact-checkers are pummeling him for it, pointing out that the economy is not actually doing worse than when Obama took office. That’s true, but, as so often occurs, the fact-checkers are being annoyingly overliteral in their interpretation of his words. Romney isn’t necessarily saying that the economy is worse, merely that Obama’s policies worsened the economy – that is, that the economy would have recovered more strongly in the absence of his intervention. Now, I find that claim ridiculous, as would pretty much the entire macroeconomic forecasting field. But it’s not a provably false statement.

In any case, it’s all Romney has. Obama remains personally well-liked. Romney is personally unpopular. The Republican Party is extremely unpopular. Obama has had no major scandals, and his foreign policy has been highly successful to date. There is the rise of the budget deficit (that predated him), but that allows Obama to turn the debate onto priorities, and here the public overwhelmingly sides with his preference for a balanced plan that includes higher taxes on the rich over the Republican approach of all cuts plus new tax cuts for the rich.

Conservatives are urging Romney to run on opposition to the Affordable Care Act, which does continue to poll badly. But two obstacles present themselves. First, Romney’s Massachusetts plan and Obama’s plan are the same ******* bill, as the economist who designed both says. Second, the opposition to the Affordable Care Act is wide but soft. A large chunk of those who disapprove of it oppose it from the left, thinking it didn’t go far enough. (A majority wants to keep or expand the law.) Americans know little about the law's details, but when explained, the details are actually popular, and turning the campaign into a more detailed discussion of what the law actually does would probably make public opinion more favorable.

So Romney doesn’t have much of an alternative. He simply has to keep plugging away at his theme, because his only real winning scenario involves winning on the back of a bad economy. While it’s improving, the economy remains very weak. And there remain any number of scenarios that could derail the fragile recovery — a European implosion, an Israeli attack on Iran, or something else we’re not thinking of.

Cheer up, Romney! Things could still get worse for the economy.

CNN) – The Green Party welcomed comedian Roseanne Barr as a presidential candidate Friday, following her Twitter announcement.

A spokesman for the grassroots movement said she completed the party's requirements to run under the Green banner and will promote their platform ahead of the 2012 election.

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Scott McLarty, national media coordinator for the party, said Barr and Jill Stein, the other candidate that met the qualifications, are committed to ending the influence of corporate money on politics and elections and served as active participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"She's showing that she really is understanding what the Green Party is about and support our positions and our values," McLarty said of Barr. "It's great that someone who is so well known is campaigning not just in the party but for the party."

Barr, who previously supported President Barack Obama, announced her bid Thursday via Twitter.

"I am running for Green Party nominee for POTUS. I am an official candidate. I am4 the Greening of America&theworld. Green=peace/justice," she wrote.

The former star of "Roseanne," the sitcom that ran from 1988 to 1997, has flirted with a run in the past, telling Jay Leno over the summer, perhaps jokingly that she intended to campaign for the White House. She briefly starred in the Lifetime series "Roseanne's Nuts" in 2011 that documented her life on a macadamia nut and livestock farm in Hawaii and has since appeared at Occupy events.

Stein, a medical doctor and environmental and health advocate, ran for Massachusetts state representative in 2004 and secretary of state in 2006 as a member of the Green-Rainbow Party.

Six individuals, including Barr and Stein, filed with the Federal Election Commission to register as 2012 Green Party presidential candidates. However, the party is currently only recognizing Barr and Stein due to internal rules that include requiring the submission of a financial report and a list of supporters.

Greens typically emphasize environmentalism, participatory democracy, free speech and social justice and have achieved some electoral success at the local level. Ralph Nader most notably ran for president in 1996 and 2000 as a Green, capturing nearly 3 million votes in the later contest.

The party's national convention ahead of the 2012 race will take place in Baltimore between July 12 and July 15 and McLarty said the Green nomination will offer welcome relief from the GOP battle and dissatisfaction with Obama.

"We have a pair of candidates who are running for working Americans," McLarty said.

And of course, he added, "the publicity is great."[\quote]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/03/roseanne-is-running-for-president-not-a-joke/?hpt=hp_bn3

And the circus gets another sideshow.