The Democratic Convention

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Seriously, Romney had no over-arcing message other than that - and no policy details whatsoever. Neither he nor Ryan has offered any coherent plan for how they are going to solve any of our current problems.

I don't think that is accurate. It may well be that, based on your perspective and preconceptions, there wasn't any substance there. However, those who see excessive growth of government as (1) wasting our resources on non-productive measures that (2) end up thoroughly bureaucratized and controlled by self-interested lobbies, and, precisely because they are controlled by government, beyond competition or easy public choice, and (3) creating increased public dependency on a remote Federal government that is increasingly convinced that it alone knows what is good for the rest of us.

It doesn't take much more than a casual look at our public schools to see the truth of all this.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Seriously, Romney had no over-arcing message other than that - and no policy details whatsoever. Neither he nor Ryan has offered any coherent plan for how they are going to solve any of our current problems.

I don't think that is accurate. It may well be that, based on your perspective and preconceptions, there wasn't any substance there.

Nah - it's not just me. There was zero substance in either of their speeches. Just a lot of ideology. Which you apparently mistake for actual substance:

Quote:

However, those who see excessive growth of government as (1) wasting our resources on non-productive measures that (2) end up thoroughly bureaucratized and controlled by self-interested lobbies, and, precisely because they are controlled by government, beyond competition or easy public choice, and (3) creating increased public dependency on a remote Federal government that is increasingly convinced that it alone knows what is good for the rest of us.

It doesn't take much more than a casual look at our public schools to see the truth of all this.

This is ideology, not a plan. It's a recitation of your beliefs, not a statement of what should be changed - and how - to correct problems. Neither Romney nor Ryan gave any indication of exactly how they plan on solving the problems they highlighted; it was just 'trust us' over and over again.

And their economic plans already released are no better; they have none of the relevant details necessary to show how they would work. And, intentionally so; they've repeatedly said that this would 'open them up to attack.'

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

Re: the Dem convention, is it just me, or are there about three times as many people there, as the GOP one?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Ryan had his budget and Romney has his ideas as a blueprint for a plan. I am sure you disagree with them, but the framework is there.

Obama, we have 4 years of experience with him "running the show" and he owns the results. No more can he or any Democrat "blame Bush" as they own their results.

So the decision really is simple and the message I got from both conventions so far is :their guy sucks, vote for me".

Quite simple, do you rehire the guy who has not accomplished anything relative to the economy and signs indicate a continuation will further depress the economy?

Partisans do not ask this question, they just follow the herd.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Smaller arena, but maybe more sheep are in the flock. How does that matter ???

0 Replies

@woiyo,

woiyo wrote:

Ryan had his budget and Romney has his ideas as a blueprint for a plan. I am sure you disagree with them, but the framework is there.

The numbers don't add up on either of those plans - both of them rely heavily on factors which are unnamed in order to meet their basic goals. Neither can be scored by the CBO, as neither has the necessary details. They aren't plans - they are ideological statements. You should be able to tell the difference.

Quote:

Obama, we have 4 years of experience with him "running the show" and he owns the results. No more can he or any Democrat "blame Bush" as they own their results.

So the decision really is simple and the message I got from both conventions so far is :their guy sucks, vote for me".

Quite simple, do you rehire the guy who has not accomplished anything relative to the economy and signs indicate a continuation will further depress the economy?

Obama has accomplished a great deal in the economic area, relative to the position he inherited. The month Obama took office, we lost 700,000 jobs. We lost four million jobs in the six months prior to that. That ended as soon as the stimulus took effect and we have been steadily adding jobs for his entire term in office.

Not only that, but it's important to add that government has shed jobs tremendously during Obama's term - something like 1.3 million jobs over the last four years, thanks in large part to constant GOP obstinacy and cries about the deficit. Without this massive loss of government jobs, our unemployment would be a point lower; no other president who has presided over a recovery from a recession has ever been constrained in this way. Reagan and Bush younger sure as hell weren't.

Not only THAT, but the Republicans in Congress have blocked Obama's further plans to do something about jobs - look up the JOBS act, that was killed by Filibuster in the Senate. You can't claim that Obama and the Dems aren't trying to do something about the situation when the party you support is trying their damndest to KEEP anything from being done about it, for their own personal gain.

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Partisans do not ask this question, they just follow the herd.

As opposed to you? You don't seem to have any basic understanding of the economic situation of the last four years at all. Laughing

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@woiyo,

woiyo wrote:

the message I got from both conventions so far is :their guy sucks, vote for me".

That does seem to be the message of most campaigns. I wish someone had figured that out sooner!

woiyo wrote:

the guy who has not accomplished anything relative to the economy and signs indicate a continuation will further depress the economy

I'd like to see what economic indicators you're using.... Most of what I've seen indicates that the economy is on a slower-than-we'd-like-but-still-steady course to improvement.

woiyo wrote:

Partisans do not ask this question, they just follow the herd.

Ah. The old "I'm rubber but you're glue" approach to policy debate. How quaint.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

Romney’s problem: The economy is, in fact, improving

Quote:

...

But unlike President Obama—who still touts the American Jobs Act—Romney doesn’t have a solution for improving the immediate situation; at most, he has a wish list of policies that Republicans pursue regardless of economic conditions: tax cuts, deregulation and reduced social spending. Voters seem to be aware of this—according to the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 33 percent say that cutting taxes would create jobs.

Romney is stuck. The economy simply isn’t bad enough to give him a solid advantage, and voters don’t seem to believe that Obama has “failed.” He can hit Obama on the “better off” question, but the message sounds muddled on account of the economic improvement he acknowledged earlier this year. And without a compelling plan or narrative to give to the public, it’s hard to imagine how he convinces a undecided voters to join his side.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Nah - it's not just me. There was zero substance in either of their speeches. Just a lot of ideology. Which you apparently mistake for actual substance:

There was no substance in either if the speeches I heard last night either. We'll see what we hear tonight.

There was insufficient substance in the debate over Obamacare a few years ago, as that daffy harpie Nancy Pelosi put it, "we'll have to first pass the legislation (all 2,ooo pages of it) in order to find out what's in it". There was damn little substance in any of the budgets which our idiot President submitted over the past three years - the Democrat -controlled Senate hasn't ever even scheduled a vote on any of them.

The real substance in the Republican platform is something which you apparently deny - the relatively greater economic effectiveness of market forces over government programs in terms of economic productivity. Romney has been very clear about his intent to steer clear of more government subsidies and make-work programs and to simplify the ever-growing regulatory maze that so inhibits economic investment. You simply don't recognize the effectiveness of these things. I find that rather odd given the ongoing spectacle of the collapse of over regulated economies in Europe.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

This is ideology, not a plan. It's a recitation of your beliefs, not a statement of what should be changed - and how - to correct problems. Neither Romney nor Ryan gave any indication of exactly how they plan on solving the problems they highlighted; it was just 'trust us' over and over again.

And their economic plans already released are no better; they have none of the relevant details necessary to show how they would work. And, intentionally so; they've repeatedly said that this would 'open them up to attack.'
Cycloptichorn

Have you yet seen ANYTHING from our current (inept) administration that meets these criteria? How well has it worked????

You can't get economic growth through expanding government employment on borrowed money. You are, of course free to believe the contrary if you wish, but don't expect knowledgable folks to take you seriously.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

There was no substance in either if the speeches I heard last night either. We'll see what we hear tonight.

Sure, but that's not the job of spouses. It's not Ann Romney's job to explain Mitt's policies in detail - it's his job, and he didn't really do that.

Quote:

There was insufficient substance in the debate over Obamacare a few years ago, as that daffy harpie Nancy Pelosi put it, "we'll have to first pass the legislation (all 2,ooo pages of it) in order to find out what's in it". There was damn little substance in any of the budgets which our idiot President submitted over the past three years - the Democrat -controlled Senate hasn't ever even scheduled a vote on any of them.

This is a laughably false paragraph. The ACA debate contained a tremendous amount of substance; it was the primary political topic for an entire year! Pundits were arguing about the details constantly! Just a stupid thing for you to say.

Re: the president's budgets, he at least included actual plans regarding taxation and spending, something that Romney/Ryan refuse to do; their documents are ideological in nature, and intentionally keep the details out, because they would be destroyed politically if they had to actually name the tax exemptions they supposedly plan on doing away with.

Re: the president's budgets being voted on, you're simply incorrect. The Senate has indeed voted on the president's budgets. You should try looking things up before writing them...

Quote:

The real substance in the Republican platform is something which you apparently deny - the relatively greater economic effectiveness of market forces over government programs in terms of economic productivity. Romney has been very clear about his intent to steer clear of more government subsidies and make-work programs and to simplify the ever-growing regulatory maze that so inhibits economic investment. You simply don't recognize the effectiveness of these things. I find that rather odd given the ongoing spectacle of the collapse of over regulated economies in Europe.

For the last time: these are not substantive plans, they are recitation of your ideology. It seems you don't really know what the word 'substance' means, any more than the word 'compromise.'

Additionally, you are hanging your argument on an unprovable and substance free assertion: that economic investment is incredibly inhibited by regulation. There's not a lot of evidence that this is true - it's just a mantra you like to repeat, because you are a fan of higher corporate profits, and the devil take the environment, or workers, or anything outside of your own pocketbook, really.

Quote:

Have you yet seen ANYTHING from our current (inept) administration that meets these criteria? How well has it worked????

Yes, I have - their budgets meet these criteria. They lay out actual plans and numbers in areas such as spending and taxation, which could then be scored by various groups to judge the effects.

You might know if you actually read them, which you apparently haven't.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

You have all the excuses and the DNC name calling down pat.

Fact: Less are working today than when Obama got in office
Fact: Gas has doubled in price in 4 years
Fact: Another unfunded war was extended in Afgan
Fact: Private Sector Job growth too low to increase productivity
Fact: Deficit at 16T and rising daily
Fact: You keep blaming the Republicans.
Fact: Dems had control of both houses for first 2 years.

Obama advertised himself as a "uniter" . Seems he has failed at that also. Yet, he does not get all the blame there. It is difficult to unite both houses when you have extreme partisans at very old ages at the head of each party. Yet, he said he could do it and he can not.

All the stimulus did not achieve the intended result. Dems still talk about "infrastructure, police and teachers" to stimulate growth. That did not work 4 years ago.

So again, why should I re-hire Obama????

1 Reply

For anyone interested, here's the complete text of the Democratic Party Platform for 2012. It is 40 pages.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/04/us/politics/20120904-DNC-platform.html

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@woiyo,

woiyo wrote:

You have all the excuses and the DNC name calling down pat.

Fact: Less are working today than when Obama got in office

This was always going to be the case, given that the baby boomer generation is now retiring in big numbers.

Quote:

Fact: Gas has doubled in price in 4 years

Bullshit. Run the numbers yourself instead of being an fool about it:

http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx

In September of 2008, gas prices averaged out within 5 cents of where they are today.

Quote:

Fact: Another unfunded war was extended in Afgan

True, but this is in large part at the insistence of... your party.

Quote:

Fact: Private Sector Job growth too low to increase productivity

Bullshit - look for yourself:

http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=PR_lprbrief

Productivity has continued to grow at a similar rate as it did in the last administration.

Quote:

Fact: Deficit at 16T and rising daily

And? How is this different than the last bunch??? You could have said this about any prez over the last 30 years.

Quote:

Fact: You keep blaming the Republicans.

That's true, in large part because they are to blame. You can't actually counter any of the facts that show this is true, so you simply ignore them.

Quote:

Fact: Dems had control of both houses for first 2 years.

True, and they used it to pass the ACA and a few other good bills.

Quote:

Obama advertised himself as a "uniter" . Seems he has failed at that also. Yet, he does not get all the blame there.

You can only do so much by yourself. The entire GOP conspired the moment he was elected to deny every single thing he proposed, no matter what it was, in order to keep the guy from having any success. And this is somehow Obama's fault?

Quote:

So again, why should I re-hire Obama????

See my above answers: because he's done a good job, and because you apparently have no ******* clue what the facts are about the last few years. It's pretty funny to see you referring to people as 'sheep,' when you mindlessly parrot lies and factual inaccuracies that you find on Republican websites.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

Good lord!

I just watched Michelle's speech. (Youtube video + transcript in adjacent windows.)

That was masterful.

I'd read the chatter this morning and expected it to be good, it was way better than I thought it would be.

I also really liked the line revelette cited (about not slamming shut the door of opportunity once you're through it).

1 Reply

@sozobe,

It was by far the best speech of either of the conventions so far. I'm actually a bit worried that Obama won't be able to match it!

Cycloptichorn

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@georgeob1,

Oliver Morton of Indiana said, in 1866, that "the Democratic party may be described as a common sewer and loathsome receptacle, into which is emptied every element of treason North and South, and every element of inhumanity and barbarism which has dishonered the age."

Hofstadter, Miller and Aaron commented--"In 1868, and in many elections thereafter, such tirades served as the staple of Republican oratory and Republican appeals."

I presume George that your temperate language and that of the two parties today suggests that there is little to choose between the two and the election is merely two well-organised and well-matched gangs fighting over the spoils of office using emotional appeals, charges of scandals and corruptions, high-flown rhetoric and generalisations so absurd as to be meaningless. Even something specific, such as closing Gitmo in 100 days, can be forgotten about as soon as the feet are got under the tables.

That there is "zero substance" is like saying that the pavements are wet when its pissing down.

BTW--what's a collapsed economy of Europe?

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@Cycloptichorn,

You merely indulge in tautology, defining "substance " as whatever drivel comes out of this administration, and "ideology" as whatever comes out from the opposition. I suppose it's possible that you actually believe this, but, if so, it amply illustrates the degree to which your mind is nclosed and resistant to both the lessons of history and the current world (inboth Europe and here, today) as well as eserious critical analysis.

You also blithely accuse others of getting their facts wrong when in fact it is you who do so.

To some degree this appears to be a malady that affects most of the "progressives in the current political scene. The common mantra appears to be; "We must be right because we alone see the real truth. If things aren't working out as we planned and forecast, it must be because those who disagree with us are being obstinate and nasty. Even though this is the slowest recovery from a recession in several generations, we must be doing well because things aren't visibly getting worse. We have a plan to reduce our crushing debt, therefore we can go on borrowing at an unprecedented rate. OK, so our plan won't ever eliminate the deficit, and therefore can't reduce our debt, but that is just a detail."

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Yep, you got all the excuses down, and still ignore the real reasons.

Even your facts are not relevant.

Fact: Obama enter office in January 2009. gas was 1.80+ according to your chart.

Fact: Obama wanted to escalate the war in Afgan. Bush was done in Afgan in about 20 minutes, and NATO failed to clean up the mess.

" The entire GOP conspired the moment he was elected to deny every single thing he proposed, no matter what it was, in order to keep the guy from having any success. And this is somehow Obama's fault?"

Yep, when you advertise yourself as a uniter, it was expected he could use his cleaver words to bring people together. Instead, he spent most of his 4 years on the campaign trail and not doing his job.

I guess you do not expect alot from your elected officials.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

You merely indulge in tautology, defining "substance " as whatever drivel comes out of this administration,

Completely untrue. "Substance" is defined as plans that are detailed and contain actual financial numbers, that can then be checked and scored by others.

Quote:

and "ideology" as whatever comes out from the opposition.

Completely untrue. "Ideology" is defined as positions of belief, that do not include any actual plans or figures that can be checked by others.

Here, let me spell it out for you simply:

Ideological statement: 'We should get rid of onerous regulations, as they are stifling businesses and costing the US jobs.'

Substantive statement: 'We should get rid of regulations X, Y and Z. They are costing a lot of money to businesses in areas A, B, and C. We project that getting rid of these regulations will help these companies add jobs immediately and will save the government X amount of money in enforcement costs. Here's a link to the methodology we use to make those projections: <insert link here>.

See the difference? I'm quite sure you do.

Quote:

I suppose it's possible that you actually believe this, but, if so, it amply illustrates the degree to which your mind is nclosed and resistant to both the lessons of history and the current world (inboth Europe and here, today) as well as eserious critical analysis.

Look, we all know that pompousness is your default position, but really. You can do better than this if you try.

Quote:

To some degree this appears to be a malady that affects most of the "progressives in the current political scene. The common mantra appears to be; "We must be right because we alone see the real truth. If things aren't working out as we planned and forecast, it must be because those who disagree with us are being obstinate and nasty. Even though this is the slowest recovery from a recession in several generations, we must be doing well because things aren't visibly getting worse. We have a plan to reduce our crushing debt, therefore we can go on borrowing at an unprecedented rate. OK, so our plan won't ever eliminate the deficit, and therefore can't reduce our debt, but that is just a detail."

Are you serious? Neither Romney nor Ryan's plan gets rid of the deficit! None of Ryan's proposed budgets have balanced anytime sooner than twenty years from now! You support these guys but have no clue what they actually propose. It's too funny to see this in a post where you accuse the other side of repeating fact-free mantras.

Have you ever looked at any actual details of either of their plans, or is Ideology all we need to make things rosy again? If quizzed on the specifics of what they propose, do you think you would be able to satisfactorily answer questions about them? I highly doubt it. Certainly, your present zero evidence here on A2K that this is the case.

Cycloptichorn

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@woiyo,

woiyo wrote:

Yep, you got all the excuses down, and still ignore the real reasons.

Even your facts are not relevant.

Fact: Obama enter office in January 2009. gas was 1.80+ according to your chart.

Gas prices fell by more than half in the months between October 2008 and January 2009. This was a function of the global financial crash and recession, not of some existing low prices that Obama's policies have caused to rise. As soon as the economy recovered, gas prices shot right back up - just like every single analyst predicted they would.

You are being incredibly mendacious in these statements; you know that what you say is false, but are saying it anyway. It's not convincing to anyone. Coincidentally, this is Romney's primary strategy this cycle.

Quote:

Fact: Obama wanted to escalate the war in Afgan. Bush was done in Afgan in about 20 minutes, and NATO failed to clean up the mess.

This is not a fact. Perhaps you should look that word up.

Quote:

I guess you do not expect alot from your elected officials.

More than you do, apparently. You are perfectly happy to keep supporting politicians who have no plans whatsoever, other than to grind things to a halt if they don't get their way.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

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