I know nobody cares, but.......

I didn't say anything about that. I honestly don't have a personal problem with either of their quotes.

Ultimately I don't really mind that Obama described politics on religion and guns in a way that reduces them to the psychological byproduct of the angry and ignorant poor. I am sure there are plenty of people who will find that hugely patronizing but it doesn't make me have any more contempt for him. I think he's a phony and have no use for him. I like when his filter is down like that. Better than stuff like faking his religion.

And as for Romney saying that 47% of the voters are sucking on the government teat, it's a stupid exaggeration that is inclusive of people like veterans that he couldn't have wanted to include, and it is hugely dismissive of people he is supposedly trying to help. But no, I don't really feel any more contempt for him for these things. He's what he is, a moderate elitist Republican and I don't really care about that so much as what I think they would do. I don't think a Romney presidency would make their lot in life significantly different from what it will be in another Obama term. The effect that a president has on them is hugely, hugely overstated. We aren't in an "Obama" or a "Bush" economy. We are in a "American housing bubble" economy and what idiot America elects is going to make precious little difference to any of it. They are largely the same thing, when it comes down to it, and just have niche differences that each side peddles outrage over to try to make the difference appear more substantial.

So I don't really care about the dog and pony show, the contest to see who can be the most populist, and who on foreign policy can really beat their chest the hardest or who likes Big Bird, or Ohio voters or whatnot. What the narcissist candidates let slip about how they feel about some of the teeming masses is just gotcha political fodder for me that I participate in as a spectator.

It is hard to hold two turds in lower esteem and these two gaffes are just not things that are going to move the needle for me.

I agree with that, Robert. But I do worry about the deleterious effects those desertions or abandonments may cause for voters in other states who are still (somehow) grappling with whom they will vote for.

California, New York…it is not going to effect the outcome…or so it seems. But the fact that it is happening among the Obama support base is troubling to many people…and may end up being the straw!

I guess we will see. I mentioned in an earlier post that I thought Obama was going to lose…and you responded that you were confident he will win.

I hope you are right…and I wrong.

You're not alone.

How many times have we heard the president declare, to great applause I might add, "If congress won't act, I will."

Undoubtedly this appeals to a great number of people who are frustrated by what they perceive to be political gridlock, but it is ominous.

Should Obama be re-elected, we can expect the president, unrestrained by the need to win vote s again, to double down on executive fiats.

I think then that your qualm should be with the voting system that produces this spoiler effect, more than with the parties or voters that are manifested in the system that way. The first past the post system inevitably trends to this two-party duopoly where when someone votes a third party that might better represent their wishes they often hurt themselves by only playing king maker within the duopoly and electing their least favorite leaders.

As for who will win it is trending Romney's way right now, but the betting markets and the analysts who I respect still have Romney at about a 30% chance of winning. I think smart money is on Obama but this week the first tiny doubts of the entire race cropped up in my mind.

Now I am wondering if Obama might not win by the minimum margin that I think he will (3.6%). It might end up closer than the comfortable win I predicted.

You couldn't be more wrong and I was right, your level of contempt for either man is at it's maximum.

Joe(carry on)Nation

I didn't say my level of contempt for each man was at it's maximum either, but yeah, this certainly does seem like a futile discussion to pursue.

It just sounded that way to me, Robert, and you're right, people who have decided that both candidates are about the same bore the living daylights out of me, so let's not strain ourselves further.

Joe(meh)Nation

Before the 2000 election, Ralph Nader spent a couple of years telling us there were no differences between the two major parties and two major candidates. He siphoned off enough votes from Al Gore and proved himself wrong by giving us eight years of W. Bush

I didn't say I found the candidates the same either.

People who must fit everything into a partisan narrative, and call anyone who doesn't work that way a fence-straddler bore me.

He was proven right. The Democrats were Bush's rubber-stamp.

Invading Iraq doesn't happen without the Democrats overwhelmingly authorizing it.

Them? Wow. Apparently you agree with his opinion of us working stiffs.

How did you leap to that conclusion?

I agree with much that Robert is saying here. My primary reason to vote for Obama is not because I think he is such a wonderful president, but to slow the advance of the teabaggers. Assuming Mr Obama gets reelected, there will be a great deal of work to do to try to reform the Democratic party.

Contempt? Strong word. I don't hold either candidate in contempt. They are both successful men. One came from a poor background to succeed. The American dream. The other very successful. I don't begrudge them that. I have different views of their ideas about what we need to do in this country. Contempt, no. Jerry Sandusky, I do have contempt for him.

Contempt, sounds like some misplaced loathing to me.

Do you go to bed each night checking under your bed for "tea-baggers?"

The paranoia you continuously express relative to the Tea Party is clear evidence that you have absolutely no idea what the movement is about.

kinda like you and poor folks, huh finny...

It's teabagger paranoia that worries me. Many are just dangerous to themselves, but far too many want to impose their insanity on the rest of us.

Last night Joe Biden lied when he declared that he voted against the Afghan and Iraq wars.

A plague on both their houses is an overly cynical approach to national politics.

As we all know cynics are disappointed romantics.

Expectations for Camelot are delusional, as is all passionate support for political figures. Obama is the poster child for such passionate delusion.

We want leaders that will inspire us, but we are better served by dull but competent men and women who can actually solve problems.

No candidate (not even Obama The Expected One) is ever going to live up to delusional expectations, and I would argue that the greater and grander the expectations, the more likely the perceived hero is a fraud.

Thus the importance of ideology.

Understand how you see the nation best prospering and the chances are damned good that your understanding will at least look like the platform of one or the other of our two parties.

Whomever you support is quite likely to disappoint you, but not as much as the other guy.

I can't stand the responses in this forum that demand footnoted White Papers to support an opinion and I'm not going to follow suit, but I would like to understand why you think the majority of Tea Party members are insane and dangerous to you and others.

What do you think they are are advancing, demanding or imposing that puts you or others in peril?

BTW - By now you should know that the use of the term "teabagger" is offensive to those of us who agree with the principles of the Tea Party movement, and yet you, obviously, insist upon using the offensive term.

This can only mean that either you are a complete jerk, or that you think Tea Party members are not deserving of common respect.

you've got a little spittle there on your chin, finny...

I don't think birthers and their ilk get to demand respect.

please show us how they have earned our respect, finny...