Romney was a poor choice for Presidential Nominee

[hkellick]

I was originally going to post on the Chicago Teacher Union Strike and what appears to me to be a stubborn mayor butting heads with a bunch of stubborn public workers over.. well, mainly, I think Mayor Rahm himself. Oh, also on whether teachers should be judged based on standardized test scores or more grey-area judgments while the true people who suffer, the children, the teachers, the parents of the students all suffer because of these knuckleheads. 

But then the consulate assault in Libya occurred and Romney put his foot in it.. again.

In a political campaign that I think was, by all means, going to be about how Obama has handled the economy,, Romney seems to continue to put his foot in it. And by now, it should be known that every time he does, the news will cover it. Every single mistake.

For a campaign that was supposed to be about "Obama mishandled the economy", it seems like it's been a campaign about pretty much everything else.  And that's telling, because I think President Obama and.. well, really Ben Bernanke has totally botched the economic recovery. I've read numerous reports in Slate and WaPo from economists who all suggest totally viable ways to speed up the economic recovery and none of these suggestions has been listened to. So, yes, I do think Bernanke mishandled the economic recovery.

But that's not what this has been about. Instead, it's been about botches, about misquotes (and so many of the things this campaign have been about (You didn't build that) has been a misquote.)

And then there was the choice of Ryan for VP. I know Ryan excited the base who loves the Ryan plan, and Ryan is no Palin, but let's all acknowledge that by making Ryan VP, the campaign suddenly became as much about "How will the nominee handle the economy."

We all know how Obama will handle the economy. He'll let Bernanke keep screwing around. But what we don't know is what Romney will do. Well, no, Romney's made promises, but what he hasn't given is specifics. HOW can he give more tax breaks to the rich AND balance the budget? The closest to an answer we have is the Ryan plan which is really controversial.

And unfortunately, in the conventions, which people do watch, it's arguable how well Romney was able to, well, connect with anyone. As I've read the polls, there wasn't the post-convention bump you'd expect, the kind that Bubba (and, yes, I'm giving the credit mostly to Bill Clinton) helped give Obama.

I expected the Chicago Teachers Union strike would be a problem for Obama. It may still be.

But, man, when Romney gets on national television and makes an ass of him, stumbling and bumbling, attacking Obama for apologizing and sympathizing with radical Muslims, which he isn't .. he looks like an idiot. He doesn't look like Presidential.  I wonder if the almight undecideds agree.

So, here we are.. two months before election day and Obama has a slight lead. Romney should be ashamed. If he'd stuck to his economic measure, he may have changed minds, won voters, but he mishandled his attack on Obama's mishandling of the economy. So...

I guess we'll see in 8 weeks, but from here, I'm no longer going to be surprised if Obama wins, even with terrible economic news.

Comments

[nicki]

It's possible the Romney could do better by arguing abt the economy, but I'm not sure he would have. Early in the campaign a reporter asked how Romney's plan to manage the economy was different than Bush' and the answer was that there weren't any significant differences. I'm not sure that the argument, "This thing that didn't work before? Yeah, we're going to do it again." (no, I know they would have tried to put it differently) is an effective strategy. Romney's tax plan is good for him, but not anyone else, which doesn't seem to be going over well. And his (well the Republican party's really) stance on "job creators" doesn't seem well founded either. Supply and demand is basic economics. If you are making more spoons than are strictly necessary and no one is buying more spoons, there is very little motivation to make even more spoons. Why would CEOs "create more jobs" purely for the sake of it? If their current employees are making enough product, why wouldn't they stick any excess they get back in taxes into their own pockets? Economically, it makes more sense of the government to flush money through the middle class in order to restart consumerism which would create increased demand for product, causing companies to need to hire more people. Unfortunately Bush screwed up the nation debt by not paying off his wars during flush times, so there isn't much room for governmental spending now.

And the answer of basically "Magic" to the question of how Romney's plan will work to improve things isn't helping either.

As far as the teacher's strike in Chicago, I'm betting it was a long time in coming. I would bet that AC in the classrooms has been an issue every year and that Illinois has been not dealing with it for, oh, the last 30-40 years, and then Emmanuel decided to muck around with things (he hates teacher's unions and doesn't seem fond of public schools in general) and disrupted a fragile balance and now the camel's back has finally broken.

[hkellick]

My understanding is that despite the fact that the economy is getting slowly better, companies themselves are slow to hire. Which makes sense, as you say. If the work isn't there, the jobs aren't needed.

And that, as I understand it, gets to the heart of the current economic downturn. Demand has sharply decreased. There isn't as much need for many jobs. This is true over the entire world, as I understand it. Not just the U.S.

I've never understood the idea of the ultra rich as job creators. It doesn't make sense. Do the ultra rich buy more products? More services? As a whole, are the people who actually create the demand that supplies the job more likely to be ultra rich than something else? Seems unlikely to me.

And, yes, I also agree the Chicago strike was a long time coming. Seemed all but definite once Rahm was elected mayor as he's been a bit ham-handed. Though, I'm not entirely sure he's entirely wrong. Chicago DOES have one of the shortest school days in the United States, for one.

[nicki]

As percentage of income, the less income you have the greater percentage you spend in your local economy. The rich are more likely to either save their cash or dump it overseas someplace so if you give away a million dollars to a bunch of people who make less than 50,000 you are likely to get a million dollars spent in the US. If you give the same amount of money to a rich person you will get far fewer than a million dollars back into the local economy.