The Commentariat -- Oct. 22, 2012

Presidential Race

Anne Gearan & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "when President Obama meets Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Boca Raton, Fla., he will face an opponent who has already made up tremendous ground on the subject by criticizing Obama as weak, waffling and distracted by his reelection goals."

Matt Spetalnick & Steve Holland of Reuters: "When President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney face off on Monday in their third and final debate, it will be the Republican challenger's last best chance to recover from his botched 'Libya moment' and exploit vulnerabilities in his opponent's foreign policy record. But Romney has an uphill struggle to make his case against Obama, who will be buoyed by the advantages of incumbency as well as polls showing him with an edge -- though a shrinking one -- on the question of who is more trusted in global affairs."

A new Obama ad highlights the contrasts between Romney's foreign policy views & Obama's accomplishments:

CW: I think this American Bridge ad is just a Web video. I hope they run it -- or a 30-second version -- on the teevee:

Mark Murray of NBC News: "Heading into Monday's final debate and with just over two weeks until Election Day, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney are now tied nationally, according the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll." ...

... James Hohmann of Politico: "A new Politico/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll of 1,000 likely voters -- taken from Sunday through Thursday of last week -- shows Romney ahead of Obama by two points, 49 to 47 percent. That represents a three-point swing in the GOP nominee's direction from a week ago but is still within the margin of error. Obama led 49 percent to 48 percent the week before." ...

... CW: John Cassidy of the New Yorker has more on polling results, but it's too depressing for me to read. ...

... Nate Silver 2: "The bad news for President Obama: it's been almost a week since the second presidential debate.... But there is little sign that this has translated into a bounce for Mr. Obama.... Instead, the presidential race may have settled into a period of relative stability. There is bad news for Mr. Romney as well, however. The 'new normal' ... is considerably more favorable for him than the environment before the first debate, in Denver. However, it is one in which he still seems to be trailing, by perhaps 2 percentage points, in the states that are most vital in the Electoral College." ...

... Nate Silver 1: "The biggest gender gap to date in the exit polls came in 2000, when Al Gore won by 11 points among women, but George W. Bush won by 9 points among men -- a 20-point difference. The numbers this year look very close to that." ...

... Here's some better news. Sarah Dutton, et al., of CBS News: "President Obama is holding on to a five-point lead over Republican Mitt Romney in Ohio, but that margin has been cut in half since September, according to a new Quinnipiac University/CBS News poll.... A gender gap persists: ... The president enjoys a 15-point lead with women, while Romney is ahead by seven points among men, 51 to 44 percent." Yesterday I linked to a poll that had Obama up in Ohio by only one point, which is to say -- zip.

E. J. Dionne: "There is every reason to wish that Obama would pull [his second-term agenda] together in a more inspiring way. Some of us would like him to be much bolder in addressing income inequality, the huge roadblocks to upward mobility, and the persistence of poverty. But is there is an Obama second-term agenda? Yes, there is."

New Yorker Editors: "The reëlection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency. Not only are we in broad agreement with his policy directions; we also see in him what is absent in Mitt Romney -- a first-rate political temperament and a deep sense of fairness and integrity."

Paul Krugman: "Over the past few months advisers to the Romney campaign have mounted a furious assault on the notion that financial-crisis recessions are different.... A white paper from Romney advisers argues that the only thing preventing a rip-roaring boom is the uncertainty created by President Obama.... Nobody should believe them.... The Romney team is willfully, nakedly, distorting the record...."

Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "A new Romney ad puts in one place five claims that have been previously debunked." CW: Wow! Five big lies in 30 seconds! Could this be a record? Probably not.

Oh, great. Bill Keller tells Mitt Romney what to say in the debate tonight. The usefulness of Keller's advice column is to remind us of how many ways Romney is a foreign-policy jackass. Nonetheless, I expect he will take some of Keller's advice. It's up to Obama -- oh, will he do it? -- to remind viewers of Romney's many stupid, bellicose positions & remarks & suggest -- accurately -- that Romney is a ticking timebomb. Lyndon Johnson's "Daisy" ad seems almost appropriate.

Scott Shane of the New York Times: intelligence officers routinely take several days to prepare public statements to describe intelligence gathered in the field. "The gap between the talking points prepared for [U.N. Ambassador Susan] Rice and the contemporaneous field reports that seemed to paint a much different picture illustrates how the process of turning raw field reports, which officials say need to be vetted and assessed, into polished intelligence assessments can take days, long enough to make them outdated by the time senior American officials utter them."

New York Times Editors: Mitt Romney & President Obama agree: "Government does not create jobs. Except that it does, millions of them.... Public-sector job loss means trouble for everyone.... If not for state and local budget austerity, [a] report found, the economy would have 2.3 million more jobs today, half of which would be in the private sector." CW: I really don't think Obama fundamentally understands macroeconomics. He would be a lot smarter if he read Krugman regularly.

Worse Than You Thought. Contributor Haley S. noticed an important correction to a New York Times editorial I linked yesterday, one which discussed the dire consequences of the Romney-Ryan plan for healthcare coverage: "An earlier version of this editorial misstated the additional amounts Medicare beneficiaries would pay if the health care reform act is repealed. The average beneficiary would pay about $5,000 more through 2022, not $4,200 more over the 2011-2012 period. Heavy prescription drug users, on average, would pay about $18,000 more through 2022, not $16,000 more over 2011-2012." (No link.)

Congressional Races

The New York Times Editors endorse candidates in Congressional races in New York state & Connecticut.

AND Rep. Todd Akin (RTP-Missouri), who is running to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), likens her to a dog.

A Democrat Self-Destructs. Alex Altman of Time: "During a testy exchange in a Thursday night [Arizona Senate] debate, moderator Brahm Resnik quipped, 'Now I know how Candy Crowley felt.' he said. To which [Democratic candidate Richard] Carmona replied: 'You're prettier than her,' and patted the moderator's hand. 'Not sure how to take that,' Resnik said. Nor should women in Arizona."

Other Stuff

Washington Post Editors: "George McGovern was a product of some of this country's best traditions -- religious and political -- and also of a long, grinding economic Depression that shaped the ideas and behavior of much of his generation. He was a patriot, a war hero and, as most who met or knew him would testify, a remarkably civil and pleasant man." ...

... Former Sen. & Republican Leader Bob Dole (R-Kansas) writes a very affecting remembrance of George McGovern.

... Joan Walsh of Salon writes a very informative post on the career of George McGovern. ...

... Joshua Rothman calls up some old New Yorker stories about McGovern.

** Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog: the lack of public oversight -- in all 50 states -- of privately-owned voting machines is a serious problem that throws into question the integrity & accuracy of election results. For Chuck Todd of NBC News to dismiss this issue as a "conspiracy theory" does a great disservice to NBC viewers. Friedman includes numerous instances of voting machine error or purposeful manipulation of the tally. CW: I don't say often enough that Chuck Todd is a Class A (& you know what the "A" stands for) idiot. ...

Photo by Irene Tanabe.... Audrey McAvoy of the AP: "A photograph of a 93-year-old World War II veteran casting what will likely be his last ballot has captured the hearts of tens of thousands of Internet users. The photo shows Frank Tanabe lying in a hospital bed at home as his daughter Barbara Tanabe helps him fill out his absentee ballot. A half-million people saw the picture on the website Reddit after his grandson posted it there on Thursday, making it one of the most popular items on the social media network for a day after.... Tanabe volunteered to join the Army from behind barbed wire at the Tule Lake internment camp in California.... The Army assigned Tanabe to the Military Intelligence Service, a classified unit whose members were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal last year...."

News Ledes

New York Times: "Tens of thousands of people with chronic conditions and disabilities may find it easier to qualify for Medicare coverage of potentially costly home health care, skilled nursing home stays and outpatient therapy under policy changes planned by the Obama administration. In a proposed settlement of a nationwide class-action lawsuit, the administration has agreed to scrap a decades-old practice that required many beneficiaries to show a likelihood of medical or functional improvement before Medicare would pay for skilled nursing and therapy services."

Los Angeles Times: "Radcliffe Haughton, a 45-year-old Wisconsin man suspected of killing three people and wounding four others in a Sunday morning shooting at a spa, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot, police said. Police said they found Haughton's body inside the Azana Salon and Spa in the western Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, where the shooting erupted shortly after 11 a.m." The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story is here.

Washington Post: "Authorities in Jordan have disrupted a major terrorist plot by al-Qaeda-linked operatives to launch near-simultaneous attacks on multiple civilian and government targets, reportedly including the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Amman, Western and Middle Eastern officials said Sunday. The Jordanian government issued a statement describing the plot and saying that 11 people with connections to al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq have been arrested."

Washington Post: "As the number of people sickened with meningitis after receiving contaminated steroid injections continues to rise, lawsuits are starting to pile up. At least 12 people have filed separate complaints in federal and state courts seeking damages from the compounding pharmacy that produced the steroids, New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass."

Reuters: "Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France< titles and banned for life on Monday after the International Cycling Union (UCI) ratified the United States Anti-Doping Agency's (USADA) sanctions against the American. 'Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling,' UCI President Pat McQuaid told a news conference as he outlined how cycling would have to start again." AP story here.

Romney in Massachusetts

By Marsha Mirkin
Wellesley, Massachusetts

Here I am, a resident of Massachusetts listening to my former Governor speak convincingly and with seeming conviction at the Denver debate. I was startled by my Déjà vu experience and by the assumptions held by my out-of-town friends about Mr. Romney’s governorship. So, as an editor and author of articles and texts about social and political contexts, I wanted to ... share my understanding of Mr. Romney’s governorship and the implications for the Presidency. Massachusetts is known as a liberal state, but we often vote for Republican governors, and the three governors who immediately preceded Mr. Romney were Republicans. Mr. Romney was a one term governor who left office with a 31% approval rating, the 3rd lowest in the entire country. What does our experience in Massachusetts say to the country?

Mr. Romney claims to have experience reaching across the aisle. Maybe he did do some reaching, but not much of it went toward the Democrats. In his first two years of office, he vetoed legislation at more than twice the rate of Republican predecessor Governor Weld. Governor Romney had a record 800 vetoes (most of which were overturned, sometimes unanimously). One example is when the legislature provided a budget amendment to stop contracting with companies that outsource state work to other countries. Governor Romney vetoed the provision. This meant that he supported outsourcing jobs at the expense of U.S. workers. He also started a huge campaign to unseat Democratic legislators, but failed and ended up with even fewer Republican seats than before he took office.

Governor Romney correctly claims that Massachusetts rose to #1 in education—but it was based on former Governor Weld’s education reform plan. Governor Romney moved in the opposite direction--he vetoed bills that would have strengthened preschool education.

However, the issue is not so much how he voted, but that Mr. Romney won the governorship by presenting himself in one way, as a social and fiscal moderate (some saw him as a social progressive), and by the end of his single term, he had acted in an entirely different way. He said during his campaign that he favored stem cell research and then vetoed a bill to fund it. He argued for a lower minimum wage than the state legislature ended up passing (over his veto). He vetoed a bill funding hate crimes prevention, and took back money approved by a former Republican governor for a bullying prevention program. He denied all requests for commutations and pardons, including one from a soldier serving in Iraq whose was convicted at age 13 for a BB gun incident. He vetoed emergency contraception. He raised many fees in my state—even quadrupling the gasoline delivery fees.

Governor Romney certainly approved some pieces of legislation that I did support but that does not change a major problem: Mr. Romney re-created himself and changed his positions during the first Presidential debate in your city because he must sound more moderate in order to win the independent vote. After that, all bets are off. We in Massachusetts know all about that. We elected a governor expecting him to be one thing and then he did something totally different and got on the national stage. He entered the governorship with a 61% approval rating and left with an abysmal 31% and with many of us scratching our heads and wondering whom we elected. The difference between then and now is that you have Mr. Romney’s speeches and positions from this past year and the contradictions during the debate. You can get nonpartisan information from factcheck.org. And, you now know what he was like in Massachusetts. So, I hope the country doesn’t have to go through what Massachusetts went through. Regardless of your political beliefs, this constant turning into something we didn’t vote for is no way to run a state, never mind a country.

Related links:

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/romneys-jobs-record-is-best-or-worst/

http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/spinning-romneys-debt/

http://www.boston.com/politicalintelligence/2012/10/15/nine-mass-seniors-would-have-paid-extra-under-medicare-plan-similar-mitt-romney-according-study/njDAnjhUzDqDNrMEEkvIkK/story.html

http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/10/be_your_own_fact-checker_in_ob.html

CW: Mirkin is a professor of psychology at Lasell College in Massachusetts. Contributor Julie obtained Mirkin's permission to publish her letter here. I have made one minor edit (noted at the ellipsis) with Mirkin's permission.

If you wish to comment on Mirkin's letter, which I found tremendously helpful, please do so in the Commentariat.

The Commentariat -- Oct. 21, 2012

Presidential Race

Jeff Mason & Steve Holland of the AP: "Facing a cliffhanger re-election attempt, President Barack Obama will launch a round-the-clock, two-day campaign blitz through six battleground states next week to try to fend off the challenge from Republican Mitt Romney. Polls show Obama's strong debate performance this week gained him little or no ground against the former Massachusetts governor with just over two weeks until the November 6 election."

Truly Troubling. Tom Kludt of TPM: "President Barack Obama's lead in Ohio is down to a point, a survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling on Saturday shows.... The poll was conducted after Tuesday's debate, and the results suggest the town hall in Hempstead, N.Y. was not a game changer for the president, whose overall lead dropped despite a plurality of Ohio voters declaring him the winner of the debate." ...

... CW: this is the first time in perhaps six months that I've thought it likely Romney would win the election. I'm pissed off at everybody. (Which is supposed to come first, anger or depression? I went right to anger.) ...

... Nate Silver has more. ...

... AND It Matters that Romney Owns the Fucking Voting Machines. Gerry Bello, at al., in the Free Press: Mitt Romney, "his brother, wife and son, have a straight-line financial interest in the voting machines that could decide this fall's election. These machines cannot be monitored by the public." The controlling firm also "has on its board of directors at least three close associates of the Romney family" who have contributed megabucks to Romney's campaign. Fully a third of [the company's] leadership previously worked at Romney's old Bain firm." ...

... In a somewhat tepid endorsement, the Cleveland Plain Dealer nonetheless favors Obama for re-election.

Alina Selyukhof, et al., of Reuters: "Mitt Romney held a financial advantage over President Barack Obama heading into October thanks to strong fundraising by the Republican Party that will allow its candidate to spend more on the last stretch toward the November 6 election."

New York Times Editors: "Mr. Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan -- have become ... artful about obfuscating their plans for Medicare, Medicaid.... Almost nothing the Republican candidates say on these or other health care issues can be taken at face value.... Mr. Romney ... says his plans would have no effect on people now on Medicare or nearing eligibility. But ... most beneficiaries would see their annual premiums and cost-sharing go up. The average beneficiary in traditional Medicare would pay about $4,200 more over the 2011-12 period, and heavy users of prescription drugs about $16,000 more over the same period, if the act was repealed...."

CW: if, like me, you are a middle-class taxpayer, and if, unlike me, you think Romney will give you a 20 percent tax break & strew your garden path with rose petals, WAKE THE FUCK UP. Pat Garofalo of Think Progress notes that to support his case that his math-free tax plan will totally work, Romney uses a study which assumes that almost all middle-class tax breaks will be eliminated. Thanks to Victoria D. for the link.

Digby: "... obsessing over what the administration said in the first days after the [Benghazi] attack is the stupidest right-wing manufactured pseudo-scandal I've come across in quite some time. And it's pathetic that the mainstream press is still so willing to chase after these shiny objects."

David Firestone: "Bill Clinton took the stage at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Friday night and delivered an hour-long education in the real issues at stake in this election. He talked about Medicaid and financial reform and the student loan system with an appreciation for the granular not usually displayed by the man he was stumping for, President Obama. It was the dream speech of a policy wonk, but Mr. Clinton never assumed that the details would bore a general audience, and they did not." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link. Here's a taste:

Jeff Sommer of the New York Times: "Through Friday, since Mr. Obama's inauguration -- his first 1,368 days in office -- the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 67.9 percent.... The market's rise and fall has an enormous effect on the wealth of ordinary Americans -- and on whether they feel themselves to be wealthy. American presidents since 1900.... The stock market has flourished under the president -- and under Democratic presidents generally. Since 1900, it has returned 7.1 percent annually when Democrats have occupied the White House, and only 3 percent under Republicans.... Are you better off than you were four years ago? For stock portfolios, at least, the last four years have been bumpy but they haven't been bad at all."

MoDo doesn't like Obama & she doesn't like Romney: "In some ways, the two rivals are alike: cold, deliberative fish, self-regarding elitists with upbringings out of the norm and trouble connecting at times...." Read at your own risk.

This was inevitable:

Multi-billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticizes both candidates, too. At least his criticisms are substantive.

Ha ha. The New York Times reports that the U.S. & Iran have agreed to talks re: Iran's nuclear program. So I wrote: "get ready for the wingers to claim Ahmadinejad is a key Obama supporter." Well, sure enough, here's some person named Quin Hillyer of the American Spectator: "This is nothing other than an Iranian attempt to bolster Obama's re-election chances." Ditto from Jazz Shaw at Hot Air. Must the wing-nuts be so predictable?

Congressional Races

The New York Times endorses Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) of New York for U.S. Senate.

The New York Times endorses Rep. Chris Murphy (D) of Connecticut for U.S. Senate.

Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times: "U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. is heading back to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn."

Other Stuff

In a New York Times column, former Obama economic advisor Christina Romer reports on academic studies that show the stimulus was a big jobs creator. She also goes into what-all could have been done better, implicitly blaming the Obama administration for a failure to communicate. CW: Do you suppose the "undecideds" depicted below will gobble up Romer's analysis & immediately become staunch Obama backers? See, actually, facts don't matter.

For those of you having trouble "Understanding the Undecideds," Brian McFadden of the New York Times is here to help:

CLICK ON CARTOON TO SEE LARGER IMAGE.Bill Marsh of the New York Times outlines new state voting restrictions. "The most rigid voter ID laws are believed to affect about 10 percent of eligible voters, said Lawrence Norden of the Brennan Center." CW: of course most of those would be Democratic-leaning voters, so that raises, to as much as double the percentage of Democratic voters who may find they can't or don't dare to vote. So when I said in a comment to yesterday's Commentariat that Obama could lose even though more Americans preferred to vote for him than for Romney, I wasn't exaggerating. Michelle Obama said not long ago that voting rights were the civil rights movement of our era. She was right. ...

... You Are Now Living in a Third-World Country. Alexander Bolton of The Hill: "United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week."

** Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy: "House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the identities of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.... 'When you dump a bunch of documents into the ether, there are a lot of unintended consequences,' an administration official told The Cable Friday afternoon. 'This does damage to the individuals because they are named, danger to security cooperation because these are militias and groups that we work with and that is now well known, and danger to the investigation, because these people could help us down the road.' ... Even WikiLeaks had approached the State Department and offered to negotiate retractions of sensitive information before releasing their cables.... Issa did not grant the State Department that opportunity...."

Glenn Greenwald on the "unfathomable ignorance" of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (Fla.), who appears, in the embedded video, not to know anything about President Obama's "kill lists."

Tracy Bloom of TruthDig: The Rev. Phil Snider, a Missouri pastor, delivered an impassioned speech before the Springfield City Council in which he appeared to be making the case against amending the city's nondiscrimination ordinance to add protection for sexual orientation and gender identity." Don't be offended, & do listen till the end. Thanks to contributor P. D. Pepe for the link:

... In his post "This Week in God," Steve Benen highlights a preacher of a different stripe: Romney supporter Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association who argues that "'masculine leadership in society over the nation' is 'God's basic plan for today,' and 'political leadership ought to be ... reserved for the hands of males.' Anticipating criticism, the religious right leader added that those who believe in gender equality won't offer a 'reasoned' response to his shameless misogyny." Benen provides video, so enjoy your Sunday sermon. ...

... Also via Benen, Eric Maripodi of CNN reports, "Shortly after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney enjoyed cookies and soft drinks with the Rev. Billy Graham and his son Franklin Graham on Thursday at the elder Graham's mountaintop retreat, a reference to Mormonism as a cult was scrubbed from the website of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association." Whaddaya bet Mitt didn't diss the cookies this time?

In a New York Times op-ed, Samantha Bee discusses a recent scientific UCLA study which found that GOP female Members of Congress have more feminine faces than do Democratic women MOCs. Bee is thrilled that research dollars are going to such important work.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Russia's security services have killed 49 rebels and captured dozens more in a counterterrorism offensive that officials called a "considerable" blow to the insurgency in the North Caucasus region, the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced on Sunday. President Vladimir V. Putin had urged the use of increasingly aggressive means to subdue the insurgency in the North Caucasus ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics in the southern city of Sochi, which is at the edge of the turbulent region."

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "Seven people were shot late Sunday morning at a spa near the Brookfield Square Mall [near Milwaukee, Wisconsin] - apparently none fatally - and police were combing the area searching for the suspect. The multiple shooting occurred about 11 a.m. at the Azana Salon & Spa on N. Moorland Road, just south of Blue Mound Road and across the street from Brookfield Square."

New York Times: "George McGovern, the United States senator who won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1972 as an opponent of the war in Vietnam and a champion of liberal causes, and who was then trounced by President Richard M. Nixon in the general election, died early Sunday in Sioux Falls, S.D. He was 90." The Washington Post obituary is here.

** ABC News: "The latest intelligence assessment of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi indicates there was little if any pre-planning for it and that it was in part an opportunistic response to the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.'"

Reuters: "Libyan militias captured Muammar Gaddafi's chief spokesman on Saturday, the government said, but an audio clip posted on Facebook purporting to be the voice of Moussa Ibrahim denied his capture."