2012 US Presidential Elections Thread

[Roey Haque]

I'm traditionally a democrat, but I so wish Dr. Paul would get elected. I expected so much more from Obama. He has become the "food-stamp" president.

Peace out,

Roey

[NoName]

So it seems like Romney will be representing the Republicans, thank god its not Santorum. Does anyone know what happened to Paul, they haven't said he dropped out yet, or have I missed it?

[Nasif]

Got my vote. Obama on jimmy Fallon show
http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon....-barack-obama/

[Sohel]

Four more years InshAllah but it will be tough with Mitt. I hope the Tea Party-ers will have their own lunatic fringe candidate and divide the conservative and and undecided votes and the President will squeak through in the process.

[BANFAN]

So, does Mitt Romney has even an outside chance to beat Obama? I don't see that.

Those who are frustrated with Obama for not meeting their expectations, I think they will see a different Obama in his second term. Many of their expectations from the first Black American President will be fulfilled. It wasn't easy for him to complete his first term without any major failure. He worked under a lot of undue pressure, resistance, non cooperations and Israeli bullies. He handled everything quiet maturely.

He will be what he was during his last campaign, if he is elected this time and will have the freedom and strength to fulfill most of his unfulfilled promises. I commend him for stabilizing the economy even if not recovered from recession completely, being able to resist provocations-pressures for going into another war, controlled the wild horse Netaniyahu well except his mouth, recovered a lot of Brocken relations internationally, withdrawn from Iraq, on course to withdraw from Afghanistan....

Not sure about his success in domestic affairs... But the question of Black Americans inequality was too sensitive to pick up, that surely will be addressed in the second term.

[Nasif]

Investigation into Romney Money

Quoted first two paragraphs, Read Full Article here.

Where the Money Lives


For all Mitt Romney’s touting of his business record, when it comes to his own money the Republican nominee is remarkably shy about disclosing numbers and investments. Nicholas Shaxson delves into the murky world of offshore finance, revealing loopholes that allow the very wealthy to skirt tax laws, and investigating just how much of Romney’s fortune (with $30 million in Bain Capital funds in the Cayman Islands alone?) looks pretty strange for a presidential candidate.
By Nicholas Shaxson

© Ruth Tomlinson/Robert Harding World Imagery/Corbis (beach); by Justin Sullivan/Getty images (inset).

BURIED TREASURE Grand Cayman, where Bain Capital maintains at least 138 funds. Inset, Mitt Romney tries to spot his La Jolla home from the campaign plane.

A person who worked for Mitt Romney at the consulting firm Bain and Co. in 1977 remembers him with mixed feelings. “Mitt was … a really wonderful boss,” the former employee says. “He was nice, he was fair, he was logical, he said what he wanted … he was really encouraging.” But Bain and Co., the person recalls, pushed employees to find out secret revenue and sales data on its clients’ competitors. Romney, the person says, suggested “falsifying” who they were to get such information, by pretending to be a graduate student working on a proj­ect at Harvard. (The person, in fact, was a Harvard student, at Bain for the summer, but not working on any such proj­ects.) “Mitt said to me something like ‘We won’t ask you to lie. I am not going to tell you to do this, but [it is] a really good way to get the information.’ … I would not have had anything in my analysis if I had not pretended.

“It was a strange atmosphere. It did leave a bad taste in your mouth,” the former employee recalls.

This unsettling account suggests the young Romney—at that point only two years out of Harvard Business School—was willing to push into gray areas when it came to business. More than three dec­ades later, as he tried to nail down the Republican nomination for president of the United States, Romney’s gray areas were again an issue when he repeatedly resisted calls to release more details of his net worth, his tax returns, and the large investments and assets held by him and his wife, Ann. Finally the other Republican candidates forced him to do so, but only highly selective disclosures were forthcoming.

[Sohel]

Not voting this year. No longer a citizen but will work for the President through Democrats Abroad.

[F6_Turbo]

Crazy money being spent on trying to ensure Obama is a one term prez.

-Will Europe hold on till November?
-Will Israel hold off on Iran?
-Interest rates, stock market and employment figures?
-How much will 'Obamacare is a tax' matter?
-Can Obama energize the Democratic base, and the youth(again)?

This is a crucial election in the long term...he might in his 4 years get to appoint at least 1 more Supreme Court Justice, a non conservative could hold sway for years, and end up being the true lasting legacy of the Obama years.

[F6_Turbo]

MRom has picked Paul Ryan as his VP - good choice for the Tea Party extremists...not too sure how good it is a pick as far as independents are concerned.

Ryan is all about the budget - but his utterances with regards to Social Security and Medicare, ought to drive away elderly voters(specially is a key state like Florida - full of retired folk).

I happen to think Paul Ryan is a disgusting human being(just a notch better than Romney, because he at least has some principles), but hopefully this Ayn Rand lover is the final nail in the coffin for Romney.


Also anyone else laugh at Romney asking for Obama to not get into personal attacks, and stick to the issues(personal attacks in this case = Romney and his record as a businessman, and his tax returns, or lack thereof). This is of course, after Romney made his success as a businessman one of his main sales pitches

[ammark]

It'll be a nightmare if Romney+Ryan does edge out Obama, and a Republican House is there for the first 2 years.

As it is, the House Republicans are pretty concerted to oppose almost anything good coming from the White House and the Dems.

What a morass

[Rubu]

If America votes in Romney-Ryan, America deserve Romney-Ryan. The only problem is, the sane people will also have to suffer with them.

[Zunaid]

The Ryan pick gives Obama and team more fodder to attack. I'm glad Romney did not move to the center.

[Alien]

Originally Posted by BANFAN
So, does Mitt Romney has even an outside chance to beat Obama? I don't see that.

Those who are frustrated with Obama for not meeting their expectations, I think they will see a different Obama in his second term. Many of their expectations from the first Black American President will be fulfilled. It wasn't easy for him to complete his first term without any major failure. He worked under a lot of undue pressure, resistance, non cooperations and Israeli bullies. He handled everything quiet maturely.

He will be what he was during his last campaign, if he is elected this time and will have the freedom and strength to fulfill most of his unfulfilled promises. I commend him for stabilizing the economy even if not recovered from recession completely, being able to resist provocations-pressures for going into another war, controlled the wild horse Netaniyahu well except his mouth, recovered a lot of Brocken relations internationally, withdrawn from Iraq, on course to withdraw from Afghanistan....

Not sure about his success in domestic affairs... But the question of Black Americans inequality was too sensitive to pick up, that surely will be addressed in the second term.

Agree. It's never easy on first term. In 2nd term he will have more flexibility as he won't have to worry about re-election.

[F6_Turbo]

Originally Posted by Alien
Agree. It's never easy on first term. In 2nd term he will have more flexibility as he won't have to worry about re-election.

Alternatively he could become a lame duck president in his 2nd term...with democrats worried about re-election not going along with what he wants, or even worse a republican dominated house and senate...resulting in Obama doing nothing but vetoing bills once a month for 4 years.

Sure there is a certain level of freedom that comes from a 2nd term but that only happens if the conditions are right.

[Dilscoop]

Clint Eastwood for president

[Ajfar]

So anyone jumping on the whole, 'We build it' campaign?

[Roey Haque]

Originally Posted by Ajfar
So anyone jumping on the whole, 'We build it' campaign?

Nope. Republicans provide endless material for laughter, and Jon Stewart and Bill Maher does a very good job making me laugh.


Keep it 100,

Roey

[Navo]

Originally Posted by F6_Turbo
Crazy money being spent on trying to ensure Obama is a one term prez.

-Will Europe hold on till November?
-Will Israel hold off on Iran?
-Interest rates, stock market and employment figures?
-How much will 'Obamacare is a tax' matter?
-Can Obama energize the Democratic base, and the youth(again)?

This is a crucial election in the long term...he might in his 4 years get to appoint at least 1 more Supreme Court Justice, a non conservative could hold sway for years, and end up being the true lasting legacy of the Obama years.

This is an excellent post asking very pertinent questions re: the elections. I particularly like the point regarding the balance of the Supreme Court.

For those who are curious about F6 meant by this, the US Supreme Court currently has 4 Justices who are perceived to be Conservatives, 4 who are considered to be more liberal and 1 who provides the 'swing vote' by voting either way. The conservative 4 are Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts, the liberal 4 are Sotomayor, Kagan, Breyer, Ginsberg and the swing vote is Anthony Kennedy. He's voted conservative 11 times and liberal 5 times. (Even though it's simplistic to say that these 9 always vote according to perceived political biases!)

[Nasif]

Loved it! That's one cool president

[Zeeshan]

certainly got the stoners vote this time...sigh is this what my country is coming to? what happened to stallion' ridin' frontier expandin' whiskey smugglin' cherokee beatin' goddogone it' new hampshire steak sauce gravy puttin' finger lickin' applebees culture?

[cluster11]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan
certainly got the stoners vote this time...sigh is this what my country is coming to? what happened to stallion' ridin' frontier expandin' whiskey smugglin' cherokee beatin' goddogone it' new hampshire steak sauce gravy puttin' finger lickin' applebees culture?

You talking about Ricky Booby? Him busy doin' his own campaigning against that Zack Gala-freakin-dunno-how-pronounce-us in something they call "The Campaign" ;-)

[F6_Turbo]

What an endorsement by B(the original black prez)...absolute tore into the Republicans and called them out for what they are...scum.

some choice tidbits:

The Republican narrative is that all of us who amount to anything are completely self-made. One of our greatest Democratic Chairmen, Bob Strauss, used to say that every politician wants you to believe he was born in a log cabin he built himself, but it ain't so.


We Democrats think the country works better with a strong middle class, real opportunities for poor people to work their way into it and a relentless focus on the future, with business and government working together to promote growth and broadly shared prosperity. We think "we're all in this together" is a better philosophy than "you're on your own."

Who's right? Well since 1961, the Republicans have held the White House 28 years, the Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our economy produced 66 million private sector jobs. What's the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42 million!

In Tampa, the Republican argument against the President's re-election was pretty simple: we left him a total mess, he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough, so fire him and put us back in.

Are we where we want to be? No. Is the President satisfied? No. Are we better off than we were when he took office, with an economy in free fall, losing 750,000 jobs a month. The answer is YES.

The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95% of the American people. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the President's jobs plan costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here's another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, Congressional Republicans zero.

Over that same period, more than more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under President Obama – the first time manufacturing jobs have increased since the 1990s.

Now there are 250,000 more people working in the auto industry than the day the companies were restructured. Governor Romney opposed the plan to save GM and Chrysler. So here's another jobs score: Obama two hundred and fifty thousand, Romney, zero.

When Congressman Ryan looked into the TV camera and attacked President Obama's "biggest coldest power play" in raiding Medicare, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. You see, that 716 billion dollars is exactly the same amount of Medicare savings Congressman Ryan had in his own budget.

I think the President's plan is better than the Romney plan, because the Romney plan fails the first test of fiscal responsibility: The numbers don't add up.

It's supposed to be a debt reduction plan but it begins with five trillion dollars in tax cuts over a ten-year period. That makes the debt hole bigger before they even start to dig out. They say they'll make it up by eliminating loopholes in the tax code. When you ask "which loopholes and how much?," they say "See me after the election on that."

People ask me all the time how we delivered four surplus budgets. What new ideas did we bring? I always give a one-word answer: arithmetic. If they stay with a 5 trillion dollar tax cut in a debt reduction plan – the – arithmetic tells us that one of three things will happen:

1) they'll have to eliminate so many deductions like the ones for home mortgages and charitable giving that middle class families will see their tax bill go up two thousand dollars year while people making over 3 million dollars a year get will still get a 250,000 dollar tax cut; or

2) they'll have to cut so much spending that they'll obliterate the budget for our national parks, for ensuring clean air, clean water, safe food, safe air travel; or they'll cut way back on Pell Grants, college loans, early childhood education and other programs that help middle class families and poor children, not to mention cutting investments in roads, bridges, science, technology and medical research; or

3) they'll do what they've been doing for thirty plus years now – cut taxes more than they cut spending, explode the debt, and weaken the economy. Remember, Republican economic policies quadrupled the debt before I took office and doubled it after I left. We simply can't afford to double-down on trickle-down.

My fellow Americans, you have to decide what kind of country you want to live in.

If you want a you're on your own, winner take all society you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared opportunities and shared responsibilities – a "we're all in it together" society, you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

If you want every American to vote and you think its wrong to change voting procedures just to reduce the turnout of younger, poorer, minority and disabled voters, you should support Barack Obama. If you think the President was right to open the doors of American opportunity to young immigrants brought here as children who want to go to college or serve in the military, you should vote for Barack Obama.

If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American Dream is alive and well, and where the United States remains the leading force for peace and prosperity in a highly competitive world, you should vote for Barack Obama.

Those job creation numbers by dems vs republicans have been fact checked and are correct!

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ts-top-republ/

[Zeeshan]

Obama 2012!!

[mufi_02]

I watched RNC and day 1 of DNC. While RNC was full of white folks, DNC was very much diverse. Loved Julian Castro and Michelle Obama's speech.

Looking forward to the big Obama speech tonight.

[F6_Turbo]

Pretty disheartening jobs report - that will put a damper on any potential bounce from the convention for Obama.

But as long as he hangs on to Michigan and Ohio, Romney has almost no chance.