The New Republic

Very well put. If the anti-Romney commercial I saw repeatedly during an NFL game yesterday is any indication, the Obama campaign plans to nail Romney by emphasizing that he just can't be trusted. Let's hope that argument hits home.

- Thunderroad

October 8, 2012 at 10:53pm

"It appears that Romney and his advisers now want us to believe...". They don't want US to believe anything, they want the the 5-6% of the electorate who are swing voters to believe. And they just might pull it off, since the absent minded professor couldn't remember why he was running for reelection in front of almost 60 million people.

- Vogelfam

October 8, 2012 at 11:15pm

"A Little Late for a Pivot, Isn't It?" Not for a sociopath.

- magboy47.

October 9, 2012 at 12:02am

JC writes: "On Wednesday night, Romney introduced yet another wrinkle when he suggested, for the first time, he might back off tax cuts for the rich if those cuts threaten to raise the deficit or increase taxes for the middle class." Uh, no. He's been consistent on this. You've just failed to hear the logic. Effective rates will remain the same. Marginal rates will drop substantially. Deductions will be dramatically curtailed. This was Reagan's plan that emerged in a dem-sponsored bill in 1986. History has viewed it very favorably. JC writes: " Such a limit would force draconian, virtually unthinkable cuts to programs like food inspections, public housing, air traffic control: " Odd. We're spending a trillion dollars more in 2012 versus 2007. What do we get for that? Certainly we could roll back to 2007's level of food safety, housing and air traffic control couldn't we? Of course we could. JC writes: " He mocked President Obama for suggesting that hiring more teachers would help the schools and boost the economy." Probably because study after study has shown class size doesn't matter. Teacher quality matters. But teacher unions today believe years of service is all that matters. Who really cares, I wonder? JC writes: "And while Romney said his health plan would protect people with pre-existing conditions, he didn't mean that he would prohibit insurers from denying coverage or charging higher rates based on medical status, which is what Obamacare will do" Romney has maintained that anyone maintaining continuous coverage will not be penalized for new chronic conditions. Very reasonable.

- seattleeng

October 9, 2012 at 3:35am

He's a pander-bear. All that matters is if his final round of pandering, whatever it will be, sticks. All we can hope is that voters are not that shallow or gullible. (Magboy47: it had not occurred to me until you wrote it, but I think you're right - he is a sociopath.)

- Claris

October 9, 2012 at 5:49am

I still cringe when I see that video clip where he sings America The Beautiful at the retirement or nursing home. What a supercilious ass.

- Claris

October 9, 2012 at 6:08am

For over a year the other Jonathan has repeatedly made the point that Romney's policy positions are very unpopular. So surprise, what does Romney do? He distances himself from his own policy positions. I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here. In his review of Woodward's new book, Scheiber chastises Woodward for his criticism of Obama's lack of Washington-style political skills: "The irony is that the only way to overcome these massive obstacles is by doing the opposite of what Woodward recommends—by searching for leverage over the other side and exploiting it. Woodward, like any good Georgetown denizen, is scandalized that Obama gave up on bipartisanship in September of 2011 to browbeat Republicans over more stimulus. “Instead of trying to work with Congress, he would attack,” Woodward huffs." What Scheiber fails to comprehend is that Woodward isn't so much criticizing Obama's strong-arm tactics, but when and how he deploys them. It's as though Obama has a grab-bag of tactics and randomly chooses one whatever the circumstances. Scheiber uses the example of the payroll tax holiday extension to defend Obama: "But, of course, all this attacking resulted in pretty much the only big legislative victory of Obama’s second two years. The Republicans crumpled. Obama signed a payroll extension worth over $100 billion in early 2012." Sure, Obama got the extension, but because the Republicans weren't foolish enough to allow Obama to contrast Obama's favored payroll tax cut with the Republicans' favored income tax cut extension. Something Obama should have done in 2010, not a year later after, after, suffering an enormous political defeat in the 2010 election!

- rayward

October 9, 2012 at 6:49am

A little late for a pivot? Then why is Romney leading in the polls? Reciting Democratic talking points after President Obama turned in a debate performance that is likely to go down as the worst in history is a little beside the point. I can't stand Romney, but a week ago he was regarded as a walking corpse. A little late for a pivot? I guess not. '

- AlanVann

October 9, 2012 at 6:50am

It's frustrating to read what a jerk Romney is when the President had a chance to point this out and didn't. I had heard the President say his one mistake was that it was not enough to get the policy right, he had not focused on getting the message out. He needs to fix the polls. We can't afford another manipulating liar in the White House (the British learned recently something we know is false -- "Mission Accomplished").

- Nusholtz

October 9, 2012 at 7:16am

The latest polls show serious erosion in Obama's support. Perhaps a lot of voters, including Democrats as well as independents, were seriously in doubt about Obama's ability to continue serving as president but were bottling up their doubts because they were reluctant to vote out the country's first black president, or because they thought Romney really was the bogeyman of Democratic TV ads. Watching Obama's lackluster performance in the debate brought home to them just what an egotistical, sanctimonious empty suit he really is, and Romney looked all the more credible in comparison.

- Spengler47

October 9, 2012 at 9:04am

We had a "decider" for President and it was a disaster. Now we are looking at a "Because I say so" President (as in, I can cut $5 trillion in taxes, add $2 trillion in defense and not increase the debt "because I say so" and my health plan will cover pre-existing conditions "because I say so" -- no questions please). Romney has no plan for anything, never had a plan and won't provide a plan because he thinks we are stupid and he can get by with bold assertions and nothing more.

- Nusholtz

October 9, 2012 at 9:11am

He cannot be trusted. He has no soul. He has poor character. On a day-to-day basis he may lend a helping hand to various individuals, but on a policy level he has no conscience. Like Bernie Madoff handing large holiday bonus checks to his household workers. He may not be mean, but he's just as culpable.

- Mikelawyr22

October 9, 2012 at 9:17am

I would argue that this is the worst time for such a "pivot". If he'd done it earlier, then moderates might have believed it. If he'd have done it later, there wouldn't be two more debates to correct the mis-communication, or 6 weeks to correct the lies. Instead, he's picked this "sweet spot" of disaster to try to turn from a Tea-Party panderer into an Orwellian moderate. Sure, he "won" one debate that way. But a debate is supposed to be illustrating what your policies will be, to give the voters a choice. Mischaracterizing your policies into their most sugar-coated fairy-dusted magical form will move a few percentage points of people who don't know any better. But after a few weeks (and another debate) the blatant hypocrisy and dishonesty of such a move should become very clear, and be very self-defeating. Romney has given us that time.

- AllanL5

October 9, 2012 at 9:43am

Seattle, what planet are you on? "Uh, no. He's been consistent on this. You've just failed to hear the logic. Effective rates will remain the same. Marginal rates will drop substantially. Deductions will be dramatically curtailed." LOGIC?? He's called for a huge reduction to the marginal rate, which would dramatically raise the take home pay for the rich. Please tell me what deducation exactly he's called for. You can't, because he won't name any. But that's beside the point, because even if you cut every deducation possible, it wouldn't make up for the lost revenue. So he's suggested, laughably, that the tax cuts would spur massive economic growth.... this despite decades of proof that TAX CUTS DO NOT IMPROVE UNEMPLOYMENT OR FOSTER ECONOMIC GROWTH. But even THEN, when you give him a giant pass and allow for the economic growth he's predicted, you STILL don't make up for the shortfall in revenue. "This was Reagan's plan that emerged in a dem-sponsored bill in 1986. History has viewed it very favorably." Uh, yeah, the History According to Limbaugh. The rest of us recognize that Reagan dropped taxes for the well-to-do, and when he woke up from his nap to see the enormous budget deficit he created, raised them on the lower-income-rungs. "Odd. We're spending a trillion dollars more in 2012 versus 2007. What do we get for that? Certainly we could roll back to 2007's level of food safety, housing and air traffic control couldn't we?" Yeah, but a huge share of the increased spending comes from outlays to the DoD. Outlays which Romney wants to INCREASE, not decrease. Other increases are for cost-escalations in things like Medicare and Social Security... how do you propose those get cut back, exactly? "Probably because study after study has shown class size doesn't matter. Teacher quality matters. But teacher unions today believe years of service is all that matters. Who really cares, I wonder?" Actually teacher's unions beleive teachers matter. Real life, career teachers. Rather than the cheapest, most transient teachers available to the lowest bidder you'd end up with if every school adopted the at-will-employment rules the wingnut right suggests. As for class size, you show me your link proving class size doesn't matter and I'll show you another one showing it does. "Romney has maintained that anyone maintaining continuous coverage will not be penalized for new chronic conditions. Very reasonable." Isn't that what current law already allows? You know, the current law that, pre-Obamacare, has left millions of Americans out in the cold? Typical gop stance... "very reasonable" as long as it isn't happening to me or anybody I love. How very sad. You "very reasonable" view on health care accessibility for your fellow countrymen is the same as the typical republican take take on every other service the government provides outside defense... government emergency services? Oh that's a waste of money. Until a hurricane comes along and carries half of a red state off to Oz, and then its "waaah, where's Omama and FEMA?" Medicare too expensive? "Waah, Obama is cutting money out of a program we ourselves want to end". You're all the same. It's always a waste of money until you directly benefit from it. Witness the freshment congressmen from the last election campaigning on ending government provided healthcare and then bitching about not getting their government provided healthcare fast enough after they were sworn in.

- Tristan

October 9, 2012 at 10:09am

"So he's suggested, laughably, that the tax cuts would spur massive economic growth.... this despite decades of proof that TAX CUTS DO NOT IMPROVE UNEMPLOYMENT OR FOSTER ECONOMIC GROWTH. But even THEN, when you give him a giant pass and allow for the economic growth he's predicted, you STILL don't make up for the shortfall in revenue." Tristan, you're just formulating it wrong. Never try to do Republican math like someone who knows anything about math, or you'll drive yourself crazy. You're thinking of it like this: Lost revenue due to marginal rate decrease + increased rev due to eliminated deductions + increased rev due to growth = x (impact on budget). And you're filling in realistic numbers on the left side, which yields a negative number on the right. But Romney has already decided the impact on the budget is $0, so the 'x' you need to solve for in HIS equation is 'increased rev due to growth'. That's the beauty of Republican economics: expected growth is whatever the hell you need it to be to make your budget work. Ryan is the prime example of this; his budget was based on a rate of growth we have never seen in US history.

- Fishpeddler

October 9, 2012 at 10:32am

Romney doesn't have a plan to tell us what he'd do as president. Nothing. He's the invisible man, yet his lies convinced a huge proportion of the population he's a successful moderate. Perhaps we should be asking why so few people paid attention to the Mitt Romney that they're now hailing as the next Saviour of America. Talk about deer in the headlights.

- bpuharic

October 9, 2012 at 10:47am

haha, thank you Fish. Math never was my strong suit. I keep forgetting the gop relies heavily in imaginary numbers in their calculations.

- Tristan

October 9, 2012 at 11:33am

Tristan writes: "LOGIC?? He's called for a huge reduction to the marginal rate, which would dramatically raise the take home pay for the rich. Please tell me what deducation exactly he's called for. " Tristen, do you not understand the difference between marginal and effective rates? He said effective rates will remain the same. Read up a bit, buddy. You are getting blindsided by this for the same reason Obama was. It will happen again at the next debate unless Obama really digs into the details. Fish writes: "Lost revenue due to marginal rate decrease + increased rev due to eliminated deductions + increased rev due to growth = x (impact on budget). And you're filling in realistic numbers on the left side, which yields a negative number on the right." So, now we've had the Tax Policy Center, the group that claimed this was a $5T tax cut, completely back peddle. We've also had economists come out and tell the Obama political team "you are mis-characterizing my study. That is not what I've said" And I suspect you don't understand this history of the 1986 tax reform, either. I know you guys WANT this to be all about the rich paying less in taxes. But that isn't what this is about. Tristan writes: "Uh, yeah, the History According to Limbaugh. The rest of us recognize that Reagan dropped taxes for the well-to-do, and when he woke up from his nap to see the enormous budget deficit he created, raised them on the lower-income-rungs." Reagan dropped taxes on everyone. Tristan writes: "Yeah, but a huge share of the increased spending comes from outlays to the DoD." Not true again. Military ebb and flow is very a small part of the >$1T Obama is spending. Sadly, you don't seem to actually know where all of Obama's deficit spending is going. And yet you are defending it. Tristan writes: "Actually teacher's unions beleive teachers matter. " But what they believe doesn't matter. Studies with facts matter. And studies say it doesn't matter. Teachers want more teachers and smaller classes because that means more $ for the unions and less work for the teacher. Full stop. The guy who moves boxes in a warehouse also believe he could do a better job if he had a helper. In fact, every worker woudl like to have less work. That's why rely on studies, not whims. Tristan writes: "Isn't that what current law already allows? You know, the current law that, pre-Obamacare, has left millions of Americans out in the cold?" The law might allow it, but it doesn't require it. If I get cancer, my health care provider could decide to no longer serve me. That is what I've cited before as one of the several reforms republicans have wanted all along. What Romney is saying is "If you've been paying your premium, you wont' get denied" Very fair, very reasonable.

- seattleeng

October 9, 2012 at 12:10pm

Seattle, Reagan raised taxes more times than he lowered them. More to the point, he changed the composition of taxing, and skewed it more towards regressive taxing like payroll and less towards higher earners. He sought to close the deficit he created through lost revenue and massive spending increases by increasing the burden on lower earners. The end result was a huge increase in incomes for the top earners in the country, mediocre earnings rise for the middle class, and stagnant wages for the lower earners. As for that $1 trillion figure you cite, let's clear up what the hell we're talking about... are you referencing the annual budget deficit? Because if you are I hope you're joking. Bush entered office with a budget surplus. He left with a $1 trillion deficit thanks to a massive tax cut skewed towards the wealthy, 7 years of pathetic employment growth (can you explain for me please why massive tax cuts didn't cause an economic boom? I'm curious), a cratering of the economy in his last year (which many a conservative blames, stupefyingly, on too much govt regulation), and two horribly, criminally mismanaged wars, one of which was launched for no fucking reason. The Great Recession, a huge deficit, high unemployment, and these dipshit wars where what Obama inherited on day one. That he has managed go from -700,000 jobs per month to +200,000 or so plus saving the auto industry AND pass universal health care all with a congress who cares more - much more - about seeing him defeated in November than in doing anything to help the country is a remarkable feat. "If you've been paying your premium you won't get denied" does not help anyone who loses their job and attempts to purchase insurance on that open market you conservatives are so fond as claiming is perfect. And if Obamacare isn't repealed, come 2014 I guarantee you 99% of conservatives that benefit from of have a family member benefitting from those provisions is going to start thinking Obamacare is just fine with them. Which is as it should be. It is unconscionable that as a nation we can afford to pay (roughly) the same amount on defense as every other nation in the world combined but can't find a way to afford guaranteeing every citizen access to medical care.

- Tristan

October 9, 2012 at 12:58pm

Seattle, I'm not going to get into the weeds of the argument about whether and how Romney's tax cuts would be paid for or whether they would affect the share of American taxes paid for by the wealthy. A better question is, if you take Romney at his word -- that he would lower rates across the board but reduced tax deductions and credits to pay for it -- why would that policy be so preferable to what we have today? Why do you need to give a tax cut but impose a hard cap on deductions for charitable giving, local taxes or mortgage interest, or to eliminate tax exemptions for interest on governmental bonds or employer-provided health insurance, or to tax appreciation of life insurance policies (all ideas that Romney and his advisers have recently floated)? What is the policy you are actually pursuing here?? Are the wealthy not spending or investing their money sufficiently in the US because their existing tax rates are too high (even assuing you will continue the Bush rates in perpetuity)? Is economic growth being held back by Bush-era marginal tax rates, or the misuse of popular tax deductiions? Why bother going through the whole exercise of reducing rates if you are going to just take the money back out of people's pockets by capping their deductions? What is the goal of this tax cut?? If the Reagan tax cuts made sense because they reduced 70% and 50% marginal rates and the Bush tax cuts made "sense" because everyone thought that we had budget surpluses indefinitely, what is the point of these tax cuts when they are not really tax cuts? Or is the point to cut taxes on the wealthiest (whose rates will be cut beyond the reduction in their deductions) but shift the burden to the slightly less wealthy (whose deductions will be reduced beyond their rate cuts)? Is that the point?

- wildboy

October 9, 2012 at 1:05pm

Tristan, It's wasted energy trying to discuss something complicated with seattle. I've finally figured out not who, but what he is. He's a computer, like Hal in the movie 2001. Like any good Republican, he has programmed responses, no matter what nuanced points you make. He is incapable of participating in a dialectical discussion. He doesn't have the circuits for that. He's been programmed to believe, not to think. And so, I will no longer respond to anything our faith-based, programmed computer addresses to me. I'm leaving now. Goodbye, Hal. I'm pulling the plug...

- magboy47.

October 9, 2012 at 1:10pm

"So, now we've had the Tax Policy Center, the group that claimed this was a $5T tax cut, completely back peddle. " The TPC posted this yesterday on their website, reiterating their earlier claims and summarizing: "More generally, the basic power of arithmetic is overwhelming in showing that Governor Romney has so far overpromised on the tax side." http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=901536 I don't know why you even bother trying to slip your garbage past us, Seattle.

- Fishpeddler

October 9, 2012 at 1:13pm

Now, if only all the networks would read the TPC statements very very slowly and several times a day for a week.... And yeah, who the hell can trust a pandering flip-flopper? Nobody that's who. There are very serious character issues with this guy, apart from his politics.

- Sophia

October 9, 2012 at 1:22pm

Is there any better demonstration of the "Etch-a-Sketch" comment that his staffer made than this? Maybe Obama could bring one to the town hall? Especially if you turn it upside down, shake vigorously, and the image does NOT disappear?

- gwcross

October 9, 2012 at 4:45pm

seattleeng: "He said effective rates will remain the same." That's what he said. But that doesn't mean his plan can make it happen. He said he'd cut marginal rates by 20% and make up the loss by closing deductions and loopholes. But there's general agreement that even if you cut all the deductions and loopholes, there would not be enough additional revenue to make up for the 20% rate cut. So he can't have it both ways. "Tristan writes: 'Actually teacher's unions beleive teachers matter.' "But what they believe doesn't matter. Studies with facts matter. And studies say it doesn't matter." Yes, there are studies that conclude that a high quality teacher is far more important than class size in terms of student achievement. But how do we propose to keep high quality teachers in the classroom? By giving them class sizes of 30, 35, 40? I can say from personal experience that the profession is far more enjoyable with a class of 20 than a class of 35. So reasonably smaller class size may be vital to retaining that high quality teacher, which seattleeng admits is important. It's not a sop to the unions; it's a key to attracting and retaining good teachers. "Romney has maintained that anyone maintaining continuous coverage will not be penalized for new chronic conditions. Very reasonable." How about those who can't maintain continuous coverage? I lose my job. I can no longer afford individual insurance on the private market, and it lapses. When I get another job and have money to buy insurance, no one will cover me at a reasonable rate because I have a preexisting condition. No, that's not reasonable, none of our peer nations would allow it, and Romney has no proposal for preventing it--as his campaign admitted after the debate.

- dsimon

October 9, 2012 at 9:38pm

The problem is that voters do not get the truth about platforms and issues, from even the supposedly liberal media. Only after FOX erred by pointing out that Paul Ryan's RNC speech was a pack of lies, did television and newspapers-not-owned-by-the-likes-of-Murdoch even cover it. Since then, the New York Times has stopped reporting on Paul Ryan. Their fact checking, like that of most media, is in side bars, op-eds, blogs, etc., not reported as part of the news. And 2011's lie of the year was the joke of the year, but do voters know that? Looks to me like the news is good only for doing post mortems on what should have been reported to voters. You know voters are not being served, when even the New York Times pretends that there was a Bowles-Simpson report, or that cutting taxes is a part of any balanced plan to cut the deficit and create jobs (http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/loophole-kabukil-shumers-clever-kabuki.html) If you want news instead of horserace (theatre) criticism, you have to find people like you, Greg Sargent, Ed Kilgore, Ezra Klein, Greg Sargent, Duncan Black, Mike Konczal, Alec MacGillis, Charles Pierce, Digby, you, Jonathan Chait, David Atkins, Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong, and others. Read them and their links, hoping that they cut through the BS for you, because PBS's newshour certainly doesn't do much more than OTOH, etc. Of course, the average voter might not realize that corporate media has had more than a year now to report the actual issues, rather than the horse race with polls of people who have been inundated by nothing but spin, instead of issues. How can voters be expected to know that they can't drive 3,000 miles across the USA in 15 hours, without speeding?

- JCAtwood

October 9, 2012 at 10:48pm