I am beginning to become scared that Romney/Ryan will win. Can smart people please post here and say reassuring things to convince me that he won't?

His appeal was well captured by this post:s

there's something pitch perfect abt his boringness
like I'm a real businessman, did your 24 pack of basketballs all go flat, sir? I will find you a replacement in the back. no, thank you, sir.

― Farrah Abraham had many songs/ many songs had Farrah Abraham (m bison)

Dunno about Pizza Hut or Domino politics, tbh. I assume they're all right wingers.

I don't know about Pizza Hut either, but Domino's definitely a must to avoid.

not to mention that Godfather's pizza guy

I am concerned about scalia's weight issues. Is that why he opposes healthcare? fear of taking away his meals?

forget right wing when you can have those tasty buffalo hot wings

xp he claims it's the broccoli lobby behind Affordable Care Act

imo romney will get pwnd as more and more people think about michelle's speech and clinton's speech

Mitt and Ann Romney speeches, let alone Ryan's, instantly evaporated into the ether. Like they never happened.

Romney pulling out of PA and wherever to pool resources to hold an RNC do-over.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/992671#.UEkYPdCXTFz

reputation as a pandering-but-intelligent-fellow at high risk here

CARNEY: What role should government have in promoting certain industries or economic activities such as homeownership, or manufacturing, renewable energy or fossil fuel energy, exports, or just advanced technology? What sort of subsidies and incentives do you favor? You had some of these in Massachusetts, I know.

ROMNEY: Very limited -- my answer to your first question. I’m not an advocate of industrial policy being formed by a government. I do believe in the power of free markets, and when the government removes the extraordinary burdens that it puts on markets, why I think markets are more effective at guiding a prosperous economy than is the government.

So for instance, I would not be investing massive dollars in electric car companies in California. I think Tesla and Fisker are delightful-looking vehicles, but I somehow imagine that Toyota, Nissan, and even General Motors will produce a more cost-effective electric car than either Tesla or Fisker. I think it is bad policy for us to be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in specific companies and specific technologies, and developing those technologies.

I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

But basic science, in my view, is a way that research can encourage our entire economy. And so, for instance, in Michigan, some years ago -- I think it was in 2007 -- I spoke there and said, you know, I think we ought to embark upon an effort to do analysis on energy research, transportation research, materials research. But again, basic research which could then be either purchased by or licensed by companies foreign and domestic.

"basic science"

Mitt and Ann Romney speeches, let alone Ryan's, instantly evaporated into the ether. Like they never happened.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, September 6, 2012 5:19 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

theyd prob be better off if they had never happened, the contrast between the two conventions is just brutal

Mitt Romney would be better off not ever happening

so the role of gov't is to do investigative research and then lease the exploitation rights to corporate entities? romney is complex.

"basic science"/"basic research" is a term of art referring to non-commercial research/science for the sake of knowing more science. Whether that's what Mitt was trying to say I will leave up to you. xp

y u maek him cry, Alfred:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/01/27/business/Norris/Norris-articleLarge.jpg

Meanwhile our own ZS has been hobnobbing:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/386083_10151076793905959_1467151167_n.jpg

Jimmy Carter was on my flight and shook everyone's hand! I said, "very nice to meet you". I'm sure he'll never forget that!

i do believe in basic science, but not in an "actually understanding it at all" way.

"I think I heard something about cold fusion and electricity, there might have been lasers or cyborgs involved, I don't exactly recall, but maybe 3M could look into that and we can all make some money off of it."

Toyota, Nissan, and even General Motors will produce a more cost-effective electric car than either Tesla or Fisker.

Can't you just let the market decide, Mitt?

tesla was so close to going under a few times that i'm pretty sure a lack of govt support would have meant no fancy car, no new factory jobs in the vacated nummi plant. toyota is using tesla's battery tech in their new vehicles. did nobody vet his responses? he sounds clueless in the one area he's supposed to be an evil genius about.

Also note that, in terms of good talking points, the first two companies he mentions are foreign and then "and even" an American auto manufacturer. I really don't get tired of seeing just how bad at this Romney can be.

if obama can take on hillary and live, romney should be cake. i mean obama/romney debate would be pretty unfair fight, no? obama has a brain and knows how to use it. romney is a big nothing.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/09/pro-romney-ads-not-running-in-michigan-pennsylvania/1?csp=34news

Romney campaign and SuperPAC ads no longer running in PA or MI.

I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

what is this I can't even

"somehow"

lol at the anti-guitar center bloc

We have only just entered the decisive part of the campaign. The whole war will be fought over a tiny slice of undecided voters in about six or seven states. Nothing that happened prior to Sept 1 will matter much in November, except maybe Romney activating the RRR by picking Ryan vs. the inroads Obama made in convincing voters that Romney typifies what they hate most about Wall Street.

My gut says that Romney's next move will resemble those artillery barrages that preceded every major battle of WWI, except it will be attack ads and right wing media attack dogs, not artillery shells.

the war is arguably more abt turning out the base than converting undecideds at this point

really loving "I believe in laboratories" over here

are there any numbers about how many undecided voters there are at this point compared to in previous election years? i kind of have a hard time thinking there are a significant number of people still on the fence that are, like, registered voters.

maybe indecisive people just know elections are the one time when they are valued more than anyone else and like to flaunt that power

really loving "I believe in laboratories" over here

I hear that's actually a controversial position on the Right

the polls have been oddly static this time around

static compared to previous elections or static throughout this election? because i can believe the latter. everyone says bump this and bump that but it feels like everything that's happened in the last few months has just confirmed for people what they already believe and made them more confident in the choice they made ages ago.

Romney increasingly feels like a John Kerry figure whose only real appeal is that he isn't his opponent

Yeah, I get the impression that most of the votes for Romney will be grudging votes for [REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE].

That's the only reason I voted for Kerry in 2004. He wasn't W.

(But I lived in Tennessee, so it didn't matter at all.)

I mean, this is the guy who, in the debates four years ago, all the other candidates treated like a joke. It's hard to believe a lot of Republican voters aren't actively choking down that same sentiment now.

# of undecided voters is something like 3%, which is lower than in prior election years

New polling from The Washington Post and ABC News shows there are fewer genuinely undecided voters during the 2012 election campaign than there have been in any of the last three elections.

And less than one in five voters says there is any chance at all that he or she will change his or her mind.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/the-incredible-shrinking--and-increasingly-valuable--undecided-voter/2012/07/23/gJQAcRMH4W_blog.html

I'll def become an undecided voter for cash.

ah, interesting. thanks for doing the searching i was too lazy to do myself! (xpost)

Romney increasingly feels like a John Kerry figure whose only real appeal is that he isn't his opponent

― IN REAL LIFE (some dude), Friday, September 7, 2012 5:55 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To prove this point, Kerry is playing the Romney role in mock debates with Obama.

yup, its not enough to just be against something

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/gallup-obama-approval-jumps-after-dnc?ref=fpb

I have a few thoughts: first, Romney's bounce from both the VP pick and the convention (as seen on the RCP average) has crested, and it's already returning to a near-tie with slight Obama advantage. Obama has retained an advantage in electoral math even while Mitt surged (see 538 for reassurance on this point).

Second, note that the recent Romney/Ryan surge has accompanied a large amount of pandering to the knee-jerk anti-tax, knee-jerk anti-government Tea Party right - i.e., people they should have already had. People who were not even potential Obama voters. People, in other words, that the GOP should already have sewn up by now. So everything Romney/Ryan do to pacify this base can actually be seen as a sign of weakness. If Obama was such a failure, and so obviously inept, then R/R shouldn't need to do anything but breathe for a few more months. As it is, I feel that it's telling, and NOT a good sign, that they have to keep slinging red meat to the base.

Third, I've heard a lot of crowing from the right about how ooh, Obama's been below 50%, that's a bad place for him to be; incumbents who are below 50% at this point are in trouble. Perhaps, but, I don't think that means that people genuinely, positively, prefer Romney. And I think in the current environment it won't be enough to just say "vote for me because I'm not the other guy." That hasn't reliably worked. (See Deeds vs. McDonnel in Va.)

Finally, though I'm sanguine about Mr. Obama's chances, I have striven to inoculate myself against the possibility that I'm wrong. I look for ways to process a potential Romney win as being paradoxically good in the long run. Note: as Lindsey Graham pointed out, demographically, the current Republican message is doomed. You can't just run on the angry white guy energy forever; indeed, this year may be the high-water mark of that kind of sentiment.

So okay, let's say that the knee-jerk anti-tax, anti-government, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-environment folks win out this time. One might nurture a small hope that the public will see the results of that body of policy being enacted, and realize (again) that it doesn't work. The electorate may need to really see (again!) that "get government out of the way" does not, in fact, lead to a cascade of prosperity that lifts all boats. Such as result may not totally kill that idea, but it will make the Tea Party argument harder to make credible in future.

my concern with your last point is if the economy does rebound (however slightly) on its own accord in the short term, those fucking clowns will all be like "SEE!?"

yea for exactly four years

anyway w/r/t Kerry vs Romney, dems didn't secretly hate Kerry.