So , we head into the election cycle - just about 40 days - anyone notice the apathy ? No one has a burning desire for either Romney or Obama . Speaking on the obvious , nothing will change regarding banksters , the war against the world policies and making the police / nanny state ever more intrusive - whether Obama or Romney wins in November. As apathy turns to discontent , discontent to anger - at what point might the US morph into Greece or Spain type confrontations ? And once we see Greece / Spain type confrontations , might we see the beginning of a second rebellion here at home ? Once the election season ends and the hammer is dropped with Troika like austerity imminent , what to see what comes next.....
THE BLOG
For all of the wishful thinking in the mainstream press about President Obama’s positioning 40 days before this election, Obama’s approval rating looks remarkably similar to what it was on this date in 2010 — shortly before his party lost a historic 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats. On September 27, 2010 — exactly two years ago — Rasmussen Reports showed Obama’s net approval rating among likely voters to be minus-3 percentage points (with 48 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving). Among those who felt “strongly,” Obama’s net approval rating was minus-14 points (with 27 percent “strongly” approving and 41 percent “strongly” disapproving).
Today, Rasmussen Reports shows Obama’s net approval rating among likely voters to be minus-3 points (with 48 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving). Among those who feel “strongly,” Obama’s net approval rating is minus-14 points (with 28 percent “strongly” approving and 42 percent “strongly” disapproving). So, two years after the biggest Republican gains in the House since before World War II, Americans remain every bit as unimpressed with the way Obama is handling his job as president as they were then.
but if Americans aren't impressed with Obama , why is Romney losing ?
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Thirty-nine days before the Presidential election, Mitt Romney doesn't appear to be the formidable challenge to President Obama that many expected. Indeed, Romney's ineptness has turned the tide in Obama's favor. What happened?
A year ago, when the slate of Republican presidential candidates formed, it was Mitt Romney versus the "seven dwarfs:" Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Paul, Pawlenty, Perry, and Santorum. Many observers believed Romney would roll over his opponents and quickly garner the Republican nomination. Instead, Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses and Newt Gingrich won in South Carolina. For an instant it appeared Mitt might not be the nominee; then he turned on his money machine and swamped the others. At the end of April the Republican National Committee declared Romney the presumptive nominee.
Romney is a reengineered George W. Bush. Both men are the sons of successful Republican politicians; George Romney was Governor of Michigan; George H.W. Bush was President of the United States. Both were educated at elite schools and attended Harvard Business School. Both had a stint as entrepreneurs; Mitt being much more successful than Dubya. Both were governors; Dubya of Texas and Mitt of Massachusetts. And both fit the modern Republican profile of a successful candidate: millionaires with business experience and overt religiosity.
Initially Romney's campaign leveraged American dissatisfaction with the tepid economy by using the slogan, "Obama isn't working." Several polls showed Mitt leading the president. Then the wheels began to come off the Romney express.
There are three explanations for the implosion. The first is that the Obama campaign was able to define the Republican candidate before Mitt could introduce himself to voters. Before the conventions, Democrats began running 'The Man from Bain' commercials that explained how Mitt Romney actually made his fortune as a "vulture capitalist." This heightened the perception that Romney's business experience was not the sort needed to help out the middle class; the message was, "Mitt is a job destroyer not a job creator."
The Obama strategy caused the Romney campaign to go on the defensive. Mitt fought one media fire after another: The correct date for his departure from Bain Capital, his role there, his tax returns, and on and on. Then Romney selected congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. This move could have boosted the campaign but didn't because Mitt was so vague on policy specifics, voters assumed the notorious Ryan Budget represented Romney's thinking.
Next came a string of epic gaffes. Romney went on a European tour and insulted the British security at the 2012 Olympics. On the home front, he claimed, "corporations are people," and noted, "I like to be able to fire people who provide services to me." On September 18, Mother Jones magazine published a tape of a private Romney fundraiser where Mitt observed, "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what... who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them... my job is not to worry about those people."
Some believe Romney's implosion reveals psychological problems. On the PBS News Hour New York Times columnist David Brooks observed, "And with Mitt Romney, he's faking it. I think he's a non-ideological guy running in an ideological age who is pretending to be way more ideological than he really is. And so he talks like he has this cartoon image of how [he's] supposed to be talking. And, as a result, it is stupid a lot." Political columnist Robert Kahn agreed, "... Mitt Romney's campaign has been so inept... Because the guy is acting, in the old style ... He's trying so hard ... to appeal to the increasingly repressive right-wing, and their irrational arguments -- that he can't do simple things, such as think." Mitt comes across as inauthentic because he's lost touch with his moral center.
Writing in the New Yorker, journalism professor Nicholas Lemann noted a Romney character flaw: "[Mitt] combines an utter confidence in his ability to fix any problem with an utter lack of confidence that he can explain to people what he intends to do."
But there's a fourth reason, Mitt's egotism. A key difference between the first George W. Bush presidential campaign and the current Romney campaign is that Karl Rove managed Dubya, but no one manages Mitt. According to the New York Times Romney chose to have Clint Eastwood give his incoherent endorsement speech at the Republican National Convention. And, after the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three American staffers, Mitt decided to respond, "It's disgraceful that the Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks."
Karl Rove managed Dubya's decisions and public statements. Mitt doesn't believe he needs that level of supervision. The parade of errors over the last five months shows that he was wrong. Romney's hubris has subverted his campaign.
and a commentary today on elections from ZERO HEDGE - Guest Author " Acting Man " Pater T
Guest Post: A Few Remarks On Elections
Submitted by Pater Tenenbrarum of Acting-Man
A Few Remarks On Elections
There Is No Choice
We have previously pointed out that there is actually no choice at all for the US electorate at the upcoming presidential election. This is because in terms of the policies they support, it is nigh impossible to differentiate between the two candidates. We were not just making an unsupported assertion – we offered proof, by showing a video in which they speak for themselves. If one cannot rely on their own words to represent what they stand for, what should one rely on?
Of course it has often been that way in the past too, but usually one only finds out for sure after the election, not already before it. However, the Obamney – clones are so glaringly similar that this time there can be no doubt about it from the very outset. Anyone who actually votes in this election (except if they log a protest vote for a write-in candidate) is basically wasting his time. Not only that, they are announcing that they are gullible and that they meekly support the status quo. As George Carlin once said, 'they lose the right to complain'.
Carlin suggested that if as an alternative to voting on election day, he were to stay at home and masturbate, he 'would at least have something to show for it at the end'. And that was actually quite a few years ago, we wonder what he would have to say about the 'choice' voters are presented with today. Evidently though, Carlin had come to the conclusion that democracy was for Old Greeks.
Allen Keyes on Obama/Romney
What prompted us to write this post was that a friend pointed us to the following video in which Allan Keyes discusses the very same problem. He says a number of interesting things:
Just to make that clear: we were hitherto only aware of Alan Keyes in passing and are not saying that we would endorse his political views in toto. In fact, a cursory examination of some other material we have come across suggests that we would have a number of differences with him. However, what he says in the video above is in our opinion both true and important.
He makes inter alia the point that if one can no longer differentiate between candidates based on their political program, one is theoretically reduced to judging them on the basis of personal sympathy or antipathy. However, unless one actually knows them personally, such a judgment is necessarily based on nothing but superficial impressions – in fact it is not possible to come to an informed decision.
To our mind the most interesting and important observation is however the following: Keyes suggests that if e.g. Mitt Romney were to be elected, he would have it very easy to pursue the very agenda currently associated with Obama – there would be little push-back from conservatives. They would likely cheer on the very policies they hated when Obama proposed or implemented them, if Romney were to propose them if he comes to power. At the very least their protest would probably be extremely muted.
Think back in this context to Bush the Second and the PATRIOT act, the warrant-less wiretapping scandal, the torture allegations and his wars. Left-liberals were manning the barricades against many of these policies when Bush introduced them. Many of them were convinced that if they voted for Obama, many, or even all of these policies would be repealed (that was certainly part of the whole 'hope and change' shtick). They have for the most part mutely watched for four years while there was not only no repeal, but an intensification of every Bush era rape of the Bill of Rights. Occasionally one of Obama's supporters took notice, such as Rachel Maddow e.g. did when the president talked about instituting presidential powers that sound like something from a dystopian science fiction novel (essentially he argued in favor of the president becoming the nation's personal 'pre-crime' division):
We are merely astonished that she seems so surprised by this. This is precisely how the ruling elites operate. In order to cement unpopular policies, they use the guy who is officially widely thought to be against them. Keyes has essentially hit on the establishment's very modus operandi in directing history in modern times.
The NDAA's provisions for military detention of mere 'suspects' were e.g. an Obama administration brainchild. Most Republicans were fine with it. There were only a few exceptions, such as Rand Paul, who delivered a notable and excellent speech against them (to no avail of course).
Our point is, regardless of who you vote for, you can firmly depend on being disappointed in the areas that actually count. The whole idea that the democratic system such as it is allows voters to alter a nation's course by simply voting for a different batch of politicians is profoundly mistaken. In reality, the ruling elites use the apparent differences as a slick political ploy: namely to implement whatever agenda they have already decided upon without arousing the anger of the hoi-polloi too much.
One must very carefully parse everything one sees or hears on the 'approved' news media these days. More often than not things are not what they seem, and it only becomes clear after some time in what direction they are about to be taken. Often we are confronted with seemingly diametrically opposed opinions on how to tackle a burning problem. Later a 'compromise' will suddenly and 'unexpectedly' make its entrance, consisting of the very policies the elites wanted to introduce in the first place. Upon hearing of the 'compromise', everybody nods sagely and agrees that this is what should be done, not realizing that they were duped from the very beginning.
A good recent example is actually provided by the euro area crisis. Although it appears at times as though the eurocracy's control over events may be lost, it evidently hasn't happened yet.
Consider though what has happened: decisive steps have been taken to protect the banks on the backs of tax payers and to take the EU closer to the point where it becomes a giant socialistic superstate/transfer union. Which as it were is precisely what Romano Prodi predicted back in 2001 already – namely that the EU's political elite would just wait for a sufficiently dire crisis to implement all the measures it couldn't yet put into place at the time the euro was introduced.
When looking at the countries making up the euro area, one quickly notices that voters in them are likewise faced with the 'no choice' dilemma. It matters not one whit who they vote for, the centralization agenda continues exactly as before every time.
Occasionally a referendum is held to decide whether there is sufficient popular support for things like e.g. the Lisbon treaty. In cases where the vote is unfavorable for the centralization agenda, the referendum is simply repeated until the desired outcome has been obtained. Of course it's all just a coincidence, right?
Right, and we have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
September ( perhaps October and November as well ) may be in hindsight seen as the calm before the raging storm , here are some views to consider....
WE ARE IN THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM, US COST OF LIVING IS GOING TO SKYROCKET!!
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