The Paddock

I've just watched three speeches--all good.

Julian Castro's speech was excellent, but I probably won't ever vote for him for president. I didn't know he had a twin. Everybody knows the president's brother is a touch-up, so how would we ever know which one is Roger and which one is Bill (or Jimmy and Billy or George and Neil).

Michelle was awesome. That was the best nominee's spouse's ever, but that's a real low bar. Those are usually terrible (including hers four years ago--she's been woodshedding).

Whatever you think about Clinton, everybody should watch his speech for historical reasons. Nobody in the mass media age can or could do what he does nearly as well. There are great orators but none have ever had the ability to simultaneously connect on a big level and small level like he can. I truly believe he would be a candidate for Mt. Rushmore if he only knew that there were two positions on a zipper.

You're mostly right. However, there are currently three people in the political relam who pull better than a 60% approval rating (which, we'd have to assume, includes all their partisans plus most if not all the moderates). Two are featured speakers at the Democratic convention (Michelle and Bill) and the third is Hillary. The pictures of Obama and Clinton together is a positive one for the undecided. You will not see any pictures of Romney and Bush. Neither Bush was even mentioned at their convention (which is pretty sad--HW is a great man and should be the party's elder statesman).

The Republicans have nobody in that category right now--probably Christie is their most popular guy in the country but he didn't ringingly endorse his candidate last week--in fact, he pretty much gave his own acceptance speech for 2016.

Dubya wasn't made out to be a villain. He was. His policies with help from a spineless congress, including a lot of dems, is why this country is in the shape it's in now.

That Clinton speech could be the best he's ever given. He told the truth. That's all the dems should be doing.

Hoptown is right about everything he said in his last post. The only thing I'd add is that the job report won't make any waves. We already know what it is. The repubs will say it's not enough. The dems will say it's at least jobs added and that's a step in the right direction. Each side will line up behind either of those as they have the last year and so. I also think that Clinton speech could have carry over if Obama picks up the message and starts hammering it over and over and over like Reagan used to do.

I have some sources close to the situation and I have received an advanced copy of President Obama's speech tonight. It's very short and I can type it right here. It goes, "Bin Laden is dead. GM is alive. Thank you. And good night!"

What matters is that the conventions kick off the fall campaigns and campaigns do indeed affect the election. In nearly all (maybe entirely all) presidential races, the better campaigner wins. Not only is Obama very good, but he's got two powerful surrogates in Michelle and Bill Clinton, assuming Bill's really gonna help (he seemed pretty fired up to me). It remains to be seen if Hillary will do any campaigning (I'll guess no). Whether they watched last night, the swing voters in Florida. Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, etc, will be seeing a lot of them and it makes a big difference if they're likable or not.

Romney has a cash advantage, which may not be surmountable, but he is limited as a politician and doesn't have reliable surrogates with the possible exception of Christie and maybe Rubio.

Wishful thinking redux...

doesn't even deserve a response. This is a base election. ALL factors were in Obama's favor four years ago. that included independents like me voting for him. His base was fired up too. With all of those factors in his favor he got 53% of the vote.

Four years later and Almost ALL of those factors are working against him. Great campaigner or not, he's facing a strong headwind.

Folks I know on the democratic side have told me that Obama has all but written Florida off. They will fight there, but they have a huge uphill battle there. (remember, his margin was razor thin 4 years ago in Florida) They are also becoming more convinced that Iowa is not looking good. Ohio is a true tossup as is Wisconsin. Colorado is also almost certainly back in republican hands.

All signs point to the election being decided in Virginia and Ohio. The difference in those states will be turnout. Republicans are motivated, democrats and independents are not.

If the election were held today it would be amazingly close.

I don't think that's quite right to say Romney's war chest dwarfs Obama's. Obama the candidate has outraised Romney so far by a lot. That will likely change. The RNC has outraised the DNC by a little and, as you point out, the big difference is in the Super Pacs where the Republicans have a big advantage. Of total friendly money (direct+party+SuperPacs), Romney has an edge but it's not huge.

It's not like Obama is having to make his own yard signs with a magic marker. Romney's not going to double him up like he did to McCain. Obama will have more money than he had last time--which was way more than he needed. At the end he was burning it--going into states he had no right to try to win, helping congressmen, buying prime time infomercials.

In politics, if you can run 2 ads to the other guys' one, you have an advantage. But if you're running 8 and he's running six, the advantage dissipates. It's all noise and has diminishing effectiveness.

You'd be surprised re: my democrat sources.

Again, your speaking from an emotional-wishful thinking standpoint. You are looking at things from a non-fact based standpoint.

I said "will dwarf". They're comparable now but from everyone I've heard says that Romney's money will pick up. Perhaps "dwarf" is a bit much but I think he'll have a meaningful advantage money-wise. If Romney got more money fairly I'd be fine with it. But these unlimited and anonymous donations being allowed just isn't right.

Watching Hoptown admonish you about wishful thinking and not being factual while at the same time being for a Romney-Ryan ticket that's been the most unfactual liars we've ever seen is funny. Admonishing you while at the same time engaging in wishful thinking that the jobs report is horrible so he and his ilk can point fingers and blame Obama. Admonishing you on wishful thinking and at the exact same time declaring Florida is lost to Obama and that he's pulling up stakes. Friggin idiot.

Now back to the convention. Kerry absolutely nailed it on all levels. Some of my favorite Kerry lines:

"Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska," Kerry said in one of several colorful punchlines. "Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV."

He later added, in a reference to Romney's gaffe-filled foreign policy tour this past July, "It wasn't a goodwill mission -- it was a blooper reel."

And here's the best line of the night: "It isn’t fair to say Mitt Romney doesn’t have a position on Afghanistan. He has every position. He was against setting a date for withdrawal - then he said it was right - and then he left the impression that maybe it was wrong to leave this soon. He said it was ‘‘tragic’’ to leave Iraq, and then he said it was fine. He said we should’ve intervened in Libya sooner. Then he ran down a hallway to duck reporters’ questions. Then he said the intervention was too aggressive. Then he said the world was a ‘‘better place’’ because the intervention succeeded. Talk about being for it before you were against it!

Mr. Romney - here’s a little advice: Before you debate Barack Obama on foreign policy, you better finish the debate with yourself!"

You're right. If he had come out swinging like that when those anti-American lying horrible so-called human beings we call the swift boaters started airing their lies he would have been the President. That's exactly how you have to deal with these unhinged extremists. Mock them and call them out on each and every lie they tell over and over and over.

That was a great line. I didn't include it in my favorites because I didn't want to give the right wing nuts another chance to spout the utterly irrelevant and idiotic "he didn't kill Bin Laden, the navy seals did." It was one of my favorites though.

"Mr. Romney - here’s a little advice: Before you debate Barack Obama on foreign policy, you better finish the debate with yourself!" just can't be beat though. I literally said "oooooooo Ouch" when he said that lol

Why? At least it added jobs instead of hemmoraging 100's of thousands a month when you guys were in charge. I'd also add that maybe it would be better if your guys weren't obstructing. Jobs bill.

Only a liberal can spin the job numbers in a positive way. Nearly 4 times as many people just quit looking for work as were hired and the pathetic Obama economy continues to tank. Again, by this time in his administration, Reagan had added nearly 8 million new jobs in his recovery (yes Stepanie dumb blonde, 8 million is more than 4.5 million, nice try). The whole point is that after a steep recession, the economy is supposed to have a more robust recovery. It's ok, we'll just put more and more folks on the public trough since the Dems think it's the best form of stimulus. You can't make this crap up!

It's hard to have a robust recovery when the extreme right are obstructing the recovery. It's brilliant. Impede, obstruct everything that could help the recovery and then blame Obama. It's been the agenda the entire time. And despite that we're still adding jobs month after month and the economy is recovering step by step. Obama should be commended for doing what he has for the economy facing that mountain and the republican leaders in the house and senate should be brought up on charges of treason, because that's exactly what they are engaging in. They care more about their politics than they do the American people. That much is crystal clear. Next!