Any Other Dems Slightly Scared Now?

[Beet]

Yeah the thing with Romney is he's a runner. You can't pin him down. First, he says A, then you point out what's wrong with A, and he says never mind A, B. And then you start to talk about B, but Romney's already moved onto his new position, C.

I think going out and accusing him of changing his position only goes so far. Basically Obama has to go chase him and fight him wherever he's taking a stand. Okay- you said this. Here's the difference between us. Here's why I think my idea is better. There will always be differences between the two candidates- Romney can't move fast enough to eliminate all the differences between him and Obama. He's still got a $4.8 trillion tax cut plan that he hasn't said how he is going to pay for. I mean, the stimulus was only $787 billion, and Romney says that was a waste of money. Now he's going to add $4.8 trillion to the deficit, while promising to pay for it-- how???

And sometimes, you have to just sit back and let him define his position, if it's not well defined, let him make some substantive statement, and then go after that.

Keep in mind, a 62 year old guy, who has worked in business, whose whole life is building up to this one moment, the Presidency is within reach-- he'll be at the top of his A game. Obama has to be breathing down his neck because if you give him space he'll use it.

I think after you've chased a guy a 100 miles, you can step back and express some frustration, because by that point voters will know what you mean. But you do have to keep chasing him.

[Beet]

Romney's pledge to reform taxes in such a way that they do not add to the deficit nor do they raise taxes on anybody is the pledge he is committed to.

If he's so committed to it, why doesn't he have a plan that adds up? Have you ever had a goal that you wanted badly, that you were determined to achieve and did? If so, did you make a plan to achieve it? Or did you just tell people you were going to do it while relying on others to do the heavy lifting? Romney said that Congress is going to make his implausible numbers add up. The same Comgress that can't even agree to a plan to cut the existing deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years is supposed to make Romneys additional $4.8 trillion in revenue loss budget neutral. There is no plan there, neither with Congress nor Romney. His confidence is unjustified. You need more than empty promises.

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Are you saying that Romney is lying when he promises to cut rates 20 percent across the board? Has he walked that back yet, or is he still telling people that's what he's going to do?

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Actually Romney would repeal the measure that prevents discrimination based on on; existing conditions. Don't believe me, politico has an article detailing his position. It basically makes some minor tweaks to existing law, and may or may not give some more money to states. But Romney won't commit to doing this latter part, and he can't come up of any examples of what states might do with the money. There's no plan there. And what you're talking about is not just rising costs for the already hard hit middle class on top of the cost increases that already occurred, it's the collapse of the health insurance market.

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Actually those banks have given about 2 to 1 Romney. Dodd Frank has increased protections for consumers and strengthened the banks. Since it was passed, just about every kind of mortgage or credit card delinquency, and consumer debt, has fallen. And there have been fewer bank failures each year. Before it was passed, all those horrendous metrics were skyrocketing. Look at the results.

[Beet]

It's not about white or black. opebo, your attempts to interject race into the issue here is not as convincing. Of course anyone, personally, can harbor racist attitudes. The academic meaning of the term means something entirely different.

Look; when black voters have been given a choice of a white Democrat or a black Republican, they have overwhelming supported the white Democrat; and when white Republicans get that choice, they overwhelmingly support the black member of their own party. Even black Democrats who run racially tinged campaigns in primaries against white Democrats lose. Remember that 90 percent of blacks were Democratic even when the GOP had its pre Obama majorities. It was not Obama that made them Democratic. Overall, the effect of race on voting is overestimated, especially for younger people.

[Beet]

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Then why doesn't Obama give the Catholic church a waiver, like they requested?

Um, he has.

1. In the original law, Obama said churches with a moral objection to pharmacological birth control would not be required to offer that coverage to employees. That included the Catholic church.

But Obama went further than that.

2. In January 2012, he said nonprofit religious-affiliated organizations not offering contraception and sterilization coverage in their health plans would have an extra year to comply.

3. In February 2012 he nonprofit church-affiliated entities would not have to provide contraception in their health plans, but female employees wanting coverage could obtain it directly from the insurance companies.

What the bishops want is for the birth control coverage provision to be excluded from health plans covered by places such as sporting goods stores or construction owners just because the owner happens to be Catholic. The problem with that is, if you accept that principle, then it becomes potentially immoral to pass any law forbidding the exercise of a religious practice. What if a secular school whose owner happened to be Christian tried to use I Timothy "Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." to justify hiring discrimination against women teachers? Would that be allowed in a secular school, or should it only be allowed within churches?

Obama's position is actually the conservative one here, it rests on principles long established governing the boundary between civil law and religious practice in America. Within these boundaries it fully cedes to the Catholic church all possible freedoms on this issue.

[Beet]

And for instance, I Ephesians 5:22-24 could be used to argue that it's unconstitutional to ban marital rape. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."

There has to be a compromise between religious practice and civil values. Within the church and religious organizations, the maximal possible freedom should be given for practice, but we can't make an exception to every law such that people who claim religion don't have to follow it.