As the November election nears and the campaigns enter the final weeks, the sense of urgency increases. I too feel a sense of nervousness over seeing every poll showing my favorite candidates up or down. I can’t stand listening to TV or radio ads touting a candidate I don’t support or attacking a candidate I do support, while also developing a “you’re talking to the choir” syndrome about ads supporting candidates that I support to the extent that the remote control has become an extra limb to switch away from the frequent ads (I’m in Ohio). Although politically conscious, I am separated enough from politics that I believe my impressions (as an Obama supporter) are close enough to what I think average voters are missing in the political communication in the campaign so far. There are five points I believe should be emphasized through Election Day with links to resources that can explain it in more detail better than I can:
1. Romney the Tax Dodger
The Obama campaign has made much of Romney’s plans to cut taxes for the wealthy, while insinuating that that programs for the middle class would be cut and/or the deficit would balloon. This should be continued. However, the big gorilla in the room is the fact that Mitt Romney has largely gotten away with releasing only limited tax returns when other candidates running for president have released multiple years (e.g., 8, 10). Whether it was legal or illegal or a combination, it seems readily clear that Mitt Romney hid assets offshore to reduce his taxes in America, a seemingly unpatriotic, venal and miserly thing for a mega-rich man who is running for political office in the United States to do. It is absolutely stunning to me that a candidate for President of the United States could be competitive in an election while taking such actions. The combination of putting his money in hidden off-shore accounts and refusing to more fully disclose his taxes as other modern presidential candidates have done should be seen as a BIG RED FLAG to American voters. If Obama’s campaign and supporters including associated political action committees did not do anything else, then this issue needs to be brought out more fully into the public consciousness. Romney should be forced to release more extensive returns before the election through intense focus and constant public pressure, because the last thing this country needs is to find out after he was elected that he broke the tax law.
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.rawstory.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://freakoutnation.com/...
http://blog.al.com/...
http://www.vanityfair.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.vanityfair.com/...
http://articles.boston.com/...
http://thedodgevillechronicle.com/...
http://truth-out.org/...
http://www.towleroad.com/...
http://www.lasvegassun.com/...
2. Romney the Vulture Capitalist: Crown Prince of the Right-Wing Elite Who Belittles the Common People
There has been chatter among progressives, liberals and the center-left on the Internet and among leading commentators like Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton, and Chris Matthews about how Romney has lied during his campaign and during the first debate. I don’t disagree that Romney has stated some things in some situations that are false, but the bigger issue is being missed. The bigger issue is that Romney has cynically stated multiple policy positions, some of which are in opposition with each other; with the sole aim of doing whatever and saying whatever needs to be said to get elected. Call it Flip-Flopping, Mittiple Choice, Mittiple Personality Disorder, or whatever you like; but what is clear is that no one knows what the man’s policy positions are on certain issues. This focus on what Mitt Romney has lied about or shifted position on focuses attention away from what has been remained constant about Romney. What has been consistent about Mitt Romney is his devotion to securing a Big Business corporate plutocracy. What has remained consistent is Romney’s devotion to his class of oligarchs in the Vulture Capitalism crowd. He said it himself in a TV news interview, multi-millionaire Mitt Romney does not believe that it is unfair that he pays a lower tax rate than someone making $50,000 a year. Mitt Romney has no problem bashing 47% of Americans who supposedly pay no federal income tax even though that includes retirees and veterans. There is an element to the thinking about people benefiting from entitlements as the undeserved poor that is derived from an undue focus on a small percentage of people who play the system, such as supposed welfare queens having babies to get more welfare or people faking or exaggerating disabilities to get disability assistance. What Mitt Romney and others who bash Obama as the food stamp president fail to realize is that many of the people on the programs are truly are in a temporary crises, are the working poor, or have real disabilities OR they earned their benefits through service or years of hard work. Instead of belittling people, someone running for President should be seeking to uplift them. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney also seems to have no problem with corporate welfare or multi-millionaires paying lower tax rates than their secretaries. Romney has been loyal to and consistent in supporting the powerful over the common people. While it has been referenced what Romney has supported, the hardcore vision of Romney as the vulture capitalist who will outsource average people to benefit his corporate supporters has not been laid out as hard as I think it could be.
http://www.presstv.ir/...
http://whatever.scalzi.com/...
http://www.businessinsider.com/...
http://mittromneyflipflops.com/
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.policymic.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.examiner.com/...
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http://obrag.org/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
https://movetoamend.org/
http://www.politico.com/...
https://www.commondreams.org/...
http://foreconomicjustice.org/...
http://sensico.wordpress.com/...
3. Calling Out the “Party of No” for Attempting to Undercut Recovery Efforts
The Obama campaign needs to call out the recalcitrant Republicans in general, as well as Mitt Romney in particular for their steadfast unwillingness to engage in good faith compromise, while supporting policies that do nothing but engender American plutocracy. The Obama campaign has not come to the tip of the iceberg of describing the massive obstructionism in Congress that has been a roadblock to do get more things done in Washington. Neither the Obama campaign nor supporting political action committees have come down on Republicans for making defeating Obama a higher priority than helping pull America out of a recession. The Republicans have turned away from supporting policies that they have supported in the past like the health insurance mandate, all because they did not want Obama to succeed. Even when Democrats had control of both houses of Congress at the beginning of Obama’s term, Republicans employed unprecedented use of the filibuster to kill democracy in the Senate, as Democrats maintained it for only 72 days between when Arlen Specter defected to the Democrats and Scott Brown won the special election in Massachusetts. There is a way to disagree without being disagreeable and calling out the opposition has attempted to undercut recovery efforts needs to be done in the campaign, but also in the debates. The President acknowledges a poor performance in the first debate, but he has two more opportunities and he needs to take advantage of these opportunities to take Mitt Romney and the Republicans to task for this behavior. In additional, Congressional Democrats and their allies should separately be emphasizing their willingness to engage in recovery efforts. Republicans should take the blame for things not improving faster than they have.
http://economistsview.typepad.com/...
http://swampland.time.com/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://crooksandliars.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.youtube.com/...
http://www.ydr.com/...
http://archive.truthout.org/...
http://www.policymic.com/...
http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/...
http://www.usnews.com/...
4. Call It a Comeback: Brag about the Positive!
On the “It’s the Economy Stupid” front, the Obama campaign needs to do more bragging about how America has is moving in the right direction out of the recession into a period of greater economic growth. Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn’t rescue America from the Great Depression in four years. In 1936, America was still trying to inch its way out of the Depression when Roosevelt won re-election in a landslide. Although the Great Recession was not as bad as the Great Depression, its economic repercussions of the recession were such that it is going to take more than four years to get America booming again. Still, the victories need to be hailed. There has been a growth in private sector employment. The unemployment rate is on a downward pattern. Relations are better with our major international partners. Troops are coming back home. Healthcare reform is expanding Housing starts are up. The American auto industry and many manufacturing jobs were saved by the successful intervention to salvage the industry under the leadership of the Obama administration. The opposition is not going to brag for you, so you have to do it yourself. How would Mitt Romney truthfully answer the question of whether he was more better off now than he was four years ago?, if he based it on his stock portfolio then he would have to say now. Things are not where we want to be, but they are definitely better. As Frank Costanza would say, “America is back, baby!”
http://www.barackobama.com/...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
http://www.politico.com/...
http://thinkprogress.org/...
http://www.care2.com/...
http://www.politico.com/...
http://www.ibtimes.com/...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://www.ibtimes.com/...
http://thanksobamacare.org/
http://www.standard.net/...
http://money.cnn.com/...
http://abcnews.go.com/...
http://www.northwestern.edu/...
http://www.latimes.com/...
5. American Renewal: Less Focus on Foreign Wars and Returning to Rebuild America
I know several initiatives that Obama is trying to usher through, but I like to think that it is all part of a coordinated and comprehensive vision. I think the vision is woefully underemphasized. During his first campaign, Clinton had his “New Covenant” which was envisioned by a new social contract characterized by a “government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement; more choices for young people in public schools and more choices for older people in long-term care. A government that is leaner, not meaner; that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy; that understands that jobs must come from growth in a vibrant and vital system of free enterprise." In 1996, Clinton’s campaign theme was “Building a Bridge to the 21st Century”. For Obama’s campaign, the slogan is “Forward”, but it is unclear – forward to what? In addition, it is unclear what the centerpiece of a 2nd Obama administration would be. From looking at Obama’s policy initiatives, the theme seems to be rebuilding America by diverting money spent on foreign wars to spend back home rebuilding the infrastructure and putting people back to work with innovation in green technology, high speed rail, repair roads and bridges, etc. In addition to making contrasts with Romney by highlighting his many inconsistencies to pull people away from Romney, communication of the positive, overarching vision for where we are being led to into the future is needed to pull people towards Obama. I know it is there, but the average voter may not see it because it is not consistently highlighted.
http://www.barackobama.com/...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
http://www.spiegel.de/...
http://www.laconiadailysun.com/...
http://www.ndsuspectrum.com/...
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
https://my.barackobama.com/...
http://www.louise.house.gov/...
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http://www.whatthefolly.com/...
http://www.nativetimes.com/...
http://www.cnbc.com/...
http://www.rebuildamericasschools.org/
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http://www.barackobama.com/...
http://www.denverpost.com/...