"You people", "It's our turn"

The Romneys definitely seem to have "entitlement issues" IMHO! When I initially suggested that this election would boil down to a contest between the 1% (Romney) and 99% (Obama), I was thinking of it being such in a more metaphorical sense but the way the Romney's are acting, it seems to be becoming more literal than I could have possibly imagined.

Is Romney viewed (essentially) as a "generic Republican right now"?

A lot of us have been paying attention to the election and wondering to ourselves, how the hell can this election be this close? I think that most of understand that President Obama is somewhat disadvantaged by the economy but how can people want to elect Romney POTUS in light of his past and the policies he claims to support as POTUS? Is it possible that most people have no clue about who he is and what he stands for and simply view him as just "the Republican opponent" and are supporting him mainly because things are bad (which they are) and are simply grasping for an alternative without even really realizing what Romney stands for? Or, in other words, is Romney the "generic Republican" that seemed to be polling well during the GOP primaries?

Edit to add: This was inspired by this post I found by Daily Kos and suggests the need for better defining of Romney by the Obama campaign (which is what they're now engaged in, of course): http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/19/1111710/-The-Obama-Strategy-Bain-Softens-Up-Romney-For-The-Real-Blow-the-Ryan-Budget

They basically believe the same thing about women, Latinos, African-Americans, etc.

Romney summed it up nicely at the NAACP: "If you only understood me, you'd support me." Oh, and why???? I guess they didn't stop and think that maybe, just MAYBE the reason young people, women, Latinos, African-Americans, etc. don't support Romney/GOP is because they DO understand them and ARE smart enough to understand that supporting/voting GOP is NOT in their best interests (nor that of this country). IMHO Romney/GOP are the dumb ones if they don't realize THAT!



"If you only knew the POWER of the dark side.........."

GOP Senate candidate Heller (R-NV) disavows his own campaign's ads

Which issue is more damaging to Romney:

The refusal of Romney to release his tax forms (which Mitt has all but admitted has some stuff on there that could be spun against him) or the fact that between 1999-2002 it is unclear as to who exactly was in charge at Bain? Romney says he wasn't, that he was "retroactively retired" (a puzzling concept to most people) but then there are supposedly SEC filings that show he was still there and in charge. Personally, I think that the Bain issue is more potent in that it proves either that Romney is lying (which is already par for the course) and possibly even lied to the SEC about where he was and what he was doing from 1999-2002 (and who was actually in charge- where are they?) or that he signed off on some questionable or at least undesirable stuff during that time period. Either way, it looks more damaging than what might be on his tax returns, which could mostly be spun away as "technically legal".

Nearly all of those issues

were brought up in 2008 and they made little or no difference. Trying to use those issues against a sitting President four years later when all of that stuff is even LESS relevant than they were then seems insane. Are indies *really* going to care about stuff they've (probably) already heard about 4 years ago? Seems like kind of a dumb idea to me but then again I'm not part of the "brain trust" running the Romney campaign right now. Romney can probably make the people whom already hate Obama hate him even more I suppose but they still only get one vote per person and they comprise only about +/-30% of the public and people whom already support President Obama aren't going to hear all of this (old) information and switch their votes. Indies will probably be wondering why any of those nasty attacks matter when none of this stuff happened while Obama has been President and we have REAL problems to deal with that the GOP is refusing to allow anybody to deal with so that they can regain more political power.

Iraq was a monumental clusterf**k

and a horrible waste of lives (both American AND Iraqi) and money. Saddam's gone, sure, but no WMDs were ever found. Was it *really* worth it? Really?

Republicans have become rather thin-skinned lately

what with wanting all of these apologies lately. Isn't one of their chief complaints about President Obama is that he supposedly "apologizes" too much?

I agree (re: unemployment)

They're trying to bamboozle women and hispanics with the same concept- that President Obama is somehow totally responsible for the high levels of unemployment that *they* (but, in reality, everybody) are experiencing- as though they even care about unemployment in the first place, of course. Basically, realizing that they aren't going to get many minorities to vote for them and knowing damned well that they aren't doing anything to help with the unemployment situation in this country, the GOP seems to be trying to drive a wedge between President Obama and the aforementioned groups so that they will stay home from the polls on election day in great enough numbers so as to win the election (and/or make it close enough to steal). I think that I heard O'Reilly on the radio earlier this week crowing about how President Obama's numbers with women are down slightly from 2008 (and, I think, lamenting the fact that they're not down more) They are an utterly shameless, shallow, self-serving, and cynical bunch of people, these Republicans are.

Wow

I'm having a hard time believing what I'm seeing. I've long believed that President Obama and his team are smarter and more strategic than some people believe him to be but he and his campaign are playing Romney and the Republicans like a freakin' harp over this Bain business right now! All I can say is that I hope that they not only keep this up during the rest of the campaign but that he makes this a permanent state of being when he wins a second term!