There are many reasons it is an uphill battle for Romney to be elected this cycle. The first is his practiced effort to keep his plans on almost any issue you want to mention under wraps. Aside from trying to help kill Obamacare I'm hard pressed to name even one concrete action he has said he would take as president. Then, there is the "noise" being generated by this election. I'm talking about the many statements and messages made which are meant to be misleading (but end up being confusing) and suggest to the voter that there is a reason to vote for one candidate or the other. The more such noise that is produced the more likely people are to vote for Obama. The more unsure or confused the voters are, the more likely they are to simply vote for the known entity over the unknown. Romney cannot win talking about Medicare, nor about abortion, nor about Social Security: people have fairly firmly fixed notions about what the Republicans tend to favor in regard to these subjects- do away with them. So long as Republicans continue to talk about those issues which are the bread and butter of the Democratic Party, whatever they might offer that would make them an attractive alternative will not be clear to the voters. I suppose the Romney team has a plan of action, if elected, but they haven't articulated it to any degree at all, it seems to me. Romney seems convinced that he can win as the "not Obama" candidate: I'm not.
I found the campaigning on this issue by Romney and Ryan to be confusing, rather than reassuring or appealing, and it's dangerous, given the popularity of the program and the identification of the Democrats with the program. To vote for someone for president requires establishing a degree of trust in the mind of the voters and an unclear message doesn't do it: the dance so far of the Romney-Ryan ticket has had them involved in complex attempts to say what they were for and what they opposed, while trying to explain that they were not so far apart on the issues that came up this week as it appeared. It hasn't been reassuring.
V, I'm not sure how often you get back here to the States, but I can tell you that there isn't a lot of support for Obama and the reason is the exact reason you state that people will vote for Obama. Obama will have a tough time getting re-elected because he IS a known quantity. He has failed in almost everything he has tried. He states that he is in favor of the middle class and then nailed us with his Obamacare, the cost of which will be borne by the middle class. The only people I know who are in favor of Obama are those on the government dole or union members like teachers and even many of them are defecting from his camp. The man hasn't done well and his record shows it. It is time for a change. I would love to know where you got the idea that Romney wants to end Social Security and Medicare. That is not at all true. Both programs need to be reformed and that need is desperate. V, in many of our past discussions you cite a concern for those who can not take care of themselves and I certainly concur with that sentiment. What I want to know is what will the poor do when the money runs out? It is going to run out and something has to be done NOW to correct the situation and Obama is not about to correct the situation.
Presidential Swing States (FL, OH & PA) Poll * August 23, 2012 * Ryan Micro-Bump In Florida, Wi - Quinnipiac University – Hamden, Connecticut
Romney speaks In a speach yesterday in which he said he was going to help small businesses, Romney was quoted as saying, Do you suppose one of the ways he'll suggest helping small businesses is to change the laws so as to facilitate them taking advantage of offshore taxhavens, too?
V, if I'm going to use your logic we should re-hire the Captain of the Titanic because anyone else we hire may be worse. V, just one simple question for you. What do we do when the money runs out? With all the giveaways, what will we do?
V, let's see, 75% of all taxes are paid by 5% of the population. Almost half of the US pays no taxes and almost half of those get back more than is withheld from them. So tell me V, should we just destroy all incentive in the US so we can give it all away? You want to talk about the Republican Party, well take a look at the record of the Democratic Party. The ten poorest cities in the US all have a common thread. They haven't had a Republican Mayor in over 50 years. California is collapsing under it's giveaway programs. I will go into debt to the tune of six figures to pay for my girls' college but the child of an illegal immigrant can go for free. V, go back to Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty." Fifty years of programs that have cost billions of dollars and the result is more people are in poverty than before the programs went into place. Let's follow your logic. We have programs that have failed so let's add to those programs. What am I missing here?
I should know better than to jump into a tax debate with an accountant from the US, since I am neither But a quick look at wikipedia: Income tax in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The top 5% earn on average $611,000 and pay an effective rate of 21%. So that still leaves them almost half a million dollars a year net to play with. I bet that top 5% would really feel the pinch if they paid another 5 or 10% tax.
