Late Voting

Can we all agree that for either candidate the plans, agenda, platform, "Day One" tasks, etc. are mainly theoretical? I say this because (for significant change at least) these proposals are implemented via legislation. Even if  the Executive branch and both houses of the Legislative branch are in control of the same party, it's not a given that the President's plan is going to emerge exactly as he promised during a campaign.

If we agree on that, and it's my belief that these campaign platforms are just pie-in-the-sky theory in many cases, then I think you vote for the character of the candidate. Obama wins that contest if you agree with the analysis of Dan Barkin.  There are a lot more 'little guys' who need protection - not to live a lazy life on someone else's dime but to simply be able to compete against the more powerful interests arrayed against them. Think mom-n-pop vs. Walmart; those small town retailers didn't want a handout, they just wanted a fair chance. Obama believes in them and that fair shot; Romney thinks they were the weaker company and his Romney/Ryan social darwinism will make the country more prosperous. Perhaps it would for businesses, but not for the 99% who aren't running the Walmarts of the world.

On a personal level, I've been outsourced. My friends were too; many of their jobs went offshore as well. The guys doing it looked and spoke just like Romney. If it hasn't happened to you, good and I hope in never does. But remember, if (or when) it does happen, the guy doing it has the same world view as the (R) candidate in this election.

I have to conclude that there is no shortage of low information voters who nonetheless will talk your leg off and say nothing relevant.

Terrific piece.  Here's my two cents.

I voted for obama in 08, will vote for him again in 12, with huge disappointment.  He seems to think, as you have said, that his smarts are enough, that the points he makes are self evident.  They are not, especially to a center-right populace, as the United States populace is.  There is indeed a certain arrogance about the man, to think that his eloquence in speeches, without anything more, will do the job.  He has needed from the beginning to make his case, point by point, to the American people, and he has utterly failed in many cases to do that.  The first debate is a perfect example. 

But he has accomplished a great deal with a 60-vote Democratic Senate (many of whom were conservative, coming from red states) and even a hostile congress during the last two years.  The Affordable Care Act would, I suspect, be much more popular had Obama gone on TV and done a Ross Perot-like explanation of why those who don't want to pay for other people's health care are already doing so, aand at an exorbitant rate, and that the ACA will help solve this.  Again, a case of Obama not making the case.

As for Mitt Romney, I am sick and tired of people using his business acumen as a qualification for being president.  At Bain, his business was to make money.  This is most emphatically NOT his job as president. The fact that he was successful in buying companies out and in some cases reopening them absolutely does not have anything to do with managing a national economy under assault from the forces of globalization.  when you say that he can get things done, the second thing you must ask is WHAT will he get done.  To what end is this man running for president?  Obama has not done a good job of articulating his vision, but Romney does not even know who he is.  He has changed his position on so many issues that he is a shell of a human being in search of a purpose.  Obama ain't perfect, but I do believe he is a capable person trying to ensure that all Americans share fairly in the prosperity of the nation as a whole.  He is just terrible at articulating that vision.  Please vote for Obama.  If you vote for Romney, who will almost certainly be captive to the radicals of the Tea Party, you (and I) will live to regret it.   

I have always heard a man that doesn't stand for anything will fall for anything. If you haven't noticed what has been going on for the last four years you live in bubble of some alternate universe. The people around the president are more of a concern than he is. Clint nailed it perfectly we got to let him go.

If you can’t bother to vote on election day, you are not serious about your citizenship.  That’s a lay up.  Early voting is a joke unless you happen to be out of town.

I understand the writer’s angst at deciding who to vote for.  This is the third election in a row where the two parties have presented us with junk, and whether  I have to endorse this defective system by voting at all..

I too frequent RCP and am unhappy.  It is balanced with left/right commentary, but very little worth reading because most articles are just partisan nonsense.

I profoundly disagree with the author about the many good things the two candidates have to offer.  I think they are both non-serious people about the country’s problems and issues.  This looks to becoming endemic in our country

What an enjoyable piece. After all these months of debate, much hate-filled discourse, it is refreshing to read one thoughtful position. Consider it all as you have, I would urge you to vote for Mr. Romney. I am struck by his dedication and commitment to whatever work he is presented. Mr. Obama is indeed a thoughtful man, but I just don't think he is cut our for the job. Let's give a new face a chance. Thank you.

First I would agree that President Obama has not made a strong, consistent case for the policies he has instituted over the last 4 yrs and hence, has not given voters a strong faith in what he will do in the next 4 yrs.  President Obama came into office with an economy losing 800,000 jobs a month.  So for Mitt Romney and the country to spout out statistics such as the fact that he came into office with 7.8% unemployment and now its 7.9% and, therefore conclude that his policies have not been effective is just simple minded.  The recession bottomed out with 10.2% unemployment.  The stimulus package DID work as intended but the recession was/is much worse than economist thought at the time.  Without the stimulus (which included tax cuts for 98% of us and funding for local governments to keep teachers, firefighters, police officers etc employed), the bank rescue (which was implemented under Bush), and the auto rescue plan (which despite what Romney is attempting to say now, would have never resulted in the managed bankruptcy if the Gov had not GUARANTEED the loans because there was no company willing to risk the capital to invest in the car companies), the economy would be much worse off.  Barack Obama came into office and did Exactly what he said he was going to do so nobody should be surprised by his policies.  Not one economist thought we should be cutting the deficit in the middle of the recession.  What Republicans won't tell you is that they would have essentially spent the same amount of money and run up the deficit because that is the whole point of keeping the economy afloat.  The economy is so interdependent that without the increased spending, there would have been a complete freeze of capital markets and a complete crash of the stock market (which has almost DOUBLED since Obama took office and is tied to most peoples retirements).  That is EXACTLY what happened during the Great Depression and what we learned was that increase gov spending can help eleviate the effects and keep what would have been a Depression a Recession.  As the economy picks up, the government reduces spending and the deficit.  Everyone agrees that the deficit and interest we have to pay is a drag on the economy but that is the give and take that is the reality of where we are.  Anyone who thinks Obama should have come in and waved a wond, resulting in the economy returning to the 90s is living in a fantasy world.  In our society of instant gratification it is easy to convince people that is the way the world works.  But it is not, and that is why clear eyed realist should vote for Barack Obama on November 6th.

You will agree with this endorsement. I guarantee it! - Please Google: Ake's Pains My Big Presidential Endorsement 

Thank you for a refreshing post.  Where are all the other nuanced thinkers out there?  Whenever I read a clearly partisan post, I try to follow it up with a partisan post from the other side, and then make my own conclusions.  We centrist non-ideologues are a rare and yet growing faction.

In this case, I'm going with Romney.  I see all your points.  While I do believe he is a very principled person (as in character), I believe that he is ultimately a pragmatist.  The GETTING THINGS DONE part of who he is requires it.  This is why he changes direction.  (I personally believe that he is much more of a centrist naturally -- yea -- than he showed in the primaries and I think it is a consequence of the strangle-hold that the right wing has on the Republican Party that had him shift right to get the nomination.  This is the pragmatist in him.  I had thought when McCain won the nomination in 2008 that he too could break that choke hold, but he chose to pander as well.)  I do not believe it is sourced in manipulation but in pragmatism.  Ideologues don't get much done in the real world, or if they do, they must spend a lot of psychic capital to do it.  (case in point, Obama).

Your post, however, makes it sounds like Romney will be THE doer, rather than the man who leads doers.  Perhaps you didn't mean for it to sound like that.  There is no way that he could have done what he has done...turned so much around...and not been a strong leader of people.  He has certainly not won the hearts and minds of companies, olympics and government on his charisma.  He has had to do it by pulling out the best in those around him, by creating environments of excellence. 

In my career I work with senior leaders of companies to help them break through what is stopping their businesses from thriving (so there's a disclosure:  I'm  pro-business).  ALWAYS what is in the way is not the product, the employees, the competition or the economy, it is the leader.  When the leader shifts, so does all of that around him/her.  So if Romney is getting all of that done, it is through true leadership, which has been lacking more in the oval office than any other quality. 

Like you, I don't hate Obama.  I find him just as charming and likeable as the rest of America.  It is true that I have been turned off by his arrogant, mocking style of campaigning, but I could overlook that.  But you cannot be a thinking person and not believe that the man is simply over his head.  Your assessment of his work ethic, urgency, blame, etc, are all apparent in his results.  He did inherit a mess.  But even the recovery of the Great Depression went faster than the recovery he has led (or tried to).  In the first four years after the Depression hit, Unemployment went from 25% to 16%.  It then double dipped (we had a double depression), and went back up to 19% two years later, but still within four years of the double dip, we were back down to 4.2% unemployment.  There are many, many more safeguards in our modern economy than there were in the 1930's.  So Obama's results do not stand the scrutiny of history.

I was not a big Romney fan at first.  I still don't think he is a brilliant politician.  But as I have examined him, his history, and what I can know of him as a man, I have become dazzled, and I am a believer.  I cannot say that about any president I have ever voted for. I don't necessarily believe he would be a great President for every time, but I really believe he is the perfect President for THIS time.

What I am voting for is leadership...the real kind.

The President Obama you describe would never have gotten bin Laden, would have never engineered the auto-bailout that saved Detroit, or have gotten the big stimulus bill.  He would have never told NJ Gov. Christie to "call me directly" if there's something you need that you can't get."

This president has accomplished a lot. In order to pull off a Lyndon Johnson or a Ronald Reagan, Obama needed honest partners in Congress, not rabid idealogues who were hellbent on destroying his presidency no matter the costs.

Obama had one of the best congressional wranglers in the business in Rahm Emmanuel, his chief of staff. The president negotiated directly, and repeatedly, with Republican leaders in Congress during the debt ceiling crisis.

So while I'll certainly agree that Obama's pragmatism and absence of partisan ideology makes him a bit different, to interpret him as someone who is basically lazy in the workings of government is, respectfully,  a bit unfair.