Firing Obama alone would not come close to curing our economic problems, but it might reassure many that the White House will stop making them worse. Romney certainly believes this. Buried in all the coverage of his lamentable comments about the “47%” was this assurance: “If we win on Nov. 6, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. And we’ll see capital come back and we’ll see, without actually doing anything, we’ll actually get a boost in the economy.”
At this point, psychology might be as important as policy. If even 10% of the money figuratively sitting in mattresses gets invested once Obama is out of office, that would be a much bigger stimulus than Obama’s, and no doubt far better spent. Oh, and it would not only be better spent, it also wouldn’t be borrowed from China.
Romney has to get across the message that Obama inherited a mess, and made it much worse. It’s a powerful one, and it has the additional virtue of being completely true.
I’ll be talking to David Livingston this afternoon at 2 PM PDT about my space safety project, which seems to be turning into a small book, that I hope to publish this month.
[Update mid-afternoon]
I’ll be on in ten minutes or so.
[Bumped]
[Early evening update]
Well, that was in interesting discussion. It went on for a couple hours. The most important thing to me was that David brought up one of the very best case studies for my thesis — the Hubble decision. I’m going to incorporate it into the book (yes, I’ve decided to just call it a book). This is partly just a reminder for me to do so…
[Evening update]
It’s probably worth repeating this video from the space teddy bears. Or dogs. Or whatever.
The president will allegedly be subject to time limits on Wednesday night, but his contempt for most such rules almost guarantees he will blow through every limit and dare the moderator or Mitt Romney to challenge him.
If either does, we will be treated to “tell No. 4,” the president’s feigned outrage that anyone would interrupt or question him. When this happens, his countenance displays a disapproving sneer and his voice clouds with displeasure. It is practiced. It is also profoundly anti-democratic and arrogant, and if he plays this card on this stage, it will backfire.
Watch as well for nonresponsive self-pity, verbal essays on how difficult it was when he took over and how hard he has been working. Self-pity and self-regard are not designed to endear him to the unemployed or even the economically fragile, so he will be coached to try to avoid displaying his sense of outrage at being thought a failure or “in over his head,” but the president’s sense of his own immensity is so great as to blow past such base political calculations.
Finally, watch for the parade of straw men, the president’s favorite rhetorical trick. He will set up arguments that have never been made in the service of Republican goals that have never existed, and then he will denounce both. If the appearance of a straw man serves as a trigger in a drinking game, many bottles will empty by the end of Debate No. 1.
And Romney should call him on them, just as Ryan did the other day. It’s very easy to get under this guy’s skin, and he ought to do it all night.
Not if there are a lot of other people who think like Conor Friedersdorf. I’ve always thought that he’d be likely to pick up as many, or more disillusioned Democrats as Republicans, or even libertarians.
In this economy, I wonder how many people aren’t answering calls from pollsters because they’re afraid that the calls are from creditors? And how that demographic would skew?