


The long fight

This week it is Mitt Romney’s taxes; next week, the focus may return to the dismal economy

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Lexington's description appears true when looking at the national poll numbers and close polls in VA, FL and OH, but remember the Electoral College is what counts.

Obama has 221 in the bank and there are just so many ways to get those extra 50 that look promising. Mitt Romney's road to victory looks very difficult without winning OH,FL,NC and VA and it is unlikely that Obama will not win at least one of those four.

The race is far from in the bag for Pres Obama, but perhaps Mitt Romney is not like John Kerry but rather Al Gore.


I'm so interested in policy of america
actually i'm foreign exchange student from South Korea
In my opinion, even though Mr.Obama has some problems in his economic policy but he is gonna be the next president of America.
I like the strong alliance between South Korea and Japan he made.
It will make asia stable.


Was Romney intentionally drawn as more muscular, and with a noticeable reach advantage? That's what I'm seeing.
It's like we're seeing the visual depiction of cross-class warfare.... weight class of course.


As dissapointed as i am with President Obama's reliance on Wall street funding an his complete submissiveness to AIPAC, it think he is still by fare the better candidate.
Romeny is a completely puppet of he zio-fascists at AIPA, and he will start unending wars as soon as the order him and with money we don't have.


Mitt has achieved his goal- his intentional distortions of the facts have forced Obama to engage in the same tactics which made Obama look very unpresidential.


"minutiae of his personal finances and past employment"?
For once I think the media as a collective whole has been doing a good job of trying to dissect a presidential aspirant's character.
It was mostly all ga-ga for Obama, and McCain for that matter.
Character and beliefs and ethical standings of a President is important to the country.
Not everything is numbers, Lexington.


What does "a summer’s afternoon on the banks of the Potomac" mean?


In the end, Romney will win. I do not state this because of any particular political position. Rather, traditionally, incumbent presidents do not win with less than 45% approval and the candidate that brings in the most money typically wins. Obama is currently at 36% (he has floated around 45% on average) and he is losing the fund-raising war (which is a major reversal from 2008). Turning that around is not easy, because the electorate knows Obama (they had 4 years to decide). The question for the electorate is not whether they want Obama, rather it is whether or not Romney is a suitable alternative. Obama's numbers are staying steady or slightly dropping. If the numbers stay the way they are, a last minute surge in ad spending by Romney will put him over the top. Avoid doing something stupid (like releasing his tax records) and he will probably win by default. Not a sexy way to win... and I predict a lot of 4 year presidencies for at least an unsettled generation to come. Obama will be the first in a revolving door line.

Faedrus in reply to HamiltonRX

I politely disagree. Obama's likeability numbers are set, but Romney's are not.

So, each new attack ad on Romney regarding Bain outsourcing and the taxes he won't release, etc., build a negative view of Romney as one not fit to be president.

111 days left before the election, and each day ticks away...

Rob Roberts in reply to HamiltonRX

Which approval poll are you using? RCP has had Obama above 45% (barely) for more than a year. And the electoral map with a few key states will determine the outcome.

At this stage, it's impossible to call until after the conventions and maybe the debates.

What has been fascinating is how steady the polls have been. Obama has been up about 2%(or larger on RCP) on Romney since the beginning of the year. It appears the voters have dug their trenches.

rebels8 in reply to HamiltonRX

Romney releasing his tax returns may be stupid, but unfortunately for him so is not releasing his tax returns. If there is nothing in the older returns that is worse than what is in his 2010 and 2011 returns, then it would be political suicide for him not to release the older returns. This would only show Romney to be arrogant and with a sense of entitlement. And his tax returns will continue to be a political liability until the election, which wouldn't bode well for Romney's chances for the few swing voters that there will be. But if there's something worse in any of Romney's tax returns that are less than 20 years old or so (when he started having serious political aspirations), then that's his fault for doing something with his finances or taxes that would come back to haunt him. So if there is something damning in those older returns, then either way, Romney would be a loser.

Rob Roberts in reply to rebels8

If his tax returns showed a shallow, cynical trend of off-shoring his money to avoid U.S. taxes..
Yes, that's a deal breaker for my vote. Don't care how rich you are. Don't care if the 'global' economy makes it easy to do so. Play by the rules of where you're from.

Connect The Dots

The Presidential Race is unreasonably long.

I noticed that Mittens took a week off for family holiday on the 4th of July.
And he will be gone overseas for 2 weeks to go to Israel, Paris, and the London Olympics at the end of July.

He is either pacing himself well and enjoying his summer vacations or is conducting a half-hearted campaign.

2 weeks is a long time to leave a contentious national race. And be out of the public limelight and headlines. And it will take time to shift back up to campaign mode.

And his opponent, President Obama, is a master campaigner who fills stadiums with rousing speeches. And Obama is turning up the intensity to fill the void criss-crossing the country and attacking Romney in critical swing states.

By contrast Mittens is behind in the polls. And he trails Obama now as he did exactly 4 years ago--little has changed. He is a weak candidate. He has a shrill voice. And lacks charisma.

And Mittens doesn't know how to conduct an intense, all-out, come-from-behind campaign.
He can take a vacation to Israel and Monaco AFTER he loses the election.

Importantly, now we know Mittens also lacks a sense of timing. Yes he can't even tell a joke well.

Faedrus in reply to Connect The Dots

Agree. I think Romney may sense that the campaign is effectively over.

And, I think that Murdoch and the WSJ are concerned that Romney may in fact feel this way.

Romney has been at this for six years, and is in his early sixties.

Maybe he'd just rather be hanging out with his family at his estates in New Hampshire, Utah, and La Jolla, CA.

fortibus85 in reply to Faedrus

You two are working hard to conjure up a desired state. Disparaging name label, "half-hearted", "doesn't know how", "campaign is effectively over", "is in his early sixties".
A little nervous are we, when all you have are hopes and speculations rather than anything of substance in your posts?
But as CTD said in his last sentence, oh so effectively, "Yes he can't even tell a joke well."


What are you guys complaining about? This is what modern democracy is about.

People are different, like the rich vs ordinary people. A politician selected by the rich won't necessarily works for you.

You are confused here because the asinine media completely dismissed the difference among people. Therefore, taking power away from government is equivalent to power to you, while actually most of the power goes to the rich.

Let me show you with an example:

Say there are 4 groups of people, A, B, C and D. A is the group of the rich.

Though the last 3 groups are the 99% of the people, any elected politician will work for group A, because that is the best for themselves.
Now a politician elected by group B only represent group B, he doesn't work for C and . The same for the politicians elected by goup C and D. So the result is that people in grups B, C and D fight against each other, ... for the money left by group A.

Any question?

law-and-order in reply to ztoa789

No question, But I am not crazy about your theory- especially your designation of the rich as group "A".
Most rich people I know are hard working but stingy- not exactly my favorite human characteristic.

ztoa789 in reply to law-and-order

You do know that capital hill is very very slow on any budget bills, right ?
But it took less than a week to pass a 700 billion dollars bill to save the bank.
If this is not good enough to convince you, please name a politician who got into trouble after 2007 because of housing bubble. There were hundreds of them, if not thousands, pushed 110% for the bubble. Why did the media never go after these politicians? media must love them so much, ... or they can't, what do you think?

ztoa789 in reply to law-and-order

Suppose you and other 9 people, plus one rich to share a pie.

You are given two choices :

one the rich takes away 80% of the pie, you and other 9 have the right to determine how to share the remaining 20% of the pie.

the second choice is you and other 9 don't have the right to determine how to share the pie, but you all will get 80% of the pie.

Which one do you pick?

law-and-order in reply to ztoa789

I pick democracy every time and I don't agree with your premises. The systems you depicted are static, not dynamic.

All democratic systems are evolving constantly. The top 1% did not possess such a high percentage of wealth in the 1940s and the 1950s.

ztoa789 in reply to law-and-order

Free media talks about topics that are the most profitable to them.


So there is difference between free media and free speech.

Free speech is meaningless when your voice will not be heard by public.

ztoa789 in reply to law-and-order

Power to the people, in reality :

Power to the rich.
Power to the media and journalists.
Power to the parasites and lazy bones.
Power to the criminals

and finally, power to the hard working people.

law-and-order in reply to ztoa789

You are not completely off base. However, I am much more optimistic. I lived under a despot for 10 years of my life and I can tell you unequivocally that I would take democracy over every other forms of government every time.

ztoa789 in reply to law-and-order



Again, this is not what I have been talking about.

Every system has its positive and negative sides.

People have the right to know both sides. media and journalists don't have the right to mislead people.

Misleading people is not part of human right, unless they talk to mirrors.

Quiet_Fox in reply to ztoa789

Because there is no "free" media which is capable of reaching any statistically significant portion of the population. Those segments of the media capable of reaching significant portions of the population are bought and paid for, and not by the public.

And the significant portion of the population viewing/listening to the mainstream media isn't interested in truth, they only want to be spoon fed comforting pablum.


Isn't Romney's real problem that he has never really articulated why anyone should vote for him besides that he wants to be president? I mean, people love or hate Obama because he has policies that he's implemented -- or trying to implement -- that they support or oppose. Does anyone actually have an idea what Romney would do as president? Would he do anything? For those in favor of small government, maybe a do-nothing president is what you actually want, but it's easy to see how this doesn't really inspire the electorate.

john4law in reply to jeeometric

Not a bad platform. Nothing new!! I will also tone down the hyperactive stuff my predecessor did. When you believe government is NOT the driving force of economic well being, such an outlook is quite consistent! Good government is usually BORING government! Not doing things which waste money or create uncertainly in the business community or reluctance to invest or hire is more important than laying on a new batch of goodies for your ravenous base.

Chairman Rao in reply to jeeometric

jld314, you could at least attempt to appear unbiased.

I'm having a deja vu moment here reminding me of Obama 2008 for the exact same reason that "he wanted to be president". At the time, he had less experience in both the political arena as well as the private sector compared to Romney. Yet I'm quite certain you voted for him then. So why the sudden concern about Romney solely based on this thin resume?

vectro in reply to jeeometric

Things Romney would change vs the status quo, per his campaign web site:

- More visas / naturalizations for the highly skilled, family of immigrants, and military personnel.
- More visas for temoporary migrant labor
- Border fence; exit verification
- Mandatory employment eligibility
- Very different NLRB appointments
- Replace medicare with vouchers (for the young only)
- Repeal AHA, Dodd-Frank, Sarbanes-Oxley
- Cut spending by $500 billion per year (except defense)
- Raise and maintain defense spending at a minimum of 4% of GDP
- Eliminate Amtrak, NEA, NEH, CPB
- Eliminate AMT, cut capital gains and income tax rates
- Exclude carbond dioxide from clean air act
- Issue new permits for nuclear power
- Build Keystone XL
- Cut funding for "alternative energy"

Michael Dunne in reply to rebels8

I think that would be the case - use the threat to change to influence opinions.

Actually Obama and the Democrats got similarly burned with Medicare back in 2010, in the health care debate, when talk of "cutting waste" in Medicare got spinned to mean changing/cutting Medicare.

Wouldn't be hard to say the young may be first, but you are next. Or keep saying Medicare is getting cut, and leave them to figure out the details.

Also, what is defined as young? What is defined as elderly? Those in their fifties are probably quite concerned about the viability of Medicare for them.

As for forties, that is probably a longer tail to pull in terms of riling them up - some may appreciate it more if they had relatives pass away. Anything younger, this issue probably doesn't resonate as much.

Lunatic Fringe in reply to jeeometric

It seems to me that Romney's only real chance is to highlight the poor state of the economy and hope that is enough. If he takes the approach of trying to convince voters that he should be elected based on his past experience, he has a problem:

- Governor of Massachusetts: can't bring that up because it highlights the similarities between his medical plan and Obamacare

- Founder/CEO of Bain Capital: in light of the financial crisis, many voters don't trust people from the financial sector and there is also the jobs offshoring issue

- Salt Lake City Olympics: who cares?


If winning an election is a race and your campaign team is a sports car. Then Romney has a beat up mustang while Obama has a Mclaren F1. Part of this is discrepancy is because Romney is a bit ignorant to not "bring in the pros" and the other part is because Obama is using the power of the presidency (along with our tax money) to put up the most expensive campaign of all time.

In the end the Mclaren F1 wins.

Rob Roberts in reply to TruthSeeker11

Have always been fascinated by this criticism. A sitting President spending money, 'taxpayer money', when running for a second term.

If you make the accusation, shouldn't you provide evidence Obama's campaigning is somehow excessive compared to past Presidents vying for a second term?


Why doesn't Lexington just put up a banner saying Vote for the Party of NO? Awesome job Sir in white washing the star performance the Republicans have always given (that have successively landed us in one mess after another... year after year after year)?

In the "severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress", we have Lexington flying high the banner of ignorance (read Party of NO)... where's the voice that speaks for rationality?

incrementalist in reply to AAQQ

I think that is a little unfair, AAQQ. Lexington definitely loves 'em some Romney, but that is bc Romney is like a European conservative and they presume he will be more sane than his fellow Republicans who make up the Party of NO.

Whether that will be true or not is another matter


These two (old boys network and affirmative action quota system) presidential candidates are a symptom of the political mediocrity that plagues America.

Abiezer Coppe

I'm normally very interested in politics, but thanks to the completely ineffectual government we currently have, and the complete lack of real solutions being offered by either party,

Why don't we talk about the best way to get jobs back into this country, especially at a time when companies are discovering the limits of outsourcing and China is forcibly increasing its workers wages?

Cool Beans

Voters may also not forget Republicans being co-opted by the Tea-Party and engaging in egregious levels of obstructionism on virtually everything. Voters may also not forget the ludicrous discourse that took place during the Republican primaries as well, where Romney, from his fairly centrist past flipflopped to the right much like McCain in 2008 (although, the latter muddled into it). But now we are also placing hope on the ability of the American electorate to remember things and putting it all into context but, general capacity for human stupidity often outweighs our dispositions towards rational thinking/reasonableness

fortibus85 in reply to Cool Beans

By "egregious levels of obstructionism" you must mean a desire to begin to whittle down the largest deficits in history, borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar our government spends. Yes, egregious. Good use of the word. Excellent analysis.

flwehr in reply to fortibus85

Fair enough. But we never seem to hear a coherent explanation for why - when Obama's predecessor was turning a balanced budget into a multi-trillion dollar deficit through unfunded wars, tax cuts etc. - the same folks who are now manning the barricades were silent.

fortibus85 in reply to flwehr

"But we never seem to hear a coherent explanation for why ... the same folks who are now manning the barricades were silent."

They/we weren't silent. They/we were asleep. There is a huge difference.


Who posting here does not take every single tax deduction that the law allows? Democrat John Kerry (far richer than Romney) invests in municipal bonds to avoid federal taxes. Democrat Michael Moore buys US Treasures to avoid California state income tax. Nobody pays more tax than they owe...nobody!! But hey, 98% of "The Economist" posters are left wing liberal progressive democrat nut jobs...so if this topic is of interest to you girly girls...hey by all means...keep talking about it.

One expects everybody to take advantage of whatever the tax code allows. The difference between Romney and me is that he can afford to have expert tax lawyers make sure that he actually ends up taking advantage of every available loophole. After paying his accountants he is left with a nifty amount that ended up in a foreign bank account instead of in the coffers of the US government. The scandal is that this is perfectly legal and we can expect Romney to keep it that way. Now, will somebody explain why parking a fortune in foreign banks creates jobs in the US? Is it not the conservative mantra that taxes should not be raised on the job "creators"? Obama is accused of being against personal initiative (a ridiculous accusation to make against someone who can be used as an example of why the US is the land of opportunity) while Romney is all for it. He certainly shows great initiative in making sure the money stays out of the reach of Federal government.
Creating jobs? Not so much.

lc224 in reply to tryworkingforaliving

Romney has been running for president for more than two years. If he was busy putting his money in the Cayman Island and Swiss banks while polishing his presidential ambitions that was very obtuse of him. In fact it was kind of dumb. The hoi-polloi, even upper-middle-class hoi-polloi, do not think that kind of tax evasion is moral, even if they are guilty of lesser forms of tax evasion themselves. It doesn't seem "patriotic".

serban, You stated: "Obama is accused of being against personal initiative (a ridiculous accusation to make against someone who can be used as an example of why the US is the land of opportunity)"

Dude...are you really that stupid?? Obama was nothing more than a community organizer. That America would elect a community organizer as president does not prove that America is the land of opportunity...it only proves that over 50% of the voters in this country are stupid.

If you are going to accuse someone of stupidity why don't you run for president? You just need to be a community organizer in Chicago, get yourself elected to the Senate and then defeat people who have been in politics for decades. Piece of cake. The American people will vote for you sight unseen.

Who here hasn't done something of ill intent? Who here hasn't fornicated or considered it? You seem to forget that the standards for the highest office in the land are meant to exclude the majority from consideration for obvious reasons. If your argument is "if everyone else does it, it shouldn't be a topic of discussion," I think you're misguided.

rebels8 in reply to lc224

Romney has actually been running for president for at least seven years. It was in 2005 that he started taking more conservative positions on certain issues like abortion. And he's had serious political ambitions for almost 20 years going back to his Senate run. I think that this shows Romney to be arrogant and with a sense of entitlement.

This struck me when the attacks first started.Here's the problem:
It strikes people as unfair that the rich pay less because they have accountants and lawyers. It gets particularly offensive when the rich guy who has a team to look for loop holes advocates against closing them.

Romney better deal with this. Fairness is a very emotional issue. And tough to counter with just an appeal to common reasoning.

That Class War crap could backfire badly. There's more broke folks than rich folks and many were made broke because of the rich folks. You can bet they want class warfare! Romney's only hope is to talk about the future. He isn't really doing that.


My guess is that Romney was part of the 2009 tax amnesty for evasion and desperately does not want that coming to light.

fortibus85 in reply to HappyHubris

Interesting. Based on speculation and innuenedo, you want records released?

What is your stance on Fast and Furious, where President Obama has cited Executive Privilege to refuse to release records related to the U.S. Government allowing and in some cases assisting straw purchasers in funneling over 2,000 guns to Mexico. These guns have been linked by the Mexican government to over 300 deaths of Mexican citizens.

Do you support release of those documents?

What speculation do you offer as to President Obama's refusal to release the records?

rebels8 in reply to HappyHubris

In 2009, there was also an IRS amnesty for people who were hiding Swiss bank accounts. Now Romney did report his Swiss bank account on his Federal Election Commission financial disclosure form in 2007. But it could just have been a case of one hand not knowing what the other was doing. Or Romney may not have been reporting everything about his Swiss bank account that the IRS required.

rebels8 in reply to HappyHubris

There's also been a theory floating through through the blogosphere that Romney may not have paid any federal income taxes in 2009, which was the year after the financial meltdown, if he lost too much money on his investments. That would definitely be political suicide.


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