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Posted on 10/04/2012 1:54:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
After that rather embarrassing performance last night, Team Obama is changing tack at warp speed. They've certainly got their work cut out for them, considering what will be the most effective ways to tear down Mitt Romney and put President Obama back on top. They're still using the recent "either Romney must raise taxes on the middle class, or he must increase the deficit, those are the only two possible outcomes"-line, but adding some fun new framing. As BuzzFeed summarizes,
President Barack Obama and his aides rapidly reversed their strategic course Thursday morning, shifting the center of their attacks on Mitt Romney back toward the oldest criticisms of the Republican: That he's a flip-flopper.
CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO
Democrats had long been torn over whether to portray Romney as too conservative, or too inconsistent, for the electorate — realizing that the attacks are inconsistent with one another. And since this spring, they seemed to have settled on the former, casting Romney as a conservative whose policies of cutting taxes and spending, and on abortion and other social issues, are too far right for most voters.
Thursday they returned abruptly to the earlier line. …
Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the campaign’s task over the next several days is to "Make sure every voter understands the positions Mitt Romney danced around last night."
President Obama was already out on the attack at a campaign rally in Denver earlier this morning, arguing that “the very spirited fellow” onstage last night just “couldn’t have been the real Mitt Romney”:
While the real Mitt Romney has been promising $5 trillion in tax cuts and saying the country doesn’t need more teachers, Obama said, “the fellow onstage last night” said the opposite.
“The man onstage last night, he does not want to be held accountable for the real Mitt Romney’s decisions and what he’s been saying for the last year. And that’s because he knows full well that we don’t want what he’s been selling for the last year,” Obama said.
In much the same vein, Obama for America has released their latest ad, wondering, “Why won’t Mitt Romney level with us?”
David Axelrod lamented about that foxy Mitt Romney during a conference call this morning, via Politico:
“What the president hoped to avoid was a situation where you had two politicians standing there insulting each other instead of offering ideas for the future of the country, but you know, you have to strike a balance,” Axelrod said in a conference call with reporters. “You can’t allow someone to stand there and basically manhandle the truth about their own record and ideas and about yours and not deal with that. I’m sure that is a takeaway from this debate.” …
“This was the first chance for the president to see how Gov. Romney operates in these debates first hand,” he said. “You have to make some adjustments to the fact that, you know, he is kind of a serial, …artful dodger. That makes it a more challenging kind of event.”
So, sounds like Team Obama has decided on their post-first debate “adjustments” and that that’s the type of thing we’re going to be hearing a lot over at least the next few days — Mitt Romney is dishonest, we can’t keep up with his changing storylines, he’s a rhetorical trickster, rabble rabble rabble. Following Team Obama’s lead, the liberal blogs are all buzzing about the $5 trillion tax cut moment as one of Romney’s biggest weaknesses from the night, but here’s a simple explanation from the CSMonitor:
It is true that a central facet of Mitt Romney’s economic plan is a 20 percent across-the-board reduction in marginal tax rates, plus elimination of the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Do the math on how much money the federal government would forgo as a result of this, and it’s about $456 billion a year. Over 10 years, that rounds up to $5 trillion. That’s the calculus behind the “$5 trillion tax cut” figure that Obama cites.
However, that’s only part of the tax plan. Romney has said he would make his overall tax changes revenue-neutral. He’d hack out deductions, exemptions, and other exclusions to broaden the tax base, for one thing. For another, he says that lowering marginal rates would increase economic activity, and hence tax revenue. These changes would counterbalance any revenue lost from rate reductions, according to Romney.
Obama supporters are very bitter today.
I think they would feel so much better if they had some guns or religion to cling to.
Obama supporters are very bitter today.
I think they would feel so much better if they had some guns or religion to cling to.
There's not a thing these prix are going to be able to do about it!
Sounds like they want to let out Obama's inner snark. Yeah, that'll work in a town hall format.
The problem with whatever they decide is, it has to be filtered through one man, a man unable to articulate well if not prompted. Also, a man who learned last night that he’s not what his handlers presented to the public, an image he himself believed because it’s all he’s ever heard. What happened last night is going to be a part of Obama’s inner self for some time.
Hah! Excellent!
Does anyone out there on his team really think he will do better at the Foreign Policy dedate after the epic and glaring failures of the last month?
Call it red meat or low hanging fruit, either way it is easy pickings, but I would be surprised if he can withstand the second round barrage that will come his way based upon his performance last night. Another example of his leading from behind strategery.
Mitt Happens IS a liberal Republican.
They can scour his Massachusetts record. Good luck on the Democrats finding anything conservative there.
They’re flailing around and all the usual attack memes don’t work for them.
This is a campaign that seemed to be cruising towards re-election and now the political winds are turning against them.
I don’t envy their position right now.
Restrategizing??!! I imagine is is sounding like this behind closed doors:
“Ooohh ooohhh.. is it too late to get someone else?”
The perfect storm!
Look at how Obama's team did not use the 47%, they were so unsure what Romney would do with it, they had no counterpunch if Romney hit that one out of the ballpark. See liberal one step reactive logic and thinking. Obama knew he was going o get pummeled. The Rachel Madcows and all the other Ivy league geniuses on MSNBC have been bitten by the their stupidiity of their own movement, their followers. They can scream at the camera about nuances in Romney's tax plan, that it really is 5 trillion..but liberals are a dumb bunch who all they know is their guy got KO'd. Easilly dispirited and disheartened. RR and need to run with that SUPRESS THEIR VOTES, DISCORUAGE THEM. If Obama wants to go all wonky, he will lose even worse. Scream at Romeny he will lose. Do nothing he will lose. One thing about the big lie, its a unfaithful mistress
They will do what DemoncRATS always do:
double down on character assassination by just making up a bunch of ridiculous $h1+ about Romney.
It is what they ALWAYS do because they cannot win policy arguments by telling the truth.
EVERY president who's done this has seen just that happen.
--Kennedy
--Reagan
--Dubya Bush
But the democrats still want you to believe that other people's money--YOUR money--is the government's.
From DU:
LittlestStar (73 posts) 37. Mitt looked like an angry, condescending old white man. He made my skin crawl. I mean he really made me feel sick. Every expression of his was of some self-righteous, angry, belittling, piece of shit. I think the reason it worked is that he was like so many of our fathers.
Your typical liberal thinks his/her father is a "self-righteous, angry, belittling, piece of shit".
I feel that there are backdoor negotiations going on right now with Clint Eastwood to use his chair on the 16th.
re: EVERY president who’s done this has seen just that happen.
—Kennedy
—Reagan
—Dubya Bush
_____________________-
Many people don’t know or remember this, but we also had a financial panic in 1920. It was called the great depression of 1920-21.
Instead of “fiscal stimulus,” Harding cut the government’s budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding’s approach was equally laissez-faire.
Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third. The Federal Reserve’s activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, “Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction.” 2 By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and was only 2.4 percent by 1923.
After Harding died and Calvin Coolidge took over, Coolidge cut federal income tax rates further in 1924 and 1926. At the same time he cut spending by Congress and was able to pay off one-fourth of the national debt.
Everyone should remember those good old days.... It was called the ROARING TWENTIES.
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