Mitt Romney's campaign is so dead, the Mormons have baptized it.

Reason No. 546: Obama spent ALL his mandate pushing congress to push through obamacare BEFORE addressing the house market. If those insurance reforms were urgent, why 3 years to implement? (And why not focus on controllng health care costs BEFORE expanding coverage?). Clueless.

Reason No. 547: Obama's focus on housing was to spend resources on folks who could never afford their homes to try to help them keep their homes they couldn't ever afford. Namely, the folks the Democrats say were "tricked" into mortgages they couldn't afford (e.g. no income loans etc.) were helped INSTEAD of helping folks who could afford but needed to re-finance but couldn't since LTV too high since value dropped. These people want to stay in homes, can pay, never took out more then can chew, but should have gotten relief first since played by the rules.

Reason No. 548: Not letting the market bottom and rebound. Slowing down foreclosures, etc. has just prolonged the pain and increased uncertainty. The President doesn't have ANY IDEA of how markets work. ZIP. Nice guy, great at basketball, fantastic speaker and very smart in a lot a ways, but appears utterly clueless about markets. The Nutty Professor.

Reason No. 549 - Jobs. Should have been the No. 1 focus. How to get businesses to want to hire more? He created way too much uncertainty with Obamacare, regulations, lack of any fiscal plan, etc. What is killing this economy is the massive amount of uncertainty. He doesn't get it.

Right on Keith best!!!!

Why are we so quick to jump and say that President Obama is in fault of the unemployment and underemployment as well? This is a two part statement on some of the issues that people are always talking about when it comes to President Obamas' job as the President of these United States of America. First, call one of your credit card companies and ask them where are they located? (Take Capital One for example, I don't know about anyone else but I have a very hard time understanding anyone that takes my call. Also, remember we had a Capital One Office here that was suppose to have went to Richmond, VA. Oh, but guess what they did for a very short time and now they are in India and Asia. So think about where your job could go if the company you work for wanted to keep more money their pockets.) This issue we had before Obama came into office. Where was everyones' negative remarks concerning unemployment then? Second, did you all know that employers are doing credit checks when you go to apply for a job with them; before they even give you an interview. Tell me what does your credit have to do with your ability to do the job, and do it well? To Keith Bests' remarks: Don't hate the man because he has the FAVOR of the LORD. Remember the LORD would not have let him rule over these United States of America if he was not ruling over his household well. HE said HE would make you ruler over many... End of quote.

Agree

To Cynthia's question about what does credit rating have to do with your ability to do a job well? (If you have had a major life event (house way under water, serious illness in family, etc.which has affected your credit rating, some of the following may not be true.) However, for the person who has screwed up their credit rating by overuse of credit cards, here are the reasons.
1. Concern about theft if you don't have the money to pay your bills.
2. Responsibility (don't borrow more than you can afford)
3. Dependability (pay bills on time -if you don't pay bills on time, will work get done on time?)
4. You might need a security clearance. (see answer #1)
5. Honesty--If you buy something you cannot pay for, that is theft.

Actually, Keith, unemployment in Jan 2009 when Obama took office was 7.6% and we were losing almost 600,000 jobs a month, 23% of all manufacturing jobs had been lost by Jan 2008. Now it's 7.8% (and methodology has not changed) and we've had steady job gains in the last 3.5 years.

Of course median family income is down - it's the Great Recession! LOL. What did you expect? With such a deep and global economic recession, what did you expect? Compared to the financial collapses of Japan and Sweden - which were not compounded by a global financial crises, the US is actually performing BETTER than expectations.

Mitt Romney ran the Olympics only after begging a financial bail out from the government. His own company Bain had to be bailed out. He left MA as governor with approval ratings in the 30's.

Keith, the facts are plainly stated above. Your mind will remain unchanged as you are simply blinded by your own ignorance. You choose to ignore the facts and seek only that which confirms your own bias.

Actually, the unemployment rate in Jan 2009 was 7.6% with a loss of 600k jobs a month. Today it's 7.8% with a gain of 114k a month, or 31 straight months of job gains.

The BLS data is - and has been during the previous admin - conducted by surveying 600,000 HH a month with a MOE (margin of error) of 0.2%. That means in 2009 the unemployment rate ranged from 7.6% to 8.0%.

Seems to me that after the worst recession since 1929, things have gotten better.

1. American manufacturing has lost 23% of all jobs in the US by Jan of 2008 - now we've got a stronger manufacturing base with gains (see ADP unemployment report)
2. Because this has been the worst recession since 1929, it would figure that HH income would drop! That's just a silly observation. The only response is duh.
3. Stock market under the last admin bottomed out at 6500 - we've doubled that since 2009.
4. Mitt, the 5th straight republican gov of MA, left office with approval ratings in the 30's - no, we were NOT happy with Mitt's running of MA. He DID raise taxes as well as state fees and fines on everything from driver's licenses to to parking fees. Tho', technically not taxes, sure has heck feels like it when the avg HH was paying an additional $150+ in fees to the state government every year.

See, Mitt knows you can't close the budget gap with tax decreases. He says and does what he has to do to get elected. Learned I couldn't trust him then and he hasn't changed a dang bit since. Lesson learned.

And Democrats are controlled by ideologue extremists who make decisions to do a the right thing, with little if any concern about the negative consequences, usually to future generations. Four more Obama/Dem Party years is unthinkable except I expect to those that want more Washington bureaucrats giving handouts, making everyday rules for personal behaviour and making the United States just another ho-hum country on this earth, no better no worse.

What "policies" or "deregulations" occurred under Bush that caused the "great recession"? Glass Steagal was repealed under Clinton. Greenspan pushed big investors into MSBs under Clinton. Fannie/Freddie were on steroids in 90s. Do you remember Al Gore's focus before global warming? It was cutting red tape. Telling gov't agencies the private sector was "customer".

I had a lot of problem with Bush. But Bush inherited the dot.com bubble, Worldcom, Enron, Tyco, etc. Remember everyone calling Bush "Hoover" since weak job growth (6%) after massive dot com layoffs.

Bush did push a tax policy that caused deficits to increase. I don't understand why people think he caused the Great Recession which occurred when a 30 year credit bubble burst.

There is plenty of blame for both parties and all of us for the credit binge.

GetReal, it was leftist policies that caused the recession, not classical republican fiscal conservatism. Admittedly, Bush engaged in some of those leftist policies--"everyone deserves to own a house," etc. The war actually represents only a few splashes in the bucket in terms of the overall deficits and debt. The runaway entitlements and stagnant business growth situation are the cause of most of it.

Splinter, it was spending under Bush that caused deficits to increase, not tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts actually resulted in record amounts of revenue tumbling in (the Laffer curve), not to mention full employment for most of Bush's two terms--something the leftist media and pundits and sheeple never acknowledge.

@Jean - considering this was the worst global recession since 2009 and our unemployment rate is now 7.8% 31 months of straight job gains compared to 7.6% when Obama took office and 600k job losses a month - Obama's record is pretty dang good!

Mitt Romney claims his business experience will grow our economy, the same claim he made when he ran for governor of Massachusetts. But Romney Economics actually resulted in slower job creation, more debt and bigger government.

Under Romney, Massachusetts plummeted to 47th out of 50 in job creation and manufacturing jobs fell at twice the national average, the third-worst record in the country. As jobs disappeared, hundreds of thousands of people left the state. Romney also raised taxes and fees on Massachusetts residents more than 1000 times. When he left office, the tax burden had gone up by $1,200 per person.

Romney Economics isn't about long-term economic growth – it's about two sets of rules, one for those at the top and another for everyone else. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.

robert e is incorrect. if you add d.c. mass.started at 51 whem Romney became gov then went up to number 31 in job creation by the end of his term. you just been punked robert e

Massachusetts was behind in job creation because they already had a great employment rate to begin with for the period in question. Remember, we are talking about relative job creation compared among states, so a state that had a horrible employment situation that marginally improved it during that same period would show a much better job creation stat than a state with an already rosy employment number whose job creation rate could hardly be improved upon much.

Romney’s MA austerity budget for fiscal year 2004, included substantial cuts in state funding for cities and towns. The final budget passed by the legislature (after overriding Romney’s attempt to make still further cuts using line-item vetoes), cut funding for local aid to many communities by as much as 20%. Communities across the state were forced to cut services and hike fees, while laying off teachers, police officers, and other municipal workers.

To compensate for lost revenue from the state government, communities raised local property tax rates, driving up the avg residential property tax bill by 22%. In response to complaints about the high residential property taxes, Romney signed into law legislation allowing communities to shift some of the burden of rising property taxes from residential property owners onto business owners. He also approved changes in state tax law permitting raise local sales taxes and fees.

Additional to proposing reductions in payments to hospitals and nursing homes for care of Medicaid patients, and restrictions on Medicaid patients' access to prescription drugs and eligibility for nursing homes admission, Romney proposed that the low-income Medicaid patients be charged monthly fees for participation in the program, along with co-payments for visits to doctors' offices.The budget also cut funding for higher education forcing colleges to raise mandatory fees 63%.

No wonder Mitt had an approval rating in the 30's when he left office.

Witless Watts said the exact same thing on Concord, NH Patch yesterday. Must be running out of original things to say

At least he didn't resort to childish name calling AND it is the first post on this thread that is on topic! An on topic post! Now THAT is a news flash!

Actually, this post is one of the few witless ones I have read here. On topic and to the point. In addition, Watts does not have the rather eccentric capitalization style of some of the ranters here.......

Bezmenov's interviews and lectures are scary, how he describes in detail how the communists have so methodically subverted our society.

As he said, not until "the military boot of the totalitarian socialist police-state is in their fat bottom" will the useful idiots of the Left realize what they have helped bring about...

Hmmm, what do you have to say now that the debate has taken place? Hello...?

Why didn't people like you have anything to say about personal wealth when it was moneybags Kerry vying for the office? Kerry's net worth is around double that of Romney's--and Romney actually earned his.

"Death panels" is a pretty accurate handle for the bureaucrats who will decide which seniors get to live on, and which ones are to be deprived of life-prolonging treatments, in the Obamacare rationing scheme. Remember: rationing is the only way to deliver what remains of our health care supply system under a redistributive socialist massive swarm of unprecedented demand. Especially with doctors leaving the profession en masse due to their being treated like tools of the state, their every decision micro-managed and dictated by bureaucrats at distant desks...

As Romney spelled out last night, individual states' programs to address the issues are not "universal." They are the proper approach, in accordance with the 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as opposed to the 2,700 page monstrosity of totalitarian federal central planning that is Obamacare.

Individual states can come up with better approaches than any 2,700 page federal-level abomination.

I don't see anyone complaining about the life-saving and critically important breakthrough drugs and technologies that private sector profit-motives make possible.

Just one of many false statements made by Romney during the debate.

He merely said that if an insurer wants to write that kind of policy and offer it on the open market, they can, do, and always have done so. Same goes for any kind of birth control or other protocols. The issue is whether armed government force is brought into the picture, a picture that should instead be about voluntary participation in freely negotiated exchanges--not private entities being forced against their will and beliefs to surrender to a totalitarian collectivist police state that dictates who gets what, how much, etc., regardless of principle.

so?

Where did he say that? All he said is that he'd do away with federal subsidies for it, because borrowing money from China to fund it or any other non-critical entity is no longer acceptable. Besides, PBS gets the overwhelming majority of its revenue from private sector sponsorship--it's not going anywhere, and Big Bird will remain in all his glory.

Big Bird is richer than Mitt Romney

http://redalexandriava.com/2012/10/09/big-bird-is-richer-than-mitt-romney/

And we still subsidize it?

it's called working both sides of the aisle. obama told the publicans to piss off in 2008/09 cause he had the house and senate when he was elected. Gets a little rough for the boy when he has to work with people he gave the finger to.

Factcheck = B.S.

Obama = Factcheck

Nice try, but you and that rag the NYT are wrong. Before the debate, Romney was close to being flat on his back, democrats were declaring the race over and won, etc.--and now Romney has dramatically catapulted out of the sink and onto the springboard, leading Obama in Florida and Virginia, neck-and-neck in Ohio, and so on...the debate was the very definition of a game-changer!

Sounds Like Donny Joyless must have just woken from his post debate celebration hangover. I think that we need to remind him of the big news that pretty much flat lined Romney again.

The improving unemployment situation, drops below the ever commented upon 8% benchmark...

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/10/08/who-knew-jobs-data-could-be-so-exciting/

Hopefully Reuters is OK for you Donny boy.

No, Reuters is not okay, and neither are the fake attempts to save your leper messiah.

How about Fox or are they also too left wing for you:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/06/romney-cites-job-crisis-despite-employment-gains/

"Mitt Romney is charging ahead with his economic arguments in spite of unemployment dropping to its lowest level since President Barack Obama took office."

@Watts -

Employment always gains in the fall. It's called seasonal, part time work. BTW/ In the September jobs numbers, BLS says 800,000 more households found work yet, the economy only created 114,000 jobs. The top 25 economists in the US predicted 113K in jobs. This should have brought the unemployment figure down to 8.1%.

@Lee - July and August employment figures were revised UP - therefore, contributing to a lower than expected by economists unemployment number. In 2009 unemployment rate was 7.6%, now it's 7.8%. And, after the worst global recession since 2009.

I'd say that was pretty dang good. Again, I understand you took economics and math and finance classes in college. But you don't live these numbers as a web developer. Just thought I'd clarify the jobs numbers. For those conspiracist theorists - just google ADP unemployment report. Since ADP is a capitalist corporation, you might respect those numbers more. Unless of course, you think ADP is in on the conspiracy, too...If so, there's meds for that.