More Thoughts on the Election

Monday Night Viewing Choices

What a night to be watching TV. The debate, game 7 of championship series and the Bears vs. the Lions. I went back and forth between all three. The debate seemed rather tame in comparison to the last one. Romney agreed with about everything Obama said then added but I’d do it better. Didn’t say how he’d do it better just I’d do it better. America will be more repsected when I’m president. How will that happen because I say so was essentially Romney’s response.

Sort of like I’ll create 12 millions jobs with my plans when there’s just as much reason to believe that won’t happen. Or that in all likelihood it will happen under present policies because the economy is slowing recovery.

I loved Obama’s comment:

“When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s,”

He won the debate. The question is was it enough. See below.

Slipping Away for Obama?

Seems that’s the way things are going. Slowly but surely Romney is moving ahead. The national popular vote polls show a dead heat. But then again the national popular vote doesn’t matter. But the media loves to trout these polls out (see next topic for my thoughts on that). But it cannot be denied that the race changed dramatically after the first debate. Obama just didn’t do what he needed to do then. He recovered in the next two.

But Romney was able to come across as reasonable and moderate. The latest recreation of this guy. The problem I have with Romney is he’s soulless. He seems to stand for nothing. He’s a real conservative on all sorts of issues and then well he’s really a moderate. Which won will be get if he’s elected president. Here’s my analogy for Romney. He’s like the chocolate bunnies that are around at Easter. They’re great to bite into but there’s only a shell nothing on the inside.

Back to Obama. He is still ahead in the electoral college which is what matters but slowly but surely Romney is catching up. I’m not counting Obama out but he really needs to step up his game in these last 10 days.

The Media

The more I watch their coverage the more angry I get. All their stories start off with what the latest national poll says. Do national polls matter? Yes but it’s where the candidates stand in the electoral college that matters. That’s usually mentioned but later in the story. It is just so much simpler to show poll numbers then try to make sense for viewers the electoral college map. It is as I’ve said on many occasions the laziness of the media.

The next problem I have with them is illustrated by these two interviews I saw on CNN. The day after the debate CNN had John Kerry (D) on in the morning. Later one 360 they had on the governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell (R). You get one guess and only one as to who you think they thought did well in the debate in the their respective interviews. As far as I’m concerned these interviews bring nothing new or insight to analyzing what’s going on. You know the perspective these politicians by their politician affiliation. Does anyone ever think that say Kerry would say Oh my goodness Romney just wiped the floor with Obama. No I can’t see that either. Getting their opinions is a waste of time.

I feel a little better when the pundits are on. Well that is most of the pundits. It seems to me there could be more middle of the road views expressed in these groups. There need to be more David Gergens and fewer Bay Buchanans. Fewer people from either side who just spew the party line.

Finally on the media rant, in general, they need to aggressive in challenging politicians, campaigns, and parties in the statements they make. They need to be more ready to go after obvious falsehoods and truth bending/stretching (see this post). Things don’t always need to be balanced. Lies and half truths need to be called out. To me they just don’t do enough of that.