Closing statements

Revenge vs Love of Country

Desperation in politics has an ugly face.  Obama calls voting the best revenge.  He actually may be prophetic with that comment (ask any broken glass Republican). 

The Closing arguments

Romney’s words vs Obama’s broken promises.

When the only thing you have left is fear itself

Obama has put out an ad which imagines the horror of a Romney presidency.  The signs of desperation are on the air.

The Enthusiasm Gap

The enthusiasm edge is all GOP. 

In Cincinnati a crowd of 30,000 gather to see Romney.  AP reporter Steve Peoples tries to minimize the numbers and say there was low energy. 

Look at the rally from 360 degrees.

Meanwhile Bill Clinton finds a small crowd (1900) in Perrysburg, Ohio.  As Mary Katharine Ham said:

Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I expected far more people and more excitement for Bill Clinton. This is the rock star, in northern Ohio, 10 minutes from an auto plant, where Obama’s support for the auto industry bailout is supposed to carry the state into the blue column.

Romney garners the most newspaper endorsements

To date, twenty-eight large newspapers have decided to drop their endorsement record with President Obama and put their chips all in on Romney.  The blunt explanations for their decisions often gives way to some blistering critiques of the president, leaving the reader no doubt why these papers lost their faith over the last four years.

According to Editor & Publisher, Republican Mitt Romney is stunning the newspaper world, earning 112 endorsements from editorial boards around the country compared to the President’s 84.  Most large market newspapers like the The New York Times and The Washington Post have stuck with Obama, but have ran less than glowing assessments of his accomplishments.  So while a newspaper endorsement may not mean what it once did, these conversions could be telling of a national trend.

Barone Picks Romney

Bottom line: Romney 315, Obama 223. That sounds high for Romney. But he could drop Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and still win the election. Fundamentals.

Video:  PJTV predicts the election

Find out what Stephen Green, Stephen Kruiser and Bill Whittle think.

NYTimes: Pennsylvania is in play

Over the last several days, with polls showing Mr. Obama’s edge in the state narrowing, Republicans have sprung into action and forced the Democrats to spend resources here that could have gone toward more competitive battleground states. 

Conservative super PACs dusted off old advertisements that had not been shown in weeks and shipped them to local television stations from Scranton to Pittsburgh. They ordered millions of dollars in airtime. 

And overnight the race here became the most expensive test yet of whether Republicans and their armies of cash-flush outside groups could unsettle the race at the last minute.

Ohio Union Members caught stealing Romney signs

I used to live in Perrysburg.  Lock ‘em up. 

Catholic for Obama event draws 45 people

The Obama campaign attempted to schedule a rally-like event on a Catholic university campus in the key swing state of Colorado before settling on a dialogue with a co-chair of Catholics for Obama.

“Their original intent was to have more of a rally element to it,” said Paul Alexander, director of Regis University's Institute for the Common Good, which hosted the event.

“We just felt we couldn’t do a rally, but we felt a healthy dialogue among Catholics was important.”

About 45 people attended the Oct. 25 dialogue and small group discussion with Catholics for Obama national co-chair Nicholas P. Cafardi, a law professor and dean emeritus of Duquesne University School of Law.

Obama:  Just vote for MEEEEE!!!

“I’ve said I will work with anybody of any party to move this country forward,” President Obama told a crowd of 2,800 this morning in Hilliard, Ohio. “If you want to break the gridlock in Congress, you’ll vote for leaders who feel the same way whether they’re Democrat, Republican or independent.”

All Jacket and no bombers

Back in Benghazi, the president who looks so cool in a bomber jacket declined to answer his beleaguered diplomats’ calls for help – even though he had aircraft and Special Forces in the region. Too bad. He’s all jacket and no bombers. This, too, is an example of America’s uniquely profligate impotence. When something goes screwy at a ramshackle consulate halfway round the globe, very few governments have the technological capacity to watch it unfold in real time. Even fewer have deployable military assets only a couple of hours away. What is the point of unmanned drones, of military bases around the planet, of elite Special Forces trained to the peak of perfection if the president and the vast bloated federal bureaucracy cannot rouse themselves to action? What is the point of outspending Russia, Britain, France, China, Germany and every middle-rank military power combined if, when it matters, America cannot urge into the air one plane with a couple of dozen commandoes? In Iraq, al-Qaida is running training camps in the western desert. In Afghanistan, the Taliban are all but certain to return most of the country to its pre-9/11 glories. But in Washington the head of the world’s biggest “counterterrorism” bureaucracy briefs the president on flood damage and downed trees.

I don’t know whether Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can fix things, but I do know that Barack Obama and Joe Biden won’t even try – and that therefore a vote for Obama is a vote for the certainty of national collapse. Look at Lower Manhattan in the dark, and try to imagine what America might look like after the rest of the planet decides it no longer needs the dollar as global reserve currency. For four years, we have had a president who can spend everything but build nothing. Nothing but debt, dependency, and decay. As I said at the beginning, in different ways the response to Hurricane Sandy and Benghazi exemplify the fundamental unseriousness of the superpower at twilight. Whether or not to get serious is the choice facing the electorate Tuesday.

But let him keep the bomber jacket.

What’s the difference between Sandy and Katrina

"We'regoing to die! We're going to freeze! We got 90-year-old people!" Donna Solli told visiting officials. "You don't understand. You gotta get your trucks down here on the corner now. It's been three days!"

The difference is you actually read about the suffering in Katrina. 

Media coverage:  Is it biased?  Is the Pope Catholic?

It turns out MSNBC is more biased thanFox News is. 

Sandy’s aftermath:  How many voters will skip voting for Obama?

Talk about ham handed, Mayor Bloomberg finally cancels the marathon.  I don’t think his endorsement of Barack Obama will cause a bunch of people in the cold and in the dark to rush out to vote for Obama.  Probably just the opposite. 

The forgiving Obama voter

Yet they'll forgive this president for blasting a smoking $4,500 hole in their household income, and presiding over the doubling of gas prices while throwing useless billions at his green energy fantasy -- no problem.  The Obama voters don't seem to mind that he's got another $1.9 trillion planned in new taxes which will cripple their livelihoods and the larger economy.  They laugh off a national debt of $6 trillion in less than four years -- who cares that debt will drag their kids and grandkids future down into the hole of punishing taxes and depleted incomes to pay it back?  Give the president a second chance?  Heck yes!

Obama’s record on jobs

"Simply put, the President's policies have not produced jobs. During his time in office, 14.7 million people were added to the food stamp rolls. Over that same time, only 194,000 jobs were created -- thus 76 people went on food stamps for every one that found a job. This is a product of low growth. Post-recession economic growth in 2010 was 2.4%, and dropped in 2011 to 1.8%. This year it has dropped again to 1.77%. Few, if any, net jobs will be created with growth of less than 2%."

Benghazi?  What Benghazi?

As the BigThree's evening newscasts ignored the latest in the controversy over the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya for 7 straight days, their morning shows aren't doing much better. On Friday, ABC's Good Morning America and CBS This Morning together devoted less than two minutes of air time - 1 minute, 50 seconds - to the ambush that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American military veterans.

Benghazi—the plot thickens

Fox News has learned that US military intelligence was reporting as early as 7pm Eastern -- less than four hours after the attack began -- that Ansar al Sharia carried out the attack.  The intelligence was relayed to the military with no caveats, according to a source familiar with the intelligence.  Further, two State Department cables show that Stevens' team warned Washington...US intelligence officials confirm to Fox that in fact there were reports from the ground in Benghazi three hours before the attack on the consulate that a Libyan militia was gathering weapons and gathering steam.

The MSM only has to ignore this for another three days. 

The Question

Best Quotes from RNC and DNC

“You know there is something wrong with the kind of job he has done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him.” — Mitt Romney

“Barack Obama’s failed us. But look, it’s understandable. A lot of people fail at their first job.” — Tim Pawlenty

“If Mitt was Santa Claus, he would fire the reindeer and outsource the elves.”—Ted Strickland

“I have seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are. No, it reveals who you are."—Michelle Obama

“It’s like Hitler said, if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a big lie, and if you tell it often enough and say it in a loud enough voice, some people are going to believe you,”  --Pat Lehman (D) on Paul Ryan

Are you better off today than you were four years ago?

Stephanie Cutter answered the question “Absolutely.”  Of course her track record shows she doesn’t have much knowledge of the truth.  Investor Business Daily finds by most measures the country isn't making slow progress; it's falling further behind.

It is official:  The Stadium is cancelled

The Democrats have moved Obama’s acceptance speech from the Bank of America Stadium to the Convention Center.  Official reason is that rain is possible.  Unofficial reason –too many seats to fill.

Band Of America Stadium

I’ll bet Joe Biden is wondering how he could get his debate with Paul Ryan called off.  Damn, it’s indoors. 

Barack the Humble

Those were not the only times Mr. Obama may have overestimated himself: he has also had a habit of warning new hires that he would be able to do their jobs better than they could.

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.”  I believe it is called narcissism.  I think he will be in for a very bad time when he loses in November. 

And if you saw Michelle Obama’s speech, you can see it runs in the family.  

Krauthammer on Michelle Obama’s speech

And speaking of Michelle Obama’s speech last night, Charles Krauthammer found it not convincing.  He said: “I didn’t buy a line of it…..If I hear one more story of people walking eight miles in the snow, without shoes walking uphill both ways, I’m going start longing for Clint Eastwood spontaneity out here.”

 Michelle begging for dollars

Here is an excerpt from a fund raising appeal that went out after Michelle Obama’s speech.  

A woman recently told the campaign her family skipped a pizza dinner at their favorite place so that they could make a difference in this election.

That is the commitment that drives this campaign.

If you can support Barack with a donation today, please know it makes a huge difference. If we win, it will be because of what you did at moments like this....

Thanks,

Michelle

CNN Money:  August looks to be weak jobwise

It unlikely it will keep up with July’s job growth. 

What would a second Obama term be like?

Want to know what Barack Obama’s second-term agenda will be?  Looking at the VIP admissions to the Democratic convention, the assumption will be more Solyndras and more wasted taxpayer dollars.  ABC News caught former Department of Energy official Steve Spinner getting a “red-carpet” tour yesterday of the facilities in Charlotte.  Who is Steve Spinner?   He’s the man who pushed the DoE to ignore the advice of auditors and approve Solyndra’s $500 million-plus taxpayer-guaranteed loan.  It appears failure in the Obama Administration is not punished, but rewarded.

How do you know if a scandal involves a Democrat?

It’s pretty easy.  If the politician is a Republican you’ll find it in the headline or the first paragraph.  If the politician is a Democrat you have to work to find out.  In this story you’ll find it in the fifth paragraph. 

Richard Cohen calls Clinton the Anti-Obama

Cohen describes Bill Clinton of giving so much of himself while Barack Obama gives so little.

“The president who will lay out his reasons for seeking a second term is an odd political duck, a politician who does not appear to like people.  Among the people he seems to like the least are his fellow politicians, including members of the Senate with whom he once served.  The other day I talked with one of them — a Democrat — who rarely hears from Obama. This senator has zero respect for the president’s political abilities. The commander in chief is not — pardon the cloying term — a people person.”

The Government is the Only Thing We All Belong To

Belongto?

Democrats endorse government funded Abortions

The Democratic Platform endorses not only a woman’s right to an abortion, but endorses this right regardless of their ability to pay.  Now one more time, do they really want to call Republicans extremists? 

They also did away with God from their platform and took back their recognition of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. 

Why does the left hate the right?

That appears to be the one truth we can get from the accusations by the left on Romney, Ryan and anyone else who disagrees with them.  “Thus, they must unleash the dogs of demagoguery, bigotry, and hatred.  Many of their mind-numbed followers, such as those in the entertainment community, willingly, and with no forethought, regurgitate these accusations in order to be part of the supposed in-crowd.”

Fact checkers or just more biased Media?

“A case in point: a perfectly correct statement by Sen. Rand Paul that the average federal employee makes $120,000 a year, while the average private-sector employee makes $60,000.  This was labeled "FALSE," by PolitiFact because the figures included benefits.  On salary alone, the folks on the federal payroll only made $31,000 more than their counterparts.”  It appears the fact checkers at PolitiFact don’t understand that benefits are part of a salary package and actually do cost money.