Doug Mataconis @ Outside The Beltway:
I’ve just gotten around to reading a post that Ezra Klein published last week in which he brings up a point that many commentators on both the left and the right have raised during the course of this General Election campaign. Namely, what exactly does Barack Obama intend to do with a second term:
This U.S. presidential election has come down to a candidate without real policies against a candidate without a compelling vision.
Republican nominee Mitt Romney can tell you exactly what he wants to do, but barely a word about how he’ll do it. President Barack Obama can’t describe what he wants to achieve, but he can tell you everything about how he’ll get it done. At this point, Romney and Obama are running almost perfectly opposite campaigns.
For Obama, this is a striking change. His 2008 campaign was all bold vision and grand plans. He wanted to change Washington and pass a universal health-care plan by the end of his first term. He pushed a cap-and-trade plan to slow carbon emissions and promised immigration reform, an end to the war in Iraq and a post-partisan era that would both reignite citizen control over government and make them proud of the results.
(…)
I went back and read the transcript, canceling out the relative effects of the candidates’ stage presence. On paper, Obama came off, if anything, a bit worse. It is startling how little he said about his agenda and how little passion he evinced for any cause other than stopping Romney. On the heels of a workmanlike convention speech that was particularly lacking in what used to be called “the vision thing,” his debate performance speaks of a deeper problem. Obama, at the moment, doesn’t have anything particularly inspiring to say.
It might be that polls and focus groups have given the Obama campaign reason to retreat from presenting a bold agenda for a second term. But the dulling of the vision has led to the dulling of the candidate. A quick glance at the polls suggests voters don’t seem to like that much, either.
Joe Klein at Time had similar thoughts:
His campaign staff has been brilliant when it comes to painting Romney as a hapless plutocrat but has been AWOL when it comes to promoting a second-term vision for the President. The only policy proposal I can recall in his debate performance and convention speech was to add 100,000 math and science teachers. How lame and formulaic, especially for a politician sensitive to the empty platitudes of his trade. Now that Mitt Romney has established himself as something other than an automaton, Barack Obama is going to have to come clean, descend from the mountaintop and make his best case for keeping the job.
This was a question that the President completely failed to touch upon in the October 3rd debate, and which neither he nor his campaign have spent time talking about either before or since. By contrasts, as Ezra Klein noted above, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and their campaign has done a fairly good job of at least laying out a vision of what a Romney Administration would do with the four years that the voters might give them, although they have been fairly light when it comes to the details. It’s an odd juxtaposition given the fact that the entirety of Obama’s 2008 campaign, from the day he announced his candidacy to the day he gave his victory speech in Grant Park on Election Night 2008, was based on a broadly stated vision of what an Obama Administration would look like. In many ways, he’s lived up to that vision, and in many other important respects he has failed miserably. However, at least he was offering something to the voters.
We’ve seen hints only.
And they are frightening…..
The loss of freedom to use the internet.
The loss of freedom for our airways.
The loss of freedom to practice one’s religion outside of their church’s 4 walls.
The destruction of the safeguards for our elective process.
The punitive taxing of incentive and success.
Some weird promise to Putin.
The promise of higher energy prices and perhaps energy shortages.
The promise of fewer food choices.
The further devaluing of our Dollar.
Death panels.
The possibility of a nuclear attack on US and on Israel.
There’s been nothing in all of Obama’s mouthings that says he wants to NOT allow all of these things to continue happening.
Thought Police.
Obama would institute thought police.
During the debate Obama said this:
I guess Obama still wants and needs that well-armed, as big as the US military, civilian defense force!
He wants them to spy on everyone, looking for signs that someone MIGHT someday be violent.
Who else had their hair stand on end when Obama made those remarks?
YOU see the frame of OBAMA AGENDA, which has been already shape in x pages,
now with that in mind,
why do you expect MITT ROMNEY TO GIVE DETAILS,there is no way he can surely give details,
on his project, why? well because he has to evaluate the damages done already by this GOVERNMENT,
and you see, he has to enter in the WHITE HOUSE FIRST, BEFORE HE KNOW THE DETAILS,
THE AMOUNT OF TRASH HE WILL HAVE TO GET RID OF,
HE HAS A CLEANING JOB TO DO FROM TOP TO BOTTOM,
have any one known what the inside of the house will look like when he move in,
before the tenant is out, you visit the house, you decided to buy it,from a wide view of the structure
still solid, but the rest was not a concern, because you know how good you are to redo the decoration
you are sure of your ability to do it, but don’t anyone ask for the details, the SPECIFIC,
THE TIME HAS NOT COME FOR THAT STAGE YET,
how many time did anyone saw a restoration of a rundown house ending to become a jewel,
why because the new tenant love what he is doing, he doesn’t have to buy that house,
he has another one very comfortable too,
but he want to move in that HOUSE ON THE HILLS, AND HELP THE PEOPLE BE HAPPY,
BECAUSE THEY ARE HIS FAMILY, AND THEY ARE HURTING, UNDER THAT TENANT WHO LET THEM DOWN.
So don’t ask for specific, he know them, don’t put the carriage in front of the horse,
just follow the number one first, and number 2 will follow for sure, naturaly and 3, and 4, and 5, and 6,
we will have one party AMERICA WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER THEN.
CURT thank you, you know it make me think of how your car became a jewel too, but you did not have the specifics
to begin with, but they where in your head and your heart,
and the result is fabulous is in it
@NanG #2 Nan, you say –
“I guess Obama still wants and needs that well-armed, as big as the US military, civilian defense force!
He wants them to spy on everyone, looking for signs that someone MIGHT someday be violent.
Who else had their hair stand on end when Obama made those remarks?”
You know what I first thought of after reading this? I thought of the fight OFraud and the Liberals/RINOS have with the ” illegal aliens” [undocumented whatever…] in this country [Arizona??], our borders…
Explain to me the difference….
While Ofraud says [you/me] Law, Law enforcement cannot ‘profile’ illegals and questions, or ask for documentation to prove they are in the U.S. Legally, as opposed to illegally as in Illegal Alien.
Being in the United States if you are not a sworn citizen is “illegal” last time I checked…which is ALSO against the “Law” and ‘criminal’….Yes the very real truth is that, some but not all [illegals], do commit crimes – rob – steal – fraud even MURDER U.S. citizens… Yet, Yet.. these same ‘criminals’ are ‘untouchable’ so far as OFraud is concerned…
YET, Ofraud would propose that we ‘spy’ on each other??? And, what ‘other’ means would he use to ‘catch’ the violence before it occurs??? Why would he look to the future in such a manner to “deny” a U.S. Citizens ‘Rights’ to privacy, property, Liberty, Freedom….
And let [undocumented] individuals here illegally [criminals] walk among us? Terrorists? People who do want to kill us? Gang Bangers from other countries? And not seal our borders?
See how backwards the thought process is?? Ofraud and his [ilk] kind have some serious problems…it creeps me out…
What Planet did you say Ofraud came from again??
BTW – I started watching [actually listening to] the debates, I heard Ofraud rail against Romney and then I heard Romney trying to defend himself from what Ofraud just said… the Moderator would not let him do so, she cut him off….right there and then I tuned out because I heard the ‘one sided’ Path the Debate was going to take….Sheesh!
@Nan G:
re: “But part of it is also going deeper and seeing if we can get into these communities and making sure we catch violent impulses before they occur.”
So, would inner city Chicago Black culture be a likely starting place? Plenty of opportunity and need on which to focus there. If high profile Blacks are to be used as role models, leadership and promo, gonna havta bite the bullet and accept conservatives. I do not think Jesse, Al, Obama, Wright, Khan, etc have anything effective to offer. I think people who have had a real job for more than a year and no bastard offspring.
@NotinsomeGodforesakenplace: And Obama mentioned his ”hometown” of Chicago while making another overlooked but very scary point:
Obama is planning on going after HANDGUNS!
Most handguns are what Obama might call ”cheap,” in that most of them are affordable.
Our semi-auto Beretta cost us over $500 but they sell some Barettas for less than $400. (Cheap?)
Our very reliable Rossi revolver cost us less than $400 but Rossi has others that sell for much less. (Cheap?)
Every gun manufacturer has a range of prices for their products.
Will Obama just leave a few high priced guns for the wealthy and force the rest of Americans to a Black Market?
I LOVE how Obama never defines his terms…NOT!!
He must not get a chance to do this gun grab.
@Bees#3 – Hi Bees, Great Points. I was thinking the same thing..instead of Romney spouting fixes and “Hope and Change” [sarcasm mine] and not knowing exactly what is behind door ‘Number 3’ and as you say, ‘ what kind of ‘mess’ was left behind’….how could he possibly get that ‘detailed’ as to what he would do? And, be so exact about it??
Top priority is Jobs and the economy…Our Government have regulation after hand tying regulation… hundreds of thousands of them….it would probably take years to undo the damage these regulations have done…
I am certain there is much duplicity in our Laws and Regulations which has grown to such a monster it is incomprehensible…
And the Left just does not understand why there are those of us who constantly push for smaller Government….
Anyone can think of it this way….
If anyone has ever watched the show ‘Horders’ on TV…these are people who have a sickness – they collect anything and everything and never throw anything away until they have so much ‘stuff’ or junk they cannot live in their homes, their lives are out of control, their health suffers, they cannot ‘get from under’ all the crap… without help….
THIS is how I view our Government. Our Government needs to get the clutter out of the Government…. and become a sleek well oiled machine the way it was designed to be from the beginning…too many Politicians, Presidents, Lobbyists, Unions, Czars and probably others keep throwing junk in and around the Halls of Congress and too many politicians cannot say NO…well, the time has come…we NEED someone to start saying NO!! NO! not now, this and that cannot be done now we need to prioritize…. and clean up the mess!
Have a good night Bees…
FAITH7
YOU said the right word
and at the end you said a key word, that is PRIORITIZE,
it took me many words to want to say that word which I could not find in my mind,
editing;
yes I saw one of those shows, and that woman was burried under a pile of stuff, that was scary, and you don’t see the small bugs on the floor under the stuff also who procreate faster than us humans [ I ALWAYS WONDER WHY THEM BEING CREATED TO BUG US AND MULTIPLY THAT MUCH]
BYE
@FAITH7:
Wow, Faith!
That Hoarders comparison is fantastic.
We are by no means hoarders BUT we decided to paint.
So, that meant either moving stuff into the garage or dumping it out.
I was amazed at all the stuff I put away with intentions of using again, but never did….and never would.
We must have dumped out 20 large kitchen-garbage bags of stuff from our home.
The gov’t is a hoarder.
This is partly because they MUST spend (squander) all their budget money each fiscal year or risk getting less the next year.
That’s got to stop.
They need a new reward system, one for cutting spending, not for squandering it all.
People made fun of Romney when he said he had no problem firing people.
Heh.
He’s just what this gov’t needs!
Nan G
yes so true, by the way, I would have like to snoop in your bags too,
there must be treasure in those.
bye
@Nan G:
“I guess Obama still wants and needs that well-armed, as big as the US military, civilian defense force!”
The part of this plan that scares me, that I have seen no one comment on, is that a civilian force of that size would actually be larger and more powerful within the borders of our nation than our military!
Because so much of our military and it’s equipment is overseas.
Our military swears allegiance to the Constitution.
What (or who) would this civilian force swear allegiance to?
Would they wear brown shirts or purple?
Whatever they decided to do, there would be no force within the USA powerful enough to stop them.
Imagine a force that powerful staffed by people of the moral and intellectual quality of, say, the TSA. Or the SEIU.
Welcome to my nightmare.
@Nan G:
But Nan, that’s what ebay is for! One man’s trash, etc.
Or woman’s…
Where is greg? He was projecting obama’s shortcoming on this issue onto Romney. Notice he disappears when it becomes obvious his guy is the vague one?
Petercat
yes a real nighmare to have, and possibly in the way,
you mention a couple of them, how about me looking racist and mention other,, I saw a clip of teen
marching like the HITLER youth and yelling OBAMA, like it was in GERMANY then they where all black ,
add the gangsta
add up the local MUSLIMS, the illegals, add up the union employees in the WHITE HOUSE,
there is things going on like disappearance in thin air, why,
PLANE CRASH, and other strange unexplained things, why the OBAMA create and support the owl, and the occupiers, THE INFILTRATORS IN ALL WORK OF LIFE
is in it easy to think about it, without having the phobia? well OBAMA said it WAS HIS WISH,
AND 4 MORE YEARS IS CREEPY JUST TO SEE THE POSSIBILITY OF IT,
bye
Petercat
yes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
I couldn’t resist, and one good word is someone best day
bye
Nan G
you have to be careful when the black moon is on, that’s when we decide to do things different like cleaning out the gadget we bought with such love, you sure did that, and you know that one day you will look for a thing and think where the hell did I put that thing, and look all over the house to find it,
forgetting it went in the bags you got rid of it, and then it will hit you, and you think
ah sh.t what was I thinking, I cared for that, oh well sh.i sh.t sh.t, I CAN’T BELIEVE I DID THAT,
BYE