that may happen....now is the time for a full D vote ...get your congress to be a majority in both senate and house. America can shine again....Canadians are rooting for you all and Obama

I remember at the time that I was sort of bemused that Gore could allow Dubya to make it close, but I also thought that Dubya would probably be harmless enough. Boy, was I wrong, but that's not to say the American voters have apparently learned anything since then. I pose two instructional questions here:

How big a lie would Romney have to tell you before you would vote against him?

How big a jerk would Romney have to be before you would vote against him?

Since my anti-Romney Twitter account has been nuked, possibly as part of a neo-GOP campaign of yet more dirty tricks and astroturf, perhaps some of you could pose those questions over there. However, I predict you will receive very few sincere answers from the RomneyBots. They lack that much imagination.

Isn't going to vote for a Democrat, no matter what. Remember even Bob Dole got that

Nixon won by 23% in 1972 and FDR by 24% in 1936.

Fact is that almost one half of the country just fundamentally does not agree with what our side is for.

There literally is no reasoning with those people, it's as if they are part of a cult. It honestly frightens me, I think they are dangerous.

He hunkered down in Washington DC and pored over the legislative wonk work, when he needed to be out with the public, winning people over, explaining and selling his plans and programs--going over the Congress and speaking directly to the American people like LBJ and Reagan did.

He assumed everybody would honestly follow the debate and choose the right thing once they had the facts.

People don't have the facts.

They don't know what the right thing is.

We need the President to connect with people directly. Explain his policies and ask them for their support--mobilize their support, if necessary.

economy. People aren't aware that Repubs are blocking Obama jobs bills, they think Obama / Dem. Senate is blocking their bills.

Through August, the Obama record on payroll jobs is still in negative territory: -261,000. The unemployment rate has been above 8% during his entire administration (43 months) excepting his first partial month of January 2009.

The national debt during the Bush II administration increased from 5,728 B$ to 10,627 B$, an increase of 4,899 B$. The debt during the Obama administration as of today has increased from 10,627 B$ to 16,046 B$, an increase of 5,419 B$ -- a larger dollar increase in 3 1/2 years than in Bush's 8 years.

It doesn't seem to occur to them that Mr. Wizard's (Romney's) numbers don't add up. All they "know" is that Romney was highly successful in business while obviously (to them), "Obuhmuh" is not.

Edit #1 523 PM ET - Today's national debt is 16,046 B$, not 16,0461 B$
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
I spend about half a day a week responding to comments on news articles on the economy at news.yahoo.com. Virtually all the comments are on Obama's crappy (to them) economic record. I put out the facts like 4.6 million private sector jobs created in the last 30 months. For example:

It took 8 years for Bush to ruin the growing economy that Clinton handed him (and turn a budget surplus into a near doubling of the national debt (1.86-fold increase, thanks Bush), and you CONNEDservatives are complaining that Obama hasn't completely reversed 8 years of Republican economic ruination in 3 1/2 years?

Do you really want to hand the keys back to the people who drove the economy off the cliff? When Bush left office, he handed Obama an economy that had already shed 4.3 million jobs in Bush's last 10 months, and the GDP was contracting at a 8.9% annual rate (Q4 2008). At the end of the Bush presidency, the unemployment rate was 3.5 percentage points higher than when he began his presidency.

4.6 million payroll jobs have been created in the last 30 months. Bush only created 1.1 million payroll jobs in his entire 8 year presidency - ironically by creating 1.8 million government jobs and destroying 0.7 million private sector jobs

Ruinous Republican policies also drove the U.S. stock market (S&P 500) down 37% during those 8 Bush years -- from 1343 to 850. As an investor, I'd rather go with Obama -- its up to 1466 as of Friday 9/14 close, up 72% since he took office. (Google: Historical Prices - Yahoo Finance S&P 500 ). Clearly the business and investor community has a lot more confidence in Obama than it did in Bush.

Fox News
Rush Limpballs
Racists
Really, really stupid people

And most of them (and me too) haven't quite gotten into podcasts / streaming / satellite radio. Fortunately I don't have to because I have AM 950 AM950Radio.com in Minneapolis. But geez, like San Diego doesn't have liberal talk. Just one greed-banger after another filling their CONNEDservative goober listeners full of endless lies. Hell, I'd be a screaming RW-er too if I believed even 1/4 of the stuff they put out.

Let's see Hoover almost had his mild economic recession fixed and then FDR came in and turned a mild recession into a decade long economic depression -- would have been longer had it not been for WWII which stimulated the economy to make GOOD THINGS like weapons, not junk like dams and libraries.

Or more recently -- the economy was doing just fine until the Democrats took over the Congress in January 2007. (

Short rebuttal if anyone needs it --

Housing prices were already heading down from their June/July 2006 peak, and there were trillions of dollars of credit default swaps and collaterized mortgage obligations in bank portfolios ready to explode if housing prices underwent a sustained decline. Mortgage defaults rose steadily throughout 2006, from an annualized rate of 775,000 in Q4 2005 to 1,000,000 in Q4 2006, a 29% increase. And the Dems weren't the ones that created the exploding rate Option ARM mortgages or that gave AAA ratings to mortgage bonds that were full of toxic mortgages. Don't get me started on Bush's "ownership society", where in a speech in October 15, 2002, he said, "you don't have to have a lousy home for first-time home buyers. If you put your mind to it, the first-time home buyer, the low-income home buyer can have just as nice a house as anybody else."

I have really good friends that don't care about mitt Romney's policies president Obama's policies what they say what they do none of that matters

all that matters is that Romney says he is pro life and will reverse roe v Wade.


They love the hell out of a fetus

Clinton didn't even win reelection by 10 points and failed to secure a majority of the vote in '96. This after the U.S. pulled out of an economic recession, was just starting to see a robust economy, a deficit that was slashed in half and a country generally at peace with the world - no wars, no economic uncertainty, peace ... it was bliss. And yet, Bill Clinton still couldn't garner 50% of the vote.

Why?

Even without 'em, Clinton doesn't win that election by 25 points.

There was constant disparagement of Clinton on the right throughout his presidency, these were not 2-day news stories. And he was being compared to Bob Dole, wounded WWII war hero and straight-laced and no smears on his personal character. And though not everyone listens to RW radio and RW TV, it is and was so prevalent that it seeps through to the larger media and water cooler discussions. I remember well the campaign.

Take away both, and Clinton still only wins by less than 10%. It just goes to show how tough it is to win by a landslide. Bush and Reagan only did it because they faced two inept, horrible candidates.

Fox is on basic cable I heard given free to all cable and satellite networks to make sure it is seen everywhere.

People who watch it don't think its a cult at all, they stupidly believe it is news...

They have nothing to talk about if the face isn't close!!

Most elections in America are 'close' because the country is very divided down the middle and only has 2 parties.

Unlike in other Western countries where there are more than 2 mainstream parties, 98% of the votes in Presidential elections in America go to either the Democrats or the Republicans. That means that except for rare landslide elections (FDR in the 1930's, LBJ in 1965, Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984 etc), there will not usually be a spread of more than 10 points between the 2 parties.

That means that even if the nominee of one party is terrible and weak, he is guaranteed to usually get at least 40% of the vote, and usually more like 45% or more. In 1996, Clinton easily beat Dole, but the contest was still only 9 points apart (49% vs 40%).

In 1992, the spread between Clinton and Bush I was narrower, but Bush fell under 40% because Perot was running.

Even in a very bad year for the Republicans like 2008 where Bush & the GOP were hated and where the V.P. nominee was incompetent, McCain/Palin were still able to get 46%!

I just don't know.

A lot of DUers don't seem to get the fact -- and it is a fact -- that not everyone shares our positions etc.

Since FDR did it in 1944 -- over 65 years -- Democratic presidential candidates have topped 50 percent of the popular vote only three times: LBJ in 1964 (and even with Goldwater as his opponent he didn't win by 25 percent), Carter in 1976 (with barely over 50 percent) and Obama. And while the repubs have gone over 50 percent more consistently during that period, they haven't come close to a 25 point victory.

No one ever wins elections by that much. It's impossible.

due to being demonized on talk radio and Fox.

These voters don't care about Romney, just want to get rid of Obama.

One thing I don't get - this economy is owned by the Republican Congress. If they reject every job creating proposal, the weak economy is their fault.

Team Obama need to get this out there - why aren't they?

You are right. Obama needs to remember he is not just running against Romney, but Boehner too.

Remind people that we have a GOP House.

the Presidency is the reality show everyone pays attention to, the Congress is just for geeks.

So one third of the government gets punished or praised for the failures or triumphs of all three branches.

There's not much you can do to reverse this in a couple of months, but if the Dems don't do well downticket this time, they need to start planning for a 2014 blowout.

I've heard snippets of Obama's speeches in which he has mentioned this but if he stresses it too much, the repukes will accuse him of whining and of blaming others. I was talking to a woman the other day about the economy and lack of jobs, and I pointed out that the repuke congress refuses to pass the Jobs Act, and she was well-aware of this outrageous obstructionism. So I don't think there are too many thinking people out there who are in the dark. Of course, Biden mentions it often, as do other Obama surrogates.

The righties (and some not so "rightie&quot point out that (in their view) previous stimulus measures have failed -- all the green energy jobs, and high speed rail, Solyndra, yeah right. I don't know many people in any part of the political spectrum that thinks the economy is anything but lousy or that previous stimulus has done much good, beyond at best keeping things from getting worse. The Jobs Act won't be any different (in their view). They righties point out that the Dem. Senate hasn't passed any of the Republican "jobs" bills either. Then any stimulus comes with a heavy price tag -- with the national debt having increased more under Obama in 3 1/2 years ($5,419 Billion) than Bush in 8 years ($4,899 Billion), and approaching 100% of GDP -- how much more stimulus can we afford?

National Debt: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Again, it is important to get out of our DU cocoon and onto mixed forums (I primarily do comments on news articles) to fully grasp the negativity that is out there about the economy and Dem. policies. Seems more of a food stamps policy (in their view) than anything else.

In most of the swing states, the Republicans are in charge of the Secretary of States office and have been putting in place voter restriction after voter restriction. Florida has managed to greatly reduce new voter registration, and their voter list purges continue. Now that doesn't affect the polls (well, unless they are unregistered, pollsters always ask questions about that), but it will affect the election itself.

I constantly hear about the welfare president and the food stamp president. That food stamps are at a record 46 million recipients or some such. And that the unemployment rate is being vastly under-counted, that many millions have quit looking for work. They certainly have the statistics on their side -- Under Obama through August 2012, the civilian labor force participation rate fell 2.2 percentage points, from 65.7% to 63.5%. Its the lowest since when women joined the labor force in large numbers more than a generation ago. See graphs: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000 (its about where it was back in 1978).

They hear that half the federal budget is going to welfare and foreign aid. (Always important to remember that not everyone gets their information from reasonably fact-based sources. Also important to remember is that from our side of the aisle, we get our share of spin and even lies).

Then there are those on the left left who voted for Obama but find his foreign policy and assassination of Americans and killing of innocent civilians and holding of "enemy combatants" without charge indefinitely -- in other words very much like Bush in these areas if not worse -- to be a no way.

Obamacare's individual mandate ... and no its not just a $95 fine. After 2016, the penalty for an individual is $695 or 2.5% of income, WHICHEVER IS GREATER. For a family of four (2 adults and 2 children) it is 2 adults and 2 children: 2*695 + 2*347.50 = $2085. Or 2.5% of income WHICHEVER IS GREATER.

And the subsidies are not as great as some will lead you to believe (like Thom Hartmann for one). Pretty disappointing actually - the net premium cost after subsidies will be a huge expense on some lower-middle- and middle-class budgets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/what-health-bill-means-for-you/?hpid=z2
Kaiser's subsidy calculator: http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

It may be what one might hear around here and elsewhere on the "Internets" - you can ignore those letters from the IRS about non-payment of penalties for being uninsured. May be.

ON EDIT 1156 PM ET - corrected the "2 adults and 2 children: 2*695 + 2*347.50 = $2085" calculation -- the "2" in front of "2*695" was missing.

they should literally only have 1% of the vote. All they want to do is provide even more tax cuts for millionaires, while slashing working-class services and laying off public-sector workers. Yet their candidates for president always manage to get at least 40% of the vote, even if they are utterly incompetent like Bush or Romney. You want to know why? Here are a few possible reasons:

-Lies by conservative media against Democrats and liberals. (special thanks to Pres. Reagan for getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine)
-Ignorance by the general public regarding basic economics.
-The MSM not using electoral college maps, and instead using polls in order to make the election appear to be closer than it is.
-Racism and/or homophobia.
-Religious intolerance.
-Misleading, yet catchy GOP slogans such as "economic freedom" and "traditional values".
-Paranoia from gun owners.

Nobody bothers to read the endless fact checks on that. I tell them to check the google, all fact check orgs say it is not true, and that is what Romney does. Takes an untruth, repeats it over and over again thinking people won't bother getting the facts.