Election 2012: Week Four in Review

by Sunnyjane

 You're a creep, Biden.                                  And you're a lying piece of crap, Ryan.

 

                                                  

Nailing Ryan's Jello to the Wall

It should be recorded in the annals of political history that in the general election of 2012, the Democratic Party Campaign actually Let Joe be Joe in the vice presidential debate.   Nowhere to be found at this debate was the powder puff from 2008, where Biden was forced to go easy on Sarah Palin because she was -- and remains -- an ignorant, vacuous, lying, self-centered scrap of Valley Trash whose mental and emotional stability were already being questioned behind the closed doors of both campaigns.

Chug-a-lug, Chug-a-lug

The far-right member of the Smirk and Smug ticket nervously gulped water throughout his fact-challenged and fairy-tale-laden session with Vice President Joe Biden.  However, it was obvious that Congressman Paul Ryan's liquid obsession contained not even a trace of thiopental sodium -- commonly known as truth serum.  And kudos to moderator Martha Raddatz  for ignoring the instructions that the Republican vice presidential candidate be introduced as Mister Paul Ryan, rather than Congressman Paul Ryan. Such a demand was a patently transparent effort by the Romney campaign to distance the Wisconsin Representative from 112th Congress's ninety-two percent unfavorable rating.  How many rungs down the scum-sucker ladder can this group possibly descend?

Joe Biden arrived in Danville, KY, to expose Paul Ryan not just as unfit to assume the presidency should events be such that the office is thrust upon him, but to draw a clear comparison between the core tenets of the Obama administration and what a Romney administration would do to the country.  It is popular for each campaign to utter those time-honored words, This is the most important election in the history of America!  This year, it is true.  I am old enough to remember a time when coffee cups were devoid of clever messages, the word remote was just an adjective, and feminine products were kept behind the counter and carefully wrapped in brown paper by the druggist -- yeah, like that wasn't a dead giveaway.  So with those credentials, I can firmly state that never have I seen an election where the differences in the two candidates' visions for the direction of this nation were so absolute: one with a vision that will carefully and thoughtfully move us ahead in a continuously complex and changing world, the other a vision that would hurt us both economically and on they world stage, and socially, send us back to an era of aluminum powder photography.  Perhaps Ryan should apply for a job as driver of the Mystical Magic Mathmobile after November 6; I understand all the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile jobs are taken.

We've all read the debate analyses, most of which were heatedly partisan and others fairly well-balanced.  Fact-checkers went into overdrive, while the media, pundits, and bloggers from all sides of the political spectrum clickity-clacked their way through every adverb and adjective in their on-line dictionaries, and ISP technicians hosed down their over-heated servers. 

Admittedly on the partisan side, I found that Alternet had one of the best summaries on the debate in their 10 Best Biden Put-Downs of Paul Ryan in Veep Debate post.  It's well worth the read.

An Unlikely Endorsement

From a state that most pollsters have conceded to Mitt Romney comes a surprising but welcomed endorsement from North Carolina's Winston-Salem Journal, which endorsed John McCain in 2008: 

Americans have a clear choice between two presidential candidates with starkly different ideas for spurring the economy, providing for the health of our people, defending our interests abroad, educating our children and protecting our environment. We believe that President Barack Obama’s progress on these issues merits him a second term in the White House.

The Democratic president … is calm under pressure and courageous in standing up for the rights of all Americans, including the poor, veterans, the elderly, women, gays and immigrants. In contrast, we’ve sometimes found it hard in the last few weeks to tell just what Obama’s challenger, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, really stands for.

While Obama commits the occasional gaffe, we can’t imagine him ever dismissing 47 percent of his fellow Americans.

Obama has had a generally strong four years. He and Vice President Joe Biden form a seasoned, consistent ticket, one much more promising and reliable than that of Romney and his running mate, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

And another endorsement for President Obama from the conservative Journal Star in Nebraska. 

The Second Presidential Debate

Just five days after Joe Biden stripped Paul Ryan of any credibility he was assumed to possess, President Obama and Mitt Romney meet again in Hempstead, New York, at Hofstra University for a town-hall format debate.  From their respective campaigns: 

Romney's advisers suggested the Republican nominee would continue to moderate his message as he did in the Oct. 3 meeting to help broaden his appeal to the narrow slice of undecided voters. In recent days, Romney has promised his tax plan would not benefit the wealthy, emphasized his work with Democrats as Massachusetts governor and downplayed plans to strengthen the nation's abortion restrictions. He told an Iowa newspaper, for example, that he would not pursue abortion-related legislation if elected. That's in direct conflict with last year's pledge to cut federal funding from Planned Parenthood.

Robert Gibbs, the Obama campaign’s senior adviser had this to say about Romney’s first debate:  I think Mitt Romney's performance was, indeed, magical and theatrical … largely because for 90 minutes he walked away from a campaign he had been running for more than six years previous to that.

  
An Obama campaign spokesperson said,  The American people should expect to see a much more energized President Obama.

END NOTE

They've got our backs.  Let's make sure we've got theirs.