The 2012 US Election

[N.E. Brigand]

Candy Crowley ... did, of course, also go on to point out that Gov. Romney's general point was correct, but the damage was done. What should have been a particularly vulnerable issue for the president instead became a negative soundbite for Gov. Romney.

The administration's seemingly conflicting descriptions of the attacks may have more justification than I realized. Repeatedly over the past week I have heard Republicans (on radio talk shows) say that there were no protesters, only terrorists at the Benghazi consulate on Sep. 11. Apparently this is not correct: I read this morning that both the New York Times and Reuters reported from Benghazi at the time that the mob at the consulate included unarmed people who were there explicitly to protest the video.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I heard that too. It really highlights just how chaotic situations like this are. It is sad that they get reduced to soundpoints and talking points in the course of an election campaign, but that is the inevitable reality.

[River]

My understanding of the Benghazi attack is that an armed group used the protests as an oppurtunity. That's not so hard to wrap one's mind around. The shocking and embarrassing bit it how poorly guarded that consulate was. Especially in an unstable country. The State Department does make a habit of using local law enforcement to guard embassies and consulates - I've seen that in Paris, Copenhagen, and Belgrade. They also tend to put up physical barriers, such as iron fences and large concrete blocks (in Serbia it's actually giant concrete planters) though that won't necessarily stop a mob. But I would have thought they'd beef up the manpower in countries that don't have that kind of capability. Benghazi, for example, didn't even have ambulances.

[Cerin]

As a woman, a liberal, the mother of an unemployed son, and a person with a pre-existing condition, I would find it more than a bit condescending and dismissive to be told that Sesame Street is the largest difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

I think you'd be wrong to assume any kind of attitude on someone else's part simply because their perspective is different from yours. Maybe someone who is not a woman, a liberal, a mother of an unemployed son or a person with a pre-existing condition has a different perspective on what constitutes a meaningful difference between the two parties.

Sadly, he (and other libertarians) are not the only ones that have bought into the "there is not much difference between them" meme. Many progressives/Democrats have bought that line,

'There is not much difference between them' is not a meme. It's a viewpoint based on a perspective that is different from yours. People who view the parties in that way aren't 'buying into a line', anymore than those of you who tout the differences between the parties are 'buying into a line'. People view things from different vantage points, assess them according to different sets of values, and understand them in the context of differing priorities. Whether one thinks there is 'much difference between them' depends entirely on what differences one considers significant within one's overall perspective. It doesn't mean anyone is misguided (or condescending, or arrogant). It just means they aren't you.

[yovargas]

Okay, somebody please explain the binder meme all over my FB feed.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater

[River]

[N.E. Brigand]

Okay, somebody please explain the binder meme all over my FB feed.

The candidates were asked what they would do to ensure equal pay for women. As part of Gov. Romney's response, he noted that when he was initially selecting his cabinet in Massachusetts, there were no qualified female applicants, so he turned to women's groups for help, and they provided him "whole binders full of women", i.e., resumes of qualified applicants.

It's an amusing image, which is why it quickly became an internet meme. More seriously, it raises the question of why Mr. Romney knew no qualified women from his years in business. It also seems to show him supporting affirmative action, which is unusual for a Republican.

Here is his answer in full:

Thank you. An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.

And I -- and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are -- are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some -- some women that are also qualified?"

And -- and so we -- we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.

I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.

Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort. But number two, because I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school.

She said, I can't be here until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. I need to be able to get home at 5 o'clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said fine. Let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you.

We're going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I'm going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they're going to be anxious to hire women. In the -- in the last women have lost 580,000 jobs. That's the net of what's happened in the last four years. We're still down 580,000 jobs. I mentioned 31/2 million women, more now in poverty than four years ago.

What we can do to help young women and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers that are looking to find good employees and bringing them into their workforce and adapting to a flexible work schedule that gives women opportunities that they would otherwise not be able to afford.

This is what I have done. It's what I look forward to doing and I know what it takes to make an economy work, and I know what a working economy looks like. And an economy with 7.8 percent unemployment is not a real strong economy. An economy that has 23 million people looking for work is not a strong economy.

An economy with 50 percent of kids graduating from college that can't finds a job, or a college level job, that's not what we have to have.

I'm going to help women in America get good work by getting a stronger economy and by supporting women in the workforce.

May we reasonably wonder if a male member of Romney's staff had requested to leave early each day "to get home at 5 o'clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids", would he have received the same flexibility from the governor?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Apparently, Gov. Romney's claims about asking women's groups for qualified women and (more importantly) having more women in leadershiop positions than any other governor are not even true:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/1 ... 72425.html

[yovargas]

...I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible.

...wonders how nel reacted to that...

And an economy with 7.8 percent unemployment is not a real strong economy.

Heh, I suspect he wished that number was still over 8% when he said that.

[Frelga]

While the binder meme is amusing, I find it disturbing that Romney's plan seems to be to (somehow) create such an amazing economy that the employers will even be ready to hire women.

[River]

May we reasonably wonder if a male member of Romney's staff had requested to leave early each day "to get home at 5 o'clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids", would he have received the same flexibility from the governor?

I've a terrible, sneaking suspicion he'd've suggested that the guy have his wife do it...and then experienced a mental BSOD if the guy replied, "But my wife's a terrible cook," or "My wife works nights."

My boss has twins. He makes a point of being out the door between 5 and 5:30 Tuesday-Friday. Monday his wife lets him stay late. To think only mothers need flexibility is, to put it kindly, antiquated.

[Primula Baggins]

As a woman, a liberal, the mother of an unemployed son, and a person with a pre-existing condition, I would find it more than a bit condescending and dismissive to be told that Sesame Street is the largest difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

I think you'd be wrong to assume any kind of attitude on someone else's part simply because their perspective is different from yours. Maybe someone who is not a woman, a liberal, a mother of an unemployed son or a person with a pre-existing condition has a different perspective on what constitutes a meaningful difference between the two parties.

That was pretty much my point. Taking CG's assertion at face value, he was saying that funding for Sesame Street is all that distinguishes Obama from Romney—which effectively dismisses the candidates' positions on access to birth control, fair pay for women, and health care reform, among other serious issues, as trivial and unimportant. I meant only to point out that they are important differences to many people.

[Frelga]

My husband's then boss took every Friday off work since his daughter was born. Which helped my husband's case when he sake for flexible schedule to be with our son while I worked.

That's the other disturbing point in Romney's response - that it is naturally the mother but not the father who needs the flexible schedule.

[Primula Baggins]

I meant to add to my post above (sorry, I'm distracted today) that it's always good to see you here, Cerin.

Frelga, I'm sure that's what seems natural to Romney. It would also make it natural for him to consider women in general to be less valuable as employees, as they are always wanting to be "flexible."

It does worry me that someone who might well be our next president has this tendency to respond to events or to questions based on a lot of apparently unexamined assumptions, as if he's confident that everyone (or everyone who matters) shares them.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

...I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce that sometimes you need to be more flexible.

...wonders how nel reacted to that...

I had the same thought. Except that she is probably too busy being inflexible in the workplace to give it much thought right now.

[Dave_LF]

Sheesh. First "if you're going to have women in the workforce." Like this is something that's open to debate, and he doesn't really like the way the wind is blowing, but recognizes there's not much he can do about it. So magnanimous. Followed by "then you need to be more flexible." Because obviously those finicky, unreliable women are harder to accommodate then men.

[Holbytla]

I pretty much agree with Voronwë's assessment of the debate last night.
Obama seemed to have his passion back, and Mitt's two lowest points were the "women in the workplace" thing and his total failure at fleshing out the Benghazi attack mess.

As an FYI, if you ever hear a former Massachusetts governor ( a la Mike Dukakis and Mitt Romney), or any future candidate, say during a presidential debate, " I balanced the budget in Massachusetts", kindly remind them that there is a state law mandating that the budget be balanced before it can be passed.
Boy does that drive me crazy.

They both had a good night I think, and both made some decent points, but Obama clearly won. However as Ax pointed out, the poll surges and declines don't mean much unless you are in one of the contested states. I wonder if we will ever revise the election process?

Okay, somebody please explain the binder meme all over my FB feed.

Romney :open mouth
Romney:insert foot

That pretty much sums it up. (Though neither of them really gave a good answer to that question or many others for that matter.
They really are skilled at not answering directly.) Romney should just shut up about women in the workplace or women anything for that matter. He isn't helping himself.

Where I think Obama may have disconnected with some viewers of the debate, was when he said to Candy Crowley, "Look, some jobs are not coming back".
It's all well and good to talk about better education and higher level jobs for the country, but not everyone aspires to higher education or is capable of higher education. Some people are okay with decent paying jobs that don't require a lot of formal education but ask you to work hard. To bluntly say those jobs are gone, whether true or not, is not going to sit well with a segment of the population.

It will be interesting to see what the people of Ohio and Virginia think.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Where I think Obama may have disconnected with some viewers of the debate, was when he said to Candy Crowley, "Look, some jobs are not coming back".
It's all well and good to talk about better education and higher level jobs for the country, but not everyone aspires to higher education or is capable of higher education. Some people are okay with decent paying jobs that don't require a lot of formal education but ask you to work hard. To bluntly say those jobs are gone, whether true or not, is not going to sit well with a segment of the population.

Interestingly, in an interview after the debate, the undecided voter who asked that question cited that comment about some jobs not coming back as a reason why she liked President Obama's answer to the question better. Of course, there is no way of knowing whether she is at all representative of what others think, but it would be nice to think that people actually appreciate a candidate telling a hard truth.

Carol Goldberg, Presidential Debate Questioner, Rates The Candidates' Answers

[Holbytla]

I can appreciate his candor, as I am sure others can, but I find the defeatist nature of that statement a bit unsettling.
I'm not ready to admit total defeat and give up on trying to reclaim at least some of the jobs we have lost to what amounts to a "slave labor" workforce.

Seriously, cannot Apple afford to employ some manufacturers in this country?
Why are no pols telling the truth about how Apple made so many billions?
Why are there not huge tariffs on Apple products sold here?
Why do we purchase products made under such conditions?

What about Nike? The list of products that we buy, that are made under horrendous conditions is nearly endless, and on top of that, it is costing us jobs. No one is doing anything to stop that, from the pols to the consumers.

Buy American. Stop shopping at Walmart. Stop buying slave labor produced products. Why are no pols acting on those things? We just seem to have given up and I find it difficult to accept that, or hear that.