I found this bobblehead of the President in a gift shop. I looked at the bottom, and was amused by the label. Just had to get a photo.
The People We Count Don’t Have Caller ID
A comment on Morning Joe, this morning, made me laugh.
They were bashing the polls. Some showed Obama up by wide margins in certain places, and they didn’t believe them. Other polls showed Romney with a big national lead, and they didn’t believe that.
Finally, Lawrence O’Donnell put it in perspective.
He said pollsters always claim they are talking to registered voters, or likely voters. “But let’s be truthful about who they are polling. They are talking to the last people in America who are still taking unsolicited phone calls.”
Ha!
The Easily Misled Masses
According to a Pew Forum survey, 17% of registered voters still believe President Obama is a Muslim (49% say he’s a Christian, 31% don’t know).
Back in 2008, just 16% of conservatives believed Obama was a Muslim. But today, a full 34% of conservatives believe he’s a Muslim.
Please allow me to begin banging my head against a cement wall. Where are they getting that?
Impossible Math
The September 17 BusinessWeek mentioned that the government takes in $1 trillion in income tax revenue, but gives up another $1.1 trillion in tax deductions. That includes:
- $47 billion in charitable giving (I thought that figure would be higher. Disappointing.)
- $89 billion in mortgage interest.
- $118 billion in retirement savings.
- $131 billion in employer-provided health insurance.
Now, Mitt Romney says he wants to cut income tax rates for the wealthy by 20%. That, according to BusinessWeek, accounts for $251 billion in less revenue. Romney says he’ll pay for these tax cuts by closing loopholes. But, says BusinessWeek, the total of all deductions for the wealthy comes to just $165 billion. The specific loopholes he has in mind would come to considerably less than that.
So, Mitt: can you please explain how you’re going to make this work?
Here’s my take. THERE IS NO SOLUTION. We’re just way too deep into debt, too overdrawn in every way. There is no math that will work. And every possible cut will make some group of voters mad, so politicians will prefer doing nothing.
Which explains why both candidates are avoiding specifics.
Breaking the Party Chains
This is good, and goes right along with my contention, made with annoying regularity, that Christians shouldn’t give their allegiance to a political party. I contend that political parties are man-made patterns of this world, and in Romans we are commanded, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.”
This black minister isn’t telling blacks to not vote for Obama. He’s just telling them to quit being bound to the Democratic party. Bravo!
In the same way, white evangelicals have tightly identified with the Republican Party, and will too often rationalize whatever the Republican Party wants to do. I agree strongly with some Republican stands. I also disagree strongly with some stands on which I find more affinity among Democrats. Though I spent most of my life as a loyal Republican, I can’t see myself ever feeling at home in either party.
So whether it’s black Christians unbinding themselves from blind loyalty to the Democratic party, or white evangelicals refusing to be blindly loyal to the Republican party–I approve.
I still want Christians, as citizens, to pull a lever in the voting booth. To hold your nose and make a decision. Whether you choose Romney or Obama, it will mean picking somebody who holds views in conflict with some biblical values. But don’t pick a candidate merely because that’s supposed to be “your” party. And don’t insist, just because a certain issue is paramount in your own conscience, that all other Christians must share that same priority and vote like you do.
God didn’t create any political party. He didn’t dish out the issues: “You take abortion and heterosexual marriage, and you take the poor, social justice, and the environment.” Both parties champion issues which Christians should champion. As Christians, we SHOULD view ourselves as a separate people, as caught somewhere between the systems of this world. Because we are citizens first of the Kingdom of God, not of any earthly kingdom.
The Rumble 2012: Stewart vs. O’Reilly
My wife wanted to watch The Rumble 2012, the Saturday night (October 6) debate between Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart. So who was I to argue? OF COURSE I would watch it.
It was just $5 via pay-per-view on our computer. Which proved to be much cheaper–and far more entertaining–than a typical movie.
The event was hilarious, but also oddly substantive. Both men made good points, while having fun. Though Stewart and O’Reilly are ideological opposites (or close to it), they respect each other and always have good chemistry (I’ve seen O’Reilly on The Daily Show several times).
Poor ED Hill, the moderator. She started out asking a serious question of O’Reilly–“How do you feel about that?” To which O’Reilly responded, “I don’t care,” and then went off in a different direction. It was a wonderful parody of last week’s first debate between Romney and Obama, in which neither man paid any attention to moderator Jim Lehrer.
I didn’t realize the size disparity. O’Reilly is 6’4″, and Stewart is just 5’7″. To compensate, a lift was built behind Stewart’s podium, which he could raise and lower with the push of a button. He played with it throughout the debate.
Like I said, it was a lot of fun. But they also tackled some issues in ways you won’t see the candidates tackle them. Since neither TV guy is running for anything, they could risk being politically incorrect and overly honest.
Very refreshing.
Loving and Hating America
In an NPR interview, Stephen Colbert said his new book, “America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t,” is based on the notion within right-wing punditry that “our greatest days are ahead of us, and we have the greatest history in the history of history, but this instant right now is completely screwed up, and we’ve got to save America from disaster.”
That made me smile. Pundits, as Colbert humorously points out, are so schizophrenic.
I sometimes jokingly ask my right-wing friends why they hate America. They will talk about America being the greatest nation on earth, ever. And in the same breath they will denigrate the government as broken and useless, lament the country’s morality as worse than Sodom, criticize 47% of their fellow Americans as lazy and irresponsible, describe all politicians as egotistical incompetents, and gripe about pretty much everything else–the economy, our schools, the courts, unions, our foreign policy, the “War on Religion,” and you name it.
They insist we are the greatest nation on earth. But they dislike pretty much everything about us. And so I ask them why they seem to detest our country so much. And, of course, they quickly assert that, no, they LOVE America.
Are we a great nation…or not? Can we have it both ways? We’re certainly very powerful, but are we exemplary, considering all these things we denounce about ourselves? We’ll say, “We’re still better than everyone else.” But…are we?
Just asking.
(The Colbert interview, by the way, is quite interesting, at least if you’re a Colbert watcher. He does the interview out of character, and talks about what he’s trying to accomplish with his character.)
Romney (Finally) Finds Some Footing
Mitt Romney came out loaded for bear in the first debate last night (Oct 3, 2012). He was animated, full of information, and fully energized.
President Obama, on the other hand, appeared passive, disengaged.
On Facebook, I kept a running list of comments going during the debate. Early on I said Romney was kicking butt, and repeated it later. That was my perception, and all of the pundits pretty much agreed with me. (Not that they were reading my Facebook feed.)
It also appeared to me that Romney was hogging much more air time. But this morning I learned that, according to the persons keeping the game clock, Obama spoke over four minutes more than Romney did–42:40 for Obama, 38:14 for Romney. I would never have guessed that. So I’m wondering what shaped my perception. Maybe, because I found Obama’s turns so dull, I was tuning him out, checking email, or using the opportunity to go to the fridge. Or, more likely, doing a Facebook update.
I did find Romney’s aggressive style to be off-putting. It annoyed me, the way he steamrolled the moderator, and forced his way into the foray. But I don’t find many other people bothered by that.
Will Romney’s performance matter? It certainly will help at least some. But the electorate is very polarized, with minds already made up. Maybe it’ll move the needle, but maybe not.
The pressure is on Biden now. If both ends of the Republican ticket prevail, that won’t go well for the incumbents. I do expect Obama to do much better in the town hall format. They will both be interacting with everyday people, rather than going at each other. Clearly, going at each other face to face is a format where Romney excels.
That, unfortunately for Obama, will also be the format for the final debate. However, the subject is foreign policy, which (in my book) is a glaring weakness for Romney and a strength for Obama. But Romney obviously prepares very, very thoroughly. I much prefer Obama’s view of the world and generally like his stewardship of foreign affairs. Whereas some of Romney’s statements, especially his sabre-rattling regarding Iran (he sometimes has seemed to really want to get into a war with Iran) seriously concerns me.
But we’ll see. I would predict, at this point, that Romney will win that final debate as well. And then it’s just a couple weeks until people vote.
Pastors and Political Endorsements
Since I work around ministers all the time, I found this interesting. Ed Stetzer, from LifeWay Research, polled 1000 Protestant pastors. He found:
- 90% believe they should not endorse political candidates from the pulpit (it was 85% in a similar poll in 2010).
- Among pastors who call themselves Democrats, 98% believe political endorsements from the pulpit, compared to 90% of independents and 82% of Republicans. So Republicans are most in favor of using the pulpit to endorse politicians.
- 44% of pastors personally endorsed candidates outside of their church role. The percentage was higher among pastors of very small churches (56%), and among pastors in small cities (49%).
- 54% of self-described Democrats endorsed candidates outside of their church role, compared to 51% of Republicans and 34% of Independents.
An amendment to the IRS tax code in 1954 prohibits tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, from endorsing political candidates.
Stetzer writes on his blog:
In case you are wondering, my view is simple: Pastors should preach something more important than politics– they should preach Christ. They should preach Scripture. When they preach Scripture, they will indeed address issues that the world sees as political, but they distract from their message and mission when they start using the church to endorse canididates.
An old saying explains, “When you mix politics and religion, you get politics.” When it comes to endorsing candidates, I believe that statement applies–it hurts the mission of the church.
Details, Please
Neither candidate has gotten specific on what he’ll do to get the economy moving. I’ve decided that neither candidate really, truly, knows. We’ll see in tomorrow’s first debate if either gets specific. I don’t expect Obama to do that–he, sadly, seems to be coasting just fine on the strength of incumbency. Meanwhile, Romney must make the case for an alternative path, and he’s just not getting it done. He keeps getting sidetracked.
Has there ever been an incumbent more vulnerable on the economy than Obama? At least, since Herbert Hoover in 1933? Republican movers and shakers are going nuts over what is shaping up to be a monumental missed opportunity.
This morning on Morning Joe, Chuck Todd made a good point. He said Romney has made the case for a weak economy, but hasn’t connected the weakness of the economy to specific Obama policies. Obama, on the other hand, has successfully directed blame in two directions: to the mess he inherited from George Bush, and to uncompromising Congressional Republicans.
The September 17 BusinessWeek notes that, if Romney got more specific, it would just open himself up to more attacks. That’s true. The same applies to Obama. Tackling the debt will require some pain and sacrifice, and people won’t vote in favor of pain and sacrifice. So the candidates are dodging. Obama’s getting away with it, Romney isn’t.
