The big question is will Obama manage to come up with a quote like Romney's quote from the other day:

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love."

Now that there is some impressive word slinging! I don't know if Obama will be able to match that!

nisl

I noticed Gingrich's and Romney's weak language skills last night. Gingrich in particular, often weakens his sentences with modifiers like "very, very"and Romney's word choice is often odd, "self-deportation," for example. Both men say "I think__" instead of "This is the way it is___." A good debate coach would have a field day pointing out where they go wrong.

President Obama, of course, is a skillful speaker.

It seems everything is slipping away from Mitt.

U.S. economic confidence is at its best in 8 months and
second best since 2008 according to this recent Gallup poll.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/152159/Economic-Confidence-Best-May.aspx

Thanks Dennis, there are some great stats coming out today.

Wow, Romney's "Self-deportation":

I believe Romney's idea is that if you starve folks, beat them down and kick them to the curb enough, eventually they will crawl back to their birthplace on hands and knees.

Doesn't Romney have his own family connections to the South though?

President Obama, of course, is a skillful speaker.

Yes he is. Can you imagine him spouting that Romney line? No, you can't. Nor can you imagine him letting any speech writer who put that on paper continue as an employee of team Obama.

I mean WTH? "I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love." Good lord, did Mitt Romney let Bain outsource his speech writing to someplace in India? If you Google "Insipid Pap" the above Romney quote is the result.

Doesn't Romney have his own family connections to the South?

Yes, Romney's grandfather moved to Mexico so he could have numerous wives. Romney's father George was born in Mexico, and probably would have been disqualified from the Presidential nomination he ran in if he hadn't said he'd been "brainwashed", a statement that made him almost as unelectable as being born in Mexico.

Governor Jim Rhodes described watching Mitt's dad George run for president as, "Watching George Romney run for the Presidency was like watching a duck try to make love to a football."

Apparently the fruit didn't fall far from the tree.

Quack quack, Mitt!

Betty, How is the Illinois balance sheet looking today?

Ok. Romney's father George was born in Mexico.

Now, Romney's stance on Immigration & Dream Act is... (bites lip).

U.S. economic confidence is at its best in 8 months and
second best since 2008 according to this recent Gallup poll.

In other words, , consumer confidence was still better in the middle of the actual recession under Bush than in the actual recovery - after 3 years of Obamanomics .... right?

nisl---I didn't know that Rumsfeld was writing Romney's speeches these days

bob - Make a bumper sticker out of that and run with it.

Americans are asking GOP, what have you done for me lately? Nada.

- Make a bumper sticker out of that and run with it.

It is a little long for a bumper sticker .... but the that fact consumer confidence has dropped from -29 to -25 when it was at +10 in January 2008 - after 3 YEARS OF OBAMANOMICS - is laughable and in and of itself - is pretty damning of Obama.

Of course, there are those that do not possess the intellectual capacity to understand anything beyond bumper sticker slogans like Hope and Change ... Yes We Can .... but for most Americans, they get it.

Try to find one to explain it to you.

The Obama Socialist/Marxist Agenda has been referenced so often by the right wing, I am keeping my fingers crossed in anticipation that he will walk us through it tonight.

bob-180,

“+10 in January 2008”

Yep, at the beginning of the last year for President Bush
– all downhill after that until May 2011.

So the left have a good sport decrying Romney's 15% tax rate. It's not fair they shout.

So let's hear the other side of the debate. What is a fair tax rate for all levels of income and will it cover the 3.7T the federal government is currently spending? Will you tax Capital Gains and dividends differently? What is a fair rate of Corporate Tax?

Come on let's hear your proposals.

Dennis,

The recession began in December in 2007 - January 2008 is the 1st of the recession.

So 4 years after the recession started, 3 years of Obamanonics, 2 1/2 years after the recession was over - consumer confidence is MINUS 25%.

PATHETIC.

Worst recovery in history since Great Depression - FACT.

bob-180,

Also worst recession since the Great Depression - FACT

Also worst recession since the Great Depression - FACT

Really - unemployment went up to 10.9% ... have staggering inflation?

Please tell me you really want to compare Reagan's situation / recovery to Obama's.

The GDP percentage went twice as negative (-8.5% growth) this time as it did in the double dip recession(s) of 1980.

The recovery was also easier due to the fact that manufacturing and exports were 3 times what they are today.

Well, as a working middle class family, we came out of this recession much easier than we did the one ronnie created and prolonged to make sure his buddies kept getting richer - trickle down never works for those it is trickling on, only for those at the top. I'll take this recovery any day before I'd go back to those reagonomic nightmare years. Funny, even being an actor ronnie couldn't say poop with a mouthfull, guess that is why he was always considered a b grade actor, never a real star - you know, in the talkies people have to understand you and what you are talking about.

Dennis, you dare to put out some facts. The GOP candidates just rant about Obama and how Obama doesn't believe in growth or security. The economy cratered in late 2008. Anybody who denies that is smoking crack or meth or both. I remember quite well the fear of depression as Obama took office. And now the GOP wants to repeal Dodd-Frank just as Phil Graham sponsored the repeal of Glass-Steagall. I had to laugh when Bryan Williams asked Romney last night whether the banks were too regulated when they collapsed. Romney thought and said that they were "poorly regulated." I wonder what his position was on repeal of Glass-Steagall in the mid-1990's. I was amused at Gingrich's defensiveness and his ability to say that Romney "just lied four times" without being specific. Just wave your hand and say that the proof will be on the website. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Money only began to buy access in American Politics in February 2009, you could look it up.

Or, this is simply the most blatant, most cynical, most, nefarious, example in our history.

"Dollars to Donors" while absolutely true, is an argument one could make about every Presidential administration, and practically every state and local election since the institution of MONEY as legal tender...

Contributors are PAYING for ACCESS and they get it. From The Chucklehead with the cash in his freezer in New Orleans, to the "Hammer" and his love affair with Jack Abramoff, to the overnight rental of the Lincoln bedroom, like so many of the one sided "Your guys are worse" arguments here, it ignores the universal nature of money in politics, and that the complicity and guilt are shared by those who seek contributions and those give with the expectation of some reciprocation...

SOTU "guests" who will be notable by their absence:

Yes dear Donna - problem is, if they were in attendance you would still be bitching...

What is your point again?

Money only began to buy access in American Politics in February 2009, you could look it up.

ALL recorded history began January 20, 2009.

Kindly furnish the details of prior big dollar donors who stuffed their pockets with taxpayer (borrowed) funds. I'm afraid you'd have to go back to the Harding administration to find such egregious examples as the Obama administration has provided.

While you are on the case, please provide examples of big dollar donors sitting on advisory committees whose role was to okay the distribution of taxpayer (borrowed) dollars- 80% of which went into the pockets of other bog dollar donors.

It is all well and good to sniff that "everybody does it".

Everybody does not do it. While "access" is a given, quid quo pro is not.

We're this a republican administration, we'd already have a special prosecutor.

That Obama is a democrat does not negate the need for one.

The man is as corrupt as I have ever seen.

And you know it.

I'm looking forward to seeing the guests who will be there tonight with our First Lady, including: Warren Buffett's secretary; Laurene Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs; a cancer survivor; and Mark Kelly--retired astronaut and husband of an American hero and inspiration, Gabby Giffords. There is some American exceptionalism.

NJNB SAID:

Kindly furnish the details of prior big dollar donors who stuffed their pockets with taxpayer (borrowed) funds

the Big Boys in the following industries:

OIL
DEFENSE
HEALTHCARE

Etc., etc, etc.

Where's your outrage?

""Peanut butter on my chocolate - Chocolate in my peanut butter"

(It really does all sound the same, and I used peanut butter because it is National Peanut Butter Day)

dangerfield, just dropped back in, are you still meowing around the pigeons? LOL

False equivalency. I'm not buying it Dangerfield.

For one thing, Soros is one bilionaire donor to liberal causes, like hundreds of other billionaire donors to either party, but Koch Brothers controls one of the largest companies in the entire country, and they single handedly created the anti-global warming lobby, to protect their industrial interests. My Teapublican governor uses their agenda as his playbook, thanks to the influence of the Heritage Foundation on policy. The Koch Brothers don't just support politicians, they shape policy to favor an oil dependent and anti-environmentalist position.

That should be Voter REGISTRATION Fraud / Voter Suppression.

Just my thoughts here, but I would imagine anyone donating big money to any candidate expects something in return. Some kind of access, but hey, what to do I know. People may just do it out of the kindness of their wallets, er, heart!

phinephancy-4252115

Very true. No such thing as a free lunch or for that matter a campaign contribution.

Lisa-

It really doesn't matter what he says about the budget. He could say that he would cut expenditures ten times the amount of any revenue increases and the GOP would say, "Hell no." There will be no compromise. The GOP will agree to no revenue increases and they will insist that the military budget be increased - not decreased. They have not agreed to one dime of tax increase since Obama took office. And now that the automatic cuts agreed to in September (after the super committee went nowhere) call for cuts across the board, the GOP foghorns in the Senate will wail and moan about the cuts in the defense budget. (After all, its time for another war in Iran.) You may remember that two tax increases (one by G.H.W. Bush and the other by Clinton) balanced the budget in the 1990's. That was all done with Greenspan's approval. Never more will such common sense be practiced in the bloodlust of today's politics.

BeyondDEMOCRAT, It matters to a lot of Independents. Balanced budgets are important to many in the middle. Class warfare is not popular among Independents. I am not saying that CNN's Gloria Borger just did.