Thursday Open Thread [10.11.12]

Filed in Open Thread by on October 11, 2012

Mike Allen:

“Conversations with advisers to the V.P. candidates suggest that both will be very aggressive tonight. One of Vice President Biden’s missions is to calm down President Obama’s supporters — particularly the progressives who, in the view of the White House, have overreacted to the disappointing first debate. Biden plans to do that by making Ryan answer for his own proposals, as well as Romney’s. The V.P. wants to stay more on offense than on defense, and expose and explain contrasts. His style is to demonstrate a mastery of specifics, then step back in ‘Regular Joe’ style to relate to viewers. His prep team in Wilmington, Del., included Ron Klain and Bruce Reed. His mock debates were formal, but aides dressed casually.”

“Paul Ryan has been watching game film of Biden, including the ’08 debate with Sarah Palin and the V.P.’s Meet the Press appearance in May, to try to get in his head. Since the Republican convention, Ryan has been buried in a pair of debate-prep binders – one for foreign issues, one for domestic. As Ryan rewrote and edited his responses, the drafts were sent to Boston for fact-checking, then added to the binders. Ryan plans to call out the President and Vice President for what he considers mischaracterizations of GOP positions, and will argue that he has worked hard on these measures, and knows they are being mis-described.”

Yeah, there was some overreaction, especially by some pundits on MSNBC. But a worried reaction was warranted. Interestingly, the Pew poll shows expectations for Rep. Ryan are actually higher than for Vice President Biden, according to the Wall St Journal. Before last week’s debate, the expectations were very high for President Obama. May Paul Ryan suffer the same expectations result.

In Reuters/Ipsos surveys conducted over nine months, “a startling 35% of households have suffered a major economic setback in the past four years. They have either lost a house to foreclosure or are in the middle of losing one. Or they have lost a job or taken a pay cut. Almost 96,000 adults were polled.”

“Strikingly, many don’t seem to blame the president. They divide about evenly on which candidate has the better plan for the economy: Forty percent pick Obama and 42 percent choose Romney.”

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  1. cassandra_m says:

    Those Ryan pictures — he looks like he is auditioning for the Jersey Shore!

  2. SussexWatcher says:

    Pires immolates himself … accuses Carper of domestic violence and of lying about his veteran status. http://www.delaware1059.com/story.php?id=386

    Geezer, I take it back. He’ll be lucky to get 6 % once this gets out.

  3. socialistic ben says:

    ugh. i was gonna protest vote for that guy….. oh well.

  4. Rockland says:

    Maybe Ryan will bring this up in the debate…

    Old Scranton Joe was bitching about the price of gas in 2008 – 4 years later he and Zero have helped it reach record highs….

    http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannis…back-08-debate

    During the 2008 vice presidential debate, Joe Biden complained about how gas prices were so high at the time that the average “Joe” couldn’t afford to fill up his tank.

    During the Oct. 2, 2008 vice presidential debate with Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, Biden was asked by moderator Gwen Ifill to comment about deregulation.

    In his answer, then-Senator Biden took the opportunity to relate a conversation he had at a gas station with “a guy named Joey” who said he couldn’t afford to fill up his tank:

    “So deregulation was the promise. And guess what? Those people who say don’t go into debt, they can barely pay to fill up their gas tank.

    “I was recently at my local gas station and asked a guy named Joey Danco. I said, ‘Joey, how much did it cost to fill your tank?’ You know what his answer was? He said, ‘I don’t know, Joe. I never have enough money to do it.’”

    At the time (Oct. 2008), the average cost of a gallon of regular was $3.17 – and only $1.93/gallon when Obama took office in January of 2009 – according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    Today, AAA estimates that a gallon of regular costs about $3.82 (Oct. 9), while the latest BLS report says it cost $3.71/gallon in August.

    And, this week, the Associated Press reported that gas prices in California have hit an all-time high of $4.67 for a gallon of regular, and The Los Angeles Times reported that that Gov. Jerry Brown has taken “emergency steps” to address the problem.

  5. JConnor says:

    For all you “Other shoe” fans start clicking DEl. Online after midnight for a Starkey story:)

  6. Jason330 says:

    The shoe man cometh .

  7. Delaware Dem says:

    Great. Now I have to revise the post I wrote two weeks ago but did not publish.

  8. JConnor says:

    On another note some folks here’s new fave Rethug Ben Mobley has not filed his campaign finance report. Even more interesting he has NEVER filed a report though he apparantly was raising money in 2011……just sayin’

  9. Geezer says:

    @JY: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Are you saying Agenda 21 deserves more discourse? Why?

  10. liberalgeek says:

    No, a commenter said that they hope Evan wins so that we don’t have any more discourse on it…

    It’s in the link…