Open Thread

Mitt Romney gave a foreign policy speech yesterday in which he criticized the President and then announced he had no ideas different than the President.

According the the New York Times, Vice President Biden is at a Delaware hotel for three days of debate camp starting today. I wondered how that could possibly be, since the Vice President does have a nice empty house in Wilmington to use. And then I finally got to the end of the article on the Obama campaign's reaction to the listless debate and noticed this timely correction posted this morning:

An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was moving into a Delaware hotel for three days of debate preparations. He will actually spend the nights at his home in Wilmington.

Damn. I was preparing a Scavenger Hunt along the lines of "Where in DE is the Vice President?" Oh well.

A rainy Sunday -- one where you might curl up with the papers and coffee. Except that this morning's NJ has a "Special Report" called Are You Better Off? Have you read it? I did -- pretty much word for word and what a mess this is. Starting with the conceit that the financial problems started in January 2009 and largely undermined by that throughout the pieces, I'm pretty sure I didn't learn anything. And don't get me started on the piece that picked two "right-leaning" economists and two "left-leaning" economists that largely left the "right-leaning" ones alot of cover behind a political start date, rather than the start date of the recession. But hey -- maybe I missed something.

Welcome to Saturday! Today I want to bring your attention to a new Bill Moyers interview with Mike Lofgren, the ex-GOP staffer who wrote the incendiary Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult . Mr. Lofgren has written a book extending on his thoughts on the extremism of his old party (and the dysfunction of Democrats) called The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.

The James Bond Edition. Today is the 50th Anniversary of the film creation of Royal Navy Commander James Bond, CMG, RNVR, spy icon by Sir Ian Fleming. Dr. No was the first movie, starring the always amazing Sean Connery and establishing a formula for (mostly) fascinating movies that have been watched and obsessed over for a half of a century. Yes, these movies (especially the older ones) are sexist, politically incorrect, but I'm a fan anyway. Happy Anniversary, Mr. Bond! Hope you all will join me in having a martini (vodka -- shaken, not stirred) in Bond's honor today.

By doing well last night, Romney reversed the expectations game for the next debate. He will be expected to be great again, and Obama will be expected to collapse to the ground in fear. But this next debate is the town-hall format. That was Obama's best debate last time, and it is something Romney does not do well, i.e. relating to the common folk. One final point to last night's debate: if Democrats and the President were complacent, they are not any more. Actually, that was the biggest danger to the election: Democratic complacency because we expect to win. Well, that is no longer a problem.

"As to Romney: It’s a mark of the fundamental vapidity of his campaign that his people think he can win with mere zingers. That isn’t Romney’s problem. His problem is that people don’t see any authenticity to the man, and basically (and perhaps, ergo) don’t like the person they see. They should be using this debate as a way to address those two deficits. Zingers won’t do that. I’d also bet you dollars to doughnuts that these zingers are written to please the right-wingers watching. That is his same-old problem, thinking that if he’s winning over the right, he’s winning over America." And that is why he fails. (using my best Yoda voice).

First Read:

"Heading into tomorrow night's first presidential debate, both President Obama and challenger Mitt Romney have two big vulnerabilities that his opponent can exploit. And it's safe to say that whichever candidate better addresses his vulnerabilities will have more success in Wednesday's debate." "For Obama, one of his vulnerabilities is that he hasn't fully described what a second term would look like... For Mitt Romney, a big vulnerability is that he hasn't differentiated his economic policies from George W. Bush's."

This is a rather tired media narrative and Republican talking point: that Obama has not told us what he will do in a second term. Only illiterates and the stupid can possibly say that. He is going to continue to do the things the Republicans continue to block: the passage of the American Jobs Act, the repeal of the tax cuts for the wealthy, the Dream Act, Immigration Reform, implementation and improvement of Obamacare, ending the war in Afghanistan, and investing in new energies (solar, wind) and high speed rail, internet and highway infrastructure. I mean, did these people (idiots like Chuck Todd) not watch his convention speech?

After examining all presidential polls since 1972, Nate Silver explains:

"Data suggest that polling in presidential elections has no history of partisan bias, at least not on a consistent basis. There have been years, like 1980 and 1994, when the polls did underestimate the standing of Republicans. But there have been others, like 2000 and 2006, when they underestimated the standing of Democrats...In all but three years, the partisan bias in the polls was small, with the polling average coming within 1.5 percentage points of the actual result. (I use the term "bias" in a statistical sense, meaning simply that the results tended to miss toward one direction.)"

So Nate Silver had to take time out of his weekend because some right winger babies cannot handle reality? Seriously, if every radical right wing conservative disappeared tomorrow, can you imagine how much better our society would be, instantly?

Courtesy of Ed Kilgore at Political Animal, here is a preview of the cases the Supreme Court has already decided to hear in the next term, which begins this coming week.

"Many of the well-known Ohio Republicans I interviewed offered their blunt assessments only after they were guaranteed complete anonymity. That is often the Faustian bargain of political journalism in 2012: robotic talking points on the record or something resembling honesty with no names attached. The reason, though, that I am emphasizing the don't-quote-me part of the equation is that I was stunned by the vehemence of the thumbs-down-on-Mitt verdict. All but conceding the state to Obama, these Republicans were offering what may be the biggest rejection of Ohio since Philip Roth wrote Goodbye Columbus."

"Take this screaming non tax paying pre-voter back please. There seems to be a malfunction."

This Open Thread is brought to you by the NFL replacement referees, who are now calling the Presidential race for Romney. OK!