Because of Obama's terrible debate performance we are staring a Romney presidency in the face and I am trying to come to terms with the possibility that after living through Bush/Cheney, Mitt Romney's mug will be on the T.V. screen for eight years. My gut is so sore from thinking about a failed Obama and a new Romney presidency that my health may be failing. So I am changing gears and adjusting. Certainly I will cancel my cable subscription. I am also threatening to move to Canada but I already have a house an hour from the border so I'm not sure that moving sixty miles North achieves all that much.

I nearly laughed out loud when Romney sidekick Paul Ryan said this weekend, "We've had some missteps, but at the end of the day the choice is really clear."  Acknowledging missteps is a useful persuasive tactic---that is, leading with a "negative" sometimes enhances credibility. But Ryan's acknowledgment that this election is now a choice, not just a referendum, is a huge error and joyously so. The Romney crew are now playing on Obama's turf. The irony is that Romney's initial plan to make the election a referendum on Obama probably ended the moment he picked Ryan as a running mate, making the election not about a sluggish economy but about vouchers, vaginas and vehicles---a field of "play" on which Obama is winning.

Romney isn't that dumb, or not dumb enough to launch a dumb riff about airplane windows not going up and down when he's standing right in front of his wife who has just had a near death experience on a smoke filled jet at thirty thousand feet. That's not even not dumb, but worse. Notice she was not looking at him and she was definitely not even not smiling. I hope Mitt wasn't dumb enough to try to collect on his marriage benefits that night.

So what's Romney---the world's walking definition of a smart business guy---trying to achieve by appearing to be dumb and not even dumb, but beyond our consciousness of dumb, a kind of Kenyan dumb---inhabiting an alterative reality beyond the dumb of our own shores?  

The latent ethos of self-reliance in the American experience has, in my opinion, enabled the Republican party to meld the disparate factions of the wealthy and modest income whites into a successful coalition for the past thirty years. But Romney's broad definition of "victim" includes many in the Republican party who consider themselves to be self-reliant. Like oil and water, self-reliance and victim-hood are not miscible.  

According to Romney a "victim" is a person who receives government benefits---which then must include many modest income whites upon whom the wealthy Republicans have depended to maintain power.  Romney has put the Republican base in a predicament. As victims they are not the strong and self-reliant persons who in such beliefs steel themselves against the reality of their declining incomes and job opportunities. If they are not victims, are they self reliant enough to vote against their own benefits?   

Mitt Romney, our Christian President, Barack Obama, is as we speak being burned in effigy by angry Muslims across the world. In a flag draped coffin, no less. Don't you want to jump in with both feet and claim once again that Obama is coddling them? Pretty effective isn't it? Where is your outrage that our country has been demeaned and insulted by the angry Muslims? Perhaps you might want to have your five sons enlist in the military and go over to Pakistan and elsewhere to protect some American real estate---you might actually own some of it. What about you, perhaps you should personally visit the area, tell them again why they shouldn't be coddled. And by the way, you might mention that we won't tolerate any such actions as burning our President in effigy. Cat got your tongue? It's tough being out there in the ring, isn't it? Any of those white towels left over from the plan level at the Ritz Carleton?

In my opinion it's way too early to conclude that Romney's fund raising video is a "game changer". While Romney's comments are reprehensible, the media coverage so far does not parse the victims to include the 50% of Republicans in red states who are low income and don't pay taxes---but distributes 100% of these folks to the Obama camp. Thus, on the media surface, Romney was correct. A lot of people pay no federal income taxes and they all vote for Obama. What else is new?

I am not impressed by the way Democrats are addressing the video. Democrats have not properly responded to the "47% pay no taxes" charge in the past and I can't see that their response to this video so far has improved their messaging. So to turn this video into a game changer, Democrats need to improve their attacks. "Romney wrote off the 47%" doesn't, imo, move the needle.  

On an explosive day in the Middle East, John McCain has just appeared on Fox News telling the folks in Arkansas as well as those in the Islamic world that radical Muslims have properly perceived America's weaknesses.  According to McCain the U.S. is, in fact, weak and it is a known fact that we are withdrawing from the region. Taken at face value McCain's comments could be seen as encouragement to radical Islamist groups to keep testing our embassies around the world. Perhaps our enemies could scale additional compound walls, and sensing the opportunity for a kill, recruit even more radicals and increase the mob violence to a point where it is no longer controllable.

I've been worried about how much I'm spending on Obama contributions and had no idea how I was going to recoup the money---which is extra dear because it is "after tax" dollars. Going to Las Vegas is out of the question because the idea of being in the same state with Sheldon Adelson is revolting. I could cut down on the Chick-Fil-A combos but that would take twenty years to break-even. Fortunately Romney and Pat Robertson have revealed Obama's plan to take God off our coins once he's elected. And it looks as if Obama will be re-elected---unless God quickly sends down a Robertson-style intervention in the form of an attack on our Motherland or a hurricane hitting Washington D.C.to remind us of the Almighty's potential vengeance if Obama were to win again.

With the revelation that Obama will get rid of God coins the perfect bet, even better than Intrade, is to hoard God coins. Once Obama has taken all the God coins out of circulation, any which have been hidden will be worth a fortune to collectors as well as to religious sects. I can see something along the idea of Amish, Shaker and possibly even Mormon sects springing up in which the underground commerce will be conducted entirely in God coins. The Shaker option might be preferable since the sexes would be completely segregated, making moot Robertson's plan for male sect members to take their women out of the country to beat them into submission.  

Like every other News host and pundit in the country John King of CNN commented this morning on the terrible job numbers reported by the Bureau of Labor on Friday.. "The drop in the unemployment rate is not good because hundreds of thousands of people gave up the search for work." This explanation of the drop in the labor participation rate has been repeated ad nauseam---for example, "too discouraged to look for work", or "quit because they couldn't find work".

Clinton's speech last night was so pitch perfect and masterful that, in my opinion, it is going to be difficult for Obama to follow him---even given the separation of twenty four hours. I thought that Clinton's speech was going to be more hellfire and brimstone than it was. The speech did have a bible belt flavor to it and could have been delivered from a pulpit with an "Amen" at the end. In fact Clinton did give Ryan a public spanking and if Ryan didn't smile just a little bit, it only proves he has no more conscience than a tennis shoe.

Obama's predicament and impediments seem obvious. How does he attempt to add anything to what Clinton has already said better, if not in concept, in technique? For months Obama has been addressing the "Class Warfare" charge with, "...it's not about "class", it's about "math". I never liked that line. First off, I had to ask myself, "did he say "math" or "mat", or whatever. Maybe my hearing is bad, but like watching Masterpiece Theater, I hate it when I have to work to catch the actual dialog. Clinton's beautiful lead-up to the word "arithmetic", shows how easy it can be if you have the right word to begin with---not to mention that the folk language meter of this country is iambic--a rith' me tic'.

---letting go of a small stash of money which rounds out my contributions to the President for the Primary season. Clint, you didn't weaken my commitment to the President, you strengthened it. And I'm letting go of you as well as some cash which at my age is not all that easy to earn back.

I feel good about my additional contributions to Obama. I feel like the kid in me who spent his last dime at the country fair and came home with empty pockets but with a smile on his face.

Two turkey buzzards walk out of a bar. One says, "Now, what do we do?." The other one says, "I think I want to kill something."

I don't think Obama and the Democrats have much understanding of the turkey buzzard resentment and pugilism beating in the hearts of men, particularly white men in this country, particularly those who work with their hands and those who don't have the education to qualify for upper level jobs. Unlike turkey buzzards, marginalized white males don't have actual targets to unload their instincts upon when extinction threatens them.  

Enter, stage Left:  Obama, the Democrats, the "War on Women" and those ever present lazy minorities who are sucking the life out of us.

Paul Ryan and his mother will be touring Florida this weekend and will be visiting the Villages, a large retirement center north of Orlando. I conjured such a Ryan trip to the Villages in a recent blog post here but admit that I completely mis-underestimated the potential leverage of Ryan bringing his mother along for the ride. In contrast to Romney, who shower-sang "America the Beautiful" at the Villages a few weeks ago, Ryan is likely to generate the best T.V. footage of the campaign there.

I've been worried the past couple of days that Ryan, Romney/ Koch might be making some headway on the Medicare attacks. The thing that might have gotten some traction was the linking of Medicare reforms to the dreaded Obamacare. I thought Obama was a little slow on the uptake. But what I didn't realize was that Joe Biden set a trap for Romney who just tee-ed up the ball for Obama to hit out of the park. Biden's faux pas was intended to put Romney on a high and loosen his tongue---because Romney can't keep his mouth shut. Especially when it comes to embellishing his argument.

In case you've never heard of a retirement community in Florida called The Villages, it's a destination plot for Midwesterners who want to sit back and enjoy life, and on most weekends, act like teenagers. Some of my friends from high school live there, including my cousin, Eddie, whose wife died several years ago from a massive stroke. Eddie describes his life now in what could be termed a steroidal wish fulfillment of those Saturday nights when we wrestled with our dates at the drive-in movies back home. 

The Villages is one of the strangest environments I have ever encountered. It eerily resembles the totalitarian and idyllic setting of the Patrick McGoohan T.V. series, "The Prisoner"---which was based in a fictional town/resort known as---you guessed it---The Village. Words have failed to describe the Villages in Florida until the recent appearance of an article by Michael Van Sickler in the Sunday Tampa Bay Times. (link in comment below) It is delicious reading. The writer describes the very much in control Republican owner of the Villages and his attendant bastion of forty thousand reliable Republican voter/residents. As goes cousin Eddie and the Villages so goes the Ryan/Romney ticket in Florida.

Why Paul Ryan was picked seems pretty clear to me. Romney was losing and he was being hammered by the right wing of his own party, without which support he couldn't even win the Republican base, let alone the middle of the electorate. Romney's Freudian slip that Ryan "is the next President of the United States" helps confirm, to my mind, that as a party, and given that Romney was losing, the future of the party itself was a major ingredient in the pressure Romney was receiving and his final V.P decision.