Elections

ANALYSIS – For a lot of reasons, in the end it may not matter.  But in their third and final debate, Mitt Romney made a lot of the same mistakes that Barack Obama made in the first debate.

He attempted to play it safe, and present himself as a competent, level-headed and plausible alternative to President Obama as the Commander in Chief.  However, in the process he seemed to cede a number of positions to the President – positions that he seemed to change on the fly.

The remarkable thing about the second debate, is a recognition of just how far to the right the Democrats have moved to counter the lurch to the right by the Republicans.

It is true that when asked how he would differ from President George W. Bush, Mitt Romney largely fumbled the ball by responding, “President Bush and I are different people, and these are different times. And that’s why my five-point plan is so different than what he would have done.”

Commentary – Last week, Former President Bill Clinton came to town to speak and rally people in favor of four Democratic Congressional Candidates.  Few people noted or cared that the color guard at this event was performed by firefighters of the Davis Firefighter’s Union, Local 3499.

It is perhaps ironic that, in recent years, the firefighters have become more influential outside of their own city political circles than inside them.  After dominating Davis politics for the better part of the last decade and parlaying that influence into 3% at 50, four firefighters on an engine, and a massive 36% pay increase from 2005 to 2009, the firefighters could not give away their endorsement in the last two elections, let alone buy an election within the city of Davis.

Vice President Joe Biden appears to have done what he needed to do against Paul Ryan.    He was never going to get, nor did he really to do to Congressman Ryan, what Mitt Romney did to Obama.  What he needed to do was be fiery, combative, call out what the Obama campaign is calling lies and deception, and fight for their record.

On Thursday night, for the most part, he did just that.  The two most widely available polls largely reflect that.  A CNN poll of debate-watchers gave Mr. Ryan a slight edge of 48 to 44, basically a tie.  A CBS poll of undecided voters found it was 50 to 31 for the Vice President with another 19 percent calling it a tie.

A month out from the November election, the last place you expect to find a former President is in the middle of blue territory in a reliably blue state.  But former President Bill Clinton’s visit to UC Davis was more about four Congressional races than about the Presidency.

A huge crowd estimated loosely by officials to be 8,000 to 12,000 and, given the gaps in the configuration, the lower estimate is likely more accurate, packed in to watch the former President who last appeared at the ARC in 2008 – a venue that ended up with 5000 angry people on the outside looking in.

On the whole, it was not a good week for President Obama.  He performed poorly in the first debate, looking weak, timid and disinterested, and appeared to give Governor Mitt Romney the opening he desperately needed to get back into the race.

The bad week was widely expected to get worse as the September jobs report was expected to be worse and to be showing more of the same in terms of a disappointing and lagging recovery.

Romney’s Video Moment Betrays a Loathing, Disdain for the Average American –

The term class warfare has been increasingly used in recent election cycles to denigrate efforts to point out the disparate impact of policies on the rich versus the poor.  The truth is that there are legitimate policy implications of tax policies that divide the political landscape in this country.

The comments that Mitt Romney is in hot water for making are not new comments, both in the sense that the video is old and in that the thoughts behind them are even older.

There are three basic trends for conventions.  First, the TV networks have been cutting back on their coverage of conventions for years.  Now they are just covering about four hours over three nights.

Second, the Republican convention’s audience dropped about 30 percent over the audience from four years ago.  Experts suspect there will be a similar drop next year.

Key Question Now: Is President Obama in Trouble?

The local picture is bleak.  A recent Field Poll has the governor’s tax initiative passing 54-35, but most analysts believe those numbers are not strong enough in a traditionally anti-tax state.

The loss of the tax measure would put more pressure on local voters to step up to avoid a catastrophic $7.5 million shortfall to the local schools.  In the meantime, the city faces about $8 million in cuts at the same time it is pushing for at least a $100 million surface water project.

Last year, during the heat of the debate on the budget in the city of Davis, there was a comment by Firefighters Union President Bobby Weist, comparing a proposed budget cut to Wisconsin.  There were even signs to that effect.  So it is ironic that the two issues come together, Davis and Wisconsin, this week.

The title of the editorial this week in the local paper was “Wisconsin governor wins and unions lose.”  Now wouldn’t you think that we have had an historic election in Davis, and that the local paper in their Sunday edition might want something, I don’t know, local?

It is a provocative headline, but there is some truth behind it as well.  There are political scientists who believe that political campaigns do not matter.  What matters is the state of the economy prior to the election.