When it rains... So Ann Romney gave an interview and said that her biggest worry is Mitt's mental well-being should he be elected president.

Asked what her primary worry would be should her husband succeed in defeating President Obama on Nov. 6, Mrs. Romney replied, "You know, I think my biggest concern, obviously, would just be for his mental well-being."

"I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness and his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy, in his understanding of what's missing right now in the economy - you know, pieces that are missing to get this jumpstarted," she continued. "So for me I think it would just be the emotional part of it."

Well, if Ann had asked me, I would have told her the time to worry about Mitt's mental well-being is long past. I mean, when someone builds their entire campaign on a set of lies, it can admittedly take a toll out of them. And keeping the Teabaggers happy... I have no idea how one would do that without going at least a little mental (whether in the crazy sense or in the evil sense). And I am pretty sure that a Romney presidency will make all sane Americans at least a little mental. But now that we are talking about a possible Romney presidency, what can be better than a president whose own wife has to worry about his mental sanity should he be elected.

I have suffered from mental illness myself and would never even dream of belittling it. But just as you don't give guns to trigger happy nutjobs (well, actually in this country we do), we shouldn't be handing over the presidency to mental cases.

The Florida Republican Party and the Republican National Committee would like you to think that the latest scandal of voter registration fraud under criminal investigation in Florida by a firm they hired is just a bad accident. The firm was paid $1.3 million by the Florida GOP as well as another $3.1 million by the RNC. But now that the RNC, the FL GOP, and other state GOPs that hired the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, have now fired them, and that should be put them in the clear.

Not so fast. This group, its former iterations, and its founder Nathan Sproul all have a long history with the Republican party, and particularly in the are of voter fraud and Democratic voter disenfranchisement. So much so, in fact, that Sproul has himself now noted that the RNC had him change the name of his firm so that the hire wouldn't look suspicious.

Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the RNC's request because the party wanted to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.

You may have heard by now that some conservatives have found an elegant solution to Mitt Romney's nose-dive in the polls: stick their fingers in their ears and yell, "La la la la I can't hear you!" Actually, I want to thank the people at the ironically named UnskewedPolls.com; since it will give me the opportunity to have some fun with them. Well, here's the first piece of said fun. I was curious about the numbers, and of course, the polling methodology they are using to "unskew" the data that the "liberal media" is putting out in a conspiracy to depress Republican turnout.

As I read through their website, hilarity ensued almost instantly. Of course, their methodology is far skewed to the right - in both partisan and ideological breakdowns. This stuff jives with neither the latest registration data (D +12), nor the 2008 exit polling (where Democrats enjoyed a 7-point advantage and conservative made up 34% of the electorate). But that is to be expected. The hilarity, though, comes from something different yet. The conspiracy theorists can't seem to decide just which skewed numbers to use! (yes, I saved screenshots).

They describe one partisan breakdown in one page, and another one in a different page. I have found no less than three separate ideological breakdowns their numbers either directly state directly calculate. Let's have a look.

Barack Obama is wrong. He has been telling us that the US economy has created 4.5 million new jobs in the last 30 months, and we now have empirical data showing he's wrong. He's wrong, because according to just-released adjustment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the correct number of new jobs created under President Obama is actually about 5 million! Under President Obama, as of March of this year, the private sector created 453,000 more jobs than was previously thought. 67,000 more public sector jobs were lost (thanks to Republican governors firing teachers, police and firefighters), netting a total revision upward of 386,000 jobs.

Mitt Romney was asked on Sunday if it's fair for people like him to be paying the low 'capital gains' tax rate while people who make money from work pay up to a top marginal rate of 35%. Unphased, Romney answered in the affirmative explaining that capital has already been taxed once, at the corporate level, which is what justifies the low rates on investment income (capital gains).



Let's take that argument a little further. After all, corporations only make profit because consumers buy things, and they buy those products with the money they have after they paid taxes. So, the money corporations get from their customers has already been taxed once, right? Why should they pay tax on it again? Under this logic, no contractor you ever hire to work on your home should ever have to pay a dime in taxes, since you are paying them from your after-tax income. Any work that is paid for with after-tax dollars should then be tax free. And under this logic, the only time money should be taxed is when it goes from a corporation to you, via the means of compensating for work. Every other tax is "double taxation," and thus unfair.

If you looked at the poll released from the Pew Research Center yesterday, there are a lot of things for Obama supporters to be pleased (but never complacent) about. President Obama leads by 8 points among likely voters,  But perhaps none more glaring than this one:

That's a 19-point gap among women in favor of Obama among registered voters, and the gap is 18 points among likely voters. Among men, Romney leads by 1 point, smaller than the margin of error.

Most of my life, I—or someone close to me—have been one of the 47%.

My parents had three children they could claim on their taxes. Thus they paid very little income tax, if any. We all leeched off the teat of the makers. We are humbly sorry.

One of my earliest memories is of being at the A&P up from our block with my grandfather, and him paying for his groceries with funny looking money. I was to learn later that he used foodstamps. For not wanting to starve, he was a moocher. He apologizes from the grave.

I've had a stutter for most of my life. For most of the time I lived in New York, I had some sort of publicly funded speech therapy. When I attended Bronx Science, I had a speech pathologist come to visit me every week. If I had just put pebbles in my mouth like Demosthenes, I could have proudly claimed that I cured myself. I'm sorry for this display of weakness.

You would Mitt Romney would be an odd messenger to complain about how other people don't pay taxes, but he went there. Mitt Romney thinks that the 47% of American tax-filers who did not pay a federal income tax (although they paid taxes from their income, like payroll taxes), are mooching off the government, think of themselves as victims entitled to government checks, and have it way too good. We know that when you run the numbers, this 47% consists of people who make too little to pay federal income taxes, on-duty soldiers, and the elderly. We also know that Mitt Romney would like to raise taxes on these very same people - I mean, "broaden the base."

But let's get serious. Let's take a look at who are the people that really don't pay their fair share in taxes.

Exhibit A: Individuals who make their money from investment rather than work.

This is Exhibit A, because it is almost the worst of the offending groups. "Investment income" is taxed at a much lower, preferential rate than income from work. It has a top marginal rate of 15%, while earned income has a top marginal rate of 35%. Not only do people who fall under this category not pay income taxes at the same rate as income from work, they also don't pay a dime in payroll taxes - which is the greater federal tax burden on 82% of Americans. And for all the talking the Romney camp and the Republican party does about small business, they don't seem to notice that a small business owner or a freelance contractor (the smallest form of small business) pays more than the top marginal rate for Mr. Romney in their payroll taxes alone (both the employer and employee sides).

The cost to taxpayers for this? Around $50 billion a year, on average.

What a week it has been.

Those of us on this side of the divide have always believed that the caricature we paint of Republicans was closer to the truth than not. But, at least in public statements, up until, say, 2008, Republicans were always able to dissemble their true motives to enough of an extent and to enough of the electorate as to remain politically viable. This was aided, of course, by a media culture which is ingrained to parrot Republican and conservative talking points, both because of media consolidation beneath massive multinational corporations, and because our media gravitates towards those with power.

Something cracked once the black guy with the foreign name won the Presidency, though. We've seen it. The Right descended into a swamp of conspiracy and paranoia not seen in this country since the days of the Know-Nothings of the mid-19th century, with their dark tales of Papists violating pure white Protestant American virgins. Or since the heyday of the KKK in the 1920s, which reacted to a country awash in immigrants and African Americans moving out of the South and into the industrial North. Had Hilary Clinton won in 2008, she would have been subjected to some abuse; but I doubt it would have reached anywhere near the insane intensity which has gripped the Right since Barack Obama put his hand on Abraham Lincoln's bible and took the oath of office.

We already know that the Republican party roots for America to fail. Their blabbermouth-in-chief said so, in so many words. But now, they have a nominee who roots for America to be attacked. That's not an exaggeration, and it's not made up. It is almost word for word what Mitt Romney said at the now-infamous fundraiser where he also managed to tell us that 47% of Americans are lazy moochers who see themselves as victims and wine and dine on government dough. Buzzfeed has the video as well as the transcript:

Questioner: When Carter was president, we had hostages. Ronald Reagan was able to make a statement even before he became, he was actually sworn in, and the hostages were released…

Mitt Romney: On the day of his inauguration.

Questioner: Right. So my question is really how can you sort of duplicate that scenario?

Romney: I could ask you, I could ask you how you do I duplicate that scenario?

Questioner: I think it had to do with the fact that the Iranians perceived Reagan… That’s why I’m suggesting that something that you say over the next few months gets the Iranians to understand that their pursuit of the bomb is something that you would prevent. And I think that’s something that could possibly resonate very well with the American public.

Romney: I appreciate the idea. One of the things that’s frustrating to me is that in a typical day like this, when I do three or four events like this, the number of foreign policy questions I get are between zero and one. And the American people are not concentrated at all on China, on Russia, Iran, Iraq. This President’s failure to put in place a status of forces agreement allowing ten to twenty thousand troops to stay in Iraq- unthinkable! And yet, in that election, in the Jimmy Carter election, the fact that we had hostages in Iran, I mean, that was all we talked about. And we had the two helicopters crash in the desert, I mean, that was the focus, and so him solving that made all the difference in the world. I’m afraid today that if you simply got Iran to agree to stand down on nuclear weapons, they’d go, “Now hold on. It’s really a-” I mean, if something of that nature presents itself I will work to find a way to take advantage of the opportunity.

The video released of a Mitt Romney closed-door fundraising event last night was eye opening - but only for people who did not already know that Mitt Romney has a core disdain for not simply for people who need a hand up to climb the ladder of opportunity but the entire social compact itself that provides that ladder of opportunity.



Yes, it's shocking that a candidate for president from a major political party would hold 47% of Americans in such contempt. Yes, it's baffling that a candidate for president would at once berate economic hardship and condemn a helping hand for people to use for the ladder of opportunity. Yes, the optics are bad when you have a candidate born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a silver boot stuck up his... well, anyhow... calling other people moochers.

But if we simply view this event as a campaign mistake, or a floundering candidate, we will have missed a chance to really discuss the gaping gulf in the two economic visions that are being offered for America - not just in this election but for the future of our country. If we fail to take this opportunity to understand and reject the rebranding of equal opportunity and social responsibility as "government dependency," we will have failed to comprehend what this debate is really about.

Crossposted from ThisIsOurTime Blog

Mitt Romney's true self or may be artificial self can't be distinguished as he can be everything in politics. Be aware of what you are voting for!

Speaking to the top 1% of Americans behind closed doors in a private fundraiser, Mitt Romney characterized the majority of President Obama supporters as people who are parasites who are "dependent on government". He sure didn't hold back nothing but pore out everything on the table about what he really believes about half of America. In a video captured by Mother Jones Magazine, Romney said:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

Apparently this short video is just an excerpt of a whole full hour speech captured by an attendee of the fund raiser who wants to stay unanimous but who has now provided the full hour worth of speech to Mother Jones' David Corn.

Mitt Romney and the entire Republican party has built their electoral strategy around two key themes: lies and hatred of President Obama. So much so that Mitt Romney felt it necessary to attack a US embassy while it was already under attack by a foreign enemy and while a US ambassador was killed. But the reviews are now out from Mitt Romney's disaster, and he's fallen flat on his face, according to two polls out today.

The Pew Research Center poll conducted over the weekend sees Mitt Romney's comments on the crisis in Libya, Egypt, Syria and the other places in the Middle East come in at a 26% approval, and a poll conducted for the Monmouth University Polling Institute by Survey USA has approval at 25%. Fully 48% disapprove of Romney's blabbermouth in the Pew poll. The Pew poll gives President Obama's handling a 45-36 edge, while Survey USA puts him at 39-27, with the caveat that the rest are not aware of his response.

Apparently, Fox News is having a hard time finding young former Obama voters who now will vote for Romney, and they are desperate to find some. So desperate, in fact, that "Fox and Friends" put on an aspiring comedian who just punked Gretchen Carlson by pretending to fit this illusive category. Watch hilarity ensue:

As the economy continued its upward but sluggish, tough climb, census data released this past week shows that thanks to George Bush's Great Recession and the Congressional Republican obstructionism, the median income of American households declined by $777 (inflation adjusted) from $50,831 in 2010 to $50,052 last year. That's a 1.5% decline.

Boy, it'd sure be nice if there were something to cushion that blow before incomes started going back up again at the end of last year and continued throughout this year. Wait, wait, wait. There was. The $777 decline for the average household was more than made up for by... wait for it, wait for it... the payroll tax cut the President got in the much maligned tax cut and unemployment benefits deal back in December 2010 and then extended last year. The typical family making about $50,000 got $1,000 in payroll tax reductions last year, more than making up for the reduced before-tax income.

As I mentioned before, incomes have slowly started to rise again, in real terms. In the past 12 months, median income has grown by almost $1200. But in the greatest of economic downturns since the Great Depression, one thing individuals and families needed - and needed badly - was a little extra cushion to carry them over to better times. That's what President Obama provided by the payroll tax cut. Thank you, Mr. President!

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

—Winston Churchill

I think that this week has been a fulcrum not only in the election, but in the very real fight for the soul of the country.

Yes, way too many of our fellow citizens are still addled by hatred and bigotry. Obama should be ahead by 10-15 points, not 4-8. But let's put that into perspective: Before the conventions, the polling averages had him ahead by at most 2 points. The debacle of Tampa and the triumph of Charlotte, without the media filter, basically reintroduced the country to both parties. The GOP was seen as a heartless collection of ideologues whose only interest was in achieving power to service its rich backers. There was no positive vision of the future, but a wallowing in the contention that America was "in decline". Charlotte highlighted a party and a President who believed in the nation, believed in the ability of its citizens to make an adult decision when presented with facts. The country saw a party united in its determination to make life better for all citizens, not just the fortunate few. It was the antithesis of the malaise bruited about by the GOP.

Let's give him one.

Now that the Romney campaign has gone on the record to say that had Romney been president, our embassies would not have been attacked, this is as good a time as any to remind Americans the real difference between President Obama and Mr. Romney when it comes to defending America.



There is one quality above all we need in a president: judgment. President Obama has proven his judgment. Mitt Romney has proven to be a buffoon.

Mitt Romney's politicization of a diplomatic crisis in the Middle East befuddled a lot of political observers. But the explanation is rather simple though quite crude: Mitt Romney is freaking out. Because he's losing. Just a few tracking snapshots: From Gallup:

From TPM's PollTracker:

In some recent swing state news, Obama has opened up a double digit lead in Michigan (evidently, they don't like to be told to go bankrupt). The President leads by 9 points in New Mexico, and by 10 points in Minnesota. According to TPM's PollTracker polling averages, the president is ahead in all the swing states except for two (Virginia and North Carolina).

And just yesterday came news that President Obama is now taking the lead among the only group of minority voters who traditionally vote Republican: Cuban American voters. A Survey USA poll now shows the President with a 16-point lead among Cuban Americans in Florida. As a friend of mine put it on Facebook, if that poll is true, Mitt Romney might as well hang it up.

Crossposted from ThisIsOurTime Blog

This is a person that is running to be a commander-in-chief failing just about the simplistic leadership test. Who in their right mind and intelligence running for the Presidency of the United States would use a tragedy such as this for political gain instead of being a voice of reason? Only an impulsive politician who has no foreign policy experience except hiding his money in foreign counties to avoid paying taxes would chose this path in the quest to be a President and that is poor judgement that will disqualify anyone from being a commander-in-chief.

After the aftermath that took four Americans life including the US Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, over a film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, President Obama made a statement condemning the outrageous attack in Benghazi while praising the four Americans as hero's who have "exemplified America's commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe." The President ordered an increased security to ensure that there is no similar fallout in other parts of the world and to protect American diplomatic personnel around world.

However, Mitt Romney rushed out to attack President Obama and his Administration with his statement saying the Administration is “sympathizing” with the attackers and apologizing “for American values.” which by the way was greeted with harsh criticism from every corner of the media including some Republican pundits except of course who else but Rush Limbaugh.

But this is what really took place and how bad Mitt Romney got all this wrong:

The actual chronology goes something like this: As anti-American protests inspired by a crude Terry Jones video began gathering steam, the U.S. embassy in Cairo – and not the Obama White House — put out a statement condemning “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

The obvious intent was to cool the passions of the protesters. As Marc Ambinder explained, it was “exactly what Americans inside the embassy who are scared for their lives now and worry about revenge later need to have released in their name.”

Not that the rebuke was enough, Mitt Romney doubled up and sent a message points on how to politicize the situation in Libya courtesy of CNN provided by a GOP source:

Mitt Romney knows what to think of the tragic violence in Libya and Egypt that left multiple American diplomats dead: it's good for him politically. While President Obama was reassuring and securing American personnel in the aftermath of this attack, Mitt Romney was busy taking political advantage of it by touting an embassy statement condemning religious incitement released hours before the attacks. I guess that serves one purpose: we already knew that Mitt Romney never cared about Americans who serve in harm's way (hell, he never even mentioned the service of soldiers serving in Afghanistan in his acceptance speech at the RNC), now we also know that Mitt Romney is in favor of religious incitement.

Mitt Romney's politicization of this tragedy was so brazen that even Republicans are running away from it.

Congressman Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, avoided Romney’s same level of criticism on the show, appearing to call for a pause in the political rhetoric for a few days.[...]

Rogers added, “I’m not exactly sure what Gov. Romney was specifically talking about. I think probably what you saw there was the frustration with a foreign policy that probably is a little out of kilter of where the governor would be when it comes to the Middle East. I think that’s probably what you’re seeing there.”

And former Ambassador Nicholas Burnes, who served both Republican and Democratic presidents, had this to say:

“I was, frankly, very disappointed and dismayed to see Gov. Romney inject politics into this very difficult situation where our embassies are under attack, where there’s been a big misunderstanding in the Middle East, apparently, about an American film, where we’re trying to preserve the lives of our diplomats,” Burns said on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports this afternoon. “This is no time for politics.”

Mitt Romney is a man irreparably damaged and irrefutably unfit to lead.

The national press' response to Mitt Romney's plan to cut taxes for the rich and raise taxes for everyone else has been marginally better than their usual cowtowing to the right wing's fairy dust tax magic (lower taxes = higher tax revenues...), but they have not gone even close to examining precisely what sort of havoc Mitt Romney will rein on the middle class. Mitt Romney says that his plan to keep all the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute a brand new $5 trillion tax giveaway also weighted heavily to the wealthy will be paid for by eliminating deductions. Which deductions? Basically ALL the ones benefiting the middle class.

Lett's see if there is any possible way to square the circle of his promise to both massively cut taxes for the rich and be revenue neutral about it, because he says he will make up the lost revenue through closing loopholes, or more aptly, taking away certain deductions. Which deductions? Neither he nor his running mate will tell us. But they will - to an extent - tell us which tax expenditures they will not remove - namely, the ones that rich people use the most.

From the Romney campaign's own tax plan, Mr. Romney's plan would:

• Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates
• Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains
• Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
• Eliminate the Death Tax
• Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)

Just so you know, this is what "across the board 20% cut in marginal rates" looks like in real terms: If you make $25,000 a year, you will get a whopping $276 in tax cuts while those making more than $1 million a year will get $250,000 on average. "Across the board 20%" tax cut ends up reducing the highest marginal rate by 7 percentage point (from 35% to 28%) while it cuts the lowest rate by a paltry 2 percentage point (from 10 to 8%).

This is what Mitt Romney and the Republicans will repeal:

The share of young adults without health insurance fell by one-sixth in 2011 from the previous year, the largest annual decline for any age group since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began collecting the data in 1997, according to a new report released on Monday.

I wonder what could have resulted in this. Oh, right, the socialist Kenyan usurper plot to institute death panels by guaranteeing access to health care for more people, aka Obamacare.

the study’s author, Matthew Broaddus, a research analyst at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the increased coverage for young people was almost certainly due to a provision in the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act that allows children to stay on their parents’ insurance policies until their 26th birthday.

Joseph Antos, a health care policy expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, agreed that the provision of the new law was the only plausible explanation for the increase.

In all, over 3 million young adults age 19-25 now have health insurance thanks to a provision in Obamacare that lets parents keep their young adult children on their plans up to age 26.

And contrary to Mitt Romney's claim, no, "the free market" won't take care of this, left to its own devices. Know how I can tell? Because it hadn't happened until Obamacare forced insurance companies to accept this regulation.

This sort of hypocritical gall is only amplified when the day is September 11.

Glenn Greenwald. Yes, that one. You know, the one who compared killing bin Laden to killing infants. The one who compared a Jewish American woman to a Nazi propagandist. That Glenn Greenwald. That dude, who recently got a gig with the Guardian, is upset that the President's campaign is defending his national security record, including his administration's prosecution of national security leaks. Clearly, in Greenwald's mind, all leakers are "whistleblowers." Clearly, Greenwald is an unquestioned proponent of transparency.

Except... except this:

Translation: "I am going to demand that the President freely release all security sensitive documents to the press, but if you lay people want to read my tweets - by design an open platform - you need pre-approval." Hilarious.

On Sunday, Mitt Romney tried to move to the ... "center" ... on health care reform by claiming that he would preserve certain parts of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Namely, Romney claimed that he would keep the requirement that insurance companies accept all applicants regardless of a pre-existing condition. He also said he would let stand the provision of Obamacare that lets parents keep their young adult children on their health care plan.

Then, in typical Romney fashion, he immediately backtracked on pre-existing conditions and said that he would only allow that for people who have had continued insurance coverage. Because there is no history in the United States of people being dropped by their insurance companies when one gets sick, or one losing their job when they get sick (and thus coverage) and not being able to afford coverage, thus creating a gap. You know. Not in Mitt Romney's country club.

The early reaction of pundits to this sudden (and simultaneously not-so-sudden) shift in Mitt Romney's stand has been that now that the RNC is behind him, Romney is trying to move to the center to reach key swing voters who may not like the Republican-concocted fantom version of "Obamacare" but sure as hell like the above-mentioned parts. You don't win votes by telling parents that you will take health care coverage away from their kids.

Crossposted from ThisIsOurTime Blog

The Republican Party is pissed that there was 96,000 more private sector jobs created in August of 2012. They will tell you that this number is not good enough to rebuild America and blame the President for the sluggish economic recovery while they have been doing everything in their power to derail the President's jobs plan to make President a one-term President. Today they continue to blame President Obama for their lack of having done anything in the last 4 years to help spur the economy so that more Americans can go to work. The GOP HAS DONE NOTHING except SABOTAGE job growth to see more American out of work so that they can take the President's job. That is the plain and simple truth!

Below the fold is a detail explanation of how they have sabotaged the President's many jobs initiative but even with all the resistance he has encountered from the GOP, 4.5 million private sector jobs have been created in the last 30 months, 512,000 Manufacturing jobs have been created since 2010 and over 1 million jobs have been saved because of the President Auto rescue plan.

How could Americans forgive a Republican Party that is so interested in seeing Americans suffer for their political gain?

I'm sure we all know by now the hateful tweet posted by a 16 year old last night after President Obama's speech. Politicus USA has a wonderful post on it (to which I link here), so I won't regurgitate it. But, her tweet and the post do bring up some important things to consider.

One of the themes I've been hammering at in almost all my postings on The People's View since Deaniac graciously allowed me into the stable of wonderful writers here is that America is at a crossroads. It is a fork in the road, with one path leading towards a future of love, hope, and charity, and the other which will take us along a path of hatred, division, and a nightmarish conception of "individualism", where we owe nothing to each other and are on our own.

The most striking part of Pres. Obama's speech last night was when he basically spoke about the social compact which has underpinned the American Dream more or less for most of the nation's history. No, it wasn't perfect; many people were excluded from it for much of that history. But certainly in the past few decades that compact has become a firmer ideal, the underlying music of the American experiment. If you work hard and do right by society, society will do right by you. There is no free lunch; we all have to pull our weight; but, if we do, we will build a society that is fair to all its members, and one that will leave something better for future generations. It is the hope that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will bring wonders we can only dream of in this quotidian time.

After President Bill Clinton electrified the Democratic National Convention last night, President Obama walked onto the stage, and the two embraced. Bill Clinton left no doubt which direction he thinks America should take. President Clinton dismantled nearly every Romney-Ryan lie in a single speech, and refocused the country - captivated by the style and poise only Bill Clinton can deliver - on the importance of this election: will we support President Obama, the man who over uncompromising GOP obstructionism rescued the economy from the brink of what would have made the Great Depression look like the good old days, or will we be fooled again by the Republicans who say, as President Clinton masterfully summarized, "We left him a total mess, and he didn't clean it all up in 3 and a half years. So fire him and put us back in!"?

As President Clinton went through the lies from the Republicans and simultaneously outlined the historic achievements of the Obama administration - finally making affordable health care a right, rescuing more than a million jobs by saving the American auto industry, and massively expanding aid for students among other things, I saw why Presidents Clinton and Obama are joined at the hip: not simply because they are both Democratic presidents. Not even because they have a shared vision of America that is achieved through expanded opportunity and shared responsibility. But because they share not just a vision of America but a vision of effective leadership: pragmatism.