Semi-Open Thread: Your Impressions of Mitt Romney

~ Clarissa

Is there anything about Mitt Romney that you find politically attractive?

We’ll have a similar thread on Barack Obama in a while, so everything is fair at Clarissa’s Blog.

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Published by Clarissa

31 thoughts on “Semi-Open Thread: Your Impressions of Mitt Romney”

  2. I think that if, by some strange chance of fate, he actually got elected, he wouldn’t be as right-wing as he seems now. I don’t think he’s a right-winger, I think he’s a pragmatist, he’ll say and do anything to get elected, but once elected, I don’t think he’d do anything too extreme, at least by Republican standards of “extreme” which one expects from their rhetoric.

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  3. He has very nice hair. Is his hair (and money) nice enough to beat out Obama’s pecks? I don’t know. But, sadly, this discussion is going on right now in many American womens’ minds.

    I’d mention policy and voting records, but I doubt that matters very much to most people in America today.

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    1. I’m a woman and I asked what you liked about him politically. You are a man and you mentioned his hair. Hmmmm. . . 🙂 🙂

      But I agree that the hair seems to be the most memorable part of him.

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  4. He has nice hair. Whether that’s enough to beat out Barack Obama’s pecks, I don’t know. Sadly, I do know that this debate is going on in the minds of many American females.

    I’d mention policy, voting records, etc., alas, nobody is paying attention to such non-important stuff.

    *Sigh* Why can’t I have them both?

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  5. Sorry, didn’t mean to post twice. But on a serious note, me being the evil, soulless, economist who looks at stupid things like “NUMBERS” and “STATITICS” and “FACTS” knows we can’t handle the debt the Big 0 is foisting on us. Mitt not only better be elected, he better pull off equally “draconian” or “extreme” fiscal measures otherwise this debate will be moot by the time 2016 rolls around

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    1. I think it’s obvious right now that he has no chance of being elected. The Republicans had no viable candidate this time around. I hope they learn their lesson, stop listening to the religious right wing, and show us some REAL conservative candidates in 2016.

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    2. The “‘draconian’ or ‘extreme’ fiscal measures”, which I interpret as a sort of “slash Gordon” approach to government spending, which aaronclarey appears to want, would likely be economically disastrous.

      According to various surveys of economists (reported here and here, for instance), you’ll find that a strong majority of economists agree (possibly with qualifications or provisos) with the following statements:

      1) “Fiscal policy (e.g. tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy.” My first source indicates that 39.3% of economists agreed (44.5% with provisos) with that statement. The second source indicates that 90% of economists agree with it.
      2) “If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the course of the business cycle rather than yearly”. My first example indicates that 60.1% of economists agreed (27.6% with provisos), while the second indicates that 85% of economists agree.

      What do those two things mean? They mean that a strong majority of economists agree that during a recession, the federal government should stimulate the economy using tax cuts and/or more spending, and run a deficit to do so. Once the economy recovers, the federal government should hold back on stimulus actions and run a surplus and pay off the debt accumulated during the recession. And when a new recession comes along, the cycle repeats.

      In other words, the problem is not deficits per se, but rather having them at the wrong times, such as the US’s habit of small deficits during booms and big deficits during recessions.

      But if you still insist on slashing spending, we can begin with two things that ought to be complete no-brainers:

      * Subsidies to oil companies those same companies admit they don’t even need.
      * Weapons systems the Pentagondoesn’t want.

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      1. Indeed. The Bush tax cuts started the problem. The balanced budget we had before that would have taken care of itself, had not the tax cuts been implemented. Our taxes are far too low in this country.

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        1. “Our taxes are far too low in this country.”

          – I’m not yet prepared to form an opinion on federal taxes, but I can say that the state taxes in our state of IL are, indeed, way too low. We are now about to lose a significant portion of our pensions as state employees. That could be avoided if the state tax were raised a little bit. But that isn’t happening.

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      2. I won’t say federal taxes are too low (and if I did it would be a “value judgment”), but I understand those who have actually done the math say federal taxes are about as low as they have been in a long, long time. It is absolutely mendacious to refer to the present times as times of high taxation.

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    3. The “‘draconian’ or ‘extreme’ fiscal measures”, which I interpret as a sort of “slash Gordon” approach to government spending, which aaronclarey appears to want, would be economically disastrous.

      According to various surveys of economists (reported here and here, for instance), you’ll find that a strong majority of economists agree (possibly with qualifications or provisos) with the following statements:

      1) “Fiscal policy (e.g. tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy.” My first source indicates that 39.3% of economists agreed (44.5% with provisos) with that statement. The second source indicates that 90% of economists agree with it.
      2) “If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the course of the business cycle rather than yearly”. My first example indicates that 60.1% of economists agreed (27.6% with provisos), while the second indicates that 85% of economists agree.

      What do those two things mean? They mean that a strong majority of economists agree that during a recession, the federal government should stimulate the economy using tax cuts and/or more spending, and run a deficit to do so. Once the economy recovers, the federal government should hold back on stimulus actions and run a surplus and pay off the debt accumulated during the recession. And when a new recession comes along, the cycle repeats.

      In other words, the problem is not deficits per se, but rather having them at the wrong times, such as the US’s habit of small deficits during booms and big deficits during recessions.

      But if you still insist on slashing spending, we can begin with two things that ought to be complete no-brainers:

      * Subsidies to oil companies those same companies admit they don’t even need.
      * Weapons systems the Pentagondoesn’t want.

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  6. He pretty much is Barack Obama. Which makes him unquantifiably better than the other Republican candidates.

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    1. The guy is a Mormon religious fanatic who promised to kill the health care act, who is anti-abortion, who wants to destroy student aid, and who thinks we should all borrow money from our billionnaire Dad.

      Yeah, he is totally Obama.

      Are people familiar with Mormon teachings? They are bizarre, to say the least. One has to be very divorced from reason to believe that weird stuff.

      I’ll take a rational agnostic over that any time of the day.

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      1. He’s a guy who says he’s gonna take down ObamaCare… while passing almost identical healthcare reforms in Massachusetts.

        He uses the rhetoric of a conservative (“borrow money from your billionaire dad”), but Obama uses the rhetoric of a social democrat, and that doesn’t convince me either. He’s been trying to look more and more Republican because he wants to win Republican voters. You know that if he was elected, he’d immediately rush straight back to the center like Obama did in 2008.

        In my country religion is considered sub-political, so I’m not really concerned with how crazy his personal beliefs are. I mean, I’m a pretty devout atheist, from my point of view any kind of religious belief is silly. Yeah, Romney believes the biblical scholars of the New Testament lived in North America, and he believes black people have dark skin because they were neutral in the war between God and Lucifer – but Catholicism, a far more mainstream religion, will tell you that congregational bread and wine literally becomes the flesh and blood of Chris. Furthermore, any kind of Christianity teaches that a man who lived 2000 years ago had the power to walk on water and rise from the dead. But having a crazy religious faith does not make you a crazy persons, just sometimes an indoctrinated one, and religion is only ever a problem if it affects your political leanings. I’d like to point out that a perfectly rational agnostic, James Callaghan, is today regarded as a total fool who almost ruined his country with pay restraints that lead to the worst strikes any developed country’s ever seen.

        But I hadn’t heard anything about student aid so I’ll hold off judgement until I do. I dunno, I’m undecided about the guy. I’ve heard a lot of outrageous Republican-type bullcrap from him but most of what I know of his actual political action seems fairly centrist to me. Maybe if he was elected, he’d act like a real Republican just to please his Republican electorate and win re-election next term… I guess there’s a slight danger there. But I don’t think for a second he believes any of the stuff he says.

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        1. Of course, I would not want a Catholic president either. The best candidate is the one who either keeps these issues to himself or is obviously very indifferent.

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  7. He is amoral, sneaky, and opportunistic. Most of the time this is a negative, but it could be a positive in extremely dangerous international negotiations with dangerous foes.

    But, Jimmy Carter said it correctoy, more or less. A Romney presidency would not be a total nation-destroying catastrophe the way a Paul, Gingrich, Santorum, or Cain presidency would have been.

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  10. Unlike the president, Romney understands capitalism. Critics will point out that his company fired a lot of people, but sometimes that necessary. Mitt Romney bought out inefficient companies, and then fired the people who weren’t contributing. Now the unprofitable companies were profitable again. In 10 years his company turned $37 million into $500 million. Do you think Obama could do that?

    http://www.economist.com/node/21542765

    Also, he is a pragmatist. Instead of writing inspirational speeches, Mitt Romney fixes problems. Please see the first page of this story for details.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-the-problem-solver/2011/12/01/gIQAkSGXlO_story.html

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