Well there is one thing that Mitt Romney says which I think is correct. He says he has (and would as President) pass bills with bi-partisan support. He compares this to Obama who has little bi-partisan support for anything he has done.
Where Mitt is wrong (and it kills me that this point is not made by the so called news media that covers the election and politics) is who should get credit or blame for that!
Mitt passed bills with bi-partisan support because Democrats in office work with Republican administrations. He had no choice as his state legislature was mostly Democratic. Obama has in fact bent over backwards to be bi-partisan, even keeping many of Bush's folks in his administration. In fact many Obama supporters were not happy with Obama's propensity to compromise a position before debate even began on a subject. The democrats went to great lengths to compromise with Republicans on everything, and then in the end, the Republicans would vote pretty much unanimously against anything the Democrats tried to do.
This is infuriating! It is classic (winning) Republican spin. They are to blame for something and they manage to spin the conventional wisdom so people blame the Democrats. It is kinda crazy actually. During the debates Romney kept saying how he will work together with Democrats and that Obama just pushed through things without Republican support. And Obama never really rebutted that characterization. The truth is, Obama got things done, despite extreme Republican obstructionism! They would fight against things they actually agreed with or previously supported, just to prevent Obama from getting re-elected.
Unfortunately Mitt is right when he says if he becomes President he will get things done with bi-partisan support. We know that the Democrats will go along with what the Republicans want (in fear of being labeled obstructionist by the media which seems to only echo that word when it is leveled against the Democrats). The lack of backbone that Democrats have to stand up to the Republicans is another reason liberals are often disappointed in them. What I worry about is what are the things he will get done.
And of course this is all evidence of how terrible out two party system is. The party who is not in power has no reason to help improve the state of the nation. If they do, then the party in power gets the credit. If Republicans had helped to get the economy back on track, Obama would easily get re-elected. What we need is a Parliamentary system where all parties - Green, Libertarian, Tea Party, etc, can be represented. Like they do in most democracies - if the Green Party gets 10% of the vote, they get 10% of the seats in Parliament. This means no party can get anything done without forming an alliance. It takes away the incentive to be obstructionist, as any party can join forces to pass bills that will be popular and they can take credit for. And no party will win by default. Right now, the economy stinks, so people are likely to want to vote for change. This means Republican. If there were many parties then people could have a choice in which change they would like to see and each party would be judged by what they did.
Plus this would open up the political discourse to a much more representative range of perpectives in issues. If we had a viable multi-party system we would be hearing about things like climate change in the debates. We would actually hear a debate about the effectiveness of drones in combatting terrorism.
Where Mitt is wrong (and it kills me that this point is not made by the so called news media that covers the election and politics) is who should get credit or blame for that!
Mitt passed bills with bi-partisan support because Democrats in office work with Republican administrations. He had no choice as his state legislature was mostly Democratic. Obama has in fact bent over backwards to be bi-partisan, even keeping many of Bush's folks in his administration. In fact many Obama supporters were not happy with Obama's propensity to compromise a position before debate even began on a subject. The democrats went to great lengths to compromise with Republicans on everything, and then in the end, the Republicans would vote pretty much unanimously against anything the Democrats tried to do.
This is infuriating! It is classic (winning) Republican spin. They are to blame for something and they manage to spin the conventional wisdom so people blame the Democrats. It is kinda crazy actually. During the debates Romney kept saying how he will work together with Democrats and that Obama just pushed through things without Republican support. And Obama never really rebutted that characterization. The truth is, Obama got things done, despite extreme Republican obstructionism! They would fight against things they actually agreed with or previously supported, just to prevent Obama from getting re-elected.
Unfortunately Mitt is right when he says if he becomes President he will get things done with bi-partisan support. We know that the Democrats will go along with what the Republicans want (in fear of being labeled obstructionist by the media which seems to only echo that word when it is leveled against the Democrats). The lack of backbone that Democrats have to stand up to the Republicans is another reason liberals are often disappointed in them. What I worry about is what are the things he will get done.
And of course this is all evidence of how terrible out two party system is. The party who is not in power has no reason to help improve the state of the nation. If they do, then the party in power gets the credit. If Republicans had helped to get the economy back on track, Obama would easily get re-elected. What we need is a Parliamentary system where all parties - Green, Libertarian, Tea Party, etc, can be represented. Like they do in most democracies - if the Green Party gets 10% of the vote, they get 10% of the seats in Parliament. This means no party can get anything done without forming an alliance. It takes away the incentive to be obstructionist, as any party can join forces to pass bills that will be popular and they can take credit for. And no party will win by default. Right now, the economy stinks, so people are likely to want to vote for change. This means Republican. If there were many parties then people could have a choice in which change they would like to see and each party would be judged by what they did.
Plus this would open up the political discourse to a much more representative range of perpectives in issues. If we had a viable multi-party system we would be hearing about things like climate change in the debates. We would actually hear a debate about the effectiveness of drones in combatting terrorism.
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