"We need a third party to save this country. Not Ron Paul and the Ron Paulites. No."

"We need a legitimate third party to challenge the current system that we have, because I don’t believe that the Republican Party... has the ability to rebrand itself."

Said Herman Cain, who would like the GOP to rebrand itself in the opposite way from what I'd like.

I voted for Romney even though I reject the package of issues that comes marked with the label "social conservative," Cain's favorite material. One reason I felt calm and distanced from the results of the election in less than 24 hours is that I only wanted about half of what Mitt Romney was offering, and I agree with Obama on the other half. Making the best of what happened is, for me, automatic. I support gay rights and abortion rights, to name the 2 most prominent social issues in this year's elections.

The linked article — at Salon — is a bit confusing, especially the last paragraph:

After the GOP’s crushing 2008 loss, there was lots of talk about a new third party. When the Tea Party emerged, this talk almost became a reality. Instead, the conservative activists opted for a hostile takeover of the GOP. It’s still very unlikely that Cain or anyone else could start a viable third party, but his comments underscore the cleavage within the conservative movement in the wake of the defeat last night.

I thought the Tea Party was about the economic issues — taxing and spending. Do the social issues belong in the Tea Party? Well, apparently they've seeped in. Were Todd "legitimate rape" Akin and Richard "something God intended" Mourdock Tea Party? I didn't buy the "War on Women" demagoguery, but those guys made the GOP look really awful — at least old-fashioned and dumb if not deeply sexist or scarily religionist.

Can we get a GOP with sound economics and a commitment to individual liberty?

E.J. Dionne asks "Does our presidential campaign lack a moral core?"

He purports to delve into the debate:

However you analyze it in electoral terms, the exchange between President Obama and Mitt Romney was most striking as a festival of technocratic mush — dueling studies mashed in with competing statistics. In many ways, the encounter offered voters the worst of all worlds: a great deal of indecipherable wonkery and remarkably little clarity about where each would lead the country.

However you analyze it? Well, I don't even have to check the debate transcript to remember a striking use of the word "moral." Let me get the exact quote from the transcript. Jim Lehrer had just asked "what are the differences between the two of you as to how you would go about tackling the deficit problem in this country?" And Mitt Romney said:

Good. I'm glad you raised that, and it's a -- it's a critical issue. I think it's not just an economic issue, I think it's a moral issue. I think it's, frankly, not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation and they're going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives. And the amount of debt we're adding, at a trillion a year, is simply not moral.

But Dionne would like you to think of the debate is just a big indecipherable mush. And then the whole rest of his column is about — can you guess? — Nuns on the Bus! Because who's better than nuns "to remind us that our decisions in November have ethical consequences?" I'd say Mitt Romney was better, in his utterly clear statement quoted above, which is in no way "technocratic mush" or "insufferable wonkery," Mr. Dionne. But... hey! Look! Nuns! Nunnnnzzzz!

"The middle class has been buried the last 4 years."

A new Romney ad exploits a Biden gaffe.

And by the way, this is a beautifully produced ad, demonstrating how the Romney-Ryan campaign chooses to present itself. It ought to be a lesson to those who are dragging Romney and Ryan down.

A NYT headline: "Mitt Romney Says, 'I Am The Confidence Fairy!''"

But Romney never said "I Am The Confidence Fairy!" There's some other Romney quote — some dull thing about economics — and then Paul Krugman says: "In effect, Romney was saying, 'I am the confidence fairy!'"

Krugman really, really wants Romney to lose. So, presumably, does the NYT. I don't have a problem with an opinion writer paraphrasing somebody's quote like that. It's the use of quotation marks in the headline that's wrong.

"This could be the opportunity for Romney and for that campaign to finally take the gloves off and take the fear off and just start explaining conservatism."

Said Rush Limbaugh on his show today.

Start explaining liberty to people and what it means, and explain that they don't have to be in that 47%.  There's no reason for them, for everybody, to essentially have given up on their future in this country.  There's no reason for it.  This is, to me, such an opportunity to espouse conservatism and to explain to people. Now that people are focused on this, now that people are paying attention to it, this is a golden opportunity, and we know Romney's got it in him because of what he said to these people.

Whether Rush has that exactly right or not, Romney is being tested, and we will see if he can rise to the occasion. The media are showing what they can do, putting Romney on the defensive, using what they have to make us look at something negative about him even and especially when some truly newsworthy problem is plaguing Obama. I want to see what Romney can do, getting on top of this media beating (which is not going to end).

"Job Creation? 47% Trust Obama, 45% Romney."

That's terrible for Romney!

That's Rasmussen, by the way. If Romney people are finding that very depressing, here's Rasmussen's presidential tracking poll today, showing Obama coming down from the convention bounce. It's 48% Obama, 45% Romney. Yesterday, it was 50% Obama, 45% Romney (and Obama hadn't hit 50% since February 7-9). Now, I think the swing-state tracking poll is more important, because who cares how many more people in California or New York go for Obama? And there, Obama is doing better today than yesterday. It's 47% Obama, 45% Romney. Yesterday, it was 46% Obama, 45% Romney. Romney's really stuck on that 45! Anyway, margin of error, blah blah blah. Turnout is key, blah blah. The only poll that counts is the one on blah blah blah blah. Aren't you tired of polls? Or are you starting to love them? That Rasmussen! So accurate! So likely-voter-based!

624 comments on the live-blogging thread last night.

Did the spam-bots find out I'd turned off word verification for commenting? I'll check it out. There's our liberal commenter Lindsey Meadows, who said (at 6:24 PM):

I think I'll just have casual sex tonight. After Romney, I couldn't possibly feel more violated (or bored).

When Clint Eastwood came on at 9, the liberal commenters, offset by Meade, went ageist:

elkh1 said... Clint is really really wobbly old.

Meade said... Clint looks great.

Alex said... Clint looks old and jittery. Remember folks he's 82. When he was in his 40s, it was scary.... Clint is just embarrassing right now. There is a reason for the old folks home and you're seeing it. Shoot me before I ever get like this. Senile.

2 of the long-time conservative commenters picked up the age theme:

Pogo said... Old, jittery, but vicious as hell.

Shouting Thomas said... Unfortunately, Clint is really struggling. Sad to see the great man suffering the humiliation of old age.

Pogo said... No way, ST, he's an elderly man whose body betrays him a bit, but he's hitting a million right notes. Hurrah!

What I liked about Clint's routine — which you had to trust not to feel nervous about — was when he said "We own this country... Politicians are employees of ours... When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go." As I said in this post, this was a play on something Romney said, something that's been used against Romney: "I like being able to fire people." Clint imposed the correct interpretation on that: When somebody does not do the job, we've got to let them go.

I didn't say much about Romney's speech last night, because I was way too tired by then. Our liberal friend Alex said: "ROmney talking too much about his family and church. Where are the policy initiatives? Obama is going to be speech-ifying policy like crazy next week." (Yeah, lotsa policy wonkery, that would have kept me awake.)

And our liberal Lindsey said: "I just watched Mitten with the sound on...sound on/sound off...same amount of policy specifics. Meade must be in seventh heaven." Oh, she wants policy too. If only they'd have bored us all to tears all week with specifics.

Shouting Thomas continued his lugubriousness:

Romney played small ball. I think that's what we need. He doesn't have an overriding theme, only the promise that he has the technical and managerial skills to lead.

Obama will promise social justice and payoffs to his favored groups.

The debates should be interesting.

Meade responded:

Exactly right. What we need now is boring small ball competence. Time to put obama's failed presidency behind us. Romney will be a fine president.

Lindsey with the liberal lady's focus on sex not baseball had no trouble seeing the opportunity to say:

Well by all appearances, you got a guy with small balls. I was actually hoping that all the non-policy fluff was just to woo the far right but I am now pretty locked into that being all he has. Sad really.

If a man had said something equivalently sexual about a woman, Democrats would cry "war on women." If that kind of rhetoric is okay, we ought to call out Lindsey for her "war on men."

Ah! No spam. Maybe some not-so-admirable comments in there, but nothing robotic, and so Morning on the Althouse Blog continues (i.e., no word verification for commenting). And I just want to say one thing about this supposed lack of policy specifics from the GOP and the implication of Democratic superiority on said specifics. I mean I want to quote something from Paul Ryan's speech:

[President Obama] created a bipartisan debt commission. They came back with an urgent report. 

It was loaded with specifics.

He thanked them, sent them on their way, and then did exactly nothing.

Ryan put a long pause between "did" — the action word — and "exactly nothing."

"What was the best part of working at Bain?"/"I’m not sure people would think of me in this light, but..."

"... frankly what I enjoyed most about Bain & Company, the consulting firm, was the analytical process of solving tough problems."

If a client invites you in and is ready to pay a lot of money for your counsel, it is not because you know their business better than they do. Of course, they know their business better than I ever would. But they’re looking for someone to understand their business challenges in a new light. And that presents an analytical challenge which is steep and exciting. And I love the thinking and the analyzing as much as anything. 

Does America want to be Mitt Romney's client? Should we submit our tough problems to him for analysis? Well, if that's his thing, we should right now be looking at his analysis of our tough problems. There should be some amazing solutions laid out of the table for us to look at. Are we seeing that?

Romney campaign expresses pride in Romneycare.

Surprising and good response to that powerful Obama ad that we've been talking about in this earlier post.

I really think that it's not enough for Romney supporters to say Romney wasn't personally responsible for the decision that led to this man's loss of his job. Romney's business was to do practical and efficient things that result in some people losing their jobs, and he needs us to be able to believe that's just fine — that the purpose of business is to make money, not to take care of people and that's what works out for the best in a system of capitalism.

But then what happens to people who lose their insurance, like this poor man whose wife learned too late that she had cancer? We feel empathy to him and he stimulates legitimate fears that we have about ourselves and people we love. It's not enough for the Romney campaign to fiddle around with the details about Romney's connection to this man's losing his job and when and why the cancer killed his wife.

We're looking at a specific man but a generic problem: People not seeking treatment because they don't have insurance and don't want to spend their own money going to the doctor until it's an emergency. Obamacare is one answer to this problem, and Romney's position is that he will end it. He needs to inspire confidence in what he would do instead. Today, we see Romney pointing proudly Romneycare, which the Obama campaign normally uses against him. It's a credential, not an embarrassment all of a sudden.

"Culture Does Matter," writes Mitt Romney.

In National Review, pushing back efforts to make it seem racist to say that nations prosper when their culture has certain qualities that Israel has and the Palestinians lack.

But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? In the case of the United States, it is a particular kind of culture that has made us the greatest economic power in the history of the earth. Many significant features come to mind: our work ethic, our appreciation for education, our willingness to take risks, our commitment to honor and oath, our family orientation, our devotion to a purpose greater than ourselves, our patriotism. But one feature of our culture that propels the American economy stands out above all others: freedom. The American economy is fueled by freedom. Free people and their free enterprises are what drive our economic vitality.

But what exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture? is a clever question that provides leverage for arguing — not that he argues it — that if you don't think it's culture, you must think it's some inborn biological factor. That is: If you don't agree that it's culture, you could be a racist.

(And yes, I realize that inference will be resisted with the argument that the economically unsuccessful places are oppressed by other countries, Israel is oppressing the Palestinians, etc. etc.)

ADDED: This is related, from Stephen Moore's tribute to Milton Friedman (who was born 100 years ago yesterday):

Once in the early 1960s, Friedman wrote the then-U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, John Kenneth Galbraith, that he would be lecturing in India. By all means come, the witty but often wrong Galbraith replied: "I can think of nowhere your free-market ideas can do less harm than in India." As fate would have it, India did begin to embrace Friedmanism in the 1990s, and the economy began to soar. China finally caught on too.

"Romney book: Britain is a tiny island that makes stuff nobody wants."

That's the headline in Foreign Policy, which is getting attention (according to Memeorandum), especially after Romney supposedly said something that upset the Brits today. (Surveying the London Olympics, Romney saw "a few things that were disconcerting." The Brits are keen to mock, and the mockery is magnified here in the U.S., because American media is inclined to boost Obama whenever the opportunity arises.)

Let's look at the paragraph Foreign Policy highlighted:

England [sic/[FP's sic]] is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn't make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn't been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler's ambitions. Yet only two lifetimes ago, Britain ruled the largest and wealthiest empire in the history of humankind. Britain controlled a quarter of the earth's land and a quarter of the earth's population.

Oh, there's where they cut it off? Well, obviously he was in the middle of making a point. But you know the rule in journalism: Taking things out of context is okay when you do it to hurt conservatives. But I happen to have my Kindle copy of Romney's book "No Apology: Believe in America," so it's easy for me to give you the context. Here are the next 4 paragraphs: