You're reading too much into it. He said it because someone somewhere is going to believe and be that much closer to voting for him.
Don't think it was random at all. It was an off-the-cuff reply to a followup question and was cued by the company he was keeping 1) Obama himself as his debate opponent and 2) Jim Lehrer of PBS who was the moderator of the debate. Talk about aggressive. No punches pulled.
I did and no I'm not. Got that one out of my system! How did Obama and his backers hoodwink the Democratic Party away from Hillary Clinton in 2008? She had lived in the Oval Office. Her husband was a party hero? She had more legitimate experience than Obama. Something funny going on here....
His statement that 47% of the people would vote for Obama and are not his concern was a political statement as a candidate. If that was the end of it, no problem. The problem appeared when he decided those 47% of people were losers who didn't want to take responsibility for their own lives and wanted to be dependent on government. At that point, it was a personal attack on half the people in the country - including veterans, the elderly and others.
I agree. It needs more reality shows and commercials and boobs. I mean, whoever gave them the idea that they can be all artsy-fartsy and intellectual and educational? I watch TV to relax, not to use my brain!
What follows that whole rant was that his job is not to worry about them. So my statement is apt. He is not concerned about 47% of the country, so that means he can work well with liberals right? Exactly.
My point is that he is stating no plan then he can negotiate from the point of absolute. hitler used this tactic effectively. From a 'negotiating' point of view not stating your stance is an effective (albeit sneaky) way to gain your goal. His goals seems too hardlined for me to trust after all the rights I lost with the last republican george bush. I dont like the cronyism and think that whole element stinks too. I think it would be bad for the economy the same way it was bad when bush was in ,and good when clinton was in. We are rising up now under obama after far as recovery from the sh**t show that bush put us in. As much as I cant stand the welfare for poor people, I think the corporate welfare alone is worth zillions more than a piece of bread for some poor black lady in alabama on welfare. Maybe she wont produce much , but bear in mind gas companies alone are making billions per quarter and a very slight raise of their tax would help tremendously at a much more impactful way to our gov't. How many jobs or cuts would exxon mobil have to make if they are making 14.9 billion a quarter instead of 15.9 billion? Would the sky fall? Instead we are worried about $2 piece of bread to a poor black woman in alabama? Seems legit. Romney seems to be pretty hard headed when it comes to- abortion separation of church state right of gays pro tax shelter 1% nastiness cronyism corporate welfare anti medical mar1juana anti poor people having affordable health care Those issues are pretty much the core of some of the main stuff people live and deal with on a daily basis. Since he is so hardlined on these stances alone I cannot vote for him. I especially dont want to be led into some kind of trap of absolutes. He needs to answer the questions of those issue and not try to humor me with 'conservative values' bullsh!t. Until he can take a less hardline approach and be straight about these important issues then I dont give a rats ass because I dont want some sneaky fUUCKER telling me what.. and then not willing to compromise. His arrogance about how he would handle big bird is telling. He should have been like " I will seek bi partisan support and work to get rid of PBS." not some absolute that he is going to can it. What a prick. This guy sucks. I am not a obama fan boy but oabama is looking like lesser of 2 evils here folks. I just cant take the unknown of a church state extremist possibility when that's one of the possibilities. That's too scary a world for me to deal with so better stick with what I know now in obama. Call it 'settling' but I like not having to go to church on sunday. I think gay people can kiss and am anti oppression. I would rather let gays get married that then be praying to the sun god in a world with no big bird. Too many unknowns with the undertones of some pretty absolutes. No thanks I'll pass
Bingo. Manipulating the emotional reaction that most wedge issues spark in society is far more influential on voter decision making than making concessions, inciting reason, or telling the truth. For both sides. Lee Atwater championed this approach during the 80's Bush elections, and it's still the preferred method of gaining the support of voters while simultaneously detracting attention from more prevalent issues. The scary part is that most people recognize the fact that their emotions are being manipulated, yet they make no concerted effort to stop dancing to the tune. I often intervene when I hear people arguing their stance on gun control. Each side will inevitably use over optimistic projections of their preferred course of action to support themselves. These overly optimistic opinions generally include massive biases that others likely share, and the cyclical validation of subjective opinion goes on indefinitely from there. I try to argue a recognition of the fact that neither side can win the argument, because both lean on empirical evidence presented as proof that their preference will unfold as planned and lead to a better future. Drop the egos. Recognize the stalemate, and move around it rather than continuing to WASTE time, effort, and energy. The massive amount of resource used to support these opposing sides would be extremely beneficial for everyone if it was spent on something like grants for mental health research. Research that could improve our ability to definitively diagnose a mental illness, rather than speculate the odds of one. If that doesn't go as planned, our methods and ability to improve mental health for all people would be improved regardless. The most common gun related deaths are self inflicted, so how is "winning" a gun control debate more important than instead using the effort to improve the quality of life for both sides equally? Win/Win is a better option, regardless of which side you land on. The large portion of people on both sides of the gun control wedge will agree that this would be better than perpetuating the stale mate. Only to turn around and continue arguing their original point, despite the fact that they had just acknowledged the absurdity of it. TL;DR: Most humans are more concerned about the validity of their opinions, than identifying mutually favorable solutions to a complex problem. Candidates in an election will stop exploiting the tendency when it stops working in their favor.
You argue an interesting viewpoint, but I'll be the first to point out that you speak to a strong conservative bias. While you believe that placing little to no basis on sound arguments and that the strength of an argument lies in its ability to manipulate emotions, other may wish to disagree. I wouldn't be surprised if Republicans divested resources from institutions dedicated to collecting empirical data on various societal phenomenons. And quite frankly, for Republicans to instead funnel it into mental health organizations isn't such a bad idea. I think the country has seen enough Congressmen Gifford shootings, movie theater shootings, and Sikh temple shootings.
I'm not just waxing philosophical here. This particular argument mostly came from studies in modern behavioral economics. More specifically, Daniel Kahneman, Ernst Fehr, and some others. The fact that most people will not pay attention to the wealth of information on these modern understanding of decision making and instead defer to their "gut feeling" on whats best for public policy is case in point. My stance would only be seen as having conservative bias if you think I just want them to "win" the argument of gun control, but that is a bias assumption made about on otherwise objective solution. Others could just as easily say there are liberal biases for the suggestion that the NRA should use their lobbying money on healthcare, once the lobbying was no longer necessary. This is why wedge issues are so effective. We are naturally inclined to take a side that we think supports our opinions most, and dismiss anyone suggestion that isn't in support of our own, rationality be damned! The fact is that the ignores party bias in favor of a generally altruistic approach to solving a stalemate that has been inhibiting real progress for decades. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we've been doing for everyone involved.
@IBTL: I'm completely shocked that anyone could view Romney as some Christian fanatic like you seem to think or a believer in theocracy. Where do you get this from? From the large amounts of times he's spent talking about those sort of social issue on the campaign? From attending the recent Values Voter Summit? From campaigning for that sort of stuff when he held political office. Oh wait. He did none of that. So where do you get this idea?
You voted for Obama? I didnt realize you saw yourself as a victim and a slacker. Wow. Hey - stop being a leech ok?
It started with Bush. "Over a decade" was LONG before Obama took office. Romney would be FAR worse for the middle class and you would know that if your head wasn't so far up Romney's keister that you could lick his tonsils.
He is talking about campaigning not governing. The 47% number is evoked specifically because he is explaining how the tax messages are hard to deliver on the campaign trail. "No income tax raises" is an empty message to 47% of the population who already pay no income taxes but yet the salivate in hopes that others (the rich) will pay more income tax. He talks about "targeting" the 5-10% of independent voters: is that a campaign idea or a governing idea?
