This article was orginally published at Big Blue Bullfrog on October 3, 2012.
Yesterday was the final day of the regular season in Major League baseball, and what a regular season it was. Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers won the triple crown (finished first in home runs, RBIs, and batting average) a feat accomplished for the first time in my lifetime, the Oakland A’s won their division on the final day, the Washington Nationals became the first team from DC to make the postseason in merely 80 years, and the Baltimore Orioles made the playoffs for the first time in 15 years. But the baseball regular season wasn’t the only thing that ended last night.
With the first presidential debate last night in Denver, the fog of deception that was fabricated to make Mitt Romney look like he is an unacceptable choice for the highest office in the land has been permanently dispensed. In fact, some of the more enjoyable moments of the debate were those when President Obama appeared absolutely lost because Mitt Romney refused to accept the caricature of his positions created by the left. But Mitt Romney is not a caricature and his legitimacy shone brightly in contrast with the president last night in this debate which focused exclusively on domestic policy.
Without the filter of campaign commercials or slanted media analysis, the candidates were presented bare (without teleprompters) and had to rely on their own knowledge and wits. In this setting, it was clear who had command of the issues of the day and that was the challenger. A long running CNN poll, which has been taken after every Presidential debate since 1980 had Romney winning by an astonishing 67% to 25%, shattering all previous margins.
A lot of the initial analysis of the debate claimed that Romney won because he was more “aggressive” and one analyst actually said Romney got the edge in time using a football analogy. Actually, President Obama clocked in with nearly five more minutes than Governor Romney and it only felt like Romney spoke longer because his words had so much more substance than Obama’s well used platitudes and stereotyped preconceptions.
There are still two presidential debates remaining this month along with one vice presidential debate, so this race is far from over with 33 days until the election. However, anyone who paid close attention last night has got to like Romney’s chances at this point.
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I was a professional disc jokey for several years starting in the late 1980s through the early years of this century. One of those incarnations of my DJ business was called R & R Music Express, which was a partnership between my buddy “Rico” and me . This morning I found that we have a new “R & R express” as Mitt Romney chose Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan.
So it is that the Supreme Court has ruled that the individual mandate within Obamacare is a tax after all. This contradicts what the president himself said when selling the policy to the American people in 2009 and 2010. It also contradicts Obama’s repeated promise that taxes would be raised “not a single dime” on the “middle class” making less than $250k per year. For obvious reasons, Pinocchio comes to mind when I think of this situation.
In this sequence Pinocchio is lulled away from his responsibilities by Lampwick, who leads him to a place called Toyland where everyone plays all day and never works. At first, they have a wonderful time until one morning Pinocchio awakes with donkey ears. It turns out that Playland was just a trap entice little boys into a life of servitude as donkeys. Aside from the great irony that the donkey is the official symbol of the Democratic Party, this is perfectly symbolic. Those who actually believe the promise of all this “free” stuff in Obamacare without regard for the crippling debt which awaits on the other end may someday wake up and find their donkey ears and tail are permanent.