From ART BEAUTY LIFE blog.

The 2008 U.S. presidential and congressional elections cost the country $5.3 billion. 2012 projections are closer to $6 billion ($6,000,000,000 -- in case you are not proficient in billions). This amount is an equivalent of a yearly GDP of a small country like Rwanda or Malawi. It is also expected that this hefty sum will be approximately equally split between Democrats and Republicans.

More than a half of that money is spent on advertising. I am not diminishing the importance of political candidates to make their platforms known. However, the nature of political advertising nowadays looks like this: first you use some partial-truth-fact or take an out-of-the-context quote of your opponent and make it into an ad. Then point a finger at your opponent and, in justifiable outrage, call him a liar for doing exactly the same thing against you.

Some people blame politicians, call them untrustworthy scumbags; while others are resigned to the fact that the reality of being a politician is such that the only way to win is to play the established game of dirty tricks. And while both points of view might have some truth to them, let's not forget that in a democratic society, its political system is just a mirror reflection of values of the society itself. In other words, blaming politicians is like pointing a finger at yourself.

By the way, I am not talking as a person who doesn't have political opinions or doesn't care about the future of the country. And if you, just for a minute, pull away from particular ideas you passionately support or furiously detest, you will see that politics became just a game of two sides that are more interested in winning than truth. That is why politics turn into one of the most divisive forces. The easiest way to know it if you have a family member that shares views of the other party than the one you support. Can you have a meaningful conversations about politics with that person?

I don't suggest to dull your passions. I am just saying that each of us has a choice where to channel our enthusiasm. There are many ways of contribute to ideas you believe in and change you want to see happen. In fact, it starts with you.

Here are a few donation alternatives:

World Wide Orphan foundation

Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation

Just Food

ASPCA

Global Medical Relief Fund

UNICEF

Surfrider Foundation

Jude Children's Research Hospital

Friends of Maiti Nepal

Cooley's Anemia Foundation

Smile Train

The original posting "Why NOT give money to politicians" can be found at ART BEAUTY LIFE blog.

Also read:
Chronology of a lifetime
Rooted and unbendable Ai Wei-wei

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WASHINGTON -- Concern is mounting among some Senate Democrats that President Barack Obama will make a deal with Senate Republicans during the lame-duck session that would result in changes to the benefit structure of Social Security.

One of the most progressive voices in the caucus, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), said he was heartened to hear Obama tell the AARP last week that he'd be open to raising the cap on income that's taxed for purposes of paying into the Social Security trust fund. Sanders also applauded the president for taking off of the table any reform language that resulted in the "slashing" of benefits (several Social Security advocates, disagreeing with Sanders, said they were worried such language was counterproductive, as it opens the door for cuts that could be deemed minor).

But the Vermont Independent worried that all of this could be posturing for the lame-duck session immediately after the election, when lawmakers are expected to rush to find another "grand bargain" on tax and entitlement reform to stave off the so-called fiscal cliff.

"That's exactly what's going to happen," Sanders said of Social Security being on the proverbial table, "Unless someone of us stops it -- and a number of us are working very hard on this -- that's exactly what will happen. Everything being equal, unless we stop it, what will happen is there will be a quote-unquote grand bargain after the election in which the White House, some Democrats will sit down with Republicans, they will move to a chained CPI."

Chained CPI, or consumer price index, is an alternative measure of calculating inflation that would lessen the cost of living increases for Social Security payments. When the president and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) attempted to craft a deal on the debt ceiling last summer, Obama offered the chained CPI as a concession.

Sanders is one of 29 Senators who have signed a letter to "oppose including Social Security cuts for future or current beneficiaries in any deficit reduction package." In addition Sanders has supported legislation that would enact the proposal that Obama put forward as a candidate for president in 2008, which entails putting in place a payroll tax on income over $250,000, in the process creating a gap between the current cap of $110,100 and that new level.

Obama's openness to the tax proposal at the AARP forum prompted Sanders to call The Huffington Post to try and get the president's commitment to that approach.

"When he says that he's willing to look at changing the cap, that's not good enough," said Sanders. "Four years ago, he told us that, in fact, that was a proper solution, and he was right. I've introduced legislation to do just that ... I think we've got to make sure that we reduce the wiggle room for the president, and he has got to make a very simple statement that, 'If reelected, I will not cut Social Security.'"

By Monday morning, the Obama campaign had moved slightly in the opposite direction, with top adviser David Axelrod refusing to unveil any specifics about what the president had planned for Social Security reform.

"[T]he approach has to be a balanced one," Axelrod told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We've had discussions in the past. And the question is, can you raise the cap some? Right now Social Security cuts off at a lower point. Can you raise the cap so people in the upper incomes are paying a little more into the program? And do you adjust the growth of the program? That's a discussion worth having. But again, we have to approach it in a balanced way. We're not going to cut our way to prosperity. We're not going to cut our way to more secure entitlement programs -- Social Security and Medicare. We have to have a balance."

So what is the president's proposal, asked Time magazine's Mark Halperin.

"Mark, I'll tell you what: When you get elected to the United States Senate and sit at that table -- this is not the time," replied Axelrod.

I posted this on the BagNews Facebook page last Thursday not knowing how much the discussion and disturbance surrounding it would grow. As not just an analyst of visual politics but having done my doctoral dissertation on the psychological properties of effective metaphors, I wanted to explain in a simple way why this display is as manipulative as any other I've ever seen:

What makes this picture so insidious is how brilliantly novel and subliminal it is, baiting you to first and instantaneously call up your own mental image of the Eastwood performance, then immediately editing it together in your mind with a scene or a sense impression from your personal storehouse of lynching imagery, and then "deeply getting" the result because you were invited unaware, in a millisecond, to not just conjure the components but to tailor-and-stitch the result on your own. Finally, bypassing reason for the gut, and doing so before there is any possible filter you can apply, the sickness is that you can't help but finish off the compilation -- you being the one (all these dots connecting like quickfire in your mind's eye) to add in Obama there. Someone could spent a whole life creating images of hate and never come up with something as manipulative or timely.

Backstory and photo via Burnt Orange Report.

---------- BagNewsNotes: Today's media images analyzed. Topping LIFE.com's 2011 Best Photo Blogs, follow us at BAG Twitter and BAG Facebook.

The Romney campaign has made three fundamental missteps that it must overcome if Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is to prevail over President Obama this November. For the first time since I declared the U.S. presidential race a Jump Ball four months ago, we are seeing a candidate gaining a slight edge in the polls.

Obama's current lead is by no means definitive. Even though the campaign is fewer than seven weeks away, in political terms, this is a couple of lifetimes. Time remains to correct course, but the Romney campaign must return to a path that fills it sails for the final leg of the race in order to cross the finish line first.

Here are Romney's three missteps:

1. Taking a Small-Field Focus to a Big Field Contest. There is a difference between the U.S. presidential race and nearly any other political contest. Even though races for governor occupy the front pages of local papers for an extended duration, national media does not constantly reinforce them. And even though presidential primary contest dominate headlines in both local and national press, they do so for only a transient time. Presidential races are a prolonged state-national-international echo chamber unlike anything Romney has experienced.

Successful campaign approaches to small-field (congressional and statewide contests) and big-field (presidential) contests are fundamentally different. The Romney campaign has been following the classic small-field game: Raise lots of money and save it to spend at the end of the campaign. This fails in a big field contest because with more attention, there is more time spent on what they call in literature or films "character development." Whether candidates would be fun to have a beer with is just as important as to where they stand on issues in presidential campaigns.

As I discussed in Job 1 for Romney: Tell Why He Cares, it was a mistake for Romney to wait until the convention to tell his life story in a way that connects to the everyday lives of average Americans. It was an unthinkable mistake for the Romney campaign to yield the airwaves to the Obama campaign during the conventions. Romney told his story in a compelling way at the convention, but it was not reinforced on the airwaves as the Obama campaign significantly outspent Romney on advertising during this period.

By not cementing his life story in the mind of voters, Romney left a vacancy that the Obama campaign is diligently working to fill by characterizing Romney as uncaring. One of my supporters told me, "If you get a reputation as an early riser, you can sleep to noon every day." Giving the Obama campaign the opportunity to define Romney's reputation as uncaring leaves him especially vulnerable to missteps -- including his recent comments about the 47 percent. If Republican senatorial candidates in key swing states feel compelled to start distancing themselves from Romney, the negative consequences of the early misstep will be multiplied.

2. Lack of Message Discipline. As I have also maintained for some time, Romney's path to victory demands message discipline. Despite the fact that conservatives want him to talk about a range of issues, the path to victory requires a narrow focus on issues where Romney has a credible edge -- most importantly jobs and the economy. Yet Romney has repeatedly gotten into trouble due to a lack of message discipline (consider his Libya and his 47 percent comments). Not only did each of these comments cause voters to question Romney's judgment, they also have distracted from Romney's core message: Essentially, that you and your kids are more likely to find rewarding work with Romney as your president.

3. Small Circle Instead of a Big Circle of Trust. Running for U.S. president requires the need to make sound judgment on issues with a range and complexity unmatched by any other job. This requires candidates to have a wide array of diverse experts to bring into a circle of trust. While the Republican National Convention did a good job of bringing forth people who related Romney's caring side in a compelling way, it also highlighted the fact that for much of his life, Romney has lived within a small circle of trusted colleagues -- fellow members of his LDS Church, partners at Bain Capital, and cabinet members while he was governor of Massachusetts.

Romney's early attack on Obama's handling of the Libyan Embassy shooting reflected campaign reflexes, not seasoned foreign policy instincts. Balancing the tension between the simultaneous conflicting needs for wide input and quick decisions is a challenge for every presidential candidate. It is one that Romney must quickly address as we head into debate season.

The good news for Romney is that his current campaign woes are largely from self-inflicted wounds. It remains in his hands to chart a path to victory.

Mark R. Kennedy leads George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management and is Chairman of the Economic Club of Minnesota. He previously served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and was Senior Vice President and Treasurer of Federated Department Stores (now Macy's).

All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, all men are Socrates. (Love & Death, Woody Allen).

Mitt Romney (R-MA) seems to have succeeded in becoming persona non grata overseas, but his money is welcome everywhere.

That Romney has docked hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in foreign tax accounts whose only purpose is to hide it from paying taxes and yet has the chutzpah to run for President of the United States while trashing those who pay no income taxes is shocking enough. But, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) thinks this is just peachy dandy. And, Chris Christie (R-NJ) aspires to have his money hiding in the Cayman Islands' someday.

Finding this all a bit mind-boggling -- imagine what "anti-American" screams would be belching forth from the right if President Obama had even one dime of his money in the Caymans -- I wanted to find out how the right-wing justified these alien havens.

What I came upon was pure poetry. With a logic only Woody Allen (see above) could love, the Cato Institute argues that we should all rejoice because the Romney tax havens benefit all us poor sots. Now I understand what Romney meant when he said that if he did not take every loophole available, he would not be qualified to be president -- because he would be hurting us by paying taxes he could be evading.

Shame on me for thinking Mitt was doing this all for himself! And, shame on the rest of you who did not praise Mitt for avoiding all these taxes to help you out! I willingly accept a session of waterboarding as expiation for my sins -- well, since waterboarding isn't torture, perhaps Mitt has something more painful in mind.

Or, perhaps I can atone for my sin by explaining to the rest of you how the Romney tax havens are really there for your benefit. That way, you do not have to wade through the briny beaches of the Cayman Islands, nor scale the Eiger to understand the magnitude of this selfless gift bequeathed to you.

According to Cato, we should thank Mitt for his foreign tax havens because, you see, your taxes are lower because the Cayman Islands enables the Romneys to shelter their income from taxes. If there were no Cayman Islands (and Bermuda and Switzerland), so goes the argument, Ronald Reagan would not have lowered your tax rates.

One may be forgiven if one foolishly believed that Reagan cut taxes because of trickle-down economics based, on what a recent non-partisan definitive study has shown was the faulty theory that tax cuts caused job growth.

If U.S. tax rates were higher, goes the Romney foreign tax haven defense, then Mitt Romney would have put his money in tax havens depriving the United States of his taxes... and, we know he didn't do that!

Cato's second defense of the Romney foreign tax haven is that the U.S. itself is a foreign tax haven. By not taxing foreigners, so goes the argument, the U.S. attracts a lot of foreign capital. Exactly how that bolsters the case for Americans benefiting from the Romney tax havens is, to put it mildly, baffling.

Here is the dirty little secret: the so-called "foreign money" is not all foreign. Say, for example, that the Romneys set up a Bermuda-based partnership and put money into it (not that they would do such a thing, right?). That partnership then sets itself up in the Caymans. The Caymans partnership invests this "foreign Bermuda money" into the U.S. -- and voila! No taxes on this "foreign" investment.

Cato's third defense of the Romney tax havens has nothing whatsoever to do with the tax rate. These havens enable potential victims of dictatorships to hide their assets in another jurisdiction, and thus protect them from vindictive dictators. Of course, it also allows vindictive dictators to hide their assets so they can, if the occasion demands, flee and live a very comfortable life from the money and wealth they had looted from their own citizens. It also facilitates criminal organizations to hide their money from drug, and other criminal activities.

In any case, secrecy and zero tax rates have nothing whatsoever to do with each other, and that was Cato's key point.

Nor does this situation apply to the Romney and his fellow-travelers. Protecting the politically vulnerable by protecting their money can be handled by requesting special treatment in the same way that political refugees themselves get asylum. Finally, there are only a small number of people who are both wealthy and under attack in their home countries that need such financial asylum. The overwhelming majority of the tortured and oppressed are ordinary citizens who have little to no money to bask in the sun of the Caymans.

So, like much of right-wing commentary, Cato's defense of the Romney foreign tax havens is pure sophistry. It is without substance.

There is, however, a lot of substance behind what the Romney foreign tax havens cost the rest of us.

Romney and his pals cost the U.S. $1 trillion over a decade. We need to build and re-build about $2 trillion in our roads, bridges, water systems, electric grids and so forth. Closing the Romney foreign tax havens, as Bill Clinton was close to achieving prior to George W. Bush becoming president, would pay for half of that.

And, no increase in tax rates of any American who does not park their money in exotic foreign tax havens is required.

That is the 99.998 percent.

After hearing Romney's private comments this week about the 47 percent of Americans he isn't reaching out to, is it any surprise that he failed to even mention those serving in Afghanistan during his acceptance speech?

When Mitt Romney said he wasn't concerned about the "47 percent" of the country who pay no federal income taxes -- describing them as "victims" who fail to take "personal responsibility" for their lives -- he again showed he lacked an understanding that 61 percent of them already pay taxes. But what about the sacrifices our men and women in uniform make for the country they love?

Included in the half of America that Mitt Romney dismissively wrote off while standing in front of wealthy donors, were seniors, students, and people with disabilities -- but also people serving in the military. That's right, the military families with loved ones currently fighting in combat, defending the freedoms that all Americans enjoy regardless of political party. What they earn from their sacrifice and service to our nation isn't something that is just given.

Even more troubling is the fact that yet again, Mitt Romney was caught only providing policy specifics to wealthy donors at a private fundraiser while failing to do the same for the vast majority of the country he is asking to vote for him -- because as his advisers admitted, providing specifics before an election would be suicidal.

In public, all veterans and military families hear from Mitt Romney are empty platitudes, bluster that says more about his lack of foreign policy experience than it does our men and women in uniform, and promises that don't quite line up with his record. As governor, Mitt Romney was not a friend to my fellow veterans. He proposed eliminating hiring preferences for veterans applying for civil service opportunities, and cut veterans' programs by 11% in his first budget.

Many veterans and military families remember quite well the last time Mitt Romney decided to get specific about policies impacting their lives. Again, speaking before a group of wealthy donors at a private fundraiser back in April, Mitt Romney said that as president he'd consider eliminating the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). If Mitt Romney had his way and eliminated HUD altogether, it would undermine tremendous progress that has been made under President Obama's leadership to end veteran homelessness. If Mitt Romney had his way and abolished these services -- where would our nation's heroes turn? What's Mitt Romney's plan to continue the progress we've seen under President Obama in taking care of those who have served our country?

Proposing we get rid of HUD and the work it is doing to combat veterans homelessness as a way to cut spending while maintaining tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires is not only wrong - it's something I think most Americans, especially military families would find offensive. Mitt has suggested privatizing the VA healthcare system, and let's not forget that Romney called bringing our troops home from Iraq "tragic."

President Obama and the First Lady have proven to veterans that they will fight for them. From implementing and expanding the most comprehensive educational benefit for veterans and their family members since the original GI Bill of 1944 to tax credits for businesses that hire unemployed veterans and wounded warriors, President Obama has walked the walk, even for veterans who didn't vote for him in 2008.

Therein lies the difference between a President Obama and a want-to-be President Romney. Upon entering office, President Obama didn't just wash his hands because half of our veterans didn't support him -- he instead did what a president should do and went to work for all of us. He led by example and always had our back.

As a proud Democrat, I don't plan to vote for Mitt Romney. But as a veteran, who risked his life in service to our great country, it saddens me that a person seeking to become commander-in-chief sets out only wanting to represent half the country. After Mitt was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Mitt was asked if his sons would serve in Iraq or Afghanistan. He replied, "One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping me get elected because they think I'd be a great president." I'm sorry, Governor Romney, that just doesn't cut it.

One thing I learned in combat is that when it comes to standing up for America, there are no Democratic or Republican values -- just American values. It has to be the same for the commander-in-chief. So when Mitt Romney says he isn't concerned about 47 percent of the country, his words and past actions prove to veterans and military families that his values couldn't be further from those that we all share.

With the presidential election in less than two months, both sides are revving up their campaign efforts by visiting key states, hosting pivotal conventions and conferences, and releasing their ideas for the future of America. However, there is one tool that can help candidates to get their message across and run a more effective campaign: online video.

What makes online video so different from other communication tools? According to comScore, 85.5 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed at least one online video in July 2012. That same month, 184 million U.S. Internet users watched 36.9 billion online videos, meaning incorporating the tool within existing campaign strategies would surely get candidates seen by more people.

Typically, we see online video incorporated into political campaigns as advertisements and recordings of speeches. However, it can be much more -- a gateway to communication, a campaign management tool, and a tool to build a positive image for the candidate. Here's how:

Share timely information
Political figures like Hillary Clinton have used internal memos in the past to share timely information with their staff. However, internal memos can be and have been leaked to the press or the general public, which can damage a campaign. Instead, sharing timely information with campaign staff through online means can be a safer alternative.

When using online video internally, it's important to require user authentication for your videos to ensure they can only be viewed by staff members with the required permissions. For external video viewing with voters, campaigns can utilize public or non-restricted viewing. Find a video platform that will allow both viewing options and metrics tracking, allowing you to see who has viewed your information and for how long. Also, with video platforms that enable real-time discussions, viewers are able to post comments and questions. Collaboration tools can ensure your entire staff -- and only your staff -- stays on the same page.

Manage campaign staff
Staying organized is the key to a successful campaign, and video enables organizations by communicating updates and key execution plans on a timely basis. Video can be delivered quickly and is easily accessible, especially for those on the campaign trail.

It can be time-consuming and expensive to reach every member of a campaign staff, but video allows you to reach your staff in a cost-effective manner. Training via online video is a sensible alternative to more traditional training methods for a variety of reasons. It's simple to create whether you're using pre-recorded material or clips recorded from a webcam. You can also add collaborative elements, like discussion features. Video provides an easy way to update your audience no matter where they are.

Reach your audience
Overall, viewing for online video is up, while TV viewing is down, which indicates the way we seek and receive current information is changing. Barack Obama used online video heavily during the 2008 election, which proved a successful way to "meet" young voters on their preferred medium of communication, the Internet.

Young voters preferred Obama over John McCain by 68 percent to 30 percent, and his Web presence likely caused that. By November 2008, 50 million viewers had spent 14 million hours watching Obama's campaign-related videos on YouTube, four times McCain's viewers. The YouTube channel for the Republican National Convention (RNC) has received 2.8 million video views during this year's event. And the Democratic National Convention's (DNC) YouTube channel garnered more than 1.6 million views.

From these examples, it's clear video can be used as a way to communicate with your audience where they're already seeking information: online. Video provides information in a fast and user-friendly way, and it's cost-effective. Video can also be updated more easily than hard copies of campaign information, meaning you can quickly swap out clips if there's a campaign update or change.

In addition, video allows for collaboration with an audience in real-time (assuming your video platform offers this feature). It also provides direct communication, meaning it doesn't leave room for interpretation or "spinning" from political journalists -- your message is clear to voters.

Build a positive persona
President Obama knows reputation is an important aspect of a presidential campaign. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama released nearly 2,000 official YouTube videos, which were watched over 80 million times. He also had 135,000 subscribers and 442,000 instances of user-generated content. Online video can often be less formal than TV or radio spots and can serve to connect a candidate to their audience. Video offered Obama a medium through which he could humanize his campaign and show young voters he wasn't a disconnected politician.

Online video also gives you a lot more freedom to further understand a candidate -- from their personal lives to issues that are important to viewers. For instance, Obama started a fundraising campaign through online video, which featured powerful stories of real people.

More than 1,800 videos were viewed over 110 million times during the last presidential election, according to Steve Grove, head of YouTube politics. "Tech President did a calculation that YouTube was worth $47 million to the Obama campaign if they had bought TV dollars and they didn't spend a penny on it," he said. This goes to show that video can not only be an effective medium to build a positive persona, but it can also do so in a cost-effective way.

As more and more voters move online, it's clear that video is one aspect of communication political figures can use to their advantage. From managing campaign staff to sharing ideas with voters, online video is an effective tool for all candidates and those running political campaigns would be ill-advised to ignore this trend.

Brian Kelly is the Vice President of Sales at KZO Innovations, a video software company that provides an on-demand video platform for small to large enterprises and government customers. Connect with Brian and KZO Innovations on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

LEESBURG, Va. -- Democrat Tim Kaine talks a lot about Republicans – the ones in his family, the ones he's worked with and the ones he hopes will help him bridge the caustic political divide if he's elected to the U.S. Senate.

"We can't have a functioning nation with a dysfunctional legislative branch," the former Democratic Party chairman says at a recent campaign stop. "John Warner said something to me: `It's not sick-building syndrome, it's not in the water supply. It's in the character and the inclination of the people who walk in there every day.' The only way it will change is if we put in people who have a different set of character and inclinations."

Kaine's words draw loud applause from the seniors at Leisure World in this northern Virginia suburb, most of them Democrats, a few wearing "Grandma for Obama" buttons.

Former Virginia Sen. Warner isn't the only Republican whom Kaine mentions in his hour-long question-and-answer session on budgets, health care and education. He cites President Dwight Eisenhower, praises Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and mentions that his hero is his father-in-law – Linwood Holton, who in 1970 was Virginia's first Republican governor since Reconstruction.

A few days later, at a retirement community near Fort Belvoir, Republican candidate George Allen eagerly recounts stories of successful bipartisanship from his days in the state legislature and talks of being "united regardless of party or where we live." The former senator ticks off the names of Democrats he worked with – Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ron Wyden – and the ones he's certain would join forces with him on energy – Mary Landrieu, Joe Manchin, perhaps Mark Begich.

"I hope to win not because someone is so much against the other side. There's obviously differences. That's to be expected in a representative democracy. Not everyone has the same opinion. ... Then you have civil engagement where you discuss those ideas. Civil engagement is the best approach to create more jobs, better security, whatever the issue may be and let the people decide," Allen says.

Kaine and Allen – two former governors locked in an excruciatingly close race for Senate – purposely are talking up cooperation. It's not only recognition of the electorate's dissatisfaction with months of Washington vitriol and gridlock, it's a political necessity in an evenly divided state as they pitch to the few remaining independent voters.

Yes, Virginia is the decider this year, a genuine swing state that holds an outsized role in determining the presidency and control of the Senate. It is one of roughly a dozen battleground states that could tip the election to either President Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney. It also is one of about a dozen Senate races that could decide who's in charge on Capitol Hill in January.

Polls have shown Kaine, 54, the former Richmond mayor and lieutenant governor, and Allen, 60, namesake son of the legendary Washington Redskins coach, essentially tied for much of the year. The difference on Election Day could be fewer than 10,000 votes. In 2006, Democrat Jim Webb edged out Allen by just under 9,000 votes out of 2.3 million cast.

"Our country was formed on compromise," said Preston Hewitt, 62, a Republican who heard Kaine talk to workers at the Raging Wire data centers in Ashburn, Va., and is considering backing the Democrat.

"That's the way it should be," said Monique Baird, 81, an Allen supporter at the retirement home near Fort Belvoir who faulted President Barack Obama for divisive politics and a move toward socialism.

In the campaign's final seven weeks, Kaine and Allen have three debates – one Thursday, another Oct. 8 and the last one at Virginia Tech on Oct. 18.

"You've gone through a few rendezvouses with destiny," Allen tells the World War II veterans and other military retirees, "but as far as younger generations, for all of us, this is our time for choosing, or as my father would say, `The future is now.' That future is going to get decided on November 6."

___

All year, roughly a dozen Senate races have been fiercely competitive as Democrats fight to hold onto their slim majority – 51-47 plus two independents who caucus with the party – while defending 23 seats to the GOP's 10. Republicans need a net gain of four seats to grab control.

Some races have receded in the final stretch – New Mexico looks more certain for Democrats, Arizona for Republicans. The GOP establishment abandoned Missouri after Rep. Todd Akin's comments about pregnancy and "legitimate" rape. Polls suggest that once vulnerable Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill will hold the seat.

At the same time, Republicans are more upbeat about keeping the Maine seat of retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe, with both the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spending money on ads in the state. The three-way race pits independent Angus King, the former governor who is likely to side with Democrats if elected, against Republican Charlie Summers and Democrat Cynthia Dill.

The GOP also sees an opening in Democratic-leaning Connecticut where Rep. Chris Murphy, who doesn't have much statewide name recognition, has struggled against Republican Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling executive who has focused on her business background in her second consecutive bid for the Senate.

Other core contests for deciding which party will run the Senate are in Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Dakota and to a lesser extent Florida and Hawaii. Republicans are counting on winning the Nebraska seat despite former Sen. Bob Kerrey's efforts to keep it in the Democratic column. Democrats are energized about improving prospects in Indiana, where Rep. Joe Donnelly is locked in a close race with Richard Mourdock, who isn't getting much help from the man he defeated in the GOP primary – six-term Sen. Richard Lugar.

And then there's Virginia, where the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS and other groups have pummeled Kaine since the early part of the year with some $10 million in negative ads. Crossroads launched three commercials last week that criticize the Democrat, including one that accuses him of "questionable judgment" for backing the same budget deal last August that President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans, including vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, supported.

Kaine held off on his advertising until Aug. 21, after the Summer Olympics, then unveiled the first round of $4.5 million in commercials, including one in which he casts himself as more of a fiscal conservative than his rival with cuts to his own pay and a balanced state budget.

"We thought Virginia wouldn't want negative and they wouldn't want it too early," Kaine told the Leesburg audience, drawing applause when he points out that the millions of ads against him had little impact on the polls.

The election will determine whether Kaine's strategy of waiting until the final stretch was a smart move or a response that came too late.

Allen, in his ads, focuses on his blueprint for America, highlighting his emphasis on energy, tax reduction, job creation and avoiding more defense cuts.

The Republican is hoping to revive a political career that once had him mentioned in the GOP lineup for 2008 presidential candidates. It all ended in a single moment – the "macaca moment" – when Allen used the term, considered an ethnic slur, to describe a Democratic campaign volunteer of Indian ancestry in 2006. Weeks later, he lost to Webb.

"We lost very narrowly and it's a humbling experience," Allen says. "You do learn sometimes more from losing than you do from winning."

Kaine points out that he's seven-for-seven in elections but has never gotten more than 53 percent of the vote. "I'm like the Maalox candidate," he tells the seniors in Leesburg.

Obama's rise or fall in Virginia will go a long way to determining Kaine's fate. The Democrat says he doesn't always agree with the president. Kaine would let the Bush-era tax cuts expire for those making $500,000 or more compared with the president's $250,000 threshold. Kaine disagrees with Obama clean-energy initiatives, and in one ad takes a helicopter ride over a Virginia hybrid energy coal plant in Wise County.

"I don't distance myself from the president. I want him to be re-elected. I think he deserves to be re-elected but we don't agree on everything, so when we don't I point it out," Kaine said in an interview, days before polls show Obama with a slight lead in the state.

Virginia has changed significantly since Allen won in 2000. The population stands at 8.1 million, with 19.8 percent African-American and 8.2 percent Hispanic. The suburbs and exurbs stretching across northern Virginia account for 30 percent of the population, Kaine often points out.

The unemployment rate stands at 5.9 percent, well below the national average, thanks to jobs in places like Loudoun County, dubbed the "fiber optic capital of the country" and Silicon Valley east.

The Old Dominion stands as the new Dominion.

Mitt Romney has been widely panned for blaming 47% of the public for its sense of entitlement, its demand that government redistribute wealth downward, away from rich people who earn their money honestly and down to poor and middle-income Americans who just want handouts.

While observers have rightly pointed out that most Americans work hard and take responsibility for their circumstances, less attention has been devoted to the deceptive premise behind Romney's remarks, namely that government redistributes wealth downward from the rich to the poor. In fact, our taxation system funnels money from the bottom up to the top. It's the rich who get the handouts. Either Romney doesn't understand that, or he's not telling the truth about it.

Consider housing. Romney would probably prefer that the Department of Housing and Urban Development not spend its budget of about $50 billion per year, much of which subsidizes low-income housing. From Romney's point of view, the federal government provides housing handouts by redistributing money downward and subsidizing residences for the poor.

But when we step back and look at overall federal spending on housing, it becomes clear that the federal government spends a lot more money subsidizing housing for the rich than for the poor. In fact, the federal government collects taxes from the poor and then re-allocates those funds as housing subsidies for the rich. How does this work?

To understand how this particular mechanism as well as the tax system more broadly funnels money from the poor to the rich, it's first necessary to point out that when the federal government decides to spend $1 dollar, that is exactly the same as a decision not to collect $1 dollar in taxes. From the point of view of the federal budget, both decisions cost $1 dollar. The first is a direct expenditure and the second is a tax expenditure. But aside from having different names, they are the same.

Now consider the home mortgage interest deduction, a tax expenditure that costs the federal treasury approximately $130 billion per year. According to the Atlantic, 75% of this tax expenditure is given to the top 20% of income earners. What this means is that the federal government spends almost $100 billion per year subsidizing large homes for upper middle class and wealthy people. Middle-class people get a tiny piece of this pie. Poor people get nothing.

But where does the government get $100 billion to pay for this tax expenditure for the rich? From mostly-poor renters of course, in other words tax payers who receive zero mortgage interest deduction. The home mortgage interest deduction is simply a transfer of wealth from mostly poor renters to mostly well-off home-owners.

And that isn't an isolated program, as Republicans have been gaming the tax system for years to enable just such maneuvers. One of Ronald Reagan's great successes entailed cutting marginal tax rates on the rich, and then using social security taxes, which are paid disproportionately by low and middle income earners, to subsidize the budget hole caused by his tax breaks for the wealthy.

So when Governor Romney said that 47% of Americans are irresponsible and simply want handouts, he was tapping into and in fact reinforcing the public's ignorance of the federal tax system as a cash cow that transfers a lot more money from the poor to the rich than the other way around. To frame poor people who require health care as free-riders while giving a free pass to rich people who demand tax cuts (tax expenditures) is a sleight of hand. I wonder if Romney understands the deception or not.

When Clint Eastwood famously addressed an empty chair at the Republican National Convention, Jon Stewart observed that the Republicans have been running against an Obama who only they can see (Muslim, foreign-born, socialist, etc) and who is invisible to the rest of America. According to Stewart, Eastwood literalized that dynamic by addressing an invisible Obama. But as Romney's comments about the 47% illustrate, the Republican predilection for distortion and projection extends beyond Obama, and includes a make-believe fantasy about the government's role in the redistribution of wealth.

If Republicans were honest about the way government works, they might realize that government helps everyone, and that the debate we should be having is not about moochers versus earners, but about what distribution of government support can minimize suffering and promote the public welfare.

Matt Taibbi says that Mitt Romney's recently leaked remarks about low-income Americans were "insane."

"I think he really genuinely believes that the only reason that his particular message isn't resonating is that people want something for free and he's not offering it to them," Taibbi, a contributing editor for Rolling Stone, told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. "It's crazy."

In a video leaked on Monday, Romney is seen at a May fundraiser saying that 47 percent of Americans "will vote for the president no matter what," "are dependent upon government," and "pay no income tax." These claims are largely inaccurate.

Taibbi, who famously labeled Goldman Sachs a "vampire squid" and recently lambasted Romney in a Rolling Stone article, said the top one percent on Wall Street looks down on the poor because it's the only way they can psychologically excuse their "mass fraud and theft."

"It's all based upon this idea that 'poor people deserve to be poor because they don't work hard enough and I deserve the money that I make because I do work hard,'" Taibbi said. "It's just a pervasive belief ... the psychological underpinning of almost everything they do. If they didn't have this way to excuse their dismissal of the poor, then they wouldn't be able to do a lot of the things that they do."

He noted that "everybody pays taxes in one form or another, whether sales tax or payroll tax," and that income taxes comprise a small percentage of Romney's own recent taxes.

Taibbi added that Romney, who comes from a privileged background, disregarded another "tax" that many poor people have to pay: "a kind of qualitative tax which nobody talks about -- this sucky hard work tax."

"If you're low-income enough to not be paying income tax, you're doing a shitty job that nobody else wants to do in this country," Taibbi said. "You're cleaning toilets. You're driving buses at the night shift. You're bussing tables. You're doing all these things that Mitt Romney is never going to do."

Shultz et al, Wall Street Journal
Sometimes a few facts tell important stories. The American economy now is full of facts that tell stories that you really don't want, but need, to hear.Where are we now?Did you know that annual spending by the federal government now exceeds the 2007 level by about $1 trillion? With a slow economy, revenues are little changed. The result is an unprecedented string of federal budget deficits, $1.4 trillion in 2009, $1.3 trillion in 2010, $1.3 trillion in 2011, and another $1.2 trillion on the way this year. The four-year increase in borrowing amounts to $55,000 per U.S. household. 

Paul Krugman, New York Times
Are you, or is someone you know, a gadget freak? If so, you doubtless know that Wednesday was iPhone 5 day, the day Apple unveiled its latest way for people to avoid actually speaking to or even looking at whoever they’re with.So is the new phone as insanely great as Apple says? Hey, I’ll leave stuff like that to David Pogue. What I’m interested in, instead, are suggestions that the unveiling of the iPhone 5 might provide a significant boost to the U.S. economy, adding measurably to economic growth over the next quarter or two.

Meanwhile, in the War of Ideas...

Remember that national debate on the issues which the selection of Paul Ryan was supposed to herald, that would spare us further discussion of President Barack Obama's alienation from Americans and Mitt Romney's tax returns and mode of transporting his dog?

Boring as that would have been, it was no surprise that we turned, instead, to Rep. Todd Akin's gaffe, Clint Eastwood's skit and distorting Obama's salute to mentors, infrastructure and "the unbelievable American system" into the anti-business manifesto known as "You didn't build that."

Amazingly, since you never hear about it, there really is a Big Idea in this election, the chance that this isn't just a choice of philosophies, but the long-awaited showdown between post-FDR Democrats and post-Reagan Revolutionaries with consequences as far-reaching as the elections of 1932 and 1980.

Dominant political movements overreach themselves, by definition. In the 1960s, it was the Democrats, whose arrogance expanded George Kennan's policy of containing the Soviet Union to the "domino theory" in far-off Southeast Asia, where, as in Iraq in 2003, a "light footprint" was supposed to suffice, while launching a grandiose War on Poverty, ruling with a coalition that had come to extend from Dixiecrats to Yippies.

Fifty years later, Republicans are coming off their adventure in Iraq, which they regarded as a video game with lots of chimneys to launch video-transmitting smart bombs into, while cutting taxes to keep us shopping after 9/11 and turning a budget surplus into the deficit the GOP now decries.

If the Democrats in Charlotte could pull back a curtain that left Romney exposed as the Wizard of Oz, it was because the GOP is out of ideas that work.

In its intellectual death throes, Republicans offer unspecified budget cuts to protect the high-end earners and the military with a nostalgic re-imagining of the way we were four years ago when they began disengaging, when mutinous House Republicans' defeated the bank bailout drawn up by George W. Bush's Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulsen, prompting a 777 point drop in the Dow, which had already fallen 15 percent in four months and would plummet an additional 20 before Obama took office.

The convention in Tampa, Fla., was an idea-free, reality-averse exercise, blaming the slow recovery on Obama, ignoring the GOP's participation, or lack thereof, that saw it withdraw from governing in the most adamant resistance in post-Civil War U.S. history.

In the House, where in 1935 Republicans voted 81-15 for the Social Security Act, the GOP went 152-30 against the auto bailout, 177-0 against the economic stimulus and 178-0 against Obamacare.

Of course, if Romney had to talk over the heads of the delegates in the hall, championing immigrants and job programs to appeal to disappointed Obama moderates, it may have been a sign the GOP has left the mainstream, or vice versa.

Not that it was the GOP that was most responsible for holding up Obama's health care bill for a year, or making sure he couldn't get $1 more of stimulus.

Obama was abandoned by the left and right wings of his own party from the day he entered the White House, after reclaiming it for the party that had lost seven of the last 10 presidential elections. Ambitious liberal Democrats mocked him as a wimp. Blue Dogs, cowed by their re-election challenges in the nation the GOP had turned center-right, fled fights on anything controversial such as single-payer health care, or worse, voted against the president.

Liberal pundits like Maureen Dowd and Richard Cohen mocked Obama as lame and aloof, mocking him for failing to deliver the "hope" he seemed to embody in the 2008 campaign, as if it was a real-world objective. This left the icons of the left tacitly allied with a GOP they had even less use for, blaming Obama for being unable to get the obdurate Republicans to engage.

On the eve of the Democratic convention, Politico ran a story headlined, "Obama, party of one," in which an unnamed congressman, said to represent the feelings of a half-dozen prominent Democrats, noted, "I've been on Air Force One twice -- with George W. Bush."

Imagine Obama's delight at reaching Charlotte, N.C., where even Democrats knew enough to rally behind him as they hadn't since... their last convention in Denver!

If the GOP's lame show teed it up for them, the Democrats regained a long-missing eloquence, glossing over four years of failing to stand by their man in something we hadn't seen before, falling in love all over again with their own sitting president.

Of course, if you can't sustain the excitement for six months to pass legislation -- as they didn't in 2009, setting out with a filibuster-proof Congress -- it may mean you're less a party than a loose confederation of selfish interests.

Charlotte offered a clinic in modern political virtual reality as former President Bill Clinton -- finally -- punctured the GOP balloon that had hung over Democrats' heads like the killer dirigible dropping onto the Super Bowl in author Thomas Harris' "Black Sunday."

"We left him a total mess and he hasn't cleaned it up fast enough," quoth Bill, in his version of the GOP pitch, "so we should get back in power."

As brilliant and substantive as Clinton was, his riposte through the heart of the Republican myth had been obvious for the four years the balance-seeking, moral-equivalency-granting press let the GOP get away with it.

The real question is, why did it take so long for the Democrats to respond?

The answer: That's how long it took the audience to listen.

In today's Tower of Babel environment, there are only a few marquee opportunities to be seen and heard, like Clinton's late-night slot at the convention, which the networks that have cut back their coverage still carry (except for NBC, which cut away for a football game).

Worse, with officeholders demonized from their swearing-in, the audience regards few politicians as credible.

Amazingly, Clinton was one.

In 1992, when he was elected amid bimbo eruptions; or 2000, when he left office after avoiding impeachment for one more; or 2008, when his grousing about Obama during Hillary's campaign suggested the Clintons were still all about the Clintons, the Big Dog could have read the Ten Commandments and gotten an argument.

Now, 12 years after a prosperous term that seems like a simpler time in our history, Clinton stands resurrected in his no-longer-dough-faced incarnation as the nation's wisest, wonkiest, folksiest, white-haired teddy bear.

It's not that politicians seldom make sense. The problem is "sense" stands for so little unless the media can fit it into some Hollywood narrative that the audience will listen to.

Unfortunately, today's narrative in which Clinton, the genius, bails out the bumbling Obama, doesn't account for real-life differences. It was Obama who got health care, Clinton who handed it to Hillary, who shut out the insurance industry, defying it to do its worst. It's Obama who maintains a level of personal honor Clinton forfeited long ago.

A lot gets lost these days, like the possibility something bigger than another debate of top-down vs. bottom-up economics is at hand.

This election may be another landmark in the struggle that runs like a fault line through our history, having appeared as Hamiltonian Federalism vs. Jeffersonian Democracy; Northern mercantilism vs. Southern agrarianism; Eastern establishment vs. Southern and Western populism; TR/FDR activism vs. limited government; baby boomers vs. silent majority; and tea party vs. Occupy America.

Along the way, there have been enough twists, turns, redefinitions and realignments for the parties that started on one side to switch and switch back.

Abraham Lincoln's GOP picked up Hamilton's torch, insisting on a federally led union over Democratic-backed states rights.

The heirs of foes of centralized power, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and William Jennings Bryan, became New Dealers.

A former New Dealer, Ronald Reagan, led the movement to shrink the federal government with the notable exception of its military.

Now we have the sons of the New Dealers, reborn as fiscal conservatives, while former Reagan Revolutionaries try to realize his vision without him.

Faced with a choice of moderating or going all the way, whether it was to Baghdad or Washington, D.C., "neoconservatives" stood their predecessors' foreign policy on its head, discarding the principle of a narrowly defined national interest that made Robert Taft et al. leery of foreign adventures, or even participation in the U.N.

Unfortunately the test was the 2003 Iraq invasion, to find weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist.

Rather than retreat toward the middle, which would mean accepting elements of the hated Obama's agenda, the GOP has dug in on this line with Ryan's budget, which can be seen as the neoconservatives' domestic policy, an utter rejection of the New Deal they never dared to pose.

This obliges the GOP to renounce the mainstream positions of Dwight Eisenhower (new Democratic icon, as installed by Clinton in Charlotte) and Richard Nixon, challenging not only the controversial Obamacare but Medicare and Social Security, which stand as popular institutions.

Doing away with another conservative principle, the party of fiscal responsibility now insists on "dynamic scoring" in which optimistic assumptions are accepted as a given, as at Enron.

Nevertheless, with Romney, who had evolved and devolved too much to be seen as standing for anything, now tied to Ryan, this election is clearly about something.

If yesterday vs. tomorrow seems a simple choice, the competitive race suggests how precariously balanced between parties and philosophies the nation is.

Of course, there's a lot going on as our first African-American president seeks re-election in an age of economic dislocation, brought on by a communications revolution that enhances productivity and undermines employment while turning the press into a worldwide tabloid.

As David Gergen noted in 2008, Obama's race is the elephant in the room. No one addresses it directly; indirectly, all bets are off, as controversies arise over the remarks of his (African-American) pastor, his middle name, his birthplace and eligibility for the office he already holds.

We don't know how much of today's zany political behavior is due to Obama's mere presence. However, if you can't say the GOP's opposition is grounded in racism, you'd have to go back to Herbert Hoover, who took the blame for the Great Depression, or Lincoln, whose elected prompted the South to secede, to see this level of skepticism.

If the 2008 campaign turned unseemly, with John McCain feeling himself obliged to defend Obama against the charge of being "an Arab," this one could make it look like a warmup before the real blowoff.

With dueling media outlets offering alternate universes, nothing is off the wall. Romney still does birth certificate lines, as if Obama hadn't long since provided the relevant document. As opposed to something that's about reason and self-interest, our politics are more the joke baseball players pass down from generation to generation, with the big leaguer walking down the street with his girlfriend when he runs into his wife.

"Who are you going to believe," he tells the missus, "me or your eyes?"

Republicans are at their own crossroads, about to learn if they can damn the torpedoes and keep steaming rightward, or must moderate -- assuming they can without losing evangelicals and tea party supporters who have dominated recent elections, if not their presidential primary in 2012.

Happily, one side will prevail. Then the other can decide whether it wants to emigrate en masse or it's worth it to stick around and see whether we can ever be one nation, indivisible, again.

Konczal & Covert, The Nation
Republican vice-presidential pick Paul Ryan is widely considered a leading conservative policy intellectual on welfare and entitlement spending. His budget—loosely adopted by the Republican Party platform—calls for a massive reduction in programs that benefit Americans broadly, and the poor specifically, in order to pay for big tax cuts. But his vision goes further, fundamentally altering the way the United States provides for the poor and elderly. Ryan’s plan takes the social insurance promises of the New Deal and the Great Society and turns them into something...

Carl Cannon, RCP
Once again, the politics -- and incessant violence -- in the Middle East has forced its way into a closely contested U.S. presidential election. With apologies to the Marine Hymn, from the halls of the American embassy in Tehran to the shores of Tripoli, U.S. political candidates keep having to fight other countries' battles on land, air, and sea.This time, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney unleashed the first rhetorical salvo, even as events were spinning out of control in Cairo and Benghazi. Within hours, Romney was put on the defensive, while Barack Obama took to the Rose...

Bear-hugging POTUS: check. Bear-hugging your favorite journalist: double check.

As we called it, Anderson Cooper was next in line for one of Scott Van Duzer's now famous bear hugs, when the jovial Florida pizzeria owner appeared on "Anderson Live" Tuesday.

When Van Duzer appeared on the set with arms wide open, a hesitant Cooper stopped dead in his tracks, tried to wave him off, repeatedly mouthing "no," then futilely extended his hand for a handshake.

An unrelenting Van Duzer said, "We can do it the easy way or the hard way," after which Cooper finally submitted. The power-hugging Van Duzer then lifted Cooper off the ground, probably even a few inches higher than he had lifted President Obama on Sunday.

Van Duzer told Cooper, reportedly his favorite journalist, that Obama "was just a stepping stone to get to you."

While the Cooper hug was premeditated, Van Duzer maintains that he got caught up in the moment and couldn't resist spontaneously hugging Obama when the president stopped by Van Duzer's Big Apple Pizza on a campaign visit. "He came to my front door and busted it open like Chuck Norris and he goes, 'Where's Scott?'" Van Duzer explained of the president's appearance.

When Cooper called the subsequent conservative backlash against Fort Pierce, Fla.-based Big Apple Pizza "just crazy," Van Duzer, who is a registered Republican, replied, "They say Obama is bad for small business, but now here the Republicans want to run this small business out."

Go to the "Anderson Live" site to find out when the segment airs in your city, and watch the video above.

Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
The Democratic euphoria, and Republican gloom, that spread in the wake of President Obama’s convention bounce abated a bit after ABC News and the Washington Post released a new poll showing Obama leading Romney by just a point among likely voters. Given that Obama’s convention bounce is certain to fade, this seems like really good news for Romney. It sort of is, but not in the way it seems.The thing I’ve been harping on for months is racial composition. Obama has held very steady support among non-white voters, so the key factor is his share of the white vote....

WASHINGTON – If you'd like to feel ill, read Bob Woodward's new book, "The Price of Politics."

The 379-page book, which comes out Tuesday and was obtained by The Huffington Post a day early, is a detailed, close-up look at the debt ceiling battle of July 2011, when the U.S. government came very close to default and a potential economic collapse.

Woodward is meticulous, as usual, and partly because of his attention to detail, the middle section of the book –- with its endless descriptions of meetings, mind-numbing budget figures and constant gridlock –- will make you want to bang your head against a wall.

But the hopelessly arcane and complex subject matter is only merely confusing. What makes the book depressing is the inability of leaders in Washington, starting with President Barack Obama but also including top Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress, to look beyond their own political fortunes and forge an agreement when the nation's fortunes were so clearly at risk.

Woodward lays the blame, ultimately, at Obama's feet. But it's obvious from Woodward's reporting that the Obama White House wanted to reach a "grand bargain" to reduce the deficit and achieve some long-term reforms on spending and entitlements. That cuts against the Republican argument that Obama has not tried to fix these problems.

The more pertinent debate is whether Obama led on the issue. And Woodward's book makes a compelling case that Obama did not do as much as he should have. But he also faults House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who tried in June and July 2011 to reach a deal with the president.

"When you examine the record in depth, you cannot help but conclude that neither President Obama nor Speaker Boehner handled it particularly well," Woodward writes. "Despite their evolving personal relationship, neither was able to transcend their fixed partisan convictions and dogmas. Rather than fixing the problem, they postponed it."

The book has essentially three sections: the first 100 pages or so is a set up for the second and third portions, and lays down the predicate that Obama's White House did not do the necessary work to build relationships with Republicans or the business community early on in his presidency.

Woodward uses Valerie Jarrett, a close personal adviser to Obama, as a symbol of White House clumsiness. He reports that after Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg felt that he had been "used as window dressing" when Obama spoke to him for only a moment after inviting him to watch the 2010 Super Bowl at the White House, Jarrett chastised him.

"Her response: Hey, you're in the room with him. You should be happy," Woodward writes. "Seidenberg was not."

And to Obama's first budget office chief, Peter Orszag, Jarrett issued a rebuke after he wrote a newspaper column the administration did not like. Orszag made an appeal to her that his criticism of the medical malpractice reforms in Obama's health care law were necessary for any Democratic advocacy on behalf of the law to be considered necessary.

But Jarrett, Woodward writes, would hear nothing of it: "Jarrett's answer was delivered with Politburo finality: You have burned your bridges," he writes.

Woodward sums up his perspective of Jarrett: "She had the view that if you simply arranged more meetings, that would solve any problem. But the interactions had an emptiness that made the problem worse. Sometimes, it's not a good idea to have a meeting and discussion."

But Woodward also holds up Obama's blasting of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in an April 13, 2011 speech, while Ryan sat in the front row, as a prime example of miscalculation and incompetence. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles told Ryan –- who is now Republican nominee Mitt Romney's running mate -– that he was "disgusted" by Obama's speech.

Obama told Woodward in an interview that he had not known Ryan would be in the audience. "We made a mistake," he said.

Then, with an eight-page description of a May 5, 2011 meeting between Vice President Joe Biden and congressional leaders on a debt limit solution, Woodward kicks off the second section of the book, which details the beginning of the search for a deal. The third portion shows what happened at the end stages of the negotiations, and is distinct because of the way that the narrative picks up steam.

Reading the second section is painful. It is over 100 pages and reads like something out of the existential Samuel Becket play, "Waiting for Godot." At times, reading the umpteenth description of back room bickering, it seems like a disjointed procession of people throwing out random ideas and figures. Partly this is because of the subject matter. But it is also partly the result of an incomplete portrait. Many of the meetings read as if Woodward is writing up an account based on yellow legal pad notes from one or two of the attendees, who wrote down every few sentences.

To wit, on page 222 (I picked a page somewhat a random), witness this exchange between Boehner, Obama, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner:

"Tax cuts aren't spending," said Boehner. He believed they spurred the economy that would then yield more tax revenue.

"I’m not proposing any tax cut," said Kyl.

"This is Bizarro World," said the president.

"Let's tax Doc fix and unemployment insurance off the table, since those are spending," Boehner said.

"What matters to the market is the long-term trend," Geithner interjected.

A page later, the absurdity reaches a climax, as Woodward describes the same July 13, 2011 meeting, with House Majority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.):

"'I just met with a person today who's just out of college,' said Pelosi for no clear reason. 'They were optimistic and hopeful and we need to get this deal.' The president put his chin in his hand and started playing with his name card. Pelosi went on with a long anecdote, finally lamenting their apparent failure at negotiations. 'I don't know who is going to tell the children,' she said. Cantor and [Steny] Hoyer, who were sitting next to each other, began a private conversation while Pelosi told her story. 'We listened to Cantor day in and day out,' Pelosi said, 'but he's not listening right now.' The president burst out laughing."

Finally, the story begins to move as the early August deadline gets closer. The meetings become more urgent. Discussions become less circular. But the ideological rigidity remains. Republicans will not budget on tax increases. Democrats do not want to cut spending significantly or overhaul entitlement programs.

Jack Lew, the current White House chief of staff who was White House budget chief at the time, emerges in Woodward's telling as a chief tormentor of the Republicans.

When Boehner reopened talks with Obama on July 15, he had a request, Woodward writes: "Please don't send Jack Lew. The budget director talked too much, was uncompromising, and Boehner's staff did not believe he could get to yes."

Boehner told Woodward: "Jack Lew said no 999,000 times out of a million." Then he corrected himself. "999,999. It was unbelievable. At one point I told the president, keep him out of here. I don't need somebody who just knows how to say no."

Boehner's chief of staff at the time, Barry Jackson, described Lew this way: "Always trying to protect the sacred cows of the left." Woodward writes that Jackson said Lew would be "going through Medicare and Medicaid almost line by line while Boehner was just trying to reach some topline agreement."

To Lew, the problem was that Boehner did not like details.

"When the Speaker's office made a proposal, Lew would return with an analysis of what it would mean for the average Medicare retiree and people at different income levels," Woodward writes. "It complicated the negotiations, and in Lew's experience, the answer 'things are complicated' was not highly appreciated by the speaker's office."

As for the president, he told top aide Rob Nabors –- who has a central role in Woodward's telling -– that reaching a "grand bargain" on deficits and debt was "more important than health care." And he compared himself to the woman in the biblical story who tells King Solomon to give a baby to another woman who has laid claim to the child rather than cutting it in half.

"We just have to accept we're the mom who's not willing to split the baby in half," Obama told advisers, holding himself out as a caring steward of the economy.

As the deadline for raising the debt limit approaches, and talks between Obama and Boehner fall apart over the issue of whether $800 billion in increased revenue can be moved up to $1.2 trillion, the tension is gripping, and the fissures between Boehner and Cantor on the Republican side, and between Obama and Pelosi and Harry Reid on the Democratic side, are fascinating.

The most specific significant critique that Woodward levels is aimed largely at the president, and gives him substantial blame for talks with Boehner falling apart.

"Most extraordinary was the repeated use of the telephone for critical exchanges. Especially baffling was President Obama's decision to make his critical request for $400 billion more in revenue in a spur-of-the-moment phone call," Woodward writes. "The result was a monumental communications lapse between the president and the speaker at a critical juncture."

Most of the most eyebrow-raising sections in the book were leaked out ahead of the book's sale date. But there were still numerous nuggets that have not yet been reported:

Boehner said he and former White House chief of staff Bill Daley had "a long relationship" and trusted each other, "almost like brothers." Woodward asked Daley about this comment, and though Daley was "at first … flattered," he added that "he looked on the speaker as 'not quite a brother.'"

Nabors told Obama, after being grilled and lambasted by Senate Democrats at a July 21 meeting on Capitol Hill: "It was just one of the more awful experiences of my life."

Boehner at one point proposed that the trigger to force the Super Committee to agree on a second round of deficit reduction would be to eliminate the Individual Payment Advisory Board and the individual mandate in Obama's health care law. Obama responded to Boehner's idea of gutting his signature legislative accomplishment with this: "Creative thought, John."

Boehner and Jackson discussed Obama's motivations: "Boehner reported that Obama said, 'John, I make 2 million. You can't expect me to ask somebody to take a cut in their benefits if I'm not willing to take a cut.' It's almost like he's ashamed that he's been blessed and he's made money, they concluded. It's as if he's guilty of his success. 'Oh, my God,' they imagined the president saying, 'I'm so embarrassed that I've done well, and I need to make sure that I do my self-flagellation.'"

One of Boehner's favorite hobbies is tending to his lawnmower: "This was a ritual the speaker enjoyed -- often telling staff how much he looked forward to it. He would tip the push mower over on its side, remove the blade and sharpen it with a hand file, then, like any suburbanite, mow the lawn."

After Obama and Boehner finally reached an agreement on July 31, "Obama turned to the staffers in the room. 'Let's not do this again,' he said. 'We're not going to negotiate on the debt limit ever again."

When Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) reached Kyl's home to tell him about his super committee assignment, Kyl's wife, Caryll, said Jon was working in yard with rented equipment so he couldn't talk. "Kyl called Murray the next day. 'You know I was renting it by the hour,' he explained."

Woodward's own attitude toward Obama is telegraphed, somewhat cryptically, in the book's prologue. It does not appear to be all that positive. Woodward discusses meeting then-Sen. Obama at the 2006 Gridiron Dinner in Washington, and writes that Obama "smiled me down."

"The certainty on his face was deep, giving me pause," the 69-year-old Woodward writes, adding that he was "trying to hold my ground" in the conversation with the younger man.

Woodward ends the prologue with a contrast between a Gridiron speech in 1981 by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan that had "some good jokes" but which centered around the theme of "what it means to be a Democrat." Obama's speech, on the other hand, was "about Obama, his inexperience, and ... what he had not done," Woodward writes.

"Two and a half years later, he was president-elect of the United States."

From the remove of television, the most enlightening way to soak up the now-completed political conventions was to simply mute the sound, absorb the pictures and merely look at who was there.

This is not to slight the speeches, which were by turns stirring and clarifying. There was Paul Ryan articulating the modern-day Republican philosophy: Dismantle government and hand the spoils to people who own tennis courts! There was Bill Clinton offering a full-throated defense of collective action to address shared problems while laying out a crucial question: "What kind of country do you want to live in?"

But on your screen, in image alone, the two party gatherings delivered their own sharply contrasting answers to that question.

In Tampa, the Republicans looked like what they have become: a men's group for angry middle-aged white guys enraged by demographic change and inclined toward the politics of blame. Here was a besieged slice of America desperately seeking to maintain the privileges of a bygone era.

In Charlotte, the Democrats looked like what America has become: an often-disorganized, internally contradictory and above all racially diverse collection of people grappling with common troubles, like not enough paychecks, too many worries about bills to pay, and no reliable hold on middle-class basics like housing, health care, education and retirement. We saw military veterans in uniforms and professionals in suits; white, black, Hispanic and Asian Americans; gays and straights; Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus.

This contrast in optics was stark and meaningful, because this election confronts us with more than the question of what sort of country we want. At stake is no less than who gets the right to decide.

The circumstances of these times make this an election fraught with importance. The worst economic downturn since the Great Depression has been followed by a wholly unsatisfying "recovery" that has beggared the meaning of that academic jargon -- a reality only enhanced by Friday's crummy employment report. People without jobs have lost homes and are living in their cars. People with jobs often earn so little that they need food stamps and donated groceries to feed their families. Talk of middle-class decline may have become a cliché, yet the truth of this conversation seems to deepen by the day.

And yet, at a time when we should be debating how to reverse this decline and restore the traditional middle class bargain -- decent living standards in exchange for hard work -- we are instead having what feels like a referendum on the essential nature of American democracy and what sort of people should be entitled to participate.

The Republicans continue to deploy thinly veiled racial code to denigrate the nation's first African-American president as "not one of us," with "us" being the sort of people in abundance in Tampa: white, male and inclined to view those who require help from the government as morally degenerate parasites. This is the essential message of both the relentless questioning of Obama's American citizenship and the factually baseless claims that he wants to undo welfare reform.

All of which makes the mere spectacle of the conventions rich with pertinent information: To whom are these two competing parties speaking? What does their encapsulation of America look like?

Who was there matters, because the Republicans are trying to keep so many people away from the polls. They have a candidate who is widely and legitimately viewed as an aloof creature of privilege, a man who got rich by dismantling other people's creations, trading businesses and jobs like chips at a Monte Carlo casino table. His strategists understand keenly that if too many voices are heard on Election Day, if the balloting reflects the sentiments of a genuinely representative cross-section of the nation, their guy loses. He doesn't speak for a broad enough range of communities -- unless your version of diversity means owning both beach houses and ski chalets.

With this limitation in mind, the Republicans are doing everything in their power to limit turnout, and particularly among people who are not white and not relatively affluent. They are carpet-bombing battleground states with negative, racially divisive political advertisements that seem engineered to disgust large numbers of would-be voters, making people so beleaguered and turned off that they stay home.

In case mass-disseminated cynicism does not get the job done, the Republicans are also employing actual barriers to access, such as voter identification laws, crafted to bar minority and low-income people from voting. They are narrowing the window of early voting to limit turnout among students and people who work multiple jobs -- both core components of Obama's base.

The Republicans fear heavy minority and youth turnout because the party grasps that it is the real minority. It appeals to a narrow and aging slice of the electorate that seeks to preserve a bankrupt idea: the notion that government is for nanny state-loving losers, while free enterprise addresses all of life's problems.

It is a notion that serves two masters: wealthy people, for whom tax cuts amount to serious gobs of money, and corporations, which have exploited weak regulations to profit while harming the public.

The Democrats are hardly paragons of virtue. They are rife with corporate conflicts of interest themselves. Their rhetoric of concern for vulnerable people has often exceeded their action. (It was especially unpalatable to hear Clinton deliver such a cogent rebuke of the Republican plan to gut Medicaid by turning it into a program of limited block grants to the states: This is precisely what he did to welfare, and with predictably disastrous results.)

The Obama administration has failed to limit the foreclosure crisis by catering to the interests of giant banks, an area conspicuously absent from the president's speech at the convention.

But the president is at least speaking to the right people: virtually anyone who lives in America.
He is describing a nation governed by a spirit of inclusion. The people who gathered in Charlotte looked like that nation. In an election in which claims on American identity are themselves at issue, this is no small thing.

Unresolved tension? Nah. From where we're sitting, Presidents Obama and Clinton are total BFFs.

Obama joked about the Clinton's much-praised DNC speech in address to supporters in St. Petersburg, Fla. on Saturday.

“After he spoke, somebody sent out a tweet that said “you should appoint him 'secretary of explaining stuff.' I like that!" he said, then added, "I have to admit, it didn't say 'stuff'. I cleaned that up."

He also talked up Clinton (and made a simliar joke) in speech he gave on Friday in New Hampshire.

"President Clinton made the case in the way only he can."

A spokesman for the Obama campaign told USA Today that Clinton's speech was "amazing ... the incredible response that was well deserved, we'd love to have him out there as much as he's available."

Greg Sargent, Washington Post
On Tuesday, Michelle Obama talked about who Barack Obama is and where he came from. On Wednesday, Bill Clinton talked about where the country and the economy have been and how we struggled to get to where we are now. As Chuck Schumer put it earlier today, those two performances teed up Barack Obama to devote tonight's speech to talking about the future.In a bit of a surprise, Obama's speech "” which had little in the way of soaring rhetoric and stuck to a direct and sometimes pleading tone "” spent little time defending his economic record. That...

George Will, Washington Post
With two extravagant entertainments under way, it is instructive to note the connection between the presidential election and the college football season: Barack Obama represents progressivism, a doctrine whose many blemishes on American life include universities as football factories, which progressivism helped to create.Higher education embraced athletics in the first half of the 19th century, when most colleges were denominational and most instruction was considered mental and moral preparation for a small minority — clergy and other professionals. Physical education had nothing...

Cooper & Lowrey, NY Times
Only hours after accepting his party's nomination for a second term, President Obama found himself on the defensive over a jobs report that was weak in almost every way.The disappointing report leaves the president and his advisers with fading hopes that the economy will surge ahead before Election Day "” much as it did late last year "” and allow them to amplify his case that the country is on the road to recovery.

Joe Klein, Time
The President gave a fine speech Thursday night. His vision of the country is much closer to the place where I live"“and I daresay where most Americans live"“than Mitt Romney's. It is an America that includes truck drivers and teachers and auto workers as well as Romney's beloved entrepreneurs. Obama laid out the case against Romney's constricted vision in a very effective way: "If you have a cold, they say take two tax cuts and roll back some regulations and see us in the morning."He was, of course, defter, funnier, more...