The Necropolitan Sentinel

Say, did you hear that there is another Presidential debate tonight? 

 

Yeah, it snuck up on me too.

 

There has been a lot of talk on the Right about what Romney needs to do at this evening's town-hall tete-a-tete.  I know I'm far more interested in seeing what Mitt can do with some momentum on his side.  On the other hand, Ed Morrissey–reading the Daily Best so you don't have to–gives us what the progressives think Obama has to accomplish in order to pull out a victory.

 

Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast says that Obama has to accomplish eight tasks in order to win tonight.  Most of these relate to mere semantics (“That’s where the mot juste comes in handy”) or personal attacks (“Find a way to reintroduce the plutocrat meme”), but one in particular is revealing:

Have a second-term agenda, and make sure it has some surprises of its own. Some of this agenda can be aimed at constituencies (immigration reform, say). But he should throw in something no one expects to hear, something that will throw Romney off guard. Maybe something about more aggressive natural-gas permitting in a second term. Probably needs to be a little bigger than that. But three things on that order would do the trick.

We are three weeks away from Election Day, and even Obama’s supporters (as Tomasky is) don’t have a clear idea of why Obama wants a second term, or what he wants to accomplish.  

Read the whole thing, as Morrissey's pre-debate preview is good and enlightening.

I hate to sound all 8th grade civic class about this, but whats a major job requirement for politicians? 

I mean, besides reading a teleprompter, getting one of our ambassadors killed and trying to speak to foreigners in their native Austrian tongue.  

I'll let you in on a secret: A big non-negotiable prerequisite of the politician's job is to give voters concrete reasons to vote for them.  Those seeking elected office must articulate their thoughts about the issues of the day.  Politicians also have to discuss the policies they'll enact to deal with the challenges they will inevitably face once in office.  Constituencies tend to demand these sorts of things.  

It's pretty much the most basic task in the politician's to-do list.  Telling the voters why they should vote for a person comes before all the cool shit politicians get to do.  Yes, it even comes before "Having haute couture designers to put expensive clothes on my wife", "Giving green jobs money to campaign donors" or "Ordering a drone to drop a thermobaric on some lippy Salafist cleric's face".

I know.  It's so boring having to actually explain to people what you want to accomplish if you get elected.  That's resembles actual-factual work.  And really, let's be honest; they're just citizens, after all.  If you're a Democrat it's not like you can't just get an army of dead people and illegal aliens to run to the polls and get elected that way.  Talking to real live human beings is like totally the height of tedium or some shit.

As frustrating as it sounds, that's basically the attitude Team Barry has taken…since January.  2009.

Democrat Media hacks whine about Romney's lack of specifics.  Pot, go ahead and give a warm high-five to kettle.  Mitt has been a model of loud-n-proud veracity compared to the President, who can't his story straight about the Benghazi attack, much less something that's gonna happen in his second term.  

Obama has offered nothing but simplistic slogans, race-baiting and Chicago-style hackery in this election season.  In other words, he's given America a listless repeat of 2008.  Not only is it disingenuous, it's a mark of rank incompetence.  Sadly, that's all Obama is really good at.

By the way–I'll be on Twitter if you need me, live tweeting Candy Crowley's tribute to the power of planting Obama shills in an audience of 'undecided' voters.