The reason no one speaks for the GOP is that there’s nothing to speak for — no principles other than accommodation, and thus no message. And until it gets one, something at once fundamentally American and electrifyingly appealing, it’s not going to find its voice.Nothing to speak for, nothing to fight for. Read the rest.
Another central metaphor is that humans are “90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee.” The chimp, in this case, behaves as a selfish individual satisfying its individual needs. The bee, as a member of a group, works for the welfare of the group. So, according to Haidt, we are some of both. We have our selfish interests (the major portion – 90%) and we have our community interests (the bee, 10%). It is our bee-like nature that “facilitates altruism, heroism, war and genocide.”This "chimp vs. bee" metaphor is central to a number of key conflicts in politics:
...Haidt likens our moral foundations from which we draw our ethical norms to 6 different taste buds: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. Interestingly, Dr. Haidt points out that the conservative moral palette is more broad than that of liberals. Liberals tend to be influenced by the first 3 moral foundations... In contrast, conservatives are influenced by all 6 moral foundations.Roughly speaking, the six moral foundations apply in different ways to the chimp and the bee:
...Dr. Haidt points out that there are strong evolutionary and cultural reasons why all 6 moral foundations exist, and that they are still relevant today. Dr. Haidt states that “we are 90% chimp, 10% bee.” By “bee” he means that we are social animals. While we might act in our own self-interest much of the time, we also have a strong instinct to be in groups. Our need to be a member of a group led us to develop these various moral foundations because, at one time or another, they all had a survival value. They helped groups to cohere and cohesive groups tend to survive and thrive.
The first three foundations support individual autonomy. The second three support communal bonding. ...[C]onservatives stress all six foundations. And thus Darwinian moral psychology supports conservatism as having a superior understanding of evolved moral dispositions.Of course libertarians -- under the influence of objectivism and focused primarily on the moral foundation of liberty -- see all of this a bit differently.
...and docs who accept Medicare (the vast majority) are forbidden from selectively providing free care.
What they did not tell you, and I am, is that it covers absolutely nothing more than the bare minimum.
I have now posted a notice in my office and each exam room stating exactly what Obamacare will cover for those yearly visits. Remember Obama promised this as a free exam — no co-pay, no deductible, no charge. That’s fine and dandy if you are healthy and have no complaints. However, we are obligated by law to code specifically for the reason of the visit. An annual exam is one specific code; you can not mix this with another code, say, for rectal bleeding. This annual visit covers the exam and “discussion about the status of previously diagnosed stable conditions.” That’s the exact wording under that code — insurance will not cover any new ailment under that code.
If you are here for that annual exam, you will not be covered if you want to discuss any new ailment or unstable condition. I cannot bait and switch to another code — that’s illegal. We, the physicians, are audited all the time and can lose our license for insurance fraud.
You, the patient, will then have to make a decision.
Do you want your “free” yearly exam, or do you want to pay for a visit which is coded for a particular, new problem? You can have my “free” exam if you only discuss what Obamacare wants me to discuss...
Patients can be very tricky. I have had patients make an “annual” exam, only to want to discuss and be treated for another ailment. I can’t do it...
I can hear the complaints from you guys already — I become the bad guy. “Why don’t you just take care of the problem, and not bill out any different code? You’re a rich doctor, and we are entitled to free stuff.”
It doesn’t work that way. First, doctors are not rich and, like most of you, actually work terribly hard for a living. Second, Obamacare is the law — and as I said earlier, we are audited all the time now.
I am a Hematologist/Oncologist with 27 years combined training (10 yrs after college) and practice (17 yrs). I am in a large group of oncologists and we do chemotherapy in our offices, have several imaging centers and radiotherapy in two locations. Currently we employ 130 people, and pay 100% of their health care insurance premiums, as well as a matching 401k. Each physician sees approx 15 to 25 patients daily in office and 5-10 hospital patients daily. We are a busy and, at the moment, financially secure business.As with the "War on Poverty" and public education, we can expect government to waste ungodly amounts of wealth "fixing" the foreseen flaws, strengthening Obamacare's grip on our private lives but making negligible improvements in the quality of health care.
Here’s the preliminary numbers when we are paid at Medicaid reimbursement, oops I mean Obamacare rates: Half our offices will close, forcing patients to travel to a restricted number of locations. We will not be able to give chemochemotherapy in our offices, as the drug costs and nursing costs will be higher than what we will get paid, so the patients will have to get their chemo in what hospitals will still be giving chemo in an outpatient suite. In our community, just to cover the number of patients that receive chemo services in our offices, the hospitals will need to set aside 60-80 clinic slots each day. Right now there are approx 15 slots between the 7 hospitals we cover and no plans to add more, so where these patients will receive their cancer treatments, outside of a 2 hr drive to the Texas Medical Center, I don’t know.
Our staff will either be halved or go part time (29.5 hrs). How I will run a medical practice with this kind of staffing, I have no idea.
The physicians will need to see 45 cancer patients daily, yup, 45 patients with a life threatening and devastating disease like cancer, to cover overhead costs, whilst the physicians taking a 50%, likely more, pay cut.
Oh, and then there is the whole caboose of regulations that my practice will have to pay $400/hr lawyers to figure out how to keep us in compliance, since the fines are upwards of $100K per occurrence.
I don’t think the picture is any better for other specialties, but I will tell that for cancer care it is a catastrophe for the patients and the providers.
The broader question, however, is: Why would anybody ask a politician about his views on a scientific question? Nobody ever asks what Sarah Palin thinks about dark matter, or what John Boehner thinks about quantum entanglement. (For that matter, I’ve never heard Keith Ellison pressed for his views on evolution.) There are lots of good reasons not to wonder what Rick Perry thinks about scientific questions, foremost amongst them that there are probably fewer than 10,000 people in the United States whose views on disputed questions regarding evolution are worth consulting, and they are not politicians; they are scientists. In reality, of course, the progressive types who want to know politicians’ views on evolution are not asking a scientific question; they are asking a religious and political question, demanding a profession of faith in a particular materialist-secularist worldview.Exit quote:
Alex Knapp declares that "this economy, at its root, is built on a web of scientific knowledge from physics to chemistry to biology. It's impossible to just cherry pick out parts we don’t like." If we get it wrong on Earth's creation, these critics say, the United States will fall apart.
Will it really? It seems to me that Rubio is right. Lots of basic scientific questions have no bearing whatsoever on the nation's short-term economic growth. We can even go much further: Lots of scientific questions don't matter all that much when it comes to other scientific questions. It's possible—and quite common—for scientists to plug away at research projects without explicit knowledge of what's happening in other fields. And when a bedrock principle of science does need to be adjusted—a not-so-unusual occurrence, it turns out—the edifice of scholarship doesn't crumble into dust. DVD players still operate. Nuclear plants don't shut down.
Another leg up that the left has is its claim to the moral high ground. The party of pro-choice, pro-gay has such a hold on young people because those are issues they can care about easily. Not many 20-year-olds can hold a coherent conversation about Social Security reform or double taxation, but all of them can argue passionately for gay rights.That’s some awfully judgemental and divisive language coming from someone who purports to stand for a more tolerant and inclusive GOP.
As a member of this all-important demographic, I know that neither I nor (almost) anybody else coming of age today supports the Republican social agenda. That's the way the country is moving—so just deal with it. Modernize and prioritize.
Though it may be painful, though it may be costly at the polls in the short run, Republicans don't have a future unless they break up with the religious right and the gay-bashing, Bible-thumping fringe...
A few gaffes – most notably by candidates Akin and Mourdock – cost the Republicans two Senate seats and possibly the White House. But with just a little common sense and some simple pro-life arguments they could have easily turned this to our advantage. Romney and others could have done the same thing whether the specific rape/abortion questions came up or not.
The errors resulted when the candidates tried to articulate theological concepts that can’t be distilled into sound bites and that are virtually certain to be misinterpreted by the media and voters. If you are running for office you should be skilled at knowing what hot topic questions you’ll get and how to steer the answers to your advantage.
So when the topic of abortions in the case of rape and incest came up, they didn’t need to get theological. They could have noted any or all of the following. Consider how simple yet accurate these arguments are and how they would resonate with the average voter – even pro-choice voters, the majority of whom side with pro-lifers on topics like parental notification, late-term abortions and taxpayer funding of abortions...Read the rest. It's good.
Recently, a number of books by secular intellectuals have noted the disaster that is postmodern relativism—the nihilist philosophy that has corrupted and gutted Western liberal education. Education’s End, by Anthony T. Kronman, Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians, by Marcello Pera, and What Ever Happened to Modernism?, by Gabriel Josipovici, come to mind. All lament the abandonment of our commitment to the Great Conversation—the intellectual’s belief that the creative tension of the uniquely brilliant Western literary and philosophical canon can lead us in the direction of moral truth.Read the rest.
But the authors cannot fully grasp the nettle of the solution. Many assume that the Great Conversation depended on the sort of open mind only secularism can provide. As Kronman puts it: “Every religion insists, at the end of the day, that there is only one right answer to the question of life’s meaning,” thus rendering the pluralism of the Great Conversation impossible. I would contend the opposite: only the existence of a God in whose image we are created can support the notion of moral truth at all. It was always Judeo-Christianity, and that alone, that made the Great Conversation possible. Pera understands this intellectually, but cannot really plunk for faith. And therein lies the problem. The triumph of science, the comfort of Western life, and a sophisticated elite virulently hostile to religion have all contributed to an intellectual atmosphere of unbelief—a sense that atheism should be the default mode of reasonable, thinking people. That is a mere prejudice and needs to be answered in the culture, not with Bible-thumping literalism and small-minded judgmentalism—nor with banal happy-talk optimism—but by sound argument made publicly, unabashedly, and without fear. John Adams and the other Founders were right about this: an irreligious people cannot be free. Liberty lives in the palace of moral truth, and you can’t build that palace on the empty air.
I believe the lesson that liberals most need to learn is that moral order is a miracle, it is hard to achieve, and it is precious. And since the Enlightenment, since the eighteenth century, I think liberals have been too quick to knock down institutions, to want change, and to try to tinker and maximize—and when you do that, you often end up with anomie, or normlessness. People should read about the French Revolution. Growing up as a liberal, I always thought the French Revolution was this wonderful thing. It was an absolute nightmare. Of course, the king was a nightmare too. But the French Revolution shows the excesses of liberalism. And it ended with genocide, it ended with mass slaughter in Paris with the guillotine. It was an abomination, because they destroyed all their moral capital and they had chaos. And that excess is actually the founding event of modern conservatism. It’s people like Edmund Burke, who said we need to preserve institutions even if we don’t always understand them. We have to proceed carefully. So that’s the main lesson that I think conservatives can teach liberals. You’re got to be careful here...
Are you ready for eight years of Obama? ...
A vote for Obama is a vote for:
- The war against "negative" liberties
- A Heavier Tax Burden (for everyone)
- Marxism & Socialism
- Obama's Unsavory Friends
- Unchecked Beltway Power
- Disdain
- A Charismatic Demagogue
- 143 Days of pre-campaign Senate Experience
- A Bonehead (paraphrased from Obama himself)
My counsel to you tonight: Please, do not be bitter. Do not fall prey to the Beltway blame game. Do not get mired in small things. Do not become vengeful creatures like our political opponents who voted out of spite instead of love of country.
We still have boundless blessings to count — and to secure.
I remain a proud, unrepentant believer in the American Dream. And I know you do, too. Freedom will endure because we will keep fighting for it. We can’t afford not to, friends.I just don't know what we're supposed to be fighting for anymore. Do the people of this country want freedom and the American dream? Sure, they want all the goodies, but are they prepared for all of the hard work and sacrifices? I don't think so.
Here’s why I like Mitt:Read the rest.
1. ...Romney has pledged to repeal Obamacare. It is one of his most visible pledges, and therefore – even if one doesn’t trust Romney (I do, although I’m not sure he can get repeal done) – it will be one of the hardest for him to break or ignore. And he has vowed to use Obama’s own weapon – executive branch waivers – to effectively stop implementation of the Act immediately.
So let’s be skeptical. Let’s assume there is only a 10 or 20 percent chance Romney carries through on this promise (I think the odds are much higher, but I’m being cautious and skeptical here). What are the odds of repeal if Obama is re-elected? Zero. Zilch. Nada. None. Nothing. If repeal of Obamacare is truly important – and I think it is – I will not pass up the most (or only) realistic chance to get it done.
2.Taxes. Mitt Romney has expressed a desire for sensible tax reform that most libertarians support – lower rates with a broader base. We’d like to see overall taxes decline, but in the face of massive deficits, with a public unwilling to stand for major cuts in entitlements, that’s probably not a realistic option. But Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan have promised to try. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has expressed again and again his desire and determination to raise income tax rates, and, at times, even to do so solely for the purpose of redistributing income. And to add insult to injury, Obama’s Orwellian language about “asking” some “to pay a little bit more” grates every time one hears it...
Romney is clearly the superior candidate.
3. Entitlements and Spending. Republicans have never had a lot of success in reforming, letting alone ending, entitlements. Often – particularly under G.W. Bush – they have played a key role in expanding them. On the other hand, Republicans scored a huge success in the 1990s in ending welfare as an entitlement, and Obama is now attempting to undo this success through the regulatory process.
Beyond the possibility of repealing the massive entitlement of Obamacare if Romney is elected, Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, has been a congressional leader in attempting to reform entitlements. No, he is not the Randian that the Democrats wish to make him out to be, much as many libertarians wish he were. But let’s be clear. No politician is going to be elected President in the near future on a pledge to abolish the entitlement state.
The Romney/Ryan plan for entitlement reform is the closest thing we have to a meaningful first step at reform – indeed, it is meaningful reform. There may never come a time when a majority of Americans are prepared for more radical reform, let alone an end to entitlements. If this is the reform we can get, it is necessary and good, and consistent with libertarian values. If an end to entitlements is one’s goal, successful, incremental reforms are probably a necessary step toward reshaping Americans’ mindset.
Obama currently stands as the single biggest obstacle to any consideration of entitlement reform. Romney and Ryan have taken on the issue in as strong a manner as any presidential ticket since Barry Goldwater in 1964...
6. Other Domestic Issues...
a. Immigration. Obama offers a bit more liberal immigration policy in principle, but Romney is more likely to gain concrete results for easier access for skilled workers. Broadly, I think Romney is much more likely to look for policies fostering assimilation...
b. Gun Control. Advantage Romney.
c. School Choice. Advantage Romney...
e. ...the protections of the First Amendment for religious groups has helped to support a major counterweight to state power. Religious freedom matters, and Romney is an easy choice...
i. Free Speech. Give Romney, with his opposition to campaign finance (i.e. political speech) regulation and “hate speech” codes, a huge edge over Obama. Obama has even used government regulation to attempt to silence corporations opposing elements of the Obama agenda, including the provision of true information about his health care plan.
6. The Courts... In the next four years, one side or the other could lock up a working majority on the Supreme Court for two decades. I have no doubt that Romney’s appointees will be MUCH better than Obama’s. Indeed, how could I not – in 2008, I was a member of Romney’s advisory committee on the Constitution and the Courts, a group that included other libertarians such as Michelle Boardman. I have confidence that Romney will appoint judges who see the constitution as a document that limits government power...
7. Foreign Policy. ...Obama’s demonstrated incompetence and Romney's better understanding of the nature of radical Islam still gives an advantage to Romney. ...as we have seen Obama’s incompetence in dealing with the world, I’m more comfortable with Romney. Elsewhere, however, I think Romney’s advantage is more substantial.
...We will not see President Romney cuddling up to populist dictators such as Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, or undermining democracy in Honduras, where Obama sanctioned the government for upholding its constitution against efforts by left-wing former President Manuel Zelaya to unconstitutionally retain power. Obama has also frayed our relationship with Canada, in part through his obstinate opposition to the Keystone Pipeline, which Romney supports...
Would you mind telling us why you choose Romney?
...First of all, I believe in the United States Constitution wholeheartedly. Obama has done many, many things under his term that should have been deemed unconstitutional. He wants to change this country and that’s not what I’m looking for.
I would consider myself mostly Libertarian. I wanted Ron Paul in the beginning but seeing as he is no longer in the race Romney has my vote. Gary Johnson, not for me. I don’t believe in giving illegal aliens amnesty as Obama and Johnson do. I agree with Romney on his stance with adults being deported but children born here getting the chance to become a citizen.
Next, I don’t like the Affordable Care Act also commonly known as Obamacare. I think it needs to be repealed immediately because it’s a stepping stone in the process to universal health care. Yes, free health care for everyone is GREAT in ideology. But nations do not thrive with that. Elderly will be denied the care they need. People won’t have the right to either buy into or not buy into health care. Yes, I think it’s foolish for a person to not buy into health insurance but it is their right as an American to do as they please.
Leading into birth control I don’t think it should be free. There is no reason that an adult woman cannot afford the average hormonal birth control pill (most are never above twenty dollars - mine costs twenty two if I didn’t pay through health insurance coverage) if they prioritize their finances maturely. I certainly don’t believe that employers should provide contraception for their employees. That’s ridiculous to me.
Aside from those issues, gun laws. I don’t want stricter gun laws. The second amendment was created so we CAN protect ourselves from our government and in self defense against criminals.
As for jobs Obama is doing terribly. 23 million out of work and he says it’s getting better? I don’t think so. I trust that Romney can get the jobs increasing again. After all he is a businessman. Obama is just a lawyer who knows how to work around the laws to get what he wants.
On the economy, I think Romney has a great plan. Cut spending. We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. In the whole defense on PBS and him wanting to cut it. PBS doesn’t need the subsidies. They make a third of a billion dollars in revenue. They’ll do just fine on their own...Read the rest.
The optimism that Obama’s supporters project is unfounded in hard data and historical precedent. Against the numbers, his fans point to GOTV, state polls that buck the national norm, and magical statisticians who assure them that all is well. The only thing missing is the inevitable last minute appeal to the ghost of Harry S. Truman.
On Twitter and blogs the debates were scored minute by minute by grandma, the kids and everyone else in the living room. And stars from Hollywood to media personalities, and politicians joined in the fun with the folks at home. The whole nation competed for the best one-liners, the perfect put-down or come back as the debate was taking place...
The power of social media to create a distorted, avalanche of public opinion about what happened during a debate can be best seen in the first contest between Gov. Romney and President Obama...
The perception that coalesced around that first debate turned the election from a likely Obama win to a dead heat. It was as if he had garbled his words, lost his thoughts and made factual errors – none of which occurred...
The perception that Romney won the first debate was a byproduct of this new media experience.More bad news for Juan: On November 6, there will be another "distorted avalanche of public opinion" – and grandma, the kids and everyone else will be tweeting all day and all night long. It's still a democratic republic, bud.
CALLER: Too many Republicans apologize for wanting conservative fiscal policy, and we gotta stop apologizing for that, and I think we're there now.
RUSH: Well, that's yet to be seen, but we're on the right road in that regard. Look, I don't want to go there now. I'm gonna do that after the election, but there are challenges....
...if Romney wins, there will be a competition in the Republican Party for people who want to take credit for it. Basically you're going to have two factions. One faction will be the Republican establishment, which will say their strategy of moderation, cooperation, reaching across the aisle, not scaring the independents, Romney's first debate performance, that's what did it.
The other faction will be the Tea Party and conservatives who will say, "If you guys don't wake up and realize that what won this election for you is this far-left agenda of the Democrat Party scaring this country to the point that people didn't want any more of it, if you don't realize what that means, you're gonna have to go back to the 2010 midterms. If you want to understand why Romney won this election, go back to the 2010 midterms. Everything Obama stands for was rejected and there wasn't a Republican on the ballot then."
CALLER: That's right. I agree.
RUSH: But that's for down the road. That may not even materialize. But if it does, that will be the... you know, even in the best families, there are arguments and there are disagreements, and it'll be the case here in due course. But if Romney wins, there will still be a lot of work to do.
President Barack Obama, during an interview shown on Comedy Central, has responded to a question about his administration's confused communication after the Benghazi attack, by saying: 'If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal.'
...Stewart asked: 'Is part of the investigation helping the communication between these divisions? 'Not just what happened in Benghazi, but what happened within.
'Because I would say, even you would admit, it was not the optimal response, at least to the American people, as far as all of us being on the same page.'
Obama responded: 'Here's what I’ll say. If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal.'Stewart was being respectfully circumspect by using the phrase "not optimal." Obama acted stupidly by parroting those words to whitewash the failures of his response to the Benghazi attack.
[POLL RESULTS] Who do you think won the VP Debate? Paul Ryan: 56%, Joe Biden: 36%, Neither: 8%. #CNBC2012
— CNBC (@CNBC) October 12, 2012
BREAKING: CNN-ORC post-debate poll of Registered Voters: 48% said Ryan won. 44% said Biden won. Sampling error: +-5%. #CNNDebate
— Sam Feist (@SamFeistCNN) October 12, 2012
According to the #CNNDebateClock, Biden spoke for 41:32 minutes; Ryan clocked in at 40:12. #cnndebate on.cnn.com/T9RVSG
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) October 12, 2012
FACT: Final Count: Biden interrupted 82 times during the entire debate.
— Joe Pounder (@PounderFile) October 12, 2012
Also of note, earlier in the interview, Dash told Morgan that she's a Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008. She's voting for Romney now "because of the state of the country and I want the next four years to be different."More:
Think of first debate as a physics experiment: We now know what happens when a low-energy moderator collides with a low-energy president.
— Walter Shapiro (@waltershapiroPD) October 4, 2012
25 percent thinking Obama won seems very high.
— Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 4, 2012
I'd be surprised if tonight didn't move the head to head polls some (in Romney's direction)
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) October 4, 2012
The main impact of Romney's good night: The caricature of him created by 47% video and his lousy campaigning is superseded.
— michaelscherer (@michaelscherer) October 4, 2012
My sources tell me everyone on JournoList got together and decided to agree that Romney won this debate.
— Michael Roston (@michaelroston) October 4, 2012
The fate of the Obama campaign rests with Joe Biden. He's actually good at debates, though!
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 4, 2012
Next debate, Obama would do better if he debated in auto-tune.
— Michael Roston (@michaelroston) October 4, 2012
67% of people in CNN poll say Romney did the best job. Highest # in history of the poll.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 4, 2012
Next time Obama should prep for debate against Romney, not Eastwood.
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) October 4, 2012
my boys from NY--not political pros, and all Dems--think Romney won. This bodes well for Mitt.
— Ben Adler (@badler) October 4, 2012
Note that lib opinion journalists aren't blaming pollsters or press for what happened tonight. Libs don't deal in denial way RW does.
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) October 4, 2012
John Kerry won the first debate against Bush almost as resoundingly as Romney did tonight, right?
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 4, 2012
If the Obama campaign was worried about Dems being overconfident going into the final stretch, tonight should allay those fears
— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) October 4, 2012
Heh RT @craigh_crawford Always easy to tell which side lost a debate: they say debates don't matter. And they're right
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 4, 2012
Show me actual voters who changed their minds & I'll believe Romney "won the debate" in any significant way. Beware punditry noise.
— Todd Gitlin (@toddgitlin) October 4, 2012
Jim Lehrer's choice of questions/topics was a f'ing travesty. That was the worst aspect of the debate by far.
— David Roberts (@drgrist) October 4, 2012
Jim Lehrer Gets Pwned and Why We All Lose in Post-Truth Politics thenation.com/blog/170351/ji…
— Richard Kim (@RichardKimNYC) October 4, 2012
There's no way @crowleycnn does not DESTROY as moderator in Prez. Debate #2. She's got game.
— NickBaumann (@NickBaumann) October 4, 2012
Yeah, I though Romney "won" -- by dodging details and misrepresenting positions tnr.com/blog/plank/108… #denverdebate
— Jonathan Cohn (@CitizenCohn) October 4, 2012
If nothing else, Obama's performance tonight shows the utter futility of the RW attempt to paint him as an angry radical. Dude is boring.
— David Roberts (@drgrist) October 4, 2012
The hands-down winner of the 1st debate was Twitter. But we knew that going in.
— Micah Sifry (@Mlsif) October 4, 2012
To be a killjoy for a moment: ultimately, this debate comes down to what people not snarking on Twitter think.
— Alex Koppelman (@AlexKoppelman) October 4, 2012
Romney is relaxed and empathetic, while Obama comes across as a constipated professor. C'mon, Mr. President! #Debates
— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) October 4, 2012
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