Obama reelection 2012

[onejayhawk]

that would be a good trade. Assuming most prez candidates release both college transcripts and tax returns.

[badjoke]or the long form birth certificate[/badjoke]

J

[Moonlight J]

saw this yesterday

[senorsheep]

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING DOES NOT REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF SENORSHEEP, BUT RATHER HIS UNDERSTANDING OF WHY SEEING OBAMA'S COLLEGE RECORDS IS IMPORTANT TO HIS POLITICAL OPPONENTS.

When it comes to those who question why Obama won't share his college records, I don't think it's his grades they want to see. My understanding is that their suspicions revolve around his admissions data - they suspect he made false claims about his nationality or religious affiliation in order to gain some kind of admissions advantage per the diversity policies of the universities he attended.

The parallel isn't tax returns = college records. The parallel is: Both sides are inherently suspicious of the other guy's politics, and by extension his trustworthiness, and those suspicions are fueled by their target's unprecendented secrecy surrounding the documents they want to see. Both sides would like to fish around in their opponents' histories a bit in order to confirm their suspicions, and I'm sure neither guy appreciates the other side snooping around in his records in hopes of finding material for attack ads.

I can't recall any other presidential nominees in recent history who have refused to provide tax returns or college records, but I could be wrong about that. For my money, each nominee should fully disclose both, and if there's politically embarrassing information in either, tough titty, man up and deal with it.

So, maybe that helps make sense of the mindset of those interested in Obama's college records. Or not. I have zero interest in defending them in either case.

I do admit to being curious why The Prez keeps those records sealed, though. Any guesses?

[senorsheep]

saw this yesterday

LMAO. That's awesome!

[Lucky]

I am not a big Obama fan. I think he's more or less governed as a moderate Republican. However, he has done a LOT of relatively major things for the common person, such as:

- Ended the War in Iraq.
- Passed health care reform and all that goes with it.
* Hell, just these first two are pretty huge.
- Turned around the US auto industry.
- Repealed DADT.
- Kicked banks out of the student loan racket.
- Passed credit card reform.
- Passed Lily Ledbetter fair pay act, allowing women to seek legal measures to get fair pay.
- Tripled the size of AmeriCorps.
- Pushed federal agencies to be green leaders --- less fuel, increased water efficiency, sustainability requirements for contractors.
- Improved nutrition for kids in schools.
- Expanded health care for children through a tax on tobacco.
- Expanded stem cell research.
- Overhauled the food safety system.

He even passed a first responder bill that provided free health coverage for firefighters, police officers and other workers injured during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. Incredibly, the Republicans tried to block it.


Perhaps that's not change you can believe in and there's a lot of other stuff that I, as a progressive liberal, do not believe in. However, that's a lot of change. In fact, there's a list of 244 distinct Obama accomplishments on the Internet.

He has done a lot of stuff, for which he doesn't get credit. The right doesn't want him to get credit for any of his accomplishments, and the far left are unhappy because he didn't to more. I wouldn't say he has governed as a Republican, but definitely as a moderate...and that's what I hope to get when I vote Democratic...not the zany left, but a practical centrist.

[Lucky]

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING DOES NOT REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF SENORSHEEP, BUT RATHER HIS UNDERSTANDING OF WHY SEEING OBAMA'S COLLEGE RECORDS IS IMPORTANT TO HIS POLITICAL OPPONENTS.

When it comes to those who question why Obama won't share his college records, I don't think it's his grades they want to see. My understanding is that their suspicions revolve around his admissions data - they suspect he made false claims about his nationality or religious affiliation in order to gain some kind of admissions advantage per the diversity policies of the universities he attended.

The parallel isn't tax returns = college records. The parallel is: Both sides are inherently suspicious of the other guy's politics, and by extension his trustworthiness, and those suspicions are fueled by their target's unprecendented secrecy surrounding the documents they want to see. Both sides would like to fish around in their opponents' histories a bit in order to confirm their suspicions, and I'm sure neither guy appreciates the other side snooping around in his records in hopes of finding material for attack ads.

I can't recall any other presidential nominees in recent history who have refused to provide tax returns or college records, but I could be wrong about that. For my money, each nominee should fully disclose both, and if there's politically embarrassing information in either, tough titty, man up and deal with it.

So, maybe that helps make sense of the mindset of those interested in Obama's college records. Or not. I have zero interest in defending them in either case.

I do admit to being curious why The Prez keeps those records sealed, though. Any guesses?

Very good post, providing a lot to think about.

You mentioned that you couldn't think of another nominee in recent years who refused to provide tax records or college records. I've been trying to think of another nominee who has been asked to provide his college records. Could you remind me?

An interesting point that you highlight...there's a lot of talk about Obama releasing his college grades. The Republicans aren't really trying to see his grades, they are looking for his college records, which would provide admissions information and other items of a personal nature. I don't know what all is included in a person's college records...or whether the information is of a more personal nature that that provided on tax returns. I don't see why he won't provide his transcripts. I would happily show mine, even though the world would learn that I dropped out of accounting my freshman year.

[OaklandA's]

An interesting point that you highlight...there's a lot of talk about Obama releasing his college grades. The Republicans aren't really trying to see his grades, they are looking for his college records, which would provide admissions information and other items of a personal nature.

Correct, they are hoping to show that Obama was not a U.S. citizen, or received some type of affirmative action benefits, when he applied to college, and that type of information is usually not included on a transcript, just courses and grades.

It is pretty unusual for candidates to release college transcripts. George W. Bush's transcript was released at some point, and I think Rick Perry did too. But I'm not sure what the point of seeing either Obama or Romney's transcripts would be. Even if they screwed up or dropped classes when they were young, Obama did graduate Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School, and Romney was in the top 5% at Harvard Business School, so it is pretty clear that they were very good students by the time they finished college.

[Judge Jude]

It is a weird topic, but

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/101226

"The Huffington Post recently released a copy of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry’s college transcript from Texas A&M. The academic picture wasn’t pretty. Perry struggled in some familiar classes (an F in organic chemistry, a D in economics) and some bizarre ones (a C in gym, a D in something the transcript labeled only as “Meats”).

Are Perry’s low college marks all that astonishing for a high-profile politician? Apparently not. Let’s take a look at a few other big names who didn’t light the academic world on fire."

Al Gore's D came in "Natural Sciences 6 (Man’s Place in Nature)."
that's worth the price of admission right there, lol

remember, this is a strategic point re Obama, though. I don't care what Obama's grades were - he's a smart guy, and all it would tell me is that he loafed a bit from age 18-21, worst-case scenario. But the "transparency" rhetoric re Romney needing to release additional tax records sets this one up on a tee, I think, relevance be damned.

[Lucky]

Zany left like......uh, pretty sure there's never been a "zany left" President. Whatever the hell that means, anyway. Frankly I tire quickly of the casual dismissal of progressives as "zany". Universal health care and no war is zany in this brave new world, I guess.

Bad wording on my part, I guess. Here's what I meant. So often the right attempts to paint the Democratic candidate as being extremely liberal, sometimes even using phrases like the "zany left". They imply (or state explicitly) that Democratic voters want to get somebody in the White House who will push through a radical agenda. In reality, the Democratic nominees are never the radicals they are made out to be. And, in reality, most Democratic voters (myself included) don't want that type of radicalism, that type of "zany left" prophesied by the right wing pundits. Instead, most Democratic voters (myself included) want a moderate candidate in line with the platform. Clinton was such a President. Obama has been such a President.

So far as the extremist right's criticisms, they tend to use "socialist", "ultra-left", "communist", "zany" "un-American" and other derogatory terms almost interchangeably. Of course there has never been a "zany left" president, and no zany left Democratic candidates in my lifetime. My point was that the reality of the situation does not to seem to deter the right from their quadrennial straw man arguments.

It was never my intent to characterize health care reform as "zany". "Historic", a "blessing" a "miracle"...these are the words that first come to mind. Ditto ending the war in Iraq. Interesting the two examples you came up with have so much in common. They will both same countless lives. They will, at least in the long run, save our country countless money. And they are both consistent with our proper values and visions as Americans.

So, I'm not sure if you read it wrong or I wrote it wrong...it doesn't really matter, since our points appear to be the same.

[Hornsby]

So far, what I can see from a little digging is that this whole kerfuffle was started by Donald Trump...and not picked up until several days later by the Republican party as a rebut to the Tax issue. So it's not like there's some great clamoring out there to see the Obama transcripts, and frankly, I doubt that there will be. Obama has been more thoroughly vetted than any candidate in history given what he had to go through in 2008, and the years since...but I suspect that he will release something, if the pressure mounts. So far it's not.

Romney apparently thinks that he has a whole lot to lose if he releases his 2009 and 2010 returns, interesting enough, it looks like he released his 2011 returns without much fanfare. Adjusted gross income of almost 21 million...

http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/presreturns.nsf/Returns/9F81699BC7D6DE238525798F0051C35F/$file/M_Romney_2011.pdf

That move alone makes me even more curious as to why he won't release the returns for the earlier years...

Oh yeah, he apparently didn't release the schedule relating to off-shore accounts...

[Moonlight J]

So far, what I can see from a little digging is that this whole kerfuffle was started by Donald Trump...and not picked up until several days later by the Republican party as a rebut to the Tax issue. So it's not like there's some great clamoring out there to see the Obama transcripts, and frankly, I doubt that there will be. Obama has been more thoroughly vetted than any candidate in history given what he had to go through in 2008, and the years since...but I suspect that he will release something, if the pressure mounts. So far it's not.

Romney apparently thinks that he has a whole lot to lose if he releases his 2009 and 2010 returns, interesting enough, it looks like he released his 2011 returns without much fanfare. Adjusted gross income of almost 21 million...

http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/presreturns.nsf/Returns/9F81699BC7D6DE238525798F0051C35F/$file/M_Romney_2011.pdf

That move alone makes me even more curious as to why he won't release the returns for the earlier years...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/07/17/romney_s_tax_returns_is_the_2009_swiss_bank_account_amnesty_what_he_doesn_t_want_us_to_see_.html

[Judge Jude]

As someone noted earlier, the opposing camps are throwing out fliers and wondiering if they might reel in a big fish.

The Romney tax returns would seem like much bigger fish, even though him making a zillion dollars and not paying a lot of taxes isn't enough by itself to move the needle. So the Obama camp wonders about the resistance.

Also interesting on the other end. The Obama grades seem like they can't become a big deal - which is what fascinates the Romney camp, I suspect. Once those get released - relevance aside - the Obama guys can go balls to the wall on the Romney tax angle.

Maybe the Obama-ites are luring Romney into a sucker bet? If the grades are as dull an issue as we assume, maybe it's brilliant to lure Romney into what I suspected might happen - "'I'll show my tax returns as soon as I see your college grades" - with "tomorrow at noon" as the answer.

In a weird way, that would be one of Obama's more impressive strategies...

[Hornsby]

As someone noted earlier, the opposing camps are throwing out fliers and wondiering if they might reel in a big fish.

The Romney tax returns would seem like much bigger fish, even though him making a zillion dollars and not paying a lot of taxes isn't enough by itself to move the needle. So the Obama camp wonders about the resistance.

Also interesting on the other end. The Obama grades seem like they can't become a big deal - which is what fascinates the Romney camp, I suspect. Once those get released - relevance aside - the Obama guys can go balls to the wall on the Romney tax angle.

Maybe the Obama-ites are luring Romney into a sucker bet? If the grades are as dull an issue as we assume, maybe it's brilliant to lure Romney into what I suspected might happen - "'I'll show my tax returns as soon as I see your college grades" - with "tomorrow at noon" as the answer.

In a weird way, that would be one of Obama's more impressive strategies...

It has nothing at all to do with not paying a lot of taxes, he pays plenty of taxes, just not what the the average Joe pays on a percentage basis. It's the off-shore accounts that he's scared to release...and perhaps for good reason. If it comes out he was funneling large amounts to foreign banks, even if it was entirely legal, he's probably sunk. That would be a hell of a tough spin..."hey, buy American, employ American, invest American, that works for you. But me? I'm sheltering my money in the Swiss Alps and the Grand Caymans".

Other than The Donald, I've yet to hear anyone clamoring for Obama's transcripts...

[Lucky]

One pundit speculated today that Romney's net worth may be much greater than he has indicated...maybe a billion dollars as opposed to $250M. Personally, I don't s ee much difference in a quarter of a billion dollars and a billion dollars...to most of us they are just big numbers. I can't imagine having either as my net worth, but I also can't see how it would necessarily affect someone's lifestyle much. Either way, you could live where you wanted to live, drive what you wanted to drive, vacation where you wanted to vacation. But, maybe some people think the label "Billionaire Candidate" might be off-putting for some.

[cardboardbox]

I agree with lucky... romney prob is withholding his tax returns because he's much richer than we know and thinks that will hurt his chances. Its highly unlikely that there's anything in those tax returns that will kill his candidacy because I have to think something would have come of it during the primary.

Personally I think everyone is entitled to avoid paying taxes through legal means. I know I would.