The American Conservative: Not Impressed By Romney

For a left leaning centrist, I’m beginning to wonder about either myself or about how far the conservative movement has to the right. Why do I say this?

Well, a couple of months ago, I was introduced to The American Conservative. As I began reading articles and commentary on its site, I realized how much I agreed with the various authors. They echoed many of my own sentiments. They were sane, sensible, logical, and could discuss topics based on data, facts, and history. I appreciated what they had to say.

I would be remiss to fail to note that the modern conservative movement of Romney, Ryan, Rove, Ailes, and DeMint have absolutely nothing in common with tradition conservatism as discussed on The American Conservative. The modern conservative movement is not traditionally conservative; it is a blend of religiosity, randian libertarianism, fundamentalist extremism, and blind ignorance of the plutocracy guiding it.

Now, far be it from me to hawk a website, but if I’m any example of a modern centrist Democrat or Independent, then my guess is those whose political beliefs are akin to mine have more in common with this site’s authors than do those who belong to the party of Ailes, Rove, Ryan and DeMint.

So, about that Presidential debate.

[I]f you didn’t watch the debate, and read the transcript, what you’d see is the following. When Romney attacked, Obama generally had a policy response – some more persuasive than others, but the response was generally policy-related. When Obama attacked, Romney would generally deny that he took the position that was being attacked.

Romney’s palpable zest for the debate made him look like a guy ready to take charge, and the President’s demeanor suggested some willingness to let him do so. But his refusal to stand his ground on anything – and the marked contrast with the President in that regard – made him sound like a snake-oil salesman.

I guess it’s clear how the combination played for me. How it played for a low-information voter, I don’t know.

The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison put Romney’s performance this way:

If a viewer didn’t trust Romney coming into the debate, he said nothing to change that, but he didn’t make any major errors that can be used against him later. He is an unlikable candidate, and more people will still view him that way, but he didn’t make things any worse for himself.

That statement is probably true. Those who follow politics closely recognize that Romney obfuscated, misrepresented, distorted and lied throughout the debate. But will Romney change any minds? CNN’s undecided voters apparently are still undecided.

Independent voters – men v women

During the three debates, I watched CNN because I wanted to see what independent voters thought. After all, they will be the ones deciding this election.

And this is something that all the politicos, whether media or reporting, have not focused on…at least to my knowledge…and that something is the difference between how independent woman and men are affected by what is being said by the candidates.

I focused on how men and women responded to the answers Obama and McCain gave to each question. By and large women were more receptive to Obama’s answers by scoring his remarks higher. Men, on the other hand, were more modest in their scoring of Obama’s answers. For example, when women scored Obama at 100, men followed by scoring at 85 or 90.

Interestingly enough and much different from the previous presidential candidate debate, the same held true for Sen. McCain’s responses. Women tended to score higher than the men. However, neither women’s or men’s ratings spiked as long or as frequently for McCain as they did for Obama.

This leaves me to believe that men are more skeptical that women. In the first debate, men tended to give McCain a higher score. This time they followed the women, giving, overall, higher scores to Obama than McCain. But not scoring nearly as high as women did.

So, what does this say? Obviously, it says that women are more in favor of Obama’s policies. That is probably due to the fact that women, by and large, are in charge of family finances and health care problems. Being closer to the ground, so to speak, they are more in touch with the needs and requirements of their families. As such, they found Obama’s arguments more compelling and more helpful to their families. Men, however, were less convinced. I suspect they see what is going on in the financial world and feel that Obama will be constrained from executing his plans because of the sheer enormous debt which this country has incurred over the last eight years. In other words, they are less optimistic.

When McCain spoke, the scores spiked less often and did not retain their high, nearly 100% levels as long. Among men, the scores were often well below the 50% level when women’s scores were above 50%. This occurred even on McCain’s supposedly favored topic of national defense — the topic on which the media said he should excel over Obama. On economic and health care issues, McCain’s scoring spiked only occasionally, often staying near or just above the 50% level.

What this says is that independent voters, although not entirely convinced yet, are leaning towards Obama. And that women, more than men, more heavily favor Obama’s policies and plans than McCain’s. Men, on the other hand, may be more skeptical but are changing their views from the previous debate in which they gave McCain much higher scores.

Regardless of what the pundits say tonight, it appears the American public is shifting from Republican to Democrat because they believe that Obama has a better plan for their future.