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Burnt Orange Report:

Governor Romney is finally sealing the deal, even if by eliminating the opponents from a less-than-stellar field, and this looks like the two-man race that most experts predicted 12 months ago. If tomorrow’s Florida primary goes as advertised, Romney wins by at least double-digits, and the run for Tampa becomes a mere formality.

More importantly, within the past week both President Obama and Governor Romney have begun to cement their core economic messages. President Obama’s message will stress Fairness and Capitalism with Rules. Romney’s message is to call Obama a socialist, and demand unrestrained Capitalism. If both campaigns stick to these messages, we can look to four more years of Obama, because Obama’s message is backed by solid evidence, and Romney’s message is not.

On Tuesday, President Obama’s State of the Union Address presented a clear vision of the future of American Capitalism and the role of Government in Capitalism.

President Obama:

“To reduce barriers to growth and investment, I’ve ordered a review of government regulations. When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them. But I will not hesitate to create or enforce common-sense safeguards to protect the American people. That’s what we’ve done in this country for more than a century. It’s why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe. It’s why we have speed limits and child labor laws. It’s why last year, we put in place consumer protections against hidden fees and penalties by credit card companies and new rules to prevent another financial crisis. And it’s why we passed reform that finally prevents the health insurance industry from exploiting patients.”

Thursday night’s GOP Presidential debate, the 19th in this election cycle’s non-stop Debate-o-Rama since this Presidential election season began, saw Mitt Romney find his groove. In taking the fight to Newt Gingrich, his resumed his front runner status. He also restated his major economic theme:

Mitt Romney’s closing debate answer:

“This is a time where we’re going to decide whether America will remain the great hope of the 21st century, whether this will be an American century, or, instead, whether we’ll continue to go down a path to become more and more like Europe, a social welfare state. That’s where we’re headed. Our economy is becoming weaker. The foundation of our future economy is being eroded. Government has become too large. We’re headed in a very dangerous direction.

I believe to get America back on track, we’re going to have to have dramatic, fundamental, extraordinary change in Washington to be able to allow our private sector to once again reemerge competitively, to scale back the size of government and to maintain our strength abroad in our military capacities.”

These two economic themes, along with the release of Romney’s taxes, have presented a clearer view of what Election 2012 will have in store – This election will be about defining the future of American Capitalism.

On the right, Romney is asserting that Obama’s policies will amount to the American adoption of European Socialism. On the Left, Obama is asserting that Romney is seeking to return America to the failed policies of unregulated Capitalism that brought us the Great Recession and the Great Depression.

If Obama, however, makes this fight into a question of what kind of Capitalism we want – a heartless, soulless, brainless Capitalism, or a thoughtful, studied, intelligent Capitalism, then he wins because the same Pew poll found an increasing ability of Americans to see the flaws of Capitalism, even while still preferring it to Socialism.

President Obama can, and must, win this argument. And he will because Romney’s message is factually challenged about President Obama’s policies, and is historically inaccurate by failing to recognize the weaknesses of unregulated Capitalism, or the need for Capitalism with Rules.

If Romney makes this into a fight of “Capitalism versus Socialism” he wins as Americans, according to recent polling from the Pew Research Center, highly favor Capitalism, with independents having a net +20% favorable view of Capitalism.

Read the full article @ Burnt Orange Report

Why are Republicans in general and Romney in particular always calling President Obama a socialist — because everybody hates socialists, even liberals, even Occupy Wall Streeters.

The socialist name calling, echoed without challenge by the main stream press, seems to be working, too. Americans perceive Barack Obama as furthest away from their own political viewpoint, according to a just released Gallup poll.

It is no accident that Republicans picked the “socialist” moniker to pin to Pres. Obama’s coat tails. Socialism is a negative for most Americans with six-in-ten (60%) saying they have a negative reaction to the word.

Socialism is the most politically polarizing of the most common political monikers – the reaction is almost universally negative among conservatives.

These are among the findings of the national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Dec. 7-11, 2011.

Related:

• Words That Don’t Work
• I’m So Scared Of This Anti-Wall Effort
• The Billionaires’ Tea Party
• Elizabeth Warren explains the need to hold financial institutions accountable
• The GOP Is Advocating A Tax Increase On The Middle Class
• Elizabeth Warren refutes GOP meme that policy where everyone pays their fair share of taxes amounts to “class warfare” against the wealthy

Democratic Blog News

An atheists group in Boulder, seeking to stir conversation and encourage Coloradans to support strong safeguards against mixing Church doctrine and public policy, has launched a provocative billboard campaign that takes a cutting, Bill Maher-style approach to the question of faith. “God is an imaginary friend. Choose reality, it will be better for all of us,” will read signs in Denver and off I-25 in Colorado Springs.

Boulder Atheists co-founder Marvin Straus told the Daily Camera the group didn’t mean to insult anyone and that sparking dialogue was the main goal.

Public messages promoting an atheist worldview, offering support for budding atheists or refuge for falling-away believers tend to spur strong reaction. A similar campaign launched in 2008 in Colorado saw TV news people reporting the signs as “divisive” even before they went up.

An atheist ad campaign targeted at city bus riders in Des Moines, Iowa, generated an avalanche of complaints, saw Democratic Governor Chet Culvert refer to it as “disturbing” and the Des Moines transit system shut down the campaign after just three days.

A 7News report from 2008:

Christian billboard campaigns are a routine part of the Colorado landscape, as they are throughout rural parts of the country. This one, for example, broadcast its “Christ the Healer” message with LED-enhanced blazing letters all night in Security, Colorado, to the chagrin of nearby residents.

By contrast with church groups, atheists don’t enjoy much organizational financial support, and they are right in believing the atheist movement, such as it is, could use a boost.

According to a 2009 Pew Research study roughly 5 percent of U.S. adults say they don’t believe in God but only about a quarter of those adults call themselves “atheists.”

A 2006 University of Minnesota survey found that atheists are “America’s most distrusted minority.”

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

The Colorado Independent

Occupy Boston’s encampment is a “tinderbox” of tightly packed, flammable tents where cigarette smoking, incense burning and garbage have led to “rampant” health and fire code…

Home – BostonHerald.com

As President Obama prepares to announce a plan this week to create more jobs, another fight over extending federal unemployment benefits is likely in the offing between the White House and the Republican-led House of Representatives.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The president has called for another extension of benefits. He is expected to bring up the issue next week as part of his jobs package. Since 2009, Obama has been successful in pushing for a 99-week extension, which has been reauthorized five times – most recently as part of the 2010 tax deal that extended all of the Bush tax cuts. But last month’s debt-ceiling package did not include an unemployment extension. The 99-week benefit is set to expire in January.

Now, with the August debt-ceiling deal, at the very least, Republicans have to demand spending cuts to pay for the billion tab for an extension. Moreover, they have to ask whether paying unemployment benefits for almost two years is good for the U.S. economy.

Obama didn’t help his cause when he picked Alan Krueger to chair his Council of Economic Advisers. Krueger, the Wall Street Journal editorialized, has written about unemployment insurance’s tendency to extend how long recipients remain unemployed.

But with at least five jobseekers for every job available, that hardly seems like a viable position in the current context.