ok hack, good question. moi, i'm not looking for miracles cuz it's impossible with 10s of millions of men and women unemployed and underemployed and judging by whats coming out of the nations urban public schools like in the so-called athens of america, totally unemployable. that being the case and seeing that this incompetent divisive fraud whose squatted in the oval office for almost 4 years has no record to stand sit or squat on other than almost total failure ,i'm loooking for a person that can just steady this ship for the next 4 years , and that ain't your guy, B H OBAMA. now what was it that your alleged mind thinks obama stands for? ma

I guess we could continue on the path we're on now, that should prove to be disaster. We need to get the economy going, more tax revenue taken in, get people off government subsudies and out to work, reform Medicare, SS and Medicaid. These programs won't last if we don't. I get a kick out of some in Washington who say the republicans want to cut these services, fast reality, if we don't do something, there will be nothing, we can't keep printing money to solve our problems.

Lovely prose! Wish I had said it. Keep up the good work.

My take is Romney is truly one of those who could debate himself, given his switches and fence sitting as political winds change. He elevates "monday morning quartebacking" to an art form. Obama has had a catastrophic economic collapse to deal with, two wars and a health care crisis which many forget was possibly sending the economy off a cliff. So Romney accuses Obama of "doing nothing" about immigration. What would we get if Romney is elected? No one knows, not even Romney. I don't know what commenters are smoking considering they blame Dems for unemployment. Just can't remember who was in office when it all hit the fan.

When Bush, not my favorite for sure, spit on the side walk, it was said to cause unemployment. In fairness, your point is well taken. However, it seems implausible at best, not to state the obvious. Like Jimmy Carter whose stagflation was his reality, President Obama's reality is his health care law which was more important to him than the economy or jobs. It looks like business and banks are holding their capital and waiting to invest because they have no idea what a reelected Obama's team would take for a direction because they haven't proposed anything substantive. The health care crisis you cite is a self inflicted wound and the straw that broke country's economic back when added to the burdens of war you correctly cite that he inherited.

Scot is taking leap here. He is suggesting that a political campaign be transformed into a white paper, filled with graphs and tables, to bring mathematical certitude to every issue Romney wants to address. This is just silly. How much of this granular detail did Obama provide in 2008? None of it. It was all platitudes of of hope, change, and Bush Hatred. NEW PARAGRAPH: Romney is smart to leave out the details, because it would only open him up to attacks. Better to run on broad themes, and connect with the people on those themes. President Obama is spitting on the constitution with his every executive action, his health care plan is in tatters, he has kept the economy in slow mode for 3 + years...this election will be a referendum on Obama. Romney does not need to provide targets for the Obama henchmen to hit in their advertising. NEW PARAGRAPH: Mitt Romney is a very smart man, and he has proved that as governor and as a successful businessman. He also has that ever important quality that the president lacks-a love for his country and respect for its laws. That is all the specificity the voters need at the point.

Scott you are giving Mr. Romney too much credit for working out the details. I do give you credit though for trying. This just isn't his style. He takes marching orders from his party or what has been found to be politically popular with conservatives and then manages it. He does not have enough leadership skills to study, interact, and then devise a program. Although it is important at some point to delegate tasks, even the direction and specifics are taken from group think. So we know exactly what he supports by just listening to Republican Party stalwarts like Mitch McConnell. For foreign policy he has surrounded himself knee deep in neo-conservatives. No mystery there how he would approach other countries. Having reversed himself on social issues and now embracing the views again of Karl Rove and the Senate leader tells you in some detail what the agenda is. McConnell's first priority is to remove the President by any means possible with language usually reserved for the street corner. Romney has picked up the ball on this and his gaffes come because this is not something he is used to. He tends to be tweak it around the edges hoping he is saying what they mean. His remarks on standing up for the firing teachers, firefighters, and police shines some light on his robotic thinking. But, heck, let him give it the college try to win the election. He also is skimpy on women and minority rights covering it with technical answers that have not been nuanced like vouchers, self deportation, lower taxes for his sponsors, or mentioning solutions that have failed in the past. If you want verification that he is just a dyed in the wool Republican, we'll have to wait for the debates. I hope we don't have to test him out in the White House.

Here Scott, since you're unwilling to do any research yourself, let me help you out. Go to www.mittromney.com and you'll find the answer to your questions.

Others are wondering how Romney, who has said he "knows the language of business," will make all his vague promises work. Here's Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times asking about Romney's defense spending plans in a column entitled "Romney's arithmetic problem": "But the biggest problem with Romney's defense numbers is that they don't add up with the rest of his platform, which calls for decreasing federal spending overall while also lowering taxes — and, at the same time, balancing the budget. "My administration will … make the hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts necessary to reduce spending to 20% of GDP by the end of my first term," Romney said in February. "And then, without sacrificing our military superiority, I will balance the budget." A nice trick if he could pull it off, but it flies in the face of, well, arithmetic. "It's just not realistic — and that's being generous," said Todd Harrison, an analyst at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "It would require a dramatic increase in defense spending to reach these targets. If you combine it with tax cuts and a commitment to avoid cutting Medicare, there's no way to do it without creating a much higher deficit.""

Link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-mcmanus-column-romney-defense-spending-20120624,0,6596765.column

Romney has no plan for us. His only plan is for himself - to say or do anything it takes to mislead enough people into making the misake of voting for him. Remember, this is a man who had so little spending money in college that he and Ann ACTUALLY HAD TO SELL STOCKS to get by. I'm sure we can all relate to being in that bind, right? Romney will run right into his own George McGovern moment in November.

Is that today's answers or last months or next months? And why can't Plastic Mitt elaborate on them? Are the even his?

Well Scot you do like to give the trolls and the zealots things to yap about. I would point out that Mitt does have ideas he has expressed through the primary and before. He would as you say "voucherize" (my word), Medicare, but we can't broadcast that. He has mentioned cutting the mortgage deduction, can't broadcast that. He has supported the Ryan Budget, can't broadcast that. In fact Mitt has made a lot of statements, he doesn't want to broadcast because the middle class won't like it. No, Mitt will stick with "tax cuts" and I'm better than the other guy. You gotta give these guys credit Grover and company somehow convinced the public that "tax cuts" and the budget were two separate items, as if one had little to do with the other.(NP) Let's face it there are only three major areas to slash in the budget, defense, Social Security and Medicare. Everything else is chump change and political fodder. Even the Pres. can't go after those so all we have left is political white noise. It's a shame that the media and by that I mean your evening news doesn't explain the budgetary realities but then in this toxic political environment it probably wouldn't matter. If I only went by the comments online I'd figure there was no chance for sanity, however out in the real world I find there is little chance for sanity. Not much of a hope but some.

You go, girl.

Gotta love your style. The only person i know who is as stupid as you and thinks he is a riot is Scotty Brown himself. But you do a good job pretending you're just another citizen.

Mike, you do know it is illegal to text and drive right?

Oh my, you conservatives are a credulous bunch! In a time of big projected structural deficits caused in no small part by tax cuts, Mitt is proposing another $5 trillion in tax cuts, with virtually no details on how he would pay for it, and you fellows are nodding your heads as though he had given you a plan certified by Deloitte as to how he'll get it done. Aren't any of you inclined to wonder how on earth that could work? I'm old enough to remember when being a fiscal conservative meant being a fiscal conservative. That is, caring about fiscal prudence & solvency, not endlessly cutting taxes and going further in debt to do so. A couple of specific rejoinders: RU: I call your bluff. Post the specifics from Romney's page detailing the level of support of the Medicare proposals. Or how much they'll increase year to year. Or what deductions/loopholes he'll close to pay for his tax cut. Or what budget cuts he plans that are remotely close to 4 percent of GDP, the amount he says he'll reduce spending. Good luck. Pro-fox: Oh my, is that childish. I mean, seriously, you think calling names is an argument? Just FYI, I liked the Mitt Romney of 1994 very much and was a fan of the Mitt Romney of 2002, who I thought was clearly the better choice in that gubernatorial election. But as I say in this column, that was a very different Mitt. He was much more a fact-based manager. He's now running as a leap-of-fiscal-faith candidate. Waytoo: How about the aforementioned standard of fiscal prudence? And your latest attempted insult -- liberally extreme -- makes no sense. First, it's a contradiction in terms. The right word would be radical. Secondly, I'm the guy who wrote the Sunday editorial against increasing the COLA for city employees, the one that had the public employees unions up in arms, charging that we are anti-public worker. No, we're ... fiscally prudent. Pvalen: There does seem to be a bit of memory loss striking the GOP ranks. Watching Mitt on immigration, I'm reminded again that when you are reducing to criticizing the process or timing of a decision, it generally means you realize you are on the losing side of an argument.

"I'm old enough to remember when being a fiscal conservative meant being a fiscal conservative. That is, caring about fiscal prudence & solvency, not endlessly cutting taxes and going further in debt to do so." Well, Scot, back when the Republicans were the tax collectors for the welfare state they were a permanent minority party. It turns out that the cod liver oil/eat your spinach platform isn't as popular as "goodies for everybody paid for by somebody else." Romney isn't going to paint a target on his back much as you'd like him to. The election is going to be a referendum on Obama. If you'd like four more years of what we've had since 2009, he's your guy. If you'd like something different, vote Romney. We could do a lot worse. In fact, we have.

And why do I get the sense that all of these "nonpartisan" think tanks that Scot et al like to cite as support for their arguments are NINOs (Nonpartisan In Name Only) and probably get all their money from Big Labor and George Soros?

JS: Cato (???!!!), funded by Soros? And Big Labor? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.