Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: Romney's Foreign Policy Hurts US Economy
OurFuture.org's Richard Eskow: "In tonight's foreign policy debate, Mitt Romney will say that the way to get jobs back from China is with more free trade and lower taxes. But China's Communist. It already has tougher trade restrictions and higher taxes than we do. How, exactly, will more tax cuts help us compete? He'll also push for an even more extreme version of 'free trade' - one without workers' rights requirements or any other guiding principles. But … How can the loss of workers' rights in China or anywhere else create good jobs in the United States? Short answer: It can't."
Final Debate Tonight Focuses On Foreign Policy
NYT's David Sanger previews: "The most time, Mr. Schieffer has said, will be spent on the Arab uprisings, their aftermath and how the terrorist threat has changed since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 … we can hope that it is a chance for both candidates to describe, at a level of detail they have not yet done, how they perceive the future of American power in the world. They view American power differently…"
Romney hasn't mentioned Libya much since last debate reports W. Post.
Romney has struggled to explain what he would actually do differently. Roll Call: "Romney’s rhetoric has been sharper than the president’s, particularly in his views of the Middle East, which is expected to take up two-thirds of the allotted time tonight. But beneath the rhetoric, Romney’s policy prescriptions for Middle East hot spots don’t differ that much from what Obama is already doing."
In part because Republicans are in disarray on foreign policy. CNN: "'The Republican Party hasn't really figured out what a Republican foreign policy looks like after the Bush administration,' [CSIS' Jon] Alterman said. 'I think Romney has been uneager to really delve into that, but I think the challenge he will have on issue after issue is you have to get more specific.'"
What's important in Libya is how pro-American its people have become, says Tom Friedman on NBC's Meet The Press: "What happened immediately a day and a half after this incident in Libya? Thousands of Libyans, carrying pictures of our ambassador, voluntarily marched on the militia headquarters that did this and took these guys down. That-- that is one of the greatest successes for the United States possible. We didn’t have to do it. They did it, on their own. And the fact that we’re not talking about that, but we’re talking about how many times you used the word terrorism and did you scratch your ear like, it’s nonsense."
"Obama Could Be Buoyed by Latest W.T.O. Victory Over China" reports NYT: "Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, has charged that President Obama has not pressed China hard enough on its trade policies … Mr. Obama has countered by calling Mr. Romney 'a pioneer of outsourcing' and noting that his administration has brought twice as many trade cases against China as the previous administration. The United States scored a victory in one of those trade cases last week, as a World Trade Organization panel ruled against China for imposing unfair tariffs on American-made specialty steel. The steel in question was manufactured at two factories — AK Steel of Ohio and ATI Allegheny Ludlum of Pennsylvania."
Campaigns Still Battle Over Economy
Romney and his fellow Republicans distorting economic facts. NYT's Paul Krugman: "…advisers to the Romney campaign have mounted a furious assault on the notion that financial-crisis recessions are different. For example, in July former Senator Phil Gramm and Columbia’s R. Glenn Hubbard published an op-ed article claiming that we should be having a recovery comparable to the bounceback from the 1981-2 recession, while a white paper from Romney advisers argues that the only thing preventing a rip-roaring boom is the uncertainty created by President Obama … , these people have a track record: back in 2008, when serious students of history were already predicting a prolonged slump, Mr. Gramm was dismissing America as a 'nation of whiners' experiencing a mere 'mental recession.' For another, if Mr. Obama is the problem, why is the United States actually doing better than most other advanced countries?"
Candidates battle for OH coal country. HuffPost: "In the southeast, Republicans are hammering Obama over coal. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel called Obama, 'the general in the war on coal' at the rain-soaked rally Saturday … the main strategy of the Obama campaign has been to [raise] doubts about Romney's commitment to coal, and capitalizing on an inherent distrust among many in the Ohio Valley toward the ultra wealthy … The tag line that comes at the end of the two pro-Obama ads running only in Ohio –- one focused on coal miners and the other focused on Romney's position on the auto bailouts -– is brutal: 'Mitt Romney: Not One Of Us.'"
Obama has led "most sweeping attack" on pollution in history. W. Post: "He has imposed the first carbon-dioxide limits on new power plants, tightened fuel-efficiency rules as part of the auto bailout and steered billions of federal dollars to clean-energy projects. He also has proposed slashing mercury emissions from utilities by 91 percent by 2016."
"Gasoline prices down 8 cents over last 2 weeks notes Calculated Risk.
