Regarding taxes and the 1%, the economy, the middle class, jobs, offshore accounts:

The 10 most corrupt tax loopholes
http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-10-10/news/the-10-most-corrupt-tax-loopholes/

What I found interesting (#2 - Delaware the Cayman Islands of America):

"Just outside of Philadelphia sits a tax haven so egregious the Cayman Islands complain about us. It's called Delaware, a tiny state that allows American companies to set up fake headquarters so they can avoid taxes in their own states."

Senator Joe Biden of...? Vice President Joe Biden of ...?

The Cayman Islands is complaining about Delaware.

This hasn't made its way into the debates. Mr VP, the offshore tax policies of your home state are giving the Cayman Islands a run for the money. Mr President, your VP comes from a state whose offshore tax policies are giving the Cayman Islands a run for the money.

Did this somehow get overlooked in the background check?

If it comes down to "good judgment", looking at the decisions our current president has made and the decisions former governor Romney has made, hands down, I think the president has made better decisions.

I still don't agree with everything he's done or have any confidence in what a second term will bring, but, I think he, based on his thinking, his documented decisions would be a better president than Romney.

He's still not the president I'd like him to be and Romney isn't either. So, if either is going to win, they'll have to do so without my vote. But, I give Obama the edge in his decisions.

Afterall, it was Romney who initially, rather than admit his mistakes, doubled down, and then, backed off. And there's still the recent memory of his dog on the roof of his car as well as his $ 10,000 bet.

Listening to the analysis of the two debates now held, I get the impression the candidates are saying one thing (or not) at the debates and something different on
the stump, in the media.

Where I live, we have a saying about the weather that applies here:

"Don't like it, give it time, it will change"

Conviction, it seems is being replaced by opportunism. Leaving one with the impression that their positions are not born of conviction but, on the basis of the extent to which they can persuade voters to support them.

That's not new.

It doesn't leave much room on either side for firm support. It's one thing to adjust one's opinion due to changing circumstance, changing information. This is much like listening to weather vanes. There's a disconnect, perhaps by intent and by design, between what is said in the debates and what is being said everywhere else.

What are voters to believe? Neither is presenting himself as a candidate of passionate conviction, but, as candidates unwilling to be pinned down on, or offering specifics on which to be judged either for what they have done, have said or will do.

I've heard it said that they're running a "Goldilocks" campaign - not too hot or too cold and neither is "just right".

This doesn't impress me as a recipe for bold progress by either candidate.

It's like listening to a judicial confirmation hearing or an Alan Greenspan (former Fed Reserve Chairman) hearing. There's so much that is or is not said and so much depends on the interpretation.

Sometimes the best choice in those circumstances is not to make a choice but to hold out for a better, more forthcoming candidate. Something we never get, because they're always mindful of the potential downside of being more forthcoming.

Teddy Pendergrass said it well:

"If you don't know me by now..."

Sadly, we still don't. And aren't likely to.

Romney's plan can't heal the economy. He has no intention of putting buying power back into middle class earners wages. Why would I want the same party that caused the damage back in charge of repairing the hole they made? That's madness.

Obama's plan has been largely stalled by the GOP Congress and GOP governors who cut public employment payrolls when THEIR stimulus fund ran out. The squeeze we are in is engineered by the GOP to make Obama look bad so puh-lease don't try to sell the noise that one's a nicer guy but the other is more savvy economically. The GOP is holding the American earner hostage. They had better hope that more voters do not wake up to it before 11/6.

Mitt's expertise is in uncovering locked up value in existing entities - pension plans, land, other assets - borrowing on them if possible and shipping jobs to China where possible. I don't want that mindset in control of the national resources.

I don't want his social positions to have any impact on our Supreme Court.

I don't want his warmed over Bush neo-con team anywhere near our national security or foreign policy.

Romney loses on points.

Romney has his binder of women but I bet clinton still has his little black book.

I guess they had to go to Staples in order to get all those binders.

You just played a telephone message that said "middle class people have a way of getting dividends and capital gains untaxed, it's called an IRA". That is not true. IRAs are tax deferred, not untaxed.

I believe that the single biggest problem with our legislative process is the obstructionist congress and senate. Governor Romney's true position on social issues has been revealed through his back room statements, his selection of a running mate, and his business history, including the decimation of American owned companies, when he could have made these companies more profitable here. Folks the proof is in the pudding. President Obama while I have not agree with everything he as done. The president's position on the economy, women's issues, job creation, health care and LGBT issues has gone on record through the legislative process. The proof is in the pudding.

Let's settle this, because I keep hearing people say that they will vote for Romney in that he can create jobs due to his business experience. I shake my head and think, he was good at leverage and making money for himself, not in creating jobs. Please discuss

If Romney is so good about creating jobs in the private sector should'nt he stay in the private sector,rather than tryin to get into the public sector that he thinks can't create jobs. Michael Jordan was a great basketball player who was a mediocre baseball player when he thought that his skills were transferrable

I have noticed several instances in the debates (Pres. and VP) where Romney and Ryan answered a broader question using an anecdote. If I remember correctly, in answering a question about how Romney could recommend letting the auto manufacturers go bankrupt and still claim to care about the middle class, Ryan talked about Romney's attentions to a family whose children were seriously injured in a car accident, and his offer to fund their college education. In the debate last night, Romney himself brought up his hunt for qualified women to work in his administration when he was Gov. of MA, as proof that he would support equality for women in the workforce. While admirable, these are isolated actions (on the part of someone who can well afford to be charitable) that do not help any other student struggling to pay for a college education, or any woman who is being paid less than a man for doing the same work. I know there were one or two more examples of anecdotal responses, but these are the ones that stand out in my mind.

On the women's issues topic, I also think Romney's world view is dated when he lauds himself for allowing his chief of staff, a woman, the flexibility to be at home at a certain time to care for her children. Presumably, if she were being paid the same as a man in that demanding job, the other parent would be in a position to be the primary caregiver. Ideally, everyone should have the flexibility to participate in raising his/her children - it needn't be exclusively a "women's issue."

I want Mr. Romney to be specific about jobs he's created, not just to say that he has done it. From what I've read, corporate raiders are not job creators. Sometimes the businesses remain intact after their takeover, but most are dismantled and re-packaged, jobs and pensions lost. I live in MA, the governor did not help with job creation during his one tenure--in fact we lost jobs. The impression he leaves about being a private sector job creator has yet to be supported by any facts

Wake up America!!! Can’t you see? The democrats in the white house start prosperity and advance this country when the republican win the white house they pick the fruit and make a mass!!! Obama is a very dissent and honest president not like Romney who tells you what you want to hear and does not really mean it. I live in MA and when Romney left he left a mass!!!

First, I fail to understand how running a private business or company has anything at all to do with the ability to run a country. The presidency has so much more to do with complex geopolitical fluctuations and relationships than the more simplistic balance of a bottom line.

Second, How do I know what I'm voting for if my candidate won't outline his tax plan, or give details about any of his plans? Again, having a company, buying a company, starting a company and hiring people to make the company run is vastly different than the economics of putting plans in place so that the market can respond and create jobs in a more natural way.

Finally, looking presidential is just great, but there has to be substance to the presentation, not just good looks.

Thank you
Doug Howell

Governor Romney seems to have problems blending his moderate leanings with the RNC's conservative programming. I can't vote for someone who is that conflicted. Obama will be the first executive politician I vote to a second term.

The President gave more honest answers and provided better vision and descriptions of the the success of his programs. The failures of the past republican administrations seemed to haunt the discussion to me and Mitt Romney was very dishonest in his description of his tax policies, economic priorities, and his approach to supporting the middle class. Mr. Romney will not be able to move the economy if all he is going to do is support the policies that created the recession in the first place-- by assuming giving tax breaks and less regulation to the 1% will make them do things that support the rest of the country. He is seems too dreamy eyed about that.