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McKinstry: GOP must roll outsome details this weekAugust 28, 2012 3:14 PM By GERALD MCKINSTRY

Photo credit: Getty Images | Delegates crowd the floor at the Tampa Bay Times Forum during the Republican National

Convention. (Aug. 28, 2012)

TAMPA -- Talk to any of the delegates roaming the halls of the Hilton

Clearwater Beach -- where the New York delegation was holed up

yesterday because of Hurricane Isaac -- and you'll hear that they're

feeling good this week at the Republican National Convention.

Mitt Romney is poised to win the presidency, they'll tell you. They

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believe in their guy. It's their time to revel in Republicanism.

But spreading those good feelings and winning over a leery and

frustrated American electorate filled with undecided voters will

require a clear articulation of how to fix the battered economy and a

concrete plan on getting people back to work.

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Voters need more than sound bites, attack ads and feel-good

speeches -- from both parties. We need less of the trivial, more of the

substantive. The details matter.

Making complicated solutions on things like Medicare, Social

Security or the tax code comprehensible won't be easy, and there will

be many opportunities for the candidates to get knocked off 

message.

"We've got to stay the course," Rep. Bob Turner, a Republican fromQueens, told me shortly after Monday's state delegation breakfast,

where New York State Majority Leader Dean Skelos was honored.

"We've got to keep focused on the major issues."

If people aren't hearing the message after, say, 99 attempts, then

Republicans will need to say it a hundredth time, said Turner, who

won a special election in a historically Democratic district.

The winner of this presidential election ought to be the team that

engages the public better and doesn't ignore any big issues, like

taxes or igniting the economy. Let's hope it's the party that

acknowledges what we already know -- and then has a decent and

realistic answer for it.

We can take it, really. The last few years have been hard enough.

We need substance, and there are only 10 weeks left in this race.

Republicans in Tampa say we can expect a rollout of details this

week, and that's welcome.

This election reminds some Republicans of 1980, when Ronald

Reagan's focus on voters' economic frustrations and other 

pocketbook issues helped propel him past President Jimmy Carter.

New York State Republican Party chairman Edward Cox and former 

Sen. Al D'Amato of Long Island -- who won as a long-shot that year --

hammered that point over and over on Tuesday to the New Yorkcrowd. The large delegation ate it up over breakfast.

Many Republicans who've come down to Tampa say it's no time to

get sidetracked, distracted or caught in the ongoing media storm over 

abortion and "legitimate rape" brought on by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.).

That's clearly a losing issue for them and no way to court female

voters.

"We have to avoid divisive social issues, avoid the issues that pull

Gerald McKinstry is a member 

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board.

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the party apart," State Sen. Greg Ball (R-Patterson) told me. "We've

got to build a big tent."

Polls are showing the president and Romney are all but deadlocked

across the country -- if not in New York, where Obama has a

handsome lead -- so getting more moderate voters under the GOP

tent will be critical.

By Nov. 6, as much as $8 billion could have been spent on this

presidential race, much of it in swing states. In New York, we won't be carpet-bombed with the volumeof ads voters will see in Ohio, Virginia or Florida. But we'll get our share.

We could use details over the next few weeks, especially so that the moderate middle and the

undecideds have a candidate they feel good about. Wouldn't it be nice to know where we're headed

so that we can make an intelligent choice in November?

That would take far more than a 24-second television spot.

Gerald McKinstry is a member of the Newsday editorial board.

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lihtf478  •  

 All Newsday readers have to do is read the front page of newsday.com,

consumer confidence falls and so on and so on. The country is failing and it's

leader president Obama has no plan and has given all his power to the extreme

liberal members of his party. What more do Americans need to know, they live

this terrible economy everyday.

Leland_Stanford  •  

Where is the massive jobs bill (for needed infrastructure and other vital

services) that workers and small business rely upon? Food stamps and

unemployment benefits just play right into short-sighted corporatists'hands.

In 1932 FDR sat down with his fellow aristocrats and said, "If the private

sector cannot or will not create jobs then the Federal govt. will." (See my

comment below for the real reason the private sector does not invest at

present.) Half his fellow capitalists balked, the other half went along

because there was threat of revolution when unemployment was 25%. The

New Deal plus WWII got us out of the Depression with a more equal

society. THAT created the DEMAND that led to the 50s boom. In short, to

 

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preserve e sys em or emse ves cap a s s ave a ways re s r u e

some of the wealth they had extorted in the first place.

 

Leland_Stanford  •  

In addition to the good questions 2VIEWITALL asks, How do Romney/Ryan

convince us that there is enough left in the tank of working and middle class

 Americans for supply-side to work? Supply-side presupposes demand (and credit

card and mortgage debts have exhausted that), otherwise capitalists will reap

their further tax benefits, their further profits from workers, and take their marbles

elsewhere in the world.

Oh, but they'd lose the next election, you say. Not if they can search out more

stuff to blame on "government" (which the corporate elite dominate, of course).

 And even if Democrats win future elections, the rich have ways of leveraging, then

scapegoating, the Dems too, as with Clinton and Obama. We are talking Powers

behind the throne here, folks. These Powers don't always agree with one another,

nor is it necessarily a conspiracy. I offer here an introduction to a systemic, or

institutional analysis.

"True compassion is more than flinging a coin at a beggar; it comes to see that an

edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

2VIEWITALL  •  

Let Gov.Romney tell us the details of his plan for the future of America. Programs

cut; Which programs and by how much? Taxes cut; Show us numbers and who

will benefit from these changes and by how much? Tax loopholes closed; Which

loopholes and which local and State deductions will be eliminated from Federal

Tax returns? The Affordable Healthcare Act Repelled; What happens to the 33

million Americans who just joined this plan, the ones with pre-existing conditions

and the ones turned down or dropped by insurance companies for being a bad

risk? These are just some of the questions to be answered, the devil is always in

the details Gov. Romney.

 

ccambridge51  •  

 And let's hear oblama's plan too besides the one where he keeps throwing

our hard earned money to others

 

2VIEWITALL  •  

If you seem to know so much about Obama's plan then would you

kindly answer the above questions, with details, related to

Romney's plan so I can have a better understanding of the issues. I

have been watching the convention and still have not heard any

details. What are they waiting for? 

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