Media

The Government Integrity Fund is a 501(c)4, a dark money group with a wildly misleading name. The Fund has been making a big splash in Ohio, spending a million dollars in advertisements against Senator Sherrod Brown. 

Even if you stayed awake through the policy blizzard that was Wednesday night’s debate, you didn’t hear a word about the dramatically different future the candidates can bring about for women and families.

To make sure that no voter is subjected to intimidation when they hit the polls next month, one organization is dispensing military veterans to booths across the country.

Wednesday night’s first presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney was live-blogged or live-tweeted by almost every think tank. The depth of the commentary ranged from appearance to proposal. After a little time to process, think tank experts are weighing in with analysis beyond 140 characters. 

Just a year ago, Occupy Wall Street commanded attention from the media and politicians alike. Yet last night the central concern of that social movement -- one shared by a majority of Americans -- wasn't even mentioned as both candidates and the moderator ducked the problem of economic inequality. 

As many people have already pointed out, Mitt Romney's stated policy preferences last night differed greatly from Mitt Romney's stated policy preferences through the campaign to this point. What we saw last night was a Romney much more comfortable with the idea that tax revenue is an important part of keeping the government functioning at a healthy level, a Romney much less comfortable with the idea of cutting taxes for the rich, a Romney much more concerned with the notion of opportunity and fair play than with freeloaders ruining the economy.

Energy policy came up pretty quickly in last night’s debate. Mitt Romney actually listed energy independence as his first plan for economic growth and job creation in his opening. While energy independence and investments in energy production are good economic engines, how much economic growth will occur depends on what we are talking about when we talk about energy independence.

One of the most frustrating aspects of national politics over the past two years is that deficit reduction has become Washington's top priority -- even as economists tell us that austerity only makes economic downturns worse and pollsters tell us that Americans are more worried about job creation than budget shortfalls.

President Obama shares the blame for letting the focus shift away from jobs. Again and again since late 2009, he has accepted and helped legitimize the premise that deficit reduction should be a top national priority.

In the first presidential debate, one of Jim Lehrer’s “hard hitting and incisive” questions was to ask Governor Romney whether he thought any current regulation was “excessive.” In the response, Romney said the following: