TCTI: Too Crazy Too Ignore
 Dave Ross
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The battle of the wives

BY Dave Ross  on September 5, 2012 @ 6:48 am (Updated: 9:44 am - 9/5/12 )

cedargrove
Society needs both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, says Dave Ross. (AP Photo/file)

Tom Tangney: Michelle Obama redefines success
David Boze: Michelle Obama says Barack should lead the American family

In one way, Michelle Obama and Ann Romney are exactly alike:

"A dining room table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen," said Ann Romney.

Their husbands had terrible taste in furniture:

"A coffee table he found in a dumpster," recounted Michelle Obama.

Where their husbands diverged was that first job. Both got excellent educations. But Barack avoided personal wealth:

"And instead working in struggling neighborhoods where a steel plant had shut down, fighting to rebuild those communities and get folks back to work," Obama said.

Whereas Mitt Romney started a company and embraced wealth:

"The jobs that grew from the risks they took have become college educations and first homes. That success has helped fund scholarships pensions and retirement funds," Romney said about her husband.

And in both speeches, the most intense moment was when each woman described how her husband helps others:

"I've seen him drop everything to help a friend in trouble and been there when late night calls of panic come from a member of our church whose child has been taken to the hospital," Romney said.

Mitt Romney sees trouble and says I've got to do something, and hops in the car, or writes a check.

"And I hear the determination in his voice as he tells me 'You won't believe what these folks are going through Michelle it's not right. We've got to keep working'," Obama said.

Barack Obama sees trouble and says we've got to do something, and he passes legislation or writes and executive order.

And fact is, a society needs need both. You need Romney because the government can't afford to help everyone, and you need Obama because not everyone has Romney's home number.

Dave Ross, KIRO Radio Talk Show Host
Dave Ross is co-host of The Ross & Burbank Show on KIRO Radio (weekdays 9-Noon) and never too far from the spotlight.
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Comments (35)


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  • AtheisticallyYours wrote...
    ANN ROMNEY HISSES HER "S's"!
    September 5, 2012 7:22 am
    A major pet peeve of mine! AUTOMATIC disqualifier to be a First Lady!
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  • maplefish wrote...
    @AtheisticallyYours
    September 5, 2012 8:55 am
    Then you must despise Barak Obama's incessant WHISTLING SSSSSSSSSSS's...Worse than fingernails on a chalk board! AAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGH!
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • William Lawn wrote...
    Just become a member of the LDS church and you will get his number
    September 5, 2012 7:23 am
    Our first Manchurian candidate.

    Well maybe our second.

    We have the Muslin communist in there now.

    Thanks for the laugh Dave.

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  • fartforce1 wrote...
    William - you are a fool.
    September 5, 2012 7:56 pm
    You may spell better than me because I never went to school, but you don't know reality when it hits you in the face, in fact you work against it. Get real!
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  • It's me! Ha ha! wrote...
    We have the Muslin communist in there now
    September 5, 2012 7:31 am
    Sorry Wilie. Muslims and Communist rarely are one in the same. We have an Obamunist in our highest government!
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Gee, Dave. I wish I could 'avoid personal wealth' like Barack Obama.
    September 5, 2012 7:53 am
    Reports range from $3M to $12M, but most sources place his net worth at $11,000,000. ......Oh, well. Just chump change on Mercer Island.

    So, both these guys help people. GOOD. We should all strive to help those in need. Faith, Hope and CHARITY (that's the way to live successfully).

    But I'm detecting something a bit different, Dave. Mitt's first impulse is to personally help while Barack's is to force others to help. .. Regardless of if the government or the people can afford to. ... Regardless if there is enough anywhere to help everyone. ... Regardless of if HE has Mitt's home number or not.

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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Ron, $11-million net worth just barely qualifies a person
    September 5, 2012 8:21 am
    for the complete range of financial services at some of the major firms. Compared to people who have $zero, $11-million is a heck of a lot. Compared to people who actually do have a heck of a lot, $11-million is too close to $zero for comfort.

    The number may actually be higher now, but I remember that a few years ago Goldman Sachs used to draw the line at $10-million personal net. Anybody below the line was considered "affluent", rather than "wealthy".

    If Romney paid taxes, or paid them at the same rate as the middle class, he would probably owe more tax in one year than Obama's entire net worth.

    $11-million is only 11,000 thousand. You can live on it, but you better not go hog wild. :-)

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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Yah, Chuck. ... But I WOULD settle for being 'just' affluent.
    September 5, 2012 8:56 am
    Heck, after 4 years of the worst real estate market I've seen in 40 years, I'd settle for free coffee.

    But Dave said Obama avoided personal wealth. Regardless of wherever you or Dave or Goldman Sachs draw the line, he doesn't seem to have done a very good job of avoidance.

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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Say Ron....what do you do in real estate?
    September 5, 2012 9:32 am
    Salesman, broker, flipper/speculator, landlord?
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    appraiser.
    September 5, 2012 9:53 am
    You know, the guys who get the blame for what the other guys screw up.
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  • William Lawn wrote...
    No worries ron (with a small r)
    September 5, 2012 12:39 pm
    You are effluent, anyway.
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Better than being retentve, mr. lawn
    September 5, 2012 2:35 pm
    Better than being full of .............
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  • logical open mind wrote...
    lawn-this is a blog, not a college paper, not a business report, not an article to submit to a newspaper! the spelling mistakes pointed out show imaturity.
    September 5, 2012 9:53 pm
    I dont spell check or proof read--so what!
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  • Oly80 wrote...
    say what you want about obama's wealth...
    September 5, 2012 9:36 am
    he didn't get money from daddy to start his first business.

    he and his wife were/(are?) lawyers. lawyers make good money, for the most part.

    they are NO WHERE NEAR the old(er) money that mitt comes from.

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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Oly - was the Kennedy 'old money' just as bad?
    September 5, 2012 10:14 am
    or just republican money?
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  • Oly80 wrote...
    never said any money was bad...
    September 5, 2012 2:33 pm
    but, when they guy that the republicans want elected says he "gets them," i doesn't sound good when his story is NOTHING like the majority of the nation.

    i'm not debating about any Kennedy in THIS election. those days are gone.

    let's try to stick to the subject at hand.

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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Good insight from Dave, extending the wives' comments about their husbands to public policy...
    September 5, 2012 7:59 am
    According to Ann Romney, when Mitt sees a problem he hops in his car to go offer personal encouragement to the afflicted and/or writes a personal check. That works . All we need to do is to build a society where Romney's level of wealth is commonplace, and where everybody is as religious and moral as is the average devout Mormon. Heck if everybody were as rich as the Romneys, and behaved as conservatively, there would be a lot fewer people in trouble to start with. That sort of sums of Republicanism, in my opinion. Give everybody a chance to get rich, (without any guarantee that they will, of course), impose morality because the people don't have enough sense to know what they *should* believe, and then get the heck out of he way and let the feathers fly as they will.

    When Obama sees a problem, he recognizes that not everybody has a rich uncle, a wealthy friend, or belongs to a philanthropic church. Obama recognizes that unresolved personal problems often escalate to social problems. The hungry and dispossessed commit more crimes. Poor kids with untreated diseases foster epidemics that cross all social economic boundaries. Obama works to apply the collective energies and talents of our society, rather than only individual generosity, to a problem. That works, too .

    The downside of the Republican ideal, limiting response to most social problems to charities and volunteers, is that nobody is ever compelled to volunteer. A lot of people think tossing a hundred bucks into the Salvation Army pot while holiday shopping should be all the private philanthropy required for the year. Somebody may volunteer or donate for a while, and then stop. Private philanthropy is not reliable or consistent.

    The downside of the Democrat ideal is that a collective effort to resolve a problem, mandated by government, can become *so* reliable that it demotivates people from taking personal initiative.

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  • kata wrote...
    the downside is...
    September 5, 2012 10:31 am
    it works - until you run out of other people's money.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • anotherfencewalker wrote...
    And here they come again..
    September 5, 2012 8:02 am
    Dave...why is it that your posts seem to be a magnet for the stupid people? Yes, some of YOUR posts are a bit stupid but at least they seem to come from a fundamental other than a 40 bottle of Old English.
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  • Kief Sloberman wrote...
    "Barack avoided personal wealth"
    September 5, 2012 8:05 am
    Yes...he hates wealth so much he creates companies with government loans and then lets them go bankrupt. Now that is personal sacrifice. Romney is so selfish, he starts companies to make profits and he even makes employees work for their pay. He just wants to put y'all back in chains.
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  • 509 wrote...
    The Obama's have always lived in a different world......
    September 5, 2012 8:38 am
    During the 2008 convention Charlie Gibson (ABC) was interviewing Michelle Obama and she mentioned that her brother sacrificed a promising business career to work with inner city kids using basketball to reach them. Oh, maybe I was wrong about the Obama's so I googled her brother. He is the head basketball coach at OSU. HIS SALARY WAS JUST UNDER 1,000,000 DOLLARS A YEAR!! Some sacrifice
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  • hnuh wrote...
    09-05-2012 The battle of the wives...
    September 5, 2012 9:23 am
    One thing you cannot do, and the Democrat party is very late to learning this, is you cannot turn a falsehood into a truth simply by repeating it. Those women are only similar in that they both are female human beings. Equating them is a typical leftist ploy designed to elevate the leftist's chosen individual and to denigrate the leftist's disliked individual. Try something a bit more sophisticated next time.
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  • Oly80 wrote...
    here's where they're different then, hnuh...
    September 5, 2012 9:37 am
    Michelle's speech BLEW ANN's OUT OF THE WATER.
    { "Thumbs Up":"1","Thumbs Down":"-1" }
  • Angry Monkey wrote...
    Ahh... I've missed this place.
    September 5, 2012 10:08 am

    "One thing you cannot do, and the Democrat party is very late to learning this, is you cannot turn a falsehood into a truth simply by repeating it."

    Really? Because that very strategy seems to have worked out very well for the Republicans over the past ten years or so. That is why people still think that Iraq attacked us on 9/11, that is why 1/3 of Americans still think that Obama is a Muslim and/or not really an American citizen, or why people think that the debt has more than doubled in less than three years under this administration.

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  • kata wrote...
    the world is full of ignorant people
    September 5, 2012 10:34 am
    and it matters not what political party they ascribe to because from my POV I'd say it's a pretty even distribution. It's amazing even in this "information age" people are too lazy to find out for themselves what the truth might be. Politicians call those people "party loyalists" and they love them.
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  • CH wrote...
    Muslin communist? I see rush gave you another talking point . . . .
    September 5, 2012 10:44 am
    You can tell which woman was educated. It was not you Ann. TT
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