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Robert Kuttner

Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, as well as a distinguished senior fellow of the think tank Demos. He was a longtime columnist for Business Week and continues to write columns in The Boston Globe. He is the author of Obama's Challenge and other books.

Recent Articles

Too Close for Comfort

Robert KuttnerOct 22, 2012

This was supposed to be about a six-point race in Obama's favor. That's sure how it looked on the eve of the first debate. But now it's dead even.

What happened? 

First, of course, Romney cleaned Obama's clock in the first debate. Obama came back strong in debate number two, but evidently a lot of swing voters formed their impressions in that deadly first encounter.

But there is a more fundamental problem here. The narrative of the past four years should have revolved around free-market ideology, Wall Street plunder, Republican rule, and the fact that Republicans first crashed the economy and then blocked a recovery.

Game, Set, Obama

Robert KuttnerOct 17, 2012

President Obama did what he needed to do tonight. He took the debate to Mitt Romney. He was relaxed, even jaunty, as he scored one point after another. He seemed to be enjoying himself at Romney’s expense. He looked more comfortable and commanding as the debate wore on, while Romney looked more stiff, edgy, and salesman-like.

Obama needed to remind voters that Romney is a very rich man out of touch with regular people, and he did that well. He got in Romney’s face and he got under Romney’s skin, but stopped just short of being overly aggressive.

Obama's Town Hall To-Do List

Robert KuttnerOct 16, 2012

Here’s what President Obama needs to do tonight:

  1. Show leadership, resolve, and toughness
  2. Directly call Romney on his evasions and deceptions
  3. Demolish several of Romney’s outright lies
  4. Not pass up several opportunities to make points, as he did in the first debate
  5. Not make any major mistakes
  6. Take advantage of any Romney blunders
 

Specifically:

  • Refute Romney's claims that the Benghazi attack was Obama’s failure, and shame Romney for trying to make political hay of it

(Fiscal) Cliffs Notes

Robert KuttnerOct 15, 2012
(Flickr/Matthew Wilkinson)

The most bizarre thing about the deficit and the campaign is the fact that the risk of a fiscal cliff—which everyone agrees will crash the economy—is being used to justify a slightly smaller fiscal cliff. There are several players here, so the arguments are worth sorting out. Herewith, some Cliffs Notes:

Nailing Jell-O to the Wall

Robert KuttnerOct 12, 2012

Biden did a lot better than his president did in the first debate. But Obama still needs to hammer home all of the inconsistencies and evasions in the Romney-Ryan positions on such key issues as Social Security, Medicare, and taxation.

Between moderator Martha Raddatz’s questioning and the vice-president’s persistence, the viewer just about grasped that the Romney-Ryan arithmetic was entirely bogus when the Republicans claim that there were $5 trillion worth of loopholes that can be closed to pay for new tax cuts without cutting programs, giving further breaks to the rich, or increasing the deficit.

But Biden did not quite demand in so many words:

Which loopholes would you close?

What would they add up to?

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