'This Week' Extra: The Roundtable's Post-Show Thoughts

NEW YORK, MAY 13, 2012— -- intro: Following the "This Week" roundtable today, we asked our roundtable participants to expand on their discussion. Here are their views.

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title: Maggie Haberman: Independents Key on Same-Sex Marriage's Election Day Impact

text: The question of whether President Obama did something courageous/politically risky (according to Democrats) or craven/politically expedient (according to Republicans) when he endorsed gay marriage has yet to be tested in a real way among the voters most in play – political independents.

The earliest scrap of evidence was a USA Today/Gallup one-day poll last week, taken the day after Obama's interview with ABC News, showing that a majority of voters said it won't matter, while about 40 percent said it would impact their decisions. The number that mattered was among independent voters – 23 percent of whom said it would make them less likely to vote for the president.

It's not a huge figure, and it's a single-day sample. But in a race that's widely expected to be tight in the fall, each side is playing for independents, with little room for error in a string of states that are in play. Will it be what decides the election? Probably not – it's still going to rest on the economy. But it could motivate turnout for both parties' bases.

Maggie Haberman is a senior political writer for POLITICO.

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title: Mary Matalin: In Praise of Jamie Dimon

text: The first time I heard the phrase "London Whale" last week, I presumed it was a new seafood joint; food is topic number one in New Orleans and interest in restaurants is universal. I have little to no interest in high finance stories, as they are so often a vehicle for ignoramuses to spout off irrational inanities about the evil "1%." But just as I was about to quit listening to the "London Whale" news, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was quoted.

I love Jamie Dimon. He is at the top of my personal heroes list. Not for all he has achieved (which is beyond remarkable) but for his unremitting integrity and humility, not to mention his never taking any guff from those demagogic ignoramuses who spew vile against the "1%."

Dimon's response to the JPMorgan loss has only deepened my awe and admiration of him. Can you imagine President Obama uttering anything close to Dimon's reaction? Admitting an "egregious" error, going about the business of fixing it and moving on to continue creating wealth, from which ALL Americans benefit.

As much as I would love to blog on and on about my hero Dimon and the productive 1%, (that is, all wealth creators, who thankfully for the nation are greater than 1%, who persevere against the massive headwind of unrelenting liberal economic policy quackery), this post is to reiterate what we discussed on George Stephanopoulos' roundtable this morning relative to the JPMorgan loss.

The same liberal policy makers who created a regulatory labyrinth that chills productivity, diminishes wealth and job creation and costs close to $2 trillion a year in compliance costs further eroding growth, who perpetually thwart real regulatory reform, who have utterly failed to get anywhere close to providing coherent and timely rule-writing for their latest regulatory monstrosity, Dodd-Frank, jumped on the JPMorgan loss (which represented all of 0.1% of JPMorgan's assets), to trot out their completely and flagrantly false narrative of the 2008 financial meltdown and the conservative philosophy of regulation.

So once again (not that truth and reality figure in liberal economic policies) and contrary to their repeated claims, neither President George W. Bush's economic policies nor Republican regulatory positions caused the global financial crisis. There has never been and is not today any Republican position of NO REGULATIONS, a liberal mantra. Adding hypocrisy to mendacity, the Democrats repeatedly thwarted regulatory reform, specifically to the toxic GSE twins, Fannie and Freddie, offered by President Bush as early as 2001, which would have precluded a critical element of the subsequent meltdown.

The free enterprise system cannot function without the relative certainty that incentivizes risk, which flows from clear, coherent, uniform, consistent, predictable, enforceable rules and regulations. The regulatory authority of Dodd-Frank vests in gauzy discretionary powers assigned to bureaucrats who inevitably fall prey to regulatory capture in the absence of transparent, bright line, statutory rules applicable to all activities and enterprises.

The JPMorgan case shines a klieg light on the inadequacies and absurdities of Dodd-Frank. Lawmakers claiming to be leading us to an economic comeback huff and puff their new regulations would prevent JPMorgan's alleged transgressions. That would be pretty impressive for a rule not yet formulated (after two years) with no clear enforcement start date.

If we are to resume the growth of the Bush years (yes, six years of uninterrupted growth – despite a recession, 9/11, accounting scandals which sucked millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars out of the economy – real GDP growth, real after tax per capita gains, productivity gains and more... look it up), we have to jettison the policy mucking reality-deniers and rely on the risk taking, growth making Jamie Dimons.

So thank you, Mr. Dimon.

And for the record, before you warped reality libs hold my regard for Mr. Dimon against him – he has no idea who I am and he is a Democrat.

Mary Matalin is a Republican strategist.

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title: Ralph Reed: Redefining Marriage Is Not Good Social Policy

text: Whether or not Mitt Romney or the Republicans want to talk about marriage is not the question. All candidates of both parties will have to multi-task in 2012, as both the voters and the media will ask them to speak to both the economy and values.

President Obama is presiding over the weakest recovery since the Depression, with anemic growth of only 1.9 percent in the first quarter of this year and unemployment over 8 percent for 39 straight months. So the economy and jobs will dominate the campaign. But neither party will be able to avoid speaking to marriage, life, religious liberty, culture and values.

The one thing I would have liked to add that we did not get to on air is that those of us who support traditional marriage do so to affirm the role married men and women play in the socializing and enculturation of our children, not to condemn or attack anyone else who makes another choice.

A growing body of social science makes clear that children who grow up in intact, stable, married households with both a father and mother present are three times less likely to end up in poverty or on drugs, twice as likely to graduate from high school, and far less likely to end up in the criminal justice system.

This country needs pro-marriage and pro-family public policy for the good of our children and for the common good. Redefining marriage or weakening it is not good social policy. Obama in the past has said he understood that. He apparently no longer does.

Ralph Reed is founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

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title: Hilary Rosen: Unspoken Thoughts on Romney, Regulation, the Recovery, and Marriage

text: It was great to be on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" with such a smart group of people today. Thank God for the web so I can get in my last licks and unspoken thoughts. In the personal battle that is known as Sunday show preparation, you always have more to say that you are able to get out in a civil conversation. And shouting or interrupting both isn't my style and just doesn't make good TV. So here goes in backwards order:

1. George asked if Governor Romney is moving toward the center for the general election on issues like banking regulation, immigration, etc. President Obama teased about his Etch a Sketch moment when Governor Romney tried to take credit for the auto bailout. What most people don't remember about the Etch a Sketch moment (when a Romney aide said that the general election would erase all positions from the primary and they'd start over) was the fact that Romney's response was "NO WAY. There will be no Etch a Sketch. Everything I said during the primaries, I believe and will stick to in the general election." He was clear. Let's hold him to it.

And by the way, a little advice for the governor. If you're running on your economic skills – as the governor is trying to do – you should have some new ideas instead of George W. Bush retreads, and you shouldn't take credit for someone else's good work (ie: President Obama's saving of the auto industry recovery).

2. On the Romney school days bullying story: I thought the governor missed an opportunity to acknowledge that bullying and youth suicide is a very real problem today. No, it isn't broad economic policy and no, it doesn't get a lot of headlines. But it is important. For the kids.

3. On banking and regulation: I first and foremost listen to Elliot Spitzer and Rep. Barney Frank but thought it was worth noting that JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon came forward and took responsibility for the problems of the week. That's a good thing.

4. Women, jobs and the economic recovery were a topic for a few minutes. This Republican talking point about women faring poorer under President Obama has been fact checked and double fact checked and de-bunked. The president has finally succeeded this past month in restoring all of the jobs lost in the Bush administration – 4.2 million of them. Now we are on the road to gaining more new jobs as the recovery continues with slow and steady progress. To the extent that women have lost more jobs that are slower to return, the numbers are more distorted because of Republican forced cuts to state and local budgets affecting teachers and government workers the most – a higher proportion of whom are women.

5. On marriage (same-sex and the good old-fashioned kind): It seems to me that cries of gay people ruining the institution of marriage ring false. Straight people are doing a pretty fine job of it themselves with the divorce rate these days. Gay people just want to join an institution that promises commitment, security and family. If the Republicans want to run against that, fine, bring it on. Then they will be the ones distracting the public from the important economic issues of the day. I think the country has changed and Americans appreciate the personal honesty and integrity that President Obama has brought to the issue.

6. And finally, since I didn't get to say it on the air: Happy Mother's Day mom! You are my role model and my hero. I only hope I can be as much of an inspiration to my own children as you have always been to me.

Hilary Rosen is a Democratic strategist.