Tomorrow night's presidential debate

Started by Teo Torriatte, October 02, 2012, 08:11:03 AM

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Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Cyrano Johnson on October 04, 2012, 01:26:29 AM
The real take-away from the debate for me. I think Romney actually did successfully wrong-foot Obama, but he had to do lots and lots of dissembling to manage it. In consequence it's a Pyrrhic victory that leaves him wide open for a month of being hammered by the same kind of "flip-flopper" narrative that did Kerry in in 2004. No matter how much style you bring to the endeavour, when you find yourself running away from your own tax plan a month before the election, the "Would the real Mitt Romney please stand up?" ads practically write themselves. Especially when you consider that during that month, Romney's going to have to go in front of hardcore Tea Party audiences and convince them that he still believes many of the things he claimed tonight not to believe.

Looks like the President is indeed taking up the obvious "two Romneys" line and running with it.

Quote from: Barack Obama, at a Denver rally today"Now, last night, we had our first debate. And when I got on stage, I met a very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney. But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney -- because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. But the fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that.

    "The real Mitt Romney said we don't need any more teachers in our classrooms. But the fellow on stage last night said he loves teachers -- can't get enough of 'em.

    "The Mitt Romney we all know invested in companies that were called "pioneers" of outsourcing jobs to other countries. But the guy on stage last night, he said he's never heard of tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. He said if that's true, he must need a new accountant. Now we know for sure it wasn't the real Mitt Romney -- because he seems to be doing just fine with the accountant he has.

    "You see, the man on stage last night – he doesn't want to be held accountable for what the real Mitt Romney's been saying for the last year. And that's because he knows full well that we don't want what he's been selling for the last year. Governor Romney may dance around his positions, but if you want to be President, you owe the American people the truth.

    "So here's the truth: Governor Romney cannot pay for his $5 trillion tax plan without blowing up the deficit or sticking it to the middle class. And we can't afford to go down that road again. We can't afford another round of budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy. We can't afford to gut our investments in education or clean energy or research and technology. We can't afford to rollback regulations on Wall Street banks or big oil companies or insurance companies. We cannot afford to double down on the same top-down economic policies that got us into this mess. That's not a plan to create jobs. That's not a plan to grow the economy. That's not a change -- that is a relapse."

Some of the media also noticed that Romney's strategy amounted to simply lying about his policies: like so, and like so and like so.
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Remiel

I've always been a fan of factcheck.org.  Surprise, surprise; both candidates made their share of dubious claims and incorrect assumptions.

Personally, I didn't think there was a clear winner last night.  I thought Romney did well on some subjects, and Obama did well on others.  Romney definitely was the more aggressive debater of the two, but then, he had to be.  The last time I checked, polls had him six or seven points behind the President, so he has to be more aggressive in highlighting Obama's failures and downplaying his successes.  Conversely, as the incumbent, Obama has to take more of a defensive stance, trying to simultaneously convince America that the last four years haven't been all that bad, while simultaneously convincing us that Romney's ideas aren't any better than his own.

I think my favorite moment of the debate was, when discussing health care, Obama touted his Affordable Care Act as a larger-scale version of Romney's own successful state-funded health care coverage in Massachusetts.  Romney was suddenly thrust into the awkward position of either having to retreat from his attacks on "Obamacare", or being forced to attack his own program. 

In Jim Lehrer's defense, he did try (albeit half-heartedly) to keep both men on task when they tried to stray away from the topic.  I did also like how the questions were tailored to trying to accentuate the differences between the Democratic and Republican platforms.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of recording CNN's coverage of the debate, and for some asinine reason, they had, during the entire time, a graphic of how a group of Undecided Colorado voters reacted to the debate.  There was one line for Women and another for Men; the lines would trend toward either a plus sign or a negative sign as, presumably, the undecideds dialed in how they felt about what was being said at any given moment.   What I found amusing was that, any time education was mentioned by either candidate, the Women's line would shoot toward the maximum positive while the men's line would crawl begrudgingly upward.  National defense had the opposite effect, boosting the men's scores while having no effect on the women's.  And when Romney talked about his kids being liars?  Both lines shot into negative territory.

Apparently undecided voters were not impressed.


MasterMischief

Quote from: KalebHyde on October 04, 2012, 12:51:24 PM
I believe the number is something around 30 bills the House has passed that the Senate refuses to even debate because of Reid, and by extension, Obama.

Are those from the 33 times the House Republicans have tried to essentially repeal Obamacare?  'cause if they were actually trying to create jobs, they might get sympathy.

OldSchoolGamer

Quote from: Dark Clown on October 04, 2012, 12:46:45 AM
Are you choosing to ignore the results of the CNN poll that I posted the link to?  The one that clearly shows Romney trouncing the President in every single aspect of the debate?  I wonder how the liberal media will spin this into their favor, and how many of the Kool-Aid drinkers out there will try to deny Romney the clear victory he had tonight.

Romney flat-out lied.  Not little fibs.  Outright untruths.  And he's "against any tax cut that increases the deficit?"  Hello?  McFly?  When revenues are already falling short of expenses by around 30%, any decrease in revenue increases the deficit.  So right there Romney contradicts himself.  He's been behind tax cuts skewed to the wealthy for far too long to walk it all back now at the 11th hour.  He owns it. 

You can cry "leftist bias" all you want, but math is math.  There is no way, none, that you can enact $5 trillion in tax cuts, $2 trillion in increased defense spending, refuse to do anything to rein in Big Health jacking America for 5 to 10% more per year, preserve Social Security and Medicare in anything resembling their current form--and eliminate or even significantly reduce the deficit.  It's flat-out fantasy, right up there with the notion we're going to run America on rectified rock-farts from North Dakota for the next century.

I'll freely concede Romney won on style and presentation.  But substance?  Not even close.  His numbers don't check out.  So as far as I'm concerned, he cheated and he lost.

Stattick

Quote from: OldSchoolGamer on October 04, 2012, 09:28:01 PM
Romney flat-out lied.  Not little fibs.  Outright untruths.  And he's "against any tax cut that increases the deficit?"  Hello?  McFly?  When revenues are already falling short of expenses by around 30%, any decrease in revenue increases the deficit.  So right there Romney contradicts himself.  He's been behind tax cuts skewed to the wealthy for far too long to walk it all back now at the 11th hour.  He owns it. 

You can cry "leftist bias" all you want, but math is math.  There is no way, none, that you can enact $5 trillion in tax cuts, $2 trillion in increased defense spending, refuse to do anything to rein in Big Health jacking America for 5 to 10% more per year, preserve Social Security and Medicare in anything resembling their current form--and eliminate or even significantly reduce the deficit.  It's flat-out fantasy, right up there with the notion we're going to run America on rectified rock-farts from North Dakota for the next century.

I'll freely concede Romney won on style and presentation.  But substance?  Not even close.  His numbers don't check out.  So as far as I'm concerned, he cheated and he lost.

Quoted for truth.
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Valerian

Also, Romney apparently needed some help to keep his lies straight.

Close up of Romney Sleight of Hand Cheating during the debate

It looks as though he tosses a few pages of notes onto his podium just before the debate starts.  This may or may not be against the rules -- some are saying it is, but what they're referencing is apparently an agreement from the 2004 debates, negotiated between Bush, Jr. and Kerry, and there doesn't seem to be a similar agreement today -- but this does go a long way towards explaining why Romney appeared more glib and relaxed.  I'm pretty sure Obama wasn't working from notes.
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