In my experience, having watched both candidates debate quite a few times over the years, it seems that these were pretty typical and normal debate performances by both of them. It appears that most people thought Romney won. That surprises me none at all, as Romney has always been a very good debater. And while Obama is a good debater himself, the meme promoted by some that Obama is some legendary and undefeatable debater has always been way overblown. He is good to very good, but not great, as we saw tonight. I really liked the format of this debate a lot, and I thought Jim Lehrer did well to stay out of the way. A debate should be between the candidates, and the moderator should participate as little as possible. Jim Lehrer did that as well as anyone could have in this debate. This debate was an unusually free-flowing and candid back and forth between the candidates. In the past, the common complaint has been the excessive structure and the over-involvement of the moderator. That objection was not an issue in tonight's debate. The candidates both had time to present their ideas the way that they wanted. The contrasts were clear. Both sides will take exception to the way the other candidate presented certain matters, but the messages the candidates delivered tonight were purposeful and were not mistakes. They both debated well and made the presentations that they each wanted to make. Whatever complaints people had about the conduct of the candidates in this presidential debate, it was certainly one of the better ones that I have ever seen.
ya ok Suns...real great analysis there, incredible insight...the Steven A Smith of D&D right here ladies and gentlemen...
Did you watch the debate on CNN??? Women love obama and men favored Romney during the debate and it was very apparent.
Yup, Obama does his fair share of skewing facts. The main difference is that Romney never actually came out and gave a concrete economics plan. So Obama couldn't really pin anything on him, and that threw Obama completely off his game. The Romney campaign did a really smart thing in making everything as vague as possible so they could change their stance at any give time while Obama is essentially stuck.
To me, debt and deficits are the issue. Our recent depression was brought on by an evolving bond market. It evolved with the 1980's municipal and corporate bond market and the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy. I am almost convinced that the US could shore up its deficit by raising revenue without hurting the economy, however, it would hurt the bond market and ultimately the banking sector. It's as if the banking/finance sector is completely dependent upon US federal government debt, suckling at the teet for more gold to leverage with. Which is why I think big money will win at the end of the day, supporting the candidate who most wants to resume our current debt path: Mit Romney.
Romney completely outclassed Obama tonight, as expected. Romney is on a completely higher intellectual level than Obama. It was clear as day out there tonight. Take away his teleprompter and Obama's incompetence shows through. To put this into a gif: Obama represents "the receiver", with Romney the thruster
The one thing I wanna ask you american guys: I watched the whole debate and often enough, the candidates spoke on how they gonna create X million jobs. I'm curios to find out, how they gonna do it? They talked like they just needed to press a button and unemployment is gone. In Europe, we're not dumb either and still there are 25% unemployed in a big country like Spain. So how are you gonna fight that? The things they didn't say: What kind of jobs are these going to be? How much income will the workers have? What kind of education would you need, to get these new created job? Would people need to move to get one of these million jobs? I think the whole debate was way to abstract and that's the broadcast/hosts fault as well. He let them speak their prefabricated phrases. I'm pretty sure both candidates knew exactly what was gonna come and neither of them didn't say one word he hasn't spoken in debate training.
^ well said. Also, this is America: "Oh i ignored politics for the last 4 years but now that ive watched the public debate I'm going to tell you why candidate _____ is going to be best!"
Putting me on the spot, glynch? ;-)- Romney won this debate. Along with Batman, I have to tip my hat to the guy, and I frequently wear hats to cover my bald head. Romney won the debate, but only because the President let him. Romney lied, again and again, twisted his positions like a pretzel, again and again, and Mr. Obama let him do it. I was at a bar on 6th Street playing trivia, one that had the debate on TV with closed captioning that I couldn't read, but I didn't like the body language I was seeing, and wasn't too surprised when I got home and my S.O. was livid at the President's performance. She immediately said that Obama had chance after chance to tear into Romney's obvious bull**** and didn't, staring down at his notes, smiling, seemingly not prepared to respond to Romney's frantically dishonest performance. Obama's been in a bubble for 4 years, busy being the President, and hasn't been challenged like this during that time. That was perfectly obvious. Look for a huge ad buy picking apart Romney's dishonest statements, hammering home that 2+2 isn't 3, it's 4, no matter what crap the guy is spouting. Then we'll see a different Barack Obama in the next debate. We damn well better, or the public just might start buying Romney's unchallenged dishonesty. Ad buys are fine, but Americans expect their Presidents to hammer their opponents face to face. The media are having a field day today about Romney's performance, and Obama's lack of one. Not the outcome the Obama campaign wanted, not at all. For all those from my side of the aisle smug about the state of the campaign, that debates "don't move the needle," and that Obama would wipe the floor with Romney, what say you now? Yes, Romney was dishonest repeatedly, but the President let him get away with it. Perception is crucial. The perception this morning is that Romney won, and Obama lost. That has to change. The cocky confidence has to change. Supporters of a progressive agenda, who don't want another Thomas or Scalia on the Supreme Court, better get off their collective asses, contribute to the campaign, and ****ing GET INVOLVED. PS - the moderator absolutely sucked. Time for the dude to retire. PPS - Hillary would have wiped the floor with Mitt last night.
Romney - Create an environment that encourages more private sector growth. This includes lowering taxes, reducing the debt by cutting spending, and reducing regulation. Obama - spend tax payer money to hire people. Either spend the money on temporary infrastructure jobs or hand the money to whatever company he likes and hope they don't go bankrupt.
Romney wins the first debate. It was like Obama was trying not to lose rather than win the debate. So Obama played it way too safe, and was lacking some energy. Romney was well prepped, and executed his plan. He was full of crap, but he executed his game plan so Romney gets the slight edge in this debate.
Romney beat Obama down. The sad thing is that it wasn't because Romney was so great, he was just decent. Obama was just too pathetic to generate much at all. It was like he could barely talk. It wasn't just that he didn't go negative and attack, it seemed as if he wasn't listening. In a debate you should point out contradictions, holes in logic, etc. You should use your opponents own words against them. Obama should have destroyed Romney on healthcare. Even though he said he would have a plan to do some kind of reform on the state level everything he said was in support of the system we have had the past decades. If it worked so well and keeps costs down way better than governmental oversight then why say there is any need for reform? Why enact reform while Governor? This also would have been the time for Obama to bring up ambulances and emergency rooms. If Obamacare is governmental takeover then why wasn't Romneycare State government takeover that led to the destruction of the private sector in Mass? Just so many easy, quick responses. Well to be fair I think Obama tried that last point but he was so muddled and confused that no message really came accross. And somehow, some way, Obama let Romney get away with repeatedly saying Obama will cut and essentially kill Medicare even though Romney is really the one who would like to do that. So the "scare old people" card easily goes to Romney. Romney missed some chances, too, but Obama was so much worse and generally inept. I was never one that thought he was a great debater...he never has been, but this was really bad. I guess he is in good company, though, because W was terrible in his first debate with Kerry and then went on to win easily. I would like to watch those two performances side by side to see whose was worse. Well, maybe that would be too painful. Just terrible.
No, you Euros are not dumb like you've said but decades of cradle to the grave entitlements ruined your continent.
Yeah right! The European continent is ruined. LOL Most of Europe has more social upward mobility than the U.S. and those that work hard in most countries in Europe have a better chance of moving to the up in class than folks in the U.S. I don't call that ruined.
