Read this on Andrew Sullivan's blog this morning (a post from a reader) and it helped put the debate and lack of obvious, missed attack lines in a different light. It and the passive nature of Obama's debate were most definitely part of 'the plan'. A good plan? Eh... guess we will have to see.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>That wasn't a debate so much as Mitt Romney just took Obama for a cross country drive strapped to the roof of his car.</p>— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) <a href="https://twitter.com/Heminator/status/253683001911820288" data-datetime="2012-10-04T02:28:35+00:00">October 4, 2012</a></blockquote> <script src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Romney clearly had the better night perception wise but… This is a three round fight. And I think Romney punched himself out and Obama carefully exposed Romney on many issues that he will have to answer for over the next few weeks and in the next two debates. Romney made statements last night that were 180 degrees different than what he said last week. “Well, for 18 months he’s been running on this tax plan, and now five weeks before the election, he says his big bold idea is ‘never mind,’” The trap has been laid. I expect to see a much more assertive and aggressive President in round two.
I'm listening to an CBS analyst Major Garrett saying that part of the strategy for this debate might've been Team Obama playing the long game by allowing Romney to voice things that could then be used as later attacks such as his Big Bird comments. This sounds like spin to me but looking back Obama has gotten in trouble before when he took the attack to an opponent such as in the 2008 primary debates when he often appeared testy and / or condescending to Hillary Clinton. I am still not putting Obama's performance as part of a strategy. A strategy that happened to get away from Obama.
The next asswhippin occurs when Ryan lays one on Biden. Obama got his kicked because he had to run on his own merit this time around and not just blame George Bush.
The debate format is worthless when you have a blatant liar like Romney was. How do you challenge it?
I don't know man - Obama looked taken aback and out of sorts. He was not prepared for Romney's massive assault. And Obama clearly did not know enough of the details to counter Romney, and counter him forcefully. There will definitely be a shift back towards Romney and a tightening of the race. Obama took Romney too lightly, and debated like he was in campaign mode. Romney went after the president in a confrontational manner while still being cordial. It was a well practiced attack and a very effective one. Obama will have a lot of work to do. He must be more concise, more powerful, and more willing to confront Romney. And his attacks must more connect to people. He's got to make better arguments. A lot of what Romney said was ridiculous and Obama should have ridiculed him on that. A poor showing by Obama - he can recover from this one, but yeah, this was not how they planned things to go. In a three games series, they just got blown out by 40 points. Now they better make some serious adjustments and not get swept.
The truth is that Obama is not comfortable when he has to communicate his thoughts. It's not because he doesn't know what he's talking about, but it's not his natural style. It's why he relies so much on the teleprompter. This isn't really a negative quality in a president but it does hurt him in debates and interviews. He is very professorial and when he tries not to be it makes it worse. As someone who isn't an Obama supporter, I actually APPRECIATE that he is professorial. I don't think it's a bad thing that he thinks through his answers. BUT, it has nothing to do with him being adverse to confrontation, he's just adverse to it face to face because he's timid in that situation. He has no problem attacking on the campaign trail with his teleprompter or having his surrogates attack. He also has proven that just like every other president before him he has no problem being ultra political or lying.
i found the whole thing surreal. not sure what team obama had in mind or what they prepared for but i was surprised by romney's performance. he had only one gaffe that gave away his elitism. he did very well. more surprisingly, jim lehrer led the debate right into romney's wheelhouse, although all the snake oil he peddled may come back to haunt if properly exposed. anyway, obama played prevent defense from the get go, I HATE PREVENT DEFENSE, the aggressor always wins. obama still has this but i thought they would go for the knockout last night. clearly, they didn't but i suppose they have their reasons why.
That's still a lot of abstract terms, giving no real answer. Lowering taxes - for who? High income families? High income companies? Middle class? Cut spending - where? I don't live in this country, so I can't tell you if it's true, but I hear and read that policemen, firemen etc. already have personnel issues, in some town there's no city light by night, public libraries close... so where do you cut? For sure not in military. Reduce regulation? - For who? Wall Street? Banks? That didn't went quite well last time. Ask Lehman. I'm sure they would've benefited from some regulation. Well, we're far from being ruined, in Germany we actually do quite well right now. The biggest problem is Greece and they are not down because of entitlements or some social system. These guys didnt pay real taxes for decades (no cash register, no taximeter etc. - the companies could fake their tax assessments as much as they wanted) and still created thousands of civil servant jobs, they didn't need - people literally had nothing to do and got paid for it. Then, when the financial crisis hit, well... look at the deer picture above.
http://www.mittromney.com/issues/tax http://www.mittromney.com/issues/spending http://www.mittromney.com/issues/regulation IT's not hard to find this information......
i'm curious about this criticism of Lehrer, which seems widespread on the left this AM. to my mind, he stayed out of the way, and let them debate (the equivalent of refs letting teams play). On the night, Obama actually spoke 4 minutes longer than Romney. he had ample opportunity to defend himself and his record. he failed. that's not the moderator's fault.
not sure if this belongs here, or in the attack ad thread. <iframe width="853" height="480" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dKMUHcgsbag" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Obama looked terrible yesterday. Where in debate school you are taught to look down like a loser when your opponent is trashing you is beyond me. Two more awful performances by O, and disaster could happen on Nov. 6. Obama had substance, but his body language couldn't be worse.
