Posted on 10/12/2012 8:09:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Last night's performance by Biden – capering, giggling, near-maniacal opera buffa – was targeted in one place: a dispirited, demoralized Democratic base on the edge of panic.
Paul Ryan was businesslike, steady, and on-point. He hit solid doubles all night, and that's all he needed to do. If he'd been as amped and manic as Biden, it would have been a political and imaging disaster.
Biden aimed to throw the Obama base a lifeline. He fed the Kos Kidz desperate need to see some fight, but at the cost of his remaining (and mostly notional) dignity. If you want a gibbering, snorting, mumbling clown with a rictus-grin locked on his mug a heartbeat away from controlling America's nuclear arsenal, Joe Biden's your guy.
Ryan aimed to meet the standard of gravitas and presence, to demonstrate to the fabled female/suburban/swing/moderate voters that he's not a scary granny-killing Terminator sent from the future to throw seniors into the snowbank. He had to demonstrate steadiness, stature and knowledge. Done and done.
The conventional wisdom this morning is that the debate was a tie. That conventional wisdom is (as is so often the case) dead wrong. Biden played to his base, trying to dig Obama out of the hole he's been trapped in since last week's debate trainwreck. Ryan played to the center, to the swing and to the late-engagers. The post-hoc coverage won't factor into their decisions: the pictures and Biden's mugging, drunk-uncle affect will. (Also, Biden opened several new, Costco-scale cans of worms for the Administration on the Libya scandal.)
In short, Biden did nothing to reset the race, and the edge of panic is still there in the Obama campaign.
When edifices – particularly political edifices built around the myth and personality of one man – collapse, they collapse suddenly. The center does not hold. The man dragged from the spider hole isn't a dictator, he's a prisoner. The Master of the Universe hedge fund manager who's really just a Ponzi schemer gets booked at Rikers like the rest of 'em. The spell cast by power, once broken, is hard to restore.
(And no, I'm not comparing Obama to infamous war criminals. I'm examining the way people view organizations centered on a leader, not on an idea, and why they're ultimately fragile.)
In the case of the Obama Personality Cult, we believed the Maximum Leader was more brilliant, more charismatic and more skillful than our own candidate. Sure, he was wrong on the issues, a disaster from start to finish, but we still felt a sense of intimidation. That changed last week, as I outlined here.
In the 2012 election, as long as Obama was inevitable, he was inevitable. Beyond the pundits, there was the emerging belief that the macro polling models of guys like Nate Silver could not be wrong. The basic message was, “Obama's certainty of reelection is so large entirely new domains of mathematics are required to state it properly.”
The arguments for Romney's election were always framed as, “Well, IF he wins Florida and IF he wins Virginia and IF Hillary is an Al Qaida sleeper agent and IF Biden is caught in a Delaware hotel room with a Guatemalan pan flute band and a non-consenting farm animal...then maybe there's a fraction of a chance.”
The political media declared Mitt Romney dead for thirty long days between the end of the convention and the debate. But somewhere in those thirty days, Mitt Romney was born again. Hard.
You can see the fear in the Obama campaign now, as they careen from message to message, flailing, desperate for something – anything – to stick.
You can see their gyros tumbling as they slew from Big Bird to abortion to “Mitt Romney is a lying liar liarpants McLiar” to the walking disaster that is Stephanie Cutter every time she opens her mouth to the remarkable, bizarre interview the Three Divas (Axelrod, Plouffe and Messina, obviously) gave Mark Halperin this week. Their campaign is out of control, and they know it.
They know how much they lost after the last debate. They know how many millions of television advertising dollars were flushed down the drain as Obama broke down in the last debate and as Mitt Romney introduced himself to the country. They know how, after the debate, Romney surged to a lead or a tie in the swing states. They know that there are a handful of states now that were solidly in Obama's camp that are wavering, teetering and suddenly uncertain.
Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Michigan have moved in the RCP averages from “Leans Obama” to “Toss-up”... today's polls are about to move a number of other states into the “Lean Romney” column. Florida will likely move there in the coming days. It's not just the swing states, and they know it.
The swing states matter, but when any of the states of Obama's “Blue Wall” flips in the polls to “Lean Romney,” the cascade effect will be psychologically devastating. For months, there were two underlying predicates for an Obama victory: first, that Obama was inevitable, and second, that Mitt Romney's path to 270 electoral votes was narrow and highly constrained.
Today, it's Obama's path that seems to be narrowing.
Their panic tastes delicious.
Intrade has fallen below 60%.
Intrade could be easily influenced by George Soros’ pocket change.
This only strengthens my willingness, my desire to crawl over broken glass to vote against Herr Leader.
Obama lost his mojo around the demo convention and is having a difficult time getting it back.
Does anyone think that it just may have to do with him getting the delegates to deny God three times?
God don't cotton to being treated like a stinky bag of garbage.
This analysis is 100% spot on. Once the aura of invincibility is pierced, it can NOT be restored. Obama will never be closer than he is today, and he is losing as of today.
Comments?
I think both Obama and Biden want out. Both think decision making is too much like hard work. Obama always felt that way.
Biden is insane, so who knows what his goals are, other than the fact that he wants out, too.?
I know exactly what happened to Biden.. he was possessed. It has to do with Danville, Kentucky and inbreeding and an asylum that was located there in the 19th century.
Inbreeding is an Islamist centuries-old practice that condemns scores of offspring to a life of mental and physical depravation (as well as provide Islamists with scores of suicide bombers, thus the practice will continue).
The danger was recognized here in the U.S. 200 years ago and
in 1846 there was a commission to study 'idiots' "which implicated cousin marriage as being responsible for idiocy." Numerous other studies came to the same conclusions, "including for example by the Kentucky Deaf and Dumb Asylum, which concluded that cousin marriage resulted in deafness, blindness, and idiocy."
That asylum was located in Danville, Kentucky. It was a dirty trick to play on Biden but simply put he was possessed by idiocy -- it was easy pickins.
I’m afraid that Obama will do something very dangerous to America rather than be a LOSER!
If bambi pulls a win out of this, we'll have to walk the talk or be enslaved.
Black and white is more than race, IMHO.
Exactly right!
If you accept the theory that Biden was told to do whatever it took to solidify the Dem base - - what does this tell you about how badly shaken it is?
Biden did nothing to make things easier for Obama. The Republicans are serious, on-point, and focused - and now for the second time the Democrats act like the whole thing is beneath them, not even worth their time. So now the expectations are ratcheting up even higher for Obama and he doesn’t do well under pressure...and with out his teleprompter to tell him what to say.
Romney has to show up and keep Obama from knocking anything out of the park to maintain the trend. If he does as well as the first debate, we’ll be hearing calls from the RATS to cancel the final one.
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There are those who, because of their own egos, must crawl over glass and self respect to vote for the obamanation. Bambi and biden appeal to the lower, ignorant classes this country has been importing/allowing within our borders.
This election is not comprised entirely of those who love the United States. We must vote in massive numbers. Vote and Pray. Failing that, we must Lock and Load.
Hope the Dems delude themselves silly about this election and then a massive landslide RR win serves them all up a hot, steaming plate of rancid crow bird for dinner.
Hope the Dems delude themselves silly about this election and then a massive landslide RR win serves them all up a hot, steaming plate of rancid crow bird for dinner.
Watch the debate again without the shock of the bizarre behavior of BFD Biden and Paul Ryan gave a very strong performance.
I have started to wonder if Obama really cares if he is reelected. He has the estate lined up in Hawaii, his image/numbers are low. I think the fight now for the dems is to keep the senate and local elections.
If Obama wins this thing, those of us who always worked for the improvement of our country may as well start living only for self gratification. If Obama wins this year...it's over.
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