Posted on 10/23/2012 4:50:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
If you knew nothing about Barack Obama and Mitt Romney except what you saw in their final debate, you would have assumed that Romney was the incumbent president, that Obama was the challenger trying to unseat him, that Romney was clearly leading in the polls going in and that he remained there going out. You wouldn’t necessarily think Romney won the debate, but you would think he was winning the race.
It was absolutely clear that both candidates understood that this debate was entirely about Mitt Romney. Romney’s only goal was to seem presidential, and Obama’s only goal was to make Romney seem not presidential. By that measure, Romney clearly achieved his aim and Obama clearly did not. Romney did this by treating this debate very differently than the other two. He didn’t really try to score points, and he wasn’t afraid to express agreement with Obama, which he did remarkably often. His goal was to answer every question with a calm, responsible attitude and convey sobriety and level-headedness. The calculation must have been pretty simple: voters are not greatly concerned with foreign policy this year, but they wouldn’t elect someone they don’t trust on foreign policy. So having clearly conveyed his differences with Obama on domestic issues and his own domestic agenda, Romney merely needed to be a plausible commander in chief—to convey deep knowledge and the right attitude, to avoid getting rattled, to deny Obama the chance to label him a war monger or an amateur, and to waive off attacks on himself by returning to his core domestic message and reminding voters that the president is running on nothing.
Obama helped Romney a little more than he had to. He reinforced his own lack of agenda by the way he described why he should remain in office. It is downright peculiar for the sitting president to say again and again that we need nation-building at home after years of neglect. It is downright peculiar for anyone running in this economy to keep coming back to the need to build roads and bridges. And his little (clearly unintentional) “The nation, me” line (which sounded better in the original French) will be a fixture of conservative Obama critiques from now on.
Obama also made a couple of pretty stunning missteps. He seems to actually believe his campaign’s line about Romney and the auto bailout, for instance. The fact that the New York Times titled Romney’s now famous op-ed (written before Obama became president, by the way) “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” doesn’t mean Romney said the auto industry should be liquidated, or even denied federal assistance. He didn’t. He called for a managed bankruptcy followed by federal guarantees and support, which is basically what Obama ended up doing but without Obama’s lawless fleecing of creditors and giveaways to the unions. And more voters will now learn that than otherwise would have.
Even more astonishing, to me, was Obama’s ignorant and gratuitous insult to the U.S. Navy, describing Navy ships as the equivalent of horses and bayonets. It seemed like a prepared line, and it was appalling. Are the hundreds of thousands of sailors bearing arms under our flag (on the president’s orders) defending America’s security around the world tonight merely riders in some quixotic cavalry brigade chasing make-believe Indian chiefs? How exactly does a “pivot to Asia” work without those old fashioned ships? How does a global superpower project force abroad with fewer ships than it had when it wasn’t a global superpower? How does the advent of aircraft carriers make the Navy less rather than more significant? Is the sitting president really this confused about defense strategy? That line seems like a Romney ad in Virginia just waiting to happen.
None of this, however, is to say that Romney clearly won the debate. He didn’t land many punches against Obama’s foreign policy, surely in part because he didn’t really attempt all that many, and he certainly didn’t embarrass Obama. Anyone whose expectations were built by the first debate would have to say that Obama was far stronger in this one, and I think anyone scoring by points would probably say this was a tie and if pressed to declare a winner could easily choose Obama.
But this debate won’t be scored by points in the end, just as the first two debates weren’t. Romney got a far stronger wind in his sails from the first debate than his actual performance point by point should have earned him, and he got that because the debate changed people’s basic perception of him. He didn’t seem at all like the caricature Obama had spent months and millions painting. He seemed like the kind of person we choose for the presidency. He did the same in the second debate, without winning that one on points, and seems to have sustained his momentum as a result. And I think he did the same again in the final debate.
Long ago, the Obama campaign decided that in order for the president to win re-election in a bad economy when people weren’t happy with his performance he would have to do all he could to make this election about whether Romney was electable and presidential, and to pound a negative answer into people’s heads. This is the ground they chose to fight on, and the three presidential debates have therefore added up to a disaster for them. The first debate was the most painful for the president, because it not only put an impressive and presidential Romney on display but also put before the country a very unappealing version of Barack Obama. In tonight’s debate, as in last week’s, they had only the appealing Romney to worry about—but that is bad enough for them. Romney has easily passed the bar of presidential plausibility on both domestic and foreign policy, he has forcefully argued to voters that he has a real agenda for fixing our economic problems and the president doesn’t, and he has reminded them of why they are unhappy about the last four years. It has been an extraordinary accomplishment, achieved by Romney himself, and just when it counted. The Obama campaign has struggled fecklessly for a response, and has tended to turn to immature gimmicks—from Big Bird to binders of women—while leaving Romney’s core message untouched.
This doesn’t mean Mitt Romney will win the election, but it does make it much more likely that he will. After the past month, no one can argue that debates don’t matter.
This is exactly what I thought while I was watching. If someone climbed out from under a rock and didn’t know who was the incumbent and who was the challenger, it would have been a no-brainer, (Mitt is the incumbent).
This was also the first comment out of Wallace’s mouth after the debate.
I could care less about ‘points’ scored. Mitt just showed 50 million people that he knows his sh@t and could be President TODAY.
Obama’s horrendously stupid line about military ships is ABSOLUTELY going to hurt him in Virginia. Shipbuilding is a big part of the economy in the Norfolk/Hampton Roads area.
BTW, Wallace did the best job at moderator of the 3.
Oops, Sheiffer. Where’s that coffee?
sheiffer or some name like that was the moderator, no?
Yes.
This is the absolute takeaway message, and I couldn't agree more. Romney totally accomplished what he was aiming for last night, points be darned.
Commentators aren't undecided voters, so their opinions about that debate are meaningless. People who are undecided by now are very likely not paying attention to issues. They are deciding (if at all) on personality, likeability and trust.
And Obama stuck his foot in a pile of poopoo with that ships line. Killed himself in Virginia, and maybe some other places too.
Chris Wallace is sometimes the most astute of all the pundits. Never fails to amaze me. He and Brit Hume are about the only ones I pay any attention to.
Did you know that they even have these things that go underwater? Talk about snearing condescension.
Easy mistake. Both names sound very similar. Wallace/Schieffer /s
These scripted events are really no longer about scoring points. They’re about style and image.
Romney displayed a consistent image throughout all three debates. He was calm, measured, and respectful. Obama was a different person in all three. He was snarky, arrogant, and condescending (traits that endear him to his base but repel independents).
I don't think that was Obama's main strategy. Over and over again, he tried to depict Romney as a say-anything flip-flopper, even lying in order to do so. Obama's much smoother, but trying so hard to attack (because he is worried) made him a bit Bidenesque. So, I don't think he was trying to make Romney look like a hawk; I just think he was trying to make him look opportunistic and vacillating.
On points... maybe Obama "won." But, anyone who has been following this knows that Obama had to lie over and over again about his own policies to do so. The problem is, that anyone who knows that has already decided how to vote.
So the question for Romney was how to appeal to the idiotic 3 or 4 percent who are up for grabs. I hope he picked the right strategy. Personally, I wanted him to blast Obama right at the first softball question on Libya which Schieffer served up.
By the way, I thought Schieffer was just fine, mostly staying out of the way, and asking good questions. It was the responses that were rather boring.
All I saw was a child person throwing a temper tantrum because they are about to take his lollypop away.
The most eerily thing about it all was Obamas “stink eye” he was giving Romney, last time a person did that to me I dropped him on the floor out cold and left him with a possible busted eardrum.
What is this talking about? I Googled it and looked at the transcript and came up empty.
Obama doesn't need any help embarrassing himself.
The MSM was enamored with d Obama’a “horses and bayonets” prepared line. But the little heralded deadly message was Romney’s “Attacking me is not an agenda” line.A very succinct way of reinforcing Romney’s latest message that his opponent has no plan for the nation other than getting reelected.
L’Etat c’est moi.
I am the State. or The State, it’s me.
It was a Louis XIV’s famous quote. He said it to the Paris Parlement (In charge to agree the royal decrees) in April 1755.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/L%27Etat_c%27est_moi
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