Posted on 10/23/2012 11:20:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Gov. Mitt Romney today pulled a bold move in the final debate with President Obama, opting for relatively limited verbal combat with his opponent while instead showcasing his knowledge of foreign affairs, adopting a presidential demeanor, and offering a sense of optimism for the future.
This strategy was the political equivalent of the Muhammed Ali Rope-a-Dope against George Foreman in the heavyweight boxing championship in 1974. Everyone expected a war, but Ali laid back on the ropes and let his bigger, stronger opponent pound away until Foreman was exhausted, and Ali knocked him out.
And I think Romney may have scored a knockout too.
Some commentators are suggesting Obama won because he scored more points. But I think such people are looking at this from within the paradigm of what they expected, and not what happened.
Everyone – including me – thought Romney would tear into Obama once again and engage in another slugfest, spending as much time as possible discussing the failures surrounding Benghazi. Instead, Romney completely walked away from Benghazi.
What Romney needed tonight was not to beat up on Obama – he had already proven he could do that – but to cast himself as a leader people will be comfortable having as their president.
He threw some jabs, but the knockout punch wasn’t delivered by fist, but by feint.
Romney stood tall while Obama appeared a little surly, eager to re-litigate domestic policy points that the two had already plowed through in two debates. By repeatedly demeaning Romney, Obama demeaned himself. The proverbial Martian visiting earth for the first time would have been convinced that Romney was the king the earthlings, not Obama.
The CNN post-debate snap poll gave Obama an edge, with 48 percent saying he won compared to 40 percent who thought Romney did. The poll as a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 point, a relatively large number.
But the impression that will linger through Election Day is that of the sunny guy to the left of the screen who seemed to have ideas about where to go and was interrupted repeatedly by the guy on the right who made lots of points but, in the end, had no new ideas, couldn’t defend his record the few times it was challenged, and seemed a little unlikable.
I saw it the thug punk kept interrupting Romney as he did in the other debate.
Obama can't have a civil conversation with his campaign opponent and he is the guy in charge of talking diplomatically to our sworn enemies.
Obama treats Chavez and Achmedinijad with greater respect.
That’s a very good observation FRiend.
It’s absolutely true as well.
I agree with you, Romney has true leadership skills, he thinks like one.
Submarine is referred to as boat, not ship.
That was the funniest thing he said, because anybody who actually knew what they were talking about would have said “boats”. Because submarines are not called “ships”, they are called “boats”.
This is a Naval tradition, even though some modern subs are big enough to be classified as ships. But Obama probably doesn’t know that there are size classifications.
He probably does know that the Navy uses the term “ship” in their budget document, which is probably as close as Obama comes to understanding the military.
On the other hand, when I first heard he said “we have ships that go underwater”, my thought was “yes, that is what happens when you cut too many ships out of the navy, and we can’t defend them, and they get torpedoed and sink”
What you saw was like having an MLB pitcher pitch a totally perfect game with EVERYRHING on one corner or another, Mitt did not give them a single thing to swing at or make any sort of a maccaca video out of while scoring the points he had to wrt Obunga’s “foreign policy” and appearing by far the more knowledgable and intelligent of the two.
don’t know if its a fact or not, but I was told in the military you have to carry a boat to be considered a ship. ???
As badly as we wanted to see the Marxist/Muslim usurper lying sob called out and confronted to his ugly face, Mitt probably did the right thing.
Or as Charles Krouthammer noted, it doesn’t matter how advanced a ship is, it still can’t be in two places at once.
Submarine is referred to as boat, not ship.
And they had them in 1916 too.
Was Obama demonstrating his impressive knowledge here or was his target audience those who are too young to vote?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.