Posted on 10/17/2012 4:48:07 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
This time, as opposed to the first debate which I read hours later, I did masochistically stay up until the middle of the night Israel time for the debate, and it helped me get to synagogue services on time.
If I was scoring this as a debate or a fencing match in terms of who got in more hits, the debate was a victory for President Barack Obama. In terms of inflicting more damage, I am not certain who the victor was.
Barack Obama was interested in reinforcing the major thrust of his campaign - that Romney, as a member of the privileged rich, is uncaring about the average American, and he got this point across in various ways.
Romney's strategy reminded me of the techniques that Arthur Finkelstein employed in the 1996 campaign of Binyamin Netanyahu against Shimon Peres. I was obviously for Netanyahu, but night after night, we would get the same ad of the glass breaking, revealing Peres marching hand-in-hand with Yasser Arafat.
I got tired of that commercial and the entire tenor of the campaign and wanted to see Netanyahu attack on a range of points. Like any political partisan, I felt that I could see better and beyond than the inept campaign.
I now recognize this technique when I hear commercials on the radio, when the same advertiser is back with the same message a few minutes later in a somewhat abbreviated commercial.
By the end of the 1996 campaign, Netanyahu had made up a huge deficit and was narrowly elected Prime Minister.
What Romney basically did was to stress the points that he feels will turn this election, and he did so again and again: The state of the economy as compared to Barack Obama's campaign promises in 2008...
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(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
Obama lost because he tried to perform an impossible act.
He failed so badly during the first debate that he went off the charts during the second debate. To use a baseball metaphor, the problem is that Obama tried to win both games of a doubleheader during a single game.
Advantage Romney.
Would O have won on points is that cow moderator had not given him nearly 10% more response time tham Romney?
For all these idiots who say Obama “won on points” can any of them point specifically to any “point” on which Obama actually said anything of substance?
When Obama spoke about his record and his plans he spoke in vague generalities. The only time he spoke in specifics was when he tried to accuse Romney of not telling the truth and then after making the accusation he said nothing to refute what Romney had said.
Obama’s performance was pathetic. He came off as angry and mean. Romney’s performance was measured and cool.
I’m no Romney fan, but the debate wasn’t even close. On “points” Romney won by a mile. On substance Romney won by a hundred miles.
BTW has anyone looked up to see if any of the so called independents who asked questions are on record for donating to the Obama campaign?
My take, even assuming the above statement is true (which I don't agree) -
People, for the first time saw the true Obama at the first debate, came away with the shocking consensus that it is his ‘Emperor Has No Clothes’ moment.
Like I said, once the veil had been peeled off voters’ eyes, no amount of redressing or cosmetics from Obama&Co and media (pffff) will help Obama’s 2008 image.
At the end of the day, people looked at Obama’s Achilles heel - his 4 year record, and will conclude this man is unfit to be the leader for this nation.
Absolutely agreed.
Truth cannot be defeated by lies.
It drives me crazy that Romney has SO MANY openings but won’t use them. As you point out:
* Illegally tossing centuries of contract law in the dustbin in favor of unions and destroying life savings of bond holders
* Crony-driven closing of dealerships
* Failing to properly restructure GM and Chrysler as a true bankruptcy would, again in favor of unions
* Favoring Delphi union retirement plans and robbing Delphi white collar retirement plans
* A hundred billion dollars flushed down the “green energy crony hole” with A123 going bankrupt THE SAME DAY as the debate.
Romney is too cream-puff on these point. Or maybe he and his advisors think the public won’t understand them. Or make him look too wonkish. Who knows why they won’t use them.
I agree, but even more, the CNN poll agrees. Initially, they give a slight edge to Obama, I think last night they said 37, 33, 30 (O, R, U). So, the immediate impression is that at 37%, there's no way that one could say that Obama won. 63% of the vote did not side with that conclusion.
What's more, they then did the internals: On the internals, Romney swept every single economic, employment, and leadership category by about 60/40. It was so bad that one of the CNN journalists threw up his hands and actually said to the effect, "If that's all true then Romney has won this election."
We can only conclude that the undecideds were convinced that Romney had won the economic issue by a large margin. Added together with the Romney vote, 33-30, we get about 60ish, the margin that he was winning the internals.
Why was I watching CNN right at that moment? I switched back and forth between Fox, CNN, and a few barf-defying moments on MSNBC. Wanted to see what they were saying.
The most biased question of the night by the moderator...and make no mistake, it was by the moderator...SHE got to CHOOSE the questions? What was it? Allowing Obama to address the question: "How is Romney different from George Bush?"
He should have been forced to the same type of question: "How are you different from Jimmy Carter?"
I'm so sickened by the bias, and especially the referee jumping into the actual game and catching a pass from the quarterback and trying to run for yardage. It's one thing for a moderator to say, "Your times up."
It's quite another for the mod to start debating the comments of one of the candidates.
And the four minute time difference in favor of Obama is TWO full 2 minute sessions more than Romney that Crowley allowed Obama.
It was terrible, the worst moderating I've ever seen.
I have no doubt Romney knows the bankruptcy business far better than does Obamugabe, and he may well have OTHER REASONS he doesn't want to talk about it on a national broadcast.
Absolutely!
Several of the characteristics Present Obama exhibited again last night, he never answered a question, he talked in circles, he blatantly lied (although in his “world”..who knows), he treated Romney as the incumbent, he seemed stunned when Romney pointed out specific admin failures.
An idiot could see that was likely to be a parole violation. After his parole officer determined there was one he was picked up.
All I can say about convicted felons who violate their parole is that parole should be abolished. They should do their time.
That's one of the most mindless categories ~ right up there with the supposed moderate middle ~ which doesn't even exist in our two party system.
How can you win a point if it is untrue?
Obama rambles, where Romney speaks in constructed paragraphs.
Thank you for telling me what Obama’s point was, I couldn’t tell. Romney super sold his big point: ECONOMY/JOBS.
Brilliant performance by Romney, despite the wretched format and moderator.
So there he is without making any of what I think are fairly straightforward points. Instead, he picks up on the bankruptcy conversation with gusto—and gives Obama credit for ‘doing the right thing’.
Ugh. It’s as bad as when he talks about Obamacare and his great program in MA.
There are just about equal numbers in eachparty.
That will be reflected as "This Race Is Tightening" ~
We discussed the PEW report on polling response rates several days ago. http://www.people-press.org/2012/05/15/assessing-the-representativeness-of-public-opinion-surveys/
That's what it is. None of those things can be explained in a sound bite, which is why Romney keeps circling back to the one that can: "The economy sucks - you are hurting - it's Obama's fault - I can fix it."
While I think Obama is a narcissistic egotist that has delusions of grandeur (believing all that ‘special’ superhuman intellectual crap he’s been fed all his life), I believe he’s really a lazy slacker that has a gift for the spoken word - when its the word chosen by someone else.
Both he and his wife, are grifters, chosen for each other and shunted on a path determined by others. Lifestyle and excess are their vices, and we have seen this in the dozens of lavish vacations and trips they’ve taken at our expense. They indulge their vanity by surrounding themselves with celebrity luminaries at multiple galas given to celebrate their ‘ONEness’...
I believe, in truth, he has no idea at all of what is happening in the government he is supposed to be controlling. He issues petulant complaints and broad generalisms to guide where he ‘thinks’ he wants to take us and functionaries execute his plan, and the plans of the others that really are running this country now.
This worked remarkably well in the 2008 runup to the Presidency - he had plenty to promise to correct a bad situation. He’s had four years to do it - and NOTHING has happened save Media blathering about meaningless government concocted statistics. No record, no ability, no real promise. The only result is that whoever is really controlling him and Moochelle is that they very likely have become billionaires several times over.
Obama had to defend the indefensible, i.e., his record. Notice how he barely mentioned his greatest accomplisment, Obamacare. Romney responded to every "point" Obama made. And often Obama failed to even respond to the questions, which were handpicked by Crowley with two to one being favorable to Obama. He couldn't even hit the softballs out of the park.
The MSM (including Fox) want to keep this going until the third debate. It is the MSM that profits from the revenue and viewership of a close race. And the real comparison they are making as to who won the debate is really Obama in the 2nd debate versus Obama in the first debate. Obama 2 was clearly the winner, but both Obamas lost against Romney.
He knew that.
Romney has some fact checkers who do research on what's being said at Free Republic. We are like a hot and cold running Focus Group that's always available and gets around to everything.
Unfortunately we have become a less reliable source of suitable campaign material ever since the amount of criticism has dropped off the planet. There are several reasons for that, but I think you know what they are
But he was yabbering on about bankruptcy already!
Instead of getting his points in on what Obama did wrong, he simply steering his bankruptcy talk to a conclusion that Obama did the right thing.
And I fully believe that a few footsoldiers in Romney’s online army have been here trying to shoot down detractors all through the campaign.
I’m a Romney backer at this point (even though I was burned by being in the GOP in MA when he was guv and seeing how totally he sold out conservatives), but I don’t think it does any good to simply full-time cheerlead here.
Romney lacks that killer instinct that is so important in politics. He needs to hit his oponent while he is down and keep on hitting.
He appears “too nice” to me......but he is ABO.
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