The Debates- 2012
 

Ok, I've been paying for Big Bird and Medicare for 31 years. I want them both to be around when I can retire in 20 more years.

Romney won the debate hands down in terms of appearance, looking presidential, great hair, etc. I tend to favor Obama's policies. I can't imagine why Obama didn't attack Romney on things Romney has said in the past, e.g., the poor will always have emergency rooms for urgent care or the whole 47% debacle.

Trouble is, Mitt's got a crack team of spinners working with him and he has a comeback for every attack. He's extremely well coached and appears to be very practiced. Mr. President's going to have to step up his game.

Forget what he's said in the past, why didn't the President jump all over him for saying he needed a new accountant because he never got a tax break for shipping jobs overseas?

I hope the President is sharper for the next debate.

Romney the debator was much better than Romney the campaigner of the last three weeks. He won the debate.

For whatever reason President Obama was not sharp, and rarely engaged --with the exception of portions of the medicare discussion, I thought.

The President will have to step his game up in the Oct. 16 debate.

(I do have to shout-out to my 12-year-old daughter who, to my surprise, watched the entire debate last night. We had the best "debate analysis" ever on our ride to work/school this morning. You rock, EDB!) :)

Agree that Romney "won" the debate last night. It'll be interesting to see if and how that translates to overall poll numbers. I think traditionally, it has been the challenger rather than the incumbent who stands to benefit most from the first debate -- it his first time going up against the President, and it's a win if he exceeds expectations. (And it's more of a win if the President doesn't live up to expectations, like last night.)

But historically, even though the challenger makes gains in the polls, they have typically been modest ones. The two exceptions to that are Reagan and Carter in 1980 and Bush and Gore in 2000, where the lead in the polls flipped after the first debate.

And the analysis I have seen shows that the gains the challenger makes tends to come from undecided voters, not from wooing voters away from the incumbent. But in the Reagan-Carter instance and the Bush-Gore instance, the candidates went into the debate with about 12%-20% of those polled still undecided. Right now, most polls show the undecided slice to be around 7% or less. Where the slice of undecided voters seems to be pretty slim, a bump in the polls may not help too much. And what will really matter is the degree to which Romney is able to pick up enough of those undecided voters from the relatively few states still up for grabs.

I'll be interested to see how it plays out over the next week or so.

During this year's campaign when I close my eyes and LISTEN to long excerpts of Romney's speeches, he sounds like Ronald Reagan in tone and especially in phrasings. Does anyone know if some of Reagan's speechwriting people are working for Romney?

I was disappointed that the President was so "nice" to him. However, I wanted to wipe that smug smirk off of Romney's face. I screamed at the TV a few times. However, if you check out factcheck.org, although Romney may have "won", he had more facts wrong... not that the average Joe Schmoe bothers checking those things.

I agree with both. I only got to see/hear the first 60% of the debate but this reflects my general feeling when I left the house.
You know, I've heard this several times since last night...I think way more people are checking than would be expected.

Yeah, I'm thinking of people like the guy on Facebook who said he was moving to Finland when the Supreme Court upheld national health care.

I heard Slovakia.

Both of them had facts wrong and stretched the truth. Both of them had pretty smug looks on their faces at times.

The fact is, Obama needs to own it next time or he may be in trouble.

Yes, they did. I think the thing that upsets me most is the gross exaggeration of negative impacts of the Affordable Care Act. I do think that finding a new job is going to become a high priority for me if Romney is elected... one that is not related to health care or insurance in any way.

ETA: And I'm sick of both sides spouting off these lame stories about the people they've met around the country. I thought after Joe the Plumber they would stop that crap, but they continue on. It's ridiculous to think that any of those stories are going to change anything or make them seem like "real" people. Nobody in politics at that level are average US citizens.

Thank you!!!

Both of them last night kept saying things like, "I met this woman in Texas.. and she said, 'Please help me get a job,'" and, "I met this man in Connecticut... he said, "'I can't afford healthcare for my kids.'"

Wow. Cool story.

If you had a personal experience that really moved you and you feel compelled to tell the story, then that's fine. But simply saying some guy walked up to you and said he's struggling.. well.. duh. That doesn't make you a compassionate person.. it sounds more like you just made something up on the fly.

i'm glad I'm not the only one who thought he had that smug smirk way too much.

You're completely missing the point of why they do that. It's not to portray politicians as avergage people, but rather to show that they understand average people's concerns and that average people are the driving force(s) behind the politicians' policy proscriptions.

Public "faces" humanize the policy or program that they're talking about. After all, we all know, or think we do, somebody who's be affected or would positively be affected by the policy in question.

We were taught this day 1 in journalism school -- "show, don't tell," but it works in politics, too. People (and voters) respond/empathize when they see direct impact (human interests) of policy.

A FB friend just posted this status:

Really,with all the crap going on in the country you people are focused on Big Bird? How many of you have actually donated to PBS? Sad, sad, sad.

She's right. Our fire and police forces are shrinking. There's so much corrupt activity in our governments. Detroit is falling apart second by second. People are losing their jobs. Soldiers are losing their lives. People are going broke trying to pay for healthcare and people are dying who can't afford healthcare.

And the country is worried about Sesame Street. I'm a fan of PBS. A Phi Mu is/was the President. I loved Sesame Street growing up and I like the concerts they show. No, I have never donated (I won't get into that). But the fact is, it's a cost that can be cut. If there are enough people in the country who really care that it's on the air, they'll donate. Hell there are enough celebrities making MILLIONS firing off about it. Why don't they donate enough to keep it afloat without government help? I don't know how much money it takes to keep PBS around, but I'm sure that money can be used elsewhere to help mankind.

That's just my rant on that topic. I understand that it adds to the "evilness" of Romney and it's somewhat symbolic on his stances, but come on. Fight and preach about something more important. Big Bird will find another way to live on. The person living under the overpass on I-75 because he lost his job and is too old or inexperienced to find another one won't.

Brava!!

I think your FB friend is completely missing the point. Being worried about Big Bird, Sesame Street or PBS funding isn't the point at all. I think the point is that when Romney was asked what he would cut as non-essential in government, one of the few specifics he could name was PBS, which gets a relatively infinitesimal share of government funding. That he said "I like Big Bird, but . . ." gave it a hook.

I think the "Save Big Bird" hoopla isn't really about PBS at all. (I'll admit, though, that some over-eager Romney-is-Evil folks might make it about PBS.) It's a stand-in for what some people perceive as Romney's lack of specifics on what he would do or how he would do it. It's not that with all the crap going on in the country, people are worried about Big Bird; it's that with all the budgetary crap going on in the country, one of the only concrete solutions Romney could give was to stop funding Big Bird, which would solve nothing.

Tony- I get the point of it. I don't think it is effective. I think it is old and tired.

MC- I agree. I see the T_witter trending and Facebook comments about Big Bird to be more facetious than anything.

I do donate to PBS every year and think that it is important to have a public broadcasting television service that doesn't pander to advertisers. They are a breath of fresh air and the ONLY station I can get in when my cable is out. I do see a lot more spending on other things that I think is unnecessary.

I also think it was symbolic of the "war" on teachers and health care reform and all these things that are only there for the betterment of our society as a whole.

It must be a partisan thing..

Honestly I didn't notice Romney smirking any more than Obama did (when he wasn't staring down :confused:). They were both equally doing it while the other was speaking.

It didn't seem like Romney's expression ever changed at all.

My other thought on the Big Bird thing is... I posted a Big Bird picture with a caption "Big Bird is Sad" on my Facebook. For the most part, I'm trying to keep my own Facebook posts election/politic free because I don't want to argue with friends and family. That felt like an innocuous way to make a statement though. Making pro-choice, pro-Obamacare, pro-women's rights, pro-gay marriage comments all lead to heated arguments. Big Bird? Not so much.

I don't know that's it's a partisan thing necessarily. I thought Romney often had a smug smirk, I thought Obama often had an annoyed smirk. At this point in election seasons, I tend to watch things like debates as sport, so even if I'm pulling for "my team," I can also be pretty hard on my team.

It wasn't that Romney was smirking more, it was that AGDee was one of the first people who I heard mention him smirking it all, so my response was more along the lines of "okay, maybe it wasn't just in my imagination."

I frankly think one of the most challenging things about debates like these is looking composed and having facial expressions that respond appropriately when the other guy is talking. Romney did better than Obama, but I still thought Romney could have been better at it.

Personally, I couldn't tell whether Romney was smirking during the whole debate, or if that's how he looks all the time.

Either way, they were in the middle of a debate - not in Happy Pony Rainbow Land. It's supposed to be aggressive and you're supposed to look like you think the other guy is an idiot.

What I'm curious about is the fact that Obama really never looked at Romney the entire time. Was that because he was stumbling and searching for words, or was that meant to be an insult to Romney?

There's a line there, though, or you risk coming across looking arrogant or something else likely to turn off voters you're trying to woo.

Exactly. And I'm not sure either of them excelled in that area.

My son posted this link on his Facebook page... Mitt Romney debating himself. Interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPgfzknYd20&sns=fb

I turned off the debates halfway through. It was partly because Obama would not challenge Romney on any of the lies he said. But, most of all, I could not stand how Romney kept interrupting Lehrer and always had to have the last word. It was annoying to the point I couldn't watch anymore. In my opinion, you need to be a little more dignified and play it cool to deal with some of the more antagonistic heads of state (I'm looking at you Ahmadinejad). Romney's approach would get us into a whole lot of trouble.

The difference is that Lehrer actually made an effort to stop Romney from talking and never seemed to do the same to Obama. Obama spoke for 4 and a half minutes longer than Romney did.. I don't blame him for trying to get in a few extra points.

Either way, Lehrer never really had control of this debate. Bring on a new moderator.

And saying that Romney's approach in a debate would get us in trouble with world leaders is a bit of a stretch, and you know it.

I blame Obama's unwillingness to challenge Romney all on the lack of a readily available TelePrompTer. :p

http://dontwannahearit.com/wp-conten...s_up_yours.jpg

DH & I were seriously bummed that he has to work Thursday nights. We were planning one of those "drink every time someone mentions Big Bird (the Libyan embassy, Mormons, etc) parties, and were hoping for a Friday night. I had already claimed "Totally plastered by 8:45pm".

Get 'em.

I'm an undicided voter (registered independent). I personally don't like either choices for President. I watched some of the Presidential debates last week and was annoyed at both of them and had to change the channel half way through the debate (which wasn't really a debate bc Obama never challenged Romney).

I watched last nights debate and this is what I came away with: 1) we are far too involved in so many wars 2) Biden is Biden - off the cuff, tries hard to appeal to the average person and can be condescending 3) Ryan is a puppet of the Republican party chosen based on his looks and youth and was overly scripted. I also found him to be patronizing to Biden and the audience. 4) Biden can't be on national TV without mentioning Scranton.

[QUOTE=MaggieXi;2184232]I'm an undicided voter (registered independent). I personally don't like either choices for President. I watched some of the Presidential debates last week and was annoyed at both of them and had to change the channel half way through the debate (which wasn't really a debate bc Obama never challenged Romney).

You don't have to settle for "either". Unless you're determined to vote for one of them, so you might pick a "winner", you have two other choices with a (theoretical) mathematical chance of winning -- Gary Johnson (L) and Jill Stein (G). There are plenty of other candidates on some state ballots, too. Only four have a mathematical chance based on vote and Electoral College. You can make a statement.

I didn't get to see the debates at all - my mil "needed" to be taken to dinner. :rolleyes: I did, however, get my jollies today. On the local CBS affiliate, the perky, bright-eyed newscaster said, "According to the polls with likely voters, Joe Biden won the debate with 50%."

Obviously, she was not a math major, and there were some shenanigans going on. It made my day, however!

I read that poll and thought the same thing, but 19% of people thought Ryan and Biden tied, and only 31% thought Ryan won.

^^ Beat me to it.

It might have been Biden with 50%, Ryan with 40%, 10% undecided.

I recorded the most recent debate, but I haven't watched it, yet. My thoughts on the first debate between Romney and Obama: I thought Romney clearly won the visuals of the debate. I mean, he communicated clearly, he was confident and poised, and he appeared "Presidential". It's just that his arguments, however, were typical Romney, full of untruths and half-truths. :rolleyes: His move to the center was just another attempt to etch-a-sketch his way to the presidency and another example of how unprincipled a man he really is.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney was very much in the center. That's pretty much the only way a Republican can lead a very Democratic state like MA. They are one of the most liberal states in the nation. He's actually pandering more to the conservatives during this election. I would have liked him more if he'd stay true to his original "moderateness".

The biggest irony I find with him is the health care reform issue. Obamacare was modeled after what Massachusetts did under Romney. Romney endorsed it. But he says it isn't good for the rest of the country and states should do it on their own. There are aspects of it, like being able to sell insurance across state lines, that can't happen if it isn't done on a national level.

What was most troublesome to me about last night's debate was Ryan's comments about foreign policy that seemed to indicate that we should be taking more military action in the Middle East with Iran, Syria, etc. While I think we need to be watchful over things like Iran's developing a nuclear program, I want to see my tax dollars taking care of the huge issues we have at home. We don't need another Iraq.

Romney is very much a moderate but the devil with politics is that as a nominee you have to at least give some lip service to the party platform. Does that make him "unprincipled"? I don't believe so....he's just politicking. I like that his main focus is going to on the economy, creating more jobs and opportunities for business instead of creating some massive entitlement that sink us financially faster than Medicare and social security combined.

I do find some irony that people on the left refer to Mitt's "moderateness" as though its bad and that voters should run from especially when he was the last choice for the tea party, conservative crowds. Just be grateful that its Romney and not Bachmann, Cain, or Santorum that has a 50% chance of getting elected next month to lead this country.