2012 Debates

[Foolmewunz]

Even Fox is saying Obama won. And those on there who aren't, are complaining about the moderator.

Romney's answer to the woman issue was incredibly bad.

I guess you haven't seen Hannity! He'd sooner drink a bottle of lye on camera than say Obama looked even remotely good.

But you're quite right that even the talking heads from the Spin Room, who were 100% GOP, were conceding that it would probably be called an Obama win. But they saved themselves by bringing on Reince Priebus who must've been watching a different debate from the rest of us.

If you watch Hannity and listen to Priebus, it's pretty easy to see tomorrow morning's spin. "Obama lied about Libya..." And I actually think he did a pretty good job on that. He didn't directly say "Hillary took one for the team", but by standing up and saying, "I am responsible.... She works for me...." he pretty well diffused their whining that he was dodging the issue.

ETA: Oooh, Bobby Jindal is on now. I love it when he's being introduced and has that big grin on his face. Did Batman push him into a vat of chemicals when he was younger?

 

[angrysoba]

It is a good question and it's been asked a lot. The answer is usually a derivation of "I wasn't able to get my message across".

Politicians never have the wrong message, it's always that they weren't able to get it through the thick skulls of the voters.

Yeah, I thought most candidates would say something like that, such as "my policies were distorted by the opposition". But this also gives the moderator an opening, "Now clearly explain the policies (or your plan for XYZ)"...

 

[DavidJames]

Yeah, I thought most candidates would say something like that, such as "my policies were distorted by the opposition". But this also gives the moderator an opening, "Now clearly explain the policies (or your plan for XYZ)"...

You and I wish...

There was a time, in the past, when moderators/journalists would ask probing follow up questions and not (easily) let the hacks off the hook. Now they are so afraid of the charge of being biased, they are basically milk toast wimps.

 

[cwalner]

I finally had some time to look into one bit of statistic that Romney trotted out.

On the tax issue, he said a couple of times that the top 5% pay 60% of taxes and he does not want to lower that.

He seemed to be trying to make the point that the wealthy are not under-taxed. I decided to take is statement as true, but wanted to see some context. so I found this site which shows that the top 5% have 72% of the wealth in the US.

Am I wrong in this, but if a group that has 72% of the wealth is only providing 60% of the taxes, then wouldn't that mean that they really are under-taxed?

 

[RandFan]

"I've got binders full women." -Mitt Romney.
"Some of the pages are stuck together." --Tagg Romney

 

[Olowkow]

The moderator was trying to be fair, but she clearly let Romney babble on and on past the time limit many times. it seems she tried to interrupt, but he kept going, whereas, the President most often either finished at the time limit, or acquiesced to Crowley's interruption. Difficult to imagine her being much more fair without having a bull horn.

 

[Olowkow]

"I've got binders full women." -Mitt Romney.
"Some of the pages are stuck together." --Tagg Romney

I couldn't help thinking, ok, affirmative action for women. Fine. But he never mentions equal pay. Could he have been hiring women in order to save money?

 

[Cain]

I watched some of it. Maybe I'm more equine excrement intolerant than I used to be, but I couldn't help but constantly get up and leave at all the stupidity.

The most annoying thing for me was Romney claiming he'd 1) make us energy independent in eight years. This is a lie spouted more often by Democrats, but it's outrageous just the same; 2) He claimed that Obama's energy policies are failing as evidenced by the fact the gas cost a dollar eight-nine (or whatever) when he was inaugurated.

When it was finally Obama's turn to reply he should have said nothing for five or six seconds and then muttered "dumb ****". The reason the gas was priced a dollar eight-nine was on account of the global economic crisis. The Great Recession. Demand for energy plummeted.

I did watch a little Fox News and the guys there said it was a tie, except the detestable Charles Krathammer who said Obama won on points. Then Hannity came on said "We're gonna tell you how the president lied on Libya and oil in a minute, but now let's go to Frank Luntz...."

 

[bedlin88]

When it was finally Obama's turn to reply he should have said nothing for five or six seconds and then muttered "dumb ****". The reason the gas was priced a dollar eight-nine was on account of the global economic crisis. The Great Recession. Demand for energy plummeted.

"

To be fair Obama did say that the gas prices were so low because of the recession. I'll concede your point that he should have called him a dumb ****.

 

[UTLonghorn]

The moderator was trying to be fair, but she clearly let Romney babble on and on past the time limit many times. it seems she tried to interrupt, but he kept going, whereas, the President most often either finished at the time limit, or acquiesced to Crowley's interruption. Difficult to imagine her being much more fair without having a bull horn.

Agreed, but if you can't win on substance then you have to distract with something else irrelevant. This explains the focus on Biden's perceived "meanness" during the VP debate last week. Tonight, Crowley did what a journalist is supposed to do, and corrected a blatant falsehood on Romney's part.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I watched some of it. Maybe I'm more equine excrement intolerant than I used to be, but I couldn't help but constantly get up and leave at all the stupidity.

The most annoying thing for me was Romney claiming he'd 1) make us energy independent in eight years. This is a lie spouted more often by Democrats, but it's outrageous just the same; 2) He claimed that Obama's energy policies are failing as evidenced by the fact the gas cost a dollar eight-nine (or whatever) when he was inaugurated.

When it was finally Obama's turn to reply he should have said nothing for five or six seconds and then muttered "dumb ****". The reason the gas was priced a dollar eight-nine was on account of the global economic crisis. The Great Recession. Demand for energy plummeted.

I did watch a little Fox News and the guys there said it was a tie, except the detestable Charles Krathammer who said Obama won on points. Then Hannity came on said "We're gonna tell you how the president lied on Libya and oil in a minute, but now let's go to Frank Luntz...."

Luntz's sampling group must've lied through their teeth to get selected as purportedly "undecided" and one of them probably told us how it was done. When he chose her to answer a question as to what moved her to decide for Romney after tonight, she responded, "Oh, I wasn't undecided between Romney and Obama, I was undecided between Romney and not voting..." And he's selling this back to Sean as an interesting sampling.

If anyone watched CNN on the intertubes, for the most part the opinion graphs went Obama. Romney actually faired better among women, though. The yellow (Undecided Female) bar when Obama was speaking was generally below the green (U. Male).

I take it that Obama won the dubious CNN post-debate poll? I say that because Fox just highlighted that more people felt that Romney had better answers on the economy than Obama and their idea of "fair and balanced" is "find something good to say about our guy".

 

[Puppycow]

It's on the front page under "breaking news."

Here's the link to the CNN poll.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/16/breaking-cnn-poll-obama-edges-romney-in-debate/

The CNN/ORC International survey indicates 46% of debate watches say Obama won the debate, while 39% say Romney fared better. The seven-point margin falls within the poll's sampling error.

Meanwhile, 73% said Obama did better than expected, compared to 37% who said the same about Romney.

The results offer a stark contrast from the first presidential showdown on October 3, when 67% of debate watchers said Romney fared better while 25% said Obama won the debate.

I think I read somewhere that before the first debate almost 80% expected Obama to win the debate. Part of why he lost so badly is that he was almost universally expected to win, which made his listless performance even more shocking.

 

[mikedenk]

Candy Crowley: what a miserable piece of lying garbage. The Republicans rolled over by allowing all 4 debates to be moderated by liberals, and tonight they paid the price for their weakness when Crowley decided to waddle her fat ass right into the middle of the exchange and start cheerleading for Obama on the Libya issue.

CNN is already admitting the mistake. I will be surprised if the execrable Crowley has the moral courage to publicly apologize to the Romney campaign and to the American people.

All in all a good debate though, I have to give the edge to Obama on points.

 

[Cain]

To be fair Obama did say that the gas prices were so low because of the recession. I'll concede your point that he should have called him a dumb ****.

That's reassuring. I had probably walked away before he got there. I know Joe Biden woulda been like, "Listen here, Captain Hair Cut: That's malarky. Malarky! And you know it."

 

[DavidJames]

Luntz's sampling group must've lied through their teeth to get selected as purportedly "undecided" and one of them probably told us how it was done...

I don't want to get this off track, but that's a question I've had. Pretty much every local station, not to mention national media, has a room of "undecided's", they monitor and poll. I've got to believe each campaign works tooth and nail to get their people into those rooms to skew the results.

How do they really know they have people who truly are undecided and not just shills?

 

[Cain]

Luntz's sampling group must've lied through their teeth to get selected as purportedly "undecided" and one of them probably told us how it was done. When he chose her to answer a question as to what moved her to decide for Romney after tonight, she responded, "Oh, I wasn't undecided between Romney and Obama, I was undecided between Romney and not voting..." And he's selling this back to Sean as an interesting sampling.

I hear ya, man. At the beginning Luntz has them raise their hand "Who voted for Obama in 2008?" I'd say a majority of hands went up. Then he asked, "how many are going to vote for him this time" and maybe four hands were up. Most of those people were unbelievably old, too. Fox viewers. They probably don't even buy green bananas.

 

[R.Mackey]

Candy Crowley: what a miserable piece of lying garbage. [...] I will be surprised if the execrable Crowley has the moral courage to publicly apologize to the Romney campaign and to the American people.

Oh look, more people blaming the moderator.

I'm going to say that Obama won by about the same margin that he lost the first debate. Which is to say, not by all that much if you look at it objectively, but in this election it'll make a difference.

What matters most is that the short-lived myth of Romney's invincibility against the haplessly teleprompterless Obama is now well and forever punctured.

 

[Puppycow]

I don't understand why people seem to be focused on the "binders full of women" comment. Clearly he meant binders full of resumes from women.

TRENDING: 'Binders full of women' raises brows

The more important part of that answer is that Romney didn't answer the question. The question was about pay equity and he didn't say anything at all about pay equity in his answer.

 

[Caper]

I'm going to say that Obama won by about the same margin that he lost the first debate. Which is to say, not by all that much if you look at it objectively,

Then you are simply not looking at it objectively. It has to be a significant victory though.

 

[332nd]

Not a KO by Obama but some nice shots. Funny how many of my "Conservative" friends think it was a draw & only because of the moderator.