2012 Debates

[Puppycow]

People are also claiming a "fact check" shows we have more bayonets today than 1916.

We still have bayonets. Probably, almost certainly fewer than in 1916 (WW I).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/22/do-troops-still-use-bayonets/

 

[Caper]

I didn't watch tonight, but I tuned in right at the end of Romney's final speech. I watched NBC's talking heads for about 15 minutes.

The impression I got was that there was no clear winner, but that Romney looked awfully presidential, which would mean that in voter terms, Romney won.

The consensus here is that Obama won. Bias? Or was it that NBC didn't want to appear partisan in their first few minutes of discussion?

There is incredible bias here.... Obama could debate like Sarah Palin out there and it would be an epic win around here....... But the parts I saw... Obama did very well.

Romney looks dumb talking foreign policy... and Obama really knew his stuff.... and frankly was right. He's done a good job.

Romney looks better talking the economy... and this is why. To get elected... as they all do... Obama promised the world... or was at least perceived to. Now he has to answer as to why the economy is still bad. What is he supposed to say? The truth? That a president really doesn't have that much control over the economy? I made you believe all that stuff because... well that's what you have to do? It's always easier being the challenger when talking the economy....

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

But it's good to know that he loves teachers.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

It seemed like Romney loaded himself up with some Valium and Propranolol, then went out and delivered a series of rehearsed generic/non-offensive platitudes. ..

The "attacking me is not a policy" was injected at an awkward time revealing it was clearly a rehearsed platitude.

 

[Foolmewunz]

I didn't watch tonight, but I tuned in right at the end of Romney's final speech. I watched NBC's talking heads for about 15 minutes.

The impression I got was that there was no clear winner, but that Romney looked awfully presidential, which would mean that in voter terms, Romney won.

The consensus here is that Obama won. Bias? Or was it that NBC didn't want to appear partisan in their first few minutes of discussion?

It's always best to not watch the actual debate and wait for the spin doctors. That way you don't get your opinions all cluttered up with facts.

I didn't see that discussion on NBC, but I saw the same one on CNN. And you know what it boils down to... that was the person on the panel who had the Spin Right lever. He/She said the same on CNN, and probably on ABC and CBS. They were working two points... "Well, in the battle to LOOK PRESIDENTIAL, he actually didn't hurt himself at all", and the more telling point... "This debate didn't matter. Mitt's got the Big Mo and Obama didn't bloody him or make him come off like a deranged warmonger."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I may have to resign from these forums. I think we have proof of reincarnation. That wasn't Mitt Romney, it was the spirit of George McGovern. I wish the debate had gone on an hour longer, we'd probably have seen Mitt's hair growing longer and him flashing the peace sign.

He's firm on pulling the troops out, doesn't think killing is a good thing, agrees with Obama's handling of everything but would be even more reasonable. I expected him to eschew the usual closing and go with "Peace! Out!"

CSPAN replayed two debates I watched tonight. They were more interesting than repetitive predictions of what the candidates needed to do or would do that played all day long on the usual news outlets.

CSPAN showed Reagan debating Mondale and Bush senior debating Dukakis. It was very worthwhile watching. So many of the same issues were covered.

 

[Caper]

I'm not seeing that 6 or 7 point drop on intrade, like after last debate.

 

[Foolmewunz]

CSPAN replayed two debates I watched tonight. They were more interesting than repetitive predictions of what the candidates needed to do or would do that played all day long on the usual news outlets.

CSPAN showed Reagan debating Mondale and Bush senior debating Dukakis. It was very worthwhile watching. So many of the same issues were covered.

I wish I could get C-Span over here.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm not seeing that 6 or 7 point drop on intrade, like after last debate.

Give it time. Obama nailed it. I predict it'll show up in the polls by the next 48 hours.

 

[R.Mackey]

I got bored with this debate live about 0:30 into it...

Having now finished it, what a dull, useless debate. We saw NOTHING new at all.

Romney offered no solutions for anything. Nothing but iceberg spotting. His entire argument is either "we have failed to lead in the past" or "I'll make America strong," or "we'll implement strategies" like a bad parody of Dilbert's pointy-haired boss.

Obama basically defended his record, which in foreign policy is rather strong in my opinion, but he was perfectly happy to chase Romney down the rabbit hole and retort on such critical foreign policy issues as Massachusetts teachers and Detroit auto bailouts. Thus, no substance.

Obama did come out swinging and his tone was appropriate. He wasted few opportunities to call out Romney on his more idiotic acts of revisionism, but it's nothing you don't already know unless you don't read the papers. Romney for his part doubled down on even the stupidest claims, even reiterating his "weakest Navy since 1917" nonsense. I have to assume he did that because some focus group told him it was a good line, scoring well with Reaganites who remember fondly his "600 ship Navy" and think we should reactivate the Iowa class no matter the cost, rather than the more parsimonious explanation which is that he really is that much of a dunce.

Moderation was OK. Candy Crowley was better, Martha Raddatz still deserves a Pulitzer for her turn at the helm, but Schieffer managed to poke back a little at being overrun without being too obtrusive. I have no illusions that I'd be able to moderate a debate like this one, at least not without microphone control, a bullhorn, and a sidearm...

In the end it's a big loser for Mittens. This is two debates in a row he's lost -- nothing stinging in either one, but the trend is now established, and it shows his first debate win was a true anomaly. He's failed to deliver on suddenly heightened expectations. Sure, he wasn't blown out of the room like his understudy was, but nothing in his performance tonight provides compelling evidence that he's anything but a stuffed shirt.

I predict there will be almost no motion in the polls, and won't be until election day.

I'm now operating under the theory that the first debate simply awakened a vast swath of low-information voters who had actually tuned out their Limbaugh-fueled hatred for Obama, yet found it again and relit their torches at the slightest opportunity. Win or lose, you will be hard pressed to find such a remarkable impact from a single debate in the last hundred years, and harder still to pinpoint just what it was.

 

[mikedenk]

Give it time. Obama nailed it. I predict it'll show up in the polls by the next 48 hours.

Wishful thinking IMO.

What was it about this debate that will cause a shift? Did a significant amount of people even tune in? Where would an Obama bump come from - did he show something tonight that people haven't seen in the past 4 years? Did Romney open himself up to a line of attack that hasn't been hammered upon over the past few months?

Unfortunately for the anxiety-prone among us, I think we'll see the same thing going forward as we've seen recently: a really tight race.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

In the pre-debate analysis on CNN they were saying that the first debate was the most important one in history. As in ever. As in more important than the Nixon/Kennedy one. (And thus this debate couldn't really mean anything.)

That's when I decided to officially stop listening to the pundits. I had already given up on watching the news shows constantly like I did four years ago. That was just the last nail in the coffin.

 

[Foolmewunz]

In the pre-debate analysis on CNN they were saying that the first debate was the most important one in history. As in ever. As in more important than the Nixon/Kennedy one. (And thus this debate couldn't really mean anything.)

That's when I decided to officially stop listening to the pundits. I had already given up on watching the news shows constantly like I did four years ago. That was just the last nail in the coffin.

I believe I saw that exchange or a variation of it and it was the portion I mentioned above. They're coming out of two debates, as Mackey pointed out, that he pretty clearly lost. On this one, the debate points went so clearly to Obama that rather than trying to spin another one out of the ashes, they're going with "it didn't matter". If it was the segment that I saw, about five minutes after the close of the debate, Carville called him on it immediately and in his no BS fashion said, (I paraphrase), "Well, that's what they have to do - try to spin this debate as unimportant because their boy lost again."

ETA: Pre-debate? Interesting. I thought you said "post debate". So they were working this theme ahead of time knowing he'd get trounced.

 

[R.Mackey]

ETA: Pre-debate? Interesting. I thought you said "post debate". So they were working this theme ahead of time knowing he'd get trounced.

It was a pretty safe bet. Romney has been predictably awful on anything foreign policy -- that is to say, anything he can't handwave "I was a governor!" or "I ran the Olympics!" or "I ran a business!" at, he's got nothing.

 

[Lowpro]

Wishful thinking IMO.

What was it about this debate that will cause a shift? Did a significant amount of people even tune in? Where would an Obama bump come from - did he show something tonight that people haven't seen in the past 4 years? Did Romney open himself up to a line of attack that hasn't been hammered upon over the past few months?

Unfortunately for the anxiety-prone among us, I think we'll see the same thing going forward as we've seen recently: a really tight race.

The debate reminded us that Obama doesn't suck and Mittens has only two abilities: Prove Obama sucks which he couldn't do, and then his other argument failed because his argument would have been "here's what I can do to get things going right"

When you can't beat the first step the other ones don't matter too much.

On a serious note how come Romney and well, anyone doesn't ask Obama about the "enemy combatants" designation and collateral damage as if it were a whitewash? That seems like something easy to stir up democrats and the talking heads while Republicans won't care because they'll vote for the Unabomber if he's the Republican front runner.

 

[davefoc]

This was the first debate that I've seen any significant part of. I really hate the debates. Two guys that really agree on a lot of stuff going out of their way to exaggerate their differences, and going out of their way to show what an idiot the other guy is and vastly over simplifying complex issues.

But I was over at my Dad's house this evening and he and his wife were watching them. I thought I was going to get some relief during dinner but dinner was moved to a room with a TV so we could keep watching them.

One of the things I was curious about was Romney's smirking. It looked childish to me, but I've decided to vote for Obama and it was hard for me to judge whether it was as bad as it looked or if I just wanted to see something that was confirming a decision I'd made already. Obama's expressions and demeanor seemed to be nearly perfect to me. He appeared respectively interested in what Romney was saying when that was appropriate and he seemed appropriately stern faced when Romney was going off on him.

I wondered how much Romney bought into a lot of his foreign policy theories. It seems like he pretty much he agreed with what Obama had done but he was straining to figure out why Obama had really screwed it up and he would have done it so much better even though he couldn't quite figure out what Obama had done that was so bad and how what he would have done that was so different except for crazy Republican schtick about how the US is supposed to be like the lone ranger righting all the wrongs of the world. Does Romney really believe the US military budget should be expanded? Does Romney really believe that the US president should have shown support for the Iranian dissidents, a country where identification with the US isn't going to be exactly help your cause. I gave Romney the benefit of the doubt on some of this stuff. He needs to claim he'd act like a crazy Republican because that's what the base expects but in reality he'd be rational on foreign policy. It didn't go that way when Cheney was president but I think he was out there even by Republican standards.

As an aside, my Dad is a partisan Republican and expanding the military budget is a relentlessly winning issue for him. There is no such thing as a military budget that wouldn't be better if it was bigger as my dad sees things. But what's the point of pandering to a group like that in this debate? Did Romney really need to fire up partisans like my Dad to vote for him? Newsflash to Romney, partisans like my dad are going to vote for you, period, but is expanding the military really a winning issue amongst the swing voters?

 

[R.Mackey]

I wondered how much Romney bought into a lot of his foreign policy theories. [...] Does Romney really believe the US military budget should be expanded?

[...] I gave Romney the benefit of the doubt on some of this stuff. He needs to claim he'd act like a crazy Republican because that's what the base expects but in reality he'd be rational on foreign policy. It didn't go that way when Cheney was president but I think he was out there even by Republican standards.

This might be a good time to point out that Dick Cheney, once upon a time, was the SecDef who gave us the post-Cold War "Peace Dividend." Except he did a complete reversal under W.

The Republican Party establishment is totally off the rails. There are a few Republicans who are actually serious about fiscal responsibility and don't treat the military as a gigantic sacred cow (or even a golden calf!), but they are few and far between.

This all makes Romney particularly dangerous in my opinion. We know he's making stuff up as he goes along. But who can say what he'll actually do? Lacking any evidence of conviction or reasoning on his part, I find it quite plausible that he'll take on the mantle of the neo-cons if elected.

 

[Rebel Yellow]

The horses and bayonets comment was the greatest most brilliant most condescending destruction of the republican "more military spending = stronger military" talking point I have ever seen.
"We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities."

 

[davefoc]

The horses and bayonets comment was the greatest most brilliant most condescending destruction of the republican "more military spending = stronger military" talking point I have ever seen.
"We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities."

I noticed this also. As I mentioned above, it seemed like Romney found Obama's views so reasonable that the only way he could distance himself from them was to take the looney toons position. The danger of that for Romney was exactly what happened here. Obama made him look like an idiot for taking the looney toons position and deservedly so in my opinion.

 

[SezMe]

The Republican Party establishment is totally off the rails. There are a few Republicans who are actually serious about fiscal responsibility and don't treat the military as a gigantic sacred cow (or even a golden calf!), but they are few and far between.

Thank the FSM that Dick Lugar is still a major player and sane voice in the Senate ... oh, wait ....