Presidential Debate Obama VS Romney Round 1

[Lord MJ]

To a conservative viewer, the debate appeared as if Romney masterfully picked Obama's talking points apart one by one. And the day after Obama is coming out and saying all of Romney's talking points were lies. Which sounds like whining.

Whether the narrow undecided voters have the same impression remains to be seen.

The one thing though is that we didn't need conservatives showing up in droves to vote against Obama. A poor Romney showing would get some of them to stay home, like they did in 2008. Fortunately the enthusiasm gap among the democrats has been closed over the last 2 months, but Obama does need to get the ship right by the next debate.

[Lord MJ]

Looks like Romney's strategy is to brand himself as the centrist business savvy man that understands the intricacies of the economy and knows how to fix it. In other words, how Romney should have been brandin himself all along.

[Jim Raynor]

According to all the media coverage, Romney "won" the debate quite strongly. That's the current storyline, and two out of three "undecided" voters thinks so.

Of course, it just shows how utterly stupid politics is, and how style rules over substance in these live TV debates. From my own observations, both candidates seemed to dodge the "tough" (read: simple to answer but politically controversial) questions and blatantly changed the topic during the early portions of the debate. Neither one seemed comfortable with openly embracing the tax policies that they've been clearly supporting up to this point, now that a significant portion of the population was actually watching. For example, Romney really didn't want to say that he wanted tax cuts for the rich, working hard to market himself as a "middle class" guy instead. "Middle class" this, "middle class" that.

I think my favorite part (and someone correct me if I remember this wrong), was when Mitt insisted that it doesn't matter if economists say that his tax cuts will add to the deficit, because he says that his tax cuts and unspecified loophole closing won't add to the deficit. Was that circular reasoning or what? Obama actually called him on that numerous times, pointing out how Romney refused to name his loopholes and actually do the math. But Americans don't give a damn about the details or the math.

No, it was all about repeating certain key words to pander to the lowest common denominator. The CNN coverage tracked test audience reactions on a graph at the bottom of the screen throughout the debate. The reactions to both candidates' arguments were predictably normal for most of the debate. But I knew that Romney hit a home run when he maxed out with both male and female viewers, something that Obama didn't come close to doing all night. That just so happened to be when he spoke up and started checking off a list of words that included "Constitution," "military," "freedom," etc.

Meanwhile, Obama was trying to make an honest rebuttal by calmly going over the facts. The average person couldn't care less. In fact, the big criticism against Obama in all the post-debate commentary so far is that he came off as "too professorial." Which is really another way of saying that you need to embrace anti-intellectualism in order to "win" a debate on the national stage. I read no less than three articles on the front pages of major news sources claiming that Romney had won big, on the grounds that he "set the tone," "took the offensive," or made himself "more likable." Who cares about whether his arguments actually stood up under scrutiny?

The silver lining to all this is that the Romney campaign had so completely screwed things up over the last couple of weeks, that Obama still has a good lead on him. But still, this was ugly to watch.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

These televised debates have never been an actual intellectual exercise between the candidates. But it's a dog and pony show that Obama needs to do well in if he wants to retain the presidency. For crying out loud, I hope he and his campaign advisers know that.

[D.Turtle]

I'm with Paul Krugman on this. This debate is quite an effective test of the US political media: do they only care about appearances, or are they willing to call out the blatant lies Romney made in order to appear better.

[Havok]

Is that a serious question?

[Dalton]

Is that a serious question?

Just taking a quick glance at the rundowns for TRMS and Lawrence, I think we will see a chronicling of Mitt's mendacity tonight on at least one show.

[Jim Raynor]

I'm with Paul Krugman on this. This debate is quite an effective test of the US political media: do they only care about appearances, or are they willing to call out the blatant lies Romney made in order to appear better.

Oh, they fact check in separate segments and articles. That fact checking just gets completely drowned out by the attention-grabbing headlines and storylines that they really want to push. The media embrace Mitt's gains on "appearances" because saying that he took it to the president and made this a "horserace" makes for a better story. The average barely-interested person sees that and believes that Mitt really did school Obama.

[Tribun]

I have a more fundamental question:

Are these debates really THAT important, or are they just a hugely inflated media balloon with little actual importance? Possible that these had been important in the past, but I'm quite unsure about today.

Personally I wonder why these are hyped so much. After all it's not like "Oh, Mitt pull such a nice perforcance. Let's forget or previous (negative) opinon about him and start the worship.".

[Gaidin]

Not many things attract 60 million viewers, undecided voters or not. I'd say they've got some weight behind them.

[Patrick Degan]

I have a more fundamental question:

Are these debates really THAT important, or are they just a hugely inflated media balloon with little actual importance? Possible that these had been important in the past, but I'm quite unsure about today.

Personally I wonder why these are hyped so much. After all it's not like "Oh, Mitt pull such a nice perforcance. Let's forget or previous (negative) opinon about him and start the worship.".

In terms of substance, the televised debates have little value. In terms of style, an outstanding or poor performance can make or break a candidate, or an incumbent. Ford never recovered from his "no Soviet domination of East Europe" gaffe (especially not after Chevy Chase got finished with it, and him), nor did Michael Dukakis rise again after coming off that one debate as Zorba the Clerk even in response to a hypothetical question about how he'd feel about the death penalty if his wife was a murder victim.

[Lord MJ]

Would you believe Obama's debate performance was that poor that it can be ranked along with Ford or Dukakis statements. I didn't feel Obama did that poorly or Romney that well for it to have that drastic an effect, but I'm not the best judge of such things.

[Patrick Degan]

Would you believe Obama's debate performance was that poor that it can be ranked along with Ford or Dukakis statements. I didn't feel Obama did that poorly or Romney that well for it to have that drastic an effect, but I'm not the best judge of such things.

It could have been a lot better than it was, but no, Obama's appearance wasn't anywhere near as bad as Ford 1976, Carter 1980 or Dukakis 1988.

[Simon_Jester]

Would you believe Obama's debate performance was that poor that it can be ranked along with Ford or Dukakis statements. I didn't feel Obama did that poorly or Romney that well for it to have that drastic an effect, but I'm not the best judge of such things.

I'm not hearing "he flubbed;" if he had, we'd be seeing Horrible Obama Quotes, something like "you didn't build that."

The "you didn't build that" quote would have been a disastrous thing to say during a debate.

[Patrick Degan]

Meanwhile, Earl Yazel of The Raw Story had this perspective on Obama's performance:

This Isn’t the ’90s: Why Obama Won Last Night’s Debate

By Earl Yazel
Thursday, October 4, 2012 18:25 EDT

 
Could we take exception to this blanket disparaging of President Obama’s debate performance last night? The very fact that some people thought a very calm Obama “lost” is exactly why I’m for him, in my heart, more than I was  a week or so ago.

People are behaving as if President Obama could have simply attacked Governor Romney in the manner that Bill Clinton can in speeches, or as Obama himself attacks in speeches.

But things aren’t that way — not for him, not in the format in question, and not in this situation.

And this sure as hell isn’t the 1990s, incidentally, is it?

Some of us also seem to think that the best thing that a sitting President can do when confronting someone like a Governor Romney in a limited debate setting is to behave as if he’s an NYU Political Science grad student  standing out at the Park and ramble on in an emotive webcast the moment Romney calls him a name, or tells a lie.

If Mr. Obama doesn’t behave like a very cool customer all the way through this electoral process– particularly face-to-face with his opponent — with more of the world watching than was ever before possible,  the consequences, day-to-day, before or after this election, are literally impossible for most of us to easily or entirely grasp at the moment here in the United States.

May we look at the latest headlines regarding only the “newer” international stories?  We have Turkey firing on Syria, and vice-versa.  We’ve got Japan and China exchanging very angry words about some little uninhabited “islets”…

… then there’s all that other stuff almost everyone knows about and has had time to digest. Perhaps all of this bores some of us because it’s older than a week — but it shouldn’t. Really, it shouldn’t.

This isn’t the 1990′s. Governor Romney can act as much like an old-school car salesman as he wants to, start yakking away about PBS, liken President Obama to one of his “boys”… and use all of those old debate tricks to engage Mr. Obama’s overt anger. That’s Romney’s advantage at the moment.

And it’s all he has. However: doing these obvious, jerky dodges about the same old stuff, taxes and health care for ninety minutes rather than anything else regarding domestic policy, and simultaneously lying about these matters as he glares and beams… none of these tricks will work when he’s talking about anything beyond, or approaching, the Cayman Islands.

What’s galling about this regarding progressive types today is how they’re behaving as if all this simply wasn’t the case.

President Clinton can, indeed, come out and be Elvis in the party atmosphere of a convention, throw out one-liners, and everyone can be nostalgic for the time that he was President — which, indeed, is very good, great for morale, and we all loved that speech — but Elvis isn’t Obama’s meme, anyhow.

Obama is Denzel.  President Obama, particularly in debates that the globe is watching and re-watching more closely than even the debates of four years ago, simply can’t be as emotional as he is in his campaign speeches. Especially when standing across a stage from his opponent. Has it ever occurred to some of you that this was the very first time that many people overseas have ever actually seen Governor Romney beyond a photo or a soundbite on CNN International? They got a load of him in the British press and media, all right, during the Olympics… think he’d win a national election, there, now?

“Well, yeah, all of that doesn’t matter — this was about America only, last night…”  Sure, sure, sure. sure. Get all Isolationist on me, now. It’s convenient, but it just doesn’t stand up to the larger world scenario that we’re now all in. We can’t say the world is watching one moment regarding some street brawl between cops and a crowd on a suburban street somewhere in the U.S., and then get cozy about how Mr. Obama should have given Romney  Ye Ol’  Smackdown last night as if it were Just Us. It makes no sense.

Obama can let Romney chatter on and on, and he needs to be polite and calm, even as Romney dismisses and commandeers the agenda from the moderator for a time (a newsperson renowned for acting the gentleman on all occasions and the U.S. pundits are now ballyhooing for being badgered and bullied), and Mr. Romney can fill the air with chatter — until things go Tea Party, again, and once again the Republican candidate is complaining about Big Bird, complaining about Spain. And saying a great many things that he himself knows won’t line up with facts even as he, himself, has previously stated them.

Governor Romney knows this, and so does President Obama. Why don’t more of us?

[Simon_Jester]

If Romney wins, it becomes largely irrelevant that he looks stupid to foreigners- if anything that makes it worse. They aren't voting in the election; they're just awaiting it.

So yes, I do think it's appropriate to analyze the debates in terms of domestic reaction, not foreign. Nearly any political event should be thought of like that, because a nation's internal politics are internal.

[Patrick Degan]

If Romney wins, it becomes largely irrelevant that he looks stupid to foreigners- if anything that makes it worse. They aren't voting in the election; they're just awaiting it.

So yes, I do think it's appropriate to analyze the debates in terms of domestic reaction, not foreign. Nearly any political event should be thought of like that, because a nation's internal politics are internal.

Yes, but that's not the point of the article. As I read it, it's more how Obama looks to foreigners in a world where he has to deal with these several foreign policy crises than how Romney looks. That seems to be Yazel's perspective on the matter.

[Simon_Jester]

Fair enough.

[Edward Yee]

To a conservative viewer, the debate appeared as if Romney masterfully picked Obama's talking points apart one by one. And the day after Obama is coming out and saying all of Romney's talking points were lies. Which sounds like whining.

Whether the narrow undecided voters have the same impression remains to be seen.

The one thing though is that we didn't need conservatives showing up in droves to vote against Obama. A poor Romney showing would get some of them to stay home, like they did in 2008. Fortunately the enthusiasm gap among the democrats has been closed over the last 2 months, but Obama does need to get the ship right by the next debate.

I recall that apparently money's been diverted (back) to Romney from Congressional races, so that's another upside for his candidacy. Previously, I'd read speculation that Romney's "red meat" material lately (the ones that were taken as gaffes by the media) were due to a belief that there weren't actually enough swing voters for them to matter as much as maximizing base turnout.

[Crossroads Inc.]

For me, what the "debates" come down to, is not Winning an election, but making sure you do not do something that will Loose you the election. Basically giving fuel the other person can use against you, and Romney did that in SPADES already there are commercials in the works using him and Obama is going on and on about the out and out lies he said.

Mean while, what does Romney have to crow about? "Winning" the debate, and a small bump in the polls that will evaporate quickly...

[Dalton]

Jon Stewart just eviscerated Obama. Ouch.

[Blayne]

I think the only problem with watching the debates, at least for me is not having real time fact checkers handy; has anyone somewhere taken up that burden? Or do I need to wait for the post debate analysis?

For instance, Obama claims you can get a tax deduction for moving a plant overseas, Romney claims you don't using his business experience. Here's one answer to that one.

[Patrick Degan]

Meanwhile, what does Romney have to crow about? "Winning" the debate, and a small bump in the polls that will evaporate quickly...

And it doesn't look like Mittens even got that. The poll numbers at Real Clear Politics look not to have moved a point, Obama's leads in Ohio and Wisconsin —two key battleground states (and one being Paul Ryan's home)— are huge, and the latest Gallup poll puts Obama at a 54% job approval rating —with one month to go to election day. Meanwhile, Romney's lies and flip-flops are being dissected in the media and, yes, the Obama campaign is feeding them into its ammunition banks even as we speak.

Romney looks to have failed to achieve any of his objectives for the debate. Which means, overall, he lost.

[Broken]

I recall being told that Obama can never, ever come across as the "angry black man" on the national stage. It was like that back in 2008 during the primaries and the election and I can't imagine it is any different today. How much that constrains Obama at the debates is unknown, but I would think that remains a factor in his thinking. Perhaps he played too cautiously, but it is hard to fault him with that specter lurking over him.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Meanwhile, what does Romney have to crow about? "Winning" the debate, and a small bump in the polls that will evaporate quickly...

And it doesn't look like Mittens even got that. The poll numbers at Real Clear Politics look not to have moved a point, Obama's leads in Ohio and Wisconsin —two key battleground states (and one being Paul Ryan's home)— are huge, and the latest Gallup poll puts Obama at a 54% job approval rating —with one month to go to election day. Meanwhile, Romney's lies and flip-flops are being dissected in the media and, yes, the Obama campaign is feeding them into its ammunition banks even as we speak.

Romney looks to have failed to achieve any of his objectives for the debate. Which means, overall, he lost.

Pile that on top of the large uptick in the Job Numbers this month.
Sure it is still low and We all know the Economy is still sputtering along, BUT it looks damn good to toss in Mitts face, and the next job numbers aren't out until right before the actual election.

Also the "Angry Black Man" is a sad but true thing he has to deal with. I would say he DID play things more then a bit too conservative, however in this case he held his own, and in my earlier statement, all it ended up with is Mittens giving a lot more ammunition for him to use.