Presidential Debate Thread - Obama vs. Romney (1 Viewer)

[Joe T]

It is pretty telling that 99% of the discussion here is around things Romney said.

It's pretty telling that 99% of the things Romney said were factually inaccurate or only moderately true.

Agree, but at least he had something to say.

 

[dparker713]

They are certainly warranted by the policy he is proposing.

Disagree until we know more details.

Guy's been running for president for 6 years. How much longer are we supposed to wait for something concrete that he actualy stands behind?

 

[identikit]

Perhaps the m.o. here is that no one likes an odds-on favorite. Obama was turning into that going into this debate, and had he won, he would've been the overwhelming favorite.

Perhaps by sandbagging this debate, he can come out guns blazing after Romney regains some of his shine, and really knock him down.

The people like their political narratives to have plot twists, and perhaps team-Obama is just delivering the drama the people want. Perhaps he wants people to think the outcome is in doubt and they need to go to the polls to ensure it. Perhaps he wants the narrative to be "Romneys surprise comeback" for a week or two, only to be battered and bashed after 2 weeks to ride the victory to the finish line and the election.

Or perhaps I'm just imagining rationale that never existed in order to make up for a poor performance by Obama and poor strategy by his team...nah.

 

[adonis]

It is pretty telling that 99% of the discussion here is around things Romney said.

It's pretty telling that 99% of the things Romney said were factually inaccurate or only moderately true.

Agree, but at least he had something to say.

Agree, as long as you're agreeing that he had nothing to say.

 

[Joe T]

It is pretty telling that 99% of the discussion here is around things Romney said.

It's pretty telling that 99% of the things Romney said were factually inaccurate or only moderately true.

Agree, but at least he had something to say.

Agree, as long as you're agreeing that he had nothing to say.

So you guys have spent 48 pages here on nothing? Got it.

 

[adonis]

It is pretty telling that 99% of the discussion here is around things Romney said.

It's pretty telling that 99% of the things Romney said were factually inaccurate or only moderately true.

Agree, but at least he had something to say.

Agree, as long as you're agreeing that he had nothing to say.

So you guys have spent 48 pages here on nothing? Got it.

I think it's been 48 pages complaining about how someone who has been inaccurate about 99% of the things he said was perceived to have won the debate, as well as discussing all the opportunities Obama missed to point out the inaccuracies, and just overall kvetching.

 

[Zegras11]

Had Obama shown some aggression or called him out more defiantly on his misrepresentation of his tax plan

I was shocked that he didn't hit this repeatedly. Should have thrown down the gauntlet in his closing comments too.Romney did very well stylistically. He dominated Obama. Whether it translates to votes will depend on whether the media pounces on Romney's complete lack of specifics about how he'll accomplish the impossible.

I think Obama was thrown off his game early on when Romney flat out denied that his tax plan was what he said it was. But I guess when you haven't laid out your plan, you can just deny everything.

Why is his plan what you believe Obama says it is and not what's listed on Mitt's site. Mitt's site has ALWAYS said tax cuts while getting rid of loopholes.

 

[Ignoratio Elenchi]

What continues to baffle me is the insistence that tax cuts drive growth as if this is an economic law. If you plot the marginal income tax rates versus GDP growth, they show no correlation. It's a nice idea, though.

what is the r-squared?

I don't have the raw data, but here is one plot: My link

Also, one more thing, the plot shows that most of the time taxes were cut GDP growth spikes. So thanks for posting it.

You might want to recheck that plot.

what is the r-squared?

Don't want to jump in your back and forth with Pickles, but if you're asking this seriously, it's pretty easy to see from the plot that the r-squared is going to be reeeaaally close to zero. I'm not vouching for the validity of the chart or anything, but assuming it's accurate there's really no correlation there at all.

 

[Todd Andrews]

What's funny about this is the DNC new it was coming... Maybe not to this extent (Obama getting his ### handed to him). But they, the DNC was saying for a few days before the election that Obama would probably lose.

4 of the last 5 incumbents have lost the first debate. Kerry won all three of his debates against Bush in 2004 and the first won by a blowout just like it is perceived that Willard did last night. Obama didnt do very well and Willard came out swinging and was well prepared, but one contributing factor to the win is people seeing a direct contrast between the candidates for the first time with the challenger being elevated to equal footing for the first time. And to give them credit, Willard's team knew that and took advantage of the opportunity. I think we are in for some fun debates because now Obama and his team recalibrate and get more serious.

 

[Dickies]

My overall impression was that Obama spent too much time trying to explain things, getting bogged down in details. Lehrer, as ineffectual as he was, kept trying to get him to point out the difference between his platform and Romney's. He could have done this easily by sticking the the overall philosophy. He touched on it, but then he'd get off track. And once he realized Romney was going to deny whatever specifics he mentioned, he should have scrapped that strategy and gone with broader statements. I didn't think Romney came off particularly well. I don't think he took the debate and won it. But he wasn't as ineffective as Obama, who while I think he's clearly the better candidate did not explain why he is. It was like a schoolyard argument where one kid keeps defiantly saying "No I'm not" and the other kid doesn't have an answer.

Only thing I'll add to this is that Lehrer was terrible.

 

[snogger]

Next debate is the town hall debate. Think Mitt might have some questions to answer on Bain, 47%, Obamacare repeal, 13% tax rate then? Has to look the rabble in the eyes.

Don't care about Bain.. Much like the left wants to say Obama's relationship with the Reverend is yesterdays news, so is Bain..The "13%".. is a for me..

If you don't like the rate he paid.. Get rid of the tax code..

So tired of people saying they need to "fix" the code so the rich "pay their fair share" ... we don't need to fix it.. we need to throw it out the door, light it on fire, throw some :confetti: and never see it again.

Then we follow the CBO's recommendations of lowering everyone's tax rate and removing 99% of the Deductions/Loop holes .

If you don't like that idea, and you really want to tax the rich more.. implement the FairTax.. The Rich love to buy shiny new things

 

[Zegras11]

I think a second Obama term would be worse than Bush II's second term.

Thinking Romney is a better option than Obama, fine. I don't agree, but thats atleast in the realm of possibility. But worse than Dubya's second term? You mean the President that was in office for the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression? That's just absurd.

And that was Bush's fault? It had nothing to do with a housing bubble which was caused mostly by policies that were in place long before Bush was in office? The difference with Obama, a lot of the problems we have is because he has implimented a lot of dumb policies which are hurting the economy more than helping.

Let me see if have your position straight. The collapse of 2008 was not Dubya's fault because of policies of prior adminstrations and legislatures, but Obama is solely responsible for not completing a recovery from that same collapse inside of 4 years?That's Boston level homerism there.

Name one policy which Bush did which caused the housing bubble and financial collaspes. Bush was the only politician in DC who even attempted to do anything before it burst, but Barny Frank would have no part in that. The securitization of home mortgage loans lead to horrible practices in giving out terrible loans was the primary cause and was implimented under Clinton. Yes, Bush could have screamed louder and done more, but the animals had already left the barn. That bubble was going to crash. Bush's TARP was a huge success and by far the most important policy leading to our short-lived recovery. Under Obama, his policies of focusing on trying to keep government jobs, infastructure projects, green energy and demand side economics completely failed at producing long term results. That $800 billion stimulus should have focused on giving small businesses incentives to hire people. That would have produced real self-sustaining long terms jobs instead of the temporary ones which dry up as soon as government money goes away. The results of us headed back into decline was easily predictable based on Obama's stupid short-sided policies.

Kept Greenspan as Fed ChairRelaxed lending standards to up homeownership

Enacted tax cuts which were never paid for

2 wars, 1 of choice

Prescription drug benefit

No Child Left Behind

Gutted the SEC budget

Gutted bankruptcy law

Thats just off the top of my head. Both Bushes deserve plenty of the blame for the 2008 collapse, as does Clinton. To give Dubya a pass because he helped prevent a total collapse from a problem he helped create is nothing short of partisan hackery.

Clinton actually enacted this and Bush followed through with it.

 

[texasheat]

My overall impression was that Obama spent too much time trying to explain things, getting bogged down in details. Lehrer, as ineffectual as he was, kept trying to get him to point out the difference between his platform and Romney's. He could have done this easily by sticking the the overall philosophy. He touched on it, but then he'd get off track. And once he realized Romney was going to deny whatever specifics he mentioned, he should have scrapped that strategy and gone with broader statements. I didn't think Romney came off particularly well. I don't think he took the debate and won it. But he wasn't as ineffective as Obama, who while I think he's clearly the better candidate did not explain why he is. It was like a schoolyard argument where one kid keeps defiantly saying "No I'm not" and the other kid doesn't have an answer.

Only thing I'll add to this is that Lehrer was terrible.

I didn't really notice him, which imo means he did an admirable job.

 

[Mr. Pickles]

What continues to baffle me is the insistence that tax cuts drive growth as if this is an economic law. If you plot the marginal income tax rates versus GDP growth, they show no correlation. It's a nice idea, though.

what is the r-squared?

I don't have the raw data, but here is one plot: My link

Also, one more thing, the plot shows that most of the time taxes were cut GDP growth spikes. So thanks for posting it.

You might want to recheck that plot.

what is the r-squared?

Don't want to jump in your back and forth with Pickles, but if you're asking this seriously, it's pretty easy to see from the plot that the r-squared is going to be reeeaaally close to zero. I'm not vouching for the validity of the chart or anything, but assuming it's accurate there's really no correlation there at all.

If I had access to the data, I'd do it myself. I'm sure it's something quite small, maybe less than 0.2. I'm not good at eyeballing correlation coefficients. I'd be surprised if it was above 0.2, which is terrible.

 

[hutchins929]

Perhaps the m.o. here is that no one likes an odds-on favorite. Obama was turning into that going into this debate, and had he won, he would've been the overwhelming favorite.

Perhaps by sandbagging this debate, he can come out guns blazing after Romney regains some of his shine, and really knock him down.

The people like their political narratives to have plot twists, and perhaps team-Obama is just delivering the drama the people want. Perhaps he wants people to think the outcome is in doubt and they need to go to the polls to ensure it. Perhaps he wants the narrative to be "Romneys surprise comeback" for a week or two, only to be battered and bashed after 2 weeks to ride the victory to the finish line and the election.

Or perhaps I'm just imagining rationale that never existed in order to make up for a poor performance by Obama and poor strategy by his team...nah.

Honestly, I thought this same thought last night after the debate was over.

 

[Tau837]

Seems pretty obvious to me that not increasing the burden on the middle class refers to the burden per person/family. Increasing the size of the middle class, and thereby increasing the total tax revenue from the middle class does not equate to increasing the burden on the middle class.To argue otherwise is to suggest that increasing unemployment in the middle class is lessening the burden on the middle class.

It doesn't to me If that's what he means, then say that. If he says it that way then folks will realize he's counting on job growth in the middle class to offset taxes being placed on their "class" of people and if that growth doesn't happen, they are shouldering more of the bill. In other words, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

He's saying he wants to reduce taxes on the average middle class person/family. He is saying that reduction in tax revenue will be made up by some combination of (1) growth in employment, generating more tax revenue and (2) reducing/eliminating loopholes that will lead to more tax revenue from the wealthy.The growth in employment will presumably be in the lower and middle classes. Let's say it's shifted enough to the middle class that the overall tax revenue generated by the middle class is higher than it is now... even so, that would be with (1) lower unemployment in the middle class and (2) lower taxes per middle class person/family.You seem to be somehow characterizing that situation as a negative for the middle class. Hence the

 

[ElGatoLoco]

He's promising castles in the sky and candy gumdrop rain. Tax cuts for everyone, some closing of loopholes, and increased military spending while staying revenue neutral.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. He will be hammered on this and I'll think you'll see more details in the coming weeks.This was the first time he laid out the plan, give him some time to explain it....last night was not the forum for the detail.Remember, the average American can't even define "deduction" .

He's had nearly 18 months apparently with this plan. How much more time does he need? I wouldn't be prepared to hand over the reigns of the country to a guy that doesn't have the details worked out before the election on the off chance that some magical pixie dust is going to make this pig fly.

 

[snogger]

Al Gore blames altitude for Obama performance..

“I’m going to say something controversial here,” Gore told Current TV. “Obama arrived in Denver at 2 pm today, just a few hours before the debate started. Romney did his debate prep in Denver. When you go to 5,000 feet and you only have a few hours to adjust, I don’t know.”

 

[The Commish]

Seems pretty obvious to me that not increasing the burden on the middle class refers to the burden per person/family. Increasing the size of the middle class, and thereby increasing the total tax revenue from the middle class does not equate to increasing the burden on the middle class.To argue otherwise is to suggest that increasing unemployment in the middle class is lessening the burden on the middle class.

It doesn't to me If that's what he means, then say that. If he says it that way then folks will realize he's counting on job growth in the middle class to offset taxes being placed on their "class" of people and if that growth doesn't happen, they are shouldering more of the bill. In other words, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"

He's saying he wants to reduce taxes on the average middle class person/family. He is saying that reduction in tax revenue will be made up by some combination of (1) growth in employment, generating more tax revenue and (2) reducing/eliminating loopholes that will lead to more tax revenue from the wealthy.The growth in employment will presumably be in the lower and middle classes. Let's say it's shifted enough to the middle class that the overall tax revenue generated by the middle class is higher than it is now... even so, that would be with (1) lower unemployment in the middle class and (2) lower taxes per middle class person/family.You seem to be somehow characterizing that situation as a negative for the middle class. Hence the

I do consider it a negative since the ONLY guarantee in any of that equation is the shift of liability. There is no guarantee that the middle class will "grow" and if my guess is correct on what "loopholes" he plans on cutting, I'm even less confident that it will "grow" enough to make a difference. Even if we assume his number of 12 million in new jobs is correct, that's still not enough to account for his proposed tax reductions. Math doesn't add up any way you go on this...like with Obama's healthcare proposal.

 

[Koya]

Are people really suggesting that Obama is slowplaying this?

Come on. He sucked. Flat out. Now, Romney sounded great, although I don't know which Romney is which anymore because he certainly didnt sound like a hard line right winger. But, he took some chances and needed to.

That said, Obama has not been the same guy the last year. His oratory skills have been lacking. The passion and ability to connect, emotionally, have not been there. If he can't bring that to the table in the final debate then the Dems will have given up a great chance to keep hold, unless they can really nail Romney down on the inconsistencies... and there are a lot out there.

Some interesting parallels to '04 with Kerry, his flip flopping, but better debates than Bush, fwiw.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

The XBox thing was cool in idea, not so much in practice. I would have prefered to have that line thing to react to as they said things I liked or disliked supimposed over the screen. Still, it is a start of what will likely be interactive stuff happening in these things more and more often.

 

[LHUCKS]

He's promising castles in the sky and candy gumdrop rain. Tax cuts for everyone, some closing of loopholes, and increased military spending while staying revenue neutral.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. He will be hammered on this and I'll think you'll see more details in the coming weeks.This was the first time he laid out the plan, give him some time to explain it....last night was not the forum for the detail.Remember, the average American can't even define "deduction" .

He's had nearly 18 months apparently with this plan. How much more time does he need? I wouldn't be prepared to hand over the reigns of the country to a guy that doesn't have the details worked out before the election on the off chance that some magical pixie dust is going to make this pig fly.

I didn't say he needed more time. I said he just laid out his plan...now give him time to explain it. Last night was not the forum.Why didn't he lay it out before last night?? Because you don't do that in presidential politics...hell, Obama gave the least amount of policy detail in the history of presidential politics in '07.Why is this difficult to understand? You don't give your gameplan to the opposing coach before the game. Christ.

 

[Claydon]

He's promising castles in the sky and candy gumdrop rain. Tax cuts for everyone, some closing of loopholes, and increased military spending while staying revenue neutral.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. He will be hammered on this and I'll think you'll see more details in the coming weeks.This was the first time he laid out the plan, give him some time to explain it....last night was not the forum for the detail.Remember, the average American can't even define "deduction" .

He's had nearly 18 months apparently with this plan. How much more time does he need? I wouldn't be prepared to hand over the reigns of the country to a guy that doesn't have the details worked out before the election on the off chance that some magical pixie dust is going to make this pig fly.

I didn't say he needed more time. I said he just laid out his plan...now give him time to explain it. Last night was not the forum.Why didn't he lay it out before last night?? Because you don't do that in presidential politics...hell, Obama gave the least amount of policy detail in the history of presidential politics in '07.Why is this difficult to understand? You don't give your gameplan to the opposing coach before the game. Christ.

He has had forever. I'd say a month before the election, when most people already know who they are voting for, is a bit late.

 

[LHUCKS]

He's promising castles in the sky and candy gumdrop rain. Tax cuts for everyone, some closing of loopholes, and increased military spending while staying revenue neutral.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. He will be hammered on this and I'll think you'll see more details in the coming weeks.This was the first time he laid out the plan, give him some time to explain it....last night was not the forum for the detail.Remember, the average American can't even define "deduction" .

He's had nearly 18 months apparently with this plan. How much more time does he need? I wouldn't be prepared to hand over the reigns of the country to a guy that doesn't have the details worked out before the election on the off chance that some magical pixie dust is going to make this pig fly.

I didn't say he needed more time. I said he just laid out his plan...now give him time to explain it. Last night was not the forum.Why didn't he lay it out before last night?? Because you don't do that in presidential politics...hell, Obama gave the least amount of policy detail in the history of presidential politics in '07.Why is this difficult to understand? You don't give your gameplan to the opposing coach before the game. Christ.

He has had forever. I'd say a month before the election, when most people already know who they are voting for, is a bit late.

Strategy seemed to work...it might not be what you like, but several analysts have commented that his new policy proposal was a curveball that Obama couldn't hit.This was more about strategy than it was about making the average viewer comfortable with the details of his economic plan.Worked like a charm as far as I can tell.

 

[Claydon]

He's promising castles in the sky and candy gumdrop rain. Tax cuts for everyone, some closing of loopholes, and increased military spending while staying revenue neutral.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. He will be hammered on this and I'll think you'll see more details in the coming weeks.This was the first time he laid out the plan, give him some time to explain it....last night was not the forum for the detail.Remember, the average American can't even define "deduction" .

He's had nearly 18 months apparently with this plan. How much more time does he need? I wouldn't be prepared to hand over the reigns of the country to a guy that doesn't have the details worked out before the election on the off chance that some magical pixie dust is going to make this pig fly.

I didn't say he needed more time. I said he just laid out his plan...now give him time to explain it. Last night was not the forum.Why didn't he lay it out before last night?? Because you don't do that in presidential politics...hell, Obama gave the least amount of policy detail in the history of presidential politics in '07.Why is this difficult to understand? You don't give your gameplan to the opposing coach before the game. Christ.

He has had forever. I'd say a month before the election, when most people already know who they are voting for, is a bit late.

Strategy seemed to work...it might not be what you like, but several analysts have commented that his new policy proposal was a curveball that Obama couldn't hit.This was more about strategy than it was about making the average viewer comfortable with the details of his economic plan.Worked like a charm as far as I can tell.

Well he should probably be working on making the average viewer comfortable. I'm still of the opinion that he has no plan.He will continue to run with the "Elect me and watch what I do then" platform.

 

[hutchins929]

Are people really suggesting that Obama is slowplaying this?

Come on. He sucked. Flat out. Now, Romney sounded great, although I don't know which Romney is which anymore because he certainly didnt sound like a hard line right winger. But, he took some chances and needed to.

That said, Obama has not been the same guy the last year. His oratory skills have been lacking. The passion and ability to connect, emotionally, have not been there. If he can't bring that to the table in the final debate then the Dems will have given up a great chance to keep hold, unless they can really nail Romney down on the inconsistencies... and there are a lot out there.

Some interesting parallels to '04 with Kerry, his flip flopping, but better debates than Bush, fwiw.

That's because he's not a hard line right winger. He's a moderate and that's why a lot of the base wasn't thrilled to get behind him.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

I didn't say he needed more time. I said he just laid out his plan...now give him time to explain it. Last night was not the forum.Why didn't he lay it out before last night?? Because you don't do that in presidential politics...hell, Obama gave the least amount of policy detail in the history of presidential politics in '07.Why is this difficult to understand? You don't give your gameplan to the opposing coach before the game. Christ.

He didn't "just lay out his plan." This is the same plan he's had for 18 months. An across the board 20% cut in tax rates, paid for by broadening the base in some way that he will work out with Congress. The only thing that might be said to be new (at least compared to what Ryan said last week) was that Ryan said that revenue neutrality would come before the rate cut (and Ryan said the opposite). Just because it's new to you doesn't make it new.

 

[Joe T]

What continues to baffle me is the insistence that tax cuts drive growth as if this is an economic law. If you plot the marginal income tax rates versus GDP growth, they show no correlation. It's a nice idea, though.

what is the r-squared?

I don't have the raw data, but here is one plot: My link

Also, one more thing, the plot shows that most of the time taxes were cut GDP growth spikes. So thanks for posting it.

You might want to recheck that plot.

what is the r-squared?

Don't want to jump in your back and forth with Pickles, but if you're asking this seriously, it's pretty easy to see from the plot that the r-squared is going to be reeeaaally close to zero. I'm not vouching for the validity of the chart or anything, but assuming it's accurate there's really no correlation there at all.

If I had access to the data, I'd do it myself. I'm sure it's something quite small, maybe less than 0.2. I'm not good at eyeballing correlation coefficients. I'd be surprised if it was above 0.2, which is terrible.

We can agree on one thing.

 

[Mr. Pickles]

What continues to baffle me is the insistence that tax cuts drive growth as if this is an economic law. If you plot the marginal income tax rates versus GDP growth, they show no correlation. It's a nice idea, though.

what is the r-squared?

I don't have the raw data, but here is one plot: My link

Also, one more thing, the plot shows that most of the time taxes were cut GDP growth spikes. So thanks for posting it.

You might want to recheck that plot.

what is the r-squared?

Don't want to jump in your back and forth with Pickles, but if you're asking this seriously, it's pretty easy to see from the plot that the r-squared is going to be reeeaaally close to zero. I'm not vouching for the validity of the chart or anything, but assuming it's accurate there's really no correlation there at all.

If I had access to the data, I'd do it myself. I'm sure it's something quite small, maybe less than 0.2. I'm not good at eyeballing correlation coefficients. I'd be surprised if it was above 0.2, which is terrible.

We can agree on one thing.

I plotted it. It's nearly zero. Which is good because it looks nearly zero.

 

[GoBirds]

I didn't say he needed more time. I said he just laid out his plan...now give him time to explain it. Last night was not the forum.Why didn't he lay it out before last night?? Because you don't do that in presidential politics...hell, Obama gave the least amount of policy detail in the history of presidential politics in '07.Why is this difficult to understand? You don't give your gameplan to the opposing coach before the game. Christ.

He didn't "just lay out his plan." This is the same plan he's had for 18 months. An across the board 20% cut in tax rates, paid for by broadening the base in some way that he will work out with Congress. The only thing that might be said to be new (at least compared to what Ryan said last week) was that Ryan said that revenue neutrality would come before the rate cut (and Ryan said the opposite). Just because it's new to you doesn't make it new.

If he's smart, which he appeared to be last night, he is going to compromise and come off some of his previous plans so that he can actually get some policies approved, unlike the President that tries to ram his horrible plans like Obamacare down everyones throats regardless of what people think. Romney very effectively called him out on this a number of times and he just stood there, duhhhhh.

 

[Politician Spock]

Are people really suggesting that Obama is slowplaying this?

Come on. He sucked. Flat out. Now, Romney sounded great, although I don't know which Romney is which anymore because he certainly didnt sound like a hard line right winger. But, he took some chances and needed to.

That said, Obama has not been the same guy the last year. His oratory skills have been lacking. The passion and ability to connect, emotionally, have not been there. If he can't bring that to the table in the final debate then the Dems will have given up a great chance to keep hold, unless they can really nail Romney down on the inconsistencies... and there are a lot out there.

Some interesting parallels to '04 with Kerry, his flip flopping, but better debates than Bush, fwiw.

The only time in Romney's political career that he's come accross as a hard line right winger is when he was trying to win the republican nomination. Everything he's done in his political career testifies that he's a moderate. One could lable him a Rockefeller republican, but even that is probably to far right for him on the political scale. Heck, he's so moderate that even John McCain looked more right wing than Romney did in 2008, which is probably why he pandered so much to the hard right during the 2012 nomination.

 

[Koya]

Are people really suggesting that Obama is slowplaying this?

Come on. He sucked. Flat out. Now, Romney sounded great, although I don't know which Romney is which anymore because he certainly didnt sound like a hard line right winger. But, he took some chances and needed to.

That said, Obama has not been the same guy the last year. His oratory skills have been lacking. The passion and ability to connect, emotionally, have not been there. If he can't bring that to the table in the final debate then the Dems will have given up a great chance to keep hold, unless they can really nail Romney down on the inconsistencies... and there are a lot out there.

Some interesting parallels to '04 with Kerry, his flip flopping, but better debates than Bush, fwiw.

The only time in Romney's political career that he's come accross as a hard line right winger is when he was trying to win the republican nomination. Everything he's done in his political career testifies that he's a moderate. One could lable him a Rockefeller republican, but even that is probably to far right for him on the political scale. Heck, he's so moderate that even John McCain looked more right wing than Romney did in 2008, which is probably why he pandered so much to the hard right during the 2012 nomination.

Totally agree, but in the context of this race how can we ignore that strong shift to the right for much of the last 18 months.

 

[shader]

Guys, can't you see what happened? Romney's team knows Obama isn't great at speaking off the cuff. They decided to stray from their message and throw curve-balls all night, to have Obama stuttering and confused and let Romney look smooth and polished. A few internet bloggers will "fact-check" but the average person had no idea what they were talking about anyway.

It was a desperate move to make Romney look good and Obama look like an idiot, and from what I can tell it worked. To what extent, remains to be seen.

Great debating skills by Romney. Whether what he said was true or a lie, that is irrelevant.

 

[Joe T]

What continues to baffle me is the insistence that tax cuts drive growth as if this is an economic law. If you plot the marginal income tax rates versus GDP growth, they show no correlation. It's a nice idea, though.

what is the r-squared?

I don't have the raw data, but here is one plot: My link

Also, one more thing, the plot shows that most of the time taxes were cut GDP growth spikes. So thanks for posting it.

You might want to recheck that plot.

what is the r-squared?

Don't want to jump in your back and forth with Pickles, but if you're asking this seriously, it's pretty easy to see from the plot that the r-squared is going to be reeeaaally close to zero. I'm not vouching for the validity of the chart or anything, but assuming it's accurate there's really no correlation there at all.

If I had access to the data, I'd do it myself. I'm sure it's something quite small, maybe less than 0.2. I'm not good at eyeballing correlation coefficients. I'd be surprised if it was above 0.2, which is terrible.

We can agree on one thing.

I plotted it. It's nearly zero. Which is good because it looks nearly zero.

alright, I'll allow it. <_<

 

[Run It Up]

Guys, can't you see what happened? Romney's team knows Obama isn't great at speaking off the cuff. They decided to stray from their message and throw curve-balls all night, to have Obama stuttering and confused and let Romney look smooth and polished. A few internet bloggers will "fact-check" but the average person had no idea what they were talking about anyway.It was a desperate move to make Romney look good and Obama look like an idiot, and from what I can tell it worked. To what extent, remains to be seen. Great debating skills by Romney. Whether what he said was true or a lie, that is irrelevant.

Off the cuff/Curve-ball: Completely change your stance anytime something is directed towards you. Its genius when you think about it.But dont think about it for too long, it will give you cancer, and then you wont be able to get health insurance.

 

[Zegras11]

If there was ever evidence we are in a "post truth" political world last night was it.

Romney won but I will be interested to see how much pushback they get on several blatant lies.

In particular the 5 trillion tax cut that seems to have vanished.

I think O was pulling some O/T on the Turkey/Syria deal and it showed.

Hasn't he always said that it will be offset by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions? The only issue is the details on which ones.

And that's everything in this discussion. There aren't enough loopholes and deductions to close for the rich alone to cover an across the board 20% tax cut and hike in military spending. It cannot be done. If you start lopping off mortgage deductions for everyone, now you're making progress. Mitt claims he won't do that. Sorry, you'll have to put some of the burden on the middle class to make the numbers work.

Then why are Mitt's loopholes such a big deal?

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

If he's smart, which he appeared to be last night, he is going to compromise and come off some of his previous plans so that he can actually get some policies approved, unlike the President that tries to ram his horrible plans like Obamacare down everyones throats regardless of what people think. Romney very effectively called him out on this a number of times and he just stood there, duhhhhh.

This is ludicrous. Do you really think Obamacare is the plan liberals wanted? No single-payer. No public option. Obamacare wasn't rammed through. Obama worked on it for 18 months, and once it was clear that the Republicans wouldn't support a thing he proposed, he passed it. Because he felt it was important. And Democrats, having seen that, are sure to treat Romney the same way should he win. Which sucks, frankly, but that's what we've got. In the same debate where Romney lauded his bipartisan spirit of compromise, he affirmed that he wouldn't accept a 10:1 spending cut to revenue defecit reduction plan. And he explained why, which is fine. He feels it's worth fighting for. But at least be able to see how ridiculous that sounds if he's going to trumpet his ability to reach across the aisle.

 

[The Commish]

Guys, can't you see what happened? Romney's team knows Obama isn't great at speaking off the cuff. They decided to stray from their message and throw curve-balls all night, to have Obama stuttering and confused and let Romney look smooth and polished. A few internet bloggers will "fact-check" but the average person had no idea what they were talking about anyway.

It was a desperate move to make Romney look good and Obama look like an idiot, and from what I can tell it worked. To what extent, remains to be seen.

Great debating skills by Romney. Whether what he said was true or a lie, that is irrelevant.

And people wonder why we have such crappy options time and time again

 

[Stinger Ray]

If he's smart, which he appeared to be last night, he is going to compromise and come off some of his previous plans so that he can actually get some policies approved, unlike the President that tries to ram his horrible plans like Obamacare down everyones throats regardless of what people think. Romney very effectively called him out on this a number of times and he just stood there, duhhhhh.

This is ludicrous. Do you really think Obamacare is the plan liberals wanted? No single-payer. No public option. Obamacare wasn't rammed through. Obama worked on it for 18 months, and once it was clear that the Republicans wouldn't support a thing he proposed, he passed it. Because he felt it was important. And Democrats, having seen that, are sure to treat Romney the same way should he win. Which sucks, frankly, but that's what we've got. In the same debate where Romney lauded his bipartisan spirit of compromise, he affirmed that he wouldn't accept a 10:1 spending cut to revenue defecit reduction plan. And he explained why, which is fine. He feels it's worth fighting for. But at least be able to see how ridiculous that sounds if he's going to trumpet his ability to reach across the aisle.

 

[CrossEyed]

In cased you missed the MSNBC post-debate commentary, here you go.

 

[ren hoek]

Jim Lehrer Gave It His Best Shot Out There, You Guys!

 

[Politician Spock]

Are people really suggesting that Obama is slowplaying this?

Come on. He sucked. Flat out. Now, Romney sounded great, although I don't know which Romney is which anymore because he certainly didnt sound like a hard line right winger. But, he took some chances and needed to.

That said, Obama has not been the same guy the last year. His oratory skills have been lacking. The passion and ability to connect, emotionally, have not been there. If he can't bring that to the table in the final debate then the Dems will have given up a great chance to keep hold, unless they can really nail Romney down on the inconsistencies... and there are a lot out there.

Some interesting parallels to '04 with Kerry, his flip flopping, but better debates than Bush, fwiw.

The only time in Romney's political career that he's come accross as a hard line right winger is when he was trying to win the republican nomination. Everything he's done in his political career testifies that he's a moderate. One could lable him a Rockefeller republican, but even that is probably to far right for him on the political scale. Heck, he's so moderate that even John McCain looked more right wing than Romney did in 2008, which is probably why he pandered so much to the hard right during the 2012 nomination.

Totally agree, but in the context of this race how can we ignore that strong shift to the right for much of the last 18 months.

Because we shouldn't view things in the context of this race. The race is a two party system... and that system sucks.

 

[Mr. Pickles]

If there was ever evidence we are in a "post truth" political world last night was it.

Romney won but I will be interested to see how much pushback they get on several blatant lies.

In particular the 5 trillion tax cut that seems to have vanished.

I think O was pulling some O/T on the Turkey/Syria deal and it showed.

Hasn't he always said that it will be offset by closing loopholes and eliminating deductions? The only issue is the details on which ones.

And that's everything in this discussion. There aren't enough loopholes and deductions to close for the rich alone to cover an across the board 20% tax cut and hike in military spending. It cannot be done. If you start lopping off mortgage deductions for everyone, now you're making progress. Mitt claims he won't do that. Sorry, you'll have to put some of the burden on the middle class to make the numbers work.

Then why are Mitt's loopholes such a big deal?

You mean for his own taxes? I think it points to how rich guys have ways of reducing their tax exposure. It's a fairness issue. It doesn't necessarily connect with the overall revenue discussion, unless you want to make that explicit point.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

Guys, can't you see what happened? Romney's team knows Obama isn't great at speaking off the cuff. They decided to stray from their message and throw curve-balls all night, to have Obama stuttering and confused and let Romney look smooth and polished. A few internet bloggers will "fact-check" but the average person had no idea what they were talking about anyway.

It was a desperate move to make Romney look good and Obama look like an idiot, and from what I can tell it worked. To what extent, remains to be seen.

Great debating skills by Romney. Whether what he said was true or a lie, that is irrelevant.

And people wonder why we have such crappy options time and time again

I don't think any of this stuff was a curveball. I don't remember anything that Mitt has said that was a change in his position. Some of his policy proposals have been framed so vaguely that it's tough to attack them concretely. How do you prove a negative? Obama could have done better on the margins, sure. Romney said his proposal would lower rates, be revenue neutral, and simplify the code. But when he named one possible way of implementing that, he said you could have a sliding deduction limit that let people choose their deductiosn. One thing we can safely say about that proposal is that it wouldn't simplify the tax code. It would also, in the same way any attempt to broaden the tax base does, represent a tax hike for some and a tax break for others.

 

[Slapdash]

Guys, can't you see what happened? Romney's team knows Obama isn't great at speaking off the cuff. They decided to stray from their message and throw curve-balls all night, to have Obama stuttering and confused and let Romney look smooth and polished. A few internet bloggers will "fact-check" but the average person had no idea what they were talking about anyway.It was a desperate move to make Romney look good and Obama look like an idiot, and from what I can tell it worked. To what extent, remains to be seen. Great debating skills by Romney. Whether what he said was true or a lie, that is irrelevant.

Disowning all of the positions you've spent the last year campaigning on is quite the clever ruse. No wonder Obama looked disinterested in this bull####.

 

[Zegras11]

OBAMA: There has to be revenue in addition to cuts. Now, Governor Romney has ruled out revenue. He’s ruled out revenue.ROMNEY: Absolutely

Why not raise additional revenue by spurring economic growth? Why does it have to be in the form of higher taxes? Why does the government need to take even more? Why can't the government tighten their belts, reduce spending and allow the American people to get the economy back up and running?Romney said it best, trickle down government does not work. This whole system was built by individuals working and creating products and services, building businesses, employing others and creating wealth for themselves. Obama's solution is more government. That is his solution to every economic problem, create more programs, spend more money etc... it simply doesn't work.

Idaho, New Jersey, New Mexico and Nebraska all doing much better because they tightened their belts the past few years.California and Illinois are financial disasters with new implosions within on a weekly basis.The CNBC bit yesterday on Illinois' grossly underfunded pension programs was sickening.

 

[tommyboy]

Seems as though many on the left are having trouble internalizing Obama's weak effort last night.

 

[dparker713]

He's promising castles in the sky and candy gumdrop rain. Tax cuts for everyone, some closing of loopholes, and increased military spending while staying revenue neutral.

And this is where the rubber meets the road. He will be hammered on this and I'll think you'll see more details in the coming weeks.This was the first time he laid out the plan, give him some time to explain it....last night was not the forum for the detail.Remember, the average American can't even define "deduction" .

He's had nearly 18 months apparently with this plan. How much more time does he need? I wouldn't be prepared to hand over the reigns of the country to a guy that doesn't have the details worked out before the election on the off chance that some magical pixie dust is going to make this pig fly.

I didn't say he needed more time. I said he just laid out his plan...now give him time to explain it. Last night was not the forum.Why didn't he lay it out before last night?? Because you don't do that in presidential politics...hell, Obama gave the least amount of policy detail in the history of presidential politics in '07.Why is this difficult to understand? You don't give your gameplan to the opposing coach before the game. Christ.

He had a moderator without a pulse and Obama was asleep. He had the largest audience he's going to get. The election is 5 weeks away. What exactly is the forum to start laying out his plan?

 

[Don Quixote]

Has the Taiwanese animation video of the debate been posted? If not, it's spectacular. Poor Big Bird.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

If he's smart, which he appeared to be last night, he is going to compromise and come off some of his previous plans so that he can actually get some policies approved, unlike the President that tries to ram his horrible plans like Obamacare down everyones throats regardless of what people think. Romney very effectively called him out on this a number of times and he just stood there, duhhhhh.

This is ludicrous. Do you really think Obamacare is the plan liberals wanted? No single-payer. No public option. Obamacare wasn't rammed through. Obama worked on it for 18 months, and once it was clear that the Republicans wouldn't support a thing he proposed, he passed it. Because he felt it was important. And Democrats, having seen that, are sure to treat Romney the same way should he win. Which sucks, frankly, but that's what we've got. In the same debate where Romney lauded his bipartisan spirit of compromise, he affirmed that he wouldn't accept a 10:1 spending cut to revenue defecit reduction plan. And he explained why, which is fine. He feels it's worth fighting for. But at least be able to see how ridiculous that sounds if he's going to trumpet his ability to reach across the aisle.

Touche, I guess.

The Affordable Care act sprung from a committee consisting of 3 Republicans and 3 Democrats who met for 60 hours between June and September 2009 and laid down the key concepts of what was eventually introduced in September 2009. Of course, by 2010, the Tea Party was protesting everything and whatever chance there was of even getting a few Republicans to make a bipartisan gesture evaporated. At which point, Obama did what everyone of us who voted for him when he promised to address health care would have wanted him to do. Which is to take advantage of winning an election.