Todd Andrews
Footballguy
So he's a giant no core principles, squishy, dishonest liar? No wonder you love him so much.
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Presidential Debate Thread - Obama vs. Romney (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter bigbottom
- Start date
drummer
Footballguy
Tim loves Romney's hair. It's all about style ya know.
Jim11
Footballguy
You just described virtually every politician ever. And I think you know that, so let's not pretend that Obama is any different.
drummer
Footballguy
So then all your Obama bashing is moot then. Noted.
Why is this so tough to understand? Obama does not have answers for anything. If he did, would there not be programs in place and proposals for recovery? I mean, he is already in the job of president and he has done nothing to attempt spur the economy in about two years. Also, it is tough for him to hit Mitt on how rich he is in this setting, as Obama is pretty rich too and only runs with people who are strictly one percenters. You think Mitt will not be pointing that out when Obama tries his class warfare crap in front of his face? That is why he didn't go there. There are so many ways to hit Obama on incompetence it is not even funny, Mitt has a couple of gaffes Obama might want to try and exploit, but in doing so would look petty and mean spirited. With Obama, you don't even have to go after the gaffes, you can attack his positions simply because they are so poor and reek of failure.As I have said before, he is not stupid and probably knows this, hence the long face all night.
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sublimeone
Footballguy
Loved the point Romney made about the 90 billion of tax payer dollars wasted on green companies that eventually went bankrupt... Obama just nods in agreement 
Jim11
Footballguy
That statement makes no sense, which is par for the course with you.
I should have mentioned that only responses from non-idiots were accepted.
drummer
Footballguy
Makes perfect sense out of Jim11.
1. Polling will have to materialize, but what we do know is that the President may have been able to deal a knockout blow last night. He didn’t. He played it safe. The old “prevent defense”, preferring to bob and weave, instead of rights and lefts. The rope-a-dope only works if after your opponent gets tired from throwing his best stuff, you begin to fire back in time to score the knockout or win the fight. That didn’t happen. The President just took it for 90 minutes and the final result was a decided Romney victory that just fueled a massive resurgence in his campaign and perhaps a polling bump that makes this a clear tie race again.
2. Biden has a tough task coming up with Paul Ryan. Much like this one, it will come down to style vs. substance. Biden is a guy you want to sit down with and watch a football game, while Ryan is more of your traditional facts and figures guy while at the same time having his own brand of confidence and charisma. Bottom line though is that style often trumped by substance if the substance has enough style to pull it off. If the Romney/Ryan team pulls off back to back wins, that could be the start of a major turning point for the President.
3. Both sides clearly stated a few things that were stretches, but that is typical for a debate in the heat of the moment.
4. Big speech upcoming for Romney as foreign policy will be a huge issue with all that is going on around certain parts of the world right now.
5. 47% is a tough angle for the President to play in the debates. I doubt we will see it at this point if it wasn’t played in the Economy debate we just had. Probably an issue that lingers only in the media.
6. Format was interesting. While moderator didn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the flow of the debate, it did allow us to hear more from the candidates than from the moderator.
2. Biden has a tough task coming up with Paul Ryan. Much like this one, it will come down to style vs. substance. Biden is a guy you want to sit down with and watch a football game, while Ryan is more of your traditional facts and figures guy while at the same time having his own brand of confidence and charisma. Bottom line though is that style often trumped by substance if the substance has enough style to pull it off. If the Romney/Ryan team pulls off back to back wins, that could be the start of a major turning point for the President.
3. Both sides clearly stated a few things that were stretches, but that is typical for a debate in the heat of the moment.
4. Big speech upcoming for Romney as foreign policy will be a huge issue with all that is going on around certain parts of the world right now.
5. 47% is a tough angle for the President to play in the debates. I doubt we will see it at this point if it wasn’t played in the Economy debate we just had. Probably an issue that lingers only in the media.
6. Format was interesting. While moderator didn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the flow of the debate, it did allow us to hear more from the candidates than from the moderator.
Ursa M
Footballguy
HellToupee
Footballguy
You clowns have gone off the rails after losing 1 debate. You must be in your 20s or under and its your 1st or second rodeo.
Claydon
Footballguy
Yep. You got me.
HellToupee
Footballguy
patience grasshopperYep. You got me.
Claydon
Footballguy
Was being sarcastic there, bro.patience grasshopperYep. You got me.
Thanks to those of you who've summarized the debate. I still haven't watched much of it. But I'll try to watch it before I delete it from my DVR.
"Last night's Presidential Debate was like watching McDonalds debate Burger King over whose fries are healthier." — Bill Malone.
"Last night's Presidential Debate was like watching McDonalds debate Burger King over whose fries are healthier." — Bill Malone.
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tommyboy
Footballguy
thought this was pretty funny
http://www.theonion.com/articles/mitt-romney-adopts-new-ronnie-ferocious-persona-fo,29789/
drummer
Footballguy
Lulz at Krauhammer's take on the debates last night. Romney was full on Singletary "I WANT WINNERS!" post game presser. Lot's of fire and style. Got Sing a HC job, and then became one of the worst 49er HC's ever.
HellToupee
Footballguy
Here is Krauthammer's takeCharles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
Romney by two touchdowns
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Charles Krauthammer, Thursday, October 4, 5:13 PM
It was the biggest rout since Agincourt. If you insist, since the Carter-Reagan debate. With a remarkable display of confidence, knowledge and nerve, Mitt Romney won the first 2012 debate going away.
Romney didn’t just demonstrate authoritative command of a myriad of domestic issues. He was nervy about it, taking the president on frontally, not just relentlessly attacking, but answering every charge leveled against him — with a three-point rebuttal.
Personal Post
Charles Krauthammer
Krauthammer writes a politics column that runs on Fridays.
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@krauthammerFacebookRSS
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And he pulled off a tactical coup by coming right out of the box to undo millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that painted him, personally, as Gordon Gekko — rapacious vulture capitalist who doesn’t just lay off steelworkers but kills their wives — and, politically, as intent on raising taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the rich.
The Romney campaign had let these ads go largely unanswered. But a “kill Romney” strategy can only work until people get to see Romney themselves. On Wednesday night, they did. Regarding the character assassination, all Romney really had to do was walk out with no horns on his head. Confident, smiling and nonthreatening, he didn’t look like a man who enjoys killing the wives of laid-off steelworkers.
Not a very high bar, I admit. But remember: It’s President Obama who set the bar. And succeeded. Romney suffers from unprecedentedly high negatives (50 percent), the highest unfavorability rating at this late date for any challenger in the past three decades.
As to the policy, Romney finally got to explain to the 60 million Americans watching that he intends to lower taxes across the board, particularly for the middle class. As for the rich, he got to explain the difference between lowering tax rates and reducing tax payments. He repeated at least twice that the rich would continue to pay the same percentage of the tax burden, while lower rates would spur economic growth.
His success in doing this against a flummoxed Obama does more than rally the conservative base. It may affect waverers — disappointed 2008 Obama supporters waiting for a reason to jump. They watch Romney in this debate and ask: Is this the clueless, selfish, out-of-touch guy we’ve been hearing about from the ads and from the mainstream media?
And then they see Obama — detached, meandering, unsure. Can this be the hip, cool, in-control guy his acolytes and the media have been telling us about?
Obama was undone on Wednesday in part by his dismissive arrogance. You could see him thinking annoyedly: “Why do I have to be onstage with this clod, when I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Putin?” (And lost every round, I’d say. But that’s not how Obama sees it.)
Obama never even pulled out his best weapon, the 47 percent. Not once. That’s called sitting on a lead, lazily and smugly. I wager he mentions it in the next debate, more than once — and likely in his kickoff.
On the other hand, Obama just isn’t that good. Not without a teleprompter. He’s not even that good at news conferences — a venue in which he’s still in charge, choosing among questioners and controlling the timing of his own answers.
By the end of the debate, Obama looked small, uncertain. It was Romney who had the presidential look.
Reelection campaigns after a failed presidential term — so failed that Obama barely even bothers to make the case, preferring to blame everything on his predecessor — hinge almost entirely on whether the challenger can meet the threshold of acceptability. Romney crossed the threshold Wednesday night.
Reagan won his election (Carter was actually ahead at the time) when he defused his caricature as some wild, extreme, warmongering cowboy. In his debate with Carter, he was affable, avuncular and reasonable. That’s why with a single aw-shucks line, “There you go again,” the election was over.
Romney had to show something a little different: That he is not the clumsy, out-of-touch plutocrat that the paid Obama ads and the unpaid media have portrayed him to be. He did, decisively.
That’s why MSNBC is on suicide watch. Why the polls show that, by a margin of at least two to one, voters overwhelmingly gave the debate to Romney.
And he won big in an unusual way. This could be the only presidential debate ever won so definitively in the absence of some obvious and ruinous gaffe, like Gerald Ford’s “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
Romney by two touchdowns.
drummer
Footballguy
I was watching him on ##hat O'Reilly's show. This doesn't make it better.
Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
Romney by two touchdowns
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Charles Krauthammer, Thursday, October 4, 5:13 PM
It was the biggest rout since Agincourt. If you insist, since the Carter-Reagan debate. With a remarkable display of confidence, knowledge and nerve, Mitt Romney won the first 2012 debate going away.
Romney didn’t just demonstrate authoritative command of a myriad of domestic issues. He was nervy about it, taking the president on frontally, not just relentlessly attacking, but answering every charge leveled against him — with a three-point rebuttal.
Personal Post
Charles Krauthammer
Krauthammer writes a politics column that runs on Fridays.
Archive
@krauthammerFacebookRSS
Video
And he pulled off a tactical coup by coming right out of the box to undo millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that painted him, personally, as Gordon Gekko — rapacious vulture capitalist who doesn’t just lay off steelworkers but kills their wives — and, politically, as intent on raising taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the rich.
The Romney campaign had let these ads go largely unanswered. But a “kill Romney” strategy can only work until people get to see Romney themselves. On Wednesday night, they did. Regarding the character assassination, all Romney really had to do was walk out with no horns on his head. Confident, smiling and nonthreatening, he didn’t look like a man who enjoys killing the wives of laid-off steelworkers.
Not a very high bar, I admit. But remember: It’s President Obama who set the bar. And succeeded. Romney suffers from unprecedentedly high negatives (50 percent), the highest unfavorability rating at this late date for any challenger in the past three decades.
As to the policy, Romney finally got to explain to the 60 million Americans watching that he intends to lower taxes across the board, particularly for the middle class. As for the rich, he got to explain the difference between lowering tax rates and reducing tax payments. He repeated at least twice that the rich would continue to pay the same percentage of the tax burden, while lower rates would spur economic growth.
His success in doing this against a flummoxed Obama does more than rally the conservative base. It may affect waverers — disappointed 2008 Obama supporters waiting for a reason to jump. They watch Romney in this debate and ask: Is this the clueless, selfish, out-of-touch guy we’ve been hearing about from the ads and from the mainstream media?
And then they see Obama — detached, meandering, unsure. Can this be the hip, cool, in-control guy his acolytes and the media have been telling us about?
Obama was undone on Wednesday in part by his dismissive arrogance. You could see him thinking annoyedly: “Why do I have to be onstage with this clod, when I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Putin?” (And lost every round, I’d say. But that’s not how Obama sees it.)
Obama never even pulled out his best weapon, the 47 percent. Not once. That’s called sitting on a lead, lazily and smugly. I wager he mentions it in the next debate, more than once — and likely in his kickoff.
On the other hand, Obama just isn’t that good. Not without a teleprompter. He’s not even that good at news conferences — a venue in which he’s still in charge, choosing among questioners and controlling the timing of his own answers.
By the end of the debate, Obama looked small, uncertain. It was Romney who had the presidential look.
Reelection campaigns after a failed presidential term — so failed that Obama barely even bothers to make the case, preferring to blame everything on his predecessor — hinge almost entirely on whether the challenger can meet the threshold of acceptability. Romney crossed the threshold Wednesday night.
Reagan won his election (Carter was actually ahead at the time) when he defused his caricature as some wild, extreme, warmongering cowboy. In his debate with Carter, he was affable, avuncular and reasonable. That’s why with a single aw-shucks line, “There you go again,” the election was over.
Romney had to show something a little different: That he is not the clumsy, out-of-touch plutocrat that the paid Obama ads and the unpaid media have portrayed him to be. He did, decisively.
That’s why MSNBC is on suicide watch. Why the polls show that, by a margin of at least two to one, voters overwhelmingly gave the debate to Romney.
And he won big in an unusual way. This could be the only presidential debate ever won so definitively in the absence of some obvious and ruinous gaffe, like Gerald Ford’s “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
Romney by two touchdowns.
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
Not my point. It was an opportunity to slam him for Bain and him benefiting from companies in china doing work for pennies instead of here.Really? How is this difficult to understand...Just because Romney was over a company with plants/workers in China doesn't mean they got a TAX BENEFIT to send those jobs there...There are benefits to overseas jobs beyond tax breaks, you know...
The Commish
Footballguy
No...cutting the tax rate is fine, but based on history I believe that the cuts in loopholes he makes WILL NOT come close to equaling out the tax reductions. If he's going to keep things neutral, that extra money has to come from somewhere and IT WILL land on the middle class. The end result is an increase in the tax liability of the middle class. Sorry for not being clearer.Okay, but that is a different issue than what I thought we were discussing. Yes, the math may not add up. But I thought you were saying that a middle-class tax cut was bad for the middle class. Which makes no sense.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.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 theIt doesn't to me'Just Win Baby said: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.
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"
Last edited by a moderator:
HellToupee
Footballguy
you realize Krauthammer is no fan of MittI was watching him on ##hat O'Reilly's show. This doesn't make it better.
Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
Romney by two touchdowns
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Charles Krauthammer, Thursday, October 4, 5:13 PM
It was the biggest rout since Agincourt. If you insist, since the Carter-Reagan debate. With a remarkable display of confidence, knowledge and nerve, Mitt Romney won the first 2012 debate going away.
Romney didn’t just demonstrate authoritative command of a myriad of domestic issues. He was nervy about it, taking the president on frontally, not just relentlessly attacking, but answering every charge leveled against him — with a three-point rebuttal.
Personal Post
Charles Krauthammer
Krauthammer writes a politics column that runs on Fridays.
Archive
@krauthammerFacebookRSS
Video
And he pulled off a tactical coup by coming right out of the box to undo millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that painted him, personally, as Gordon Gekko — rapacious vulture capitalist who doesn’t just lay off steelworkers but kills their wives — and, politically, as intent on raising taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the rich.
The Romney campaign had let these ads go largely unanswered. But a “kill Romney” strategy can only work until people get to see Romney themselves. On Wednesday night, they did. Regarding the character assassination, all Romney really had to do was walk out with no horns on his head. Confident, smiling and nonthreatening, he didn’t look like a man who enjoys killing the wives of laid-off steelworkers.
Not a very high bar, I admit. But remember: It’s President Obama who set the bar. And succeeded. Romney suffers from unprecedentedly high negatives (50 percent), the highest unfavorability rating at this late date for any challenger in the past three decades.
As to the policy, Romney finally got to explain to the 60 million Americans watching that he intends to lower taxes across the board, particularly for the middle class. As for the rich, he got to explain the difference between lowering tax rates and reducing tax payments. He repeated at least twice that the rich would continue to pay the same percentage of the tax burden, while lower rates would spur economic growth.
His success in doing this against a flummoxed Obama does more than rally the conservative base. It may affect waverers — disappointed 2008 Obama supporters waiting for a reason to jump. They watch Romney in this debate and ask: Is this the clueless, selfish, out-of-touch guy we’ve been hearing about from the ads and from the mainstream media?
And then they see Obama — detached, meandering, unsure. Can this be the hip, cool, in-control guy his acolytes and the media have been telling us about?
Obama was undone on Wednesday in part by his dismissive arrogance. You could see him thinking annoyedly: “Why do I have to be onstage with this clod, when I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Putin?” (And lost every round, I’d say. But that’s not how Obama sees it.)
Obama never even pulled out his best weapon, the 47 percent. Not once. That’s called sitting on a lead, lazily and smugly. I wager he mentions it in the next debate, more than once — and likely in his kickoff.
On the other hand, Obama just isn’t that good. Not without a teleprompter. He’s not even that good at news conferences — a venue in which he’s still in charge, choosing among questioners and controlling the timing of his own answers.
By the end of the debate, Obama looked small, uncertain. It was Romney who had the presidential look.
Reelection campaigns after a failed presidential term — so failed that Obama barely even bothers to make the case, preferring to blame everything on his predecessor — hinge almost entirely on whether the challenger can meet the threshold of acceptability. Romney crossed the threshold Wednesday night.
Reagan won his election (Carter was actually ahead at the time) when he defused his caricature as some wild, extreme, warmongering cowboy. In his debate with Carter, he was affable, avuncular and reasonable. That’s why with a single aw-shucks line, “There you go again,” the election was over.
Romney had to show something a little different: That he is not the clumsy, out-of-touch plutocrat that the paid Obama ads and the unpaid media have portrayed him to be. He did, decisively.
That’s why MSNBC is on suicide watch. Why the polls show that, by a margin of at least two to one, voters overwhelmingly gave the debate to Romney.
And he won big in an unusual way. This could be the only presidential debate ever won so definitively in the absence of some obvious and ruinous gaffe, like Gerald Ford’s “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
Romney by two touchdowns.
Thunderlips
Footballguy
LOL!you realize Krauthammer is no fan of MittI was watching him on ##hat O'Reilly's show. This doesn't make it better.
Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
Romney by two touchdowns
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Charles Krauthammer, Thursday, October 4, 5:13 PM
It was the biggest rout since Agincourt. If you insist, since the Carter-Reagan debate. With a remarkable display of confidence, knowledge and nerve, Mitt Romney won the first 2012 debate going away.
Romney didn’t just demonstrate authoritative command of a myriad of domestic issues. He was nervy about it, taking the president on frontally, not just relentlessly attacking, but answering every charge leveled against him — with a three-point rebuttal.
Personal Post
Charles Krauthammer
Krauthammer writes a politics column that runs on Fridays.
Archive
@krauthammerFacebookRSS
Video
And he pulled off a tactical coup by coming right out of the box to undo millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that painted him, personally, as Gordon Gekko — rapacious vulture capitalist who doesn’t just lay off steelworkers but kills their wives — and, politically, as intent on raising taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the rich.
The Romney campaign had let these ads go largely unanswered. But a “kill Romney” strategy can only work until people get to see Romney themselves. On Wednesday night, they did. Regarding the character assassination, all Romney really had to do was walk out with no horns on his head. Confident, smiling and nonthreatening, he didn’t look like a man who enjoys killing the wives of laid-off steelworkers.
Not a very high bar, I admit. But remember: It’s President Obama who set the bar. And succeeded. Romney suffers from unprecedentedly high negatives (50 percent), the highest unfavorability rating at this late date for any challenger in the past three decades.
As to the policy, Romney finally got to explain to the 60 million Americans watching that he intends to lower taxes across the board, particularly for the middle class. As for the rich, he got to explain the difference between lowering tax rates and reducing tax payments. He repeated at least twice that the rich would continue to pay the same percentage of the tax burden, while lower rates would spur economic growth.
His success in doing this against a flummoxed Obama does more than rally the conservative base. It may affect waverers — disappointed 2008 Obama supporters waiting for a reason to jump. They watch Romney in this debate and ask: Is this the clueless, selfish, out-of-touch guy we’ve been hearing about from the ads and from the mainstream media?
And then they see Obama — detached, meandering, unsure. Can this be the hip, cool, in-control guy his acolytes and the media have been telling us about?
Obama was undone on Wednesday in part by his dismissive arrogance. You could see him thinking annoyedly: “Why do I have to be onstage with this clod, when I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Putin?” (And lost every round, I’d say. But that’s not how Obama sees it.)
Obama never even pulled out his best weapon, the 47 percent. Not once. That’s called sitting on a lead, lazily and smugly. I wager he mentions it in the next debate, more than once — and likely in his kickoff.
On the other hand, Obama just isn’t that good. Not without a teleprompter. He’s not even that good at news conferences — a venue in which he’s still in charge, choosing among questioners and controlling the timing of his own answers.
By the end of the debate, Obama looked small, uncertain. It was Romney who had the presidential look.
Reelection campaigns after a failed presidential term — so failed that Obama barely even bothers to make the case, preferring to blame everything on his predecessor — hinge almost entirely on whether the challenger can meet the threshold of acceptability. Romney crossed the threshold Wednesday night.
Reagan won his election (Carter was actually ahead at the time) when he defused his caricature as some wild, extreme, warmongering cowboy. In his debate with Carter, he was affable, avuncular and reasonable. That’s why with a single aw-shucks line, “There you go again,” the election was over.
Romney had to show something a little different: That he is not the clumsy, out-of-touch plutocrat that the paid Obama ads and the unpaid media have portrayed him to be. He did, decisively.
That’s why MSNBC is on suicide watch. Why the polls show that, by a margin of at least two to one, voters overwhelmingly gave the debate to Romney.
And he won big in an unusual way. This could be the only presidential debate ever won so definitively in the absence of some obvious and ruinous gaffe, like Gerald Ford’s “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
Romney by two touchdowns.
The Commish
Footballguy
Sadly, this is true. Kinda tells you how things have been for him thus far, doesn't it?
Ursa M
Footballguy
Krauthammer would have claimed Romney won even if he'd spent the entire 90 minutes rolling around the floor trying to have sex with a goat.
Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
Romney by two touchdowns
Text Size PrintE-mailReprints
By Charles Krauthammer, Thursday, October 4, 5:13 PM
It was the biggest rout since Agincourt. If you insist, since the Carter-Reagan debate. With a remarkable display of confidence, knowledge and nerve, Mitt Romney won the first 2012 debate going away.
Romney didn’t just demonstrate authoritative command of a myriad of domestic issues. He was nervy about it, taking the president on frontally, not just relentlessly attacking, but answering every charge leveled against him — with a three-point rebuttal.
Personal Post
Charles Krauthammer
Krauthammer writes a politics column that runs on Fridays.
Archive
@krauthammerFacebookRSS
Video
And he pulled off a tactical coup by coming right out of the box to undo millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that painted him, personally, as Gordon Gekko — rapacious vulture capitalist who doesn’t just lay off steelworkers but kills their wives — and, politically, as intent on raising taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the rich.
The Romney campaign had let these ads go largely unanswered. But a “kill Romney” strategy can only work until people get to see Romney themselves. On Wednesday night, they did. Regarding the character assassination, all Romney really had to do was walk out with no horns on his head. Confident, smiling and nonthreatening, he didn’t look like a man who enjoys killing the wives of laid-off steelworkers.
Not a very high bar, I admit. But remember: It’s President Obama who set the bar. And succeeded. Romney suffers from unprecedentedly high negatives (50 percent), the highest unfavorability rating at this late date for any challenger in the past three decades.
As to the policy, Romney finally got to explain to the 60 million Americans watching that he intends to lower taxes across the board, particularly for the middle class. As for the rich, he got to explain the difference between lowering tax rates and reducing tax payments. He repeated at least twice that the rich would continue to pay the same percentage of the tax burden, while lower rates would spur economic growth.
His success in doing this against a flummoxed Obama does more than rally the conservative base. It may affect waverers — disappointed 2008 Obama supporters waiting for a reason to jump. They watch Romney in this debate and ask: Is this the clueless, selfish, out-of-touch guy we’ve been hearing about from the ads and from the mainstream media?
And then they see Obama — detached, meandering, unsure. Can this be the hip, cool, in-control guy his acolytes and the media have been telling us about?
Obama was undone on Wednesday in part by his dismissive arrogance. You could see him thinking annoyedly: “Why do I have to be onstage with this clod, when I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Putin?” (And lost every round, I’d say. But that’s not how Obama sees it.)
Obama never even pulled out his best weapon, the 47 percent. Not once. That’s called sitting on a lead, lazily and smugly. I wager he mentions it in the next debate, more than once — and likely in his kickoff.
On the other hand, Obama just isn’t that good. Not without a teleprompter. He’s not even that good at news conferences — a venue in which he’s still in charge, choosing among questioners and controlling the timing of his own answers.
By the end of the debate, Obama looked small, uncertain. It was Romney who had the presidential look.
Reelection campaigns after a failed presidential term — so failed that Obama barely even bothers to make the case, preferring to blame everything on his predecessor — hinge almost entirely on whether the challenger can meet the threshold of acceptability. Romney crossed the threshold Wednesday night.
Reagan won his election (Carter was actually ahead at the time) when he defused his caricature as some wild, extreme, warmongering cowboy. In his debate with Carter, he was affable, avuncular and reasonable. That’s why with a single aw-shucks line, “There you go again,” the election was over.
Romney had to show something a little different: That he is not the clumsy, out-of-touch plutocrat that the paid Obama ads and the unpaid media have portrayed him to be. He did, decisively.
That’s why MSNBC is on suicide watch. Why the polls show that, by a margin of at least two to one, voters overwhelmingly gave the debate to Romney.
And he won big in an unusual way. This could be the only presidential debate ever won so definitively in the absence of some obvious and ruinous gaffe, like Gerald Ford’s “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
Romney by two touchdowns.
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
Check out the Independents column from the first post-debate polling. Romney shored up his base, but didn't make up ground with Independents.
Will be interesting to see if this result is replicated and what the full set of polling shows over the next several days.
Will be interesting to see if this result is replicated and what the full set of polling shows over the next several days.
Thunderlips
Footballguy
I think that's liberal spin.
Ursa M
Footballguy
Tim, you're a likeable but gullible mug. The real Romney is on that 47% recording. Period.
drummer
Footballguy
Now it's much worse.you realize Krauthammer is no fan of MittI was watching him on ##hat O'Reilly's show. This doesn't make it better.
Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
Romney by two touchdowns
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By Charles Krauthammer, Thursday, October 4, 5:13 PM
It was the biggest rout since Agincourt. If you insist, since the Carter-Reagan debate. With a remarkable display of confidence, knowledge and nerve, Mitt Romney won the first 2012 debate going away.
Romney didn’t just demonstrate authoritative command of a myriad of domestic issues. He was nervy about it, taking the president on frontally, not just relentlessly attacking, but answering every charge leveled against him — with a three-point rebuttal.
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Charles Krauthammer
Krauthammer writes a politics column that runs on Fridays.
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And he pulled off a tactical coup by coming right out of the box to undo millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads that painted him, personally, as Gordon Gekko — rapacious vulture capitalist who doesn’t just lay off steelworkers but kills their wives — and, politically, as intent on raising taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the rich.
The Romney campaign had let these ads go largely unanswered. But a “kill Romney” strategy can only work until people get to see Romney themselves. On Wednesday night, they did. Regarding the character assassination, all Romney really had to do was walk out with no horns on his head. Confident, smiling and nonthreatening, he didn’t look like a man who enjoys killing the wives of laid-off steelworkers.
Not a very high bar, I admit. But remember: It’s President Obama who set the bar. And succeeded. Romney suffers from unprecedentedly high negatives (50 percent), the highest unfavorability rating at this late date for any challenger in the past three decades.
As to the policy, Romney finally got to explain to the 60 million Americans watching that he intends to lower taxes across the board, particularly for the middle class. As for the rich, he got to explain the difference between lowering tax rates and reducing tax payments. He repeated at least twice that the rich would continue to pay the same percentage of the tax burden, while lower rates would spur economic growth.
His success in doing this against a flummoxed Obama does more than rally the conservative base. It may affect waverers — disappointed 2008 Obama supporters waiting for a reason to jump. They watch Romney in this debate and ask: Is this the clueless, selfish, out-of-touch guy we’ve been hearing about from the ads and from the mainstream media?
And then they see Obama — detached, meandering, unsure. Can this be the hip, cool, in-control guy his acolytes and the media have been telling us about?
Obama was undone on Wednesday in part by his dismissive arrogance. You could see him thinking annoyedly: “Why do I have to be onstage with this clod, when I’ve gone toe-to-toe with Putin?” (And lost every round, I’d say. But that’s not how Obama sees it.)
Obama never even pulled out his best weapon, the 47 percent. Not once. That’s called sitting on a lead, lazily and smugly. I wager he mentions it in the next debate, more than once — and likely in his kickoff.
On the other hand, Obama just isn’t that good. Not without a teleprompter. He’s not even that good at news conferences — a venue in which he’s still in charge, choosing among questioners and controlling the timing of his own answers.
By the end of the debate, Obama looked small, uncertain. It was Romney who had the presidential look.
Reelection campaigns after a failed presidential term — so failed that Obama barely even bothers to make the case, preferring to blame everything on his predecessor — hinge almost entirely on whether the challenger can meet the threshold of acceptability. Romney crossed the threshold Wednesday night.
Reagan won his election (Carter was actually ahead at the time) when he defused his caricature as some wild, extreme, warmongering cowboy. In his debate with Carter, he was affable, avuncular and reasonable. That’s why with a single aw-shucks line, “There you go again,” the election was over.
Romney had to show something a little different: That he is not the clumsy, out-of-touch plutocrat that the paid Obama ads and the unpaid media have portrayed him to be. He did, decisively.
That’s why MSNBC is on suicide watch. Why the polls show that, by a margin of at least two to one, voters overwhelmingly gave the debate to Romney.
And he won big in an unusual way. This could be the only presidential debate ever won so definitively in the absence of some obvious and ruinous gaffe, like Gerald Ford’s “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.”
Romney by two touchdowns.
Mr. Pickles
Footballguy
I forgot that Reagan lost his debate to Mondale in '84. I was 10, so it's probably forgivable.
Jim11
Footballguy
One of these times you're gonna surprise us and post something meaningful. Possibly.Krauthammer has no love for Romney.
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drummer
Footballguy
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Diane Sawyer won that debate by a mile.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I was going to give this a goodposting, but honestly I'm a little embarassed for you that your 10 year old self forgot the ins and outs of the 1984 election.But yeah, lots of people overreacting to one debate. Romney did very well, but if his performance had been merely "decent" we'd be burying him. He's still a huge underdog and Obama is probably still coasting to victory.
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Mr. Pickles
Footballguy
I think we tend to revere our presidents from our childhood. I did this with Reagan. I loved that guy. I still do in a lot of ways. It's interesting how his history has morphed and been co-opted in many ways, but as a personality, he was larger than life. Certainly to me as a kid.
Rohn Jambo
Footballguy
You didn't use a notebook back then?
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Mr. Pickles
Footballguy
I did not.
identikit
Footballguy
Etch-a-Sketch
dparker713
Footballguy
Actually, that was a smirk of befuddlement at the outright lie Romney stated.Loved the point Romney made about the 90 billion of tax payer dollars wasted on green companies that eventually went bankrupt... Obama just nods in agreement
Actually, that was a smirk of befuddlement at the outright lie Romney stated.Loved the point Romney made about the 90 billion of tax payer dollars wasted on green companies that eventually went bankrupt... Obama just nods in agreement
Doctor Detroit
Please remove your headgear
Al Gore using possible altitude sickness because the President just flew in at 2pm was great Al Gore shtick, love that.
From everything I've heard and read today, had Romney come across as believable he might have made real strides. Something was not right with Obama, or maybe he just gave Mitch a softball. Regardless, at least this election is almost interesting for the first ####### time.
From everything I've heard and read today, had Romney come across as believable he might have made real strides. Something was not right with Obama, or maybe he just gave Mitch a softball. Regardless, at least this election is almost interesting for the first ####### time.
cstu
Footballguy
Obama looked to me like he was intimidated - afraid to look Romney in the eye or speak to him when giving his answers. I get that he hasn't done this in four years but his people should have prepared him better.The silver lining for Obama is that Romney comes across as a phony, especially to those in the Midwest who are suspicious of slick business types like Romney to begin with. I'm interested to see how the polls in Ohio play out for this reason. If Obama can with the three battleground states in the Midwest (Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin) it's all over.'Doctor Detroit said:Al Gore using possible altitude sickness because the President just flew in at 2pm was great Al Gore shtick, love that.
Ghost Rider
Footballguy
Anyone else catch The Daily Show tonight? Jon Stewart was absolutely killing it when talking about the debate last night.
LHUCKS
Footballguy
"slick business types"You mean the smartest guy in the room that is an accomplished professional.I think we should get a hog farm guy to run for President, that way middle America will feel "comfortable" with the candidate. They can have a beer with him because he's a good ol boy.Just ridiculous.I'll take the smart guy that actually has a grasp of the complex topics at hand and is well versed in running an organization and leadership.
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Don Quixote
Footballguy
Unemployment down to 7.8%, lowest since Jan. 2009. That should put a stop to negative press from the debate. Waiting for conspiracy theories to start.
