Look, Obama: I’m gonna need you to take off the kid gloves here. I know you’re weary of being the “angry uppity black man”, but stop pulling punches, and we on your side will respond in kind. We will fight for you but you gotta fight for yourself.
I prefer to think that Obama is pacing himself. Also, I prefer to think that the American people are too smart to elect Romney and Ryan. Atleast, I hope they (as a people) are too proud to elect the sort of asshole that spent the last 20 yrs destroying the US economy and middle-class through speculative investing and then turned around and claimed that those people who work for a living are idiots.
Also, I prefer to think that the American people are too smart to elect Romney and Ryan. I still remember the 2000 and 2004 elections far too well to think this way. Even very smart people can be convinced to vote in what seem like very poor ways to me.
I don’t think it was a disaster. Mitt really hit his stride and for once seemed like he was actually enjoying himself. He was engaged and aggressive, to the point of being pushy and a dick. I think Obama got a little rattled because he wasn’t expecting Romeny to step up his game quite so much. He’ll do a lot better at the next couple debates though, I think. I doubt Romney can sustain the level of fight he’s got in him at the moment. Super excited for the VP debate between Diamond Joe and Ayn Ryan
Step up his game? I agree Obama was rattled but I don’t think it was at how Romney was stepping up his game. Rather it was at how brazenly Romney was outright lying in his responses. “Clean coal”? HAHAHAHA!!!
I just don’t know how he can do any better in these debates. When your opponent is willing to straight-up lie, and the only way to counter the lie is to explain a bunch of boring, complicated facts, and then the response is another lie… I mean, you’re not going to look compelling in that situation, and there’s very little you can do about it. I really think the most telling moment of this election cycle was when the Romney campaign said that they weren’t going to let themselves be dictated to by fact-checkers. There is a point where the amount of misinformation out there becomes overwhelming and impossible to effectively expose or rebut, and we passed it a long way back. If you tell one whopper, there will be a bunch of stories and attention and rebuttal. But if every single day of the campaign involves a dozen mistruths, then people lose the capacity to get outraged or to figure out what’s true and false, and it all fades into background noise. The first time Paul Ryan got up and accused Obama of refusing to act on the proposal of a bipartisan debt-reduction committee, there was at least *some* coverage of the fact that Paul Ryan had been a member of the committee and voted against its proposal, thus preventing it from being something Obama had the power to implement. But then they kept repeating that line over and over, and so last night no one kicked up any fuss when Romney trotted it out again. And now it’s just a fact in the political landscape that Obama refused to tackle the debt. And yes, both parties always stretch the truth at least a little during campaigns, but the extent to which the Republican party has done it this time around feels like a sea change. They’ve broken through the normal constraints of fact-checkers and an electorate who might be angered by too many lies, and have shown that there is absolutely no downside to a campaign flat-out lying at their convenience so long as you do it enough. That’s not something that makes me hopeful for future elections.
I used to have the exact same worries, but the last election (and projections on this one) are starting to make me feel better. People are willing to take that sort of stuff from politicians to a point, but I think the republicans have crossed the line into showing their outright contempt for Americans, and for the President, and I think that’s going to hurt them. It’s real easy to see that kind of shit going on and lose all hope, because people like to be lied to, but we live in an age of Google on phones where everything every politicians says can be fact checked cross referenced filed indexed youtubed and tweeted in an instant, and I think that’s a fantastic thing and is going to force an end to being able to just Make Shit Up (c) indiscriminately and assume the people will just forget it, or never find out about it.
But two things are required for lies to matter: the ability to prove them wrong (which I agree, new media makes much easier) and for people to care when you do. I think the latter is the problem when misinformation hits the level it has during this campaign — unless you’re already pretty well-informed on a topic, it’s actually pretty difficult to sort through the multitude of different media sources, most of which strongly prefer one side of the issue/political spectrum, to find the most accurate explanations. And even if fact-checking works well, it’s inherently kind of tedious and not very exciting. It takes four times as much time and a lot more facts to explain why Paul Ryan lied through his teeth about the debt commission than for Paul Ryan to actually tell that lie. Even people who want to know the truth are going to get burned out on detailed fact-checks when there are hundreds of mis-truths, half-truths, distortions, and outright lies during a months-long campaign.
I’m inclined to think that the amount of lying in presidential elections is constant, but now we just have way better research tools than 20 years ago so we can spot lies easily. We also hear far far more actual words from politicians because the advancement of research tools has been accompanied by the advancement of media distribution, so there are more statements to check and it becomes not just about truth but also consistency. All these advancements in our information infrastructures have been fronted by the same company actually. Google.
No questions about abortion/women’s rights, the 47% remarks, Bain, or poor job growth in Mass. during Romney’s term as governor. I’m not going to accuse Jim Lehrer of all people of catering to the right, but boy, he was weak. Both in terms of moderation and in terms of actually challenging the candidates.
Agreed. He was wobbly at the start, but he picked up steam as he got used to dealing with Romney’s new aggro firmware.
It would be interesting to see a format where the moderator can force the speakers to answer the asked questions. Romney sidestepped some tough questions with fancy footwork that left him miles away from the initial question.
Exactly. I blame lax moderation rules more than anything. These debates have been getting out of hand, and if everyone refused to put up with it then we’d get back to actually answering questions and holding our politicians accountable for what they say. I know that people argue “if they try to put their foot down they won’t get asked back to moderate next time” but if everyone stood up to the parties then maybe we’d be able to get some debate reform.
There was also a report on NPR that said it’s actually better for a candidate’s image if (s)he BS at full speed than if s(he) answers the question honestly but takes a while to respond.
I wouldn’t blame “lax moderation rules” so much as there being no penalty for breaking them. Romney ran over Lehrer like a scab NFL referee. I guess it never occurred to Lehrer or the debate commission to have an “or else” in the timing rules.
I’ve had the unique “pleasure” of being the time-keeper/moderator for conference talks, which span the whole damn day. My organizing committee found that most speakers tend to thinks they are special and it won’t matter much if they go over the time limit by 5-10 min (those “time slots” are for other people!)…until they all do it and the schedule gets behind by an hour and everyone is pissed. One year we instituted a strict time limit enforced by cutting out your mike and blanking your presentation screen when you hit your time out mark (after several nonverbal 5/3/1 minute warnings), which solved the problem nicely. The long day of scheduled events ran on time and everyone received fair treatment. There were some spectacular meltdowns and hissy fits pitched by the most narcissistic and socially clueless in the bunch, and I personally received some stellar verbal attacks for doing exactly what they were warned would happen if they were rude enough to disregard their time limits, but having that “power out” button to push resolved the problem and created a much better environment for the next conference!
I was a presenter at an event where everyone was only supposed to talk 5 minutes, and I wish anything that this option had been available. I practiced and edited my work until I was sure I would be just under the time limit. I was also forced to find a substitute on a very important day of class to attend this event (it was required for my degree). I could have taught my class and eaten a snack by the time they got to me. I was so upset…I had spent all that time trying to be respectful, cutting things out of my story that I loved but knew wouldn’t work in the time allotted, and it was so clear to me that the other presenters thought their writing was just so important that they couldn’t be bothered to leave even a sentence out even if that meant we were thirty minutes behind schedule. I had a short temper that day already, so I about snapped at a man who, after giving what was nearly a 15 minute presentation, ended it with, “Well, I hope that was within the time range.”
You should come to one of my conferences. They run on time or I run around mad. (That is of course assuming that the timetable was reasonable to start with, some don’t and those deserve to fail)
So… that could have been better, huh? Not for me…I passed up the debates in favor of watching X-factor on TiVo! From what I’ve been seeing in the headlines, it was a decision well made.
The media likes to reduce very complicated details into a single-minded narrative. Based on what I’ve seen, they’re all saying Obama lost because he wasn’t energetic and didn’t hold up well against Romney for style points. Mitt Romney lives to fit another day, et al. What I saw last night was an exceptionally wonky debate, probably the most policy-specific one I’ve ever viewed in my life. Washingtonese is fine in its place, but most Americans are not concerned at all with esoteric procedure and nomenclature. Most people my age (late 20’s to early 30’s) want to know when the economy will turn around enough to finally provide them with a job. They want to know whether it’s worth borrowing tens of thousands of dollars to go to grad school, with the hope that they can find a lasting career from their training and sacrifice. What both candidates evaded were real specifics, and I honestly think, regarding the most crucial details, that there aren’t any. Economists differ considerable about how to dig ourselves out of this hole. But none of this changes who I’ll vote for come November.
A friend sent me this quote. I don’t know where he found it: “Let’s face it, when you are debating someone who just completely lies every time he opens his mouth, it can be difficult. Mitt Romney told so many whoppers and shifted his positions so many times last night that debating him had to be like parallel parking an 18 Wheeler in a moving parking space.”
So the next time I can’t manage to parallel park in a tight space in NYC, I can just say “what do you expect, I’m a Democrat … I betcha Romney could parallel park a truck in this space, he can turn on a dime so fast. But would you want Romney driving the car? At the very least, think of what would happen to Seamus” 😉
Also… glad to see that getting around. People in general already seem to find Mitt too slick by half and not half as clever as he thinks he is. Getting out the word to people who don’t live and breathe this stuff that Mitt lied roughly every time he spoke could help impressions of the debate evolve in Obama’s favour.
I “loved” (and by loved I mean not really) how Mitt basically told Jim Lehrer to his face that if he is elected Lehrer and even Big Bird will be out of a job all the while phonily professing to take both Lehrer and Big Bird. I wish President Obama had reminded the audience about Romney’s “I like to fire people” quote, because there’s your evidence right there. Speaking of which, racking up debt during war after war but PBS is an expense too many?
Of course the wars must stay but PBS must go. Has Big Bird killed any brown people recently? I don’t think so! That yellow-bellied anti-American feather duster.
Don’t forget Bert and Ernie. Same-sex couples make such natural scapegoats – and of course politicians almost always avoid them because it’s usually advantageous to pretend we don’t exist.
It might be useful to note that government funding of PBS amounts to less than 0.015% of the federal budget. So even Mr. Bain will have a hard time making a mountain of money out of that molehill.
PBS doesn’t even depend upon federal funds. The federal funds go to the member stations. Romney’s obviously never watched PBS, because they tell you what org paid for the program all the goddamned time. I watched just 12 minutes of the debate, so I didn’t see the Big Bird comment, but wow, does it come off as sadistic and weird.
WTF, Big Bird is America’s secret weapon. He could easily stomp all over other countries’ mascots. Drones schmones…Big Bird is where it’s at. This is like eliminating an entire fighter jet program.
Whole thing was a disaster – stop saying 5 trillion dollar tax cut. Voters do not need to hear that they are going to get money if Romney is elected, the part about having to pay the bill later just floats over their heads… More than one campaign was run on false promises. Obama should be talking about the middle class tax increase. He should be saying things like the only way for your plan to work is to destroy the home mortgage deduction. It needs to be put into concrete terms people can easily understand and will be afraid of.
I just love this ABC “fact check”: Obama Fact Check #1 — 9:35 p.m.: President Obama: This is where there is a difference because Governor Romney’s central economic plan calls for a 5 trillion dollar tax cut on top of the extension of the Bush tax cuts so that is another trillion dollars. And two trillion dollars in additional military spending that the military hasn’t asked for. That is 8 trillion dollars. How we pay for that, reduce the deficit and make the investments that we need to make without dumping those costs on the middle class Americans is one of the central questions of this campaign. Jon Karl’s Rating: Sorry. That is not correct. Obama is not accurate when he says Romney’s plan will add $5 trillion to the deficit. Romney has said his tax plan will be revenue neutral. Romney has not provided the details on how he will pay for his tax rate cut, but that does not mean the President can make the details up for him. This claim would be Mostly Fiction. So Romney, who has lied through his teeth, says his plan will be revenue neutral and that’s good enough for the fact checker? I’d say Obama’s stretching the truth here, but it’s hardly “mostly fiction”. At the very least some quick math will tell you that Romney’s plan can’t be revenue neutral unless he wants to make cuts that he currently claims he won’t make or unless he raises taxes on the middle class: Obama should have been prepared for this with a quick piece of math from his own tax return (working in that he’d use Romney’s as an example but that Romney hasn’t fully released his yet). In general, IMHO, Obama pulled way too many punches.
I don’t even get the point of being revenue neutral. He just proposed basically shuffluing things around so everything stays the same, but looks like something was done. Tax Code busywork. It’s just a big Why Bother?
Wow, that fact-checking flat-out invents an error — Obama didn’t say Romney would add $5 trillion dollars to the deficit, he said that Romney is proposing tax cuts of $5 trillion dollars and that the question of how he will pay for them has yet to be answered. Which, as ABC then goes on to point out, is entirely accurate.
I thought Romney executed that very well and was quite impressed by him. He successfully managed to shed the image of a rapacious culture capitalist and looked very cool, calm and collected. It was a perfect performance for me. What upset me was a lack of discussion on veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. With a brother currently stationed in Kunar, I would really like to know what plans there are to address veteran unemployment, high suicide rate and the bureaucratic mess at the VA. People are saying Romney will have difficulty with the issue of foreign policy, but I disagree. Syria is a humanitarian catastrophe and the international community are wondering if the US will allow a repeat of Rwanda. The Afghan surge strategy was a failure, and the rise of insider attacks have completely demoralized NATO-ISAF to the point that all joint combat operations have been suspended and question marks are being raised over the Afghan army’s ability to take charge. Iran has not come to the negotiating table, and is breaking international law by using Iraqi airspace to transport Revolutionary Guards to help the Allawites. The Obama administration has finally admitted that the Benghazi killings was a coordinated terrorist attack, and a new report by Eli Lake exposes the State Department reduced security in that Consulate, even though they were aware of a threat to Ambassador Stevens. If Romney can keep to the offensive, he can win that debate as well.