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Official Debate Watching Thread

ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
I agree the race has been boring and so this adds some life too it. For the last 3 months Romney has come off as a boob and last night was the first time he appeared well articulated and presidential. I think it took Obama off guard who thought he could just coast to the victory as it had appeared earlier. I think Romney was good, but the expectations were pretty low. I also think Obama looked worse than he was because his expectations were high. I also think that democrat observers and supporters freaked out because there was literally so many things Obama could have pointed to against Romney and he did none of them. If you give me a week studying, especially the 100's of contradictions and lies Romney has put out there, debating him shouldn't be very hard.
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:rulz:
 
This is obviously partisan, but it was something my wife noted last night. Obama looked "smug" and "aloof" and she even said "old" compared to Romney. Old. But if you watch this all of it actually makes sense. Romney looked like he gave a crap. Percentage of people before and after the debate who thought Romney cared about them went from 30% to 60% per CBS. Obama has to go put that genie and these images back in the bottle. He literally smirked his way through a lot of the debate.

 
That smirk was unbearable and came off as quite childish to me, especially because after smirking his way through Romney talking he would come back so weak
 
tintinisahottie said:
You have too much of a dog in the fight to be taken seriously
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hello-yes-this-is-dog.png
 
DeacMan said:
It was an epic destruction in front of what will be the largest audience for any of the debates. When 67% of registered voters say you won the debate (in an electorate that is essentially split down the middle) it is an epic destruction. Romney won well over 50% scores on each of the following questions as well:

Who is better to handle the economy
Who is better to handle healthcare
Who is better to handle the deficit
Whose view of government's role in society is better
Who is better to handle the military

He even won 46% to 45% on who is more likeable. That is flat out baffling. But when the President spent much of the debate smirking, I guess that's the price that got paid.

And this is a poll of registered voters, NOT undecided voters. Crap, a poll in CA says even people in San Francisco say Romney won the debate. That is ridiculous.

Obama had a chance to end the race last night. Instead Romney pushed open the door, took a big swig of Gatorade, caught his breath, put on his shoes and stepped back onto the track. By no means will last night decide the election. It is advantage Obama still because Romney's path to 270 is not as easy. But Romney is back in the race.

Romney has to keep on making the same case over and over and over and perform well in both of the next two debates. He can't lose momentum in those platforms. He may not need another dominant performance like last night but at the very least he MUST continue to more than hold his own. By that he and his "vision" of less government will lead to more opportunity has to continue to appear as a very viable alternative to a President whose brand was called into question last night. And he also has to appear to give a shit about the common man - which he did pretty well last night (albeit with no one even attempting to call his character into question). No screw ups, no explosions and weather what will likely now become some serious aggression from the Obama camp. By no means easy.

Obama? In the face of a stuttering economy he now has to fight to explain why his vision will work when it hasn't worked for the last three years as he told us it would. Where are the 5 million "easy" new green energy jobs? Where is the under 8% unemployment we were promised we'd have years ago? Where is the fiscal discipline that was promised? Why weren't these things his priorities in term one? Why will they be priorities in a second term? There won't be softballs being lobbed into the plate the rest of the way. Romney made last night as much about Obama's record as he did his own vision. And so Obama no doubt will also come out and attack Romney on every front imaginable. I'm sure we'll hear about all sundry of social issues in addition to how Romney wants to make poor people eat puppies for dinner. Because making Romney look really unappealing has to be that much more important after last night.
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Good post, but I think there are additional things worth considering:

1- This race has always been close. The narrative that this is going to be an Obama cakewalk is just that-- a media narrative generated by polls that are heavily skewed for Obama. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy based on the use of polls. If you say something enough, it must be true. I hate fucking polls and their use in framing policy debates enough as it is. To use them to frame an election is just deplorable.

2- I think it's understandable to think that Obama, in turn, has believed his own narrative and acted accordingly. I'm not sure this is so true, though. It's not that he was especially terrible last night. He was much like he always is-- cerebral, etc... The part where he really lost points was with his body language. But Romney was also just that fucking good. Command of the issues, domination of the discussion, and to the point. I'm not sure that there are a lot of people out there who could have withstood that onslaught.

3- The importance of Romney's performance on the motivation of the GOP base cannot be understated. The narrative of an inevitable Obama victory has started to take its toll on the GOP voting bloc morale. Now, suddenly everything has clicked and they are excited again. This was Romney reinvented on his own terms and not on Obama's or the media's. Independents are already leaning toward Romney in polls I've seen. A motivated GOP is huge. This cannot be emphasized enough.
 
jhmd2000 said:
It's funny. I tend to agree with you, but for the first time I wasn't so sure last night. What last night told me is to remember the teachings of the Prophet Yoga. Lots of miles still to go. Jobs report tomorrow (can you imagine if THAT thing tanks?). This Benghazi thing is a disaster. This thing ain't over, in fact, the good parts may have just started.

Last night was like when Rocky's first punch landed on Drago. He's not a machine. Drag'O'bama stumbled last night the first time leather-met-face. I wasn't expecting him to blink and flinch, so who knows what happens next? My guess is if Axelrod has any October surprises left to go (and it's the Dems, so of course they do), we're about to see them. That timetable just got bumped up three weeks.
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Mrs. BSD was an undecided (if you can believe it) until this:

sesame-street-big-bird.jpg


Don't mess with educational programing for B-K in the BSD household or shit is going to get real.
 
DeacMan said:
This is obviously partisan, but it was something my wife noted last night. Obama looked "smug" and "aloof" and she even said "old" compared to Romney. Old. But if you watch this all of it actually makes sense. Romney looked like he gave a crap. Percentage of people before and after the debate who thought Romney cared about them went from 30% to 60% per CBS. Obama has to go put that genie and these images back in the bottle. He literally smirked his way through a lot of the debate.
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I know this sounds crazy and shows that I am a total burnout, but everytime Obama went from his very tired looking face to a broad grin, I was reminded of Iggy Pop in this video at the :45 mark. Maybe he was just on something like Iggy?

 
Romney also looked like he was having a great time and really really wants to be POTUS.

Sometimes that's his strength but mostly that's his weakness, don't want to seem too eager or you'll never get the girl. That's why Obama is cool but Obama was too cool for school last night.
 
Ball State Deac said:
Mrs. BSD was an undecided (if you can believe it) until this:

sesame-street-big-bird.jpg


Don't mess with educational programing for B-K in the BSD household or shit is going to get real.
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Btw, tell the Mrs that Big Bird can survive the cut because Sesame Skreet is funded mostly by private companies.

(And Romney totally lost hundreds of votes by doing that, what does that say about our country?)
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Good post, but I think there are additional things worth considering:

1- This race has always been close. The narrative that this is going to be an Obama cakewalk is just that-- a media narrative generated by polls that are heavily skewed for Obama. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy based on the use of polls. If you say something enough, it must be true. I hate fucking polls and their use in framing policy debates enough as it is. To use them to frame an election is just deplorable.

2- I think it's understandable to think that Obama, in turn, has believed his own narrative and acted accordingly. I'm not sure this is so true, though. It's not that he was especially terrible last night. He was much like he always is-- cerebral, etc... The part where he really lost points was with his body language. But Romney was also just that fucking good. Command of the issues, domination of the discussion, and to the point. I'm not sure that there are a lot of people out there who could have withstood that onslaught.

3- The importance of Romney's performance on the motivation of the GOP base cannot be understated. The narrative of an inevitable Obama victory has started to take its toll on the GOP voting bloc morale. Now, suddenly everything has clicked and they are excited again. This was Romney reinvented on his own terms and not on Obama's or the media's. Independents are already leaning toward Romney in polls I've seen. A motivated GOP is huge. This cannot be emphasized enough.
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Another proponent of THE POLLS ARE SKEWED!!!11111!!! nonsense I see.
 
Go said:
(And Romney totally lost hundreds of votes by doing that, what does that say about our country?)
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probably b/c people on both sides actually see concrete/worthwhile benefits from PBS programming
 
The PBS shows that people watch aren't going anywhere. Given the assload of crap that nobody watches that gets put on TV, you don't think there would be an NFL-like bidding war amongst the networks to get Sesame Street?
 
An estimated 40 million people watched Wednesday's debate, according to the Nielsen TV ratings service.

The Obama campaign has since said there will be some "adjustments" in strategy before the election on 6 November.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll on Thursday suggested Mr Romney had a net positive rating for the first time in the presidential campaign.

The poll said 51% of voters viewed him positively, with Mr Obama at 56%. The Republican moved ahead of the president on which candidate voters trust more to rejuvenate the economy, create jobs and manage the deficit.
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Obama strategist David Axelrod told reporters on a conference call that the campaign would now rethink its strategy.

"We are going to take a hard look at this," he said. "I'm sure we will make adjustments as to where to draw the line in these debates and how to use our time."
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19835176
 
Go said:
Btw, tell the Mrs that Big Bird can survive the cut because Sesame Skreet is funded mostly by private companies.

(And Romney totally lost hundreds of votes by doing that, what does that say about our country?)
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It says that people care about education. And Sesame Street, according to my google machine, operates at a loss. Which seems hard to believe.
 
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