Presidential Debate - Wed, Oct 3, 2012

Anyone want to make predictions?

Zingers delivered with the feeling and timing of my iPhone's Siri.

I predict that no matter what, the media will claim 0bama won the debate.
I also predict that 0bama will set some type of record for the most blatant lies in a short period of time.

I voted today. Looked real good for Obama, judging from the chatter outside in the parking lot at the early voting poll at Summit & Bush. Voting went very smoothly during the time we were there. The lines were steady, parking lot 2/3's full. I honestly dont believe that the debates will make a significant difference, unless one or the other makes a truly bad stumble. Romney has much more to lose/gain from his performance than Obama.
I'll be in class during the debate tonight. I'll have to rely on pundits to summarize. And Ac. :)

"Looked real good for Obama, judging from the chatter outside in the parking lot at the early voting poll at Summit & Bush. "

And you'd expect anything other than that in Lucas County? And at an early voting (ridiculous) center downtown?

cspan was showing some old debates this weekend and it was amusing to see Ross Perot up there, barely taller than the lectern, skewering Clinton and Bush equally. Perot was a little nutty, but he brought up some good points. And he is looking awfully prescient now, two decades later.

But we'll never have that kind of debate again. The Commission on Presidential Debates, formed by the two major parties, learned their lesson with Perot and will never, ever let a third party candidate get involved again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates

Everything is agreed to beforehand so as to minimize any possible unscripted moments. The agreement between the Obama and Romney camps haven't been released, but here some highlights from the agreement between Kerry and Bush in 2004:

“The parties agree that they will not (1) issue any challenges for additional debates, (2) appear at any other debate or adversarial forum with any other presidential or vice presidential candidate, or (3) accept any television or radio air time offers that involve a debate format or otherwise involve the simultaneous appearance of more than one candidate.”

For the town-hall debate: Audience members shall not ask follow-up questions or otherwise participate in the extended discussion, and the audience member's microphone shall be turned off after he or she completes asking the question.”

http://www.opendebates.org/news/documents/debateagreement.pdf

Ain't watching this farce; I am burnt out on this election. Tigers-Royals is much more interesting.

Oh, and as I typed this short missive, yet another political junk phone call came in, from Americans for Prosperity this time. I think this is eight calls just today, and I am about ready to disconnect my landline over the aggravation. Were it not for the fact that I have elderly relatives who still call the landline, I would have angrily grabbed my boltcutters and severed the connections four months ago.

Jesus. Get rid of that land line!

I got an absentee ballot application and mailed it back in within 5 days of getting it.

Have not received a ballot yet.

WTF WOOD COUNTY?

AMEN.

This is a fucking farce. Anyone who is on the ballot in enough states to get 270 electoral votes should be in the debate.

And Ol' H. Ross was right about the giant sucking sound, but he couldn't have predicted exactly where it'd be coming from (China and India as well as Mexico!)

Should be an interesting debate, or at least I'm hoping.

Historymike: the phone calls are getting a bit much. I've had 3 calls in the last 2 days to my car. I don't even have On-star enabled, but the # seems active. Heck I don't even know it, yet it's in the call list.

Land lines are good because it dont cost you anything if they call you, caller id, i don't even bother to pick up unless I know them, sometimes I will pick up and lie to the census takers though.

RUMOR: Every time Mitt Romney repeats a Politifact "Pants on Fire" award winner, the Koch brothers donate another million to him.

Nice smirk, Romney.

Jim Lehrer has lost control of this thing, it's off the rails.

If you vote early the phone calls stop. So does any political junk mail. If you want that stuff to stop just get off your duff and get to the early voting center. Unless you find it ridiculous. Then stand in line and wait on election day. Now that's really ridiculous.

tonight's a great night for https://www.facebook.com/mattromney2012 & https://www.facebook.com/robpaulwasforpres

that's going to be my only political post in this thread! :)

lol upso.

I imagine it's difficult to debate a person who has offered no specifics and no plans. Especially when you're almost mirror images of eachother.

Romney has done a great job of taking control, but Jim Lehrer is acting like an NFL replacement ref and Obama is not a great debater.

Goddamnit Obama, you're being too intellectual.

Romney isn't gonna cut education funding, but he's going to cut PBS and thereby cut Sesame Street.

Romney wants energy independence. Yeah, we're gonna be real independent if we suck all the oil out from under the USA. Exactly how are we going to be independent when we've used up all our oil?

Massachusetts is not #1 in education. Hasn't been for four years. That title goes to Maryland.

Taxsachusetts is too number one in education!

Exactly how are we going to be independent when we've used up all our oil?

AC, you incredible Caliban. The US will invade Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or something and steal their oil. For the children.

I think Romney was the winner here. I'll have to wait and see if his victory in this debate makes any difference in the election.

Maybe it's #1 in the Romney Ratings.

^^^ There you go.

I'll tell you what though, Obama didn't call him on it which surprises me a little. If MA isn't number 1, why not correct the situation?

Obama didn't do well, he should have called him out a bunch of times. What is Romney's tax plan now?

MSNBC is absolutely despondent over Obama's disaster tonight. Andrew Sullivan a rabid Obama liberal called it a pathetic, incompetent performance.

CNN declared Obama the big loser tonight.

Bye bye Barack.

I think Mondale won the first debate against Reagan.

Kerry won his first debate against Bush too. Romney won because he ran for the center, forgot everything him and Ryan campaigned on and Obama let him.

Well, if Obama called out Romney and started getting assertive and talking over Lehrer like Romney did, the right wing noise machine would be going off right now about how Obama is an angry black man, and OMG isn't Fartbama an inconsiderate douchebag to be doing that to such a sweet old man.

Don't deny it, that's exactly the talking points they had prepared for that eventuality.

So you admit Romney wants another couple wars?! Good to know!

I thought one of the points of conservatism, at least back in the day before the neocon and Teabagger assclowns showed up, was that we shouldn't be fucking around overseas and that we shouldn't be squandering our precious resources. Guess all the oil under the USA isn't a precious resource. Clearly we should be pumping all that shit out and selling it to China or some shit.

Mondale did get the edge over Reagan in the first 1984 debate. I was there and I watched it. But it was a modest advantage. What is shocking about tonight is how bad the incumbent looked and how sharp Romney was.

Best tweet of the night was from the infamous Michael Moore "If this keeps up Obama will end up voting for Romney"

Obama is a guy who uses a teleprompter to speak to 6th graders. He is not all that bright. Tonight made that obvious.

We have hundreds of years of oil under US soil. Not to mention coal and NG. The idiot in the white house is not bright enough to recognize these facts.

Less than 60 days and we are through with Moochella her food fascism and this whole nutty crew.

Romney loves the shit out of Big Bird so much that he's going to kill him and eat the carcass on Thanksgiving. And of course there isn't any kind of educational component in Sesame Street or PBS funding, else Romney wouldn't be killing it. Guess he has it in for that secret gay couple of Bert and Ernie, who are clearly pushing the homosexual agenda, or some crazy shit like that.

Did love how Romney wouldn't take a 10 to 1 ratio of spending cut dollars to increased revenue.

Can't believe Mitt's pants didn't catch the podium on fire when he repeated the thoroughly debunked lie about the Medicare "cuts". Odd how that figure matches up to the dollar of what's in Ryan's plan.

There was a drinking game that actually had "if someone goes over the time limit, chug until they finish", I wonder how many people are now dead from alcohol poisoning. That debate was out of control and the only way it could have been worse is if Wolf Blitzer was moderator, or they held it on Jerry Springer on a day where Jerry had food poisoning and a migraine and all the security guys were off sick. Frankly, and I say this with no irony whatsoever, I've seen better moderation in /p/ here and in /b/ on 4Chan.

Obama looked awful. I wonder if he was ill or something. Just didn't seem to be all "there." Yup, I think Romney won that one. Not sure if it's too late, though. Obama is winning by quite a bit in the swing states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States

We consume 19.6 million barrels of oil a day, let's round that up to 20 billion because I like nice round numbers to make math easy for stupid people.

21,000,000,000 proven barrels divided by 20,000,000 barrels a day = 1050 days of oil. 2.88 years.

219,000,000,000 technically recoverable barrels excluding shale, tar sands, etc. divided by 20,000,000 barrels a day = 10,950 days of oil. 30 years on the nose (excluding leap days).

If we slurp up every drop possible, 1,442,000,000,000 divided by 20,000,000 = 72,100 days = 197.5 years.

We don't have multiple hundreds of years, you liar. We don't have 200 even if you sucked up every last drop.

Tar sands and oil shale aren't crude oil. You have to throw more energy into them to get actual gasoline and diesel and kerosene.

Sure, let's pull a Palin and drill baby drill! Let's assume that they put Movie Bruce Willis on the ball and drilling is nearly instantaneous, in 3 years we've run out of proven reserves, in 30 years every oil well is making the slurping noise of a straw in an empty milkshake, and then we're now digging up the La Brea Tar Pits and fracking every shale formation to squeeze gasoline and diesel and kerosene out of all that harder and more energy-intensive-to-refine material, in 197 years, we're out of oil.

The only idiot in a white house is you, if that is the color of your house.

As your mind was made up well before the debate, how much do you really think this will affect the election? How much did you learn about Romney's plans? How was his treatment of Jim Lehrer?

The only thing people will remember is that Romney fired Big Bird.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not very excited about President Obama and I wasn't in 2008. He's also a poor debater. That said, I wish people were swayed by the actual content and arguments made instead of the show or the circus. Obviously, President Obama has 4 years from which you can judge him, but what did Mitt Romney have to offer? Even when confronted with studies and reports from experts who claim his statements are impossible, he simply denies. Since he hasn't offered any specifics, who can argue? Shouldn't the lack of a plan or the lack of specifics be concerning?

THE BIG QUESTION FROM LAST NIGHT'S DEBATE: Do you really want Jim Lehrer to be at the mercy of private insurers?

Romney has a tax plan but the math is too complicated to explain? Like Romney's tax returns that he won't show?

Romney wants to cut the rate and deductions and loopholes but he won't tell us which ones.

Romney wants to cut spending but the best he could do is tell us he's gonna fire Big Bird. What's the figure for subsidies to NPR/PBS? $430 million. How about we keep that and cut $430 million in boondoggles and waste from defense spending. That's what, under a quarter of a stealth bomber?

"Obama looked awful. I wonder if he was ill or something."

Bill Maher on Denver debate: Obama needed teleprompter

It will be interesting to see how Carney, Gibbs, Axelrod and Wasserman-Shultz try to spin it today/

I couldn't stomach watching it, but if both CNN & MSNBC said Romney won, it must have been a blood bath.

Romney won in part by being a huge jerk and riding roughshod over the moderator. I stand by the assertion that if Obama acted like Romney did, the right wing talking points today would be all about how Obama is an angry black man.

Clint Eastwood should have been talking to an empty podium instead of a chair.

Burying the middle class is probably the only "shovel ready" jobs Obama has created.Bad news again on the jobs front today for Obommy.How is all that hope and change working out for you now?

"Romney won in part by being a huge jerk and riding roughshod over the moderator."

So what? Someone needs to remind Obama that politics is rough. He knows how not to be a wussy.

Maybe it was last night's debate format that did not suit Obama, but he needs to act like he's debating Hillary not McCain. Compare O's demeanor in this back and forth with HC to how he acted last night. Hillary attacked Obama, and Obama responded with intensity.

Tensions Flare Between Obama and Clinton at SC Debate

There were a few items neither candidate wanted to spend any time on. Although Romney cited the national debt several times he didn't really hammer Obama with it. Neither candidate brought up GITMO, the Patriot Act, civil rights, the militarization of the local police departments or the time it would take to actually get the country out of debt. Neither one produced any real details about just how they would turn the U.S. economy around, just that they'd do it. Obama claims the economy is already turned around, Romney says it isn't. Obama claimed that Romney would have us all in line at the soup kitchen, then cut funding for the kitchen. Romney claims Obama is a damned liar, and that everyone would be too busy working at their new job to bother much about the soup kitchen.

I don't really believe that either candidate knows what the hell they're talking about, but I do believe that both will say or do anything to win this election.

"Romney won in part by being a huge jerk and riding roughshod over the moderator."

This isn't Lerher's first rodeo. He's moderated 11 prior debates and was persuaded to come out of a semi-retirement to moderate this one. He isn't a deer in the headlights or bowing to some sort of pressure.

Blaming the moderator is garbage. What--if Romney had lost last night, due in part to "being a jerk and running over the moderator" you would be bitching about this? This is a guy both sides agreed upon and someone with decades of experience. The guy is about as down the middle as we're gonna get, because the debate moderators are not going to be Glenn Beck or Rachel Maddow (well, at least not this year...don't know about the future).

The candidate of the Democrat Party did a piss-poor job last night. He had relatively the same amount of time to talk and he just didn't do it well. That's the beginning and end of it. And before someone goes all left-wing defensive, I listened to NPR on the way to work this morning and have CNN on right now...and they are chattering about the same thing. He did a poor job. It's OK. You can stop carrying the water and move on to the next debate. There are two more left. Obama will come out swinging, no doubt. He's competitive as hell and hates to lose. You could see it on his face last night.

I'm surprised the narrative hasn't evolved into "He's the President and has a lot more on his plate than prepping for debates" or something else to explain his "rusty" performance (and I'm being generous with "rusty").

P.S.--seriously guys? A red tie for Romney and a blue tie for Obama? I think I'd vote for a guy that comes out in a tie that looks like it was stolen from a clown's corpse and says "I'm wearing whatever the hell I want because consultants don't tell me what to do or what to say." Ahhhhh...fantasy world, I know....

"Obama looked awful. I wonder if he was ill or something."

You could be right. Altitude sickness.

Guardian story

It's been interesting reading reports on the debate today. There's consensus that Mitt Romney won the debate due to his "crisp" or "assertive" style.

There is absolutely no mention of substance in his answers.

Sesame Street today is not brought to you by the letters, G, O, and P, and the number 1%.

I liked it when Romney said he needed a new accountant, I think his current one Geitner needs to be fired anyways, since he didn't pay his taxes until after put in charge of the IRS.

"There is absolutely no mention of substance in his answers."

So where is the substance in Obamas answers?

I did not watch the debate so cannot comment on it. But I can comment on the difference altitude makes.

My daughter lives in Coralles, Nm approximately 5500 ft high. Coming from
Toledo it is a real shock to the system when you step off the plane. It is an effort at times to put one foot in front
of the other. You do adjust in a few days.

The year I went from Toledo to Santa FE I passed out on the sidewalk. Santa Fe is about 7800 feet high. Laid in a medical center with a lot of other people suffering from the same. We all needed to learn the meaning of "adjusting to the altitude."

He looked hung over, to me. He bragged in a book about his drug use in college, and his drinking. Sometimes booze gets the best of a person. It's a shame, really.

Amazing how the same people who complained that Obama's ideas were all rainbow farting unicorns are completely falling for such from Romney.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/mitt-romneys-fuzzy-debate-math/ (WARNING: Math involved, for those here who are only able to count to potato)

Long story short: If Romney is going to close the deficit without increasing taxes, solely by job creation (before he gets to all the other tax cuts and cutting deductions), those 12 million new jobs he promised need to pay $433k (yes, nearly half a million a year) at a tax rate of 25%.

Romney is counting on the Republicans who can only count to potato to vote for him. The joys of an ignorant populace who think a story problem is when Dick and Jane's ball rolls away.

"His campaign team, with a reputation as control freaks, did not anticipate any problem..."

Yeah...that would have to be it, because Obama couldn't have possibly spent any time campaigning in Colorado in the months leading up to the debate.

President Barack Obama Makes Two-Day, Four-City Campaign Stop in Colorado

Elevations
Denver: 5130-5690 ft
Grand Junction: 4593 ft
Pueblo: 4662 ft
Colorado Springs: 5740-7200 ft

Any student of history knows that you never fight a Mormon on a mountain top.

For better or worse, anything he says relates directly to 4 years of substance. Context is easy with President Obama.