At the request of a poster on another board, I am reposting this here, perhaps it should have been here in the first place, I'm still new enough to be finding my way around where things actually belong.
Supposedly somewhere close to 50 million people watched the debate last night. As it was, it was rather dull. The president, remained low key, cerebral, and on his points. Governor Romney, introduced another new Romney, the compassionate Romney to the American people. I was reminded of Richard Nixon and famous HerBlock cartoon of Nixon in front of his clothes closet, trying to pick his uniform of the day.
Fire was generally lacking thoughout, with the president refusing to be baited into angry responses, and Romney determined to prove he was just plain folk.
I alternated between CNN and Current TV for coverage, and rather enjoyed the Twitter posts on Current and the approval/disapproval line chart on CNN. The President seemed to out poll the Guv. with women on CNN. which was anticipated in anycase.
What amazed me last night, was the candy store approach of Romney. It seemed like no matter what it was so long as he could tag it to the middle class, he offered up generous servings. What I heard didn't impress me much, especially when the Guv., decided to offer up the energy sources he liked, declaring his loyalty to coal. (Koch Bros. anyone?) And the Vuv was his usual specifically unspecific self. His tax program sounds like wish list for a spendthrift, and I couldn't figure out whether he was trying to espouse a revenue neutral plan, of some concoction of tax cuts that will somehow produce more revenue. Another point he raised, was his famous 12 milllion jobs promise. He reinforced it by saying they will be good paying jobs, not entry level jobs, plus apparently under his leadership everyone will be getting raises.
It kind of made me wonder whether he was running for President of the US, of CEO in Chief of American Business.
There's a Mel Gibson movie, The Patriot , in it there is a line that Gibson is constantly reminding himself of "Stay the Course". In my opinion that was the President's message to the American People. "We can get out of this together with our economy, our country and our ideals and beliefs in tact, if we only just stay the course." If that was what he wanted to do, he got the message across.
I was a bit surprised by the commentary from both CNN's, MSNBC;s, and Current's pundits. They wanted to see the president out there swinging, stuffing Romney's gaffes, like the 47% remark down his throat. They thought that somehow the president needed to do that. Why ? Are they so smart and the American People so stupid that we forget in 5 minutes what people say to us when they are trying to get us to hire them to work for us ? I don't think so, had any of the pundits been participating in the debate, it would have been a shambles.
I don't think either side did a good job articulating health care. For both it was the same tired rhetoric. Romney fared a little worse I believe, because what he was describing was a troika of health care: Vouchers to buy private insurance, private insurance outright, and lastly a skeletal medicare like program. His assertion that private industry can always do it cheaper than the government can fell on deaf ears, mainly because coming out of Iraq and the monumental price gouging and profit taking by contractors in that Theater of Operations, I think proves the case that private contractors are in it for the bucks and are motivated by the profit incentive rather than any altruistic motives. The President could have done a better job of outlining how Obamacare is designed to work, that he didn't lost him some points. Even after this debate however, I still don't quite understand where Mitt Romney stands on Social Security or Health care.
Poor scores were achieved by both candidates for their responses to questions on education. Romney seemed to forget that he hasn't been governor of MA for the last 5 years, and thus is somewhat overstating the case to say he made Massachusetts schools #1 in the nation. Unfortunately, there are no comparable parameters for the President who must deal with the acutely sick condition of schools in 49 other states. All he can point to is Race to the Top, which does seem to be out performing No Child Left Behind. Mr. Romney's quip about ending Federal contributions to public TV, was uncalled for. I suppose he things Fox will pick up Sesame Street.
In any case, I think the president acted like he was bored and distracted with other things. His body language to me illustrated a bit of disdain for his opponent, which induced Gov. to come across a bit like an angry chihuahua. But at the end of the day if the President lost the battle, Mr. Romney lost the war. Here is the reasoning behind that statement. On Energy, a declaration that "I love clean coal." That statement is an oxymoron at the least. There is no such thing as "clean coal" It is and remains the dirtiest hydrocarbon fuel on the scale. While everyone is aware of the Koch Bros., and their large scale coal operations, Mr. Romney's comments were pure kowtowing to his munificent benefactors. On drilling, Basically Mr. Romney said he would open up everything to drilling, including all public lands. Well if that's the case, why shouldn't the American People get the benefit of those depletion allowances, talk about a boost to the economy. $10 billion a year divided amongst 314 million people, would put $32k in the pocket of every man,woman and child in the US. That's what I call priming the economic pump. Instead, Mr. Romney chose to defend the practice of depletion allowances. Holding instead that oil companies who make 4 billion a year, need this money to operate. Surprising Mr. Romney also defended the bane of Republicanism, regulation, but regulation his way. He refused to address the issue of whether or not certain banks should be labeled to big to fail, deciding instead to focus on 132 banks that did fail in the meltdown, small banks., which he well knows closed because of poor banking practice, rather than any regulatory compliance issues.
I'm also glad to know that someone finally told Mr. Romney there is a middle class in America. I was afraid that point was beyond his comprehension. Of course he hit upon the fact that the middle class has been hammered, economically. Too bad though that he didn't get the dates right. Since the Reagan Administration the middle class has been hammered, not since Barrack Obama took office. Which is reason enough for the Middle Class not to trust Romney, republicans always claim to be good middle class Americans, until you check their bank accounts.
There was more, outsourcing overseas, trickle down economics, no real plan to pay down the national debt, $8trillion in additional debt, phantom savings, supposed revenue neutral taxation,that produces more revenue, turning over to the states control of programs like medicare and medicaid, but the bottom line is that the new Romney looked very much like the old Romney, just hyped up on methamphetamine for a tv performance.
So a tactical victory for Romney may have given the President's campaign a great deal of ammunition for the more strategic victory. Romney was finally held to some modicum of specifics, that I believe can hurt him in the general campaign We shall have to wait and see what comes over the airwaves in the next week or so by way of ads..
Tai Pan
Jim Lehrer as a moderator, lost control of the debate so many times, it wasn't funny
Supposedly somewhere close to 50 million people watched the debate last night. As it was, it was rather dull. The president, remained low key, cerebral, and on his points. Governor Romney, introduced another new Romney, the compassionate Romney to the American people. I was reminded of Richard Nixon and famous HerBlock cartoon of Nixon in front of his clothes closet, trying to pick his uniform of the day.
Fire was generally lacking thoughout, with the president refusing to be baited into angry responses, and Romney determined to prove he was just plain folk.
I alternated between CNN and Current TV for coverage, and rather enjoyed the Twitter posts on Current and the approval/disapproval line chart on CNN. The President seemed to out poll the Guv. with women on CNN. which was anticipated in anycase.
What amazed me last night, was the candy store approach of Romney. It seemed like no matter what it was so long as he could tag it to the middle class, he offered up generous servings. What I heard didn't impress me much, especially when the Guv., decided to offer up the energy sources he liked, declaring his loyalty to coal. (Koch Bros. anyone?) And the Vuv was his usual specifically unspecific self. His tax program sounds like wish list for a spendthrift, and I couldn't figure out whether he was trying to espouse a revenue neutral plan, of some concoction of tax cuts that will somehow produce more revenue. Another point he raised, was his famous 12 milllion jobs promise. He reinforced it by saying they will be good paying jobs, not entry level jobs, plus apparently under his leadership everyone will be getting raises.
It kind of made me wonder whether he was running for President of the US, of CEO in Chief of American Business.
There's a Mel Gibson movie, The Patriot , in it there is a line that Gibson is constantly reminding himself of "Stay the Course". In my opinion that was the President's message to the American People. "We can get out of this together with our economy, our country and our ideals and beliefs in tact, if we only just stay the course." If that was what he wanted to do, he got the message across.
I was a bit surprised by the commentary from both CNN's, MSNBC;s, and Current's pundits. They wanted to see the president out there swinging, stuffing Romney's gaffes, like the 47% remark down his throat. They thought that somehow the president needed to do that. Why ? Are they so smart and the American People so stupid that we forget in 5 minutes what people say to us when they are trying to get us to hire them to work for us ? I don't think so, had any of the pundits been participating in the debate, it would have been a shambles.
I don't think either side did a good job articulating health care. For both it was the same tired rhetoric. Romney fared a little worse I believe, because what he was describing was a troika of health care: Vouchers to buy private insurance, private insurance outright, and lastly a skeletal medicare like program. His assertion that private industry can always do it cheaper than the government can fell on deaf ears, mainly because coming out of Iraq and the monumental price gouging and profit taking by contractors in that Theater of Operations, I think proves the case that private contractors are in it for the bucks and are motivated by the profit incentive rather than any altruistic motives. The President could have done a better job of outlining how Obamacare is designed to work, that he didn't lost him some points. Even after this debate however, I still don't quite understand where Mitt Romney stands on Social Security or Health care.
Poor scores were achieved by both candidates for their responses to questions on education. Romney seemed to forget that he hasn't been governor of MA for the last 5 years, and thus is somewhat overstating the case to say he made Massachusetts schools #1 in the nation. Unfortunately, there are no comparable parameters for the President who must deal with the acutely sick condition of schools in 49 other states. All he can point to is Race to the Top, which does seem to be out performing No Child Left Behind. Mr. Romney's quip about ending Federal contributions to public TV, was uncalled for. I suppose he things Fox will pick up Sesame Street.
In any case, I think the president acted like he was bored and distracted with other things. His body language to me illustrated a bit of disdain for his opponent, which induced Gov. to come across a bit like an angry chihuahua. But at the end of the day if the President lost the battle, Mr. Romney lost the war. Here is the reasoning behind that statement. On Energy, a declaration that "I love clean coal." That statement is an oxymoron at the least. There is no such thing as "clean coal" It is and remains the dirtiest hydrocarbon fuel on the scale. While everyone is aware of the Koch Bros., and their large scale coal operations, Mr. Romney's comments were pure kowtowing to his munificent benefactors. On drilling, Basically Mr. Romney said he would open up everything to drilling, including all public lands. Well if that's the case, why shouldn't the American People get the benefit of those depletion allowances, talk about a boost to the economy. $10 billion a year divided amongst 314 million people, would put $32k in the pocket of every man,woman and child in the US. That's what I call priming the economic pump. Instead, Mr. Romney chose to defend the practice of depletion allowances. Holding instead that oil companies who make 4 billion a year, need this money to operate. Surprising Mr. Romney also defended the bane of Republicanism, regulation, but regulation his way. He refused to address the issue of whether or not certain banks should be labeled to big to fail, deciding instead to focus on 132 banks that did fail in the meltdown, small banks., which he well knows closed because of poor banking practice, rather than any regulatory compliance issues.
I'm also glad to know that someone finally told Mr. Romney there is a middle class in America. I was afraid that point was beyond his comprehension. Of course he hit upon the fact that the middle class has been hammered, economically. Too bad though that he didn't get the dates right. Since the Reagan Administration the middle class has been hammered, not since Barrack Obama took office. Which is reason enough for the Middle Class not to trust Romney, republicans always claim to be good middle class Americans, until you check their bank accounts.
There was more, outsourcing overseas, trickle down economics, no real plan to pay down the national debt, $8trillion in additional debt, phantom savings, supposed revenue neutral taxation,that produces more revenue, turning over to the states control of programs like medicare and medicaid, but the bottom line is that the new Romney looked very much like the old Romney, just hyped up on methamphetamine for a tv performance.
So a tactical victory for Romney may have given the President's campaign a great deal of ammunition for the more strategic victory. Romney was finally held to some modicum of specifics, that I believe can hurt him in the general campaign We shall have to wait and see what comes over the airwaves in the next week or so by way of ads..
Tai Pan
Jim Lehrer as a moderator, lost control of the debate so many times, it wasn't funny
