[HoosierDaddy]

Yes, let's pretend the Commander in Chief isn't American at all. That's as patriotic as it gets!

Trump is a level of toad that not even tadpoles can aspire too.

[Terez]

Sick@Simpliciter, on 24 October 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

I watched the debate live and I found it dumber than the first two mainly because Obama went all arrogant on Romney...

I don't know if 'arrogant' is quite the word. Not saying it doesn't apply in a way. I don't know if it can be boiled down in a word; the one I've been using on the thread up until now is 'jingles', but he really did take the rhetoric down a few notches to high school level, more like his stump speeches than a debate. Obama's public message is always a tad bit on the light side, but usually when he has a real interview with a real journalist he goes a level or two deeper, depending on the caliber of the journalist and the questions, and his debates are usually along the same lines. So I accept that there are many levels of Obama. I just didn't like seeing that level of Obama in a debate, especially seeing as how it didn't fit with Romney's debate strategy. It was like his campaign prepared him for the usual Romney, and when the usual Romney didn't show up, he wasn't able to adjust very well because all he had were these zingers.

If you look at Romney's strategy on these debates, it's actually very clever and quite obviously intended to play out exactly how it did. If it wasn't a morally devoid strategy, I might be tempted to vote for him, because he out-performed Obama on many levels. Romney's biggest fail in the whole series was the 'act of terror' moment in the second debate, but if Candy hadn't stepped in, it would have probably worked just like he wanted it to—despite him having actually believed what he was calling Obama on, and despite him being wrong—and we might be in even worse shape in the polls right now. Schieffer totally refrained from fact-checking, and I hated to see it.

Sick@Simpliciter, on 24 October 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Romney would cause anyone to loose their cool with his straight-face lying and his opportunistic flip-flopping... and probably it wasn't a political mistake to show such an attitude but still for the first time ever I did feel a certain degree of dislike for Obama...

Agreed. I don't think it helped that I was subject to Stephanie Cutter's vacuosity several times that day. I thought I liked her when I saw her do a fact-checking ad, but she's like the crazy chick from the marketing department. These people live in an alternate reality. Someone needs to get her away from Obama. I'm sure she's a nice girl, but that's not the point.

[Tapper]

Well, Obama saying "we have these boats that go underwater, they're called submarines" was condescending in the extreme. He started off very well by the horses and bayonets quip, but should just have said immediately after that warfare has changed, period.

He could also have made more about Romney just worrying about size of the army as an argument, and ripped into him that quality is far more important and that the US is leading the way with cutting edge technology and special/ precision ops under his own presidency (although he might have seen that leading to a discussion on the attack drones and/or the Bin Laden thingie again).

[HoosierDaddy]

It's an attempt to disqualify the opponent. Romney has no foreign policy experience and Obama wanted to leap on that. Sadly, Romney abandoned previous positions and pretty much mirrored Obama foreign policy, making it hard to distinguish them from each other.

I have no problem belittling an idiotic point if it is necessary. Romney's 2 trillion dollar increase of the Defense budget is worthy of derision of the highest sort.

By the by, drone attacks are highly favorable outside of the very liberal left. No troops, no death of Americans, killing enemies (and collateral damage)? Highly popular. Considering the majority of Americans feel the alternative were TWO WARS in the Middle East, despite the civilian deaths, drones are highly preferred.

[Vengeance]

Terez, on 25 October 2012 - 01:35 AM, said:

Sick@Simpliciter, on 24 October 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

I watched the debate live and I found it dumber than the first two mainly because Obama went all arrogant on Romney...

I don't know if 'arrogant' is quite the word. Not saying it doesn't apply in a way. I don't know if it can be boiled down in a word; the one I've been using on the thread up until now is 'jingles', but he really did take the rhetoric down a few notches to high school level, more like his stump speeches than a debate. Obama's public message is always a tad bit on the light side, but usually when he has a real interview with a real journalist he goes a level or two deeper, depending on the caliber of the journalist and the questions, and his debates are usually along the same lines. So I accept that there are many levels of Obama. I just didn't like seeing that level of Obama in a debate, especially seeing as how it didn't fit with Romney's debate strategy. It was like his campaign prepared him for the usual Romney, and when the usual Romney didn't show up, he wasn't able to adjust very well because all he had were these zingers.

If you look at Romney's strategy on these debates, it's actually very clever and quite obviously intended to play out exactly how it did. If it wasn't a morally devoid strategy, I might be tempted to vote for him, because he out-performed Obama on many levels. Romney's biggest fail in the whole series was the 'act of terror' moment in the second debate, but if Candy hadn't stepped in, it would have probably worked just like he wanted it to—despite him having actually believed what he was calling Obama on, and despite him being wrong—and we might be in even worse shape in the polls right now. Schieffer totally refrained from fact-checking, and I hated to see it.

Sick@Simpliciter, on 24 October 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Romney would cause anyone to loose their cool with his straight-face lying and his opportunistic flip-flopping... and probably it wasn't a political mistake to show such an attitude but still for the first time ever I did feel a certain degree of dislike for Obama...

Agreed. I don't think it helped that I was subject to Stephanie Cutter's vacuosity several times that day. I thought I liked her when I saw her do a fact-checking ad, but she's like the crazy chick from the marketing department. These people live in an alternate reality. Someone needs to get her away from Obama. I'm sure she's a nice girl, but that's not the point.

Yeah I want to see a debate where the canadites are fact checked in real time, and called on it. Boom... actually sire you a a miserable liar! That is your 5th lie of the night. YOU are dimissed! So a debate that is like a fact checking game show. The fewer lies that you tell the longer you get to stay in.

[EmperorMagus]

Vengeance, on 25 October 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

Terez, on 25 October 2012 - 01:35 AM, said:

Sick@Simpliciter, on 24 October 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

I watched the debate live and I found it dumber than the first two mainly because Obama went all arrogant on Romney...

I don't know if 'arrogant' is quite the word. Not saying it doesn't apply in a way. I don't know if it can be boiled down in a word; the one I've been using on the thread up until now is 'jingles', but he really did take the rhetoric down a few notches to high school level, more like his stump speeches than a debate. Obama's public message is always a tad bit on the light side, but usually when he has a real interview with a real journalist he goes a level or two deeper, depending on the caliber of the journalist and the questions, and his debates are usually along the same lines. So I accept that there are many levels of Obama. I just didn't like seeing that level of Obama in a debate, especially seeing as how it didn't fit with Romney's debate strategy. It was like his campaign prepared him for the usual Romney, and when the usual Romney didn't show up, he wasn't able to adjust very well because all he had were these zingers.

If you look at Romney's strategy on these debates, it's actually very clever and quite obviously intended to play out exactly how it did. If it wasn't a morally devoid strategy, I might be tempted to vote for him, because he out-performed Obama on many levels. Romney's biggest fail in the whole series was the 'act of terror' moment in the second debate, but if Candy hadn't stepped in, it would have probably worked just like he wanted it to—despite him having actually believed what he was calling Obama on, and despite him being wrong—and we might be in even worse shape in the polls right now. Schieffer totally refrained from fact-checking, and I hated to see it.

Sick@Simpliciter, on 24 October 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

Romney would cause anyone to loose their cool with his straight-face lying and his opportunistic flip-flopping... and probably it wasn't a political mistake to show such an attitude but still for the first time ever I did feel a certain degree of dislike for Obama...

Agreed. I don't think it helped that I was subject to Stephanie Cutter's vacuosity several times that day. I thought I liked her when I saw her do a fact-checking ad, but she's like the crazy chick from the marketing department. These people live in an alternate reality. Someone needs to get her away from Obama. I'm sure she's a nice girl, but that's not the point.

Yeah I want to see a debate where the canadites are fact checked in real time, and called on it. Boom... actually sire you a a miserable liar! That is your 5th lie of the night. YOU are dimissed! So a debate that is like a fact checking game show. The fewer lies that you tell the longer you get to stay in.

I think that can happen .
a debate with an audience of 6 knowledgeable man . 3 in favor of each candidate .
first candidate to tell 3 lies loses .
each of the audience has 3 fact checking opportunities .

[Abyss]

Two men enter.
One man leaves.

[Tapper]

HoosierDaddy, on 25 October 2012 - 12:43 PM, said:

It's an attempt to disqualify the opponent. Romney has no foreign policy experience and Obama wanted to leap on that. Sadly, Romney abandoned previous positions and pretty much mirrored Obama foreign policy, making it hard to distinguish them from each other.

I have no problem belittling an idiotic point if it is necessary. Romney's 2 trillion dollar increase of the Defense budget is worthy of derision of the highest sort.

By the by, drone attacks are highly favorable outside of the very liberal left. No troops, no death of Americans, killing enemies (and collateral damage)? Highly popular. Considering the majority of Americans feel the alternative were TWO WARS in the Middle East, despite the civilian deaths, drones are highly preferred.

Oh, I know that drones are "clean" because most people only care about the bodybags on their own side, which is why the air weapon has been used so often by the West, too, despite the occassional mishits. Even so, a high tech army is probably smaller and cheaper than Romnarmy's

[Vengeance]

Abyss, on 25 October 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

Two men enter.
One man leaves.

It all comes back to ThunderDome......

[Abyss]

Vengeance, on 25 October 2012 - 03:11 PM, said:

Abyss, on 25 October 2012 - 02:30 PM, said:

Two men enter.
One man leaves.

It all comes back to ThunderDome......

Well, it's not like we need another hero.

[Terez]

EmperorMagus, on 25 October 2012 - 02:06 PM, said:

Vengeance, on 25 October 2012 - 01:54 PM, said:

Terez, on 25 October 2012 - 01:35 AM, said:

If you look at Romney's strategy on these debates, it's actually very clever and quite obviously intended to play out exactly how it did. If it wasn't a morally devoid strategy, I might be tempted to vote for him, because he out-performed Obama on many levels. Romney's biggest fail in the whole series was the 'act of terror' moment in the second debate, but if Candy hadn't stepped in, it would have probably worked just like he wanted it to—despite him having actually believed what he was calling Obama on, and despite him being wrong—and we might be in even worse shape in the polls right now. Schieffer totally refrained from fact-checking, and I hated to see it.

Yeah I want to see a debate where the canadites are fact checked in real time, and called on it. Boom... actually sire you a a miserable liar! That is your 5th lie of the night. YOU are dimissed! So a debate that is like a fact checking game show. The fewer lies that you tell the longer you get to stay in.

I think that can happen .
a debate with an audience of 6 knowledgeable man . 3 in favor of each candidate .
first candidate to tell 3 lies loses .
each of the audience has 3 fact checking opportunities.

The main problem with this is that people have different opinions about what the facts are. I'm not saying that you can't get a few mature people on the job who can come to an agreement about what the facts are eventually...just that debates might then become more about arguments between fact checkers than arguments between candidates. Maybe you could have the fact-checkers in a room with the debate on DVR and the internet at their fingertips, and also the tech to produce an informative fact-check for viewers, and procedures in place to address unresolvable disagreements. A fact-checker could challenge a candidate's answer and after the question is fully answered you take a break to make a fact-checking presentation if anything in the course of an exchange is challenged by the referees. The debate moderator could challenge a question also. But we're talking about stretching these presidential debates to 2 commercial-free hours and covering less ground.

For example:

Romney: Obama doubled gas prices

1. graph of gas prices over the last 10 years showing a steady rise through the Bush administration, a huge dip during the crisis, and a resurgence to pre-crash prices
2. reference studies about the causes of rising gas prices

This post has been edited by Terez: 25 October 2012 - 05:43 PM

[worry]

Yah, Politifact has shown just how awful it can be time and time again over this election. If it were more than one firm, and they could balance each other out? That'd be something else.

But on the other hand, ALL of these debates are predicated on agreements between the campaigns. They don't really have to happen at all. They're not built into the system. Very little/too little of what goes on in these campaigns is. Also, besides campaign finance/Citizens United/etc., there's some interesting history around the legality of lying in political ads/campaigns/what have you, and the higher courts have generally come down on the side of it being legal (or at least, not criminal).

This post has been edited by worrywort: 25 October 2012 - 08:13 PM

[worry]

Texas doesn't get enough credit these days, what with Florida and Arizona stealing its thunder since Rick Perry bowed out: http://tpmmuckraker....ll_watchers.php

[HoosierDaddy]

According to Romney's top surrogate, Colin Powell is endorsing Obama because they both are black and of course you stick up for your kind.

Refreshing to see them say what they really think. Most of them seem repugnant for a reason. They are.

[Terez]

Same thing Republicans said in 2008. And of course, that's why the Salt Lake Tribune endorsed Obama too. (cue rightwingnut conspiracy theory that Obama is really a Mormon.)

[HoosierDaddy]

You didn't see McCain's primary surrogate say it on national tv.

[Terez]

I do want to read that Kofi Annan book; Maddow mentioned last night he begins and ends the book with Colin Powell, how the neocons used his name to make their case and then used that to ruin his name. They've still got Condoleeza Rice. In a way, they won her back since she endorsed Obama in 2008, but she did it rather blatantly for race and never had a real second thought about Iraq.

[worry]

John Sununu has been saying stupid, horrid, and yah racist stuff since the beginning -- and I mean that as even more an indictment of the Romney campaign, as they've kept him on as a co-chair the whole time. In other words, this was typical of him, not atypical, and a reflection of what Romney will tolerate if it means dogwhistling himself toward a win (not unlike his continued support of Mourdok in Indiana). But in both of these cases, it seems to be backfiring. Because it wasn't actually dogwhistling. Because John Sununu is stupid.

This post has been edited by worrywort: 26 October 2012 - 08:29 PM

[HoosierDaddy]

Mourdock is going to win.

[worry]

Holy crap.