Are your reeeeady to rumble?
So, here’s the game. If anyone says Bowles-Simpson, take a drink. If anyone says Simpson-Bowles, punch yourself in the face.
Got it?
Okay, good.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I like the format. Lots of free discussion. Hard to run out the clock with bullshit.
But Romney’s trying.
Obama: blue tie
Romney: red tie
I think Obama is the one most likely to mention it.
Flag Pins – Check. Romney’s Flag Pin is bigger.
Mitt Romney: compassionate liberal. The rich are doing fine. I don’t have a tax cut, I have tax relief for middle class. Bamboozle.
Romney is getting shrill.
I think Romney is coming off better so far.
the teenagers here find Romney incomprehensible.
Obama is getting his stride. Mitt looks lke he has a body n the trunk of his car. Nevermind hah!
Romney’s fuse is getting shorter. Lying: I don’t like the rich people. “Small Business” is not rich people.
Will he lose it? Sweating.
Obama: So your program is now “Nevermind.” Donald Trump is a Small Business.
Romney sounds like he’s on crack now. Stuttering starts.
Romney: Bowles Simpson!
Sipping some Lambrusco.
Is Mitt taking about Joe the Plummer again?
Obama’s keepin’ it cool.
Romney: nervous chuckle. “Let me finish.”
Romney: I’m cutting PBS. But he likes Big Bird and Jim Lehrer.
God! I need another drink.
Obama: Romeny said Bowles Simpson!
Lambrusco’s getting low. I’ll have to open the Riesling.
Johannesburg?
No, this is from Washington State. $7.99 from World Market. Not bad, though.
Romney’s scolding his employee.
Four drinks already. I’m going to get alcohol poisoning.
I’m going to run out of wine before this is over!
Boom! Deductions for moving jobs overseas. Watch Romney lie now.
Romney says Obama spent 90 Billion on Solyndra (and others) Jab!
Romney referred to “the poor” as “your poor” while scolding his employee.
Game. Set. Match.
YouTube must be getting hammered. I can’t get the stream to start. Guess I’m watching the rerun later.
Cspan is streaming it.
I was only on a 10-minute break between classes anyway, so I was doomed to reruns from the start. Was just hoping to catch a snippet or two.
Romney: if you’re 60+, cover your ears while I talk about how I’m gonna steal your grandchildren’s Medicare.
Heh, you put it better than I could.
Don’t know why I worried. A debate means Romney had to open his mouth. It’s like watching a toilet overflow.
Obama: Voucher Program!
Obama: if you’re 54 or less, listen up. He’s gonna screw you.
Go Obama!
Jim Lehrer: Do you support “The Voucher System,” Gavernor?
Hate to say it, but I think Romney is winning this one.
But I generally have bat intuition on these things.
That’s spelled “Whining”. You forgot the ‘H’.
Hope you’re right!
I’m WAY too biased so I have no clue who’s “winning.”
Obama is not a good debater, and Romney certainly seems more lively. I agree with you, but he’s kind of sputtering on the regulation stuff. So maybe Obama cna turn it around.
Sullivan is hysterical, obviously.
Obama: Seniors like Medicare because it’s more efficient. If you make “Voucher System” it costs more and AARP says it sucks.
Can we talk about how terrible Jim Lehrer is? Because Jim Lehrer sucks.
God, tell me about it. Jesus christ…
I was hoping Obama would say that his party created Medicare and would know best how to strengthen it.
I think Romney is doing ok generally, Obama is too long winded as usual.
Romney’s gettin’ mighty pissed being badgered by low level staff (Lehrer) about Dodd-Frank. Obama’s smiling, chuckling.
O: to camera – Does anybody think Wall Street was over-regulated when it blew up? If so, Romney’s your man.
Bullshit To big to fail was in place after Lehman Brothers went down.
Romney: Cost of healthcare’s too high. Throwing around bogus numbers. Will he get away with it. This “Medical Board” he talks about sounds like “Death Panels” without saying it.
Obama needs a 2×4 to smack him with. Will he find it?
O: Obamacare says Insurance Co can’t “Jerk You Around” to camera.
Romney is running his mouth so much that I don’t think Obama can get a word in edgewise. I admit that Obama is missing critical areas where he can challenge Romney’s speciousness, but Romney is just plain overwhelming and is riding Obama. This is outrageous. Jim Lehrer is supposed to curb this kind of behavior. It’s not a debate at all. And it is making me want to change the channel.
Shouldn’t Obama be able to handle this himself?
Ditto.
O: Governor Romney did great job making same program in MA.
R: We did it bipartisan. You & Pelosi & Reid hate Republicans so we didn’t support you.
Romney’s doing well hitting Obama with healthcare. Obama’s taking it for now.
Obama’s making the rational arguments. If that appeals to you, he’s probably winning. Romney’s being hostile. If you want a fight, he’s winning.
I don’t have cable, but Sully is saying the approval liens go down when Obama speaks. Blech.
I want single payer. Another example of getting screwed by trying to act like a Republican.
Lets get back to how Romney s going to pay for anything.
Obama’s selling me on his vision of the role of government.
Romney’s vision of role of govenment is coded-speak for the wingers.
OMG voucher bullshit more welfare for the rich!
Romney is an asshole, but he is going to see a bump from this. The only way to throw him off in a debate is to confront him and attack him because he can’t stand that. That’s when he’s made stupid mistakes in the primary debates. Obama is not going to do that, so Romney is going to be able to lie through his teeth and sound very confident and strong in all these debates.
Obama just doesn’t have the chops to do it in a debate, that’s the only possible conclusion as to why he hasn’t done it.
I wonder if Obama is simply playing it safe. The only way these debates matter is if Obama screws up badly. Otherwise they just don’t matter.
You don’t think losing the debate is a bad screw up?
There’s losing the debate and there’s LOSING the debate. As Booman has said many times, debates don’t matter unless there’s a clear knockout, and while I certainly wanted the President to do better, I didn’t see a knockout either.
VERY well said. There was no knockout punch. Romney won. How nice for him. But it’s not gonna make a difference.
I think that is probably the general idea, but recall Obama was pretty passive and abstract against Hillary too. He’s just kind of not very good in that format. He doesn’t like to lie through his teeth, for one thing.
Hey goofball one ice cap is almost gone. Green is good. Can anyone verify the 90 billion deal.
Fights? The Repug congress filibusters everything!
Mitt keeps acting as if he’s been running the state like forever and not for a single four year term that ended six years ago.
O: Romney doesn’t know how to say NO to anyone.
Except the people who beg for their jobs.
Pay for your military without smoke and mirrors you clown!
Sorry not meant as a reply.
What? No Zingers? Damn. I wanted zingers!
They both lose.
Romney won by not losing.
Obama mailed this one in to me. He didn’t fight Romney aggressively on much of anything. Some combativeness would have shown he’s trying to earn a second term.
And for goodness sake.. stop staring down every time Romney speaks.
No lie Romney is a wimp just look at him and he will melt. Especially because hes lying.
Where was the President on the auto rescue and the fact that Romney was against it?
Obama better step up. Ed is correct the president was on the defensive all night.
Did Obama ever slap Romney for that $716 billion bs? I only got to tune in a little here and there but I heard that line run over and over and never heard the President respond to it.
Never did its Al Gore debating all over again.
Looked as if Lieberman and Edwards managed Obama’s debate prep. Or maybe they used Biden’s debate prep book.
Sigh. No. He did not. Ever. Does he think everyone is going to be online tomorrow reading the fact checkers? No. He needs to say, yeah,by the way , Mitt, that’s an out and out lie.
He responded, but in professor mode, so you had to be paying attention to follow it. But to me the whole debate was boring enough to have little effect one way or another in the real world.
I miss Bill Clinton.
Im pissed off goddamnit. Romney lied like he did in the primaries to his Repug brothers.
The debate turned out to be way more boring than I ever expected. No real passion, but Romney came closer. Obama was in teacher mode, not rhetoric mode. And he kept looking down. His slightly-left-of-center position once again boxed him in, as he couldn’t address Romney’s blather about the wonders of the “free market” and the evil of big government. Obama’s big miss of the night: Romney made points talking about the “unelected board” that would decide what king of treatment patients could get. Obama shockingly failed to point out that that’s exactly what insurancecos do, and their motives are strictly about making money.
I don’t know if the other stations kept the split screen on. Romney looked kind of like a hyper squirrel when he wasn’t talking, but I doubt many people saw/noticed.
Verdict: Romney didn’t do himself any damage and will probably get some bounce. Obama didn’t do himself much good. Neither side had any “zingers” that will be remembered past yesterday. Yet again, this kind of “debate” format/execution is a disgrace.
Yeah. I was bored. I ended up talking with a friend over it the entire time lol.
Watched the whole debate, didn’t look at the blogs at all during. Here is my impression.
It looks like Romney had a VERY strong debate, and the President was weak. But it was all based on the topics and structure. Basically, it boils down to the President being boxed in by these two factors:
1) Romney has proposed no specifics to his plans, so his arguments seemed stronger and more difficult to rebut. He was able to offer up all kind of pie in the sky arguments because he’s not on record with specifics
combined with
2) Obama cannot complain about the lack of cooperation from the Congress, so he has to talk about the things he has passed instead of the things he wants to pass, while Romney can talk about the things he wants to pass without getting into specifics (see point 1).
It was obvious to me from the first question that this was how the debate was going to go, and the whole thing went that way.
these are very good observations,but Obama could at any point have changed the course of things. He is never particularly good in limited time format. He ends up saying LESS with more words and time than he would have in, say, a response in a press conference. I think there is something about the pressure of the clock, of knowing that he will be cut off and will not be able to say what he wants to say the way he wants to say it – that makes him fall apart.
I completely agree with your assessment. I think what makes him a poor debater is what makes him a good President: because he understands how complicated some of these issues are, and his thoughtfulness interferes with his ability to vocalize it in a limited time format.
I know I run into the same thing personally, so maybe I’m just making excuses for him. But that’s how I feel watching him speak.
“I think what makes him a poor debater is what makes him a good President”
Very well put.
Romney to Lehrer: Listen here, serf, I’m gonna cut your job. And remember the rules don’t apply to me.
twitter-o-sphere it seems unanimous that Obama lost. Much wringing of hands.
I didn’t see it, but I do know this: in 2008 they said exactly the same about the Obama/McCain debates.
As a partisan, you want Obama to hit Romney with the chair. Hitting Romney upside the head with a 2×4 can be very satisfying, yet still not be a very good tactic in the context of the campaign’s goals at a certain point in time.
Twittersphere:
#BigBird
FINAL THOUGHTS on the first debate tonight…NO GAME CHANGER. Honestly Romney may see a bump in polls, but I don’t believe he did enough to change the trajectory. At the very least he may have aided himself with his base, but I don’t think he spoke to anyone but his base. Romney lied his ass off the whole time, unfortunately PBO didn’t challenge him enough on his lies. As the challenger, Romney the one who was on attack the whole time. PBO as the incumbent has to still seem “Presidential” than his opponent, so PBO stay above it and refused to “punch down” even though we would love it if he did. My biggest beef with the debate was with the moderator Jim Lehrer. Jim Leher had absolutely NO control over this debate at all. He let Romney evade answering questions and also let Romney continue to go long on his answers and continually interrupted PBO. Lehrer should be ashamed of himself, an empty chair woulda been better. I think that a some point, Obama realized that Jim Lehrer was not gonna be “moderating” anything so POTUS then began to stop deferring to Lehrer and started to ignore Lehrer but by then I guess it was too late I guess.
BTW just so ya’ll know, the low-info undecided voters on CNN when asked who won the debate: CNN poll: 53% for Obama, 47 for Romney.
Personally, I expect the usual suspects to say the usual things, but I’ve given up on pundits both Liberal and Conserv and CrapNN so I’ll be ignoring much of what they have to say. And after what I’ve read so far on twitter and the like, I’ll be ignoring them too.
I suspect there was a huge dropout rate as people got bored to death with the lack of drama. It was, as presentation at least, a geek debate that had most watchers turning on the DVR. I wonder if we’ll see stats on how many people tuned out after they tuned in?
My 71 year old dad (former republican, now strong Obama supporter) turned the channel half way through. Thought it was all rehash of annoying talking points from the commercials. Pissed him off that it’s not a real (academic style) debate. It was theater – boring theater.
I call BS on these numbers unless we see a link. I’ve seen this parroted at DKos too, again with no link.
Damn sorry, those are not correct number. Can’t edit now though.
That 53%-47% looks a lot like polling numbers before the debate without the undecideds.
damn sorry, those number aren’t the correct numbers. sorry can’t edit now
Sorry guys, the numbers I quoted are not correct sorry. The rest of my comment stands though.
And I did listen to some of the callers on CSPAN and the calls seem to be less clear on who won and who lost.
I’m a homer as much as I can possibly be.
But most people are going to see this and think Romney might be able to be president. People watching may have thought Romney was a dick for running the car back and forth over Jim Lehrer’s barely-warm corpse, but Obama was way, way too passive. So many openings to stick the shiv in, and he didn’t do it.
Biden’s gotta crush it on the VP debate, or I will start being very worried.
If people think Romney could be president. There’s a thin slice of the electorate that’s undecided at this point.
Will this change any minds of committed voters, or net Romney 5 pts in undecideds?
I was just thinking that…I think Romney won, but I’m still not voting for his arrogant, smug, lying self. Evah.
A day may come, when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of Fellowship, but it is not this day! An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down, and BIG BIRD has been killed, But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you, Bert, Ernie, Grover, men of the West, stand and SAVE BIG BIRD!
If I could give you 1000 4’s, I would. Combining a Lord of the Rings reference with Romney putting PBS on the chopping block: priceless.
Two things. It was pointed out that Obama didn’t arrive in Denver until 2 this afternoon so didn’t get acclimated to mile high city vs Mitt did his debate prep in town.
2nd. Hannity’s video treasure that fell flat was about pointing out that Obama was an angry black man and Mitt did a fair amount of baiting tonight. Even though Obama’s performance may have come across flat, it didn’t ever fulfill Hannity’s dream of giving any angry clips.
Obama to the informed class lost tonight. To the low information voter it was probably more like a 50/50 exercise. But Chris Christie gets some boasting time tomorrow, that’s for sure.
Let’s see how this looks a few days from now. Romney made up whole new lies for this performance. I don’t know how one prepares to debate vagueness or lies that change from week to week.
I thought Obama did fine to let Romney shout. Put the crap in side-by-side slides of Romney talking to base, Romney talking to moderates, Romney talking out of his ass (math fantasies).