I’ll let the man speak for himself.
Via Towleroad.
ETA: Wonkette via JenJen.
Now you can put down the razor blade, take the hose out of the gas pipe, un-noose yourself … and, er, all the other ghastly ways the Virgin Suicides suicided themselves. We’re sorry B. Barry Bamz was a little boring last night, but for sweet Jesus’s sake, he wasn’t that bad. You are all acting like a Dem parody with your defeat-snatching and your waaah. Now buck the fuck up, you tedious shitstains, and get a little love in your heart.
beltane
My big regret about last night was choosing to have a drink instead of taking my arthritis meds. Nothing like being pissed off and in pain, especially with all the concern trolls and firebaggers at Dkos where I was forced to spend the debate.
I blame Mitt Romney.
The Fat Kate Middleton
I managed to pull up C-Span for, albeit a little late to the party. Saw enough, though. As Thom Hartman said, “How do you win anything, when you tell 27 lies in 38 minutes?”
Steve
Did ANYONE show up? Romney? Obama? The moderator?
jwb
Oddly, I haven’t received one fundraising email from the Obama campaign today. Normally, I receive 5-10.
Schlemizel
yeah, I posted this about 40 or 50 debate threads ago.
it is the Obama I wish had shown up last night & we need to see more of it
waratah
He was still able to get a crowd of 12,000 this morning in chilly Denver and 30,000 in Wisconsin later.
I wonder how many Romney had today.
Pooh
This is basically exactly what I was hoping Barry would do today and beyond. Fine, Romney “won” the night, but he had to be completely full of shit for 90 minutes to do it, all of which only enforces the view that he wants to be president as bad as Carly Rae missed you before she met you, so he’ll say anything, maybe, if he thinks you want to hear it.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Schlemizel:
Man had an off night. Eh.
beltane
@jwb: They raised >$150,000,000 in September. Maybe they’re giving us a break.
PeakVT
Obama seems to like speechifying a lot more than debating. Lucky for him, he only has two more debates left to do in his career.
pete
@jwb: Directly from the O camp, no, but I have at at least 6 from the DCCC, plus one from Debbie Wasserman of the O Victory Fund. They like me! They really like me!
Joel
@jwb: I got about 2, one last night, one this morning. Plus a couple more from my local dem.
marindenver
Not the easiest thing to campaign while actually having to, you know, be president too as opposed to being “unemployed” and show up at fund raisers. However lies, no matter how energetically delivered, are still lies and I think that will be the story in the next few days.
And yes, people are bundled up in jackets because it was that cold today. 80 degrees on Wednesday and 46 degrees right now. Because Colorado.
Cassidy
Someone who can do music editing ought to pick out the 27 lies and set it to this tune.
Linda Featheringill
According to my very unscientific scan of lots of sites, one thing may linger in the public attention:
Romney wants to fire Big Bird.
Hundreds of words were spoken but those words might linger.
Schlemizel
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Agreed. Now if we could just let it go & get on with the rest of the campaign
beltane
@Linda Featheringill: FB has been all Big Bird all the time today. BB now has company in the form of Fire Me Elmo.
Mitt Romney might as well have come out and said he hates Mom and apple pie.
BGinCHI
Wait, I thought that dude got unelected after Mitt Romney’s lie-fest last night. No?
Today’s freak-out has been epic.
jwb
@Joel: Got two last night, one before the debate, one after, but nothing since. @pete: DCCC doesn’t seem to have found me, even I’ve given them money through Wang’s Act Blue account.
Keith G
I want to see the focus group data that shows having a bunch of yahoos standing behind a candidate (as they wearily gaze off into the distance) is a good thing.
I was over it eight years ago.
JenJen
@waratah: Here are some beautiful photos from the rally in Madison. I agree; that’s gotta be his biggest crowd this campaign, right?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Linda Featheringill:
I was gonna give up politics today, but there’s a reason they call us junkies. MSNBC had a mash up that made Obama look a lot better. Among other lines I liked were “his bold plan is: Never mind” and “Is he keeping secrets because his plans are too good?” We had one bad night.
One of the reasons I’m an internaut is because my meatspace friends, even the ones who are more engaged than most, don’t follow this stuff so closely. As several people on line have said, did anything happen last night that would actually change votes?
scav
Here’s a new pet option: a bristled, vegetarian, vampire parrot-like dinosaur, about the size of a domestic cat. Should come in handy.
Calouste
Obama today in Wisconsin:
Kristine
@Linda Featheringill:
That’s what I saw all over Facebook and Twitter today.
That sort of thing sticks in people’s minds.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Cassidy:
Great minds… That tune popped into my head when I read the “27 lies in 38 minutes” part.
PsiFighter37
I feel a lot better about last night’s debate than I did last night. Part of it may have to do with the fact I’m not stone-cold drunk like I was yesterday.
Heartened by the fundraising, but will be interested to see what happens to the daily trackers. If they don’t move…then maybe, just maybe, Obama didn’t screw up, and even was more clever than his own campaign knew.
We shall see. In the meantime, it appears the intertubes are full of stories about Mitt Romney wanting to fire Big Bird and all the other lies and flip-flops he regurgitated.
Sparrowgal
I’ve received several emails from the DCCC, including one a short while ago that claims “Mitt Romney sure didn’t bargain for this: The day after he straight-up lied to the American people, we’re less than 400 donations away from hitting 10,000 for the day.” Result.
pete
@jwb: They sneak up on you under different pseudonyms … today’s crop came from Carville, Begala, Reid & several others — and my total contributions to national campaigns this year are somewhere in the mid-double-digits, maybe a little more if you go back to the Made in America coffee mug. I usually do it $5 at a time, so maybe they see me as a potential regular. I see myself as padding the numbers.
Fluke bucket
If he has been hit with Mitt’s best shot Mitt is fucked.
TheMightyTrowel
@Kristine: Elmo for Red Sox manager! https://twitter.com/FireMeElmo/status/253910522829869056
redshirt
Big Bird should manage the Sox, with Snuffuluffagus as pitching coach.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Schlemizel:
Why would I let go something that hasn’t appeared on the front page as yet (as far as I could see)? I’m just trying to keep the front of the blog as up to date with the Juicetariat as I can.
burnspbesq
@Linda Featheringill:
If Spatula wants to atone for all of his/her past offenses against logic and reason, he/she can whip up a picture of Mitt as Leatherface chasing Big Bird with a chain saw.
the Conster
Everyone chill the fuck out. He’s got this.
Pooh
@Calouste: That’s so good. I’d go so far as to call it a zinger!
jwb
@pete: Nope, no pseudonyms, no campaign emails at all. Not even in the spam filter.
The Fat Kate Middleton
@JenJen: Have no idea if that’s the biggest, but you do know how to turn out the crowds in Madison. These are, indeed, beautiful photos. I can’t help but wonder, though, why the huge tarps all over the front of one of the dorms? Hope it isn’t because of ‘threat’ potential.
trollhattan
@beltane:
Good god that’s funny.
Am fired up to see in what fashion Colbert celebrates Willard’s “win” last night. I’m expecting something very over the top, interspersed with Fox clips.
waratah
@JenJen: Great photos, that lifted my spirits and I am sure the President.
Thank you Wisconsin.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@beltane:
This Boson’s Mate will gladly don Full Dress Blues and pass in review to honor your hilarious comment.
Uncle Cosmo
Classic misdirection ploy last night: Mitt got everyone waiting for “zingers” so he could slip in a whole shitpile of whoppers. Might’ve worked except for little things called “recording devices”…
James E. Powell
@waratah:
Crowd sizes don’t mean votes. See, e.g., Sarah Palin 2008.
burnspbesq
@Cassidy:
Given the disconnect between what Romney said last night and what he’s been saying for the last year, you could make a case for “21st Century Schizoid Man” as the campaign anthem.
Which Romney showed up on the campaign trail today?
waratah
@beltane: Romney smiled and was really proud of himself when he was firing Big Bird and Jim, I think he thought he was funny.
JPL
@James E. Powell: Wouldn’t it be better to compare McCain’s turnout? Crowd sizes do help energize the base to vote.
RedKitten
No idea if this clip means that Obama truly IS playing the long game, or if he just decided to make a nice bracing glass of lemonade out of the lemon that was last night, but either way, I think that there will be a lot of traction on the idea that Mitt just completely changed his tune for the debates, and couldn’t be relied upon to tell you the colour of the damn sky.
scav
And if a third rail in politics circa 2012 is covered in bright yellow feathers and giggles when tickled, I promise to be very very good for a very long time.
The man goes all exterminator on childhood buddies for a total savings of about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget, and that’s his firmest suggestion so far. Stomping on baby ducklings up next.
trollhattan
@waratah:
Zinger subroutine lookup table, row 7, column b.
It was programmed, damnit, and he was determined to deploy it.
RedKitten
@waratah: That IS the type of thing he would find funny — putting people out of work and eliminating a beloved educational program that is available to all children, even the poor ones.
Sick fucker.
RedKitten
@waratah: That IS the type of thing he would find funny — putting people out of work and eliminating a beloved educational program that is available to all children, even the poor ones.
Sick fucker.
Joel
@James E. Powell: People argue that Palin was a net-negative for McCain in the 2008 election and I do not agree. Her stock tanked after the election, but she had a huge positive effect on Republican enthusiasm, which was zero during the primaries. I remember during the Washington Caucuses.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@scav:
“The time has come for municipal governments to make hard choices. Exterminating kittens and puppies will save three trillion dollars over twenty years.”
Patricia Kayden
@JenJen: Lovely photos. People really love this President.
James E. Powell
@JenJen:
Putting aside what I just said about crowds, those photos clearly show that Democrats are demoralized, utterly devoid of hope, after the debate.
trollhattan
@RedKitten:
For whatever the value of the “not worth borrowing from China” test might be (envision an integer less than zero), it was an opening for the prez–who might have noted the vanishingly small amount of cash that it would save and contrast that, perhaps, with the zeal the Chinese might have for lending us the cash to crank up Willard’s DoD budget.
waratah
@trollhattan: My feeling is that the Big Bird and Jim firing was a planned zinger and he smiling he was able to get it in.
I guess I could not ever be a Republican because they have a terrible sense of humor.
Meg
@Kristine: I guess with the new social media, people can just bypass the pundits and directly talk to each others. I love things that make the beltway manipulators’ lives harder.
Mnemosyne
@RedKitten:
I’m still of the opinion that he’s primarily making lemons out of lemonade since I’m pretty sure that the spat between Turkey and Syria was primary in his mind last night, but this is one of the reasons people go on and on about Obama’s “luck” — he’s able to look at his overconfident opponent’s errors, figure out the exploitable part, and redirect his attacks towards it.
“Firing Big Bird” may turn out to be Romney’s downfall.
JoyfulA
Romney did get in his zingers. I heard him say “trickle-down government” twice, which no doubt was supposed to be a zinger. He probably said another dozen unnoticeable, unfunny zingers last night.
JenJen
@James E. Powell: I KNOW, RIGHT? Let’s all crawl into a hole with Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz and die!! :-)
Wonkette put it best earlier:
Amen and Hallelujah.
Patricia Kayden
@waratah: He’s already told you people that he LOVES FIRING PEOPLE!
Downpuppy
In your average newspaper, the AP version is still useless.
Mr Stagger Lee
Can Balloon Juice deal with WP problem? As for the Guardian Live-blog I was underwhelmed with them, all this talk about the Guardian, MEH!
Jennifer
Apparently Obama has watched this video.
M-pop
Did a Google hangout with some friends – if you’ve got a Google+ account I’m always up for a debate-time hangout.
boss bitch
The candidate at a rally will never be the same as the candidate at a debate. There are no time limits at a rally except for the one the candidate sets. You can use more flowery rhetoric at a rally and you get extra boost from an audience full of supporters.
PeakVT
@Jennifer: Awesome.
pete
@jwb: Jim Messina came through! Titled “Romney’s email this morning” (“Victory is in sight”) and followed with a pic of the huge Madison rally. I’ll throw in $11 …
PaulW
Can I just say these two things?
1) Romney’s convincing performance was merely the mask of confidence that any pathological liar employs
2) The only real thing I got out of the debates 24 hours later is the sad fact that Romney wants to kill Big Bird. He’s all up going after Big Bird like he was hunting down a Thanksgiving turkey… like Bill Brasky hunting down each of the Banana Splits with a machete (and they all BEGGED FOR THEIR LIVES, except Fleagle).
Mayken
@jwb: Wasn’t paying close attention though to my email today – thought I got some but most of those were DCCC et al. Huh…
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@PaulW:
Fleagle was always the brave one.
cosima
I was there! Within about 30 feet of the podium. It was cold & fabulous! The energy was so positive, we all had such a great time, everyone was so happy. My husband & daughter were there as well — my husband’s first time seeing the President — and my husband said “they sure love him.” Nobody talking smack about Romney, not even much discussion about the debate — we were all there to see & support the President, and we were happy to be doing it, even in the freezing cold weather.
Tonight a friend told me about a restaurant here in Denver that needs our help (if you’re in the Denver area) — Rosa Linda’s. Apparently they are being sh&t all over by those good christians who support Romney. If you saw TBogg’s post about white people acting white in line for the Romney rally here in CO you know what I mean. That was some soul-killing stuff. Here’s the local news on the story:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/local-restaurant-family-getting-death-threats-over-refusal-to-host-romney-campaign-stop
We’re going to eat there for dinner tomorrow. And probably weekly for a good long time. If you’re in Denver give them your business.
nellcote
@Patricia Kayden:
getting to do it in front of 50M people must have given him a thrill.
Ruckus
I made a better joke at the VA today than mittshit’s Big Bird one. Both people in the room laughed and even thanked me for it. Bet no one does that for mittshit.