I’m just starting to soak in the media reaction to the debate and it is the twist of the media narrative that some expected: A great night for Mittens means we still have a race and more weeks of ad revenue.
And if you judge by the theatrics and ignore the substance, you could make that case. The idea that the staging and talking points–the game of politics–always matter more than reality is crack for the beltway media. In the debate, Romney was tossing out the crack to the cheap seat. It was one wingnut fantasies after another wrapped in a slick word salad package to make it sound credible.
But there was a two line exchange about the budget and debt that exposed the nonsense of it all:
OBAMA: There has to be revenue in addition to cuts. Now, Governor Romney has ruled out revenue. He’s ruled out revenue.
ROMNEY: Absolutely.
In wingnutopia it is an article of faith that the Government does not need any new revenue and that tax cuts paired with deep spending cuts solve everything. There is zero evidence that this works. Every time it has been tried, it has failed to produce the results promised. The idea that you can dig yourselves out from a mountain of debt and balanced a budget without revenue is dark magical thinking. It is pixie dust. It is a fantasy.
And yet, this is what Mitt and his Party believe. Mitt doubled-down on this twisted fantasy throughout the debate.
Every credible commission, group, team of economists, etc., etc., who have looked at the debt/budget problem have said that it cannot be resolved without new streams of revenue. The President is correct, “There has to be revenue in addition to cuts.”
In rejecting this, Mitt Romney has rejected reality. It is par for the course as he has also bought into every other wingnut fantasy you can imagine–from energy to health care to torture to foreign policy to civil rights to immigration to woman’s right to well, all of it. On every issue they run against reality.
Romney is a wingnut extremist and his fantasies will lead to great and lasting harm if he gets his hands on power.
We will have a few days of pre-written and expected “Romney come-back stories”. They will all be based of theatrics and smoke. The substance of this race has not changed a bit. And in the debate Romney confirmed he is a man without ideas, details and substance. All he has is his lies.
His talking points are from crazytown and we need to double down and defeat this Wingnut. Our collective future depends on it.
Early voting has begun. It is time to get involved and GOTV. Make sure that you’re registered to vote (along with family, neighbors and friends) and learn how to get involved in the campaign at: www.gottavote.org (another useful site is CanIVote.org). And you can volunteer with the Obama Campaign here. There is a lot that each of us can do in the coming month.
Time to get fired up. Time to get going.
Cheers
ps: Yes, it is quite likely that all the FP folks will weigh in and step on each other, so scroll up and down and join in where you wish…
Tom Levenson
@DennisG at top:
Yes indeedy! Welcome to the party — I was wondering when you’d show up.
I’m betting Cole won’t be able to hold out either, even with his metric tonne of health food to get ready for the grill.
Bruce S
That quote above from the debate is actually devastating to Romney, because it is totally counter to any delusions about a “pivot to the center.” I don’t think Obama deliberately chose to play it a bit too cool last night, but I don’t think this was a blow to him so much as an opportunity to tease out Mitt and get him ready for the chopping block.
NotMax
Big, big mistake for Lehrer to have given the campaigns outlines of the questions in advance. That marginalized his role before the debate even took place.
Violet
I’m wondering if Mitt will have a major gaffe today. He was unable to win the post-debate day (or post-election win day) during the primaries. He always stepped on his win with some stupid comment and then that would become the story.
Mitt has to be tired with all the adrenaline he obviously had last night. The let down from that can be crazy. And he’s known for gaffes.
What’s his schedule today, anyway? Is he back on the campaign trail?
hildebrand
My right-wing brother in law is crowing about the force of Romney’s victory – but every last word is about the style of the event. When asked about Romney’s positions, the very fact that Romney kicked all the tea party ranters in the nuts – silence.
I don’t believe in 11th dimensional chess, but you can take advantage of such a mediocre showing. Think of it like pool hustling, Obama pulls a Fast Eddie last night (whether intentional or not, likely not, but you can still make this work), lulls Mitt into thinking that he is going to be able to lie, spin, and shout down both the President and the moderators the rest of the way, and then starts smacking him in ads and in the next two debates – setting up the media narrative of Obama pulling a Rocky in every movie after the first one. (Yes, I know – I mixed my movie metaphors.)
Of course, this only works if the Obama team gets moving (which I think they will). All said, Obama made his job a bit harder last night, but far from impossible. As I reminded my brother-in-law, Mondale won the first debate.
feebog
Apparently what you say in a presidential debate is not as important as how you say it. rMoney was on fast forward all night, frentic and pushy. Obama looked for his spots and made his points. I thought the back and forth on health care was especially telling, Obama played it exactly right, and IMHO rMoney came off looking like a fool.
Tonal Crow
Romney dropped a truckload of bullshit last night. He has said and will say anything at all to get elected. He will even contradict himself, as on who (the middle class and poor) will bear the cost of his tax cuts for himself.
Romney/Ryan: Bullshit lyin’.
jheartney
A great night for Mittens means we still have race and more weeks of ad revenue.
Exactly right. This is why we should expect no help from Broderville. They were aching for a Romney comeback, and now they have it. The good news is now the pressure’s on for Barack to actually look like he got some sleep the previous night in the next presidential debate, and the expectations game will benefit him as well. The bad news is he’s temperamentally unable to deliver Mitt the wedgie he deserves.
MikeJ
Axe sez:
Dennis G.
@Tom Levenson: Yes, I don’t think it will be long before another post follows mine. The ones before me and their comments have been great and I suspect that will be true of whatever comes next.
As Mitt’s performance is compared to reality over the next few days he may find himself the victim of a rope-a-dope. There isn’t a point he made that was truthful.
Cheers
Capri
What has stuck me about the debates and commentary is that the Dem.s wanted from Obama exactly the thing that they say is killing Romney. They were waiting for a full-throated attack on all things Republican, topped off by an elegant take-down of all the nutty economic beliefs. In other words, a performance to “energize the base” rather than reach out to non-committed.
Seeing that performance might make me feel better, but then again, I’m not a waitress-mom. If a truly undecided person watched the debates, they might think there was one person who was a nasty a-hole and one person who considers every side of the issue and is respectful to every opinion, even those he doesn’t hold.
Felanius Kootea
Well, Obama is a quick learner and now knows that he underestimated Mitt. Most people who pay attention to the issues know that Mitt lied through his teeth. But this debate was in many ways for the low-information voter who hasn’t tuned in yet. I know Obama will push back more forcefully (while still appearing calm and reasonable) on Mitt’s lies next time around. A lot depends on it – not everyone bothers to do math and realize that Romney’s policies fail the arithmetic test.
Steve
The insanity is that Romney isn’t even claiming that tax cuts will produce revenue. He’s claiming that revenue-neutral tax reform will produce revenue!
Violet
@Capri:
CNN had the real-time voter reaction thing at the bottom of the screen. It was divided by women and men. Women consistently liked the President better than the men did. Men liked it when Romney got all alpha male. Women did NOT.
jibeaux
Is it too obvious to point out that the tax “plan” is not a plan, it is a series of contradictory promises that forces people to try to reverse-engineer what the plan must entail? I mean, the tax “plan” is tax cuts, no tax raises, closing of unspecified loopholes (Home mortgage? child care? child tax credit? who knows), no deficits, and increased defense spending. That isn’t a “plan”. But unless he’s called out specifically on that, he can just keep saying “you lie, there’s no $5 trillion of tax cuts in my plan” because there’s no plan and there’s no math, there’s only undeliverable promises. Sigh.
Here’s my unrelated open thready thing that made me smile this morning, featuring many people I like.
Zifnab25
Romney came across as a smooth operator. I think that’s what he needed to do to stay competitive, and he nailed it. I don’t think this is anything to cheer about. If Obama had teased out Romney into one of his scripted zingers, I think it would have gone a lot better. I’d have liked to see Obama on the attack and that just didn’t happen. :-p
wrb
Breaking:
Speaking before an Iranian-American group this morning Romney promised to give nuclear weapons to the brave people of Iran and to decorate the White House with their lovely carpets.
Violet
Obama’s demeanor, where he looked down all the time, made him come across as weaker than Romney and somewhat submissive. It’s just not the image people want of their leaders. People subconsciously think he might act that way with other world leaders and not represent America’s interests well.
Romney’s body language was frantic and the smirk was annoying, but he held his head up and looked confident. That sort of thing is more important than people think.
Can't Be Bothered
It wasn’t style over substance. That was the most troubling thing. Obama gave almost incoherent responses. He couldnt explain his policies at all. The substance wasnt there. I wuld have loved for some concise “style” saying romney is of touch etc. But it was more worrying that obama couldn’t seem to explain his policies at all. I’m used to a calm measured personality, but he had no command of issues, facts and explanation. He looked lost.
TooManyDans
@Steve: I’ve been wondering about that, too. It makes no sense. You didn’t have to just stamp your foot and call him a liar, or complain he was changing positions. He’s cutting rates and eliminating “loopholes” to make up for it. Fine, go with that.
1) You’re claiming it’s revenue neutral, so what effect does it have on the deficit? What stimulative effect does it have?
2) Let’s talk about a distinction between “loopholes” and “deductions.” I consider a deduction to be a tax benefit taken in the spirit and for the reasons it was intended, and a loophole to be the scurrilous use of badly worded tax code. When he talks about closing loopholes to get back $5 trillion, he’s not really talking about loopholes. He’s talking about deductions. Otherwise, you just can’t do it. So, his plan, which is changing the tax code without changing revenue, results in a huge shift of the tax burden between individuals. How will this shift work out for you? He won’t give us the details to be able to say.
hildebrand
@Zifnab25: Mrs. Hildebrand, usually as safe a fiscal Republican as you might like, watched the debate, and said that ‘Romney gives rich assholes a bad name’.
She told me at breakfast that she will be voting for Obama.
C J's dad
Romney’s performance is akin to a pitch from a sleazy used car salesman.
The paint job looks good, but under the hood is a different story
Soonergrunt
@Tom Levenson: Well, since Cole declared that he wasn’t going to be around till Sunday, we can expect the first of many postings from him in 3…2…1…
beltane
@Violet: We always hear from male pundits how certain female candidates remind men of their annoying ex wives. Well, Mitt Romney gives off a distinctly creepy psycho ex husband vibe. Too bad there aren’t enough female pundits around to point this out.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Whom are the debates supposed to persuade? Is there a great lode of people who actually are going to vote and who waited until a few weeks before the elections to make up their minds?
For fuck’s sake, the political climate where being an undecided voter disappeared when milk stopped being delivered by milkmen and gasoline cost forty nine cents a gallon.
Anyone who is so indifferent to politics as to miss the glaringly bright line between the two parties is politically indifferent to the point of somnolence. That level of indifference suggests that they won’t be turning out in large numbers on election day.
The Moar You Know
@Violet: Delivery is everything when you’re dealing with idiots, and the American electorate have earned their right to be referred to as “idiots” since the founding of the Republic.
In my cursory overview of the usual suspects, they sure got what they wanted last night – alpha male white man putting the effete elitist jerk from PBS and the ghetto buck black guy in their places.
From my far more sane perspective, Obama did not do himself any favors at all last night.
Violet
FWIW, an older lady in my morning exercise class made a joke about our instructor’s version of how long we had to do something (he claimed it was only two minutes) being “as bad as Romney’s idea of time”. The instructor didn’t hear her the first time, so she had to repeat it and the instructor deftly turned it into “Obama and Romney’s idea of time in the debate” so there wouldn’t be any political talk except a chuckle about both of them.
I found it interesting because this woman is definitely in the Social Security/Medicare demographic and we are in a solidly red state. She was slamming on Romney, at least his idea of how long his time to talk was, the morning after the debate.
Wallace
I thought another telling line was him saying, basically, that he didn’t need details because he’s learned that the way to get things done is to come to the table with “principles” and let the other guys come up with the way to do it.
John M
Look, to the extent debates matter (and I know that there is plenty of research saying they usually don’t matter much), then they matter to low information, persuadable voters who don’t pay attention to politics at the micro level that the people who read political blogs do. From the perspective of someone who is just tuning in to the election, the theatrics matter. And Mitt just looked better than Obama last night. I love Obama. I supported him in the 2008 primary, I’ve knocked on doors for him, and I think he’s been a very good president. But he simply didn’t look prepared last night. He seemed to be grasping for his talking points rather than being so practiced that they practically flowed out of him. He’s a smart guy, a quick study, and a very skilled politician. He will do better in the next two debates. I’m still very confident that he will win. And I know that Mitt lied his ass off. The sun rose in the east, too.
None of this is to defend Sully’s hysterics. But I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that all of the establishment, even the thoughtful and substantive folks at MSNBC, are inventing a pro-Romney narrative for the purpose of ratings. Romney was good. Obama less so. It happens, and as others have noted, it seems to happen quite a bit to incumbent presidents in their first debate. I’m sure it’s tough to be as prepared as a full-time candidate when you have to moonlight as leader of the free world. But it happened.
scav
@Violet: People will sort of make up their own complicated minds, despite everyone else’s doing it for them based on preconceptions. Will be interesting see see what happens.
rlrr
@hildebrand:
And Kerry destroyed Bush in all their debates.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@beltane: Saturday Night live was snarking about how Romney was like the villain from a life time drama.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Steve:
Romney’s campaigned all year on cutting taxes for the rich, the “job creators”. In fact that is his only plan for growing the economy – give the rich more money and they’ll make it happen. It may be total bullshit in terms of economics but at least it was an internally consistent and coherent story.
Then last night he categorically stated that he’s NOT going to lower the taxes of the wealthy. And then later contradicted himself by saying that he IS going to cut the taxes of the rich who are the 3% of small business owners who somehow employ 25% of the nation. And then contradicted that statement by saying that his proposals are revenue neutral because he’s going to eliminate all the deductions and loopholes and it comes out to the same amount of money.
Is there anybody in America who, taking him at his word and assuming that he wasn’t just lying his ass off, has the faintest clue what Romney is actually going to change, in terms of taxes? Which direction are taxes on the rich going to go? Up, down, sideways, or stay the same? The only way to make any sense out of what Romney said last night is to assume that he’s lying.
amk
’nuff said.
Violet
@John M:
I agree. And simple things, like explaining the benefits of Obamacare, he just fell flat on. Hell, I could have done a better job of it than the president. And given that explaining in simple terms what Obamacare does for people has been a problem for the administration and Dems all along, this was kind of shocking to see.
At THIS point, at the point where they have a chance to talk up their big, signature domestic policy achievement, to let people know that YES, all those good things you now like, like your 25 year old kid on your health insurance, and the no pre-existing conditions thing, the PRESIDENT couldn’t list those benefits in easy-to-follow statements? It just seemed crazy. People LIKE the various pieces of OBAMACARE. Remind them those things were brought to you by Democrats.
He just seemed hesitant, unprepared, distracted and tired.
priscianusjr
Peter
@Violet: Really? I thought the opposite. Between questions, when Obama was ‘looking down’, he looked contemplative. Like he was thinking seriously about what Romney was saying, taking him seriously. Romney’s body language between questions, especially towards the end, was downright twitchy.
priscianusjr
@Can’t Be Bothered:
Higgs Boson's Mate
@priscianusjr:
Back in ’08 the nation was so broken that it became possible to elect a person of color as president. We may have to face the fact that the nation is still so broken that it’s possible to elect a lying vulture capitalist.
Maude
@Violet:
I look down when I am listening to someone. It shuts out the distractions. What you are describing are things for PR and movies.
The superficial stuff doesn’t work now. The economy sucks, people are scare about what will happen to them.
For an event like this, it takes three days for the dust to settle and people can judge what was what.
The election is about getting rid of the New Deal and making the US Victorian Britain or people in this country caring about each other.
Romney really blew it. He showed that he wants to set up a nasty class system based on money, but not brains.
ericblair
@John M:
The usual suspects are in the tank for Romney, but that doesn’t have to be the reason. Romney was good at spouting bullshit at high velocity and volume, which is what the TV pundits do and what they understand. They’re not the audience, and their audience was not the audience Obama was trying to reach.
My view is that Obama was tired and distracted, but he intended to play defense and limit Romney’s openings for ad attacks. Romney may have looked good to some viewers, but won’t age well over the next days and weeks as the content gets unpacked, similar to the Ryan convention speech.
amk
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Nice false equivalence.
WereBear
As I like to tell my friends who have been thrown off balance by a wingnut relative.
After all, you cannot save yourself out of poverty.
beltane
@Maude: If Obama had been looking up the temptation to roll his eyes or make an otherwise inappropriate facial gesture would have been strong and he’d be accused of putting in a Gore-like performance. The key to minimizing any negative effect from this debate is to stick the shiv in Mitt now and over the next couple of days and then watch him get nasty with the questioners at the town hall-style debate.
Can't Be Bothered
@priscianusjr:
Nope just someone capable of thought outside the echo chamber. Someone that watched last night and has more cogent observation than “yeah but Romneys a lying sack of shit so its all good”
priscianusjr
@Dennis G.:
Felanius Kootea
@Maude:
I hope to God that the Obama campaign points this out repeatedly in ads. The media probably won’t. At least they are acknowledging that Romney lied, confidently & aggressively. I hope there’s some discussion by the pundits about what it means to have a candidate so willing to lie and so at ease while lying, whose policy proposals don’t pass the math test. Then I remember that Reagan got elected.
I still think Obama will win but he’s got to push back on those Romney lies calmly and repeatedly.
MikeJ
@beltane:
RNC already has a spot about Obama smirking too much.
ericblair
@Peter:
Nobody’s mentioned it, but Romney looked seriously weird when Obama was talking. Obviously, his staff told him to knock off the smacking and frowning and all the other nonsense, so he had this weird clown grin on his face most of the time. Looked like a baby soiling his diaper.
hueyplong
It might be interesting to learn specifically what Can’t Be Bothered would like Obama to say next time so as to avoid the pitfalls of incoherence and unqualified disaster.
Presumably one piece of advice will be for the president to repeat his points for emphasis. A lot.
Just how insecure do you have to be to accuse an already panicking board population of being “an echo chamber” because a minority of the posters disagree with you? It seems counterintuitive to demand total agreement as a prerequisite for not being an echo chamber.
priscianusjr
@beltane:
beltane
@ericblair: Doesn’t it make you wonder what meds this guy is on? He always looks like an escaped mental patient wearing a suit and tie.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@John M:
Huh? Rating are their business. They are not a new organization, they are infotainment.
chopper
@TooManyDans:
apparently the other day mittens actually gave one specific, mostly an ‘idea’ as to dealing with deductions. that idea is capping deductions at 17 grand per household.
that’s fucking brilliant, aint it? i live in NYC and my state and city taxes plus dependents (i have a second kid on the way) plus the cost of my home office make up more than that much. so i actually lose with mitt’s plan. god forbid i want to buy a house someday, i get all of jack and shit for a mortgage deduction.
priscianusjr
@ericblair:
Violet
@Peter: Yes, I did. I don’t have a problem with Obama looking down, but it seemed like he did it a lot of the time–too much, I thought. He also said “sorry” at least three times. He just seemed sort of…subservient and letting Romney be alpha male. I get doing that to some extent. I thought Obama did it too much.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@amk:
Oh, bullshit. Are you denying that despite Obama doing everything that he could do that large numbers of Americans are still hurting? We know how circumscribed Obama’s presidency is because we pay attention. Some other potential voters not so much.
If competence and actually having a plan for America won elections then president Gore would have served two terms.
japa21
I don’t want Obama to take a sledgehammer to Romney’s head. Biden to Ryan’s, sure. I also realize that Romney tells so many lies that if Obama tried to respond to each and everyone, he would never be able to do anything else during a debate. And if he only responded to a coup-le, then the assumption would be that he gave credence to those he didn’t repsond to.
However, I would like to hear him say, during one of the next two debates, “A few weeks ago, on of Governor Romney’s campaign aides said, in effect, that they were not going to let facts get in their way. It appears, based on the things the Governor is saying, that he agrees with that statement.”
Mike Lamb
@jibeaux: Rmoney’s “funniest” moment was when Lehrer asked him specifically about his alternative to the Affordable Care Act.
Rmoney: It’s a very length description on my web site [ed: similar to Ryan’s “I don’t have time to give you the math”].
1. Cover pre-existing conditions
2. Kids can stay on the parents’ policies–which they can already do, so we don’t need the Federal Gov’t mandating it [ed: despite having just explained that his policy would require it]
Bargleflargle…
bemused
@Peter:
It didn’t really bother me much but I thought Obama should have looked down less only because I knew appearances are so important to the media and they would make a big deal out of it. btw, how often have they mentioned Mitt’s jumpiness?
My 93 year old life long Democratic fil gets annoyed to no end that Obama looks side to side at public appearances complaining that Obama should just look straight at the camera (tv audience) and mumbles about FDR fireside chats. FDR wasn’t talking to an audience in the room but nevermind. fil is hard of hearing and I’m pretty sure he reads lips a lot more than he realizes and when Obama isn’t face front, he misses some things.
kabiddle
Well I’d like to see where that personal “revenue” comes from without taxpayer dollars. Really, this is all so much bullshit.
grandpa john
@priscianusjr:
That’s why I didn’t bother to watch the made for TV show. I know what Obama Stands for , I know his plans I don’
t need them reexplained to me, I am not an idiot like many of our “undecided” voters.
I certainly didn’t need to watch Mitt reiterate his multitude of lies and flip-flops since I have heard them all before, many times. Even living in a Red state I know who I am going to vote for so I saw no reason to punish myself by have to watch a serial liar in action,also lit kept me from having the urge to throw something at the TV.
Can't Be Bothered
@hueyplong:
I see a lot of people talking but you seem to have a hard on for me (being (unfamiliar and clearly therefore a republican). For a dose of reality go check out Nate Silver who is saying the same thing I’ve been saying.
patrick
Chris Hayes had a great response to Romney’s manic tax lambada….about the only thing you can do is tie Romney to what the republicans in the house will push through if elected: the Ryan plan (which blows a huge hole in the budget and as scored doesn’t eliminate the annual deficit until like 2085), since that’s the only substantive economic policy they have advanced since they took over the house in 2010. That will be the albatross around Romney’s neck.
LongHairedWeirdo
I’m a bit surprised no one caught the other big issue that deserves thinking about. Romney said that small business owners might think about not opening businesses in America.
What kind of small businesses is *he* talking about?
If you want to open a medical practice, a law practice, work as a plumber or HVAC, open a restaurant, be an IT consultant, an insurance agent, or any one of a host of other things, you open your business in America because that’s where you fucking *live*, where the hell else are you going to open it?
How many small businesses start with the question “now, what *country* should we open this in”?
tone
It was my opinion that most of the time he was looking down, he was taking notes -it was obvious.
I also felt like if it was me I could never have avoided eye-rolling at every whopper.
looking down is probably better in those cases, too.