Crikey. So apparently the entire world, except for morons and some talking heads (but I repeat myself) thinks that Obama won that one.
And the entire world is correct.
Even Luke “I cover Capitol Hill for NBC News. Been sweating it out in the streets of a runaway American dream since 1985.” Russert knows Obama calmly and politely dropped Mitt to the floor and trod on his balls for about 75 minutes, and Luke Russert is a dumb as paint.
If you have not watched the debate, then you should. Seeing Mitt’s slick demeanor slowly disintegrate into that of a narky, jittery, fussbudget snake-oil salesman is a pleasure all of its own, but what is more fun is watching Obama pleasantly yet firmly take control of the evening, and use his time to lay out clearly what he has achieved and what he wants to achieve if he is given the chance. This was a President talking to his nation, and it was good.
There is a transcript here (hopefully this link will work FYWP) as well.
I find the beginning of the debate so fascinating that this post is all about the first seventeen minutes or so, and I will deal with the rest tomorrow. This post is quite long, so you may wish to make yourself a cup of tea.
Mitt starts out in affable mode. His major theme for the evening is “I know how to make jobs because five point plan”. He brings it out first thing and he keeps returning to it like stink on a badger all night, no matter the question he has been asked. One of the root causes of Mitt’s problems, I suspect, is that he is a CEO. He is used to sticking up a powerpoint that says:
1. Give me money.
2. Profit
and having everyone applaud. As CEO he doesn’t need to know how the numbers work, or interact with the people who know how the numbers work (or indeed if they do work). He certainly doesn’t have people pushing what he says back at him. He’s not good at affable unless it’s with people who are also smug entitled pricks. And it shows.
Romney: And likewise you’ve got more and more debt on your back. So more debt and less jobs. I’m going to change that. I know what it takes to create good jobs again. I know what it takes to make sure that you have the kind of opportunity you deserve. And kids across this country are going to recognize, we’re bringing back an economy.
It’s not going to be like the last four years. The middle-class has been crushed over the last four years, and jobs have been too scarce. I know what it takes to bring them back, and I’m going to do that, and make sure that when you graduate – when do you graduate?
QUESTION: 2014.
ROMNEY: 2014. When you come out in 2014, I presume I’m going to be president. I’m going to make sure you get a job. Thanks Jeremy. Yeah, you bet.
I didn’t quote some waffle about empowering students, but that’s pretty much Mitt’s opening. It’s quite sad, and reminded me very much of this (except with even less gorm):
Obama comes out swinging. It’s such a good opening answer I’m going to quote the whole thing.
OBAMA: Jeremy, first of all, your future is bright. And the fact that you’re making an investment in higher education is critical. Not just to you, but to the entire nation. Now, the most important thing we can do is to make sure that we are creating jobs in this country. But not just jobs, good paying jobs. Ones that can support a family.
And what I want to do, is build on the five million jobs that we’ve created over the last 30 months in the private sector alone. And there are a bunch of things we can do to make sure your future is bright.
Number one, I want to build manufacturing jobs in this country again. Now when Governor Romney said we should let Detroit go
bankrupt. I said we’re going to bet on American workers and the American auto industry and it’s come surging back.I want to do that in industries, not just in Detroit, but all across the country and that means we change our tax code so we’re giving incentives to companies that are investing here in the United States and creating jobs here.
It also means we’re helping them and small businesses to export all around the world to new markets.
Number two, we’ve got to make sure that we have the best education system in the world. And the fact that you’re going to
college is great, but I want everybody to get a great education and we’ve worked hard to make sure that student loans are available for folks like you, but I also want to make sure that community colleges are offering slots for workers to get retrained for the jobs that are out there right now and the jobs of the future.Number three, we’ve got to control our own energy. Now, not only oil and natural gas, which we’ve been investing in; but also, we’ve got to make sure we’re building the energy source of the future, not just thinking about next year, but ten years from now, 20 years from now. That’s why we’ve invested in solar and wind and biofuels, energy efficient cars.
We’ve got to reduce our deficit, but we’ve got to do it in a balanced way. Asking the wealthy to pay a little bit more along with cuts so that we can invest in education like yours.
And let’s take the money that we’ve been spending on war over the last decade to rebuild America, roads, bridges schools. We do those things, not only is your future going to be bright but America’s future is going to bright as well.
Textbook. Then Mitt talks blah I love cars blah and then Obama manages to rattle Mitt with a few gooduns and never really looks back, particularly when the evil left winger Crowley steals Mitt’s chance to reply.
OBAMA: Candy, what Governor Romney said just isn’t true. He wanted to take them into bankruptcy without providing them any way to stay open. And we would have lost a million jobs. And that – don’t take my word for it, take the executives at GM and Chrysler, some of whom are Republicans, may even support Governor Romney. But they’ll tell you his prescription wasn’t going to work.
And Governor Romney’s says he’s got a five-point plan? Governor Romney doesn’t have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules. That’s been his philosophy in the private sector, that’s been his philosophy as governor, that’s been his philosophy as a presidential candidate.
You can make a lot of money and pay lower tax rates than somebody who makes a lot less. You can ship jobs overseas and get tax breaks for it. You can invest in a company, bankrupt it, lay off the workers, strip away their pensions, and you still make money.
That’s exactly the philosophy that we’ve seen in place for the last decade. That’s what’s been squeezing middle class families.
And we have fought back for four years to get out of that mess. The last thing we need to do is to go back to the very same policies that got us there.
CROWLEY: Mr. President, the next question is going to be for you here.
And, Mr. Romney – Governor Romney – there’ll be plenty of chances here to go on, but I want to…
ROMNEY: That – that Detroit – that Detroit answer…
CROWLEY: We have all these folks.
ROMNEY: … that Detroit answer…
CROWLEY: I will let you absolutely…
ROMNEY: … and the rest of the answer, way off the mark.
CROWLEY: OK. Will – will – you certainly will have lots of time here coming up.
This throws Mitt badly and he never gets it entirely back. His polite yet pushy routine becomes just a little bit more pushy. He decides that he is going to address Obama directly, and at the beginning of Mitt’s own time for reply no less, and argy bargy ensues:
ROMNEY: But that’s not what you’ve done in the last four years. That’s the problem. In the last four years, you cut permits and licenses on federal land and federal waters in half.
OBAMA: Not true, Governor Romney.
ROMNEY: So how much did you cut (inaudible)?
OBAMA: Not true.
ROMNEY: How much did you cut them by, then?
OBAMA: Governor, we have actually produced more oil –
ROMNEY: No, no. How much did you cut licenses and permits on federal land and federal waters?
OBAMA: Governor Romney, here’s what we did. There were a whole bunch of oil companies.
(CROSSTALK)
ROMNEY: No, no, I had a question and the question was how much did you cut them by?
OBAMA: You want me to answer a question –
ROMNEY: How much did you cut them by?
OBAMA: I’m happy to answer the question.
ROMNEY: All right. And it is –
OBAMA: Here’s what happened. You had a whole bunch of oil companies who had leases on public lands that they weren’t using. So what we said was you can’t just sit on this for 10, 20, 30 years, decide when you want to drill, when you want to produce, when it’s most profitable for you. These are public lands. So if you want to drill on public lands, you use it or you lose it.
Obama wins the argy and the bargy. During that last bit, Romney stands by facing Obama like a blank blinky automaton patiently waiting for his turn. Obama even wanders forward on the stage a bit so Mitt has to turn his entire body to keep facing him. Finally Mitt decides he needs to engage.
ROMNEY: OK, (inaudible) –
OBAMA: And so what we did was take away those leases. And we are now reletting them so that we can actually make a profit.
ROMNEY: And production on private – on government land –
OBAMA: Production is up.
ROMNEY: – is down.
OBAMA: No, it isn’t.
ROMNEY: Production on government land of oil is down 14 percent.
OBAMA: Governor –
ROMNEY: And production on gas –
(CROSSTALK)
OBAMA: It’s just not true.
ROMNEY: It’s absolutely true. Look, there’s no question but the people recognize that we have not produced more (inaudible) on federal lands and in federal waters. And coal, coal production is not up; coal jobs are not up.
I was just at a coal facility, where some 1,200 people lost their jobs. The right course for America is to have a true all-of-the-above policy.
Mitt is edgy all through this while Obama is calm. Oh, and that last (inaudible)? That was Obama saying “I’ll give you your time. Go ahead.” The knife it is sharp and you barely feel the sting. If you look closely Candy laughs.
Mitt can’t help himself though. He’s clearly been told that he has to get the upper hand just like last time and so (like a moth battering itself at a light) he addresses Obama directly again.
I don’t think anyone really believes that you’re a person who’s going to be pushing for oil and gas and coal.
Obama stands up, presumably because he has been spoken to, and right there, Mitt pretty much loses the debate.
ROMNEY: You’ll get your chance in a moment. I’m still speaking.
OBAMA: Well –
ROMNEY: And the answer is I don’t believe people think that’s the case –
OBAMA: – Governor, if you’re asking me a question.
ROMNEY: That wasn’t the question.
OBAMA: OK.
ROMNEY: That was a statement.
Charles Pierce aptly described the moment last night.
Outside of street protestors, and that Iraqi guy who threw a shoe at George W. Bush, I have never seen a more lucid example of manifest public disrespect for a sitting president than the hair-curling contempt with which Romney invested those words. (I’ve certainly never seen one from another candidate.) He’s lucky Barack Obama prizes cool over everything else. LBJ would have taken out his heart with a pair of salad tongs and Harry Truman would have bitten off his nose.
All these things are very true.
It was the CEO talking down to the mailboy or a particularly impertinent Junior Vice President for Marketing. It was Mitt retreating in his extremity to the strategy that always works with the maids or the Latino gardener when they get beyond their station. It was the beginning of a very bad night for Mitt.
It was unpresidential. And I suspect it lost Mitt the election.
slag
Every time I came back after leaving the room last night, I asked whether or not Obama had told Romney to go fuck himself yet. If not Obama then maybe Crowley? “Hey Mitt-Go fuck yourself!” Just once somebody needs to say it.
ETA I thought the moment Romney lost the election was when he immediately treated that latina questioner like she was a 5 year-old autistic child.
dmsilev
The Paint Anti-Defamation League is holding on line 2 for you.
beltane
Obama didn’t have to rip Mitt’s heart out (Mitt has a heart?) or bite his nose off. It was ultimately more satisfying seeing him give Mitt a bit of rope and then successfully egging him on to hang himself with it.
“Please proceed, Governor” was classic, a line worthy of a prosecutor who knows the defendant he is questioning is on the verge of incriminating himself.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@slag:
There are so many moments to choose from. It’s wonderful.
Cassidy
It’s sad tha tit took that. But hey, we live in a Post-Survivor world. Whatcha gonna do?
rlrr
@beltane:
It’s as if Romney never went to law school and should have recognized what Obama was doing. Oh wait…
aimai
I totally can’t bring myself to watch it. My blood pressure won’t take it. Can you tell me why you think Mitt “loses” the debate when he is disrespectful to my goddamned president? Because I’m afraid that the great unwashed romney voter just went “yay!”
aimai
The Dangerman
Two thoughts as I start my first cuppa caffeine:
(1) Was the Mittbot short-circuiting when he strangely interjected “Governments don’t create jobs” (news to Florida after Apollo).
(2) I hope Ms. Crowley has bodyguards; wingers are pissed.
quannlace
Nah, Truman would have trod on his corns with his wonderfully polished shoes.
shera
@dmsilev:
For real. On behalf of paint, I object!
tBone
From your lips to the FSM’s ears.
The whole debate was a thing of beauty. Every time Romney tried to reinflate his Alpha Male Projection Sphere, Obama shivved him again.
adventureguys
I agree with the conclusion – Obama came off looking more presidential. Romney’s magic potion of cutting taxes for everyone and reducing the deficit is becoming less plausible each day.
Yutsano
@rlrr: Has Willard even passed the bar anywhere? I’ve never heard it mentioned before if he has.
schrodinger's cat
Has Balloon Juice’s own Bernard Finel weighed in on how this is bad news for Obama, especially Obama’s answer on Libya. After the concern trolling from the front pages, these past few days, he is nowhere to be seen, post-debate. I wonder why.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
I think Obama slipped Mitt a Mickey Finn in Denver.
But I’d never be so brave as to mention it on the front page.
Violet
I would like to note that so far the women debate moderators have pwned the male debate moderator. Not sure if their gender is an issue, but they have been great.
Romney doesn’t like women unless they’re subservient and obedient and “in their place.” I suspect he had a hard time taking orders from Crowley. He didn’t show her much respect and his misogynist nature was not kept in check.
Cassidy
@schrodinger’s cat: He’s working?
Emma
@aimai:the great unwashed Romney voter would say “yay” no matter what and this morning they’re out in force whining about the “mean” guy and the “liberal” moderator (Candy Crawley –as if). Right after that, Mitt stepped in it big time. And each time he looked a little more off, a little more forced. By the end, he looked like a salesman who’s made a two-hour pitch and knows he’s blown it.
PreservedKillick
@rlrr:
Romney *does* have a JD. From Harvard, no less.
It’s more like he’s a pompous dick who can’t deal with someone who stands up to him.
beltane
@aimai: Please do watch it; it will bring you great joy. I felt the same way as you at first but when I watched Mitt get spanked over and over and over again I was glad I decided to tune in.
presquevu
What a creepy speak-when-you’re-spoken-to-boy vibe by Snitt Romney.
kd bart
If government doesn’t create jobs why are corporations always bidding for government contracts?
wrb
I think liberals have been missing how much damage the hopped-up “scandal” over Benghazi is doing, and so are ignoring it.
This should be getting A LOT more attention:
“To Libyans who witnessed the assault and know the attackers, there is
little doubt what occurred: a well-known group of local Islamist
militants struck without any warning or protest, and they did it in
retaliation for the video. That is what the fighters said at the time,
speaking emotionally of their anger at the video without mentioning Al
Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or the terrorist strikes of 11 years earlier. And
it is an explanation that tracks with their history as a local militant
group determined to protect Libya from Western influence.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/world/africa/election-year-stakes-overshadow-nuances-of-benghazi-investigation.html?_r=2&hp
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@beltane:
To me that was the defining moment of the debate. When your opponent tells you to go ahead, just keep on talking, you’re in a hole so deep that even Thomas three-shovels Friedman won’t be able to get you out.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@beltane:
Oddly, given that I play a lawyer in real life, I keep forgetting Obama is a lawyer.
schrodinger's cat
@Cassidy: Probably, but he did find time to concern troll during working hours over the past few days about the debate, well let see if he finds the time to post now that Obama has cleaned Mitt’s clock.
Kristin
Remember when we were complaining that Bush was destroying the country, and the wingers were all, “RESPECT THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT!”?
PreservedKillick
@aimai:
Watch it. I was in the same place and I did.
I don’t know if your blood pressure will thank you, but you will be happy you did.
Dave
I think one of the key moments in the debate occurred just moments after you end your transcript, when the President mentions why gas prices were so low in 2008: the recession and the policies that caused it. And he says that Romney could conceivably get prices that low again because he is pushing the same policies that got us there the first time.
And the audience LAUGHS.
That was a killer moment.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: He definitely does seem to have a problem with strong women. One more way in which he is worse than Dubya.
slag
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: It is wonderful. But that one was very visceral for the ladies of the room. It’s almost as if everyone was suddenly feeling the two-handed wet noodle handshake that invariably accompanies the tone that Romney took there. Physical shudders throughout.
Old Dan and Little Ann
The first thing i said to my wife this morning was, “Check the transcript.” Last night was a sight to behold. Good work, President Obama. Eat shit, Romney.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@aimai:
Because Mitt showed millions of women and black and brown people and young people that he has contempt for them, and at the beginning of the debate. Those people watched the rest of the debate, in which Obama was polite and calm and Presidential as he outlined his policies in detail, while Mitt sniped and babbled.
It was a hoot.
dmsilev
@aimai: You should watch the whole thing. Really. Obama slapped Romney silly at several points. At the very least, find a clip of the Libya exchange, and you’ll see what Obama looks like when he’s angry and keeping a firm lid on it, but using that anger to absolutely nail Romney on what it means to be President.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@The Dangerman:
Twice. Such fun.
Fwiffo
From Dick Morris – “This debate goes to Romney. It seals his momentum and will lead to a big win.”
There can be no better proof that POTUS crushed R’money last night.
PreservedKillick
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Check what Fox did to the transcript.
Truly incredible.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/17/1145805/-Gaping-hole-in-FOX-News-Debate-Transcript
jwb
@aimai: It’s a fun watch, and I hardly had a moment during the debate where I wasn’t thoroughly enjoying myself. Now whether it had any material effect on the race, I can’t say. But I thought it was good political theater, even better than the Biden-Ryan debate.
Face
Anyone got any polling data that this moved the needles towards Nobama? Cuz otherwise, this happy dance should probably be postponed until further notice.
Everyone here would join in a grand circle jerk if Romney literally shat himself on stage. But if that act earned him the endorsement of the Shat Pants on Stage group and that tilted the election in his favor, nobody’d be smiling, eh?
slag
@Face: Go fuck yourself.
Trakker
Did anyone else see the MSNBC interview with the 10 “undecided” voters in Ohio after the debate? That was one of the most clueless bunch of people I’ve ever seen. Almost all felt Romney won the debate and two even said they were now going to vote for Romney (one said he was going to vote for Obama).
After 90 minutes of watching Obama demolish Romney’s credibility and seeing Romney’s vapid “trust me, I’m a successful businessman” when asked for particulars, most anded up in his corner! It dawned on me that there is nothing Obama can say to reach these low-info voters.
Imagine how used-car salesmen must salivate when they see these people come in to look at cars.
Omnes Omnibus
@aimai: In my opinion, there are two reasons that this was a killer for Romney. First, the dismissive contempt radiating from his words, his tone, and his body language was so blatant that no one but a 27%er could miss it. His inner entitled asshole – his real nature – was laid bare in public. Second, Obama handled it with icy aplomb; he looked both cool and presidential. The contrast was something I think will be deadly for Romney.
jwb
@Face: Probably won’t begin to see polls with this debate included until tomorrow. Full effects won’t be registered until Saturday. Right wing polls will probably be out to counteract swing—some of those may well appear as early as tonight in order to get ahead of the media curve.
TS
@Face: P.O.
Punchy
@Face: Face brings the funny. Disturbing, but funneh.
Kristin
@Fwiffo:
I feel like he’s just trolling everyone at this point. It’s like performance art.
jwb
@Kristin: As long as Bill Kristol didn’t call it for Obama, we’re safe.
aimai
@slag:
Well, but Romney and McCain both were going for the “bedwetters and gunclingers” voters so I think Face has a point.
aimai
kd bart
@Trakker:
They’re probably also the type who think they can make money in real estate with no money down and want to hear your presentation and buy your book.
Elie
Romney only has one shtick and that is the aggressive, quasi bully. Once he is “managed” within that, he has nothing else. Its all bold lies, insults and bravado to intimidate people into doing his will and to feel diminished. What a crappy way to demonstrate the “leadership” that he would model as President of this diverse country!
What I also liked is that while Obama did not allow himself to be intimidated, he did not drop to Romney’s level of contempt and disrespect. He truly reflected the behavior befitting a President
I really hate Romney — a contemptuous, disgraceful, lying, entitled and not up to this job. Its a major failure of our system that someone so contemptible could achieve the nomination of one of our political parties. Even more awful that they don’t seem to recognize that…
Last night was the “tell” on this man’s character — in front of a national audience. In a just world, he would lose in a landslide.
Yutsano
@Face: Stop copulating rodents. You know full well it’ll take a couple days for the polling to reflect these things.
Villago Delenda Est
@Face:
Please, no one further insult paint by comparing this lame troll to it. There will be hell to pay (in colors that cover the Earth) if you do.
beltane
@Omnes Omnibus: Romney showed contempt not just for the president but for Americans in general. The Romney we saw last night was the same sneering, entitled douchebag we saw in the 47% video.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@PreservedKillick: The bottom of your linked article sums it up nicely. “Maybe a more accurate notation would have been (REALITY GAP).
Brazen? Manipulative? Ridiculous? – Yes
Surprising? – No”
And Doc Halladay had a great quote from Tombstone, “Proceed, Sir.” Maybe PBO watched it last pre-debate. “I know. Let’s have a spelling contest.” : )
different-church-lady
@Fwiffo: He’s just screwing with us now.
Shalimar
If the Presidenting thing doesn’t work out, Romney can always write a marriage manual and call it “Binder Full of Women and Pocket Full of Shells”. Or become the new lead singer for Rage Against The Machine. That will make Paul Ryan jealous.
Citizen_X
Oh, but when Romney started posing on the bodies of dead Diplomatic Corps personnel? Then Bamz was ready to cut a bitch. He was like, “Hey, Governor: Do you see this? This is my drone-launching face.”
Kristin
@Trakker:
I follow a bunch of minor league baseball players on Twitter, and one of them said last night, “No Obama, Socialism isn’t going to work.” I mean, that’s the level where some people still are. Nothing will change their minds.
General Stuck
Just read this and was not surprised, though disgusted. On the Clown News Network. Pushing out the first poll the wingnuts are using this morning about the debate.
Got that. They are promoting this poll as scientific, but noting that the sample is biased. BUT thank goodness, it was in the margin of error.
kd bart
ROMNEY: You’ll get your chance in a moment. I’m still speaking.
I believe this moment has not been reported and/or commented on enough. It was a moment that revealed the Real Mitt. The Mitt has contempt for everyone as just The Help. You almost expected him to say “boy” at the end of that sentence.
Kristin
@jwb:
The wrongest man who ever wronged!
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yep. I used to work for a man like that. He inherited our department, which had several very strong, capable, competent women with great ideas, after a merger. He could not handle it. Took to telling lies about us to pit one against the other, undermined work, stole ideas. He was just awful.
Since then, I’ve been highly attuned to that kind of man. Most of us left as soon as we could get out before our professional reputations took a hit. He was that bad.
Hilariously, eventually the department got merged again and his boss was female. She got rid of him pretty quickly. Karma.
The Red Pen
From your keyboard to God’s noodly appendages.
Kristin
@wrb:
I don’t doubt the two are connected. Even if the attackers had plans on the table prior to the video perhaps this was the catalyst or window of opportunity. Even the most kool-aid addicted winger should be able to see the sense in that. Whether they admit it or not is another question.
I believe Obama could have been clearer in his response although his tone of barely suppressed outrage was extremely presidential. Saying, “I’m not rushing any investigation just to prevent Mr. Romney from scoring political points” would have summed it up.
Citizen_X
@Face: “Nobama?” Concern trolling: ur doing it ring.
GregB
[email protected]PreservedKillick:
The Fox News Ministry of Inflammation knows that the rubes won’t like pre-severe conservative Mitt’s take on gun control won’t go over well.
Fox, the most distrusted name in news.
Citizen_X
@Face: “Nobama?” Concern trolling: ur doing it rong.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@slag:
It’s on my list of Mitt’s finest moments for tomorrow’s post.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Face:
Exceptional. 10/10
Omnes Omnibus
@Face: Dude, we had to sit through the panic engendered by the last debate, snowe get to enjoy this one. Obama is ahead in the polls and always has been. Why the fuck would I get panicky over a good performance.
@beltane: Good point. It is central to mine.
The Red Pen
@Face:
My cat produces more coherent posts when he lays on my keyboard.
…and he’s really dyslexic!
Violet
@kd bart:
Yeah, that caught my eye (ear, at the time) too. So rude and condescending. It’s stuff like that that seeps in that leads people to dislike Mitt. They know that guy and they hate him.
Redshift
Oh, look, our most entertaining troll has a new ‘nym!
Nothing says VICTORY! like trying to hide under a new handle.
Face
@Yutsano: Alright, then I’ll shut up and wait and see.
gelfling545
@PreservedKillick: It’s enough to make me give up on the idea that education will improve our citizenry. Look at Romney. Gold plated education all the way and this is as good as he gets?
shortstop
@aimai: Because he did it so ineffectively. Really, watch it. He wasn’t condescending because he was exercising his supposed superiority — it was pretty clear that he was desperate and lashing out. I love the smell of fear in the evening. It smells like Democratic victory.
@beltane: I kept thinking of Atticus Finch asking Scout if she was really sure she wanted to make that move in checkers.
@slag: One thing I haven’t seen commented on anywhere is Romney using the word “illegals.” This should really shore up the Latino love for the old boy.
I’ve made kind of a hobby of watching Ann Romney, just because I think she’s such a pain in the ass. Her body language and facial expressions as she did the post-debate meet-and-greet last night were just hilarious — that was one tense, angry woman. Stiff carriage, venomous eyes, frozen smile. She is genuinely furious that the president and America have the gall to talk back to her husband rather than gratefully accepting his leadership. And I am genuinely enjoying her impotent rage.
General Stuck
@Face:
I don’t agree with this and believe it is as a prevailing attitude, why republicans beat dems so often in elections and politics in general, as an action sport. Measuring everything that happens in politics on the reactions of others is giving away power to idiots. Unless you are worried that others claiming you are wrong about being right is being wrong in the first place. I don’t.
There needn’t be great expectations for perceptions in this largely moronic country. I won’t let them piss on my parade for what I think is right, or victorious, or whatever.
Lojasmo
@aimai:
You clearly didn’t see the dial-0-meter. Mitt submarined when he got all mitty. Undecids HATED his tone.
Bill E Pilgrim
It was a draw only if you’re talking about blood.
Jay C
@Trakker:
Apropos of this, my wife and I were watching the debate, and about the time (10 min?) Mitt started in on one of his typical, creepy-salesman tic-grinning pitches, she blurted out: “This guy is a con man! A flim-flam man! How can anybody vote for this [NSFW]??” To which I could only:
1) agree
2) go back to watching the debate, ‘cuz there really is no good answer.
GregB
Waiting for the folks at Fox News to inform us that homebuidling stats are being manipulated.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-housing-construction-15-percent-123835498.html
Paul
@General Stuck:
Amen! I don’t care what FoxNews, Chris Matthew, Ed Schultz or Andrew Sullivan thinks.
President Obama showed last night why he is our best President in my life time. What a performance! We are so lucky to have him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@shortstop: Stiff carriage, venomous eyes, frozen smile.
I can’t decide if Mittlet # Whatever looks more like The Lady Ann or Willard here. It’s his perfect hair and demonic, hate-filled eyes in her pinched, bitter face.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Kristin:
It’s not about changing *their* minds. It’s about firing up the base, secondarily reaching the 8 truly uncommitted voters in any given swing state and most importantly, changing the media narrative.
Jay C
@General Stuck:
And as any number of prominent Americans over the past 225 years would be happy to inform you, that principle has a “shorter” definition: “Democracy”.
evinfuilt
@Kristin:
Yes, but Obama can’t be president, you see he’s near… Therefor they don’t have to respect the Usurper in Chief.
Bill E Pilgrim
@aimai: No it was over the top. Romney got all purple-faced and sweaty, and looked like any second he was about to say “And you just INSIST on undermining me every time we’re in public, you just humiliate me and humiliate me every chance you get” and really have a meltdown right there on the stage.
Say what you will about Obama, and I’ve said my share, but anyone underestimating him after he’s done this to so many people, drawing them in and then demolishing them in the next outing, it’s far more foolish than I thought even Mitt Romney already was.
I don’t even mean that the first outing was anything intentional, just that it’s crazy that anyone would think that that politeness meant intrinsic weakness or inability to be forceful when he decided it was time to.
PreservedKillick
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Yup, though I disagree about the order. It’s about firing up the base. To the extent the media narrative helps achieve that, so much the better.
I’m not sure I believe in uncommitted voters, at least not in the swing states.
All that matters is how this debate played in Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Virginia.
I found it very interesting that medicare did not really come up. That’s critical.
different-church-lady
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: That reminds me: the uncommitted are going to follow the media narrative. This is why you fight spin wars — these people are going to go for the front runner, they’re just not going to decide that until they’re in the booth.
slag
@shortstop: Did you notice he started with “undocumented” and then went with “illegals”? We wondered whether that was because he couldn’t remember which audience he was supposed to be pandering to at the moment.
shortstop
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re right! His mug is a glorious amalgamation of both of his parents’ worst natures.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Paul: I have a weird hunch, obviously can’t prove it, that Sullivan is enormously influential in the Village. NPR and one of the network morning shows were quoting him on the first debate, and I’m sure 90% of his hits come from the Beltway zip codes. Also, too, Jon Stewart, who was doing with smugly detached Disappointment what Sullivan was doing with his running-naked-through-the-streets-smeared-in-beagle-poop (thanks Betty Cracker) histrionics.
Roger Moore
@PreservedKillick:
Is it too late to make a joke about Roger Ailes hiring Rose Mary Woods to work at Fox?
aimai
Rising Hegemon’s picture capture of Ann and the mittlet is truly scary.
aimai
Xecky Gilchrist
Yeah, Obama won. I got a glimpse of Fox News this morning and they had Sununu on, looking apoplectic.
Cassidy
@shortstop: Yup. That’ll be where the ni(clang) comes from. Little Angry Annie is going to be the one.
rlrr
@aimai:
I saw that on tumblr. The son looked like a psychopath…
jwb
It’s interesting and I’m not sure how long it will last but conservatives seem very unsure about their talking points this morning.
PreservedKillick
@jwb:
PreservedKillick
@jwb:
How can they be sure of their talking points? Can you imagine trying to spin for Romney? A new position every time he opens his mouth, and half of them are deadly with the base. Do you try to agree with him, and maybe tank your political career? Do you finesse? Do you bluster?
I mean, seriously, Romney is basically position salad up there. Whatever pops into his head and seems like it’ll work at the moment, that’s where he’s going.
rlrr
@PreservedKillick:
An Aubrey/Maturing fan?
Bill E Pilgrim
Funny. Krugman’s blog post is titled “Chicken Hawk Down”
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Redshift: Not the same one. Face has been around, on and off again, for a few years here.
raven
Wingnuts are seizing on Michelle “violating the rules and clapping like a seal”.
rlrr
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
I can understand the confusion. The trolls all read the same internet trolling manual.
Dog is my co-pilot
I can’t watch for too long. Romney is such a dick.
jibeaux
@GregB: home birthers?
different-church-lady
@jwb: It won’t be the sum total but when they get it straight, “There’s still the third debate/Romney 3.0” is gonna be a large component.
Chris
That explains why he reminded the audience that Obama called it “an act of terror” the day after the attack, and in his very next statement said that it had taken him fourteen days to admit that it was an act of terror.
Fucking math.
How does it WORK?
Are we SURE all these disasters with Bain Capital were caused by malicious intent rather than, you know, gross incompetence by a CEO who failed first-grade math? Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity, etc…
Lojasmo
@Citizen_X:
New nym for Political Observer?
Citizen_X
@Forum Transmitted Disease: But where IS Mr. Unlimited Corporate Cash today? He was so chatty last night, right up until the debate started…
ETA: @Lojasmo: I don’t think so. See what FTD said, above.
jibeaux
@raven: Well, that’s a winner.
rlrr
@Dog is my co-pilot:
Which is why he’s the GOP nominee. Conservatives love dicks.
Xenos
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
schrodinger's cat
BTW on a completely shallow note, Ann Romney needs to fire her stylist or get one if she doesn’t have one. She looked like a hot mess, the hair looked like a bird’s nest and the Pepto Pink was not flattering neither was the huge necklace or the brocade jacket, which looked like expensive upholstery.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
There goes Cardinal Dolan’s vote.
raven
@jibeaux: NO shit, from a Canadian no less.
Higgs Boson
How come no talking heads ruminating about how disrespectful Romney was to the President? They had no problem observing that the Vice President was being condescending to Pee Wee Ryan.
What gives?
Chris
@Face:
Lieutenant Templeton Peck weeps at sharing the sobriquet with you.
(As does an obscure Star Wars Expanded Universe character that no one would recognize but whose X-wing books I thoroughly enjoyed).
schrodinger's cat
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: You mean you are not a naughty old woman?
Xecky Gilchrist
@Face: Alright, then I’ll shut up and wait and see.
We’ll just let the piefilter handle that, shall we?
quannlace
So, all the RW’ers who last week were whining about how Biden was being disrespectful to Ryan and the process and his office and…gee, just about everything, will surely be condemning Romney’s rudeness to the President. Right? Right?
Punchy
For the love of god, can I request this comment get deleted before DougJ sees this?
jibeaux
@different-church-lady: You’re absolutely right. I wonder if anyone will notice that Romney 3.0 might not be the best phrasing, same as I wonder if anyone noticed about the time Romney decided to press — again — on the pension issue, that possibly that wasn’t the exact issue for Romney to decide to go aggressive on….
shortstop
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Nah. Had Romney been able to sputter out the next line, it would have been noting that nothing is stopping those bitches from paying for contraception out of their own pockets outside of insurance coverage, and assuring us that Mitt certainly would not put any barriers (ha) in place to them doing so.
Well, you’re right; Timmy Dolan wouldn’t have liked that, either, but much of the right would.
jibeaux
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: It’s a very careful use of “use”, “access”, “have” — which those rights were settled by the Supreme Court decades ago. Calculated to mislead, but nowhere does he say contraceptives need to be covered by your health insurance and that your employer shouldn’t be able to change that.
shortstop
@jibeaux: Zackly. He basically just said that he wouldn’t try to make contraception illegal. Impressive.
jibeaux
@raven: “Canada Free Press / Because without America there is no Free World”? Sheesh, have a little self respect, Canada Free Press.
amk
I loved reading every bit of this. Thanks Sarah.
Dork
OT and meta, but for the day after a rather positive debate, TPM isn’t much up for updates and new data. Marshall passed out playing Edward 40-hands?
Ben Franklin
@Citizen_X:
“Hey, Governor: Do you see this? This is my drone-launching face.”
I could see from the start he was prepared to show his war face, and I heard bagpipes playing in my head. It actually had the smell of a cagefight on the stage.
I told y’all the angry black man would turn the tide.
Southern Beale
Mark Halperin’s pathetic attempt at damage control fails miserably.
Jewish Steel
@shortstop:
shortstop Says:
If Mitt liked it, then he shoulda put three rings on it.
Hey! I saw that. That was good.
blingee
Ok so how many god damn times do you people have to say “This just lost Mitt the election” before it actually happens? The truth is it should not even be close. It should NEVER have been close. The fact it is really says a lot about America…..unfortunately. Not that I am surprised. This is the same America that voted for G Dubya the Texas dummy….TWICE! Even after Iraq and everything else….
aimai
To the dumb as paint/luke russert point in the original post:
AkaDad
Some of Romney’s best friends are women. Suck it, Libs.
Culture of Truth
That actually happened at the last debate as well, which was not nearly as bad for Obama as the media narrative would have us believe.
peach flavored shampoo
@Dork: Re: TPM’s EV Scorecard….they have TN as only a “leans Romney”. This is a typo (coloro?), right? There’s no chance in hell TN is anything but rock-ribbed Romney, correct?
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@schrodinger’s cat:
I am dear, but I have such vivid dreams in which I am not. It’s odd.
? Martin
I have to agree that was the best presidential debate I’ve ever seen. I thought it would suck as Obama never did great in town halls, and Mitt always seems to slip a subroutine when directly interacting with us poor meatsacks. Romney didn’t do poorly overall, but Obama was really on.
Romney really got his ASS handed to him on that Libya question – the Presidents gentle ‘please proceed (I’m not about to stop you from digging your own grave here)’ followed by a perfectly pissed off Obama was just awesome. Bring that guy to the next debate. That really rattled Mitt and he seemed off for the rest of the evening.
Mitt’s ‘do you know what’s in your pension’ thing looks worse every time I see it. For one, it’s stupid. For two, it REEEKS of desperation. It really was exceedingly juvenile in its execution.
The last debate is all foreign policy, and if this Obama shows up for it, Romney is going to get destroyed – particularly as he has to be feeling a bit on tilt after this. Obama’s goal is going to have to be to keep bringing foreign policy questions back to domestic. Nobody fucking cares about foreign policy when unemployment is still high. Hopefully he and Hillary will spend some quality time this week preparing.
Ben Franklin
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Heh. Sometimes I’ll see my reflection in glass, and for a moment, I think; ‘who’s that old man?’.
The Ancient Randonneur
When will these Republicans learn to never, never, ever piss off Barack Obama. The look on the President’s face when Romney tried to score cheap political points on the deaths of four Americans while serving their country is a look not soon to be forgotten. But rather than walk over a deck the smug prick, the President let this gutless chickenhawk walk right into a devastating rebuttal.
So, Governor Romney, so free advice: Don’t ever do or say something that this President takes personally. He will make you look like the small insignificant punk you are, and always will be.
different-church-lady
@blingee:
Truth.
How many god damn times do we have to say “mediocre economy” to people who say what you just said?
flukebucket
BREAKING NEWS FROM NEWSMAX!
LOL!
Jewish Steel
@amk:
I loved reading every bit of this. Thanks Sarah.
Ditto. This debate cannot be described too slowly or lasciviously. But Sarah, I thought you were warned about posting porn.
Taylormattd
@schrodinger’s cat: heh. You’re just in denial!!!
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@shortstop:
@jibeaux:
Oh, certainly. Romney is a master of the weasel words.
And Dolan would vote for Romney even if Romney was found to have six daughter-wives in a compound in Tucson. I just found it funny.
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: I must confess I stole it. But I love it.
Taylormattd
@blingee: let’s all go hang ourselves together.
Enhanced Mooching Techniques
@aimai: Strange expressions, sort of a “how dare you talk this way”. Must work great on the hired help.
schrodinger's cat
@blingee: Concern troll is concerned!
ETA: I see that Taylormattd got to it before me.
peach flavored shampoo
Of course he’s unpresidential. He’s Black.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Jewish Steel:
Obamaney slash. Nice.
Eta: Rombama.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@flukebucket:
I saw a headline like this but didn’t follow it, and someone posted from Politifact that Romney was half-right because even though Obama said ‘act of terror’ (which I guess is a particularly powerful incantation?), and said it a few times after, he didn’t say it enough, so what Willard and Wingnuts are saying is mostly true anyway, even though it isn’t. This seems to be the growing ‘narrative’ of CNN and its ilk.
Bobby Thomson
@Face: Please try harder. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Southern Beale
@aimai:
I don’t know if it was intentional but I sure hope it was. Brilliant move.
? Martin
@peach flavored shampoo: Sorta kinda. There’s only one poll from Tennessee from like 6 months ago. That’s a big hole in a lot of these EV polls – there’s virtually no data from a lot of states. Its how NC snuck up on everyone in 2008 – nobody thought NC would be a swing state until really late in the cycle.
Higgs Boson
If I have one nitpick about the President’s energy policy it is, what about nuclear fusion?
There is this common wisdom that military spending keeps the aerospace and defense industries alive and employing people in high-paying manufacturing and engineering jobs. Many of those same companies produce highly engineered products for space exploration and the dept of energy.
So if we’re going to provide hundreds of billions in what amounts to corporate welfare for A&D companies, why not support those high paying jobs with more funding for developing nuclear fusion?
One researcher explained the situation with fusion this way:
…
The whole article is here:
http://phys.org/news/2012-10-safer-efficient-fusion-generated-electricity-horizon.html
matryoshka
“Binders full of women”? Does Mitt run a mail-order bride business, too?
raven
The Amazing Story of What Happened in Libya.
SatanicPanic
There really was too much awesome in that debate to cover them all but the takeway was that Romney is watching too much FOX news:
The Democrat party
I believe in God
we have a president talking about someone’s plan in a way that’s completely foreign to what my real plan is
Bulworth
@kd bart: So they can create jobs without the gubmit’s help. They built that!
flukebucket
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh yeah. It is growing. I just cannot wait to hear Limbaugh this afternoon. Candy Crowley is the new enemy of the day for the right wing radio nuts.
muddy
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: “even less gorm”, damn I love you old woman!
Culture of Truth
“You’re almost as bad as me! Admit it!!!”
“LOL WUT Governor”
slag
As far as binders full of women go, gotta give it up to this John Cusack version: http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com/image/33753756139 . Say Anything, Mitt. Say Anything.
Matt McIrvin
@jwb: Hell, most of the state polls haven’t even incorporated the Biden-Ryan debate yet, let alone this one. (After the first debate, three Republican-leaning pollsters jumped out of the gate with snap battleground-state polls that I think were actually taken in the hours immediately following the debate, and on the following day. But I doubt that will happen this time.)
AliceBlue
Headline on NBCnews.com: “As Romney Stumbles, Obama Rumbles.” Nice!
Mouse Tolliver
Glen Kessler’s on MSNBC right now carrying water for Romney by saying his larger point on the terrorism comment was correct.
dmsilev
@Higgs Boson: Fusion is a long long way from commercialization. There certainly has been progress, but it’s a harder problem than anybody really appreciated initially (hence the joke that commercial fusion has been 30 years away for the last fifty years). It’s very well worth funding the research, but it isn’t going to be the answer to energy issues anytime soon.
Ben Franklin
@raven:
Thanks for that. Seen Argo yet? Amazing story of courage and commitment.
amk
The village pundtwits have weighed in.
catclub
@Higgs Boson: I’ll go read the article. But fusion is incredibly tough to maintain without the gravity of a star. Also, solving the problem of embrittlement of confinement vessels due to neutron flux is another thing that comes up when they actually have large neutron fluxes.
I would say, their budgets have been cut because they have not been making progress.
Poopyman
@raven: Speaking of violating the rules, did anyone catch Chris Hayes’ comment last night? Apparently, the agrred-upon rules stipulated that the candidates were not to address questions directly at each other. Willard violated this one early and often.
The rules just don’t apply to
RepublicansThe One Percentall the above.jwb
@Matt McIrvin: You are right with respect to the Meta-Margin over at Princeton Election Consortium. It took a very long time for debate 1 to work through that system, but the trackers and swing state polling register changes fairly quickly, and polling in general accelerates as the election approaches and so will catch the swings more quickly.
SatanicPanic
@Culture of Truth: I heard somewhere Mitt was referencing a pension plan that Obama has from IL State Senate that’s worth $100K or so and includes some Chinese stocks and a company with a PO Box in the Cayman Islands.
different-church-lady
@Mouse Tolliver: When you’re talking about larger points, you’re losing.
Matt McIrvin
@wrb:
Is that really getting traction outside of the right-wing echo chamber?
Because moving to the “scandal” was Romney’s single worst moment of fail of the entire debate. He actually had an opening on Benghazi; the attack he wanted would have been to hammer Obama over some supposed negligence in consulate security. Instead, he went for the gotcha on “act of terror”, which comes straight out of the wingnut Benghazigate narrative, and Obama nailed him to the wall. And, meanwhile, Obama took the opportunity to preemptively protect himself on the consulate-security angle.
If I were Obama I would obviously not assume that Romney is going to make that mistake twice. The third debate’s all foreign policy, the format’s not town-hall and the moderator is TV dinosaur Bob Schieffer, which means Romney probably gets another good crack at this. But I also assume Obama is more aware of this than I am, and I think he was already setting himself up to deal with it last night.
jibeaux
Mitt trying to go aggressive on pensions cracks me up. If I were advising him, I’d make sure that word got permanently 86-ed from the campaign vocabulary. It’d be like my rule for Republican politicians: does the statement you’re about to make contain the word “rape”? -> it better not.
catclub
@Higgs Boson: The article was bad. As a commenter there said, a puff piece with no new facts.
Dinna hold you breath for fusion power.
Southern Beale
BTW did we all see Ann Romney glower at Mitt at the very end when the families came out onstage? Man she looked PISSED OFF. That is one woman you do not want on your bad side. Thought she was going to hack Mitt’s penis off with a samurai sword right there.
shortstop
@Poopyman: Tweety nailed it last night: “Mitt is the guy who causes the plane to depart late because he won’t turn off his cell phone.”
eemom
Way late to the par-tay,and haven’t read the comments — but let me just say, once again, that you, Mrs. Sarah, totally fucking RAWK.
I mean, how many 93 year old ladies could crank out both this killer post and that delightful antique dick-fest the other night — not to mention fielding the ensuing shitstorm from the WATB contingent with the grace that you did?
I haz a big-time impressed — and I don’t haz those very often.
Brachiator
@Face:
Huh? What? Are you saying that you have messed yourself and that your diaper needs changing?
PreservedKillick
@Matt McIrvin:
Reframe that a bit: is it getting traction outside of the south?
TPM had a very interesting post the other day, looking at the Romney bounce in the national polls. The gains were largely focused on the South.
Well. That’s great. But it doesn’t help his electoral chances much.
Sort of like Obama running up the score in New York.
Southern Beale
Agh I have a comment in moderation.
shortstop
@Matt McIrvin: I think it really is getting some traction among moderates/independents. But Mitt killed that last night when he took the wrong shot and blew it.
It won’t have as much power now, and as you say, Obama will be ready for it. I expect Romney to keep hamhandedly hitting Benghazi for 90 minutes and Obama to cover hella ground in foreign policy while Romney’s doing that.
Elizabelle
Something I don’t understand about Obama:
when Romney was assailing him for no immigration legislation, or not carrying through on promises:
Why doesn’t Obama put in a plug for voters giving him a Congress he can work with?
Because he’s a President, not a dictator, not a King, not a Prime Minister.
Why won’t he point out a Congress that voted 30+ times against his Affordable Care Act, and would not vote on his jobs bill in the midst of the worst economy since the 1930s?
I do not get that.
The buck stops with the President, sure, but it’s a fallacy that he does not need a strong and competent Congress. And Obama never brings that up.
Tie Mitt more to the TeaPartiers and those who dragged Congress’s approval rating to a historic low.
Southern Beale
My comment that didn’t post related to Ann Romney’s post-debate glower. She looked WAY angry. Haven’t seen any photos of it though. Wonder if anyone captured a screen shot of it?
Elizabelle
RE Congress: to continue: because Obama voters in red and non-swing states might not have as much say in the Electoral College, but they can sure make a difference in the Congressional and local races.
aimai
@Matt McIrvin:
I posted on a thread several days ago about my long argument with my “libertarian” “independent” appliance repair guy. One of the first things he brought up in our argument was 1) that he doesn’t watch fox news or listen to rush and 2) that Obama had “flown to a fundraiser” the day after the Benghazi deaths. I assume that point 1 was a lie–he does watch fox and listen to rush and to local talk radio. But I also assume that this weird attack on Obama, which is displaced rage at Bush for taking vacations and fundraising during every major debacle of his presidency, is also just kind of “in the air and water” for these guys by this time. I’m very curious whether people like my appliance guy watched the debate and discovered, for the first time, that the meme “flew to fundraiser” was preceeded by an actual Rose Garden speech on the event. When fox is forced to “fact check” Obama on the terrorism thing they are simultaneously undermining the story that all Obama does is fundraise.
aimai
Culture of Truth
“Obama has failed to achieve fusion! I will achieve fusion in the next four years!”
Southern Beale
@Elizabelle:
Oh I think that would be very problematic. Plays into what the right has said about Obama lacking leadership. That would open Obama up to all sorts of attacks, especially with so many folks having that “divided government” fetish. Three branches of government, you can’t have them all, Mr. President. Blah blah.
Now, that is very different from Obama calling out the GOP on their obstruction. Not passing the blame, but saying, “I’ve tried to reach across the aisle, and the Republicans have been recalcitrant” or some such. I wish he’d do that a little more, but it’s a delicate line he has to walk there.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The Great Gaslight continues.
People know what they heard and saw, however. And hopefully not all the video out there has been edited.
Violet
@Matt McIrvin:
Jim Lehrer didn’t get good reviews for his performance. Martha Radditz and Candy Crowley did get good reviews for theirs, which were a lot more involved with the debate itself and included follow ups and requests for specifics (at least a bit).
Bob Schieffer is going to have a choice. Does he want to carry water for Mitt and not ask any tough questions and risk a poor comparison to the two women moderators? Or does he want to do a good job, get involved, keep control of the debate, ask follow ups and get strong reviews for his performance?
It’s not just about carrying water for the Republicans. He has his own reputation to think of. He may not want to risk being discussed as “worst of the four” or “not quite as bad as Jim Lehrer, but not as good as the women.”
shortstop
@Southern Beale: Read the thread.
shortstop
@Violet: Everything you say is true, but I wonder if he even has the chops to pull it off. He’s been phoning it in for so long that I’m not sure he remembers how to do anything else.
amk
@Southern Beale: He did call out the thugs’ obstructionism a few times last night.
TerryC
@PreservedKillick: I got free rides to a dozen grad schools, including Harvard. Visited several. After one morning at Harvard, I told my wife: “I’m not going here. They’ll turn me into an asshole.”
? Martin
On the auto bankruptcy question, when Mitt presses Obama directly on it, he should turn to him and ask him who had $60B at the time to carry them through bankruptcy. The banks were all being bailed out for having insufficient capital, so they didn’t have it. The hedge funds were just as strapped – and none were that large at the time. Even if you pooled them all together, they couldn’t come up with $60B in that short of time without selling a ton of securities – right at the moment the stock market was diving.
So Mr ‘trust me with the math, I ran Bain’, who could have done it if not the feds? And press him to answer that. In theory, it should have been a private sector bankruptcy, but there was no way to do it at that time – at all. The only people with that kind of cash were the tech companies – Microsoft, Intel, etc. Apple had only 20% of the cash they have now – they couldn’t have done too much then themselves.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@? Martin: There are a lot of REALLY important propositions on the California ballot. As recently as the 2006 elections, we knew how the props were polling.
2012? Total blackout. Did Field go out of business or something? I literally have NO idea what odds are on any of my state races.
Jewish Steel
@Southern Beale: TBogg noticed it too:
Villago Delenda Est
@Bobby Thomson:
Bad assumption, here, that vile fuckstick can feel embarrassment, or shame, for that matter.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: Saying you’ve been ineffective because the bad Congress won’t let you do what you want sounds like an admission of weakness, which is the last thing Obama wants at this point. Given the Constitution, it’s stupid, but it’s true.
That said, “do-nothing Congress” is a phrase with some proven effectiveness to it. But this isn’t so much a do-nothing Congress as a make-evil-gestures-and-obstruct-everything Congress, so I don’t know how effective the message would be this time.
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: Losing is going to be harder on her than on him. As insulated as his world has been, hers has been even more so.
Violet
@shortstop: Yeah, that’s definitely a factor. But it can’t escape his notice that Lehrer got ridiculed for not being present, for not controlling the debate, and that the two women received praise for how well they did. He may not know how to do anything but a Lehrer-like performance, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s been taking notes and might surprise us.
It’ll be the last debate. He wants it to be memorable so he’ll get to talk about it and maybe sell a book or something. Just what he decides to do about that, who knows. But it’s a factor.
As is the sexism angle. Lehrer got pwned by women. Two times. Scheiffer may not want to add his name to that list. No man of that era wants to get beat up by a girl.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@eemom:
/blushes
KeithinOhio
This is an iligitmate thread. Why would anyone title a thread after what we witness last night as a draw. LUDICROUS!! Obama mopped Romney up with the cockroaches. End of story!!
shortstop
@Matt McIrvin: I think the message can be effective, but it has to come from surrogates, not Obama, for the reasons you and others mention. Obama can’t look weak or whiny. But Democrats in Congress, especially the Senate, sure as hell can give firsthand accounts of how all useful legislation is being obstructed by their “colleagues” across the aisle.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Elizabelle:
This is an excellent question.
Eta: and several good responses.
KeithinOhio
@KeithinOhio: Of course I have read the rest of the post and you were spot on. :)
sherparick
I think Mike Tomasky states the perfect “tell” on what a disaster last night was for Mitt.
“Michael Tomasky:
Well, Fox was calling it a draw, and its anchors started blaming Candy Crowley for how it all went down 32 seconds after it ended. Need to know anything else?”
There will be several things that will come back to haunt Mittster.
His face at the “Act of Terror” moment and all the you tube video repetition.
HIs “women in binders” moment. As Charles Pierce notes, this will lead to a new nick name for him: “Mitt Minderbender” and that will lead people to realize that the Mittster really is the identical twin of Milo Minderbender. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_Minderbinder
Matt McIrvin
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Come to think of it, the robopoll I responded to yesterday didn’t even ask me about the three Massachusetts ballot propositions, which are pretty interesting (especially Question 1, the one making car companies open up repair information to non-dealers, which may be the most unabashed FUCK YEAH vote I make on the whole ballot).
catclub
@PreservedKillick: That makes sense to me. The Southern Baptists have decided they might as well pretend to like the Mormon.
shortstop
@Violet: I’ll be watching him with great interest, for sure!
Violet
@shortstop: I don’t think Ann wants Mitt to be President. That means she’ll have lots of First Lady obligations and her horse-riding will be more under the microscope, etc.
My bet is, she knows she’s the one who has to deal with him when he’s fucked up. So she was furious he’d fucked up last night because that meant she had a night ahead of her with him being a WATB and probably being an ass to her. If he loses the election it’s that x a gazillion.
Ann Romney is happy doing her thing in her circle of rich ladies and riding her horse and generally feeling charitable toward the lower orders. Being First Lady would put a crimp in her lifestyle.
Roger Moore
@Higgs Boson:
Fusion research is interesting, but it’s still far enough in the future that it doesn’t make sense to make it a big part of our energy policy. Even when we have break-even fusion in the lab, there’s going to be a ton of engineering involved in scaling it up to workable power plants. In the mean time, we need to do something to cut our fossil fuel consumption now, before prices go so high they strangle our economy any further. That means giving priority to available technologies. And, bluntly, if we can transition to renewable energy, then fusion is a less pressing need. The research may continue, but it’s not nearly as exciting as it was when fusion was the great hope of freeing us from fossil fuels.
Jewish Steel
@shortstop: Am I the only one thinks that it will be a huge relief to the Romneys when this thing wraps up for them? Shit, they’re getting on in years and there has to be a little part of them, divorced from reality as they are, that tickles their brain and tells them how quixotic all this has become. Like getting on a fairground ride and not being allowed off for six years.
I think we will see tears of joy and relief in Boston in a couple of weeks.
schrodinger's cat
@Violet: May be its not just gender, age may be a factor too, both Candy Crowley and Martha Raddatz are decades younger than Lehrer, Scheiffer on the other hand is probably as old Lehrer if not older. May be the debate was way past grandpa’s bedtime.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Culture of Truth:
And I shall use the magic power of fusion to remove all the brown people and the single mothers, and to make assault rifles for all.
amk
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: Can 93 year olds blush ? If yes, how can you tell ?
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat: Wonder how that might come into play. Will Scheiffer just try to act like the nice older gentleman he plays on TV, or will he feel the need to keep up with the younger women? (That last bit sounds dirty. How appropriate for a Sarah thread. Heh.)
shortstop
@Violet: Hmmm, my take is different. She wants it because he wants it. I think they’re both focused on the wanting and the getting and not on the reality of what happens afterward. As has been discussed at length here and elsewhere, for them it’s all about being president and not about what you can accomplish with the presidency — other than safeguarding the plutocracy’s current level of cash and power, of course. It’s the next shiny toy for his resume, the next and ultimate symbol of status.
Even if at some level she hates the idea of living in the first lady fishbowl, she’s going to have deep and sustained anger that America told her man to fuck off instead of acknowledging his innate superiority. Her frustrated outbursts about the electorate not appreciating his fabulous resume and Latinos being too dumb to know what’s good for them make her attitude toward uppity voters clear. And I’m just small enough to be loving that. ;)
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Elizabelle:
Because doing so on a national stage would make him look weak. That in part was Carter’s undoing, he had trouble working with Congress, even a Democratically controlled Congress. You don’t stand up on a national stage and say “..as President I can’t get anything done on issue X because Congress won’t let me”. It also gives the other candidate (who is unconstrained by a record of actually having to work with Congress) an opening to paint a rosy picture of the bipartisan unicorns which will poop candy and rainbows if he is elected.
There is a time and a place for the President to make the case for giving him a better Congress to work with, and that is out on the stump in individual states and districts. That way he doesn’t have to say “I can’t work with Congress” (which is emasculating), instead he says “I can’t work with Republican Representative Turniphead (R-Swingville), so please elect my good friend here, Democratic Candidate Goodfellow, to work with me in Washington”. That the way you paint the local Republican as a jerk without making the President look weak.
And this is why landslide elections are so much more effective in moving legislation thru the subsequent Congress, because the winning Presidential ticket has time to spend doing that rather than just focusing obsessively on a handful of swing states.
shortstop
@Jewish Steel: No, Violet does too! Maybe I’m all wet…see my comment at 222.
Hill Dweller
Al Giordano is seeing focus groups consistently say Willard was politicizing a tragic event and disrespectful to the President.
If that is the lasting impression from the debate, and it is widespread, Willard could have some problems.
Paul
@Southern Beale:
Oh my, Mark “the man who called the President of the United States the d*** word” Halperin can’t help himself.
Shouldn’t he claim that yesterday’s debate, especially the disastrous Libya moment was actually “good news for John McCain”.
Why is Mark Halperin on TV????
schrodinger's cat
@Hill Dweller: Mitt Romney seems to know what plays well in the bubble, outside of it, not so much. We are not all winguts, thankfully.
taylormattd
@Elizabelle: Your comment reminds me of my favorite signature line on Daily Kos:
eemom
don’t agree at ALL that the Romtrons, either one of them, are gonna be relieved when this is over. They do not even remotely possess the kind of common sense y’all are talking about which would cause them to realize the presidenting gig is more trouble than it’s worth.
Their big fat fucking entitled egos are what it’s all about, and they are gonna be devastated when they lose.
Which makes it all the sweeeeeeter.
Paul
@Mouse Tolliver:
With his dubious record as a fact checker, I’ll take his OPINION with a grain of salt.
danimal
How did Obama’s outreach to women work in the real world? I thought it was a big part of his plan, as evidenced by the fact that he shoehorned women’s issues into the tangential issue of pay equity.
Obama obviously wanted to put his views out there, even if the debate questions weren’t heading in that direction. Did it work?
As usual, the mostly male punditocracy was more impressed by the dick-swinging of both candidates and hasn’t really focused on this part of the debate.
Frankensteinbeck
@aimai:
Because Romney looked weak and whiny when he did it, not like a bully punching an uppity but helpless servant.
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Violet
@shortstop: It’s probably a mixed bag. Part of her really wants to win and will be livid that America snubbed Her Man if they lose. Part of her probably wants to go back one of their many houses and just ride her horse and do her charity stuff and generally have the low stress life that probably would be better for her MS.
Her identity is so tied up in Mitt’s, that what he wants, she wants too, to a certain extent. But my guess is he’s a real pain to deal with when he doesn’t get his way and her real anger after last night’s debate was knowing what she had ahead of her. She has to bear the brunt of it.
amk
@danimal: Yup. Birth control, planned parenthood, I want choices for my daughters just lime someone else’s sons (a dig at the bot and the botletts). The whole works.
Michael G
@Higgs Boson: A white man being condescending to a black man is simply *not possible* to some people.
Elizabelle
Thank you all. Some very good comments about why Obama doesn’t go after Congress.
Also to remember: the meme of “look — Obama’s blaming Bush” works with wingnuts, but not with smarter people.
Quarks
Anecdotal, but my Hispanic next door neighbors are still pissed this morning that Romney responded to a question about self-deportation by going on and on about his blind trust.
Optics. I do not think you always have them, Mr. Romney.
Jewish Steel
@shortstop: Oh, I think we can all be right. Capacity for mutually exclusionary thought and all that.
schrodinger's cat
@Frankensteinbeck: Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@danimal: Every woman on my FB feed had commented on the “women in binders” comment by 9am, and not a one of those comments was favorable. Most of them were not even polite.
It got out there.
schrodinger's cat
@Michael G: Yes most of the Punditubbies belong to the demographic most favorable to Mitt, Old White men.
Svensker
@raven: My god. What rancid piece o’crap “reporting” that is. If I see her on the street in Toronto I’ll give her a piece of my mind.
eemom
@schrodinger’s cat: @Frankensteinbeck:
Easy come, easy go. Little high, little low.
Joel
@shortstop: I actually think the Benghazi stuff was to keep the base fired up. Romney needs to turn them out, too. The criticism on its surface was standard political blather so it didn’t have any adverse outcomes with the moderates… until last night. That’s where I agree with you. Romney got caught out looking like an asshole (which he is, natch).
different-church-lady
@eemom: @schrodinger’s cat: @Frankensteinbeck: GET DOWN, MAKE LOVE! GET DOWN MAKE LOVE!!!
eemom
What’s the base gonna think about “I want every woman in America to have access to contraceptives,” I wonder.
Cassidy
Should say “when”.
shortstop
@Joel: Absolutely, it’s mostly for the base. But with not very informed moderates (like aimai’s dishwasher repairman), that was the piece of Obama’s foreign policy that had penetrated consciousness and had at least some power to damage. It’s seriously all Romney’s got, and he ruined most of it last night.
Svensker
@eemom:
The base doesn’t care. My wingnut cousin told me that. All they care about is that Romney wins and beats the Kenyan Usurper. Romney could be calling for single payer health insurance and a 90% tax on the wealthy right now, with free abortions for all, and the base would be root toot tooting for him. They know he’s lying anyway — my cousin told me that, too. But it’s anybody but the black Democrat at this point.
Bernard Finel
@schrodinger’s cat: President looked damn good. I think ultimately most people realize that Obama has their best interests at heart, which is why he’s led the whole way. Great to see him skewer Romney. In short, I agree with Sarah 100%
barath
@Hill Dweller:
Al Giordano is back? Where?
Brachiator
@? Martin:
Too inside baseball. “Let ’em go bankrupt” would have killed the auto industry in the US and put millions of Americans out of work.
Romney promises jobs, but the only thing he knows about is killing jobs to benefit himself and his cronies.
@eemom:
What a bunch of weasel words. The question is, would Romney back attempts to make women pay for contraception themselves, letting employers drop contraception from insurance coverage?
Bernard Finel
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ll also note that what Obama did reflected tremendous skill. It would have been so easy to come off too aggressive and defensive. Just a very, very impressive performance all around. Yay!
Uncle Cosmo
@slag: This. & that is all the notice it deserves.
schrodinger's cat
@Bernard Finel: Good to see you here and I am glad that we agree.
Brachiator
@Svensker:
Why is that? Do they hate Obama? Do they fear him? Do they believe that America should be governed by a white man?
What is it that they think that Romney’s election will do for them?
DPirate
Reading all the commentary this morning reminds me of the Hagler-Leonard rematch.
The best part of the debate was when that woman said “President. Um, Romney.”
Angela
@barath: Second that question. I just googled him and found no new writing.
Cassidy
@Brachiator: My niece remarked that she didn’t realize that so many of her friends were secret millionaires. She then innocently wondered why the same such people would be waitresses and call center operators and other such jobs if they had money.
barath
@Angela:
I see some people quoting his Facebook page. But I can’t seem to view it, even in my dummy Facebook account.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
It will rid them of the Kenyan Socialist Usurper. What more do you need?
amk
@barath: @Angela:
Giordano is now only on FB. But Not on twitter afaik. The Field doesn’t have any more posts.
different-church-lady
I’m observing something here: when Mitt has a calamitous month, there’s wingnut trolls in here saying, “COMEBACK! GAMECHANGER! YOUR BOY IS GONNA FUCK THIS UP, HE’S GOING TO FADE!”
But when Obama has a rockin’ debate on all counts, a lot of liberals will clutch their blankets and fret about whether it’s going to matter or not and nobody will care and the polls aren’t going to move and even if they do blah blah blah…
Hill Dweller
Willard was actually better than he was in Denver. Hell, that was probably the best debate of his career, but the President still took him apart, and baited him into revealing his true character.
George Will called it the best Presidential debate in history, and Obama the winner.
fuckwit
The fucking media is so useless, and so in the tank for Thurston Howell.
I logged into Yahoo (my mistake, but I had to check mail), and the fucking headline “Obama and Romney don’t like each other, nothing to see here, move along, move along”.
Seriously. The fucking headline. Was “Obama and Romney don’t like each other”, and the subhead was that nothing else mattered. Then the lede was how they’ll never be pals “LIKE BILL CLINTON AND GEORGE W. BUSH”.
WHAT THE SCREAMING FUCK??? Have a look at the HUGE presumption there– that RMoney will be the next pres, and Obama won’t kiss his ass, as he is supposed to, like Clinton did.
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
That’s yer corporate media at work, right there it is.
Fuck these fucking fuckers.
The Stolen Dormouse
@Southern Beale: At the end, I noticed something very strange. Obama walks over to someone in the audience, shakes his hand, says a few words, and then moves on to talk with someone else. [This was what I’d expect a politician to do.] The strange part was Mitt standing by himself looking uncomfortable until his wife comes to the front and his sons encircle them, protecting him from the citizen-rabble. Yep. He sure seemed very confortable with the middle-class audience members!
1badbaba3
@raven: That story does not help the people carping about Obama’s weakness. If they keep at it, this will make them look very bad in comparison to the real patriots and professionals who put their lives on the line. To think that they would even consider using this event as fodder for political points is chilling. I thought that, before I read the linked article. Now, having read the visceral account of the events, I am beyond chilled. Furious doesn’t work either. But I do know that no one associated with, or advocating for this campaign should ever be allowed to be involved with public service again, as they are a disgrace and an affront to the memories and service of the victims (alive and dead) of this attack.
I know I should be all happy and ass-kicky about last night, but that article has really hit me hard. I have a greater understanding of what the President has been going through, not only about the attack itself, but the cowardly and dispicable manner in which the Right has sought to make hay of it. He had to have had details about it during the first debate. How he kept from kicking the Cowardly Lyin’, I don’t know. I’m not a violent person, I was revulsed by the violence depicted in the article. But still, knowing that Willard and Co. are actively still exploiting this attack, and not being pelted with rotten fruit and veg, makes me consider violence as an option. Thankfully, it’s not a serious consideration, but still…
Roger Moore
@Michael G:
I think it’s more that it’s somewhere between just fine and invisible to a lot of people. Black guy talking back to white guy = uppity. White guy condescending to black guy = the natural order of the world.
Tone In DC
@dmsilev:
LULz.
McJulie
@Brachiator:
Ease their existential anxiety. Right wing politics has become very abstract psychodrama, almost completely divorced from anything that happens in the real world. They want somebody to make them feel better. Romney will make them feel better.
Why will he make them feel better? That’s the question. And I think it’s probably a whole big mess of tribalism and fear and, yeah, the pure and simple nastiness of old-fashioned racism.
Romney will allow them to pretend that everything is back to “normal” — as the right wing defines it, which is to say, back to a cleaned-up rose-colored 1955 or so. Like Reagan, Romney will soothe them and flatter them and pander to them and tell them he’ll take care of them, that they can have it all, and every problem in the world is the result of a dire them who are out there Doing Bad Things and Taking Stuff, etc. so forth. No decent hardworking American will be jobless with Mitt in charge! No decent hardworking American will be without affordable health care!
It’s the same old line, but 1. Romney isn’t as good at selling it as Reagan was, and 2. Reagan kinda knew it was malarky. I’m not sure Romney does.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Brachiator: I can tell you with the wingnuts in my own family that the explanation is simple: America can and always should be governed by a white man. Blacks have no place in politics, or, indeed, in American society at all.
Mexicans too, BTW, in case the GOP thinks they’re ever going to be allowed to go fishing for Latino votes.
1badbaba3
@different-church-lady: Gunpowder, gelatine
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Applejinx
@eemom: Bingo.
I think it’s a FINE WONDERFUL THING that the real Mitt Romney from Massachusetts is so dedicated to providing free contraception to women, and furthermore dedicated to gun control.
I’m sure he’ll solidify a real compromise by reaching way across the aisle and doing EVEN MORE to stop gun violence than Obama would. Only Nixon could go to China, after all! So only Romney could- and will- outlaw guns entirely, responding to intensifying bipartisan pressure to deal with our escalating gun violence problem.
Assault weapons are only the beginning. We will inevitably see stricter background checks and rules, prevention of stockpiling, the whole nine yards.
And it’ll be Mitt Romney who’ll bring it, because if Obama wins he won’t be able to depend upon blind Republican support. Obama blindly supported by Dems and no Republicans means no draconian gun control. Romney blindly supported by Republicans and doing what the Dems want- what he did as Governor- means we see an end to our national nightmare of mass gun murder.
…
Or at least this might be a little quiet thought keeping some rightwingers up nights. You thought you could trust Mitt not to deliver you to your worst enemies? What you’re seeing is Mitt in the final, appease-ALL-the-people mode. He’ll do a lot of useful liberal things for four years, crawling to get re-elected, following his true nature.
It’s not too late to STAY THE FUCK HOME and let him crash and burn…
Let us see how many of them can figure this stuff out and stay home, refusing to vote for anybody or voting protest votes…
Svensker
@Brachiator:
They hate him. He’s a Demon-crat, first off. He’s urban, he’s smooth, he’s black, he’s a great family man, he’s their worst nightmare. They hate his guts.
I think the Democrat portion would be enough…but the fact of who he is means the world they thought they knew is coming to an end. Everything’s upside down and it’s that Black Guy’s fault! ! ! The hatred is just unbelievable.
fuckwit
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: This.
There are no undecided voters at this point. There are disgusted, disappointed, frustrated voters, plenty of ’em, however.
Firing them up is the only way to get them out to vote, and thus, to win.
In other words, this whole show, this whole charade, this whole spectactle, this whole pantomime, is for us. We are the ones they are performing for.
Seems Obama and Biden have done that. Now, make phone calls, get on the streets, get people out to the polls.
This election is not about them. It’s about us. We win or we lose. Not them. Us.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Svensker: I get this pretty much from all the Romney voters as well. They hate Romney. They don’t know what he stands for and don’t give a fuck. He could run on the platform of bulldozing all of America into the sea. Wouldn’t make one fucking bit of difference. All that deficit bullshit and tax hike concerns are immaterial. They don’t give a shit about any of that. They want Obama out.
When asked why, it’s “he’s a socialist and ruining America”
I think I’m beginning to understand that when they say “socialist”, they mean “high levels of melanin in the skin”.
Jay in Oregon
@kd bart:
It was unsaid, but everyone listening heard it.
Triassic Sands
Obama won? Nonsense!
World Wrestling Entertainment spectators polled said 99% to 1% that Romney “pinned Obama after smacking him upside the head with a folding metal chair, throwing him headfirst out of the ring, and stomping on his privates with combat boots. It was like Rambo against a paltry 10,000 Viet Cong. No contest.”
And who would know better than WWE fans.
(Note: The above is not meant to be a factual statement. Rather it is a reflection of the current state of American society and the standards it uses to judge important issues.)
dww44
@blingee: And based on the book I’m reading, the dumbed down electorate got suckered by Nixon in 1968, who deliberately sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks and Johnson knew it but decided not to go public with it.
Tone In DC
@Triassic Sands:
Before or after dropping the People’s Elbow on him?
gene108
@Kristin:
There were demonstrations in several Muslim countries because of the video.
Some groups used the otherwise peaceful demonstrations as an excuse to incite violence.
Terrorists in Libya timed their attack to coincide with these demonstrations, from what I recall.
Bendal
Ann is the one that talked Mitt into running for President after 2008. He wasn’t going to do it again, citing the stress and negative attention, etc, until she convinced him to run again. That happened some time between 2008 and 2010.
So yeah, Ann REALLY wants to get in the WH.
Joel
@Brachiator: The same thing that your team winning a superbowl does for you, or something along those lines. I’ve figured long ago that most right wingers (and a much smaller number of liberals) only care about the abstract concept of winning. Rationality has nothing to do with it.
El Cid
Romney, last night: “Why does the cleaning lady keep interrupting me?”
cmm
@kd bart: my girlfriend and I both spontaneously added “boy!” to the end of that sentence right aafter Mitt said it. i think it is a moment that will resonate with anyone who has ever been similarly bitchslapped by a clueless but entitled asshole. When college professors do that kind of smackdown on a student and the prof has legitimate correct info, everyone will still see it as a dick move. to do it to continue to spout WRONG info is even stupider.
elftx
been having a “lively” debate with my sister on fb (ugh I know)..she totally “does not trust him” (POTUS) and is of course a faux fanatic
mittbot’s comments last night on single parent families gave me the opening I have been waiting for so posted on her page maybe I should refute the testimony I gave at the divorce hearings, when I was 14 btw, and something my sister is a big advocate of: peeing in a bottle for food stamps, let her know our mom probably would not have been too quiet about it when she was feeding us 4 kids because of them..seriously doubt my sister is aware of our being on them at one point, but then she has always felt (and been treated) priveleged…dirty and underhanded??? so the fk what
elftx
been having a “lively” debate with my sister on fb (ugh I know)..she totally “does not trust him” (POTUS) and is of course a faux fanatic
mittbot’s comments last night on single parent families gave me the opening I have been waiting for so posted on her page maybe I should refute the testimony I gave at the divorce hearings, when I was 14 btw, and something my sister is a big advocate of: peeing in a bottle for food stamps, let her know our mom probably would not have been too quiet about it when she was feeding us 4 kids because of them..seriously doubt my sister is aware of our being on them at one point, but then she has always felt (and been treated) priveleged…dirty and underhanded??? so the fk what
Roger Moore
@fuckwit:
I don’t think that’s 100% true. I think there is a real group of people who believe the whole “both sides suck” narrative but still think it’s their duty to hold their noses and pick the lesser of two evils once every four years. I suspect that part of the Obama landslide in the last election is that he convinced a fair number of those people that they were voting for something beyond the lesser of two evils for a change, but now that he’s spent four years failing to produce ponies and shit rainbows they’ve gone back to their disappointed view of politics.
Triassic Sands
@El Cid:
As I’ve said before, one of the impressions Romney has given me in these debates is that he is a person very accustomed to telling servants what to do. Further, he expects obedience, not cooperation.
I’m pretty sure last night Romney really would have enjoyed firing Crowley. Her feeble attempts to control him were not appreciated. And yet I think Romney walked all over Crowley. I think the reason Raddatz appeared to do such a good job of controlling the VP candidates was because they listened to her. Romney just won’t listen to the moderator and when he won’t that puts pressure on Obama to do the same. In general, that’s a temptation Obama should handle very carefully. After several quite rude performances by Romney last night, Obama did the same thing — refusing to let Crowley shut him down. It doesn’t sound good no matter who is doing it. I wondered if Obama might have gotten more advantage out the situation by yielding to Crowley while voicing the expectation that she “would begin to hold Governor Romney to the same standard.” That would have kept Obama from saying a few words, but it also would have highlighted the difference between him and a rude, pushy, domineering Romney. For my part, I know when Romney does it, I don’t pay any attention to what he says subsequent to his trodding on the moderator, because I’m thinking about what a boor he is.
priscianusjr
@aimai:
eemom
@Triassic Sands:
Interesting, because I had the opposite reaction — I wanted Obama to get right up in Romtron’s ugly grill more.
That’s not really his style, though.
Triassic Sands
@Tone In DC:
A member of the elite never uses the “people’s” anything. So, I guess he would have to use the “Nobleman’s Elbow,” or since America doesn’t have the feudal background of Europe, maybe the “Master’s Elbow” would be more appropriate. That word also fits neatly with the GOP’s love of implicit racist campaigning with the generous use of dog whistle’s and other coded language.
EntrepreneursAnonymous
@Trakker: What’s more disturbing is the number of people I know as “Facebook friends” who reflexively vote Republican and were looking for a reason to vote for Romney simply couldn’t bring themselves to see this fraudster for what he is. Rather than conceding that Obama trounced this turkey (or “Chicken Hawk Down,” as Krugman wrote), they chose the default, “Neither candidate is appealing. We need better choices.” line. My only hope is that a bunch of these types of people sit out the election.
Southern Beale
@The Stolen Dormouse:
The strange part was Mitt standing by himself looking uncomfortable until his wife comes to the front and his sons encircle them, protecting him from the citizen-rabble….
Oh yes I saw that too. I thought, OMG it’s like Mitt has cooties. No one wants to talk to him. It was fucking bizarre.
Amanda
Very nice recap, especially for those of us who still haven’t seen the whole debate (will be watching it on the CSPAN tonight with popcorn and vino LOL).
Per usual, Mr. Pierce outdid himself with his take on the debate — I especially loved this bit since I, too, survived having Willard as my Governor ugh:
Brachiator
@Svensker:
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Thanks for this, even though it is sad.
I wonder if these same people would really accept (as some claim they would) a Herman Cain or a Bobby Jindal? How do they square Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court?
Triassic Sands
I’m sorry, but wanting everyone to get a good education is just pure elitism.
A real American president wants American citizens to be free to be ignorant, uneducated rubes who will fall for lies, fantasies, and wishful thinking of the GOP. Shame on you, Obama.
Original Lee
@EntrepreneursAnonymous: So far three of my wingnut FB friends have said they are voting third party this time around.
Two of them are in PA.
dance around in your bones
Ok, so this is the only thread I can get on w/o “database error” so WTF is going on?
JustAnotherBob
@Roger Moore:
Well said. Renewables are becoming such inexpensive energy providers that it’s hard to see a later emerging generation technology finding a foothold.
If one of the new storage technologies pans out we’ve got the puzzle solved. It all comes down to installation.