Presidential Debate Discussion Thread

AeryFairy

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Tonight is the first of the presedential debates leading up to the election. This thread is for discussing all the upcoming debates, as well as posting relevant articles and links for anybody who is interested.

Info on the debates here: http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-debate-schedule/2012-presidential-debate-schedule/

For me, the most cringeworthy news in relation to the debates so far is the republicans' idea of a debate strategy: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2012/10/practice-makes-perfect.html
 
I read in the news Romney clearly won and that Obama appeared "professor-like" - like a typical elitist who can't drink beer and connect with real people.

Well, I didn't watch the debate. Anyone care to give a brief summary of the highlights?
 
It looked like Romney won, I have to admit. Obama was quiet, pensive and on the defensive - not his usual charismatic self, but not totally awful. Romney was incredibly agressive, and he lied, a lot, but not everyone is going to fact-check. It looked to most people like Romney was winning everything because he basically bulldozed through everything, and Obama didn't do a lot to expose any weak points (of which there were many).

A few bits and pieces:
Asked what he would do as president, Mitt Romney starts to list his achievements as governor of Massachusetts, until Lehrer cuts his off with a curt "But what would you do as president?"

"Mr President you're entitled to your own plane and your own own house but not to your own facts." (Totally out of the blue, didn't really seem relevant, but one of the zingers we were promised!)

Lehrer: Your two minutes is up, sir
Obama: I had five seconds before you interrupted me

Romney stated that he would cut government funding to PBS to close the deficit. The Internet went nuts on that. Assorted big bird jokes, and the suggestion that cutting something that is 0.012% of the budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500GB hard drive.

On stopping the tax breaks for oil companies:
Romney: It's actually an accounting treatment that's been in place for a 100 years.
Obama: It's time to end it.
 
It looked like Romney won, I have to admit. Obama was quiet, pensive and on the defensive - not his usual charismatic self, but not totally awful. Romney was incredibly agressive, and he lied, a lot, but not everyone is going to fact-check. It looked to most people like Romney was winning everything because he basically bulldozed through everything, and Obama didn't do a lot to expose any weak points (of which there were many).


This.
It seemed to me like Obama was rusty on his debating skills.
 
I didn't watch it because I knew it would probably go like it did. Romney's lies will be exposed hopefully. President Obama needs to step it up in the next one. I think it will get nasty....
 
80-90% of the voting public has already made up their mind who they are going to vote for. I don't think anything earth shaking occured to sway independents one way or the other. But it is defintely time for Obama to go on the attack.
 
The UK version of one of these debates had a huge impact in our last election. For decades the liberal democrats were the outside party who always came third but were never even close to second. Then their leader Nick Clegg appeared in a similar debate and wiped the floor with the other parties, especially the despised BNP leader. He didn't do so well in the second one but it was enough to get them into power as part of a coalition and get Clegg as deputy prime minister. Unfortunately though it seems he swayed a lot of labour voters onto his side, which is why we still ended up with the worst party in power and Clegg either unable or unwilling to lessen the damage of their take from the poor and give to the rich policies.
 
Romney did well. Keep in mind that in the era of televised presidential debates there have been 6 previous 'first debates' between an incumbent and a challenger. In 5 of 6, the challenger won. (Including Mondale, who won the first debate against President Reagen but suffered the biggest defeat in history in the election.)
 
Romney did well. Keep in mind that in the era of televised presidential debates there have been 6 previous 'first debates' between an incumbent and a challenger. In 5 of 6, the challenger won. (Including Mondale, who won the first debate against President Reagen but suffered the biggest defeat in history in the election.)

Yeah, I'm not worrying yet. Most Americans have already made up their mind anyway, and the majority of polls are still showing a Democratic victory.

... I just kind of wanted to see Romney make an *** of himself.
 
Encouraging job numbers this morning. Unemployment below 8% for the first time since Jan 2009. Took less then an hour for Republicans to come up with conspiracy theories about Obama cooking the numbers. They have non-conspiracy explanations too, but those aren't as fun.
 
I was pretty dissappointed with Obama. There were multiple times when he could have really gone for the jugular, but didn't. Romney was on the ropes - this was a missed opportunity.

When Romney indicated that 'Maybe Ineed a new accountant' in response to the President's charge a certain tax law that benefits businesses - Obama should have fired back: "In light of your offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and Swiss bank accounts - I'd say you're accountant is doing just fine."

When jobs were brought up there was no mention of the Auto Industry bailout that was a huge boost to the industry and saved thousands of jobs. Something Romney opposed. Obama needs to mention this every single time that jobs are brought up.

And I would have recited Romney's 47% comments verbatim after he continually claimed how much he cared about the middle class.

I'm not the smartest cat in the tree - but I was doing better from my seat on the couch than the President. He was making his arguments with a dismissive disposition rather than a challenging one. Romney was in his element - saying whatever he needed to say at the given moment whether it was based on fact or not. If Obama isn't going to call him out on his right-wing extremes - people might buy his move to the middle - be it for the sake of the debates only.

That being said - I'm sort of glad this happened at this time and not a few weeks later. The Obama campaign needs to keep their swagger in check and get serious about putting this thing away. Their overconfidence as of late would be a little scary going down the stretch. The polls are going to tighten up now.
 
Romney is not very bright, but he still wins the debate. The United States is in a lot of trouble regardless of who wins.
 
I watched the whole debates the other night and the big bird deal thing I seen 5 tweets about it after he said he will cutting funds to PBS , I think I made up my mind and not going to watch other debates, I am going to vote pure democratic ticket this time and I live in a republican state. I am telling this republican state to stop thier junk once and for all of attacking people.
 
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I only saw the first half hour, but from what I saw of it and read about it, it doesn't even seem like Obama prepared for this. I'm interested to see what happens with the foreign policy discussion. There have been many reports of drones killing civilians, and Obama has greatly increased our use of drones from previous administrations. If Romney was smart he'd be bringing this up and it would leave Obama speechless. I have a feeling Romney promotes our use of drones as well, so he'll likely be quiet about them.
 
People are forgetting that Obama already has a pretty demanding job he has to do on top of his campaigning, whereas Mitt is free to swan around the country rubbing butt cheeks with the wealthy elite and insulting the people who are struggling to pay their bills.

Of course Obama is going to look more tired than Romney, he has a lot more responsibility on his shoulders. Nobody looks younger and fresher after a term of being President or Prime Minister, it is an ageing job by definition..
 
People are forgetting that Obama already has a pretty demanding job he has to do on top of his campaigning, whereas Mitt is free to swan around the country rubbing butt cheeks with the wealthy elite and insulting the people who are struggling to pay their bills.

Of course Obama is going to look more tired than Romney, he has a lot more responsibility on his shoulders. Nobody looks younger and fresher after a term of being President or Prime Minister, it is an ageing job by definition..
Unless you know Obama's schedule, it's hard to say how busy he is.
 
I really think people in this thread should go read about exactly what the "Commission on Presidential Debates" is and how it was able to usurp control over the debates from the League of Women Voters. The history is interesting and seems to say a lot about the level of democracy in the USA.

Alternatively, watch Democracy Now's Expanding the Debate special (if that isn't a link because I'm a new user, it should be easy to find via your favorite search engine). After the founder of Open Debates explains about the CPD and a few other guests talk, the special shows CPD's debate with occasional pauses inserted to give Jill Stein (Green Party) and Rocky Anderson (Justice Party) equal talking time. They invited Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party) too, but he unfortunately declined. Obviously it isn't the same as letting Stein or Anderson fully participate because Obama and Romney are completely oblivious of them -- and more importantly because relatively few people will actually watch it -- but it is a commendable effort.

I could talk about my opinion of the ideas raised or (less relevantly) the debating techniques of the participants, but that hardly seems significant compared to the systematic exclusion of issues and viewpoints in the version most other people are watching. Even if you dislike the third-party candidates and absolutely will not vote for them, it is sharply contradictory to the principles of democracy to deny them an opportunity to participate in the debates. For one thing, without a fair debate forum, each candidate's ability to express their ideals to a diverse audience is nearly directly proportional to their campaign's funding, which seriously skews the political landscape.
 
I only saw the first half hour, but from what I saw of it and read about it, it doesn't even seem like Obama prepared for this. I'm interested to see what happens with the foreign policy discussion. There have been many reports of drones killing civilians, and Obama has greatly increased our use of drones from previous administrations. If Romney was smart he'd be bringing this up and it would leave Obama speechless. I have a feeling Romney promotes our use of drones as well, so he'll likely be quiet about them.

So you prefer that soldiers kill people instead of drones? More humans dead = better?