With Obama losing the first debate one thing that comes up in liberal circles is the theory that Obama is playing 11 dimension (or 7, or 3, or 5, take your pick) chess and outclassing the right via some long term strategy. He is trying to let Mitt Romney drown in his own lies, to make himself (Obama) appear to be the most trustworthy.
Yeah, right. I’m sure it was Obama’s goal for Mitt Romney’s chances of winning the election to go from 12.9% up to 21.6% on 538. I’m sure it was Obama’s choice for 0.5% of the electorate who used to support him switching sides to support Romney, taking Obama’s lead on 538 from 4% down to 3%.
If undecideds haven’t figured out yet that Mitt Romney lies and says whatever the audience he is standing in front of wants to hear, it is too late to worry about that affecting them. At this point those people are going to vote for the toughest alpha male monkey in the room with the ‘best’ personality (best meaning whatever activates the primal brain). Spending time on nuanced political discussion is probably a waste of time, people who care about that have made up their minds already on both sides.
It is like with the Senate. The GOP doesn’t sit back when the dems filibuster, they threaten the nuclear option. The GOP threatens to take away chairmanships if people don’t vote the line. The GOP changes the rules.
The dems are outclassed in politics. They may be right on the issues, but they lack both the certainty of their values as well as a willingness to do what needs to be done to see them enacted.
So please stop trying to polish the turd by pretending this disorganization and ineptitude is part of some long term strategy that we don’t understand.
I don’t think Obama meant to be perceived as the loser. He probably meant to not throw any bombs and make the debate an non-issue. The trouble is Obama, being a decent guy, literally didn’t think that Romney would outright lie to the faces of 60 million people.
I think he planned on debating the shitheel Romney from the campaign, not the lying Kewpie Doll version that showed up to the debate.
They are both politicians. They both would sell their grandmother’s souls to win this election. Obama is not sitting around clutching his pearls shocked - JUST SHOCKED - that Romney (supposedly) lied. Politicians expect lying from each other, hell it’s their mother tongue.
That is my impression too, Obama probably expected this to be an honest debate about policy and had no idea what to do.
But again, that ties into what I was saying about the dems being outclassed. If Obama goes into the second debate preparing to see the Romney from the first debate, maybe Romney will outclass him in a different way.
Well, spinning things is one thing. Romney simply pretended that his health care plan covers pre-existing conditions and that he didn’t want to cut all tax rates by 20%.
I’d imagine that by now Obama is used to the fact that Romney lies all the time about everything. Also, he probably personally deeply loathes the guy, which I’ve heard is a common reaction to running against Romney. And he’s never been a great debater. So, he didn’t really have much choice but to try to stick to the same points he’d prepared, and mildly adjust them to account for Romney telling different lies than he had expected. I think a lot of the people criticizing Obama are also the type of people that, like me, were swearing at their Tvs, and shouting objections to the BS that Romney was constantly spewing, and wished to be there in person to land one right on that smug face of his. I guarantee that would’ve been a worse strategy than what Obama did.
You know as well as I do, that Obama claimed that Romney wants to cut five trillion from taxes, but won’t disclose how he’s going to offset the spending.
Romney’s plan calls for nearly 5 trillion over ten years to be cut from all tax rates, but by “removing deductions” the tax bills and thus revenues will magically stay the same.
By not telling us which deductions he’s going to nuke, he’s just offering a 5 trillion cut in taxes and not explaining how it is going to be revenue neutral.
You are a tax professional, right? I’m sure you’re better grounded in the nuances of this issue than I am. So what is the point of your asking?
The president saying that it’s five trillion in cuts is spin, sure. But Romney’s assertion that he has special magical math is a lie.
You know, that was more true a few weeks ago than it is now. Romney has actually proposed a politically clever way to address deductions. He has suggested that we put a limit on the total amount of deductions any one tax payer can take. I think he floated the idea of $17k*. That gets around the politically impossible problem of targeting, say, the mortgage deduction.
If you want to make an argument that this is just a gimmick, you’re welcome to do so. But fact is, he has made at least a modest effort to flesh out this whole lowering overall rates while staying revenue neutral thing.
But then again, I never really pay much attention to what a presidential candidate says he’s going to do about taxes-- Congress sets tax rates, and the president can’t make Congress do something that there isn’t the will for in that renowned body.
*Any Californian, though, will laugh at having the limit set so low since $2k/month mortgages are a dime a dozen here, and that would crimp lots of people’s budgets.
Your own cite calls it “not true”, so I think “spin” is not the proper descriptor here.
It’s a gimmick because he hasn’t explained the details. And from what I’ve read it isn’t near enough to fill the hole.
It would be nice if he would set out a plan that were at least possible. Why not promise Mr. Fusions for everyone and self-lacing shoes while he’s at it?
You don’t need any more details than: No one gets to deduct more than X amount, with X set to make it revenue neutral. Whether Congress will consider it is another issue. Presidents often promise things that they know Congress won’t allow. Witness closing Gitmo. I never expected Obama to be able to do that, but it sounded good on the campaign trail.
O, get your narrow ass in there and fight, you sorry motherfucker! Quit making excuses. You may still win, but with that attitude, you deserve to lose.
Assuming that X is $0 for everyone making over $250,000 the only way to make it revenue neutral is to set X low enough on the rest of us to cause an increase in our tax burden, which Mitt has also said he won’t do. You can, apparently, keep middle class taxes from going up if you raise taxes on just those above $100,000 (including taking away all deductions, including the standard deduction) a year, but Mitt’s also said that he won’t do that. So, basically, it’s a gimmick because there is no X that solves the equation without violating one of Mitt’s promises.
Yeah, we’re the only people that voted for a self made man who became the first black president. He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on and has made it on pure chance alone.
He isn’t trying to win in the polls this week, he isn’t trying to edge the senior citizen vote in Ohio next week, he’s trying to win. And he has a track record to show he can.
No. With that attitude, he deserves to win. It’s the country that doesn’t deserve him, when they are happy enough to reward a win to a guy they fucking knew was lying to them. Even Fox called Romney out on his lies, yet every news organization is reporting he won.
When you find out one of the teams at the Super Bowl cheated do you let them keep the win? No. Why the fuck do we let someone who cheated the debate by lying still get a win? Or are people so fucking stupid that they think the point of a debate is to see who lies the best?
The only saving grace is that the debates haven’t won the election for anyone since Nixon.
The president of our country can’t afford to have a negative opinion of people who vote for image and not substance? Fuck that commentator.
