MITTENS: I don’t think our Commander in Chief should go on an apology tour around the world.
THE PRESIDENT: Now you keep mentioning some sort of 'Apology tour" Governor. I would love to hear you cite just one time I apologized for America. Juts one.
MITTENS (getting angry): Well, I don’t have one off the top of my head, but we all know you have gone around the globe, especially the middle east and well maybe not exactly apologized, but the essence of your words were the same as an apology.
THE PRESIDENT: So did I apologize or not?
MITTENS: Yes, let me explain…
THE PRESIDENT: Proceed, Governor.
MITTENS (Visibly Shaken): When the President goes overseas he needs ot talk tough and do things that allow no one to underestimate our resolve.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s very nice, what does it mean.
MITTENS (Getting all whiney): It means, that you suck and I want to be PRESIDENT!! Why won’t you let me be President. ITS NOT FAIR!
The problem with this is, considering how long ago that was, he would have to explain to at least half of the audience what “wall” he is talking about. And who this Gorbachev guy is you speak of.
What I dislike about foreign policy debates is that, while the president has the advantage of an active policy to discuss, there’s so much he can’t say but his opponent will attack him on.
“You’ve done nothing about Iran!”
“Well, there was that joint operation with Israel to infect Iranian facilities with a virus that destroyed a lot of equipment… oops, forget I said that.”
“You’ve done nothing about Syria!”
“Well, we’ve been funneling supplies to the rebels through Turkey and… forget I said that.”
“You haven’t been open enough about Benghazi!”
“Well, it’s complicated by the fact that we had a CIA presence operating out of that facility and… never mind…”
I’m not looking to debate any of those examples; I’m just making a point.
My best guess is that it’s pretty much the same as the second debate - a small Obama victory.
Obama has the edge in that Romney doesn’t really have a distinct foreign policy vision and his criticisms of Obama are petty. Also, Obama got Osama - he will probably make reference to this at every opportunity. OTOH, Romney will look good by just sounding knowledgable about foreign policy matters, which helps him. If foreign policy is neutralized as an issue Romney is happy, and he will benefit from low expectations.
The tie breaker is that Obama is personally more likeable (which is also why he’s likely to win the election, IMO).
This type of focus on hyper-specific polling is a mistake, IMO. When someone becomes more popular, they rise in all categories, and Romney’s rise on foreign policy is probably mostly just a reflection of his general rise in the polls.
When someone rises in the polls you could isolate their favorability rating among left-handed Puerto Rican computer programmers and find them increasing in support in that category, but it would be a mistake to think it has anything to do with the nature or circumstances of people in that category. A lot of people try to do this, however.
You can also expect to hear about Romney totally mucking up the one pretense he’s had at a foreign policy tour. He started by managing to insult the Brits, of all people, and it went downhill from there.
Remember how Obama used the “Bomb, bomb Iran” line against McCain? He never recovered. Expect something similar tonight.
I’ll grant you that it’s smart for the Pubbies to take one of Obama’s strengths and make it seem like a weakness. But that’s political gamesmanship with no objective relation to reality.
Aside from right wing editorial writers, and red state partizans who are still convinced that Obama’s a “mooslim commonist,” exactly who is buying your narrative?
Here in civilization (blue state metro areas where people pay attention to foreign affairs, speak languages besides English, travel and do business overseas) no one is buying your argument. No traction, no effect in the polls.
Romney with flash cards: “As President of the United States, I guarantee you will never see me doing this, or this, or this, and most especially not this.”
The Middle East, the Middle East, the Middle East,…uh we have to have one token non-Middle Eastern topic, so lets go with China.
Nothing about the Eurozone crisis, what it means for the US or how they would handle it. Nothing about Russia and how it should be handled. Nothing about the rise of India and its attracting of American jobs, nothing about Latin America, and nothing about probably about a half-dozen other things that should be on the list that I forgot to mention.
Unless there is a total screw up on either side, does this debate mean anything? The debate is going up against a game 7 in the baseball playoffs and a Monday Night Football game. Plus, there are only 15 days left until the election.
There’s got to be a level of politcal fatigue among people who aren’t political junkies. Although I don’t live in a swing state, I can only imagine the level of non stop political ads in those states.
I think the scheduling of this debate sucks. There’s a reason the debates are usually wrapped up by mid October. Baseball playoffs are unpredicatable and are usually scheduled throughout October, so they’re hard to avoid, but there is no reason to schedule a debate on a Monday night.
True, but you don’t need to actually watch the debate to be barraged with info *about *the debate for the next week. If Romney sharts his pants, you’ll hear about it ad suicidium for days. Same thing if Obama pulls his wang out and rubs it on Scheiffer’s wrinkled cheek.
So, yes, it does mean something-- it’ll define the media’s narrative for the next 2-14 days.
