I agree he’s not a very good debater. His style just doesn’t work for the format. Bear in mind, though, that the next two debates are about foreign policy and social policy. Romney is supposed to be the economy candidate; his rather startling performance tonight notwithstanding, I don’t think he’s going to become better at foreign policy.
He does have a chance to win on social policy, because we don’t know anything about what his social policies will be.
Obama WILL get the last word - October 22nd.
If you’re an Obama supporter, you should really take a breath and stop fretting.
Obama is a disciplined strategist. He stuck with calmness and slow, considered responses. That doesn’t win debates, but that’s really secondary to the strategic plan. And that plan is to let Romney keep going for the news cycle “wins” and keep redefining himself and his policies to do that. Meanwhile, we live in an era of You Tube, which shows the Obama of 2005 (or 1992 for that matter) looking exactly like 2012 Obama, and Romney of October 3 looking very different than October 2 Romney.
Obama didn’t *have to talk about the Ryan plan or the 47% or push back on the 716 billion dollars every time Romney brought it up. Those things will be revisited by every tv talking head over the next several days. It would, in fact, have been far riskier for Obama to try and put Romney on the canvas during this debate (or either of the next 2 debates) than it was to let Romney talk. Obama’s best weapon against Mitt in this whole damn campaign has been Mitt. No need to take Romney’s shovel away from him when he’s likely to keep burying his own chances pretty efficiently.
*although POTUS did hammer repeatedly on Romney/Ryan’s lack of policy specifics.
I think a critical point about tonight’s debate is that it will keep money pouring into Romney’s campaign instead of shifting to down-ticket campaigns. Romney had a win of sorts (unless you’re a Tea Party person who watched him toss out everything)… enough to keep the money flowing his way and starve out Senate and House candidate campaigns.
Why not. We’re just getting deeper, and we’re just going to need more and more energy.
Romney is painfully short sighted. The long of the short of it is getting off of fossil fuels.
We subsidize green energy probably more than oil right now, and that’s a start, but imagine if we put in the concentrated effort in time, money and effort as we did into the Apollo program in the 60s. There isn’t a doubt in my mind green energy would plant its flag on the energy race within a decade.*
*although it’s certainly nothing Obama would attempt, but I’d rather have him at the helm during these nascent, pioneering times of finding cleaner energy from natural resources.
I agree that Romney wins on points.
But the ‘GOP pleased that Romney could go toe-to-toe with Obama’ and the Dems disappointed (which I also agree with, mostly) I think goes more towards Romney managing expectations better. Dems seem to think that Romney is the idiot that they thought Bush was - but while Bush pretty much spent his life failing upwards, and Romney, although starting on at least second base, made the best of his opportunities and made it to home.
Possibly.
Romney will need more, though. A series of victories, which he may very well get.
On the other hand, I’ve seen these “What a disaster! Why doesn’t Obama fight back?!” moments before. So tonight was probably not as big a victory as Romney needs.
Chris Matthews: “Where was Obama tonight?”
In regards to Sullivan’s comment, I would say that IF Romney wins the election, then everyone will point to tonight as the defining moment where he turned it around and “won” America over.
I dislike Romney immensely and after that debate I have to admit he did an incredible job.
Romney is possibly the most competent politician I’ve ever seen speak. In a single debate he’s completely cast off the far right and Tea Party that have been plaguing him for so long. He understands that their disdain for Obama is strong enough that they’ll come to the polls as long as he’s to the right of Obama. He’s also shifted himself completely from where he was in the primaries. Through speaking broadly rather than specifically, he can make himself a more attractive vote than anyone to undecided voters.
Romney will win the election.
Leher wasn’t a moderator, he was a pinata. But, to be strictly fair, he had no power beyond the gentlemen’s agreement of the participants. What was he gonna do, cut their mike?
What’s your guys count on screaming “Cite?!!” at the TV? Mine’s 12.
But is this unwillingness to take risks a fatal flaw? As you note, Obama’s won out over the long run in these kinds of scenarios. But he’ll have to do better in the next debates.
Disciplined, but a good strategist? OBama’s record in elections isn’t that impressive. He lost his first race, won other races where his opponent was disqualified, and rode a financial crisis into the White House. His only tough race was against Hillary Clinton, and he beat her on a technicality. She actually got more votes than he did, but his team was better at taking advantage of the system in place for selecting delegates.
Obama has never won a truly contested race. I believe Obama could win this race big, but he’ll do it because Romney keeps stepping on his own feet, not because of great strategy.
I do find it interesting that his campaign seems to be repeating the strategy that beat Clinton: don’t worry about total votes, worry about delegates. Or in this case, electoral votes. I think they’d be entirely content to lose the popular vote.
Watching CNN right now. Romney and Obama both have “highlights” from the debate, which are being replayed. I’ll have to watch the debate again to see exactly how it played out. I’m sure both campaigns will be rewatching the debate.
On the other hand, their vision of a moderator might be something we ought to consider. Just sayin’, is all.
Steady on. He still has to survive the first round of fact checking and - more importantly - video of himself arguing with himself.
Painting Clinton was a flip-flopper was tried, and it didn’t work.
In fact, Clinton advised Obama **not **to portray Romney as a flip-flopper.
Obama voter, saw it as a Romney win. Was a tie up until the health care bit and Obama was just dreadful. I mean, I agree with him on the substance but for God’s sake – it was the same lines he’s spent four years repeating and it sounded as though he was thinking them up for the first time ever tonight. Very unpolished which sounded unconvincing and defensive. I don’t think he got any momentum back after that for the rest of the debate.
I don’t think it’ll be any total game changer but it’ll be a game extender for anyone who thought Romney would be buried after tonight.
“I’ll never apologize for America.” That’s all he needs for his base; to seek other voters he’ll just rattle off the list of points about things not going ideally. He will be well prepared again.
Romney was more concise tonight; Obama went way too far into the weeds on healthcare.
Romney may have fared better, but Obama didn’t lose. This will help Romney in the short-term, but it won’t hurt Obama in the long. Romney needed to score a knockout, but he didn’t.