# The second presidential debate: 10/16/2012 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 16, 2012, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847 "2012-10-16T04:35:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 52
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1021 "2012-10-18T00:50:38Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > And then Obama played the priceless “I’m the dad of two daughters…do I need to say anymore?” card. Romney can’t compete against that, not with that all-male clan of his. Romney could have come back with my boys all served in Iraq… oh, wait… ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1022 "2012-10-18T00:51:13Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Obama was raised in a fatherless home and look a what a loser he turned out to be. I’ll just refer you to the words “more likely” in my answer. > [@Enkel](#): > > And that is why we don’t need to ban assault rifles? My question was serious. I heard the question, got distracted for a minute, then he was talking about getting married to have kids (with emphasis on the one man / one woman). I guess I’ll just have to find a transcript or an online post of the debate. [Here](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/2012-presidential-debate-full-transcript-oct-16/story?id=17493848&singlePage=true) is the full transcript. Obama’s answer included these bits: > [@](#): > > part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago, there’s an awful lot of violence and they’re not using AK-47s. They’re using cheap hand guns. And so what can we do to intervene, to make sure that young people have opportunity; that our schools are working; that if there’s violence on the streets, that working with faith groups and law enforcement, we can catch it before it gets out of control. Romney’s “family values” bits were: > [@](#): > > What I believe is we have to do, as the president mentioned towards the end of his remarks there, which is to make enormous efforts to enforce the gun laws that we have, and to change the culture of violence that we have. And you ask how – how are we going to do that? And there are a number of things. He mentioned good schools. I totally agree. We were able to drive our schools to be number one in the nation in my state. And I believe if we do a better job in education, we’ll – we’ll give people the – the hope and opportunity they deserve and perhaps less violence from that. But let me mention another thing. \*\*And that is parents. We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the – the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that’s not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that’s a great idea. Because if there’s a two parent family, the prospect of living in poverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will – will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes in the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and give them opportunity, and bring them in the American system. \*\* Romney’s belatedly decided he’s pro-RKBA, but “I don’t really want to do anything about it” doesn’t play well with voters, so he uses his answer time to talk about something else. Made sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1023 "2012-10-18T00:53:00Z")
plus its petty amazing that Romney doesn’t apparently know name accomplished women. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1024 "2012-10-18T00:53:13Z")
**elucidator** , with the warmest regard, I have to say that your “get off my lawn” is showing. I’m not sure there’s that big a difference between “binders of women” and “there you go again.” Some things just stand out and people grab on to them, even if they forget the important stuff. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1025 "2012-10-18T00:56:12Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > plus its petty amazing that Romney doesn’t apparently know name accomplished women. Google Translate is failing me here. Little help? Was he asked to name accomplished women and couldn’t? Did you feel like that would’ve been a better direction to take his answer in? ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1026 "2012-10-18T00:58:32Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > Romney could have come back with my boys all served in Iraq… oh, wait… Has Romney ever said anything positive about his sons? Now that I think about it, the only thing he’s bragged about in regards to them is how well they trained him in lie detection. ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1027 "2012-10-18T00:59:12Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > Plus the contrast between Obama’s “I signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act”, and Romney’s “I once hired some women.” Romney’s answer just seemed so _trivial_. This. His answer was so transparently manufactured and seemed incredibly condescending. It was like watching a behavioral interview where the interviewee is forced to recall some lame example of when he tried to add “diversity” to the staff. And it didn’t even answer the question of how to address unequal pay - forcing me to conclude that he really doesn’t plan to, or even recognize it as a problem. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1028 "2012-10-18T01:05:15Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > I think this is one of the best parts of the internet. It lets the entire country give a big fat INSTANT raspberry to someone for being an idiot and all the rest of the country gets to not only laugh along but add their own input. > > Since the binders comment struck SO MANY people as a strange disconnected remark, I’m guessing that it will live at least for the next week. Lets see how many people show up at Romney events with binders… The ultimate would be Big Bird bearing binders. It seems like Romney has a gift for getting things to go viral, but that none of it is anything he’d want to go viral. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1029 "2012-10-18T01:14:28Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Yeah – this talking point makes Rasputin look like a delicate hothouse flower. This is off-topic, but I love it that I’m at a message board where somebody would post that, just taking it for granted that it will be understood. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1030 "2012-10-18T01:15:26Z")
Gotta admit, the binder stuff didn’t really bother me. I didn’t even notice it at the time–I just supplied the missing words (“resumes of”) that Romney omitted, and I went right along with the debate. My GF was on her IPad and she was showing me these photoshopped Binder pix, iwth women IN binders, women being bound for slavery, etc. and I got the point. But it still feels like a bleh moment–I can’t all worked up over Gov. Momjeans’ mouth malfunctioning. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1031 "2012-10-18T01:17:46Z")
This may be down right now, but looked pretty good this morning. [http://bindersfullofwomen.com/](http://bindersfullofwomen.com/) ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1032 "2012-10-18T01:26:54Z")
> [@Enkel](#): > > (a) Somehow, getting married to have children keeps AK47 wielding Drug Lords out of American. I still have no idea of how he slid that one in there… was he saying gay marriage and single moms cause automatic weapons to be traded to Mexico? > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’m pretty sure he meant something along the lines of: children raised in fatherless homes are more likely to have problems with delinquency, drugs, violence, and crime. More marriages = fewer fatherless homes = less crime, or something to that effect. Did you sincerely not understand the gist of that response, or are you just trying to be funny? Y’know what? I’m pretty sure that your line of dot-connecting is pretty much on the money. But what you did was put all the dots down; then you connected them. Governor Romney, OTOH, in a debate where he was ostensibly making his case to the unicorn that is the “undecided” voter, laid down the first dot, and the last dot, and essentially asked these folks to place the rest of the dots _themselves_, then connect them. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1033 "2012-10-18T01:28:06Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Obama was raised in a fatherless home and look a what a loser he turned out to be. I understand what you’re saying, and decidedly not picking a fight or calling you wrong, BUT - just want to point out that Obama doesn’t come from a home where there wasn’t a good, stable and long term positive male role model present in a fatherly type role. Although his father wasn’t there, he was raised in a house living full time with grandma and grandpa in what amounts to parental type figures. Which I think probably proves the point - it doesn’t have to be a father to be a “father”? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1034 "2012-10-18T01:28:16Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Has Romney ever said anything positive about his sons? Now that I think about it, the only thing he’s bragged about in regards to them is how well they trained him in lie detection. I suspect that’s just the only quote you’ve heard. I’m quite confident that Mr. Romney has said many nice things about and to his sons. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1035 "2012-10-18T01:30:07Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Governor Romney, OTOH, in a debate where he was ostensibly making his case to the unicorn that is the “undecided” voter, laid down the first dot, and the last dot, and essentially asked these folks to place the rest of the dots _themselves_, then connect them. You’re right. I thought his guns answer was crappy, to say the least. He got some facts wrong, he didn’t tie it together very well, he tried to wedge Fast & Furious in (in a very inelegant way), etc. ETA: I obviously like his _position_ on guns a lot more than Obama’s ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1036 "2012-10-18T01:33:47Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > Has Romney ever said anything positive about his sons? Now that I think about it, the only thing he’s bragged about in regards to them is how well they trained him in lie detection. This I am actually cool with. It irritates me when politicians use their kids for political haymaking. Bringing them up on the stage at the end for a photo op is even pushing the limit for me. I would be perfectly content, and I realize this is unrealistic, for politicians to leave all mention of their kids out of their public discourse. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1037 "2012-10-18T01:36:13Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > This I am actually cool with. It irritates me when politicians use their kids for political haymaking. Bringing them up on the stage at the end for a photo op is even pushing the limit for me. I would be perfectly content, and I realize this is unrealistic, for politicians to leave all mention of their kids out of their public discourse. Not much to do with the discussion, but where I’m at kids are never seen on the campaign trail, never mentioned, and the media are in fact pretty much “forbidden” from talking about them. And thanks to whoever posted this [http://bindersfullofwomen.com/](http://bindersfullofwomen.com/) Just from those positions alone - I don’t know how you would ever vote for mittens ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1038 "2012-10-18T01:37:19Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Just from those positions alone - I don’t know how you would ever vote for mittens How 'bout cause I’m a man? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1039 "2012-10-18T01:40:05Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > You’re right. I thought his guns answer was crappy, to say the least. He got some facts wrong, he didn’t tie it together very well, he tried to wedge Fast & Furious in (in a very inelegant way), etc. Well, to be fair to Governor Romney, I’m not looking for the President to be, _per se_, the Elegant-Guy-In-Chief. Unfortunately for Governor Romney, I _am_ looking for the President to be the Not-A-Republican-In-Chief. 😛 > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > ETA: I obviously like his _position_ on guns a lot more than Obama’s Really? What’s to like more? That it’s got the (R) behind it, instead of the (D)? 'Cos I’m not seeing much of a distinction. On _All Things Considered_ this afternoon, a reporter/commentator mentioned that President Obama not pursuing a continued Assault Weapons Ban was a disappointment to the pro-gun control people in his base. I thought _“They couldn’t possibly be more disappointed than the ANTI-gun control people.”_ ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847/1040 "2012-10-18T01:44:49Z")
Off-Topic again (sorry): Holy cow, I just noticed that in just over 24 hours since the _beginning_ of the debate, this thread has outstripped the last debate’s post count by over 350. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847.md?page=51) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-second-presidential-debate-10-16-2012/637847.md?page=53)