There’s one thing almost everybody can agree on: last night’s debate was a bloodbath, with Obama on the losing end of it. But re-watching some of the clips this morning, it’s hard to put a finger on exactly what was so unusually great about Romney’s performance and what was so unusually awful about Obama’s.
The successes and failures are more easily spotted in the contrasts. Romney was more engaged, more enthusiastic, more lucid, more relaxed, and more cheerful than Obama. He looked like he actually enjoyed being there. Obama, in comparison, came off as more detached, rustier on the facts, and slower on his feet.
But what about when you isolate their performances? Was there really a major difference between their individual debates and how they’ve acted on the campaign trail, during press events, and during interviews for the last several months?
For the most part, I’d say there wasn’t. Sure, Obama’s less articulate when he’s off his teleprompter, but it’s not as if we haven’t seen him speaking off-the-cuff before at press conferences and interviews. And Romney definitely seemed to have some extra fire in him last night, but nothing that would have garnered much notice had he been stumping on the campaign trail instead.
The biggest difference was that we were seeing both of them in the same place, discussing the same issues, with no media meddling or filtration (save for the timid interruptions of a very outgunned Jim Lehrer). We were not seeing 30-second soundbites hand-picked for us by Obama’s journalism cheering squad, or teleprompter-assisted speeches, or dueling press conferences where Romney is grilled but Obama is treated with kid gloves. Up until now, the mainstream press has allowed this president to sit in a bubble, largely unchallenged. Their narrative is that he’s likable, he’s smooth, he’s amazingly cerebral. As for Romney, he’s been branded as stilted, out-of-touch, and phony. Amazing how that conventional wisdom collapses when you peel away the selective lenses and the outside chatter, leaving two men alone on a stage, armed with just their own words.
Can't wait for next Thursday to see how the man who is portrayed as throwing our grandmothers off cliffs is received when contrasted without filter against Joe Biden without filter ("unchained!"). A collective chuckle arose in the little viewing group I was in when that upcoming debate was announced.
It's been a quarter century and it isn't like the media is going to remind anyone, but Biden was running for the Dem POTUS nomination back in 1988. I don't remember the details (Oh, Alana…) but his campaign collapsed around March of that year largely because of plagiarism. Memory is campaign speeches that were largely lifted verbatim from elsewhere, without attribution. n nThe joke at the time was various candidates saying things and Biden saying "me too" to all of it. n nIt is almost not going to be fair to have Ryan debating such an intellectual lightweight, but the scary thing is one of those two men would be running the country should tragedy strike and which one would we rather have it be???
Biden copied a speech by Neil Kinnoch, the British Labour leader. But he didn’t just copy some policy statement or flight of rhetoric — he adopted the guy’s autobiography! “Coal miners for a hundred generations”, or some such.
I remember now — it was that his parents were hardscrabble coal miners in Scranton, PA when in fact they both were comfortable white-collar workers (possibly for the coal company but definitely not in the mines). Back in 1988 there still were private sector unions, guys with dirty jobs who didn't appreciate this and that is what sabotaged him more than just taking Kinnoch's speech and substituting himself and his wife into it. n nAnd the sad thing is that he didn't have to go down in flames like this. As to the speech itself, remember this was back when both Reagan and Maggie Thatcher were still in office and he could have attributed Kinnoch's speech to him as the brave man fighting Thatcher and then presented himself as the brave man fighting Reagan. But he got lazy and thought he would get away with it.
Let us also not forget that it was Al Gore (and not Bush 41) who first brought up Willie Horton. OK, it was first the Reader's Digest that did, but AlGore ran the Willie Horton issue against Michael Dukakis in the primary, and then (this was back when the GOP attacked Dems and not itself) and the late Lee Atwater ran the Horton ads on behalf of GHWB.
The media is now intent on blaming Obama's sorry performance on—Guess who?—That's right. Jim Lehrer!!! Watch this meme metastasize over the next day or so, or until the Dims come out of their faint.
Romney was thinking faster than he was talking and tried to compress an entire paragraph of thought into a single sentence of speech — which is never a good idea to try — but I *loved* his line "Sorry Jim, I am going to have to cut PBS…." I think Romney made his point that it wasn't because PBS leans so far to the left that one wonders how their transmission towers remain upright, but that we can't afford to borrow from the Chinese to pay for it. He wisely praised PBS for some of the quality stuff it does do (i.e. Jim Lehrer's work) and put it in terms that Middle America can understand — we're broke and don't have the money. n nA lot of people right now are having to have those painful conversations — laying off employees, not donating to charities & churches, not sending their kids to all the stuff they had in the past, and all of this is quite painful – and I think Romney both humanized himself and gained the likeability with the working middle class with that one line which probably worked better because he did botch it a bit. As Middle America often botches similar lines when they try to explain that it isn't reflective of the value of the charity/service, and that they are aware of the consequences of their cutback, but that they just don't have the money anymore.
I think it's more than a media bubble. Obama represents years of intellectual deconstruction and relativism, which only works well in preaching to the choir (why Leftists are so hard to communicate with). This generation of 'journalists' were weaned on the belief that perception is reality, and they play demi-gods in the creation of that reality. Again, their manufactured reality only works in a protected environment, not unlike the Soviet system where alternative views were insane and sent to the gulag. Sure, Romney is out of touch with their cynical, narcissistic world view … but unlike them, he's not out of touch with reality.
Keith — it isn't just the Soviet Union where alternative views are considered insane with those holding them treated accordingly. Much of American academia has gone down this road, most large universities have some sort of "Behavioral Intervention Team" that serves more to crucify conservatives than actually address the truly crazy & dangerous, let alone provide assistance to them. Watch for mention of "BETA" as the trials of the so-called "Batman Shooter" unfold, and the interesting aspect of that situation is that – allegedly – there was a licensed mental health professional giving BETA some very real concerns about his dangerousness which were apparently ignored while usually it is people with no background in mental health fabricating rather spurious allegations about conservatives. n nThis is the "bubble" that Obama has had the ability to live in — and when he actually is outside of it, it shows just how empty his words are. (I half expected him to say "how dare you question me, everything I say is inherently right.")
Yea, but Bin Laden is dead. So there.
No, Bin Laden is alive and well all over the Middle East (and Government Motors is walking dead).
People have been commenting on the Obama's poor posture and body language. n nPerhaps the Spine of Steel is a bit rusty?
"Whim of Iron," is more like it.
I listened to it on the radio for personal reasons and hence didn't see this. But what I did notice was Obama apparent surprise that his merely saying something (i.e. Romney's $5M tax cut) didn't automatically make it accepted as absolute Gospel truth. I really would like to see someone do a followup into the "$2M in military spending that the military isn't even asking for." n n(I know Romney was trying to raise his "likeability" rating and hence couldn't be an obnoxious SOB, but I wish he could have been. I wish he could have said "Obama, you lying schmuck, exactly what $2M in defense spending are you talking about and where on earth are you getting your numbers from anyway?") n nWe need to be careful of "the military doesn't want/need" claim. The Dems did this a generation ago with the A-10 "Warthog" — the Air Force very much did not want that plane because it was slow and ugly — a plane built around a large machine gun didn't it into the plans of an Air Force equipped with guided missiles and sexy supersonic aircraft. n nThe USAF really did not want this plane – and upon getting it, immediately gave it to the Reserves to get rid of it. n nIt was the ARMY that wanted/needed the A-10 because the ARMY needed something to take out Soviet tanks and the Army didn't have anything that could do this, and the Warsaw Pact had a lot more tanks than we did, so without some way of destroying their tanks, the Soviets could overrun Europe with impunity — particularly before we had the Abrams tank deployed. And as we saw during the first (1991) Gulf War, the A-10 was brutally effective in destroying Soviet-made tanks, trucks and the rest. n nAnd unlike the Navy, which can fly whatever it pleases, the Army is not permitted to have fixed-wing aircraft. It can have helicopters, but when the Air Force was created from what had been (circa WW-II) the Army's Air Corps, the rule was established that the Army couldn't have fixed wing aircraft and the Air Force couldn't have artillery. Hence the Army is dependent upon the Air Force for combat air support, while the Air Force is dependent upon the Army for Air Defense Artillery (including Patriot Missiles) to protect the base from enemy air attack (bombing). n nSo it is very easy to find people in the military who argue — officially – that their branch of the service doesn't want something (e.g the A-10) but the larger question is if it is needed for the larger overall needs of national defense. And I would like to see someone nail down Obama on exactly WHAT $2M is Romney proposing to give the military that they don't want.
A guy named Larry J at PJMEDIA had this to say, that Romney should say, at a his closing: n n“It’s true that President Obama inherited a troubled economy. The problem is that he made things worse and has no plan that can make things better. If elected, I’ll inherit an even bigger mess than he did. However, I won’t spend four years complaining about my predecessor. Instead, I’ll get to work to solve the problems.”
I live in a very blue part of Oregon. I am a public school teacher. I have kids wandering in here in 20 minutes, so I'll keep it short. nMy colleagues are not happy this morning. They know what happened last night. And a very apolitical colleague, who voted for O in 2008, just wandered down here to ask me a question about something Romney said. Then he commented that O looked angry and disgruntled, like he didn't want to be there. He was impressed with Romney, and made some very astute comments about the debate. nIn my part of the world, where I had to wade through piles of Obama propaganda to get to my room four years ago (I'm exaggerating, but you get the point), this is huge. The apathy and disappointment of liberals this time around is heartening.
You don't know how very much your remarks gladden my heart. I lived and worked three years in Eugene, home of the U of O Ducks and a whole lot of sheep, a community that can meet, match, and exceed all comers in my opinion—Portland is admittedly close—when it comes to provisioning brain-dead smugness and condescension alà gauche.
A fan of the R-G, I suspect? (smirk) nWhenever I think of Eugene I am reminded of the scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail – n"On second thought, Camelot is a silly place,", or something like that. Eugene is indeed a silly place – smugness and condescension are two good descriptors. n
Ah, the Register-Guard. That does bring back unpleasant memories. I am ashamed to say it, but over the course of the summer of 1984, I actually DELIVERED the filthy thing door-to-door. My wife had just entered grad school at U of O. The whole business of her resuming her education having been entered into on VERY short notice, I was for a few months unemployed. Desperate, at age 38 I returned to the sort of employment that had been my first paying job (in 1958!), which was delivering morning newspapers for the Buffalo Courier-Express, yet another Democratic paper (long defunct) that could be counted on to "stand up for the working man" against the "Black Republicans," which had nothing to do with color, by the way, who owned the evening paper (since become the morning paper and VERY liberal). n nAt least Buffalo in the 1950s and 60s HAD a working class, cenetered around the steel mills (Bethlehem and Republic) and the auto plants (Ford and Chevy). Eugene lefties fell into two camps: (1) the cost-free anarchists led by Ken Kesey and his epigones, whose principal interests were getting laid and stoned, in no particular order so long as they were available hassle-free, cheap, and as frequently as possible; and (2) the parlor socialist, campus radical layabouts and wastrels (i.e., faculty and grad students), 90% of whom were NOT Oregonians, who lived and died by "All Things Considered." Obviously,bomb-throwing Bakuninites they were not. The hard-core Tom Hayden sort of lefty who I had the distinct misfortune to attend college with in the 60s and early 70s (at Fordham and Brown) were pretty much gone by then, and were not much missed, believe me. In 1984 the Reagan revolution was hard upon the Left everywhere and most of the non-stoned libs in Eugene went about with a dazed, what-the-f**k-is-happening? expression on their pusses a good deal of the time. I myself was moderately well along the familiar transfer of political allegiance from working-class Democrat to Reagan Democrat to out-and-out conservative Republican by then. n nThose Eugenians whose life did NOT revolve around the Oregon Country Fair or U of O campus were actually fairly conservative in politics, I discovered. They were fairly good-natured people and tolerant, which is why, I guess, the plague had come to THEM and not the other way around. The hardworking, God-fearing Oregonians of Eugene were slowly being smothered by these rambunctious aliens in their midst. Come to think of it, living there was a bit like being unwillingly cast in a slow-mo version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." n nI found a job by the Fall, an editorial position in publishing that I kept until my wife finished up and we moved back to the Caribbean. The other paper I remember was the Portland Oregonian, which seemed, at least in memory, to have been modestly less politically deranged than the Guard.
Is it true the Obama campaign are petitioning for a change in debate format, to one more in line with affirmative action principles? n nNext go round, they want Romney questioned by Chris Mathews, and the Obama by Whoopi Goldberg. n n nSeriously, what we witnessed last night was the inevitable end result of what happens when the product of a coddled process bumps up against real competition when the stakes are high as can be. The only other such dramatic example would be the incompetent but decorated surgeon being bumped out of the way when the patient flat-lines on the table by the less charismatic but more technically skilled guy. n nThis was the Peter Principle, in full color.
The version I heard was that Romney was to be sent to "sensitivity training" and should he fail to show proper deference to "Dear Leader" during the next debate, the Secret Service will simply drag him off to the psych ward. n nI say this only half in jest because stuff not that far from this routinely happens in academia. I once fell into the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra and decided to re-use some empty shell casings from my rifle as a pencil holder. It took the leftists 6 months to figure out what the shiny brass items really were, but then I got sentenced to an (unpaid) weekend of "sensitivity training" because of "militarism." (And since then, all my recyclables have gone into the trash out of spite.)
Romney seemed to be talking to his subordinate. Very much in command! Obama had nowhere to hide.
"..leaving two men alone on a stage, armed with just their own words." n nNo Alana. *Obama* was there, armed with only his own words — which to his utter surprise were revealed to be nothing more than hollow, empty words. The emperor was shown to be stark naked. n nYes. we essentially saw both men "without their makeup on" — but Romney showed himself to be a man of ideas, values & principles — people who know him personally have been telling me for some time that this is who he really is. n nObama is by far the better public speaker – Romney mangled sentences in places, was noticeably stuttering for the first 30-40 minutes, didn't enunciate all of his words as well as a trained broadcaster would have. Obama is the man with the silver tongue, the trained actor who can read the teleprompter and very good with words. With empty words, an empty but well tailored suit. n nRomney, by contrast, is a human being and someone with real ideas and value and principles. Romney mangled a sentence or two while Obama just appeared to be the lost little boy playing with adult toys that some of us have long known him to be. n nBut Alana, I think the lesson of last night is that Romney (unlike Obama) is never going to be only armed with just his own words — Romney has principles, ideas and values while Obama is nothing but a salesman selling himself.
Amen!
It is clear that all those softball interviews and the unwarranted deference from the media have served Obama poorly. He came across as an overweight and out of shape fighter living on his reputation. n nMethinks Obama would be glad to keep Buckingham Palace, the crown and the Royal Yacht and let a tool like Romney do the heavy lifting of being Prime Minister and having the headache of actually running the government. n
I wish Jim Lehrer had asked the president about an op-ed letter written by one of Mr. Obama's White House appointees. This letter was published in the New York Times on Sept 16, 2012. n nThe writer, the who handled the White House strategy on the GM bailout, was Steven Rattner. n n The first four words of Mr. Rattner's op-ed say "WE Need Death Panels". n nWhy wasn't this on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX,????? If this isn't worth talking about, then fire all the reporters and get new ones.