The Mitt Romney at the First Presidential Debate was the Mitt Romney I Met at Hamburg Inn No. 2 in 2008
Pres. Obama looked like a beaten man last night before he started the first presidential debate. I don't know why. He's ahead in the polls in virtually every swing state, including Iowa, and he's slightly ahead in national polls.
Was Obama embarrassed, as Eddie Murphy would say, that Mitt Romney was "lying his (expletive) off"? Pres. Obama didn't call Romney's allegations lies, but he strongly implied they were. Obama did mention that "five weeks before the election," Romney was putting forth a different platform that the one he's been running on since Romneycare became Obamacare and Romney repudiated his own health insurance plan and promised to repeal it on "Day One" of his putative presidency.
So now we're supposed to believe that a Pres. Mitt "Mittens" Romney would not cut taxes for the wealthy and would not raise taxes on the middle class? They don't call him "Mittens" because he doesn't have claws.
Rather than call Gov. Romney a bald-faced liar, Pres. Obama said over and over again that there is no way that Romney's math of "deficit reductions" could work without savaging education, infrastructure, Medicare, Social Security benefits, Medicaid, and food stamps. The "47%" tape makes it quite clear that Romney believes the elderly, the handicapped, veterans, and the working poor don't take personal responsibility and refuse to care for themselves.
Never mind the fact that 61% of that 47% who don't pay federal income taxes but do pay payroll taxes. So they're the working poor. Do the working poor refuse to take responsibility for themselves? Does the 85-year-old woman in a wheelchair refuse to take responsibility for herself?
So Pres. Obama, embarrassed and awkward, waited for Romney to stop lying to the American people. However, Romney is perfectly comfortable lying to the American people, and he never did stop. He expressed sympathy for the middle class. We were supposed to buy that, although he's never expressed sympathy for the thousands of people he fired after gutting their companies of resources, forced them into bankruptcy, and laughed all the way to the bank.
What's a guy to do? Romney refused to fess up. He refused to recant. He never did explain to us how his plan of beefing up the Pentagon and cutting taxes for the rich would work. In fact, he denied that he would cut the effective taxes paid by the rich.
Meanwhile, Pres. Obama looked tired and like he'd rather be anywhere than where he was. Michelle Obama, his wife, looked very nervous and apprehensive before the debate. Maybe the president was tired. Maybe he would have preferred to be at a table in a nice restaurant on his wedding anniversary, October 3rd.
Robert Frost once said, "a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."
Pres. Obama needs us to believe in him, because he didn't look like he believed in himself. I don't know what would cheer him up if good poll numbers don't do it. Maybe he knew those poll numbers could change. He did much better when he debated Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2008. Back then Sen. McCain was the one who looked like a man at war with himself.
Where was Pres. Obama's fight? Where was his passion? Chris Matthews on MSNBC went ballistic the minute the debate ended. He was furious that Pres. Obama didn't do a better job of defending himself. So it's unanimous. Obama lost; Romney won. You'd have to have been following the campaigns closely to know that Romney lied in order to win.
The Mitt Romney I saw in the first debate was the Mitt Romney I argued with about the Iraq War in 2008 at the Hamburg Inn 2 in Iowa City. Mitt loves a good argument and he showed his claws with me.
Jeff Klinzman
11:58 pm on Thursday, October 4, 2012
Oh good grief, Maria, I refuse what has become the conventional wisdom. Romney was vague, evasive, and repetitive; Obama was not "tired," he spoke the way I expect any reasoned, intelligent person would, considering his remarks as he made them. Mitt may have been glib, even manic, but when you don't care about specifics and can keep repeating the same tripe, you can run your mouth like it were a minigun.
We saw the same debate, and remember this is just the first one. I still contend Obama "won" by drawing Romney out, showing his fiscal numbers don't add up, making Romney embrace his own health reform, which the ACA was modelled after, since the GOP primaries, and made Romney make promises (no denial of pre-existing conditions, for example) which he cannot keep.
Don't be defeatist, and remember that Obama's cool will serve him well. Mitt may love an argument, and have sharp claws, but I have a hard time believing enough Americans will be reassured by what they saw last night to put Mitt over the top as the man who should be president of more than an exclusive college fraternity.
Keith Best
9:07 am on Tuesday, October 9, 2012
This first debate was a wipe-out for the unqualified Obama. He is lost without TOTUS (teleprompter of the United States.)
Maria Houser Conzemius
1:55 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
Jeff Klinzman, since I wrote this opinion piece, I've realized that more political analysts agree with me than agree with you on Obama's debate performance. Chris Matthews on MSNBC went ballistic with fury over Obama's performance right after the debate.
"Where was his fight? Where was his passion?" Matthews demanded. I've never heard him so angry.
Jon Stewart hilariously said something like "Obama broke Chris Matthews." I guess, according to Stewart, Matthews won't be of any use to anybody any more. (My daughter told me that's what Stewart said. I haven't caught up with the Daily Shows we've taped yet.)
Obama was told by campaign aides to be calm & presidential because he had or still has the lead in the polls, & he overdid it.
I'm not worried. Obama & good old Joe Biden went on the attack the next day & made many salient points about Romney's debate performance, including the fact that a different Mitt Romney showed up for the first debate than the one who's been campaigning on a promise for more big tax cuts for the very wealthy and more money for defense.
Joe made the point that Romney suddenly realized that there's a middle class that he should be worried about, even though he hasn't shown any concern for the middle class since he was governor of Massachusetts.
Which Mitt Romney will show up for the next debate? Which Mitt Romney would be president if he were elected? Nobody knows.
Joe Biden will destroy Paul Ryan on October 11th in the VP debate.
Maria Houser Conzemius
1:55 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
BTW, Jeff, the only analyst on MSNBC who agrees with you was Rev. Al Sharpton. Everyone else agreed with me.
Who "won" the debate doesn't matter as much as you seem to think it does. Obama will do fine. Women in particular have not changed their mind about favoring Obama. The Republican war on women has definitely moved more women, especially single women, toward Obama. It's men who favor Romney more.
Watts
5:50 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
Just when Romney thought that he could hit the gas, guess what...oil slick on the Mitt Romney highway... unemployment is improving without Romney, under Obama...
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/jobs-news-makes-obamas-case-easier/#more-35589
Finally goes below the make it or break it threshold of 8%.
Jeff Klinzman
6:44 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
And thus, dear Watts, we understand why the GOP is so desperate to win this presidential election. The US economy is, what, a $16 trillion GDP beast? A large, complex, modern economy does not instantly respond to inputs, like a performance car. It's much more like a large cruise ship, meaning it takes a long time to turn.
The conomy is, and will continue to get, better. The GOP is desperate to beg, borrow, or steal this election so IT can take the credit.
Jeff Klinzman
5:50 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
What matters, Maria, is the creation of mass perception. As you know, I'm not big on "atmospherics," or the sizzle each man used to sell his steak. I'm amazed at the right-wingers on The Patch who talk about how rude and disrespectful Obama was: amazing, given the restraint Obama showed, while Romney could be heard off-camera chomping at the bit, and on-camera has to flash what I long ago called "the conservative smirk" (saw it on a LOT of College Republican types when I was in grad school!) at Obama at the end of every statement. They are practically orgasmic about Romney's performance, which reminded me of Al Gore 2000 on methamphetamine.
These affairs are not conducive to declaring a "winner" the way a football game is. Listening to the arguments, I thought Romney was evasive, repetitive, and mechanical, almost robotic. Who wants to elect a flash drive for president?
Joseph Robert
7:48 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
Read about the 27 inaccuracies that Mitt Romney told at the debate!
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/10/04/958801/at-last-nights-debate-romney-told-27-myths-in-38-minutes/?mobile=nc
How can anyone trust this extremist who will say ANYTHING to get elected!
Jeff Klinzman
10:39 pm on Friday, October 5, 2012
Jut wander around The Patch for awhile, Joseph. There is no shortage in this country of credulous, uninformed people.
They call themselves "conservatives."
Maria Houser Conzemius
4:16 pm on Saturday, October 6, 2012
Jeff, it is what it is. Pres. Obama screwed up in the debate. Read what Dana Milbank had to say about Pres. Obama's debate performance in the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-president-obama-doesnt-meet-the-press/2012/10/04/ac688c8a-0e78-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html
The world won't end in the next five minutes if Obama failed to deliver a commanding performance in the first debate. He will probably still be elected president in Nov.
This is not the first time his performance has been disappointing. He has completely failed to rein in Wall Street corruption & greed, not to mention their gambling away our economy. In fact, our economy could collapse once again because Dodd-Frank is weak.
Attorney General Eric Holder woke up long enough to try to protect voting rights, but otherwise he's been asleep at the switch.
We are picking the lesser of two evils here: the Coddler-in-Chief of Wall Street & recipient of scads of Wall Street campaign donations & the would-be Corporate Predator-in-Chief.
I'm holding my nose & voting for Obama, but let's not kid ourselves about who we're electing. He'd have to change radically in his second term to give us the "change" promised in the 2008 election. I know obstructionist Republicans sabotage the nation at every turn to deny Obama a second term, but that doesn't explain AG Eric Holder's failure to go after corporate crime & war crimes. He needs to go.
Maria Houser Conzemius
10:51 am on Monday, October 8, 2012
I like Todd Dorman's article in the Gazette on the first debate:
http://thegazette.com/2012/10/04/first-debate-open-thread/
Maria Houser Conzemius
1:23 pm on Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Keith Best, I think that Obama was thrown by Mitt Romney's mendacity. Romney suddenly denied that his previous platform on cutting taxes for the rich. He said he'd close unspecified tax deductions and loopholes so that the rich would pay the same taxes as before (they've already gotten tax cuts from George W. Bush, sustained by Pres. Obama).
Some say the president has insulated himself with yes men and yes women and was not used to debating as an equal with a challenger.
Pres. Obama was not my first choice as president in 2008. Hillary Clinton was my first choice, with Joe Biden second. Obama was one of my last choices, ahead of Sen. Chris Dodd and Gov. Bill Richardson (both corrupt, in my opinion).
I couldn't vote for John McCain because he didn't show up for the equal pay for equal work vote and he said he would have voted against it if he had shown up. His arrogance and refusal to acknowledge sex discrimination against women totally turned me off. He also did poorly in the debates.
Todd Richissin
1:28 pm on Tuesday, October 9, 2012
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