Our dear President made me feel crappy because I thought that regardless of his strategy, he could have mustered a powerful closing statement.

Which should tell you they don't want to see the brilliance of Debate #1 repeated.

No reason to go into full cover mode, but as the last debate ends, no one will be citing the first debate.

I don't know how that last one will end, but I'm sure mistakes won't be duplicated. This is just a small bump in the road to re-election, it isn't even a big deal. Romney can dance around like he won the contest, but it's far from over and he's still an unlikeable prick.

he will surely have to cool it on the second debate and tell the truth, but how much cramming will it take for him to keep the lies from getting mixed up with the truth? He has lied for so long.

I'd say he's walked himself into a corner. Obama was just letting him work himself deeper and deeper into that corner. I think Mitt showed his followers that he isn't too far from coming unhinged.

Romney off a leash talks too much and gets more incoherent
and off message the more he talks. Yes, in the debate he
was very well rehearsed with certain lies and talking points,
but his body language and message components were rather
offputting.

I agree that in the next debate Romney will not be able to
do the same thing. He will have to deliver plans with details
which I don't think he can do without flipflopping all over the
place because he used to govern and think as a moderate,
but the Republican party expects him to campaign as an
extreme rightwinger.

Everyone knew Romney lied through the whole debate. So what did Romney win if everyone is mad that Obama didn't call him out? Nothing.

Lose - one O - is the opposite of win. Loose - two Os - is the opposite of tight.

I'm nominating this as the most common spelling error on the internet. Second place goes to ITS, IT'S.

But yes, I agree Romney lied. But he also walked all over Obama and Lehrer and dominated the debate. He was an ass. But that doesn't make him the loser of the debate. Also, only those of us who pay attention know he lied. Unfortunately, way too many voters don't pay attention.

Most people I spoke with agreed that Mittbull came off as arrogant, pompous, disrespectful, and unhinged. That just doesn't strike me as winner material, in addition to the lies he spewed. Even apolitical and low info voters have heard about the lies. If they think Mittbull won, then they mustve already been leaning toward voting for him. I doubt this debate did much in terms of changing anyones opinion in this election cycle.

He sure did.

You can argue (and I'm inclined to agree), that he kind of threw it as part of a larger strategy. But he certainly didn't "win".

Not in my opinion anyways.

1) Romney won the high-school debate
2) Obama won the presidential debate

Unlucky for Romney, he wanted more than class president.

Unfortunately, most Americans are at the high school level when it comes to politics.

Perhaps we'll find out in the next comprehensive polls. Let's wish ourselves luck!

The fact of the matter being that for Rmoney, his debate performance was geared at his constantly wavering "base" who doesn't want him, can't stand him, but are stuck with him. I.e., he's still trying to convince that "base" that he is their guy. That's why he said what he said about the "47%". He doesn't consider half of the U.S. as his "base" and he is fighting for his life to even appeal to his 25% "base".

For Obama, he is aiming for the few % who have not really been paying attention, who did not watch any of the conventions, and who (for those network TV watchers) were "treated" to the debate by the sheer force of something like 14 networks broadcasting the whole debate all at the same time.

What I think DU and many of our "base" seemed to want was some "red meat". There is always this constant struggle to get "red meat", Grayson-style, and I think he knows this but it's the juggling of the time and place to do that. He has been going to probably twice or three times as many campaign stops as Rmoney and THAT is where he is throwing the "red meat" - as anyone able to see him live in person, watch him live, or can find some place that has it available for streaming later, can attest to.

I.e., he does his "red meat" at his rallies, which is obviously frustrating for folks who can't get to see him do this some other way other than the barely shown broadcasts, and where it might not play well at a "formal debate".

I did not like seeing Rmoney jumping in every chance he got with Obama not even trying to get an edge in!

and I imagine many were offended by his disrespectful bulldozery.

that the Liar would merely deflect with more lies, to the point where it degrade into a "Yes it is. No it isn't" FAIL fiasco.

EVERYONE knows Rmoney is a habitual liar. It was on full display and everything that he spouted was thoroughly debunked over the past couple months. Continuing to spew it only forces the very voters he's trying to court, to tune him out because they really don't know WHAT he plans to do, since he STILL refuses to provide details.

This is why Obama's campaign spent all summer defining him, his shifting etch-a-sketch positions, and his love for the 1%. And that's why Rmoney is losing in every swing state poll. Doubling down on the same lies that people in those states have already heard is not really going to suddenly change their minds.

Of course, the media doesn't want a blow-out so they are stoking the type of anger seen around here because they can't lose the eyeballs and their profits.

I was actually heartened to see that Big Ed got himself together and has moved on. Tweety, still so full of himself after acting like a petulant child the other night, needs to do the same.

My theory is that the RepubliCONs want the debate to be a fight not a rational debate. Anything to avoid discussing the issues which could lead to embarrassing questions. A mature discussion of the issues would show that they have nothing. In any case, glad to have you for discussions and hope you stay awhile!

Many liberals were saying that Obama would "clean Rmoney's clock" in the debate because the president had facts and intelligence on his side. When the spectacle of a lying, ranting fool appeared on that stage with Obama, it was a big disappointment that Rmoney's clock was not cleaned with the first lie.

I'm not sure what Obama's strategy was - but it didn't fall in line with expectations and hopes of many of us.

Where was the knockout punch? or anything close to it?

Maybe the strategy was to not show up and let the media attack Rmoney?


Not sure.. but I expect a better performance in the next debate.. not just leaning on the rope getting attacked.

when everyone discovered that he couldn't plead his "I love 100%" lie to 67 million people and was relegated to doing so on Faux Snooze with their loser viewers - the very ones who agreed that half the country is nothing but welfare cheats and didn't quite fathom his sudden shift to a position opposite of what they wanted.

And then the TKO came with the jobs numbers that effectively left rethugs scrambling as one of their biggest talking points on what they considered their strongest attack strategy, evaporated before their eyes.

What I don't think people realize is that Rmoney is already a dead man. The convention was his executioner. At the debate, he was animated like a chicken with his head cut off still running frantically around the barn yard but what does the farmer do when he encounters such a doomed animal? Let it run its course because eventually what is left of it will collapse lifelessly in a heap.

We have 30 some more days to go and this will be forgotten as the next news cycles take its place.

if nothing happened in the debate...

The "results" -

1.) Rmoney unable to plead a case in prime time to the moderates that he desperately needs
2.) More Rethug talking points taken away
3.) The "unstable character" Rmoney as an erratic and prevaricative manager on full display

were, IMHO, far more impactful in the long run than the emotional machinations of the format.

From Rmoney's perspective, he gave "red meat" to his base in terms of his "performance", but most of what he argued was AGAINST what they wanted in terms of policy... so now he has to double down on his "severely conservative" rabble-rousing in order to woo them back (which means he will flip flop once again).

because what folks here and in the liberal/progressive punditry seemed to keep asking was -

1.) Why didn't Obama bring up the "47%" comment?
2.) Why didn't Obama call Rmoney out on his lies? (although he did)
3.) Why didn't Obama mention Rmoney's taxes?

and on and on.

Those items were considered "low-hanging fruit" by many DUers and pundits... But then those coming from the elementary school level of debate on Rmoney's side expected such call-outs and they even baited for them with all sorts of nonsense like Rev. Wright videos, etc. And Rmoney was all prepared, for weeks, to fully bullshit on those items and more.

But it never came (rope-a-dope), and so Rmoney ended up rambling on and on while bullying the sleepy moderator, with the same schizophrenic talking points that he has spewed on the campaign trail, threatening to kill the Bird and fire the moderator. Meanwhile the President calmly described what he planned on doing for the NEXT 4 years to get this country out of a weak economy, including what had been done so far, and how it was progressing.

And with the recent jobs reports, he can now show, going forward, that his policies ARE working, which then torpedoes the oft-repeated scary meme that the nation and the economy was getting "worse" and armageddon is just around the corner.

But there are three more debates VP Biden is going to kick lying Ryan little butt.....The next two debates we will see a different President O.

The Town Hall format is Obama Strength he likes to interact with people. Foreign Affairs is also President O strength ( remember Robme thinks Russia is our greatest enemy not Al Qaeda)

I take that from what the public and media talked about the next few days. Big Bird and why didn't the President bring up 47 percent. In the ladder he didn't have too. He also may have been thrown off at what a liar this guy is, so is everyone else. 27 myths in 38 minutes. How is that a win?

but he is destroying Mitt with his ads. I'm sure there are some Mitt fans that are saying Mitt is playing rope-a-dope in the ad war, but they're wrong, he's just getting beat.

It was all strategy he knew mittens would come out with guns blazin and be obnoxious and lie his ass off...so Obama let him. Called rope-a-dope... Look what happened after the debate, the Pres was truthful and mittens was all lies, it worked!

It was self-immolation, but the press just went "Ahhhhh" when it saw the pretty fire.