gets a thumbs up. any further thought is not to be had.

BUT.... i will tell you. if a dem, any dem, and obama especially had done the same he would have been vilified.

example.

before they got the momentum for romney, the night of the debate, you heard repeatedly that obama was smirking. he wasnt explosive, so they could not get him there. he was not confrontational so they couldnt get him for angry black man.

they best they had was repeatedly saying, there were smirks. got under his collar.

they dont need it now, so they let that go.

I don't see any link that proves that.

It is not about Manhood. Do you suppose Hillary could never win then? I don't see how any woman could.

kill the Romney camp on: Women's Issues.

They haven't been mentioned since the debate. Will they EVER be mentioned again?

Maybe with his testosterone-filled, bullying, lying performance, Mitt did what he intended to do: force the woman's issue off the front burner and under the stove.

And if we don't stop piling on, we're helping bury it.

At least in the modern era. Yes, even lying alpha males win. Americans love that postering.

"I suspect we mostly agree on SS." "I agree with Gov. Romney..." Whatever happened to the most meaningful election of our lives? Was it all bullshit sales and marketing?

Obama has to realize that people pay attention on a visceral level. He came off as a poseur, someone who might sell you short in a tight spot, not a fighter. He has ample time to remedy all of that, but he should have never gone into conciliatory mode in the first place as there was nothing in his whole campaign that suggested it was appropriate...he got bad advice from somewhere and doubled down on it.

Ask Paul Ryan.

Congratulations! You hit the trifecta of cliched political "analysis."

You're almost ready for your own radio show now!

Romney is exactly the kind of bullying asshole that I steer completely away from.
Romney doesn't really have a backbone or strength of personality, seems to me.

Although you seem quite enamored of him.

Oh, and please don't take it upon yourself to speak for women.

Um, and Gore got more of the popular vote. Bush didn't manfully win any election whatsoever. His handlers and backers "won" it.
I always thought Bush looked like a wimpy spoiled brat. Women, at least past the teens, are just not that shallow.
I expect Bush and his swagger appealed more to men.

The point is that Americans, and more particularly Americans in the "elusive middle", do not vote on the issues. Too much like work. They make visceral judgments. And it is hard to imagine a more damning visceral judgment than backing down from a bully for 90 minutes solid -- particularly when the moderator was doing the same thing. That just amplified the illusion of power.

The illusion of power is what Romney has used his entire life. He is damn good at it. So good that there is no excuse for not being prepared for it.

And just to be clear, I am not as bothered by the debate itself as I am bothered by the days following the debate. Making jokes about Big Bird when these assholes are preparing to steal Medicare and Social Security from us is political malpractice of the highest order.

Obama actually agrees with the idea of phasing out Medicare and privatizing Social Security.

I can't think of any other reasonable explanation why he would not be taking that head on. That has ALWAYS been a winner for Democrats.

The dude just isn't a fighter. Look at how he handled health care, the debt ceiling fight etc. He's better than any Republican, no question. I've been walking around with a knot in my stomach since the debate at the thought of Romney being President.

I trust Joe Biden in the debate. You should trust him too. He GETS it. Obama either through background or temperament just doesn't. We need him to at least fake it in the next two debates.

allowed each team to pick the person who would be in each debate.

I would have picked Biden to be lead-off batter and I would pick Obama to be the town hall guy.

Or better yet, a tag team.

"Tag me, Barack. I got this one. Let me at him."

No one on Obama's team thought that he should look strong to dispel those Republican-promoted talking points?

All Obama had to do was look strong in the debate and we wouldn't be having these discussions.

How many election cycles do we have to sit through Democrats taking the wimpy way out whenever possible?

Remember the Bush years and the weak Democrats in the Senate and Congress?

Disappointing.

Last edited Tue Oct 9, 2012, 02:49 PM - Edit history (1)

What kind of a response is "We saved that money and used it to help seniors."

No, the way you respond to that is, &quot Looking straight at Romney) That is not true, Governor Romney, and you know it. It has been fact-checked for months yet your campaign continues to tell this falsehood. (turning to the camera) Let me explain the truth so the public understands what is happening here. Most of that $716B was money paid as EXCESS payment to insurance companies when we started Medicare Part B. It was agreed that we needed to provide a TEMPORARY incentive to encourage PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES to get into that business. Now 7 years later, there is no justification whatsoever for continuing those excess payments. There are plenty of companies offering this insurance. We don't need to overpay. So we are returning the reimbursement rate back to 100% where it belongs and we used this savings to extend the solvency of the entire Medicare program. When Governor Romney says he's going to 'put that money back into Medicare' what he means is that he's going to return to overpaying insurance companies and taking 8 years off the life of Medicare."

That takes less than 49 seconds.

Why was this answer not prepared in advance?

Team Obama should know American culture well enough to know that people would judge a sluggish, passive, unexcited, nonspecific Obama as an ineffective weakling. Debates have become like cage fights, and Dems better henceforth choose accordingly.

and this one is definitely in the Top Ten!

Obama was the beta male last week.

The alpha male wins every time.

But your wording can be less gender specific. Instead of Manhood why not say having a spine, being passionate about fighting for your values and beliefs, energetically calling out lies, etc. The damage done by his debate performance may be irreparable, but at least from here on out if he fights passionately for us it will excite us and maybe get the numbers for the likely voter support to be closer to the numbers for registered voter support.

But I was trying to use an opening line that gets some attention. This is the whole point I was trying to make about the debate -- any debate. You need to crash through the "ho hum" factor. And sometimes that means being a little brash.

I didn't mean to insult any of the women, but rather to get people to think through this most basic tendency of the American voter -- both men and women. Perhaps women are a little less susceptible to aggressive display, but Reagan and W both got a heck of a lot of female votes doing exactly that. I won't derail this conversation by digging into the evolutionary basis for that. But think about it. This is a human tendency that is very much engrained at the reptilian level.

Folks, he's right.

Obama got bitched last Wednesday. In person no less. Face to face. This is why the constant looking down WAS A KILLER WHICH I WAS SAYING WHILE THE DEBATE WAS GOING ON.

yeah he shot Bin Laden in the face, except that he didn't personally do it. In his one moment to show strength, he showed weakness. This is a large reason for why the polls have switched. He gave away his position of power to Romney.

More of a geek or a weenie than anything else. When he tries to assert himself, it comes off as artificial.

Bake