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Subscribe to RSSThe AP : “Standing toe-to-toe with the president for the first time in the campaign, Romney held his own and more at a time when there already were signs that the race is tightening in some of the battleground states where Obama has enjoyed an advantage. Obama kept his cool and signaled that he won’t let up on his message that Romney’s plans on taxes, health care, the deficit and more just don’t add up.”
AP’s Feller: “Republican Mitt Romney was fiery and having fun. President Barack Obama came off as the professor without much pop.”
More: “The night’s mystery was why Obama did not bring up Romney’s embarrassing caught-on-tape moment from a ritzy fundraiser, in which he said ‘47 percent’ of the people out there pay no income taxes, see themselves as victims and do not think they should ‘take personal responsibility and care for their lives.’”
Glen Johnson: “After appearing somewhat thunderstruck for the first 20 minutes of his first presidential debate, understandable when considering Romney had never been on a stage so grand while Obama encounters them daily, the Republican nominee settled into a relentless attack on the Democratic incumbent’s first term and said his results should disqualify him from winning a second.”
More: “A president known for a gift of oratory was reduced to a closing statement in which he gave an airy pledge to keep fighting for the middle class. Romney, in contrast, closed by painting a detailed vision of how a first term under him with be different from a second term under Obama when it comes to job creation, deficit reduction, and maintaining the strength of the US military. … The net result was all Romney could have hoped for over 90 minutes. … In the second of two campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Romney stood there as Obama’s equal, having made good on his promise to challenge the president directly when they finally squared off face-to-face.”
Susan Page: “[D]uring their 90-minute encounter, the first of three presidential debates, the Democratic president sometimes seemed annoyed and defensive while his Republican challenger was energetic, focused and relentlessly on message.”
And: “Bill Galston, an adviser to President Clinton and other Democrats and who is now at the Brookings Institution, said Romney ‘did himself considerable good’ in the debate. ‘I would not be surprised to learn that a majority of the American people think he won it outright,’ Galston said in an e-mail. ‘I suspect that over the next week, the public opinion surveys will show a significant narrowing of the gap between President Obama and his re-energized challenger.’”
James Fallows: “I am not talking about whether I agree with the two candidates' positions. Obviously I agree more with Obama, and I believe that more of his facts and assertions are ‘true.’ I am talking about crispness in presenting positions within the constraints of this particular format, and the air of overall ease in the encounter. If you had the sound turned off, Romney looked calm and affable through more of the debate than Obama did, and the incumbent president more often looked peeved. Romney's default expression, whether genuine or forced, was a kind of smile; Obama's, a kind of scowl. I can understand why Obama would feel exasperated by these claims and arguments. Every president is exasperated by what he considers facile claims about what he knows to be impossibly knotty problems. But he let it show.”
Boston Globe headline: “Mitt Romney threatens to end federal support for Big Bird.” “Public broadcasting supporters say the amount of federal funding that PBS receives – $444 million in fiscal 2012—would not make a dent in the deficit but would jeopardize a range of beloved programs, including ‘Sesame Street.’ PBS’s chief executive, Paula Kerger, has called Romney’s proposed cut ‘extremely disappointing.’”
New York Daily News front page sky box: “Mitt’s a hit! Rocks Obama in 1st debate.”
New York Post: “Direct Mitt! Romney batters Bam in first debate.” That’s over a photo of Romney looking at Obama while the president looks down and smirks.
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Save Big Bird by voting for Obama and Democrats!!!
Let’s take a quick snapshot of the lives of these two guys for the two months prior to this debate…
Romney:
>practice, practice, practice (makes perfect, right?)
>jet ski around the lake to relax after practice
>fumble some comments & lies at a campaign stop or two
>watch his family play Jenga immediately prior to the debate.
Obama:
>continue to combat (since day one) with a (R) party that said, outright & from the start, that they wanted him to fail
>deal directly & first hand with a slowly improving US economy & a poorly functioning global economy
>continue to work to resolve the middle east crisis
>direct oversight of most recent embassy attack & multiple uprisings
>who knows what he was involved in from 8-9 pm EST last night. Remember what he was thinking about during that Correspondent’s Dinner?
The President is CLEARLY exhausted. Who wouldn’t be?
Last night was a true indicator of what a failure this president is. He's a community organizer and can't make heads or tails without a teleprompter. Classic.
Let’s take a quick snapshot of the lives of these two guys for the two months prior to this debate…
Romney:
>practice, practice, practice (makes perfect, right?)
>jet ski around the lake to relax after practice
>fumble some comments & lies at a campaign stop or two
>watch his family play Jenga immediately prior to the debate.
Obama:
>continue daily battle with (R) party that said on day one that they want him to fail
>deal directly & first hand with a slowly improving US economy & a poorly functioning global economy
>continue to work to resolve the middle east crisis
>direct oversight of embassy attack
>who knows what he was involved in from 8-9 pm EST last night. Remember what he was thinking about during that Correspondent’s Dinner?
The President is CLEARLY exhausted. Who wouldn’t be?
I haven't seen anyone mention the big gaffe moment Romney made early on, when he appeared to put Obama in the same category as his sons, in effect, calling Obama a "boy." I heard a distinctive gasp from the audience when Romney did that. I felt it in my gut. I don't know why that isn't bigger news. My co-worker, who is a white, middleaged male, also registered it, so it's not just me.
Amy--not just you--I registered that as well!
"We have met the enemy and he is us!" Pogo by Walt Kelly
Amy - I believe I read the same post from you on another thread. It appears only you and a couple of other left wing nuts can't defend Obama so you try and play the "race card".
Get over it, Obama got his clock cleaned fair and square. Obama (according to CNN) even had 4 more minutes of speaking time and couldn't get his points across but then when you don't have a plan to present you try and run down your opponent.
It's time to send Obama back to Chicago and let's try something else since we know that Obama can't and didn't get the job done.
Snake oil salesmen and Romney share much in common. Romney can dance and sing songs of denial but the record is the record and arithmetic is arithmetic. President Obama said it in 2008 and it's still true today...
....and money doesn't buy class!
"We have met the enemy and he is us!" Pogo by Walt Kelly
I had to wonder if the President was feeling physically ill before the debate last night. My impression was that he had a migraine going into the night -- he acted how I feel when I have a migraine.
So says Susan Page, obviously a GOPTP cohort.
The President was seemed defensive.....and Willard was relentlessly on message (Lies)!
Susan.......how exactly did the President seem 'defensive'?......Good Grief, to me, he seemed to not engage Willard at all....much to my disappointment!
Wherever Romney speaks next, he will contradict what he said last night....
I am quite disappointed in the President's performance in the debate. He wasn't agressive enough. When Willard flipped again on Social Security and Medicare President Obama should have pulled a Reagan with "there you go again" or something. I hope Obama learned from this debate and doesn't repeat the poor performance next time.
Obama isn't used to anyone disagreeing with him.
Yes, he did look like the deer caught in the headlights, and was visibly sweating.
I think this is the first real work he's done in his entire term.
He is totally lost without his teleprompter.
Mitt Romney’s great healthcare plan…LIE.
Who is Jonathan Gruber…???
Jonathan Gruber, economics professor at MIT, was actually the designer of MA’s healthcare plan, not Mitt Romney.
Bigger lie…Actually Senator Kennedy was the muscle behind the MA healthcare plan, not Mitt Romney, and it could not have been achieved without his negotiations and influence.
But wait, it gets better…
… it was a government bailout. It was a result of Mitt Romney’s failed healthcare plan.
It was funded by your federal dollars., and is still being funded by your federal dollars, via subsidiaries.
The only reason MA has the healthcare plan that it does, is because MA’s healthcare was in dire straights, under Mitt Romney’s leadership.
Wait for it…
… it was paid for with 385 million dollars of federal money.
That’s right, your money.
Then they insured absolutely anyone they could find, with Medicare. Why…?
Because the federal dollars would match Medicare. That’s right, your money.
But wait, it gets even better…
Right now, federal Medicaid dollars continue to pay for both children and adults, for up to 300% of the poverty line in MA.
Have you figured it out yet…?
Yes, the entire State of Massachusetts is on FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE…!!!
Just speculating here…I wonder if the entire state of MA knows it falls in that 47% area…?
But this will never work for the rest of the country…
Here’s why…
He wants to provide insurance for the rest of the country another way.
He wants to cap the Medicaid dollars at whatever the state received last year, add 1%, and then let us on our own to fend for ourselves. Or in his own words “manage your poor the way you think best”.
You must understand people…that’s a cut to Medicaid to the tune of more than 600 billion dollars. This differs greatly from the generous deal that MA got.
He opposes giving money for healthcare at the federal level, and also refuses to give it at the state level.
That, on top of Romney’s reportable care act (Romney care) pushes Medicaid cuts to well above 1 trillion dollars.
Why is this important…?
It means that the rest of the states will not have the generous benefits that Massachusetts had.
This means that he will be “pulling up the ladder” so no other state can achieve healthcare the way MA has.
Under Romney’s plan, there is no way to achieve universal healthcare.
Indeed, if Medicare is cut, even the current healthcare plan in Massachusetts will not survive.
The only reason Massachusetts healthcare plan has continued to survive, is from a generous waiver, first from the Bush administration, and yes, wait for it…
…then from the Obama administration, for billions and billions of dollars.
Massachusetts…your own worst enemy…? Yes !
Mitt’s cut to Medicare will put the burden of healthcare solely on the state’s tax-payer dollars.
They can not afford that, and the healthcare plan will wither away.
Furthermore, the Romney care plan, will cut Medicaid by 700 billion dollars.
More facts…By the year 2022 ( only ten years down the road ), Obama care will have 33 million more people under health care coverage.
Romney care will have 18 million fewer Americans with health care coverage.
These are all facts contributed by Jonathan Gruber, the designer of Romney’s MA healthcare plan.
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