Presidential Debate #1
Millions tuned into the first presidential debate tonight. I was with the Drinking Liberally crowd at the Amsterdam Bar in St. Paul. After some glitches getting the feed to work, thankfully Javier Morrillo-Alicea saved the day with his new iPad that was used to stream the debate when the system the Amsterdam had set up was not working.
So it seems the majority are saying that the smirking Romney won this debate. I say he was very “practiced” in his answers but short on facts and reality. He did suddenly become a centerist moving away from his placating the far right that got him to become the Republican nominee. I will say Mr. President, it’s time to take off the polite gloves and call him out. The nodding of your head while Romney was speaking was NOT effective.
So, what do you think?
2 Comments
Ann Reay
October 4, 2012I was thoroughly motivated to install handicap toilet seats and do a month’s worth of filing after the 90 minutes watching Mitt Romney play to the folks who want to see the Alpha Dog beat up on a PBS commentator and a sitting President. If that is what America wants – he showed us his best “I’m not listening to you” and “I don’t respect you” behaviors. Is that what we want? Really? Yes, he won the debate, but he was a dick.
susan
October 4, 2012Some of us were watching collectively on FB. And we were collectively groaning and sighing. Our guy just didn’t have his mojo tonight. And Mitt had his etch-a-sketch moment. After a year of sucking up to the tea bags and other ideologues, he suddenly morphed into Mitt the centrist. A real shape-shifter. What a crock. Alas, I think it was terribly effective. Mitt was aggressive and pretty much had POTUS on the ropes throughout. We kept rooting for him to come off the ropes and tear the mitten a new thumb hole, but for whatever reason, he didn’t. I think his prep had been all about staying safe and contained, not smirking or being too cool or taking any bait. And it was a lousy strategy. But I don’t think anyone expected Mitt the moderate to show up and say that he really loves health care bills and education and social security. However, seemed like POTUS had a whole arsenal of “zingers” that he could have used and didn’t. 47%? Cayman Islands? When Mitt said, “You’re entitled to your own house and your own plane, but not to your own facts.” (an Al Franken line) I wish BO had said something like, “As a guy with 7 houses, three planes and several off shore accounts, not to mention the most truth-challenged candidate in modern politics, (except for Paul Ryan) you’re hardly the one to talk about facts. Well, sigh. It was hard to watch, but if he goes back to being presidential tomorrow, and his team comes out swinging on all the Mitt fabrications, I don’t think it’s a major disaster. But it definitely shifted the momentum, which is depressing, scary, infuriating, stomach churning . . . .