Debates, lies, and video technology

Debate Two

Woman voters warm to Romney

While woman voters in non-battleground states give President Obama a +9 lead in the battle ground states they only give Obama a +1 lead.  Overall Romney leads Obama in battleground states by 4 percentage points. 

Obama Campaign attacks the above poll

This time, the criticism came this time from the Obama pollster who mocked the Romney team for debating about the reliability of polls.
After a Gallup/USA Today released a poll showing Mitt Romney tied with Obama among likely female voters in swing states, Obama pollster Joel Benenson pointed to “deep flaws in Gallup’s likely voter screen” and dismissed the survey as an “extreme outlier.”

Romney surging in Battleground States

Mitt Romney has opened a 5-percentage-point lead over President Obama in the 12 battleground states that are critical to determining the outcome of the 2012 election, according to a USAToday/Gallup poll released Monday.

No wonder the Democrats are panicking.  Not only are the battleground stands swinging to Romney more states are becoming up for grabs. 

Vegas Bookmaker predicts big Romney victory

I’m doubling down. Mitt Romney will win the presidency, and it won’t be close.

I’m predicting a 5 to 7 point popular vote victory. Electorally it won’t even be that close. Romney will win many states that went to Obama in 2008. I’m predicting Romney victories in Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Indiana. I predict a Romney victory by 100 to 120 electoral votes.

I’ve never predicted the electoral college margin of victory but I’ve always said Romney will win by at least the same amount that Obama won on in 2008 (7%). 

Obama campaign feels good about their ground game

There’s an old saying:  When the only tool you have is a hammer, you see every problem as a nail.  As the polls and the ads on TV turn toward Mitt Romney, it appears the ground game is what Obama is counting on.  It reminds me of Germany’s super weapons at the end of World War II that were supposed to turn the tide and win the war for Germany.

The Media Rushes to Shore up Obama

With it becoming more and more apparent Romney is surging, the MSM is trying to shore up Obama’s image so as to not discourage his voters.  Using a +9 Democrat poll that has Obama leading by 3% the MSM is saying all is well.  Is there reason for Democrats to panic?  You betcha. 

And yet is the media ready to turn on Obama?

Perhaps.

French President wants to ban homework

When I first saw the headline I thought he must want to ban commercial work from homes.  Nope,it is school homework.  He doesn’t think it is fair that some students have parents who will help them.  Please, don’t tell President Obama that it isn’t fair.  

Liar, liar, pants on fire: Who’s the real liar?

If you look at Obama’s promises you find a disturbing pattern of untruths.  The real liar in this campaign is the side that can’t run on their record.

Ryan’s response to Joe Biden was planned

But knowing Biden’s positions wasn’t enough. Ryan needed a strategy to deal with Biden’s interruptions and put-downs.

Eventually, Ryan, Olson, and the rest of the team settled on a game plan: Ryan would ignore the slights. He would resist the bait. He’d stay above the fray.

It was an easy decision. In private, Ryan acknowledged that he’d never be comfortable if he concentrated on responding to Biden’s asides.

The two politicians aren’t close, but Ryan was a Senate staffer in the early 1990s and quickly became familiar with Biden’s bullying. Ryan sought a contrast.

“[Ryan] never wanted to compete with the vice president on humor,” a Ryan adviser says. “He didn’t want to memorize quips. He wanted to focus on policy.”

Inside Ryan World, the chief objective wasn’t necessarily beating Biden, but making voters comfortable with Ryan’s knowledge and character.

Biden is more like the veteran who claims he was at a battle he wasn’t at

During the vice presidential debate last week, Vice President Joe Biden seemed to significantly overstate his role in the 1983 negotiations over Social Security…

President Reagan signed their work into law in April 1983. There were 15 members of the commission, including Dole, Moynihan, and two other senators; Biden was not one of them. Nor was he at the signing ceremony.

It appears Joe can’t get over his propensity to plagiarize other people’s work.

What Obama inherited was Obama

What Obama inherited in January 2009 was Obama.  Maybe not personally Obama, but he inherited economic problems resulting from implementation of too many Obama pipe dream policies.

Consider some history: the economy Obama inherited had been dominated for two years by radicals named Reid and Pelosi -- with a certain senator from Illinois voting with them every step of the way, as it turns out.  This inheritance included energy prices that had been skyrocketing off and on for years thanks to forty years of policies written, implemented, interpreted, and enforced by leftists at every level of government.  These policies prevented this country from accessing our own incredible energy resources to the extent our economy required.

Obama and Biden firmly support all such policies.

Obama also inherited a housing disaster caused by a couple decades of radical lending policies also written, implemented, interpreted, and enforced by liberal apparatchiks at various levels of government. 

Hillary:  The buck stops here

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday tried to douse a political firestorm over the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, saying she's responsible for the security of American diplomatic outposts.

I may be wrong, but this seems like the first person in the Obama Administration to take responsibility for anything.

And it now appears we know what happens when that 3 AM call comes in to the Whitehouse.  Obama has the phone on call-forwarding to Hillary’s number. 

The Truth:  NYTimes or US Army

Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm tried to provide cover for Obama/Biden by claiming that the requests for security in Libya were not made for Benghazi but for Tripoli.  Retired U.S. Army Major Mike Faessler responded by telling her the truth, not the NY Times spin Granholm used for her contention.

Mark Steyn answers a critic

Following my weekend column on the Administration’s disgraceful behavior over Benghazi, a commenter called Pilipo Underwood pops up:  

Mawk Steyn’s sophistry is simply astounding! Willard Romney started the politics before we even knew the basics of the attack in Benghzi. And his essays just drip with vituperation. Such a chip on his shoulder, one thinks he would have learned after his Conviction for Hate Speech.

If only Capitalization could Make It So. I’ve never been Convicted of Hate Speech. Just for the record, the Canadian Islamic Congress took their case to the Ontario “Human Rights” Commission, the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal, and the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, and struck out every time. After which, they stopped trying. As a result of the case, the censorship law became so discredited that the Canadian Parliament repealed it.  

So the reason I haven’t “learned”, as Mr Underwood puts it, is because it was game, set and match to me.

Alas, so much of contemporary liberalism depends on a kind of invincible ignorance. In that sense, Benghazi is a test case of the left’s defining technique: simply saying the same thing over and over and louder and louder will make it true.

VP Debate

The Debate:  My Take

I’m not sure what Biden was doing.  He actually did pretty well on some parts, but his condensing laughter and his constant interrupting made him a thoroughly unlikeable participant.  His performance was like watching a 40 yard pass play that gets called back for unsportsmanlike conduct.  

I’m almost wondering if he was trying to get Ryan to lose it on a national stage and then the campaign could say Ryan didn’t have the temperament to be president.  They could then drop Big Bird and show a video of Ryan being unpresidential.  To be perfectly honest that probably would have worked on me (I wouldn’t have been a cool as Paul Ryan was).   You have to give Ryan a lot of credit especially with the moderator failing to rein Biden in with his constant interrupting and even joining in and interrupting Ryan as well. 

I think Biden pumped up the Democratic base, but I think he hurt the ticket with independents and undecided.   Advantage Romney/Ryan. 

The Debate:  Peggy Noonan’s take

Last week Mr. Obama was weirdly passive. Last night Mr.Biden was weirdly aggressive, if that is the right word for someone who grimaces, laughs derisively, interrupts, hectors, rolls his eyes, browbeats and attempts to bully. He meant to dominate, to seem strong and no-nonsense. 

Sometimes he did—he had his moments. But he was also disrespectful and full of bluster. "Oh, now you're Jack Kennedy!" he snapped at one point. It was an echo of Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle, in 1988. But Mr. Quayle, who had compared himself to Kennedy, had invited the insult. Mr. Ryan had not. It came from nowhere. Did Mr. Biden look good? No, he looked mean and second-rate. He meant to undercut Mr. Ryan, but he undercut himself. His grimaces and laughter were reminiscent of Al Gore's sighs in 2000—theatrical, off-putting and in the end self-indicting... 

In terms of content—the seriousness and strength of one's positions and the ability to argue for them—the debate was probably a draw, with both candidates having strong moments. But in terms of style, Mr. Biden was so childishly manipulative that it will be surprising if independents and undecideds liked what they saw.

National Democrats keep confusing strength with aggression and command with sarcasm. Even the latter didn't work for Mr. Biden. The things he said had the rhythm and smirk of sarcasm without the cutting substance. 

After two debates here is my impression.  At the first debate it looked as if President Obama was medicated and almost comatose.  In the second debate it looked as if Joe Biden was off his meds and in a manic state.  The question for the Democrats in the third debate is will they get the dosage right this time? 

The Debate:  The Weekly Standard:  Biden Bombed

You don’t win a nationally televised debate by being rude and obnoxious.  You don’t win by interrupting your opponent time after time after time or by being a blowhard.  You don’t win with facial expressions, especially smirks or fake laughs, or by pretending to be utterly exasperated with what your opponent is saying.

And apparently Biden didn’t win.

Was Biden strategy a winning one?

I expected “table-pounding atmospherics” from Biden but I didn’t expect him to act like a total jackhole for fully 90 minutes. Give him credit for knowing his target audience, though: His task tonight was to get the left excited again after Obama fell into a semi-coma in Denver, and evincing utter disdain for Ryan — grimacing, shouting, laughing inappropriately, constantly interrupting, the total jackhole experience — is just what the doctor ordered. He might have irritated independents and undecideds, but probably not so much that it’ll change people’s votes. The Democrats needed someone to go out there and clown for liberals, and if there’s one thing this guy knows, it’s clowning.

So we have Obama in the first debate looking like someone who felt imposed upon to be there and we have Biden in the second debate looking like someone’s nasty old uncle.  I found Obama’s endorsement of Biden to be bad—“I couldn’t have been prouder of him?”  Perhaps with all the discussion about Sesame Street,  Oscar the Grouch was Biden’s inspiration.  

The Bully vs the Wonk

So now we know what Team Obama's comeback plan was following last week's defeat in the Presidential debate. Unleash Joe Biden to interrupt, filibuster,snarl, smirk and otherwise show contempt for Paul Ryan. The carnival act contributed to the least illuminating presidential or vice presidential debate of our lifetimes. 

From the opening bell, Mr. Biden seemed to take to heart the interpretation that President Obama offered this week of his debate performance—that he had been "too polite." That was not a problem for the Veep, whose marching orders were clearly to steamroll the overmatched moderator Martha Raddatz and dismiss everything Mr. Ryan said with a condescending sneer. 

Did Joe Biden Shore up the woman’s vote?

Tonight, Joe Biden is embodying everything that women hate about talking with men.

Apparently not.  What will people remember about this debate by the weekend?  Only a rude, obnoxious and condensing Biden and that’s exactly how they will remember him.

Do women like men being jerks?

After the calamity they experienced in last week’s presidential debate, liberals needed to be bucked up by the Obama campaign, and I think they got that tonight. It probably came at a real cost—I have a feeling that Biden’s hyper-aggressive and at times buffoonish performance (and perhaps especially his Joker grin, which seemed to me as much a product of nervousness as of intent) hurt the ticket some with independent voters and especially with women—but it was a price the Obama campaign is probably quite willing to pay given the situation they’re now in. This debate didn’t help them win persuadable voters, and it probably won’t move the polls in their direction, but it will calm liberals down and it was absolutely essential for them to do that. The MSNBC types needed someone to be a jerk toward Paul Ryan to his face, and they got it.

This may explain why the Catholic Church is suing the government

In last night debate, Biden made a strong statement which has been called into question by The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Joe Biden:  "With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. 

That is a fact. That is a fact." 

This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain "religious employers." That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to "Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital," or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.

Hmmm, I don’t think you want to lie to the American public about the church that defines you.  Because in doing so, it will define you as a liar. 

The Polls on the debate

Most polls and media talking heads gave the advantage in the vice presidential debate to GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, but said that Vice President Joe Biden also won by reviving Democratic morale following the disastrous Oct. 3 presidential debate.

A quick CNN poll of registered voters said 48 percent thought Ryan was the winner, while 44 percent thought Biden claimed the title. Sixty percent of CNN’s respondents said Ryan was presidential, and 53 percent said he was more likable.

A CNBC poll said that 56 percent thought Ryan was the winner, while 36 declared Biden to be the winner.

Florida Poll:  Romney up by 7

Barack Obama's lackluster debate performance last week has dramatically altered the presidential race in Florida, with Mitt Romney opening up a decisive 7 percentage point lead, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll.

Is Benghazi the nail in Obama’s coffin?

It couldn’t have happened at a worse time and the administration couldn’t have handled it worse. 

However, from the Obama administration’s point of view, the discussion of Libya these days is a bad thing. It seems clearer and clearer that the critics of the Libyan intervention had a better understanding of the risks and costs than the supporters.

And the resurgence of al-Qaeda in Libya also undermines the narrative the administration has tried to promote: that thanks to its intelligent and thoughtful policies terrorism is on its last legs.

And in last night debate, Biden’s argument seems to be it is un-American to question the administration on this.