The Debate--Romney

Debate:  Verdict Romney

From CBS:  

In the moments following the candidates' performances on the University of Denver stage, 46 percent of voters gave the economy-centric debate to Romney, 22 percent said they believed the president was the winner, and 32 percent called it a tie. More good news for the GOP nominee: 56 percent of those polled said they viewed Romney in a better light after watching the debate. Eleven percent said their opinion of him dropped, and 32 percent cited no change in opinion.

From CNN: 

Republican Mitt Romney won Wednesday night's first presidential debate with President Barack Obama, according to a CNN/ORC International poll of registered voters who watched the nationally televised event.

Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed said Romney fared better, compared with 25 percent for Obama, according to results aired on CNN after the match concluded. Forty-six percent said they found Romney more likable, compared with 45 percent for Obama, CNN reported.

The CNN poll interviewed 430 Americans by telephone after the debate and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

A note of interest on this one.  The pundits were looking at the demographics and one said that there were more Republicans than you normally see.  James Carville raised his hands in victory saying that must be why it was so lopsided.  He couldn’t believe that Romney had 56% favorable.  Today I saw the demographics and there were 37% Democrats, 33% Republicans and 29% independents.  They still had a +4 Democratic poll and 67% of the poll called it for Romney.

Left Wing Pundits unhappy

The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan called Obama “tired,” “bored” and wrote that he might have even lost the election.

“He choked. He lost. He may even have lost the election tonight,” Sullivan wrote, later adding, “Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn’t there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment.”

Right Wing Pundits find new respect for Romney

I’ve long been a critic of Governor Romney and frankly have lacked enthusiasm for his campaign.  Tonight Mitt Romney changed my stance in a big way.  On the debate stage in Denver I saw a man who wasn’t afraid to get specific and who wasn’t afraid to articulate conservative principles like States rights.  My favorite moment in the debate is when President Obama asked Governor Romney to clarify that he wouldn’t raise taxes on the rich and Romney responded emphatically that he wouldn’t, the look on the President’s face was priceless.

It was a good point.  He used Obama’s quote from two years ago (it’s the wrong thing to raise taxes in a recession) to support his position and said he would cut spending and grow the economy to reduce the deficit.  I’m sure Obama will protest this in the next debate, but Obama can’t unring this bell. 

A Right Wing Pundit looks at the reactions from both the right and left

Slaughter. It was a slaughter.

Mitt Romney put on the most commanding presidential debate performance of the insta-commentary era. One could literally watch, on Facebook and Twitter, hundreds of people on both sides of the political divide react in real time as the debate went on.

Their reactions were identical, though their moods were not: As Romney dominated exchange after exchange with a surprisingly effective combination of pointed personal touches and remarkable factual preparation, conservatives and Republicans grew more and more jubilant while liberals and Democrats grew more and more alarmed.

Will the Debate cause Obama to change strategy

Obama’s strategy had been to make Mitt Romney an unacceptable choice.  This debate makes that strategy inoperable, so where does Obama go?

Romney won big time

But tonight Romney brilliantly dismantled the straw man Obama has been running against for months. I think it was David Freddoso who said on Twitter that if all you knew about Romney was what you saw in Obama’s TV ads, you’d get the sense that Obama’s been lying to you all this time. Romney helped himself tonight — possibly a lot.

Going along with the previous article, I think he did himself a lot of good dismantling the last six months of Obama’s campaign and the million so dollars Obama spent to paint Romney as Richie Rich. 

Was a fawning media the cause of Obama’s poor performance?

For so long Barack Obama has assumed that he will not face cross-examination from the media that he simply has little grasp of policy details, and in exasperation seems to look around for the accustomed helpful media crutch. But there is no such subsidy in a one-on-one debate, and only now it becomes clear just how the media for the last six years have enfeebled their favorite.

An interesting question.  Watching Chris Matthews go bananas tonight telling Obama what he needed to do (watch MSNBC) was pleasurable.  It always seems that there are people ready to tell you what you need to do to win. 

The perfect storm:  Obama was very bad and Mitt was very good

A historic defeat for a sitting president.  Never has a POTUS been this badly whupped in a debate.  It is that simple.

It wasn't just that Obama was so bad, but that Romney was so good.  Conservatives see a candidate they did not know they had, and independents see a candidate who could turn the country around.  No way to predict what this will do to campaign over a week.

Take aways: trickle down government, "you pick losers," and Solyndra and other green energy expenditures of 90 billion could have been 2 million teachers.

Obama’s Cutter complains about the Ref

Stephanie sounding like an NLF fan complaining about the replacement refs, complained that Jim Lehrer let Romney act as the moderator of the debate. 

Is Obama bright?

In the last election cycle we were told that Obama is the brightest star we’ve had who ran for president since Thomas Jefferson.  He was a Constitutional Scholar, the editor of the Law Review at Harvard, a man who would fix all that is wrong in not just America, but the world.  And even the Swedes believed it as they awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize for….just being Obama.  

But after last night’s debacle, after seeing him seemingly clueless, you have to ask the question is Barack Obama bright?  Perhaps he could release his college grades to give us a clue.

Here’s another possibility.  Perhaps he just lazy.

Top concerns today

What’s new today

Our #1 tells the story us what the real top concerns of small business are.  #2 relates who liberal Rhode Island has created a welfare state that is breaking the government.  Article #3 demonstrates how even the anarchists in the Occupy movement appear to be a bit greedy.  #4 speculates on what happens as OWS drags on.  Story #5 tells us of what the number 2 general under General Petraus looks at the withdrawal from Iraq.  #6 relays what the left really wants to do with its constant tax the rich tome. 



1.  Top Concerns of Small Business

A new Gallup survey asked small-business owners an open-ended question about what they viewed to be “the most important problem” facing the small-business community. It’s not “lack of demand,” as Democrats like to argue. In fact, 22 percent of respondents listed “complying with government regulations” as their top concern.

House Republicans have been leading an effort to roll-back or repeal some of the most onerous federal regulations, and have already passed a number of measures that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has yet to take up. Democrats have been particularly loathe to accept the idea that concern over federal regulations is anything more than a self-serving fiction conjured up by Republicans as part of their sinister effort to “end the EPA” and expose the nation’s children to mercury. From President Obama’s “jobs” address to Congress in September:…

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/281165/gallup-govt-regulation-top-concern-among-small-business-owners-andrew-stiles

Despite what the Democrats are saying, they are a big part of the problem rather than the solution. 

 

 2. Rhode Island: Athens of America?

Rhode Island is looking more and more like Greece, and not in a good way. That is one message of this important piece by Mary Williams Walsh in the New York Times. YEARS OF BLUE SOCIAL POLICY HAVE WRECKED LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT FINANCE IN THE COUNTRY’S SMALLEST STATE, AND NOW THE BILLS ARE COMING DUE. Services are being cut to the bone and elderly retirees are losing money they thought was secure.

In Rhode Island, it is Democrats, not nasty union-hating Republicans, who are doing the dirty work. Democratic mayors are telling their unions that there isn’t any money — not because they are vicious corporate stooges who hate working people and want to see them suffer, but because There. Isn’t. Any. Money.

Because Rhode Island listened to timeserving blue politicians too long, and union leaders and public sector workers lost their grip on any mathematical realities beyond the numbers at the ballot box, the pension system grew more and more out of control. State and local governments lurched into a crisis. VOTE YOURSELF A RAISE, VOTE YOURSELF A PENSION: WHY NOT?...

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/10/23/rhode-island-athens-of-america/

Blue states seem to be the places people are leaving and red states seem to be the place where they are going.  This census marks the first one in which California didn’t gain any seats in congress while New York, New Jersey, etc. are losing seats.

3.  Is OWS getting Greedy?

Even in Zuccotti Park, greed is good.

OCCUPY WALL STREET’S FINANCE COMMITTEE HAS NEARLY $500,000 IN THE BANK, and donations continue to pour in -- but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protesters is fraying tempers.

Some drummers -- incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday -- are threatening to splinter off.

“F--K FINANCE. I HOPE MAYOR BLOOMBERG GETS AN INJUNCTION AND DEMANDS TO SEE THE MOVEMENT’S BOOKS. WE NEED TO KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY WE REALLY HAVE AND WHERE IT’S GOING,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45, who joined OWS in Lower Manhattan nearly three weeks ago from Los Angeles, where he works in TV production.

SMITH IS A MEMBER OF THE COMFORT WORKING GROUP -- ONE OF ABOUT 30 SMALL COLLECTIVES THAT HAVE SPRUNG UP WITHIN OWS. The Comfort group is charged with finding out what basic necessities campers need, like thermal underwear, and then raising money by soliciting donations on the street.

“THE OTHER DAY, I TOOK IN $2,000. I KEPT $650 FOR MY GROUP, AND GAVE THE REST TO FINANCE. Then I went to them with a request -- so many people need things, and they should not be going without basic comfort items -- and I was told to fill out paperwork. Paperwork! Are they the government now?” Smith fumed, even as he cajoled the passing crowd for more cash. …


http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/they_want_lice_of_the_occu_pie_9xKCxcI4aectFYkafMb8UJ#ixzz1bi5G8CcQ

OWS is learning what basic human nature is.  When you go beyond subsistence, you suddenly have fights about who gets the surplus and how it’s divided.  OWS is being hoisted on their own petard. 

4.   When and What will eventually happen with OWS? 

…OWS protests are being treated by the mainstream media like the newest American political fad. Unfortunately, INCLUDED WITHIN THE MANY OWS PROTESTS AROUND THE COUNTRY ARE; OPEN SEX, DRUG AND ALCOHOL USE, ACCUSATIONS OF RAPE, VIOLENCE, ANTI-SEMITISM, THEFT, URINATING AND DEFECATING IN PUBLIC, PAN-HANDLING, DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY, CALLS FOR KILLING AND DESTRUCTION, DOZENS OF ARRESTS AND VARIOUS OTHER ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIORS. What's happening at some of these OWS protests should give rise to the mainstream media to consider where all of this could eventually be heading, but it seems the media is just to "into it" to be concerned about any possible negative outcomes.

So what's going to happen when all these OWS host cities decide it's time for the occupations to end? WILL THE ENTRENCHED "OCCUPIERS" LEAVE GRACEFULLY WITHOUT OBJECTION, or will they take offense at being told the party is over and refuse to leave?

We've all seen what typically happens around the world when the authorities eventually decide it's time to disperse a protest or demonstration crowd, especially one that's been allowed to grow and become entrenched for a prolonged period of time.

Allowing any protest or demonstration to organize and "occupy" a public place for a prolonged period of time, especially when the protesters are initially given leeway by local authorities to do so, WILL ONLY EMBOLDEN THE OCCUPIERS TO CONTINUE TO HOLD THEIR GROUND AND EVENTUALLY ASSUME OWNERSHIP OF THEIR NEW DIGS.

Once that assumption of ownership by the occupiers takes root, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for authorities to have them all calmly disperse. It's unfortunate that the leaders of the host cities of all the OWS protests across the country didn't anticipate the risk and possible danger of allowing "perpetual" demonstrations and protests….

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/will_ows_end_well.html

I think the coming cold weather will thin out the ranks and eventually lead to the cities shutting down the protests.  I don’t think there will be a lot of violence. 




5.  Iraq pull out

"WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ, AND WE'RE NOW LOSING THE PEACE." So said retired General John Keane to Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times, in a scathing critique of the plans announced to the nation on Friday. General Keane was an architect of the Surge, working with General Petraeus.

"Forty-four hundred lives lost," Gen. Keane said. "Tens of thousands of troops wounded. Over a couple hundred thousand Iraqis killed. We liberated 25 million people. There is only one Arab Muslim country that elects its own government, and that is Iraq.

"WE SHOULD BE STAYING THERE TO STRENGTHEN THAT DEMOCRACY, TO LET THEM GET THE KIND OF POLITICAL GAINS THEY NEED TO GET AND KEEP THE IRANIANS AWAY FROM STRANGLING THAT COUNTRY. THAT SHOULD BE OUR OBJECTIVE, AND WE ARE WALKING AWAY FROM THAT OBJECTIVE."…

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/10/key_general_labels_obamas_iraq_pullout_absolute_disaster.html

This is another decision that is likely to divide America.  Winning the same war twice means you’ve wasted the first time. 

6.  Tax the Rich:  What it really means

When I was in college, I took a course in clinical psychology. One day, the professor shared an experience he had with a paranoid schizophrenic patient. In one of his first months working at a mental hospital (as they were then called), he met with the patient in his office. The patient said, "WELL, I DON'T FEEL COMFORTABLE TALKING TO YOU BECAUSE THERE IS A HIDDEN MICROPHONE IN THIS OFFICE." "WHERE IS IT?" MY PROFESSOR ASKED. THE PATIENT RESPONDED: "IT'S HIDDEN IN THE DOORKNOB." The professor then took apart the door knob, laid all the parts out on his desk, and said to the paranoid patient, "SEE, THERE'S NO MICROPHONE HIDDEN HERE." THE PATIENT LOOKED AT THE PARTS, LOOKED UP AT THE CEILING, AND INSISTED, "IT'S UP IN THE LIGHT BULB!"

The point of this story is THAT THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO ALLAY THE PARANOID THOUGHTS of a paranoid schizophrenic. Those analysts who address the "tax the rich" and "the rich must pay their fair share" rhetoric are facing the same issue: those who use this rhetoric will never acknowledge the tax rates paid by the rich, accept the facts, and respond with the words, "oh, I didn't realize that the top 15 percent pay seventy percent of the income taxes. Never mind!"

THEY WILL PERSIST WITH THEIR RHETORIC FOREVER. The reason is that the rhetoric is driven not by the numbers of who pays how much in taxes, but by a desire to build a public relations foundation, an image. THOSE WHO DON'T RESPOND TO REAL FACTS DON'T CARE WHAT THE REAL FACTS ARE. The "tax the rich" slogan was not begun after a careful analysis of IRS data in the first place.

Here are some of the clues: THOSE WHO SAY "TAX THE RICH" ALMOST NEVER SAY "TAX ONLY THE RICH." Or "let's increase taxes on the rich and lower the taxes on everyone else." THE REAL GOAL OF THIS STRATEGY IS TO RAISE EVERYBODY'S TAXES….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/what_the_taxing_the_rich_rhetoric_really_means.html

That is what the TEA Party knew and that is why they started to demonstrate when Obama started spending.  And when the TEA Party protests tax increases, the left likes to posit they are shills for the rich.  No, they understand what the left actually wants to do and they are resisting it. The divide and conquer strategy of the hard left is being resisted by honest tax paying Americans.