Romney And Obama – First Presidential Debate

It turns out that a debate can be huge.

Going into Wednesday last week Romney had experienced a series of perceived setbacks.  The video of Romney talking to high dollar donors about the 47% certainly played into Obama’s attempt to characterize him as a member of the rich white guy club.  This only contributed to the continued bad press Romney was generating for his critique of the White House during the Libya crisis.

Romney was having a hard time of it.

People said his only hope was the debate.  However, there was little belief that Romney would even win the debate much less win it by enough to influence polls:

The overwhelming odds on favorite was Obama heading into the debate.  While I favored Romney, he has better ideas and isn’t hampered by Obama’s habit of “aaahhhhing” everything, I thought the win wouldn’t matter.  Further, I was sure that the polls would suggest Obama won regardless of what I thought.

I was wrong:

It wasn’t just “not close” it was historical.  Never before has a debate been so lopsided as this one.  From the opening bell to the final round Romney completely dominated Obama.  There wasn’t even one time where Obama even looked like he might rally and make a showing of it.  The night was completely and wholly Romney’s.

Obama’s fate was sealed when he issued this advise to the moderator:

You might wanna switch topics Jim.

Even Obama knew this was a disaster.

However, what NO ONE could have anticipated was the impact this debate would have on the race.  As I mentioned, Romney came into last week’s contest behind, way behind.  And today…?  Today’s he’s not only closed the gap, he’s leading:

Romney has moved ahead of Obama.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has the ability to be objective.  Obama has been an abject failure.  His policies haven’t led to prosperity, they’ve led to a suppressed recovery.  His policies overseas are failing, or worse, are undefined to the point that success or failure can’t be determined.

Last week we saw what happens when a life long community organizer goes up against a successful CEO.

It wasn’t even close.

6 responses to “Romney And Obama – First Presidential Debate

  1. Last week we saw what happens when a life long community organizer goes up against a successful CEO.

    Or we saw what happens when a person who stands by their record goes up against a pathological liar. No mention at all about Romney’s repeated lies?

    • Or we saw what happens when a person who stands by their record goes up against a pathological liar.

      What we saw was a slaughter. Romney, without a single doubt, clobbered Obama. There is simply no other way to describe what happened that night. And I say that as a partisan; I was rooting for Romney. But when Obama said, “You may wanna change the topic Jim” it was officially over. If it was a fight, they ref would have called it then.

      No mention at all about Romney’s repeated lies?

      Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts and promises he won’t add to the deficit.

      Obama oversold his health care law, claiming that health care premiums have “gone up slower than any time in the last 50 years.” That’s true of health care spending, but not premiums. And the health care law had little to do with the slowdown in overall spending.

      Obama said 5 million private-sector jobs had been created in the past 30 months. Perhaps so, but that counts jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t add to the official monthly tallies until next year. For now, the official tally is a bit over 4.6 million.

      Obama again said he’d raise taxes on upper-income persons only to the “rates that we had when Bill Clinton was president.” Actually, many high-income persons would pay more than they did then, because of new taxes in Obama’s health care law.

      For you to be taken seriously that Romney lied you would first have to demonstrate that your candidate is innocent. And you can’t do it.

  2. Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts and promises he won’t add to the deficit.

    This is a complete misunderstanding of the terms. A tax cut means you cut taxes, which Romney is clearly doing. Offsetting the tax cuts with, for example, spending cuts, makes it deficit neutral, but it’s still a tax cut.

    Romney DOES say he’s going to eliminate deductions, though he never says which ones or how much. But you either have a tax cut because he’s lowering the tax rates, or he offsets it with deduction elimination and then we get the same tax revenue, which raises the question of what he’s accomplishing at all.

    Either way, Romney is promising to lower everyone’s taxes by an amount that would reduce revenue by $5 trillion dollars. That is a $5 trillion dollar tax cut, regardless of whether it is deficit-neutral or not.

    • Romney DOES say he’s going to eliminate deductions, though he never says which ones or how much. But you either have a tax cut because he’s lowering the tax rates, or he offsets it with deduction elimination and then we get the same tax revenue, which raises the question of what he’s accomplishing at all.

      So first, I see no need to LOWER taxes at all. Not sure why he’s taking this approach. As uch as I appreciate the Laffer Curve when opposing tax hikes, I feel the same argument could be used when tax rates are too low.

      With that said, the idea is that lower taxes create economic progress; a concept widely recognized as true. So, by lowering the rate we build that momentum. And to Romney’s point, we can eliminate the deductions. Now, I have no earthly idea what the average millionaire writes off so I can’t begin to tell you what they are. In fact, in trying to post on just this topic I’ve tried to research what the average deduction as a percent of income are in aggregate.

      There IS something to love about a flat tax that can be calculated with a simple +/- calculator.

      I think the biggest point the dems are making is that a significant part of Romney’s plan requires the economic base to grow. That means the unemployed become employed and those of us working see our economic status grow. If this happens, and I suggest it will, it is going to take time measured in years not days, and his plan will be revenue negative until that inflection point his and we begin to grow the revenue.

  3. For you to be taken seriously that Romney lied you would first have to demonstrate that your candidate is innocent. And you can’t do it.

    I can be taken seriously about Romney lying regardless of what Obama did. Romney won the debate, there is no doubt on that one, but a large part of that was his shameless liberties with the truth. You write as though he dominated through his business know-how or something, but you fail to acknowledge that, as he has all campaign, Romney is simply a master of the etch-a-sketch campaign.

    • I can be taken seriously about Romney lying regardless of what Obama did.

      Well, it seems to me you’re making the point that Romney lied as a way to somehow take points away or give points to Obama. To try to make the debate more even.

      Every liar’s point you deduct from Romney is also deducted from Obama.

      Further, it falls on that old argument, I admit that I am guilty of it too, to be sure, that goes, “Yeah, my guy did it, but so did your guy.”

Leave a Reply