The Occasional Observer

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Obama seemed to have a touch of the Bidens, wriggling about in his chair, waving his hands dismissively and always – always – smirking in Romney’s direction. By contrast, Romney sucked up the abuse and retained a rigid poker face all night. He looked like a Commander in Chief; Obama looked like a lawyer. Who would you rather vote for?

...they agreed on the essentials, which were all about foreign policy. Romney refused to tackle Obama directly on Libya (I shouted at the TV that he should, but he just wouldn’t listen) and Fast and Furious seems to have been forgotten by the GOP. In everything else, Obama has become so homicidally neoconservative and Romney so desperately peaceful that they’ve met in the middle on most issues. Both would defend Israel in the event of an attack, both want out of Afghanistan in 2014 and neither would let Iran get the bomb....

Romney tried his darnedest to bring everything back to the economy and Obama seemed to say in every answer, “So what we need to do in the Middle East is talk more about how rubbish my opponent is.” It’s almost lucky that Obama isn’t running unopposed in this election because then he’d have nothing to run on at all.

We...have to judge this debate as part of the narrative arc of this season. Romney won the first debate by a mile. Because Romney’s win was so decisive, it sparked an image change: Americans started to think of him as presidential material. That’s why Obama winning the second debate by an inch made little impact – people were watching Romney not to see him land punches but to see how well he could take them. He won the third debate because, by the end of the night, his and Obama’s positions in the narrative arc had switched. Romney now looks like the President and Obama looks like the challenger.

ht: Drudge

in Debate #2--IMO, it was a draw.  None of the debaters, not even Candy Crowley, scored a clean knockout (Candy had to walk back her factually incorrect interjection on Libya immediately after the debate).

The feeling heading into the debate was that the pressure was on Obama to change the trajectory of the race, and I'm not sure he did that.  Panels of independent voters on multiple networks (including MSNBC!) agreed that Mitt had won, although CNN's snap poll showed the President with a slight lead.

A few observations:

-Crowley was horrible, just like Raddatz.  The clear bias that a GOP candidate has to deal with, debating an opponent and a moderator, is just absurd.  Luckily, Crowley was so obvious in her bias, her excessive interruption and "fact checking," and so wrong (as the record now shows), that perhaps we will finally see a change to the ridiculous format of our Presidential debates.  I don't want to see a moderator.  A timekeeper will suffice, then let the candidates have it L-D style on a pre-arranged set of issues/questions.

-Obama drips with so much condescension, I can't even stand to hear his voice or see his visage any more.

-Romney absolutely decimated Obama when rebutting on the question of "What have you done over the past 4 years to earn my vote again."

-Romney completely fudged the end of the debate, failing to hit the President effectively on his obfuscation of the situation in Benghazi.  He also did not challenge the President's faux outrage over Romney challenging his decision to go to Vegas the day after the murders.  Mitt should've come back with something like this: "Mr. President, you seem very passionate about this now, in a debate.  I would have liked to see that passion in your actions after the murder of our Ambassador.  I would have been rescheduling fundraisers and political events to get facts and respond appropriately.  Your priorities were different."  Instead, Mitt said nothing.

-Obama is still wrong on Benghazi.  Even if Obama had called it terrorism in his Day 2 press conference (which his intentionally vague statement did not, sorry Candy), it would just make the rest of the Administration's actions even more curious.

Occ Obs GOTV operation in effect!

If you have friends or relatives in New York who will vote for the right candidate, please help them get registered ASAP.  The deadline is this Friday.  Fill out the form and mail it in or deliver it in person this week.

Link to the form, including the County-by-County list of addresses for Boards of Elections, is
here.

If you're in another state, Google the registration process and make it happen!

Well, I've seen 4 of the 23.  You may have seen more, but you probably haven't seen most.

A real Beetz special made the list, too.

Linked without commentary here.

This minute forty was all you needed to see. Unless you enjoy watching the President of The United States of America stammering to get his words out, disrepecting his opponent by continually looking down when he was being spoken to and ultimately being totally unprepared for a fight.

So we've been told not to use the name Steak Baby.

A funny thing, point of view.

Warning:  Below the fold is NSFW

The stakes:

Clearly a big Obama win would tough for Mitt to overcome.

Can Mitt lay a glove O?  He can't just point that O's record is one of failure.  Everyone who agrees with that statement is already on board.  He's got to convince people he actually has a plan to improve economic outcomes--a plan that will benefit even the 47%.

A tall order for the Mittster.

7 Greatest Quotes by IDF Generals • IDF Blog | The Official Blog of the Israel Defense Forces

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