Posted on 10/08/2012 5:26:41 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s campaign is working feverishly to restore its momentum after a lackluster debate performance last week, an effort that began with a conference call 10 minutes before the debate even ended and led to new advertisements, a rewritten stump speech, a carefully timed leak and a reversal of months-old strategy.
Perhaps most important as the president’s team struggles to put his campaign back on track is a renewed effort to win the three remaining debates, starting with Thursday’s face-off between Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Representative Paul D. Ryan. Mr. Biden began traveling to a Delaware hotel on Sunday for three days of debate camp.
Under the tutelage of David Axelrod, the president’s chief strategist who is personally overseeing the preparations, Mr. Biden will be counseled on how to avoid Mr. Obama’s mistakes and even correct them with a more aggressive prosecution of the Republican ticket. Mr. Axelrod’s involvement highlights the stakes the Obama campaign places on the debate, and Mr. Biden has been reading “Young Guns,” the book co-written by Mr. Ryan, and practicing attack lines that Mr. Obama avoided.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
To “plot” a comeback, they’ll need to “plant” a brain.
Someone said Jon f’n Cary might stand in for the veep who has come down with the flu...
What are they planning, replace one of Bidens eyes with a laser to blind Ryan?
Or will Biden dress up as Big Bird?
Clearly, their strategy is hail-mary’ish; they’ll be looking for a zinger or gaffe that they can pre-plan and rehearse; one that has no dependencies on anything Ryan would say before OR after. If needed, they’ll work it out with the moderator... or the podium setup crew... or the TV cameras... WHATEVER IT TAKES.
What if Biden does to Ryan what Romney did to zero ..
What would the dims do?
Switch focus off zero and on to Biden?
How could the zero administration be spun if the veep was the only viable entry?
Remember ... I pose this as a fantasy for Chrissy.
Biden can be a bully, I expect he will try to push Ryan around, and make Ryan look “small”. Although he is a bufoon, I think most underestimate Joe when it comes to what else he is capable of. This wont be the same as Joe debating “a girl” like last time.
If it takes 6 days to prep Biden for a debate with Mitt Romney, imagine how long it would take to prep him for dealing with the outbreak of war between Iran and Israel
Not that we have to worry about Biden ever being the President and leader of the free world
...right?
GIven that Ryan had no problem correcting Obama’s lies, directly to his face, in a public forum, I don’t imagine any of Biden’s whoppers will survive.
Ryan needs to avoid taking the bait on set up questions or assertions, because that would be the Axelrod/Biden model.
Paul Ryan has been dealing with bloviating blowhards like braindead Joe for all his life
I think he will do just fine. Assuming the GOP wants to win this race and not throw it like last time
I wonder if Sarah Palin is helping prep him? Joe didn’t get away with bullying her
Who wants to bet Joe brings up his dead wife and child to pander for a sympathy vote?
Four years without a budget. N5 trillion more in debt. 1 trillion deficits,
Joe may attack Ryan’s plans but we’re living the Obama plan already.
Biden is a Sagittarius, so am I, he is a few years older than me, I doubt he has a very flexible memory, I do know what can addle me and that is someone who rambles on and on with technical numbers, I’ll grow bored immediately, or with my bad hearing I’ll interpret a sentence incorrectly.
So I could predict Biden will be easily sidetracked by himself if he has to make a long commentary, I often ramble on explaing something in too much detail to the point I forgot what the whole conversation was about. Ryan could try that tactic, make Biden explain thins in detail, he will rtun off on a tangent, something sagittarians are also famous for.
But even if Biden does acceptable well -- recalling that Sarah Palin won the last debate -- then there is the unfavorable comparison is between Biden's performance and Obama's performance -- and the question arises as to how someone who is in need of a brain transplant could possibly out-debate Obama.
(*)"Honey, I Shrunk the President"
"Think about it: John McCain was feeble. Alan Keyes, whom Obama beat in his 2004 Senate campaign, was crazy. All the Democrats who ran in 2008 were preposterous except Hillary Clinton, and she, as a beneficiary of nepotism, was highly overrated as a politician. He used Chicago-style dirty tricks to dispatch his original opponent in 2004, as well as the state senator he replaced back in the 1990s. The test he failed last night is one to which he had never been put."
Here’s the problem for Obama and his campaign:
He’s a failure as President. The only way he can win re-election is to make the campaign be about the Republican candidate, and define that candidate as negatively as possible.
So that’s what they did — and they did it quite well. But, by defining Romney as a cross between Thurston Howell and Gordon Gekko, they had a problem — what if Romney got up on stage and didn’t fit the caricature?
Obama’s loss wasn’t about Obama not using this line or that line — it was about Romney not fitting the caricature and appearing to be a reasonable alternative to Obama for the undecideds (2/3rds of whom think the country is on the wrong track).
Obama will certainly do better in the next debate, but the question is how exactly is he going to make the flesh and blood Romney look like the guy they savage in their ads? A couple zingers aren’t going to do that.
Obama’s people turned this campaign from a referendum on Obama’s performance into a referendum on whether Romney is an acceptable alternative. Given Obama’s track record, that was their best option. Their problem now is that Romney, post-debate, doesn’t fit that caricature, and all the “Obama came out much better tonight” post-debate MSNBC garbage next week won’t change that.
Romney’s goal is to again sound reasonable, fend off attacks, and continually drive home the President’s failures. If he does that, he’ll win no matter what zingers Obama unleashes.
Pretty sad when all you have to hang your hopes on is Bite Me.
Plugs is an experienced debater. And nasty. For Ryan it’ll be like being locked in a small room with a 180 lb wharf rat with the leftmedia trying to help the rat.
Don’t expect great things out Ryan under the circumstances. He’ll do well if he holds his own.
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