How I Misjudged the Debate in Real Time

Vanity ^ | October 12, 2012 | Nathan Bedford

[nathanbedford]

[berdie]

Because I enjoy your posts and it is late...to be read later.

[cynwoody]

On the foreign policy side ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFf0dUH3OtU

[Arthurio]

The only thing memorable coming out of this debate are Biden’s antics and claim that the embassy personnel on Libya did not ask for more security.

Pugnacious partisans such as ourselves wanted to see more pushback, but I’m sure Biden’s behavior was anticipated by the Romney campaign and the message to Ryan was to ignore these antics. Having a back and forth slugfest would have been more viscerally satisfying, but it would have done nothing to help the Romney campaign.

[nathanbedford]

I agree with your much more concise assessment especially including your observation that,

"Having a back and forth slugfest would have been more viscerally satisfying, but it would have done nothing to help the Romney campaign."

Which is why I was careful to require:

"Told in the correct tone of voice so as not to offend,"

[Lazamataz]

Nathan, did you see my Biden Wifebeater article?

[bronxville]

I envy those who have great writing skills. Thank you. They knew the moderator would be pro-Biden. Ryan was to stay cool and let Biden, with the help of the moderator, become overly confident. Ryan saw it happen, needled Biden, then the Biden laughter to cover his anger. Ryan spoke mainly to the Independents. Biden was appealing to the base. The shrewd one was Ryan which is why he won the debate. The less comments he made the less there is to scrutinize the next day by the obamamedia.

[Arthurio]

He probably should have been armed with some more one liners. He had a pretty good one for the 47% attack - equating it to Biden’s gaffes.

Biden is a real shark though, and has been debating and arguing before Ryan was even in diapers. There would have been a real danger to attempt a toe to toe exchange, with little upside other than our visceral pleasure.

The important thing is he walked away without any gaffes, or Dan Quayle “deer in the headlights” type of moment. This allows the campaign to return to the Romney momentum story.

I also think this play it safe strategy by Ryan and Biden’s hyper aggressiveness shows that both campaigns believe that Romney truly is ahead and it isn’t just some debate bounce polling aberration.

[roadcat]

Having a back and forth slugfest would have been more viscerally satisfying, but it would have done nothing to help the Romney campaign.

I wanted to see Ryan slug Martha, the so-called moderator. But you're right, Ryan acted more presidential and adult-like. Biden may have satisfied the far-left democrat base but his joker/jerk manerisms turned off independents and probably swung some on-the-fence democrats to the Romney/Ryan side. Many realized how buffoonish Biden looked and realized his interruptions were an attempt to drown out Ryan's far more convincing statements.

[radpolis]

I think your analysis is good.

I don’t think Paul Ryan had the intention of going for the jugular and was intentionally playing it safe.

I was neither exceptionally happy nor disappointed with Ryan.

I actually think the safe mode was tactically correct play to make in light of Biden’s performance.

Conversely, I think Biden was advised to do the opposite.

However, the election all comes down to getting votes of white middle class women in the midwest.

This is where the Obama/Biden/Liberal Arrogance does them their biggest disservice.

Biden[’s act might play well for MSNBC, but neither campaign should try to earn the votes of the New York/Washington liberal media.

They should be trying to earn the vote of my mom.

Now who did a better job of getting the vote of a mom in the midwest, Biden or Ryan?

Ryan is obviously the clear winner from a practical non-ideological. point of view and Biden is a big loser, a bigger loser than the liberal media conventional wisdom believes right now.

[Lazamataz]

May I promote this to Freeper Editorial?

[bronxville]

Bottomline: Ryan consciously let Biden interrupt and take over the debate.

[donna]

I simply misjudged the power of that impact, especially among women. I put it down to nervousness for which Biden was overcompensating.

Very interesting. I simply could not look at Biden. He just made me so overwrought. I didn't think one logical thought about his behavior, LOL.

[smokingfrog]

bfl

[itsahoot]

Well said Nathan.

The weakness of our ticket wins by default. You could have creamed the jerk, but I guess we have moved on to a repeat of the kinder, gentler conservative era.

[marron]

I remembered from Biden’s debate with Palin 4 years ago that he has the brilliant ability to spin facts out of thin air on the fly, made to order, a perfect fit for the needs of the moment. He can then freely contradict himself a moment later as the need changes.

And in the heat of the debate, he is almost never called on it. Whether Palin or Ryan, they will be momentarily dumbfounded, not knowing how to respond, and the moment passes. He got away with it by sheer brazenness.

He did it again tonight. It will be days before the fact checkers unravel everything he said, and by that time it won’t matter. Too much of the audience is impressed with his obvious knowledge and command of facts on every subject, impressed with his bold confidence, and too few will ever figure out that he was making most of it up on the fly.

I remember in the debate with Palin he went on about how we and the French had kicked Hezbollah’s ass and Palin stared at him, mystified, and the moment was lost. Or his remarks about FDR’s televised fireside chats. Tonight almost nothing he said about Libya was true, or Afghanistan, or Syria, or the budget, the church, or anything else. But he said it with supreme confidence.

In his way, Obama did much the same thing. But Romney had enough command of the facts to sweep all that aside, and when he didn’t, he just said what he had to say and made the president answer him instead of getting into the weeds with Obama’s alternate reality. I think Ryan tried to do the same thing but he got steam rolled a bit.

I agree with your point that, unless we hammer the point about the deficit, which got short shrift (and always sounds like an accounting problem when Ryan talks about it), then the solutions to the problem will always be spun as GOP stingyness and successfully so. The more we try to explain about tax rates and budgets the more we sound like we’re just money-grubbing. We have to talk about freedom, the big stuff. As soon as we get drawn into talking about budget cuts we’re hammered as Scrooges who hate poor people. We have to keep to the high ground and talk about big subjects and stay out of the weeds.

[Safetgiver]

The smirk, 4 minutes plus seconds to talk, and interrupting NINETY SIX times showed me Biden’s ineffectiveness.

[Mozilla]

Instead of posting a new thread... I post the mp3 podcast of Rusty Humphries show here. It really sounds like the people posting it cut up the podcast which is a shame. They could have posted all the debate which started the hour Rusty starts or they could have just started with Rusty’s comments. But instead they started with the last 30 minutes of the debate so that is first. But the point for posting it is the comments after the debate. Well anybody who cares can listen to it.
http://www.trn1.com/uploads/automp3/rusty/Rusty_10-11-2012.mp3

Also a montage of Biden which is longer than the RNC ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwykoYWf_40

Well since the podcast of Rusty is cut up then here is the debate video from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3roG09O6T4

[nathanbedford]

Sure, Laz

[lapsus calami]

 

 

Yep - I think it went down like it should have. Biden is a self-important flake and all he had to work with is policy holes to only make deeper, which he did. He may have entertained his base for the evening, but convincing the general electorate that Team Obama is credible and trustworthy - no. The debate postmortems in the next 24-48 hours are going to be brutal.