Posted on 10/16/2012 11:52:29 AM PDT by Red Steel
Nervous Democrats reeling from President Barack Obama's lackluster debate performance and seemingly sudden change of fortunes in the polls are being comforted by one thought: when it counts, his supporters say, he always pulls though.
"So far every time, he's done it," said one former Obama administration aide. "He's the cat with the nine lives; at the end of the day the fundamental still favor him."
Obama's Democratic allies are hoping that his next debate performance will undo the damage of his first showing, and that once again, Obama will successfully pull out a last-minute victory.
Obama campaign aides have begun using words like "aggressive" and "passionate" to describe the Obama voters will see in the second presidential debate on Tuesday.
"He didn't meet his own expectations," said Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs on CNN's State of the Union, Sunday. "He knew when he walked off that stage, and he also knew as he's watched the tape of that debate, that he's got to be more energetic."
According to Bill Galston, senior fellow of governance at the Brookings Institution and former Clinton administration senior advisor, when Obama is down, his competitive instinct kicks in.
"I can only imagine how an intensely competitive person is receiving the negative reviews his debate performance garnered," Galston said. "I've got to believe there's fire in his belly now to go and turn this around in the second debate."
And as New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd put it in her column following the debate, Obama "performs better when his back is against the wall; he has some subconscious need to put himself in challenging positions."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
The lamestream press would marvel at Obama’s creativity and debate skills if he merely responded to every question with a loud fart and Biden-like laughter...
Thank you. Exactly my thinking. Obama has NEVER been seriuosly “challenged’ at any time during his political career. The only time it was “close” was during the primaries with Hillary. And she withdrew her claws for some reason. She could have eviscerated him.
Me too. Romney's just got to deftly and subtly savage his ego and "Obama" could melt down on live television.
Crowley will be riding shot-gun with Great Leader. Romney has to debate them both.
He can’t mount a comeback. But by tomorrow the media will have declared him the winner, unless Romney lays the smackdown again.
Obama is busy tweeting.
One would have to believe that this creation of Affirmative Action who always had someone there to turn his C into an A and never had to face a real challenge can somehow belly-up to the task on a national stage in front of 70 million people with all the marbles riding.
A bridge too far methinks.
Hillary definitely backed off. Probably for the same reasons McCain never put up a fight.
This is not what they meant. 
But you know s/he will 
OK, I'll stop. I'm getting it out of my system now. No dissertations or graphics tonight, right? Keep it pithy, as O'Really puts it. Butter his neck-tie, Willard!
A vegetarian? Maybe a part time Vegan.
Sounds like whistling past the graveyard. In #1, the Messiah showed that he had feet of clay. Romney showed that he wasn’t a monster as he’d been painted by the Obama campaign.
Would love to see Obozo get very huffy, lots of stuttering and eye blinking. Nothing says manly confidence like a temper tantrum.
Regardless, I pray all the pundits find a new word. If I see “lackluster” once more I’ll scream.
On the issue of Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, a leader of the communist-revolutionary Weather Underground terror group, she might have backed off a bit because she has her own shady relations with communist terror groups.
1) she helped defend the communist Black Panthers in a murder trial
2) Her husband Bill pardoned members of the Puerto Rican Marxist-revolutionary FALN, and also Weather Underground members Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans.
From Wiki...
"In an interview with the radio show Democracy Now, Rosenberg said that she was "totally and profoundly influenced by the revolutionary movements of the '60s and '70s." She became active in feminist causes, and worked in support of the Puerto Rican independence movement and the fight against the FBI's COINTELPRO program. [8] [9] She also joined the May 19th Communist Organization, which worked in support of the Black Liberation Army, the Weather Underground and other revolutionary organizations [10].
Rosenberg was charged with a role in the 1983 bombing of the United States Capitol Building, the U.S. Naval War College and the New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, but the charges were dropped as part of a plea deal by other members of her group.[4][11][12]...."
"Rosenberg's sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001, his last day in office. Her commutation produced a wave of criticism by police and New York elected officials.[23]..."
Obama may have to get closer to pulling “The Full Biden” than he ever thought he’d have to , both to regain HIS OWN GROUND lost at the first debate, AND continue the new parameters for this second debate with Romney. All the talking points that he clumsily omitted in the first debate, but that were taken up by Biden, will get a second hearing tonight. The question is, can Obama re-invoke them and score points with them, and will that be enough to re-establish some momentum for himself. I kind of doubt it, unless the townhall format somehow is rigged to once again put him in the best light. I tend to think Obama will go down in flames, maybe not so completely as he did the first time, but certainly won’t perform well enough to “win”.Will Obama find the only way to do this is to mimic Biden’s cluelessly off-putting arrogance and disrespect, OR will he
be able to maintain his “cool” and still pull off strong,or at least “strong-sounding” arguments?
Regardless of what happens, the DNC “strategists”, talking heads, and Obama buttboys and buttgirls, will be crowing out a new narrative about how the tide has changed, and Obama has provided a game changer for himself and his ticket. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what they say-—what matters is election day, and it will be 55%/45% in favor of Romney.
(snip)
At Yale, Hillary found a new Svengali in the form of left-wing law professor Thomas Emerson, known around campus as "Tommy the Commie." Emerson recruited Hillary and other students to help monitor the trial of the New Haven Nine for civil rights violations. Hillary took charge of the operation, scheduling the students in shifts, so that student monitors would always be present in the courtroom. She befriended and worked closely with Panther lawyer Charles Garry. (5)
Some believe that the enormous pressure exerted by the Left helped ensure light sentences for the New Haven Nine. Whether or not this is true, the punishments were mild.
"Only one of the killers was still in prison in 1977," reports John McCaslin in the Washington Times. "The gunman, Warren Kimbro, got a Harvard scholarship and became an assistant dean at Eastern Connecticut State College. Ericka Huggins, who boiled the water for Mr. Rackley's torture, got elected to a California school board." (6)
Hillary's defenders argue that she played no "significant" role in the New Haven Nine's defense. This is semantic hairsplitting. Obviously, Hillary was less "significant" than Charles Garry or "Tommy the Commie" Emerson. But Hillary served as a trusted lieutenant to these movers and shakers. Moreover, she had a national profile as a campus activist. Hillary was no rank-and-file student protester, as her apologists claim.
Indeed, Hillary's work for the Panthers won her a summer internship at the Berkeley office of attorney Robert Treuhaft in 1972. A hardline Stalinist, Treuhaft had quit the Communist Party in 1958 only because it was losing members and no longer provided a good platform for his activism. (7) "Treuhaft is a man who dedicated his entire legal career to advancing the agenda of the Soviet Communist Party and the KGB," notes historian Stephen Schwartz. (8)
The defense of the New Haven Nine marked Hillary's initiation into the sinister underworld of the hard-core, revolutionary Left. To my knowledge, Hillary has never publicly renounced nor apologized for her role in that movement.
Black Panther Party [BPP] Archives
http://web.archive.org/web/20060717050055/http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bpp/index.html
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Senator [OBAMA], if you get the nomination, you'll have to beat back these distractions.
And I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, general theme of patriotism, in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers. He was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other buildings. He's never apologized for that.
And, in fact, on 9/11, he was quoted in the New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." An early organizing meeting for your State Senate campaign was held at his house and your campaign has said you are "friendly."
Can you explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?
OBAMA: George, but this is an example of what I'm talking about. This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.
And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George.
The fact is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who, during his campaign, once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.
Do I need to apologize for Mr. Coburn's statements? Because I certainly don't agree with those, either.
So this kind of game in which anybody who I know, regardless of how flimsy the relationship is, that somehow their ideas could be attributed to me, I think the American people are smarter than that. They're not going to suggest somehow that that is reflective of my views, because it obviously isn't.
CLINTON: Well, I think that is a fair general statement, but I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position.
And, if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York and, I would hope, to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more.
And what they did was set bombs. And in some instances, people died. So it is -- I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about.
And I have no doubt -- I know Senator Obama's a good man and I respect him greatly, but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.
http://www.zimbio.com/Barack+Obama/articles/2051/Hillary+Clinton+Questions+Obama+Barack+Bill
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