The first debate is now recent history and we all get the pleasure of picking it apart piece by piece. There are lessons to be learned from the Denver debate for both sides and their supporters and we won’t really get to see if they are taken to heart until the next round (although we can predict Biden and Ryan were taking their notes as well). Yet, until the second debate comes, let’s talk about what we saw and didn’t see.
Coming into this most people already gave in to the fact we weren’t going to hear anything new or any truly solid information from either candidate. Over the years the debates have devolved into long commercial-free political ads for the two major parties, but that doesn’t mean the debates have no effect. The effect, especially in today’s instantaneous and continuing 24-hour news cycle, is the pundits and prognosticators run wild with second-by-second emotional reactions from viewers and handpicked focus groups. What we really get from this is not what people learn about policy choices or views of government growth and responsibility, but whether or not they felt emotionally connected to the candidate and how “presidential” they looked.
With that in mind, there are really two different outcomes to the first debate: Mitt won, Obama let Mitt win.
Through the looking glass of emotional reaction, body language and personality, Mitt swung for the fences and landed a solid first base hit. He came off as more confident, more secure and more on top of his facts. That’s why we see a lot of the initial reactions skewing towards him. Yet, there is the second way of viewing the debate, through what the candidates actually said and weighing that against reality. This gives a slightly different outcome.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clav
Nice piece, Luke.
I do have one small bone to pick with you, though. At one point, you say Obama "...let Mitt win" as one of the two different outcomes for this debate; the other being "Mitt won."
Had Obama actually been on point, been working instead of appearing to be disoriented and confused through much of the program, I might agree with you. But it seems to me that by "Obama let Mitt win," you were trying to say that Obama defaulted to Mitt, rather than he actually made a conscious decision to let Mitt take home the laurels.
I love your title! The best I've seen in a while.
2 - Luke Goldstein
Hi Clav,
First off, thanks for the kudos on the title. I felt really good about that one. It sometimes amazes me how much the title of a post stresses me out.
As for Obama letting Mitt win, I felt it was an option after watching the debate, maybe fitting into the President's affinity for playing "the long game". It was possible that he came in just wanting to see where Mitt was going to attack from, letting him shoot as many arrows as he could in night one so there was nothing left for the next two to really grow on.
But, as the days have gone by I think the evidence and responses even from the President himself shows that he just wasn't on his game in any real fashion. I expect the next debate to be different since Obama will likely come in much stronger in order to regain some of his lost dignity. Round two will be much harder for Mitt I believe.
3 - Zingzing
Actually, the title is impossible. You could stretch an apparent single into a double, but it wouldn't be a stolen base.
4 - Zingzing
Correct me if I'm wrong... But that would take two separate plays, or two separate players...
Anyway. Obama was probably flabbergasted by romney's ridiculous lies and impossible promises. Maybe he was trying to give him enough rope and Romney somehow kept taking it.
5 - El Bicho
I'm with zing. Title doesn't make sense.
6 - Zingzing
Maybe the title's existence in the face of its impossibility is a comment upon how the left is feeling following that Romney victory. Ugh...
7 - Jet Gardner
Romney being so out of touch, maybe Luke meant that Romney ran directly to 2nd base without going to 1st first, then proudly patted his own back for syealing it?
8 - Jet Gardner
ahem... stealing it
9 - Luke Goldstein
In truth, zingzing is correct, the title in absolute baseball terms doesn't work, which gives away the fact I don't watch very much baseball. What I was trying to go for was I wanted to give credit to Romney for doing whatever intensive prep work he did to come out on that stage and be so confident. He deserves his fair share for not bumbling around as he has in so many previous occasions. Yet, once that credit is given (him making it to first) I felt his victory lap for how great he did that night was largely based on the complete mistruths he whipped out minute after minute. By refusing to actually debate the facts, he stole the attention and limelight, but didn't really earn it, henceforth, stealing second,
Like I said, I don't watch much baseball. I wonder if I could have done a football one instead. "Obama fumbles, but Mitt gets penalty for excessive celebration".
10 - Leroy
Romney was out of control, telling lie after lie. Thinkprogress counted 27 lies in 38 minutes. Maybe Obama just let him run on knowing that he was taking enough rope to hang himself, which he did. There's no way anyone could vote for Romney after that display of deceit and dishonesty. Unless, of course, they are as deceitful as Romney and are willing to parrot Romney for political reasons.
I'm not surprised that the rightist MSM has failed to point out Romneys lies, this should unmask the radical politics that have overtaken the commercial and public news and TV sources, beholden as they are to the riches of their owners.
But what I found surprising and infinitely interesting is the blanket of news manipulation that settled over the internet. As I went searching for the truth about the mythical 90 billion of green handouts that Romney ascribed to Obama, I found every search engine smothered with repetitions of Romneys lie, told with delectation by rightist posters. Hundreds of followon posts and articles. So extensive that it reeks of pre-planned conspiracy.
Of course the $90 billion scandal doesn't pass the sanity test because republicans control the House, where all money bills must start. And if you know where to look you can bypass the search engines, which have become totally corrupt, whether by intention of Yahoo, Google, etc., or just by clever manipulation of the proclivities of search engines by SEO experts.
11 - Christopher Rose
I didn't really understand the baseball thing anyway, but took the headline to imply that Romney tried to win the debate but by lying through his teeth and coming across as totally insincere actually lost it, as the poll bump Obama has had since the debate seems to confirm...
12 - Leroy
Romney is a methodical, intentional liar. He can't claim he made a misstatement or a poor choice of words. Here are the repetitions of the lie Romney told about the mythical $90 billion to Green Energy:
CNN Transcript
ROMNEY: And in one year, you provided $90 billion in breaks to the green energy world.
....
But don't forget, you put $90 billion, like 50 years' worth of breaks, into -- into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tester and Ener1.
22:22:05: ROMNEY: Mr. President, Mr. President, you're entitled as the president to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts. All right, I'm not going to cut education funding. I don't have any plan to cut education funding and -- and grants that go to people going to college. I'm planning on (inaudible) to grow. So I'm not planning on making changes there.
But you make a very good point, which is that the place you put your money just makes a pretty clear indication of where your heart is. You put $90 billion into -- into green jobs. And I -- look, I'm all in favor of green energy. $90 billion, that would have -- that would have hired 2 million teachers. $90 billion.
And these businesses, many of them have gone out of business, I think about half of them, of the ones have been invested in have gone out of business. A number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.
To me, it looks like Romneys lies are pathological. I'm not a psychologist, but I was once married to a pathological liar.
Electing a liar like that would be a disaster for the USA because of the extreme ends such people must go to in order to prove themselves.
13 - Clavos El Buey
Thinkprogress counted 27 lies in 38 minutes
Only 27?? My,my Thinkprogress is slippping; one would think that, with their far liberal take on everything (it's in their name -- oh, sorry! "Liberal" isn't the same as "progressive." Ask any prog), they could have the reached the lie-a-minute threshold with any Republican; we all know the Republicans even lie about what they had for breakfast.
Thinkprogress? Bwahahahaha!
14 - Clavos El Buey
zing and EB:
You're right about the title of course. As one who thinks sports are the modern version of bread and circuses, (but less entertaining -- the lions always upped the ante), I should learn to continue ignoring everything about sports, as I have all my life.
Mea culpa
15 - Dr Dreadful
I should learn to continue ignoring everything about sports, as I have all my life.
Hmm. I seem to remember seeing a photo of you at a baseball game recently, Clav.
Then again, I have observed that 90% of the crowd at a baseball game does indeed fastidiously ignore the proceedings on the field.
And then of course there are the boats. Sailing is a sport.
:-p
16 - zingzing
sport is an amazing thing. it brings people together (schools, cities, even nations, the whole world at times) and gives them something to argue about where, at least most of the time, it's all in good fun. plus, it's good for you (unless you get a concussion). you missed out, clavos. and i can't believe someone who complains of bread and circuses would sell yachts to people... certainly that would be a bit hypocritical.
17 - Clavos El Buey
Hmm. I seem to remember seeing a photo of you at a baseball game recently, Clav.
Then again, I have observed that 90% of the crowd at a baseball game does indeed fastidiously ignore the proceedings on the field.
I was dragged there, though I was curious to see the new, "state of the art retracting dome" stadium, if only because once again, public money built a place to do business for a multi millionaire. The "new' stadium? Boring -- no lions, no christians used as bait.
Sailing is a sport
When racing, yes. Otherwise, it's a leisure activity.
I don't race. I don't even watch events such as the America's Cup; they bear no relation to what I do.
18 - Clavos El Buey
i can't believe someone who complains of bread and circuses would sell yachts to people... certainly that would be a bit hypocritical.
Huh?
19 - Glenn Contrarian
Clav -
Speaking of the America's Cup, my wife and I were just celebrating our 20th in San Francisco, and they were having some of the preliminary runs for the Cup while we were on a tour boat ride (it was Fleet Week there) - and watching the competitors was a definite treat. The last I saw of it, the U.S. Oracle boat was behind the Italian Prada boat (there were two of each), but there was one in front flying one of the Scandinavian flags. It's really something watching how fast those boats can go just on wind power.
Two other notes. There was a furniture store we saw that made me feel old - it said "We sell 20th century furniture". Grrrr. And there was a bum on the sidewalk wanting handouts - his cardboard sign said "I saved a bunch by switching to Geico". I gave him a couple of dollars for creativity.
That, and we walked the Golden Gate bridge. When we got to the south end, the Blue Angels flew directly overhead in formation...so I just had to tell the wife that yes, I arranged it just that way for our anniversary. It made for a really memorable trip!
20 - Dr Dreadful
The America's Cup is going on again? It was in San Diego - can't have been more than about 10 minutes ago. I remember it well because I made the mistake of deciding to take a detour round by the marina.
21 - Zingzing
Clavos: "Huh?"
Ignorance? If you consider sport to be a superficial means of amusement, what then are yachts? Just because they're rich boy toys doesn't mean it's any different. And if sailing is an acceptable "leisure" activity (I get seasick too much for that to be true for me), what's wrong with sport... For the vast majority of us, it's all about the fun, whether we're watching or playing. That said, I recently joined an amateur soccer league, and playing goal was pretty damn stressful, to be honest. Got scored on by a girl. I shouldn't have felt humiliated, but human psychology is a messed up thing. It didn't help that she celebrated like she had just won the world cup.
22 - Glenn Contrarian
Zing -
Don't feel bad. I remember my ship pulling in to Perth and about a dozen of us happened upon a girl who was playing chess in a park...with about a dozen chessboards. You see, she was part of the Australian Junior National Chess Team (or something like that), and she took on all twelve of us at the same time, walking from board to board for each move...and proceeded to beat the living snot out of all of us.
23 - Clavos El Buey
My "huh?" had to do with your comment about selling yachts being hypocritical.
Nobody I know considers taking their boat out for a weekend or afternoon cruise as "sport." Races are another matter, but I don't hang around with racers, so can't vouch for them.
And finally, there is no practical reason for owning a yacht. We all need shelter in which to live. Most of us buy a relatively modest suburban house; a few who are rich -- really rich (Hollywood stars often fit in this group) buy a house that's 20 or 30 thousand square feet. No one needs such a house, but everyone needs some kind of a house, so at least a slight case can be made for "I need a house," because we all do.
But a yacht? A yacht is one of a VERY few things one can buy that has no practical use whatever: there is NO reason you MUST have it; it serves no useful purpose, and unlike clothing, shelter and food, we can all get along just fine without one.
If the thing is so utterly unnecessary and ultimately useless, how can it possibly be hypocritical to sell it? Hypocrisy of what???
Merriam Webster Online says:
Definition of HYPOCRISY
1
: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion
I have feigned nothing in my declaration of my total disinterest in sports -- nothing. And I don't see how my selling of yachts in any way compromises my declaration of that disinterest.
24 - Zingzing
So you are disinterested in bread and circus because you're too busy providing it. You'll note I didn't say "sports" in that sentence. (it was just a little jab, don't waste too much of your time getting all indignified... after all, sites such as this are just bread and circuses.)
25 - Clavos El Buey
So you are disinterested in bread and circus because you're too busy providing it
I didn't say that, but whatever, zing.
Your envy of the well off is laughable, zing; you should get a life.