If you wish to travel far and fast;
travel light.
Take off all your
- envies,
- jealousies,
- unforgiveness,
- selfishness,
- and fears.
The Presidential Debates: Round 2
Town-Hall Format
My Verdict: Romney Wins a Closer Battle
Obama went into political spin mode (which I've thoroughly debunked in this blog in detail), and was defensive and unduly aggressive--at one point on the dispute about permits--getting off his stool and taking steps towards Romney--which I thought was clearly un-Presidential. I've seen a couple of instant polls (CBS and CNN} show a narrow plurality giving Obama an edge, although almost a third rated it a tie; a more focused CBS poll on the economy showed Romney winning 2-1. Perhaps most telling a Frank Luntz group on Hannity of mostly former swing state Nevada Obama 2008 voters declared not only Romney won the debate, but had closed the deal with them, winning their votes. let me point out that more than half of those polled thought Romney won or tied, which is bad news for the President. I think that Obama got a boost mostly for improving over his lackluster showing in the first debate and some help from the moderator (below), but in reality I think Obama's effort played well mainly with his choir, his ideological partisan base. Romney has better than held his own in two debates with the moderates and independents whom will decide this election
Moderator Candy Crowley not only unfairly gave Obama 3 more minutes, she notably and wrongly erred on the matter of the Benghazi attack, unprecedentedly contradicting Romney and falsely alleging, to Obama's delight (he asked her to repeat her false assertion that Obama had called the Libya assault an act of terror the next day). (He did make a passing ambiguous reference to "acts of terror" (but has used other terms to discuss the Benghazi attack), in a single brief speech which many, including me, took to refer to the original 9/11 attacks, but over the next 2 weeks on the public record, Obama and other Administration members went out of their way not to conclude it was a terrorist attack, even when directly questioned on a women's daytime talk show several days later--at best, Obama was inconsistent). As a matter of character, Obama knew Crowley was wrong, but fully exploited the opportunity. Post-debate Crowley admitted Romney was right on Libya but was still trying to blame Romney's choice of words.
I also didn't like some of the question selections, like the phony women's pay equality issue, which is based on abused statistics and feeds into this contrived "war on women" talking point, the assault weapon ban, immigration, etc., all of which I think played to a progressive agenda. I would have hoped there were questions about the so-called fiscal cliff, entitlement reforms, health care, partisan gridlock, etc. It would have been interesting to hear Obama say if he had a do-over, what if anything he would have changed.
I did like the man of color whom said he's been disappointed over the past 4 years and wanted to know why he should vote for Obama this time around. I also liked the question asking Romney to distinguish his policies from Bush's.
I think giving Obama the last word was unfair. he got in a few shots that Romney didn't have a chance to rebut. Both debaters should have been given closing statements.
The biggest sparks were over energy where Obama is well-aware now for the second election he's getting bitten on the ass by high gasoline prices. There is an element of truth that gasoline prices in 2009 reflected lower demand in a global economic slowdown--unemployed people don't drive to work, but there is no doubt that Obama is hostile to fossil fuels, he has excluded huge federal areas for political reasons and EPA and the Gulf drilling moratorium were problematic, and this spike is occurring in a tough global economy
I would have handled things differently than Romney. He came close to a Gov. Perry moment (Want to bet?) a couple of times like directly challenging Obama on the percentage of drilling permits down and whether the hypocritical Obama knew how his own pension funds were invested (although he nailed Obama both times with weak implausible denials)... I never want Obama to be talking on my time. Just state facts or a statistic and force the liar to rebut on his time. On immigration, I would have hit Obama on catch-and-release, immigration cost shifting to states, and resorting to executive orders than compromise with Rubio over the Dream Act. I wish Romney would stop with the China bashing, but I'm delighted to hear any progress to an Americas' free trade zone.
How many people have faith that someone, like the incumbent, who admits to not knowing or even caring about his own pension fund investments or performance , can be trusted with social security reform?
The funniest line of the night? Obama purports to support free enterprise. Yeah, the same guy nationalizing college loans, saying private health insurers are more inefficient, not trusting the private sector to invest in viable green energy or to regulate themselves,, firing car company heads and manipulating bankruptcies, setting up "too big to fail", never seeing a business he didn't want to tax and regulate...Every economic liberty index shows the US declining under Obama.
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
- Miscellany:10/16/12: State Ballot Measures. I want to point out the hypocritical intolerance of the progressives pretentiously claiming to act on the side of tolerance instead looking to persecute anyone whom expresses a different point of view.
What's Surprising about a $1.2T Public Pension Shortfall?
Pension funds have inflows from any relevant employee/member and public sector employer contributions, fund investment returns and outflows (to pension beneficiaries). In essence, public sector administration guarantees outflows, and they have to make good on investment under performance. Many states/localities are contributing as though the pension fund has been gaining 8%/year, In fact, these kinds of returns are unrealistic and exceed comparable benchmarks in the private sector. We reformers want the rates lowered, but this means cash-strapped states and localities will have to boost contributions. We now see an effort in California to manage private sector pension plans. (No, I'm serious--not April's Fool: the same government unable to manage its own public sector pension system wants to spread its incompetence to the private sector.)
Dick Morris' Latest Election Ad
Musical Interludes: My Favorite Groups
The Four Tops, "Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over)"
