Pundits say the challenger has the advantage in the first debate, but Romney's still reeling from that 47% stuff. What do you say we just call it a push at the outset?

Slow start for the president - lots of Ummms interspersed in his responses in the early going. I walked away after about 10 minutes to deal with some things, but will probably go back eventually.

I will most likely vote for Obama, but I think Romney is bettering Obama in this debate so far. He's very fluent, forceful, and smooth. Obama is too halting as an impromptu speaker. Plus, Romney is doing a better rhetorical job of presenting his economic plan than Obama.

Having listened to most of the debate on the radio while driving, I have to say Romney clearly bettered Obama this evening, both in style and presentation. His only fault was repeatedly interrupting Jim Lehrer.

President Obama is very much like David Bailiff is at Rice:

-A multi-year record of failure that cannot be denied, yet he still tries to ignore this fact and hopes we will also continue to ignore his failure
-one singular achievement (obamacare) that is dubious at best and challenged by others (as is Bailiff claiming 2008 success was his doing)
-demonstrated a "deer in the headlights" character when faced with real competition (1st debate & in-game coaching and performance)
-lack of proper preparation (no business experience or government management experience - bad or unproductive practice habits)
-a lack of understanding in dealing with other teams (countries) in the world (of football)
-a habit for picking a mostly inferior and inept team of assistants that make inherited problems even worse
-lack of revenue growth under his regime
-a game-plan that lacks creativity in jump-starting a dire situation and instead trots out the same vanilla milquetoast losing "solutions"
-deterioration of the program (country) under his watch
-an attitude of indifference among a surprising amount of people who continue to be willing to throw good money (taxes and subsidies) after bad instead of renewing and righting the ship by changing tack toward a business like approach with bottom-line oriented metrics of success measurement

this could go on, but you get the point...

BOTH Bailiff and Obama need to be removed and replaced, for the good of Rice and for the good of the USA

We have seen we will continue to get mostly failure against an vastly inferior schedule (weaker economy) with these clowns in charge. Get rid of both of 'em. Anybody would be better at this point.

"Do you and Gov. Romney differ with respect to Social Security?"

"Well, we both agree it needs to be tweaked."

Wowzers.

(10-04-2012 08:28 AM)JSA Wrote:  "Do you and Gov. Romney differ with respect to Social Security?"

"Well, we both agree it needs to be tweaked."

Wowzers.

Yeah, I didn't really get anything from the debate that I hadn't gotten from the last six months of media coverage and attack ads...

First of all, if you change your mind in virtue of televised presidential debates, you're a strange kind of person.

Second, while I'm not completely sure who I will vote for yet, there's no chance I will vote for Romney. However, Romney did a much better job last night. Obama talking off the cuff didn't sound as good as Romney's canned answers, which I thought were well written to appeal to voters while still being appropriately vague. Good job by whoever wrote them.

Both of them were far too vague for me, and both of them stretch facts. That's the deal with televised debates though. Would anyone else like to see long-form written debates with sources cited for factual claims? I'd much prefer that.

(10-04-2012 01:53 PM)Philoso-Owl Wrote:  Second, while I'm not completely sure who I will vote for yet, there's no chance I will vote for Romney.

Sounds a lot like you're voting for Obama.

It's just such a mess. We get a decent jobs report for a change (well okay but at least a step in the right direction) and then folks on the right immediately claim the report is 'cooked' which seems preposterous to me (and insulting to the folks who work at the bureau of labor statistics).

I am seeing tiny signs that consumer confidence is higher. Folks seem to buying more things from what I can tell.

I think the unemployment statistics are ridiculous that it stops counting people who just quit looking for work. Obviously 7.8% or 8, or even 9% isn't close to the real number. There could be no one hired in the month and the number goes down.

(10-05-2012 04:36 PM)lou Wrote:  I think the unemployment statistics are ridiculous that it stops counting people who just quit looking for work. Obviously 7.8% or 8, or even 9% isn't close to the real number. There could be no one hired in the month and the number goes down.

Well, sure, but the other numbers are readily available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra.../?hpid=z1.

(10-05-2012 04:08 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  It's just such a mess. We get a decent jobs report for a change (well okay but at least a step in the right direction) and then folks on the right immediately claim the report is 'cooked' which seems preposterous to me (and insulting to the folks who work at the bureau of labor statistics).

It's not just the "folks on the right" who have questions.
A few of the good guys wonder about it also.

"This must be an anomaly," former Congressional Budget Office director Doug Holtz-Eakin said in a snap analysis of the numbers. "It is out of line with any of the other data.."

Holtz-Eakin noted the household survey is smaller, suggesting it is not as reliable. He called estimate of 873,000 new jobs "implausible."

He said the report was otherwise "solid," but reflected "the economy is merely moving sideways."

Liberal economist Dean Baker, with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, called the September rate drop "almost certainly a statistical fluke."

I think the magnitude of the change as much as the timing causes suspicions. Or maybe the timing is the thing. I don't know.

I guess we will have to see what the revisions are in November and December - after the election. I guess we are all in agreement that they are as likely to be revised further down as they are to be revised upward, right?

Here's a question to ask yourself (and try to be honest about it): if the number this week were 9%, would not most conservatives embrace the number as being a further indictment of Obama's policies? Why are the numbers illegitimate just because they happen to swing toward good news in an election year? Also, I think if we're being honest, we'd have to acknowledge that there is a rather larger segment out there who want the numbers to be terrible, just because they hate the current president that much.

Kind of like the thought (which spawned an endless thread) about how there are those here who *want* to see a sh-tty football record this year to get rid of Bailiff. If people can hate Bailiff more than they love Rice football, I think it's certainly possible that people can hate Obama more than they love America.

And by the way: Doug Holtz-Eakin was the chief economic policy advisor to the McCain 2008 campaign, and he now heads the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. He's appeared on Fox News to argue against the Affordable Care Act. I'm not saying that Mr. Holtz-Eakin may not have good economic policy ideas; I am saying, however, that he's not really some completely impartial guy with no dog in the hunt.

Here's what I hate about the current political climate: there are no facts anymore. You can have a spot of good news, and the other side (and I have to say, mainly conservatives) will simply dismiss the news as not being real. When attacks occurred on US embassies last month, it was argued that such attacks were a signal of worldwide lack of fear/respect for an America lead by Obama. When it would be pointed out that more attacks occurred under Reagan or under Bush, the reaction in some conversational circles I would have was basically, "Well, I'm not sure about that." Facts just don't seem to matter anymore. That's been Fox News's best strategy over the past 20 years. The silly birther business is testimony to that.

ETA: Here's what I think the proper conservative response should have been: "Big deal. This is just one month's numbers. And it's still sh-tty." To make the fight over whether the numbers have been purposefully cooked (like when Limbaugh accused Obama of cooking the weather projections during the RNC) just sounds straight-up crazy whack-a-doo. You have a president presiding over a horrible economy. He's vulnerable. Focus on the fact that your guy is not the captain of this listing ship, and that should be enough to win. I wish conservatives would just get serious; they should stop listening to their Id and realize they don't have to say every crazy idea that pops in their heads or scratch every random itch. They would be so much more likable by so much more of the electorate.

The Bloomberg survey of Wall Street economists predicted 8.2 with a range of 8-8.3. The 7.8 was way outside what anybody expected.

(10-06-2012 08:39 PM)Barrett Wrote:  Here's a question to ask yourself (and try to be honest about it): if the number this week were 9%, would not most conservatives embrace the number as being a further indictment of Obama's policies? Why are the numbers illegitimate just because they happen to swing toward good news in an election year? Also, I think if we're being honest, we'd have to acknowledge that there is a rather larger segment out there who want the numbers to be terrible, just because they hate the current president that much.
Kind of like the thought (which spawned an endless thread) about how there are those here who *want* to see a sh-tty football record this year to get rid of Bailiff. If people can hate Bailiff more than they love Rice football, I think it's certainly possible that people can hate Obama more than they love America.
And by the way: Doug Holtz-Eakin was the chief economic policy advisor to the McCain 2008 campaign, and he now heads the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank. He's appeared on Fox News to argue against the Affordable Care Act. I'm not saying that Mr. Holtz-Eakin may not have good economic policy ideas; I am saying, however, that he's not really some completely impartial guy with no dog in the hunt.
Here's what I hate about the current political climate: there are no facts anymore. You can have a spot of good news, and the other side (and I have to say, mainly conservatives) will simply dismiss the news as not being real. When attacks occurred on US embassies last month, it was argued that such attacks were a signal of worldwide lack of fear/respect for an America lead by Obama. When it would be pointed out that more attacks occurred under Reagan or under Bush, the reaction in some conversational circles I would have was basically, "Well, I'm not sure about that." Facts just don't seem to matter anymore. That's been Fox News's best strategy over the past 20 years. The silly birther business is testimony to that.

I think the fact problem cuts both ways. It's almost like there are two parallel universes, one in which republicans live and one in which democrats live, and no facts can pass through the force field in between. I see this because I tend left ion social issues and right on fiscal issues, so I find myself having to move back and forth between the two universes.

I would say that I find both sides pretty much equally guilty. Again, I think those who lean consistently one way or the other on all issues simply buy into the set of facts that go with their side's viewpoint and that's it.

The problem with 7.8 is that the peripherals (jobs created, etc.) simply don't fit. The math does not appear to work. It's kind of like being told that the answer is 5 but the formula to get that answer is 2 plus 2. Something somewhere doesn't fit, we just don't know what. With 160 million or so in the work force, a 3/10 of one percent drop in unemployment is equivalent to 500,000 people finding jobs. But there are no peripherals supporting that. So something is clearly wrong. We've been given a bunch of data. The internal inconsistencies are sufficient to imply that something is wrong somewhere. We just don't know what or where.

The answer may lie with the upward revisions to prior months. They are pretty substantial, and positive, but it's hard to see even that being enough to effect this change. Then again, this "official" measure of unemployment is subject to so many assumptions and methodological variables that it's very susceptible to quirky answers. I prefer to look at the number of jobs created--there are a few methodological issues and assumptions there, too, but far fewer than with the "official" number. Under 120,000 is bad, somewhere in the 120,000-150,000 range is keeping pace with population growth, recovery is somewhere above 150,000 on a continuous basis, and healthy recovery is somewhere above 200,000.

(10-06-2012 08:39 PM)Barrett Wrote:  Here's a question to ask yourself (and try to be honest about it): if the number this week were 9%, would not most conservatives embrace the number as being a further indictment of Obama's policies? Why are the numbers illegitimate just because they happen to swing toward good news in an election year? Also, I think if we're being honest, we'd have to acknowledge that there is a rather larger segment out there who want the numbers to be terrible, just because they hate the current president that much.

You make a valid point.

(10-06-2012 08:39 PM)Barrett Wrote:  Here's what I hate about the current political climate: there are no facts anymore. You can have a spot of good news, and the other side (and I have to say, mainly conservatives) will simply dismiss the news as not being real.

The non-conservative side seems to have a never-ending refrain of "it's Bush's fault" even today. I personally am sick of hearing that 4 years later, although I was never completely enamoured of him and many of his policies.

(10-06-2012 08:39 PM)Barrett Wrote:  Facts just don't seem to matter anymore. That's been Fox News's best strategy over the past 20 years.

...and CNN used to be somewhat centrist when it first started and has skewed so far left, it is unwatchable nowadays...I can't stomach Wolf Blitzer, Candy Crowley and Paul Begala, party wonks and shamelessly vapid shills for the ultra-libs who are the counterparts to O'Reilley and Rush, only without a seeming intellect. I can only take O' and Rush in very small doses. And I hate hearing the conservative radio guys shilling for gold companies every 5 minutes. Ruins their credibility. But the lib media pundits always drive me right back away with their idiotic commentary.

(10-06-2012 08:39 PM)Barrett Wrote:  ETA: Here's what I think the proper conservative response should have been: "Big deal. This is just one month's numbers. And it's still sh-tty."

I believe that Romney actually said that 7.8% unemployment number, and far more actually un- or under-employed is not what a recovery looks like.

Moral: The narrative in the media seems to be "It's the Republicans fault," even though Repubs have been out of power for quite a while. It's actually BOTH sides fault: Barney Frank and cronies for demanding banks lend money for folks who had no business getting home loans in the name of "fairness", making all the Dems' buddies filthy rich. Bush and the banks for going along with it instead of resisting in every way possible since they had a pretty good idea of the ultimate result.

Then Obama and the Dems handing billions and billions of dollars to rich bankers and insurance company execs who donated to Obama et. al. Disgusting to watch the Obama-ites be in the back pockets and in collusion with the real 1% and then deny it. The Dems have far more money and rich corporate types in their camp than Repubs ever will. Can't understand how so many people can't see this, but then they are slick marketers and good at distracting the ignorant from paying attention to their tracks.

Obama wins the same way as Cynthia McKinney--ignorance, not race. If Obama was turquoise it would be the same. He is the leader of the ignorant, and that is the change he brought to his position. He is very effective at using the stupid to do his bidding (acorn, et. al.). Obama hurts the people he claims to be helping far more than the other side would ever be able to dream of. But because most of Obama's supporters are ignorant, they love him for it.

You have two sides: one who is using the poor , weak and ignorant (Dems) and the other who is merely indifferent to them (Repubs.) The default if you are or care about those hurting in this country is to vote for the Repubs because at least that gives you a chance. The 'Great Society' has been a failure for nearly 50 years. It is time to admit it, concentrate on the debt and the deficit (two different things) and get back to "ask what YOU can do for your country, not what (Obama) can do for you."

The willingness of Govt leaders to just go along with the status quo and kick the debt into the future or to say "hey, by the time we have to pay the piper, I'll have got mine or be dead," is disgusting.

Like Bailiff, 4 more years of the same will only buy us mediocrity at best, and disaster at worst. We may have to keep bouncing back and forth until we can get a true leader with vision to step up. Obama is definitely not that man. His team is terrible, and uninterested in doing anything but accumulating more power and further enslaving the people. (Did you see "2016" the movie?) So Obama has to go.

(10-04-2012 01:53 PM)Philoso-Owl Wrote:  First of all, if you change your mind in virtue of televised presidential debates, you're a strange kind of person.

Actually, you'd be a typical American (then again, maybe typical Americans are strange kinds of people...). The mere fact that we're posting in this thread means we're probably fairly interested in politics. Most Americans aren't. They pay scant attention to politics most of the time, being only vaguely aware political events, until a few weeks before a major election. It's quite likely that, for a substantial proportion of the people who watched the debate, it was the first time they seriously engaged the political process in preparation for voting in this upcoming election.

(10-04-2012 01:53 PM)Philoso-Owl Wrote:  Second, while I'm not completely sure who I will vote for yet, there's no chance I will vote for Romney. However, Romney did a much better job last night. Obama talking off the cuff didn't sound as good as Romney's canned answers, which I thought were well written to appeal to voters while still being appropriately vague. Good job by whoever wrote them.

Both of them were far too vague for me, and both of them stretch facts. That's the deal with televised debates though. Would anyone else like to see long-form written debates with sources cited for factual claims? I'd much prefer that.

Well, maybe you or I might prefer that. For the low-information voters that I refered to above, their eyes would glaze over pretty quickly, and it would be a wasted exercise. These debates have the format that they do for a reason - that's what most people want.

The debate itself went more-or-less as I expected. No substantive case exists for President Obama's re-election, so Romney cited facts and Obama tried to avoid them. The debate was useful in one respect, however, in that now people appear to be realizing something that seemed obvious to me a long time ago: Obama really isn't all that smart. He reminds me of students that I've had in my classes that try to appear smart but really aren't. They (and Obama) try to talk in a way that sounds smart but really is just a bunch of nice-sounding but shallow cliches strung together in a fancy way. When you try to probe them intellectually, it results in even more cliches and stock phrases uttered only semi-coherently. It soon becomes apparent that their understanding is superficial. That's what Obama did in the debate. He's not used to this kind of interaction. Because he rarely gives press conferences, and the press that takes part in them like him and don't want to make him look bad, he's basically gotten a free pass from critical inquiry since he's been in office. It was the first time in a while, perhaps in a very long while, that he had to respond to extended substantive criticism. He was exposed. That's why I don't anticipate him doing substantially better in the other debates. The only way he can avoid a repeat performance is to try to dodge answering substantive questions and throw out red herrings, but I think Romney's too good of a debater to let him get away with that.

One explanation I've heard for Obama's performance is that he didn't prepare properly. That's very troubling. Obama shouldn't have to prepare for a debate. He's been president for almost four years. He's been directly responsible for governmental policies during that time. He should know all of this stuff by now. It's his job. If he doesn't know it, something is seriously wrong. If an extraterrestrial had shown up in America the night of the debate and decided to research what Earthlings drink by popping over to the corner pub and having a pint, and the television was showing the debate, it likely would've concluded that Romney was the incumbent and Obama the challenger. That concerns me, as it should concern all Americans.

(10-07-2012 02:43 AM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  The debate itself went more-or-less as I expected. No substantive case exists for President Obama's re-election, so Romney cited facts and Obama tried to avoid them. The debate was useful in one respect, however, in that now people appear to be realizing something that seemed obvious to me a long time ago: Obama really isn't all that smart. He reminds me of students that I've had in my classes that try to appear smart but really aren't. They (and Obama) try to talk in a way that sounds smart but really is just a bunch of nice-sounding but shallow cliches strung together in a fancy way. When you try to probe them intellectually, it results in even more cliches and stock phrases uttered only semi-coherently. It soon becomes apparent that their understanding is superficial. That's what Obama did in the debate. He's not used to this kind of interaction. Because he rarely gives press conferences, and the press that takes part in them like him and don't want to make him look bad, he's basically gotten a free pass from critical inquiry since he's been in office. It was the first time in a while, perhaps in a very long while, that he had to respond to extended substantive criticism. He was exposed. That's why I don't anticipate him doing substantially better in the other debates. The only way he can avoid a repeat performance is to try to dodge answering substantive questions and throw out red herrings, but I think Romney's too good of a debater to let him get away with that.

One explanation I've heard for Obama's performance is that he didn't prepare properly. That's very troubling. Obama shouldn't have to prepare for a debate. He's been president for almost four years. He's been directly responsible for governmental policies during that time. He should know all of this stuff by now. It's his job. If he doesn't know it, something is seriously wrong. If an extraterrestrial had shown up in America the night of the debate and decided to research what Earthlings drink by popping over to the corner pub and having a pint, and the television was showing the debate, it likely would've concluded that Romney was the incumbent and Obama the challenger. That concerns me, as it should concern all Americans.

Funny how perceptions can vary so dramatically. Like you, I also saw a distracted Obama (which, yes, was disturbing), but I also saw a Romney who apparently has no qualms with completely repudiating/denying proposals he's been spouting for months. See, for instance, the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPgfzknYd20. I suppose, based on what we know about Romney, that Obama probably should have anticipated that he'll adopt pretty much any policy so long as it gets him elected, but I'm more willing to give O a pass given that the Romney on stage was not the Romney who's been plowing the campaign trail for the past year (either in form or substance).

And as a final point, Romney made some great points (e.g. on the downsides of Dodd-Frank, etc.), but no, most of the time he didn't "cite facts" in any substantive way. He threw out statistics and implied they were causally related to Obama without providing any substantive proof (e.g. comments about high food and gas prices), which, granted, was probably enough for the passing debate audience, but left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

Bottom line: You're right that Obama's record leaves much to be desired, but I would be much more swayed by Romney if he would just recognize that and stick to the valid points. There are great conservative counter-ideas to the ones Obama has proposed; the only trouble is I can never tell whether Romney actually likes these ideas or whether he's paying passing lip service to them.

(10-07-2012 07:54 AM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  There are great conservative counter-ideas to the one's Obama has proposed; the only trouble is I can never tell whether Romney actually likes these ideas or whether he's paying passing lip service to them.

I would say this about republicans in general and not just about Romney. I really don't think republicans know what they favor at this point, just that they oppose a lot of things.