Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalIt's easy to deal with a "loyal opposition" that isn't determined to see you fail
Nearly every POTUS until President Clinton enjoyed some degree of bipartisanship from the other side- or at least there was a recognition that, regardless of who is POTUS, life must go on and there were things that needed to get done. Even despite the "outcome" of the 2000 election, Democrats didn't vow to crush George W. Bush and worked together with him to keep the country going, especially after 9/11. The Republicans vowed to crush President Obama from day 0, making it necessary for President Obama to HAVE TO get things IN SPITE OF THEM. I imagine that Romney had it pretty easy by contrast in Massachusetts during his single term as Governor (and BTW I hate that some commentators still refer to him as "Governor Romney" even though he hasn't been governor for, what, 6 years? They do the same thing with Gingrich too).
Politifact strikes again (re: Debate)
"Under Gov. Romney's definition ... Donald Trump is a small business."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/04/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-donald-trump-small-business-deba/
I might be mistaken but when I heard President Obama say this during the debate, I took it as sarcasm/joke. Did anybody else watching/listening to the debate come away with a different impression? Is Politifact now fact-checking sarcasm? Really?
I agree that he wasn't as "strong" as he needed to have been IMHO
and even I have to admit that I felt sort of depressed after the debate BUT let's maintain some context and perspective both of which went screaming out the door on Wednesday night and didn't start trickling back in until sometime yesterday.
1.) It was ONE debate out of two more that he'll have with Romney. Could President Obama have buried Romney's candidacy completely in one debate? Maybe. Maybe not. We won't really know for sure but it was probably going to be spun as a Romney win or at least a draw no matter what. Even if he had turned in an amazing debate performance, he would still have two more debates ahead of him. Him having a strong second or third debate is far more important IMHO.
2.) President Obama is human. He has his flaws, his ups and downs. Wednesday night he wasn't at his best. It happens. It's NOT the end of the world unless you want it to be the end of the world- or get hopelessly sucked into the right-wing spin machine. Anybody else here at top form 100% of the time? Didn't think so.
3.)President Obama knows better what to expect next time for the Romneybot 2.0 and, if his post-debate rally in Wisconsin yesterday was any indication, he knows what he is dealing with now and won't make the same mistakes twice.
4.)Romney might have won on style but the dominant meme on the debate was that he lied his a** off and came across as a blustering bully. If Mitt helped himself with his base and his party, he didn't help himself much, if at all, with the independents and certainly not with women and minorities, so, really, if it doesn't really help him electorally in the end what has he actually WON (in the end)?
5.)Obama, by contrast, did himself no harm. No gaffes, no boneheaded statements, and nothing that the right-wing can really use against him. Those that don't agree with him already weren't going to change their minds anyway. If the worst you can say is that he isn't a great debater with a shameless and unrepentant liar, then, well, so what? If he told the truth and people don't believe the liar (and most people already didn't going into these debates), then what have we to worry about?
The Republican obsession with "real"?
i.e. "He's not a real American." "This isn't a real recovery", etc. It seems to be all about minimizing and/or demeaning people and things that they don't want to bother their "beautiful minds" with. But what the hell do THEY know about REALITY? They (proudly) don't inhabit the same "reality-based community" that most of us have to slog through every single day of our lives, which is part of the reason that their ideas and policies are simply impractical and/or unworkable for 99% of the American public. Yet, as the anonymous adviser to President George W. Bush (wild guess: Karl Rove) once proudly stated, they seek to create their own reality and they'd probably be more successful at it but for the fact that reality (eventually) keeps showing up and popping their "bubble" time after time.
We've had Bush corporate tax rates over a decade now
where are all the jobs? Can we get some of our lost tax revenue (that likely went to finance new yachts) back from the "job creators" whom are clearly NOT creating many jobs? Romney last night was acting oblivious to the fact that we already have low tax rates and yet job creation is lagging. How much less do you suppose rates need to be in order to get our "job creators" to start getting busy creating jobs? 
Interesting. Had not considered this
though I'm sort of curious about why he would think that implying to the rest of us that his sons are a bunch of liars would be a good idea/improve his image.
If the perception takes hold that Romney lied through the first debate
they will have a harder time believing him during subsequent debates. Now that I think about it, President Obama probably made the right choice in not calling Romney out on a lot of his lies. Why? Because once two politicians (or people for that matter) start squabbling over something, it becomes a partisan "he said/she said" situation and people have to choose sides, often lining up based on their preconceived ideas/beliefs. If Romney spews lies and independent fact checkers call out the lying, people, particularly "independents" or undecideds, may be more likely to believe it. Just a thought.
Anybody have any thoughts about Romney's new "Trickle-Down Government" meme?
He used it several times during the debate and I don't think that I've ever heard it used by him or anybody else before. Effective? Ineffective/forgettable? It left a sour taste in my mouth but then so do all right-wing "buzzwords". Could inadvertently remind people of the failure that is "Trickle-down economics" but I'm not sure. Anybody hearing any Republicans/wingers using this today?
Let's take a minute and discuss what good things President Obama said during the debate
For me, the best part was when he pointed out how Romney wants to repeal Obamacare but keep some of it, wants to repeal Dodd-Frank but keep some of it, etc. It makes the Republicans look stupid for wanting to repeal all of this stuff but then keep elements of it. Why not just keep it intact and amend the areas that you feel need to be tweaked? I think that they just want to get rid of these things so that they can pretend that Obama's presidency never existed and when they pass their "replacements" (IF they pass anything at all- could you imagine a GOP Tea Party Congress passing even a weaker version of Dodd-Frank or ACA?), they can claim all the credit for it. I suspect that one of the biggest reasons that they are pissed over the fact that ACA passed over GOP objections was that THEIR "guy" didn't do it.
I welcome any positive contributions to this OP about things that President Obama said during the debate:
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
Number of posts: 24,437
