Round 2

10/17/2012
10/17/2012 Jeff

Round 2

Here’s my thoughts on the latest debate, in case you’re interested:

This debate, too, I think was a draw. But, if you factor in expectations, I suppose you could say it was a modest win for Obama given how low expectations were for him. But, it’s not all good for Obama (read on).

This was my least favorite of all the debates (thus far). Obama disregarded just about every question from the aud

ience members by giving answers to questions not asked; Romney disregarded Crowley often; and both candidates completely disrespected the clock and the fact that the audience was there for a reason – to ask questions. They walked all over time limits such that many of the questions did not get asked. That’s unfortunate.

There weren’t a lot of one-liners, but to the extent there were, Obama won that contest. My favorite was the “sketchy deal” line.

Romney was VERY effective at outlining Obama’s horrible record, particularly on the economy. At times, he set it up very well for Obama to frequently be on defense, but instead, Romney was the one largely on defense, trying to refute just about every word out of Obama’s mouth – and thus, using much of his time to respond instead of advance. I loved it when they both were about to get in each other’s faces (I’m a shake-it-up kind of guy), but in the end, all it did was have Romney give Obama a chance to “correct” the record (from Obama’s perspective), when it would have been just as effective for Romney to say what we wanted to say without inviting a response.

And, WOW, what a missed opportunity on Libya. Sure, Crowley had no business interjecting (she’s supposed to be moderating, not participating in the debate), but the bottom line is that Obama didn’t even attempt to answer the question and Romney should have insisted he answer to question asked.

With respect to Obama, if there is one thing that seems more and more apparent in these debates, it’s that he is over his head with this presidency thing. Sure, he can sound good at times, but overall, he really doesn’t seem to grasp the enormity of the responsibility he has, nor what it takes to get the job done in a way that moves our country forward. His past strengths of sounding great and instilling hope for a bright future are all but gone now (he doesn’t sound all that great, and he seems the furthest thing from optimistic lately). His proposals are the same as he proposed 4 years ago, and yet can’t seem to come up with an acceptable answer as to why he should be given another 4 years to do the things he proposed in his last campaign, and he hasn’t really offered anything new for this campaign. The best excuse he can muster is that he didn’t have cooperative Republican partners to get stuff done (like on immigration reform), yet the lack of GOP cooperation didn’t stop him from ramming through ObamaCare without a single GOP vote when his party controlled both houses of Congress.

Jeff

Sailor, skier, pilot, beer enthusiast, EDM aficionado, recovering politician, entrepreneur, and dad.

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