Romney Wins the Three-Way Debate at Hofstra

[Geee]

American Thinker:

Not only did President Obama come into the second presidential debate more aggressive and prepared, but he brought a secret weapon -- the moderator, Candy Crowley. At two pivotal moments, Ms. Crowley, typically a relatively fair reporter, showed her bias and changed the course of the debate.

 

First, she backed up Mr. Obama's assertion that he had called the attacks at Benghazi a "terrorist attack" in a Rose Garden event on the day after the tragedy. (After the debate, she reversed her assessment and stated that she was in error.) Second, she consistently let Obama stay two minutes ahead of Mr. Romney in terms of time, and at the end of the debate, Obama had a full three-minute advantage. In addition, at the end of the debate, Crowley gave Obama the last two minutes for a peroration where he gave new arguments (including the "47 percent") without fear of rebuttal.

Further, throughout the debate, Crowley thanked Obama for his remarks with a very deferential "Thank you, Mr. President"; she merely turned away from Romney at the end of his time. Thus, the town hall-style format ended up being a three-way debate, with Romney facing two opponents.

[Geee]

Romney aides take aim at CNN’s Crowley after Tuesday’s debate

 

 

 

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — In the post-debate spin room Tuesday night, Mitt Romney’s senior advisers and surrogates took aim at moderator Candy Crowley as they defended their candidate’s response to a question on the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Libya.

“I thought it was terrible,” former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu said when asked by The Daily Caller what he thought of Crowley’s performance. “I think she had no business trying to be a fact-checker on the stage, because she was dead wrong.”

Crowley incurred the ire of Team Romney after she said that, contrary to the Republican nominee’s objections, President Barack Obama did in fact use the phrase “act of terror” when referring to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi during his Sept. 12 Rose Garden address. Romney had been trying to argue that the administration avoided admitting that terrorists were behind the attack for weeks after the event.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/17/romney-aides-take-aim-at-cnns-crowley-after-tuesdays-debate/

[Geee]

Candy Crowley’s Benghazi Lifeline to Obama

 

 

In an outrage destined for the history books, the moderator of last night’s hotly contested presidential debate uttered an untruth about President Obama’s deadly bungling in Libya after Obama overtly asked her on live television to support his dishonest version of it.

 

It was truly unprecedented and could only have happened in the Age of Obama.

 

During the town hall-format debate with an audience of undecided voters, Crowley provided an assist to Obama to help him perpetuate his administration’s ongoing cover-up about the murder of four Americans –including the U.S. ambassador— at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, this past Sept. 11. Reports indicate that Ambassador Chris Stevens and other officials were provided inadequate security in a particularly hostile part of Libya.

 

Hours before the debate, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sent to Lima, Peru, by Obama’s campaign to make her inaccessible, said it was her responsibility to provide security for America’s diplomatic personnel. But that was as close to a mea culpa as Clinton was willing to come.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/candy-crowleys-benghazi-lifeline-to-obama/

[Geee]

ONCE AGAIN, OBAMA’S RECORD WINS IT FOR ROMNEY

 

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney couldn’t match his soaring first debate performance in a rematch with Barack Obama … but considering it was often a two-on-one, he didn’t do that poorly either.

 

 

And after taking a drubbing in the first presidential debate, a re-energized President Barack Obama vowed to bring passion to Hofstra University. He did. Feeling better in the more tranquil altitude of Long Island, the president deployed all his populist hits.

On style points it was close, but it’s unlikely anyone won by a wide enough margin to alter the fundamentals of the race. And as a CBS News snap poll found, 65 percent thought Romney would do a better job on the economy and only 34 percent believed Obama would – though the president scored a 37 to 30 overall win over Romney, with 33 percent believing it was a tie.

 

 

A big storyline for conservatives was moderator Candy Crowley, who injected herself into the mix to aid Obama. But a bigger story should be how she used a contrived Townhall setting to pick predominately slanted and loaded questions about the “evils” of guns, unfair pay practices and a mass imagined “outsourcing” of American jobs from our cast of allegedly undecided voters. Almost all questions played to Obama’s advantage, though few were especially relevant to this election.

 

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/10/17/harsanyi-once-again-obamas-record-wins-it-for-romney/

[Geee]

Rumble in Long Island: Plenty of Punches Propel Campaign to Final Showdown

 

Mitt Romney fueled up with rotisserie chicken. President Obama wolfed down steak and potatoes. Favoring blue and red ties, respectively, as their trunks, the two met for a rumble in a bright red ring on Long Island Tuesday night.

There wasn’t a knockout blow in this, the debate in which Obama sorely needed to not have a Denver repeat. But there were plenty of punches that should reverberate into next week’s finale on everything from birth control to immigration to, yes, Big Bird.

Romney went from rhetorically cornering Obama during the Denver debate to physically pursuing Obama during heated exchanges, prompting postgame debates about personal-space violations. Obama at times turned to moderator Candy Crowley for a lifeline as the CNN correspondent lost control of the 11 rounds. Even though it was a town-hall format with an audience in the round, the fighters were squarely focused on one another as the audience of “uncommitted” voters was an afterthought.

 

Even Obama’s sparring partner in the practice rounds, surprisingly upbeat for how his training worked out last time, seemed eager to join in the melee — as Romney.

“Tlkd 2 press @hofstra/got a question in french — could’ve answered as Mitt and stayed in character?” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) tweeted before the debate. “Reporter asked me if I’m glad Bobby V gone, if in-character, as Mitt mighta said, I love firing people.”

“4 petes sake/runnin 4 office can’t have illegals – oops sorry I was still in-character as Mitt,” Kerry tweeted during the matchup.

Obama supporters expressed relief that their chosen one hadn’t bombed the sudden-death debate.

“Obama dominated Romney tonight in every single way: in substance, manner, style, and personal appeal,” wrote the president’s harshest pundit critic from the first debate, The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan. “He came back like a lethal but restrained predator, was able to defend own record, think swiftly on his feet.”

http://pjmedia.com/blog/rumble-in-long-island-plenty-of-punches-propel-campaign-to-final-showdown/

[Geee]

Obama, Romney Get Feisty in Second Debate

 

HEMPSTEAD, NY - President Obama was noticeably sharper and more aggressive in tonight's debate, as both candidates exchanged barbs throughout the evening. Mitt Romney excelled by focusing on jobs, jobs, jobs, and repeatedly forcing voters to notice the canyon between Obama's rhetoric and his record. Romney's strongest answer came after Obama attempted to apply lipstick to his failed record in office. Romney unleashed a torrent of facts that pushed back forcefully against each and every one of those claims. It should be cut into an ad as soon as possible. Throughout the night, Romney was asked questions from the audience that could have caused significant trip-ups: Outsourcing, guns (a point on which moderator Candy Crowley followed up twice), and equal pay for women. Romney parried them skillfully. His biggest missed opportunity came, ironically, on Libya -- a subject on which he was unduly vague and allowed the president to offer an indignant response. There are facts that Romney could have raised, but he pulled punches. A mistake, in my view. We'll see if he does so again during the foreign policy debate. As expected, Obama rehearsed a series of attacks on Mitt Romney, many of which have been debunked. The false "$5 Trillion tax cut" line. The "Four Pinocchios" outsourcing claim. Etc, etc. All in all, this setting -- particularly considering the questions asked -- favored Obama, but Romney came prepared. Obama's energy and tone were much improved over Denver, but Romney stood his ground throughout. Grading on the curve established in Denver, Obama had a good night, but Romney had a pretty solid night, as well. We'll see flash polls and the like, but I can't imagine either campaign is particularly disappointed in their man's performance. Next Monday could be a barn-burner, as the two men will be sitting right next to each other at a desk for 90 minutes. I fear we'll hear even more interrupting, one of the most grating elements of both tonight's exchange and the Vice Presidential debate.

 

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/10/16/obama_romney_get_feisty_in_second_debate

[Geee]

Candidates ignore town hall format, attack each other

 

 

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- Faced with a tightening race, President Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney engaged in one of the most hard hitting debates in recent memory Tuesday, often straying from the town hall debate format to attack each other and debate heatedly over energy, taxes and the economy.

 

An articulate and forceful Romney held his own, deflecting a newly energetic Obama, who attacked with the kind of aggression that was lacking in their first debate two weeks earlier.

 

 

"Obama was much better," Democratic strategist Doug Schoen told The Washington Examiner.

The two men, meeting in their second debate, went after each other from the first question, on energy, one of several put to the candidates by uncommitted voters gathered for the event at Hofstra University in New York.

Obama immediately accused Romney of flip-flopping in his support for the coal industry.

 

http://washingtonexaminer.com/candidates-ignore-town-hall-format-attack-each-other/article/2510977#.UH6Fuxx7Fwc

[Geee]

Romney ticks off failed math of Obama’s four years

 

WASHINGTON — Thanks to the debates, we now know our country is being run by a couple of stoner college kids who spend most of their time slouched on the couch, watching TV, playing video games and doing drugs.

 

Vice President Biden goes for the laughing gas and thinks everything is hilarious. President Obama prefers reliving his glory days in Hawaii chilling with the “choom gang” smoking weed and dropping Xanax.

 

 

Thankfully, the president sobered up for last night’s debate and offered a much improved performance. Still, he averted the gaze of Mitt Romney and bore a sullen expression when called upon the carpet.

Mr. Obama’s only real obstacle last night was, well, his own record. The facts of the past four years weighed him down miserably. He tried spinning and weaving, but it was pitiful.

“I think you know better,” Mr. Romney told the audience after Mr. Obama went on a long jag about everything he has done to improve the economy.

“I can tell you that if you were to elect President Obama, you know what you’re going to get,” he said. “You’re going to get a repeat of the last four years.”

All the statistics and details so fluidly commanded by Mr. Romney draped around Mr. Obama like kelp in the ocean.

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/16/hurt-romney-ticks-failed-math-obamas-four-years/

[Geee]

Obama's Candy

 

 

"Can you say that a little louder, Candy?" Obama craved more credit from the moderator, Candy Crowley, for her correction to Mitt Romney that the president had in fact used the word "terror" a day after the killing of his ambassador in Libya. "He did, in fact, sir," Crowley said to Romney.

Obama savored his "victory" in that round, but it was a hollow and disturbing one. Either he already knew it was an act of premeditated terrorism -- in which case he proceeded to lie for two weeks about that on The View, David Letterman, and at the UN -- or that generalized Rose Garden reference to an "act of terror" simply meant a spontaneous act of terror by demonstrators worked up about a YouTube video, in which case he was demanding credit from Crowley for nothing more than incompetence and cluelessness.

 

A master of detail for most of the debate, Romney slipped up on that one by forgetting the Rose Garden reference. That was his one unforced error. But that minor moment of memory loss isn't nearly as disturbing as a president who works harder at debate prep than embassy security and who blames a national humiliation on a "spontaneous demonstration" that didn't even occur.

At the very least, his administration's utterly fictitious account of what happened in Libya stands as a symbol of this administration's colossal incompetence. At worst, it reveals staggering political deception, a willingness to lie about national security for the sake of winning an election.

 

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/10/17/obamas-candy

[Geee]

The Second Debate

 

When the debate commission announced that this year’s town-hall debate—in which questioners would be selected from among undecided voters in the surrounding region—would be held in Long Island, NY, rather than in a swing state, it raised a few eyebrows. Undecided voters in Nassau County generally aren’t like undecided voters in Ohio or Virginia. They tend to be people who start from a liberal foundation but may be a little too populist to be comfortably Democratic voters these days, and so in some respects a kind of mirror image of what we normally think of as swing voters. The questions in Tuesday night’s town-hall debate certainly reflected that character. These were, on the whole, questions from disappointed Democrats. That didn’t necessarily advantage one candidate over the other: It meant some of the subjects taken up in the debate heavily favored Obama but it also meant that the tone of the questioners was almost uniformly disappointed with Obama, which is probably the most dangerous of all attitudes for the incumbent president.

 

These are both significant differences from the first Obama-Romney debate. I think the importance of the subject matter in that first debate has not been sufficiently remarked upon. If the Republican National Committee were to design a presidential debate this year, they would have it focused on the economy, jobs, health care, taxes, spending, and the role of government, which is basically what the first debate was about. It so happens that these are the issues that most concern voters in polls this year, so it’s not hard to see why Jim Lehrer chose them for the domestic-policy debate, but they are issues that naturally favor Mitt Romney, and although it’s certainly true that Obama’s low-energy performance and Romney’s very polished and forceful presentation were key to the outcome of that debate, the fact that the debate was basically fought on Romney’s territory surely contributed to both.

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330709/second-debate-yuval-levin

[Geee]

FACT CHECK: TOP TEN WORST LIES OF THE SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

The Second Presidential Debate featured repeated claims by each candidate that the other was not telling the truth--as well as at least one claim of fact by the moderator that turned out to be false. There were even questionable claims by the audience itself. Here are the top ten worst lies told during the Second Debate:

10. "I told you I would cut taxes for middle-class families, and I did. I told you I’d cut taxes for small businesses, and I have." President Barack Obama has made this claim repeatedly during the campaign, but it is not true, as even the liberal Huffington Post acknowledges. The few tax cuts that Obama did enact--such as the temporary payroll tax holiday--were short-term, or conditional. Furthermore, as the Romney campaign has often pointed out, Obama has raised many taxes on the middle class, including the infamous Obamacare "penalty," and his taxes on "millionaires and billionaires" would hit small businesess.

 

9. "...[H]e was asked, is it fair for somebody like you, making $20 million a year, to pay a lower tax rate than a nurse or a bus driver....And he said, yes, I think that’s fair." Obama was referring to Romney's recent 60 Minutes interview. But the transcript reveals Obama was not telling the truth. Romney was not saying it was fair that higher income should be taxed at a lower rate. He was referring specifically to the principle that capital gains should be taxed lower than other income because it has been taxed once already--a principle, incidentally, that Obama agrees with in his own tax policy.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/17/Top-Ten-Lies-of-the-Second-Presidential-Debate

[Geee]

'INDEPENDENT' AUDIENCE ASKS TWICE AS MANY ANTI-ROMNEY QUESTIONS

 

 

Candy Crowley’s disgraceful performance tonight masked her true failure: her failure to pick questions outside the Daily Kos mailbag. Here’s the full list of questions she pre-screened from members of the “independent” audience. They got more and more egregious as the evening progressed.

 

QUESTION: Mr. President, Governor Romney, as a 20-year-old college student, all I hear from professors, neighbors and others is that when I graduate, I will have little chance to get employment. What can you say to reassure me, but more importantly my parents, that I will be able to sufficiently support myself after I graduate? Romney answered this one easily, but the question itself was framed from a leftist point of view. It is no president’s job to guarantee anyone employment after they graduate. All a president can do is create the conditions for economic growth, which provides jobs. Score this one as a neutral question.

 

QUESTION: Your energy secretary, Steven Chu, has now been on record three times stating it’s not policy of his department to help lower gas prices. Do you agree with Secretary Chu that this is not the job of the Energy Department? This question was directed to President Obama, and it was clearly an anti-Obama question. This led to an exchange in which Obama ended up claiming that low gas prices lead to economic recessions.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/16/audience-questions-2-to-1-anti-Romney

[Geee]

ROMNEY'S SECRET BLOWOUT

 

 

While the left cheers President Obama’s second debate performance with the excitement of Chris Matthews on a prom date with The One, the fact remains that this was not just a bad debate for President Obama. It was a disastrous debate for President Obama. He may have achieved firing up the base, but the base had already been fired up by Vice President Joe Biden’s bizarre performance in the vice presidential debate. He may have achieved not looking comatose, but instead he looked angry and puerile.

Actually, Obama lost in three major ways.

 

Economy. The first loss is the most obvious. Mitt Romney absolutely dismembered Obama on economics. Obama wasn’t merely outclassed. He was out-leagued. Take, for example, the Romney-Obama exchange on gas drilling. After Obama blathered on about how he’d been great for oil supply (false), Romney gutted him with a single line:

 

The proof of whether a strategy is working or not is what the price is that you're paying at the pump. If you're paying less than you paid a year or two ago, why, then, the strategy is working. But you're paying more. When the president took office, the price of gasoline here in Nassau County was about $1.86 a gallon. Now, it's $4.00 a gallon.

 

Obama’s response was perhaps the worst economic gaffe in modern debate history:

 

Well, think about what the governor -- think about what the governor just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse, because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression, as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney's now promoting. So, it's conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/16/Romney-big-winner

[logicnreason]

The fault here lies very much in the fact that the RNC won't demand either an impartial forum/moderator or no moderator at all.

 

The republicans throw their candidate into a biased, bigoted arena unarmed save for their own wit....and then expect them to win!!

 

Why do the republicans continuously allow this to occur??

[Valin]

The fault here lies very much in the fact that the RNC won't demand either an impartial forum/moderator or no moderator at all.

 

The republicans throw their candidate into a biased, bigoted arena unarmed save for their own wit....and then expect them to win!!

 

Why do the republicans continuously allow this to occur??

 

I have said it before...These are not debates...these are joint press conferences!

If we are not going to have real debates, what is needed is not a moderator, but a time keeper. Put a timer on the microphones, so that they shut off after the allotted time.

 

Who won? Who Lost? Who cares! Did you learn anything to help decide who to vote for!

[nickydog]

The fault here lies very much in the fact that the RNC won't demand either an impartial forum/moderator or no moderator at all.

 

The republicans throw their candidate into a biased, bigoted arena unarmed save for their own wit....and then expect them to win!!

 

Why do the republicans continuously allow this to occur??

 

I have said it before...These are not debates...these are joint press conferences!

If we are not going to have real debates, what is needed is not a moderator, but a time keeper. Put a timer on the microphones, so that they shut off after the allotted time.

 

Who won? Who Lost? Who cares! Did you learn anything to help decide who to vote for!

 

Yes! Mitt Romney still uses binders. Not cool! I'm voting for Obama.

[pollyannaish]

Biggest aha moment of this debate accursed on this thread for me:

 

Not all undecided voters are created equal.

 

 

Doh! Should have been looking through that prism for a long time!

[pollyannaish]

@nickydog I am so glad I'm not the only one who still love binders! I'm trying to train myself out of them to keep up with the whippersnappers but they are still my preferred form of information organization.

 

What gets me is that this is a tactic to distract women from the important part of that exchange:

 

Obama is for a law that makes women get equal pay for equal work.

 

Romney actually understands that women have different workplace needs and finds ways to actually accommodate those.

 

Which would women rather have as a boss? The guy that supported some symbolic law that doesn't functionally change things, or the guy that supports what you actually need in every day life?

[SrWoodchuck]

@Geee! A "tour de force" of posting! 13 in a row! Thank you.

[SrWoodchuck]

@nickydog I am so glad I'm not the only one who still love binders! I'm trying to train myself out of them to keep up with the whippersnappers but they are still my preferred form of information organization.

 

What gets me is that this is a tactic to distract women from the important part of that exchange:

 

Obama is for a law that makes women get equal pay for equal work.

 

Romney actually understands that women have different workplace needs and finds ways to actually accommodate those.

 

Which would women rather have as a boss? The guy that supported some symbolic law that doesn't functionally change things, or the guy that supports what you actually need in every day life?

@pollyannaish!

 

War on Women: Democratic Senators Pay Female Staffers Substantially Less

 

 

http://www.ijreview.com/2012/05/6377-war-on-women-democratic-senators-pay-female-staffers-substantially-less/

 

War on women? Take a look in the mirror, Democrats.

 

The Washington Free Beacon has done an analysis of Senate salary data using publicly available salary data, and they found that “of the 50 Senate Democratic caucus examined in the analysis, 37 senators paid their female staffers less than male staffers.”

[Geee]

@Geee! A "tour de force" of posting! 13 in a row! Thank you.

 

[pollyannaish]

@nickydog I am so glad I'm not the only one who still love binders! I'm trying to train myself out of them to keep up with the whippersnappers but they are still my preferred form of information organization.

 

What gets me is that this is a tactic to distract women from the important part of that exchange:

 

Obama is for a law that makes women get equal pay for equal work.

 

Romney actually understands that women have different workplace needs and finds ways to actually accommodate those.

 

Which would women rather have as a boss? The guy that supported some symbolic law that doesn't functionally change things, or the guy that supports what you actually need in every day life?

@pollyannaish!

 

War on Women: Democratic Senators Pay Female Staffers Substantially Less

 

 

http://www.ijreview....tantially-less/

 

War on women? Take a look in the mirror, Democrats.

 

The Washington Free Beacon has done an analysis of Senate salary data using publicly available salary data, and they found that “of the 50 Senate Democratic caucus examined in the analysis, 37 senators paid their female staffers less than male staffers.”

 

 

Is there ANYTHING, ANYTHING that the left says, that they actually DO in real life? ANYTHING?

[Rheo]

Hmm...thinking. Nope.