2012 U.S. Presidential Election

[Sasaki Kojiro]

After sleeping on it, I have decided that the worst performance was by Lehrer. Whether you agree with Romney or not, the comes a point where the moderator has to say, no be quiet we have to move on to the next subject. Romney won because he forced his way into having the last line on the every single topic. Plain and simple. Obama wasn't really timid, he was calm and took time to say what he wanted to say. He only looks bad in comparison to Romney's rapid fire points and his determination to win the rhetorical positioning. This is not to say that Obama didn't blunder, because his big blunder was in allowing Romney to be the only one pushing Lehrer around for an extra 10 seconds.

Lehrer did just fine, the moderation was just like most debates except the candidates had more time to talk. He's being unfairly scapegoated.

Obama had 4 more minutes of speaking time.

The first 30 minutes of the debate can be summed up as:

Obama: Here are my numbers.
Romney: Here are my numbers.
Obama: Those numbers are wrong.
Romney: Your numbers are wrong.
Obama: No your numbers are wrong.
Romney: No, yours.

Here's a microcosm of the debate:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

ROMNEY: No, it can become out of date. And what's happened with some of the legislation that's been passed during the president's term, you've seen regulation become excessive, and it's hurt -- it's hurt the economy. Let me give you an example.

Dodd-Frank was passed. And it includes within it a number of provisions that I think has some unintended consequences that are harmful to the economy. One is it designates a number of banks as too big to fail, and they're effectively guaranteed by the federal government. This is the biggest kiss that's been given to -- to New York banks I've ever seen. This is an enormous boon for them. There've been 122 community and small banks have closed since Dodd- Frank.

So there's one example. Here's another. In Dodd-Frank...

LEHRER: Do you want to repeal Dodd-Frank?

ROMNEY: Well, I would repeal and replace it. We're not going to get rid of all regulation. You have to have regulation. And there are some parts of Dodd-Frank that make all the sense in the world. You need transparency, you need to have leverage limits for...

LEHRER: Well, here's a specific...

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: But let's -- let's mention -- let me mention the other one. Let's talk...

(CROSSTALK)

LEHRER: No, let's not. Let's let him respond -- let's let him respond to this specific on Dodd-Frank and what the governor just said.

OBAMA: I think this is a great example. The reason we have been in such a enormous economic crisis was prompted by reckless behavior across the board.

Now, it wasn't just on Wall Street. You had loan officers were -- that were giving loans and mortgages that really shouldn't have been given, because the folks didn't qualify. You had people who were borrowing money to buy a house that they couldn't afford. You had credit agencies that were stamping these as A1 great investments when they weren't.

But you also had banks making money hand over fist, churning out products that the bankers themselves didn't even understand, in order to make big profits, but knowing that it made the entire system vulnerable.

So what did we do? We stepped in and had the toughest reforms on Wall Street since the 1930s. We said you've got -- banks, you've got to raise your capital requirements. You can't engage in some of this risky behavior that is putting Main Street at risk. We've going to make sure that you've got to have a living will so -- so we can know how you're going to wind things down if you make a bad bet so we don't have other taxpayer bailouts.

OBAMA: In the meantime, by the way, we also made sure that all the help that we provided those banks was paid back every single dime, with interest.

Now, Governor Romney has said he wants to repeal Dodd-Frank.

And, you know, I appreciate and it appears we've got some agreement that a marketplace to work has to have some regulation. But in the past, Governor Romney has said he just want to repeal Dodd- Frank, roll it back.

And so the question is: Does anybody out there think that the big problem we had is that there was too much oversight and regulation of Wall Street? Because if you do, then Governor Romney is your candidate. But that's not what I believe.

ROMNEY: Sorry, but that's just not -- that's just not the facts. Look, we have to have regulation on Wall Street. That's why I'd have regulation. But I wouldn't designate five banks as too big to fail and give them a blank check. That's one of the unintended consequences of Dodd-Frank. It wasn't thought through properly. We need to get rid of that provision because it's killing regional and small banks. They're getting hurt.

Let me mention another regulation in Dodd-Frank. You say we were giving mortgages to people who weren't qualified. That's exactly right. It's one of the reasons for the great financial calamity we had. And so Dodd-Frank correctly says we need to have qualified mortgages, and if you give a mortgage that's not qualified, there are big penalties, except they didn't ever go on and define what a qualified mortgage was.

It's been two years. We don't know what a qualified mortgage is yet. So banks are reluctant to make loans, mortgages. Try and get a mortgage these days. It's hurt the housing market because Dodd-Frank didn't anticipate putting in place the kinds of regulations you have to have. It's not that Dodd-Frank always was wrong with too much regulation. Sometimes they didn't come out with a clear regulation.

I will make sure we don't hurt the functioning of our -- of our marketplace and our business, because I want to bring back housing and get good jobs.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012...#ixzz28M2Dc69T

Romney makes his statement about regulation etc. Obama ignores everything romney said and goes into his pre-planned speech, the kind of thing that sounds great to his supporters when he's at a rally "does anyone believe the problem was too much regulation?" etc. He isn't able to counter Romney....why not contest romney's criticism of the dodd-frank act? That's why Romney seemed to get the last word a lot, not because of bullying, but because obama had nothing else to say, because his position was very shallow, and he wasn't up to debating. Call it "keeping calm and saying what he wanted to say" if you want.