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ROMNEY: No, it can become out of date.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.

[a completely inoffensive name]

long transcript

But in that segment you posted, Romney is not really saying anything either. Saying three talking points without a plan on how he is going to change that other than "this isn't good." is not really a statement. Obama does a really bad job at replying, no doubt. But no one is really bringing up details. Lehrer lets the 122 community banks number slide without any challenge or follow up.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

But in that segment you posted, Romney is not really saying anything either. Saying three talking points without a plan on how he is going to change that other than "this isn't good." is not really a statement. Obama does a really bad job at replying, no doubt. But no one is really bringing up details. Lehrer lets the 122 community banks number slide without any challenge or follow up.

The dodd-frank act is thousands of pages long and the question was a general one about "the level of regulation in the economy". He was asked about principles, the only details were to illustrate. And that's what the debates are for...in fact that's almost the entirety of what we elected someone based on. Because we don't know what's going to happen during the presidency, we don't know what situations are going to come up, we don't know what the legislative debate is going to be like, what will be possible and what won't, we don't even know which party will control the houses. Why do you think a debate is the place for detailed explanatory speeches?

My impression is that the debate was a shocker to a lot of the liberal pundits because they were amazed the president knew better than to use their dumb talking points in place where Romney could reply directly.

[a completely inoffensive name]

The dodd-frank act is thousands of pages long and the question was a general one about "the level of regulation in the economy". He was asked about principles, the only details were to illustrate. And that's what the debates are for...in fact that's almost the entirety of what we elected someone based on. Because we don't know what's going to happen during the presidency, we don't know what situations are going to come up, we don't know what the legislative debate is going to be like, what will be possible and what won't, we don't even know which party will control the houses. Why do you think a debate is the place for detailed explanatory speeches?

Because debates are worthless otherwise. We already know their principles Sasaki, we already know what they think in general about X law regarding Y. These are not the subjects that should be the highlight of a debate, because only the most clueless, ignorant, undecided voter has no clue about what each candidate stands for and what his principles are.

But then again, the debates are meant for the undecided in the first place. So maybe you are right.

My impression is that the debate was a shocker to a lot of the liberal pundits because they were amazed the president knew better than to use their dumb talking points in place where Romney could reply directly.

I try not to let my view paint how the debate went, I will admit that Obama did a very terrible job in this debate. However, I think also think it was a failure on some level on everyones part as well.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Because debates are worthless otherwise. We already know their principles Sasaki, we already know what they think in general about X law regarding Y. These are not the subjects that should be the highlight of a debate, because only the most clueless, ignorant, undecided voter has no clue about what each candidate stands for and what his principles are.

But it's not about the candidates saying what their principles are. That's all obama did, and that's why he lost. It's about the candidates challenging each other's principles. Candidates state principles all the time and the question is always "do they mean them?" In their regular speeches they can get away with just rhetoric. The media is supposed to challenge them but does a poor job. In the debate they can challenge each other--"if that's really your principle, then..." etc.

[a completely inoffensive name]

But it's not about the candidates saying what their principles are. That's all obama did, and that's why he lost. It's about the candidates challenging each other's principles. Candidates state principles all the time and the question is always "do they mean them?" In their regular speeches they can get away with just rhetoric. The media is supposed to challenge them but does a poor job. In the debate they can challenge each other--"if that's really your principle, then..." etc.

The only thing that politicians do when challenging each others principles is rhetoric. This isn't a university class where they are using logical arguments to come to conclusions about why the opponents views on X are bad. What good came out of Romney's attacks on Obama's principles (since Obama didn't do the same in return)? We had more talking points, "death panels" came up again, and some blatant lies in regards to Medicare. How is this a good purpose for debates?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

The only thing that politicians do when challenging each others principles is rhetoric. This isn't a university class where they are using logical arguments to come to conclusions about why the opponents views on X are bad. What good came out of Romney's attacks on Obama's principles (since Obama didn't do the same in return)? We had more talking points, "death panels" came up again, and some blatant lies in regards to Medicare. How is this a good purpose for debates?

Obama didn't do the same in turn because he couldn't. That was what was shown and that's the good that came out of it and that's why Romney won.

Obama's bland and sweeping "there's a choice between Republicans who are anti-regulation, and me who thinks that some regulation is good" is shallow and doesn't hold up to contact with reality. Romney doesn't have to say much to counter that, all he has to do is say that he supports some regulation, but that x,y,z of such and such are a failure, and that he knows how to have regulations without failures like that. He actually started with that and then Obama came in with his standard bit as a (non) response. Romney's challenge of Obama is claiming that Obama views regulations in a vague way as a cure all without having the know how to see how they play out--and Obama feeds right into that with his bit of narrative history, with his self-congratulatory "toughest reforms since the 1930's" etc.

It's not "just rhetoric" it's rhetoric getting shown up.

[drone]

I would love to see a debate PTI-style. Topics on the rundown list, discussion timed with buzzers, and most importantly, a "Stat Boy" that points out the lies the candidates tell.