I’ll probably be back about the time the debate is over, but do comment away. I’ll check in as soon as I can. If you need to read live blogging I recommend Richard Adams at The Guardian, but of course I hope you leave comments here, and I hope not too many comments get stuck in the spam filter.
Update: I’m back. I take it this debate is going better than the last one.
Update: I’ve been reading comments and seen some of the highlight clips, and I am relieved the President won the evening. The clip of Romney being called out on Benghazi was priceless.
See Greg Sargent, “Obama Turns It Around,” and Michael Tomasky, “Obama Is Back.”
I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and I can’t type and watch a debate at the same time.. so I’ll pre-comment.. Oh, wow, the lies are dripping from Romney’s lips!
I have a very uneasy feeling going into this debate. Romney is a bully and I just don’t see that Obama has the cajones to walk right up and flatten Romney’s nose-which is what he desperately needs!
Romney will be deemed the winner because its a better soap seller of a story, infact I’d bet they want a Romney victory next month purely for short term ratings. The media has turned our democracy into a game show and they win all the money!
Have I said lately how little I like ‘town hall’ style ‘debates’.
Man, Romney pretty much wiffed that first answer about jobs for college grads.
I hope other people are noticing how far Romney runs away from the original question before he gets to answering something that isn’t the actual question. How the “bankrupt” thing relates to the finding people jobs, I have no idea.
And Obama says “just isn’t true”! Drink!
Lies from the get go…pell grants, the President just called it a lie
Did Obama just rope-a-dope Romney on oil leases? Luring him to get up in his face demanding an answer to how many leases, then going into the details on why leases were being cancelled?
I’m guessing the insulting confrontation Mitt plays well to his base, but I find it very rude.
Yeeee-ha — he just said that what Governor Romney said was not true. Fact checkers are going to have a heyday with this one. The agile format seems to have greater chance of luring Romeny’s loose talk into the open.
Oh goody, MS Fallano is providing the specifics that Romney never does. He doesn’t seem to like them enough to talk about them, though.
Oooh, the middle class will love that they too will be able to pay more tax on working than on sitting on their asses.
What constitutes the middle class in a dollar figure?
Romny doesn’t like the debate rules or any others for that matter. Not looking good for slippery Mitt. Romeny is gesticulating more and seems frustrated and is starting to have a panicked look. Now he’s staking claim to lowering tax on the middle class. He’s resorting to figures now that have Obama causing terrible hardship on the middle class. He’s on thin ice I think.
Obama demonstrates record on middle class and small business tax cuts and here is comes with taxes on the wealthy to which Romney will predicatbly reply…oh hell, we all know what he’ll say.
Mitt sure has worked hard to memorize a bunch of random statistics. And he does love his “five point plan”. Which is a lot like the Underwear Gnomes three-point plan, only with two more points – “doing good stuff” and “making things better”.
“Of course they add up.”
Man, that was pretty darn insulting.
Lie. The government paid off the Olympics shortfall.
We’re against all kinds of discrimination? Wahh, Obama is playing the race card already!
Difference between Romney and Bush on foreign policy? Well, Romney has Dan Senor as a high level aide, and he was a mere underling for Bush. Romney will appoint El Mustachio John Bolton as Sec. of State, and Bush had Condi.
Need I go on?
Notice how Mitt used the dispute about time to distract from the fact that the lady asked about foreign policy and Bush?
Romney had a meltdown on the question of why he’s different from Bush!
Note: Do not mention the Thingy Card, the youknowwhatImean card. You’ll be in moderation till the thing is over.
Do not mention not M*nt**n*ng that thing. Moderation time.
Bets on the effect of saying “moderation”?
Mitt goes on to list the things Obama hasn’t gotten done, which leads me to ask why I should believe he can get his 5-point plan done? Is he a wizard?
When is Obama going to bring up the fact that he has tried to help the middle class but the Republican Congress has blocked every initiative he has put forward?
When is someone going to mention the $10 million bailout he got when he was starting Bain?
Does Mitt know that Presidents have to deal with Congress? That they don’t just get to say what happens the way a CEO does? He seems to blame Obama for the fact that Congress doesn’t work anymore.
When is someone going to mention the fact that some of Romney’s early investors in Bain were thugs from Central America that funded right-wing death squads in El Salvador?
How is mittwitt different from bush? bush only bankrupt 3-4 companies- mittwitt has bankrupt 100’s.
“Sit down Governor Romney” as he was changing the subject.
Wait, because Obama didn’t get comprehensive immigration reform done in his first year, I’m supposed to vote for the guy who would never do it? Wha?
Mitt conveniently ‘forgot’ how it looked the morning after the attack when his team, knowing nothing of the details, accused the administration of apologizing to the attackers. Mitt is still politicizing the whole issue.
Good question from Crowley regarding Romney flip-flop on assault weapons. Romney says it has to be mutual but the gun lobby gives up nothing..zilch.
Okay, I’m on the correct side, so I’m biased, but:
Mitt Romney answers questions like a car salesman.
Barack Obama answers questions like a fellow member of social group or your faith community who cares about you.
I laughed out loud at Mitt trying to pretend that he’s sign an assault weapons ban if it was bipartisan, and that it was the lack of leadership (not the NRA) that was the problem.
On the stage with a president raised by an incredible single mom. Oh the balls!!!
Obama is correct about education to create engineers. All Romeny had was the “Government does not create jobs” talking poiint.
Mitt wants me to believe it will be “straightforward” to bring making iPads here from China? Because of currency manipulation, and counterfeiting and hacking? Seriously? Those millions of people willing to work for pennies has nothing to do with it? The willingness to leave home and live in dormitories because it’s better than being a peasant in the country is not involved? Who buys that?
Well, of course it’s because I’m on his side, but it seems to me Obama took the last, not really wonderful, question, and knocked it out of the park — though not without major help from Romney’s feebleness with it.
In closing Obama could not have delineated differences better, addressing how the GI bill helped the country and was not a government handout.
I like Candy Crowley even more now. Now to the judges scorecard and some fact checking.
Talking head on PBS just pointed out that Romney’s proud effort hiring women in Mass. was affirmative action. Now, THAT’S a zinger.
“Talking head on PBS just pointed out that Romney’s proud effort hiring women in Mass. was affirmative action. Now, THAT’S a zinger.”
And he made sure the trees were all the right height in Massachusetts, too.
But, seriously, Obama ROCKED. And Michelle ROCKED to a packed house down here in NC earlier today. Go Team!
“Mitt Romney answers questions like a car salesman.”
That was/is the Bain business model. Identify troubled companies that could be cheaply spiffed up. Buy them. Spiff them up, spending as little as possible, and sell them.
Also, unlike used car dealers as far as I know, removing and selling any parts that that can be removed without scaring off a potential buyer.
(Maybe I’m being unfair to Bain here, not having studied the companies history. So it’s possible I’m at least partly wrong.)
Gosh! I’m surprised to learn that I am responsible for all that AK47 violence because I started having babies before I married somebody.
The mighty lady parts are the source of all evil, I take it.
I’m still pissed with Ann Romney saying, “It’s our turn now”.. No consideration for the American people, pure arrogance in thinking her and that souless vampire husband of hers can just lie and buy their way into the White House.. They’ll never get my vote so they’ll have to content themselves with living in their 5 houses.
Who thought it was a good idea to have that nice black jazz musician debate that coked-up old white used-car salesman?
My Obama lovin’ Mama ‘n me loved the Presidents performance.
He clearly won. He was more assertive time, but at the same time, he was calm. It looked and sounded like Mitt literally was seeing how much word-salad he could spew in two minutes, and then demand more time.
Three great moments for the President:
-The first, was when he talked about pensions, and Mitt, and investments in China. Mitt came at him, and I think something like 3 or 4 times asked “Have you looked at your pension?” to Obama. And Obama stood there as Mitt kept getting closer, calmly looked at Mitt, and said, “I don’t know. My pensions not as big as yours.”
BOOM!
-Mitt was at his smirking, reptile smilin’, glaring worst when he thought he had the kill, and went for that zinger about Libya and what the President said the next morning. He had this really nasty evil look as he glowered and smirked at the President, who had just said that he DID say that it was an act of terror that morning. And Mitt, thinking he had him right in his crosshairs, and said, “Ok, I wanted that on the record.” Candy Crowley who did a very, very, good job, schooled Mitt right then and there, saying that yes, it was indeed what the President had said, and Mitt ended up being ‘hoist by his own retardedness.’ The President said, “Say it louder, Candy,” and the audience had one of its few reactions that night. And it sure as hell wasn’t a cheer for Ol’ Mitt.
-And then, Mitt opened up his yap at the end, and talked about caring about a 100% of the people. Obama, wound his haymaker up, and hit Mitt right on the button, with his 47% comment.
AND DOWN GOES ROMNEY! DOWN GOES ROMNEY!! DOWN GOES ROMNEY!!!
That nice black jazz musician left the coked-up old white used-car salesman a whimpering puddle of flop-sweat.
Also too – what was that ‘binders full of women’ line about?
Sounds like a serial killers trophy book.
CUNDgulag, you are probably way ahead of me on this, but here’s a link to the “binders of women” story.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/10/16/binders-of-women-its-not-just-a-meme-with-its-own-twitter-and-facebook-page-its-a-lie/
I’ll talk to you all later.
I’m taking my Obama lovin’ Mama to the cemetary, to visit my late Obama lovin’ Pop.
what was that ‘binders full of women’ line about? Sounds like a serial killers trophy book.
It’s already become this debate’s “Big Bird” moment. Mittens believes the womenfolk should be kept in binders! I heard it replayed and mocked this morning on a local classic rock radio station. Man is an idiot.
Nate Silver, this morning:
And we learn what? CNN is just stupid. Oh wait, already knew that.
Romney’s Olympics whooper fact-checked… yet he continues to lie on his resume for which any corporate interviewer would say “Next!” were he applying for a job.