Debate 2012 part deux

Well there was another debate last night.

I have got to say that it was invigorating that Obama actually showed up!

I do believe that Romney started out better, and the deciding points were really made at the beginning, within the first 30 minutes. Then they were relatively evenly paired for the balance.

Of course I was listening on the radio not watching the tv so there might be a difference in the two venues.

Anyway, I am certain that Obama’s supporters are going to count this one as a win. And I will agree that he did far better in this debate than he did in the first.

But I think that if they are going to be honest about it the best they can really say is that it was only a better performance than the president turned in last time.

The only way the idea of Obama winning works is if you do not count that the real issues were where Romney won, economy, foreign relations, track records… it was the petty things that were not issues where Obama could “speak with authority”.

Personally I think Romney had the lead from the beginning… but then I may be adding more to what I heard than really happened.

But let me make the points that I feel most support my theory.

When asked about gun control or fast and furious Obama turned the talk to community colleges.

When asked about gas prices, Obama basically said high prices were a good thing. (not in MY world, I am not getting paid more but I have to pay more.)

When asked about better pay for women, Obama talked about contraceptives for women.

And, just like the vice-presidential debates, Obama continuously interrupted Romney and would not let him finish an answer.

For that matter so did the moderator. I felt that the debate was structured to favor Obama because of that and for other points.
The majority of the questions the moderator allowed were geared toward Democrat talking points, yet on every one I heard Romney give a decent refutation.

In the meantime, most of the time, when a point came up where Obama needed to provide a counter proof or refutation he could not.

Romney also stayed on topic far better than Obama even bringing the debate back from whatever lah lah land that Obama took it to, and gave an answer to the actual question.

Obama did not stay on topic most of the time.

(This, notably, happened in the discussions about the economy, energy and gun control.)

I did feel there were points that Romney COULD have made but he failed to do so. For an example, I would have liked to see Romney make a better point facing down Obama on the issue of Libya.

I also would have liked Romney to make more points using the numbers that are out there. A common complaint the liberals like to come up with the past two weeks has been that the Romney / Ryan team are not providing enough details.

Conveniently these same people are the ones who forget that Obama’s entire plan when running four years ago were “Hope and Change.” And “I’m different than George Bush.” you do not get much more vague than that.

I feel Romney did a good job with pointing out the failures of Obama to actually accomplish the, few, promises he DID make four years ago.

When Romney pointed out that Obama had promised “unemployment down to 5.4%” or that the deficit would be “cut in half” or that Obama had promised his Obama care plan would “reduce the costs for middle class families insurance by $2,500”.

Then Romney went on to point out that the unemployment is 7.8% which is a difference of 9 million Americans. Worse, that figure forgets the thousands of people of working age who have simply left the work force.
Also Romney mentioned that the deficit is doubled from what Obama inherited and the middle class now pays $2,500.00 MORE on their health insurance then they did AND that is going to go up another 2,500 when Obamacare is fully implemented.

Romney also pointed out that welfare recipients have gone from 30 million to 47 million.

All of that, as Romney said, was even though Obama had a super majority in BOTH houses of congress for the first two years of his term.

On top of those, Obama failed to lower any other prices for the middle class or raise the standard of living for any of us.

I would also have added that he has not closed down Guantanamo bay prison.

ALL of those were promises that Obama made ALL if them he failed to complete and he failed in these EVEN THOUGH he had a, filibuster proof, super majority of democrats in congress when he first took office.
That means the republicans could NOT have done anything to stop him if he wanted to pass this legislation. It did not need to be bipartisan.
In fact, to prove it, there were a couple of bills that he did pass that did not have any republican support whatsoever.

So why couldn’t he have done the same on all these things he made a promise on?

I feel that Romney COULD have done a better job pointing at these things but even though he didn’t take it all the way, Obama still failed to adequately answer the points that came out of that.

Of course Romney was playing against a stacked deck.

Like the time that Candy Crowley claimed that Obama had called Libya terrorism when he hadn’t, or the way that she kept blocking Romney, stopping him from being able to respond to claims made by Obama.
Or the way that in this debate Obama got 9% more time to talk than Romney got.

So for those reasons I have to say I think that Romney did show himself to be the better man, and thus the winner, in this debate as well.

Now it is out there for the people to decide.
They will be the ones who will make that decision in three weeks.

To them I say good luck.