As America limps towards the Presidential election, we find ourselves as divided a nation as ever. Conservatives and Progressives argue daily over everything-taxes, climate change, health care and a list of issues that never seems to end. Most Americans have long since decided where they stand, and damned if any debate changes that.
Fortunately, tonight’s town hall-style debate audience will have none of those Americans. Instead, we get a debate moderated by an anchor from America’s lamest cable network, populated by our lamest Americans: The undecided voters. We all know the type-unsure of who they will vote for, despite the fact that the President is an incumbent and Mitt Romney has been campaigning for this job since before we knew what an iPhone was.
They are truly the weakest Americans, unable to decide what they believe in, sadly maleable to Mitt Romney’s complete upending of his entire platform 12 days ago and eager to back whoever they think might be the winner, because that’s who Americans are now. We are all Yankees fans.
8:56- As always, we begin with the housekeeping items. First off-another tip of the hat to Cletar for tonight’s Karate Kid inspired image. Secondly-can we collectively agree that the town hall format, with its designated talking zones and mics that cut off after one question, is the height of bullshit campaigning?
8:59- For the record, I’m watching on MSNBC, if only to watch Chris Matthews’ head explode in the event of another Obama mail-in.
9:00- It’s game time, folks! Which pre-screened, fully vetted, watered down question will the candidates face first?
9:02- Candy, if you think the candidates will be concise and on point, you’ve clearly not met these two men. But, good for you!
9:02- Honestly, I appreciate that these guys smile and shake hands before they go out and say awful things about each other for the next 90 minutes. That’s pleasant.
9:03- Ouch-they put the most awkward kid in the room on the spot to start. I hope this gets him laid, b/c Mitt’s 45 seconds of clock eating saying ‘thank you’ isn’t going to get this kid a paycheck.
9:05- That was the emptiest mountain of platitudes I’ve ever heard, and the President still has to go.
9:06- The poor kid who asked that question is going to watch this later, catch himself staring slack-jawed while the President answered and go “FUCK!”
9:07- Candy’s creeping into the follow-up zone, asking about folks who are unemployed today. She’s giving them both a chance to talk about benefits, stimulus, and direct hiring. We will get none of those in return.
9:10- Well, the President has gone on the offensive much more in the first 10 minutes of this debate than he did in the entire first debate, and is doing it without appearing like an ‘angry black man’, whatever the hell that means.
9:11- Who had 9:11 for the first time Mitt Romney would try to bowl over the moderator? I’m sure we’ll hear Mitt talk about buying CNN and firing her at some point later on in this debate.
9:14- The first sign that the President is on better footing-he tied green energy manufacturing policy back to the debate’s first question about middle class jobs.
9:15- Ethanol? Ethanol? Someone is still fucking that chicken?
9:15- People in coal country grabbed Mitt’s arm? I’ll take odds that he burned that suit in front of a homeless shelter at 5-1.
9:17- Yay! Drill for oil in public parks! What does the public need them for, anyway? Shucks, thanks Mr. President!
9:18- Forget Race to the Top, we’re gonna get ourselves a Race to Burn a Hole in the Ozone.
9:19- Guess who looks like a dickhead right now? The guy who’s a known dickhead. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
9:20- Holy. Shit. Mitt Romney just addressed a sitting President as though he were a member of The Help. Sean Hannity masturbates for you, my friend.
9:21-Yes! Let’s drag that Canadian oil across the plains, and ship that shit overseas! America!
9:22- Christ ‘win the future’ makes another appearance. I hate ‘win the future’.
9:23- Mitt Romney just bulldozed Candy in order to repeat the same platitudes. Good strategy.
9:24- This woman started her tax question about the rates and takes it into specifics about deductions-which was a nice little set-up and trap. Of course, Mitt Romney will only answer the first part of her question. I hope, hope the President forces him to answer for those deductions.
9:25- Oh! It’s ‘Choose Your Own Deduction’. I can see that getting through Congress. Right along with the plan to give cars to terrorists.
9:28- I’m just going to leave this little piece of data here, to show how fucking stupid we are to be talking about Clinton-era marginal tax rates if we actually give two fucks about the deficit, which of course, we don’t actually.
9:31- On Mitt’s small-business related lie on taxes: Read this, dipshit.
9:33- I was promised there would be no math tonight, Mr. President. He is literally disemboweling Willard’s tax plan right now, though I wish they’d leave Big Bird the hell alone.
9:36- Candy gave Willard an out to even seem reasonable, and he will have none of it. And there it is, Mittens saying ‘foreign’ and ‘President’ in the same sentence.
9:37- Lily Ledbetter, Pell Grants, increased enforcement against discrimination-the President is hitting all the high notes, as you would expect. Romney will counter by talking about how he tried super hard to put women in his cabinet b/c, geewilikers, he was going to need to run for President someday.
9:41- It’s entertaining to me to watch the clock run out behind Romney and realize that Candy Crowley is just sitting on her thumbs. Someone show this to the Fox & Friends crew tomorrow when the get all fake-outraged about the balance of time.
9:43- I’d love to ask for a collection of .gifs showing Willard smugging in the background, but they’d all look the same.
9:45- You know who else cares about equality of women’s pay? Those men who rely on their wives to pay for their lavish lifestyles. What about the kept men vote, gentlemen?
9:45- Mitt Romney picks a great time to bitch about the time, so that he doesn’t have to answer the question about W.
9:46- Shorter Willard: President Bush and I are different people-he pretended to be from Texas, I pretend to be a moderate, then an extremist, then a moderate again.
9:51- Oh sure, let the black guy ask the black President a question. I’m tempted to go see how racist Ann Coulter can make this sound.
9:52- On my screen it just says “What have you done to earn my vote in 2012?” This would be where those photos of dead Osama Bin Laden might come in handy.
9:54- The other answer to “What have you done to earn my vote?” should include an appearance by this guy.
9:56- Yes, because America is the same country it was an entire generation ago. I was worried we wouldn’t get a Reagan reference. Now, go sell some weapons to terrorists in celebration, everyone!
10:00- Boo Obama for not fixing immigration at the same time he was saving the economy and trying to pass healthcare!
10:01- ‘We are a nation of immigrants.’ Platitudes we can agree on!
10:02- ‘Gang-bangers’? Did the President take that straight from the Newt Gingrich scare quote book?
10:05- Lorraine looks like the epitome of non-fucking-plussed by this response.
10:07- And Mitt Romney brought up the blind trust, so allow me to share this with you.
10:08- I will say that I think the President seems a lot looser tonight.
10:08- Yes, sir, I’m sure you and your co-workers were just sitting around talking about Libya. That sounds like a very average American thing to do.
10:12- Good lord-God forbid that in the few days after a complete surprise attack halfway around the world in a war-torn, fucked to hell nation, it takes some time to sort out all of the facts. This isn’t asking your butler who broke the vase, Willard, which is likely a much larger tragedy to you.
10:16- I’ve got a whole sack of nickels to give the President, so he can knock Mitt Romney upside his smug, lying head with it, and then put it in the campaign coffers.
10:18- Wait, an assault weapons question? Who let this commie-leftist in with the undecideds? Good for you, ma’am.
10:20- Those of you who, like me, are hoping to see a re-introduction of the assault weapons ban: Don’t hold your breath. And, buy Kevlar.
10:21- It’s illegal to have automatic weapons in this country? Where? Canada? Does Mitt need a civics lesson or a geography lesson here?
10:21- See, if more poor people get married, they won’t shoot each other. What. The. Fuck. And now we’ll go into Fast & Furious. Christ.
10:25- The title of this debate should be ‘Uncomfortable Americans Read From Notecards to Powerful Men’.
10:27- Barack Obama will point out all of the jobs Mitt Romney has outsourced in 3…2…1….
10:27- Also making China’s goods much cheaper here? Brutally inhuman working conditions and a significantly lower standard of living. You can label them whatever the fuck you want, Willard, they aren’t turning the corner on those things anytime soon.
10:32- Candy actually asks a very relevant question. The President actually gives a very honest answer-some of those jobs, aren’t coming home, kids. This creates a bit of a problem, because, frankly, not everyone is cut out for high skill jobs, and the question becomes-how do we find a way to value the hard work of low-skill folks?
10:34- What the fuck? Is this guy interviewing for a Cub Scout Troop Leader position?
10:35- Mitt Romney did indeed work as a missionary in France during the Vietnam war.
10:37- I feel like we could cut and paste these closing statements and lay them directly over the top of closing statements from the last debate.
10:38- Oh, HI, 47%! It’s like the President waited until the closing, knowing he had the last word, to drop that in there. The Fox outrage machine will have to work overtime on that one.
10:39- The first thing the President did at the end? Shake the hand and say hello to the gentleman sitting closet to him and sharing a smile. The first thing Romney does? Walks like a stiff to get his wife on stage. Telling about who was more comfortable in this one.
10: 42- Chris Matthews is practically giddy right now, scoring this thing like a boxing match, which is both amusing and really fucking depressing. This is about the future of our country-a reassertion of the social contract or the final push back to a new Gilded Age. This is not sport, kids.
10:45- Steve Schmidt is, unremarkably, finding bullshit ways to say that Mitt Romney didn’t get pummeled into a corner tonight, if that tells you anything.
10:48- I love me some Chris Hayes, but he just went ‘Well Mitt Romney did it first’ in regards to breaking the rules about addressing each other directly. True statement, not his finest moment though.
Ultimately, substance aside (and goodness knows, Americans hate substance), this was clearly a stronger performance by the President. He was much firmer in rebutting Romney’s arguments and seemed more at ease with the audience and the moderator. Romney, for the most part, did his best to project strength, but got knocked off track significantly when presented with a direct refutation of his statements on Benghazi by the moderator. Seeing it again on MSNBC it was telling that Obama comfortably let Romney set himself up to be spiked on that one. It showed the confidence of a man who believed in his handling of the situation.
What this sets up, then, is a tie-breaker of sorts in the third debate, if such a thing exists. It will certainly be interesting to see the effect of this debate on the ‘undecided’ voters. Will some of those folks swing back to the President? Will they hold their opinion until that last debate?
Regardless, this was an entertaining effort tonight-by all of you. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say thank you for all the kind words I’m seeing in the comments, and thank you again to Cletar for his brilliant Photoshop work when I send him my off-the-wall ideas. Please carry on in the comments, there’s a lot to discuss, as always.
