Here are some raw thoughts I wrote down while watching the Obama/Romney debate last night…
- Blue tie vs. red tie. Righty vs. lefty (hands).
- Where were the ZINGERS?
- Obama boring, professorial, and wonky, on the defensive, answers all over the place, no energy or passion.
- Romney still not saying which deductions he’d eliminate.
- My wife summed it up at 8:23pm: “This is incredibly boring.”
- Clear loser: Jim Lehrer, kept trying to stop them debating – at a debate. Screw the rules, let’em go. Terrible as referee, asked general questions instead of asking specifics to make O&R answer with specifics. Kept pointing out, “okay, so we have a clear difference between you” – duh!
Lehrer’s questions amounted to: “So talk about health care.” “Talk about social security.” “Talk about the deficit…” - Obama had the biggest lie of the night, telling Lehrer: “You’ve done a great job, Jim!” No fact-checker in the world can confirm that.
- Last time he’ll be chosen as moderator. Seth McFarlane instead?
- Romney wants to cut money for PBS, where Lehrer is employed. That’s the first time a candidate has ever fired a moderator on live TV.
- Neither candidate said the word “Bush.”
- Debate score: Boring wonk-speak 100, Anniversary messages 2, Zingers 0.
- Early voters won’t wait for next 3 debates, so this could be a factor.
- Obama letting Romney get away with the GOP lie about a government takeover of healthcare.
- Who cares about the debate format anymore? Just let’em go at it. But someone should be there to keep one candidate from walking over the other, which is what happened last night.
- After tonight’s debate, Obama knows what it’s like to have Romney hold you down and cut your hair against your will.
- Team Obama obviously chose not to go on the attack, leave that to ads and spinners, but bet that changes at next debate.
- Shocked Obama didn’t mention the 47% once.
Spinners will get into that stuff, but how many of the undecided 5% hear them – a lot less than watched the actual debate. - Was this Mitt’s Etch-A-Sketch shake-up?
- Most entertaining moment post-debate was watching Chris Matthews have a breakdown on MSNBC over Obama’s performance. Get him some blood pressure medication, stat.
- Last time we had a debate between an incumbent president vs. challenger was ’04, when most viewers thought Kerry won big time. How’d that work out in November?
- Surprised that when Romney said government doesn’t do anything better than private business, Obama didn’t invoke the Hoover Dam and bypass he’d visited Tuesday.
- Obama played not to lose, like the Rams in ’01 vs the Patriots in the Super Bowl, which didn’t work, either.
- Romney has the media momentum now, but whether that translates to the polls remains to be seen – particularly the impact with undecided voters.
- Still undecided? What do you want?