Who Won the Presidential Debate: Romney is Clear Winner vs Obama
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UPDATE: 10:29 PM Closing statements: Obama wins the award for "Best use of the word 'Fair'." Romney shouldn't promise that he'll get rid of Obamacare as president - since when was repeal included among the executive powers?
10:23 PM Government is not the "economic player" that "picks winners and losers." Good on Romney. Also, let's be clear on education: government involvement pushed up tuition costs. This is the government cycle: subsidize it, and when costs raise, put a ceiling on it, and when products suffer, take the whole industry over.
It's a trap, and it's unconstitutional.
10:20 PM PolicyMic drinking game. Hurts.
10:11 PM The President said that Obamacare was a huge private sector growth?
Look, of course it is: you're allocating billions of dollars of taxpayer money into a particular industry for the sake of providing a certain service. That's a huge gift to corporations, but is that what we've come to as a country? Where the government will subsidize your business just because you provide a key service?
That's crony capitalism - where government picks winners and losers, and uses your money in ways they think you aren't capable of doing yourself. No wonder pharmaceutical companies underwrote the law.
10:03 PM
Obama making a classic false dichotomy on health care: let everyone die or have government "make the cost of health care" more affordable. I wonder where a third option may be found...
10:00 PM Thank goodness, Romney is embracing his health plan is Massachusetts. Look, our system of federalism allows for States to experiment with things like this - but the federal government is not delegated these powers.
Obama's attempt to adopt himself to Romneycare is a cheat. It's unconstitutional.
9:53 PM Government subsidies and government insurance crowds out and puts money behind people who seek health care. It's expensive for the same reason that college tuition is: you throw money behind buyers, and the suppliers are free to blow up prices. It isn't less expensive for government, they just take on the cost in more numerous ways (debts/inflation/taxation/etc.)
9:42 PM Obama takes his philosophy on entitlements from feelings in his heart. Reminds me of Hilary Clinton's line about government's powers being as big and expansive as the size of one's heart.
Also, side update: including "tax cut" in the drinking game was a bad idea.... Obama and Romney hitting that hard.
9:35 PM Calling taxation "revenue" is like calling robbery "income." Government taxation does create wealth, it takes wealth. Private transactions and voluntary exchange - that's where value creation and revenue comes from.
9:32 PM Romney likes Big Bird, but he doesn't like crony capitalism, government subsidies, and Obamacare. He's talking frankly, and he's being aggressive. This in the man Republicans nominated... Very strong.
But on a side note, does anyone actually trust these cost projections of different programs? Who could ever know this sort of thing, given the politics, the regulatory obstacles, the "we won't know what's in the bill until we pass it" mentality, and all the rest?
Cost projections are excuses to sell something.
9:24 PM Clinton-era economics, with the dot.com bubble, housing bubble, and government policies that blewback during the Bush years, should hardly be a fit gauge for "successful policies."
9:18 PM Did Romney just compare Obama/Biden to his children? Love it.
9:13 PM Romney is speaking in bullet points. That's really good. Also, the "economy tax" is a great point - it's the invisible price paid for regulations and lagging growth.
9:09 PM "Small business" side of drinking game... 1 beer gone.
9:05 PM That wins most awkward use of "sweetie" in debate history.
8:56 PM I have a case of Old Milwaukee at my side. Let's get this show on the road! Here's hoping someone gets called a socialist!
6:32 PM A little under three hours now - getting pumped. Also, for pleasures both personal and public, I'll be participating in PolicyMic's Presidential Drinking Game . I can assume quality will only increase as a result.
For the more extreme drinkers, however, I might recommend the Huffington Post's most considerable challenge.
4:05 PM In other, ultimately more significant news: TEDDY ROOSEVELT WINS THE PRESIDENTS RACE!
For those unfamiliar, here's why that's awesome.
Can President Obama and Mitt Romney match the excitement of this victory? Only time will tell...
2:56 PM NPR update from the Associated Press: 5 things to watch for tonight. It's a good short list, especially their point about Romney needing to answer for his "47% comment." President Obama retreated from "you didn't build that" and claimed it was taken out of context. The result? He gave Republicans a reusable attack that lasted for months are the fact, and prompted the DNC to adopt a laughable "we're all in this together" attitude for their Charlotte convention.
Romney can't afford to look the fool - it's decision time.
2:06 PM Good piece from Weekly Standard's Jay Cost on why this race is far from over. President Obama has had an easy ride - with Romney gaffes and a sympathetic media helping him drift. But the RNC has money to spend, and voters traditionally put off making decisions until October rolls around. Check out the swings historically:
With RCP polls showing a ~3 point Romney lag, this one's just getting started.
9:53 AM Okay, first cup of coffee down, and now I'm ready t- WAIT, what the heck is this: http://www.romneyryanrevealed.com
I guess the DNC is going full tilt here, with a handy-dandy website full of propaganda that is most certainly not full of lies and cheap innuendo. Did you know that Romney and Ryan aren't "advocates of equal pay" for women? And that they want to "take away a woman's right to choose?" And my goodness, who will pay for college without the government??
Lesson #1 about the Left: if you don't believe that government should do it, you don't believe in it at all.
October 2, 2012: Whether or not you believe in the polls, few would say that challenger Mitt Romney's campaign has been a success.
Against a president who has run record deficits, pushed a blatantly unconstitutional health care law, overreached the office of the executive by re-writing Congress' welfare legislation, presided over unprecedented numbers of drone strikes killing civilians on foreign soil, and is currently watching his foreign policy fall apart before his very eyes, you would think the case would nearly make itself.
Yet Romney cannot seem to drive the point home.
President Obama, on the other hand, has to deal with the potential of a momentum turn. He seems detached and uninterested — not a new thing for him — and this disposition might become a serious problem if Romney starts pushing.
With the tragedy of Ambassador Christopher Stevens' assassination, including evidence of a State Department cover-up of poor intelligence handling, President Obama may be asked to answer for his administration's embarrassing display. Romney is certainly pushing hard, as evidenced by his recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal calling for a "New Course" in the Middle East.
Can challenger Romney get over the gaffes and press the President on issues that count? Can President Obama excuse his past failures and present a new reason for hope?
Follow the 2012 Presidential debates here LIVE and find out!
