Obama 2012?

Obama just has to calmly and repeatedly point out Romney's lies, and be confrontational with him without being aggressive. He should simply contrast the statements Romney has made on the campaign trail with what he's currently saying, and pound the narrative over and over that Romney will change his message to whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear, in order to win. It would give Obama a great opportunity to throw in the 47% comments as well.

Cycloptichorn

My read is almost the opposite of yours.

Based strictly on FB comments, I think Romney has to be alive at the end of the debate to be the winner. Obama needs to score serious points to break even for most posters.

oops, I'm listening to a bunch of lawyers and arbitrators in a bearpit right now here - Obama has to come out swinging, can't be dismissive, has to be the president, has to be strong (I'm typing as they speak).

Their view is that Obama loses unless Romney tanks tonight.


I'm a huge fan of Candy Crowley - can't wait to hear her tonight.

That shouldn't be difficult since Romney has taken more than both sides of every issue that's been covered under the sun. A replay of tapes would be helpful, but won't be allowed in this venue, so Obama needs to repeat what Romney said pro and con.

I agree that Obama needs to score points tonight - he can't phone it in, he needs to WIN, and that's tough in a town-hall format, as it limits how aggressive you can be with your opponent. What Obama needs to do is continually pivot his answers to the same narrative: that Romney is a manipulative liar who is trying to buffalo the American people, telling the right-wing one thing and everyone else something else.

I would also like to see Romney asked how he plans to get Congress to pass his initiatives, seeing as the GOP-lead house has ZERO intention of raising taxes on the wealthy, something that he now apparently says he wants to do...

I completely disagree re: Crowley, btw. She rarely has anything interesting to say and mostly just repeats beltway CW as if it were news.

Cycloptichorn

I agree with president and strong, the "come out swinging" thing may or may not happen.

He won't go too far out of who he is and where he's comfortable for one debate. I was commenting more on that than what I think he should do. (I think he should have a lot of glaring eye-contact and somewhat aggressive body language, but I doubt he will.)

He will probably be rhetorically strong, but I don't think he's going to do a lot of the alpha-male steamrollering that Romney did.

Lehrer was a big part of that, allowing the steamrollering at the beginning and setting that tone.

I like Candy Crowley OK (she annoyed me a bit in the 2008 primary, other times I thought she was good), if she takes more control of the debate in that way that would help.

Obama was visibly uncomfortable in the first debate with figuring out how to navigate the loose definition of "turns." Wait and he looks weak, but fail to interrupt and he loses chances.

Some more thoughts on this and the election in general:

After the 47% thing, Obama's campaign was looking very, very good. He was getting big leads in lots of places, I started seeing the word "landslide," Intrade and Nate Silver and such had him as the overwhelming favorite. I thought "uh-oh."

It was too big of a swing in an election that had been pretty close. And I don't think the circumstances currently point to a landslide. If the economy suddenly roars to life, if Romney does something truly awful, (etc.), I can imagine it. But I don't think it's likely.

So I think a correction was pretty much inevitable, for a few reasons.

First, when we get these polls of uncommitted voters, it's not all the same people who are first drifting one way and then another. New people keep making up their minds. And there can be a "wait a minute, this isn't over" reaction.

Secondly, and more importantly, I think the media is much more interested in a close race than a blow-out. That affects what stories they report and how they report them. Which in turn affects what the chatter is about and how people feel about the candidates.

Things were shifting back to Romney before the first debate. The debate fit into the emerging narrative really well, and accelerated things.

I don't know if this debate will be take things too far the other way -- probably not. But I think it will help. (Barring some disaster.)

More likely, I think, will be a small uptick after this debate, then some other story about Romney or Ryan in the 47% vein (Ryan's recent soup kitchen debacle is close but not quite), then another uptick after the next debate, then some last-minute Obama panic, then looks better again, and then a close but definitive win.

The soup kitchen thing is scanning in Ryan's favour on my FB game friends' pages (lots of folks from Indiana for some reason) .They are pissed that there was negative coverage of it - the general comment is something along the lines of "well, at least he's trying to help".

But, he wasn't trying to help. He was trying to look like he was helping.

Your commentators are morons if they actually believe what you say they did...

Cycloptichorn

Not here in Ohio. Many more people are responding like Roger did here (he said he found it disappointing).

Especially, the fact that the dishes were clean, nobody was there, and he wasn't actually DOING anything except posing for a photo op keeps being discussed.

But, I don't think it's a huge deal, no.

I understand what happened.

I'm reporting on the comments people are making about the media coverage.

this post makes a lot of sense.

Just amazing that so many are so easily influenced by these liars. Can't begin to understand their mindset, and won't even bother trying.

Now the guy who was saying the dishes were clean is saying well some of them were dirty.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/soup-kitchen-president-ryan-did-wash-dirty-dishes

Dirty or not, it was still a disappointing event. Not a big deal, no, but kind of pointless. I can't think of one single person who would be impressed by a vice president who once washed a plate.

During the first debate, when undecideds finally got a good look at Romney, Obama and the Dems lost any credibility in vilifying Romney as some evil robber baron. Obama will not gain much traction with that same group by now attempting to paint Romney as a "liar", especially when the man is right there in front of them.

No, I think undecideds want to see some compelling case laid out that causes them to believe that Obama's vision for the next four years is better than Romneys. They won't get that if all Obama does is annoyingly repeat time and again that Romney lied. No doubt, such tactics will further fire up the Dem decideds, but will do nothing to attract any undecideds.

Why? The man DID lie the whole time during the last debate. Obama just didn't point it out very effectively.



I do think it's true that Obama needs an overall narrative, but Romney has no more of one than Obama does. He has goals, but no details. His whole platform is a shell game that is never going to work. It's easy to make things sound good when you ignore the details...

Cycloptichorn

It usually is best to call someone a liar when they're not present. You can always hope that some sources will publish the accusation, and not bother with the response.

Narrative. Yes, he will tell us a story, if time allows.

There are no details in Romney's grandiose plans. As Barnum is credited with the saying, "there's a sucker born every minute," I think most were born in this country.

On the free republican side of the world, they've moved to the position that Catholics aren't really Christians after all. CINO, don't you know.

Bizarro.