1801

That reminds me of what I really dislike about the debates … nobody actually answers the questions. They treat each question as a cue to begin their next talking point. It doesn’t matter what was asked, they’re just going to regurgitate whatever line they’ve memorized for slot #4 or whatever. Pointless, really.

1802

Crocodile Tears.

1803

Any minute now balloons will fall from the ceiling and confetti will pop for being the one billionth person to express this very thought in public since 1960.

1804

Seriously dude? I guess I wandered into the thread of 60 pages of unique ideas and opinions by mistake. My bad.

1805

1806

I go against that conventional wisdom that the debates are all dog and pony show and mean nothing, and I think 2008 is a perfect example.

The first two debates in 2008 cemented the deal for Obama with voters. In the first, he looked Presidential and gave presidentially vacuous answers. By contrast, McCain looked grumpy and dismissive, and gave petulant sounding answers.

In the second debate, McCain wandered around the floor in Sad Grampa mode and famously fired off his “You know who voted for it? You’ll never guess…That one,” line. That pretty much finished his chances off right then and there. Even though in the final debate McCain performed strongly and landed some good lines on Obama, it made barely a ripple after his first two debate performances.

I’m not sure you can win or lose an election in the debates…but I do think you can lock in the public perception voters have of you as a candidate.

1807

Ahh yeah. I knew who he was talking about, just not what city he was from. :)

The point stands though. San Antonio isn’t New York, and I think that’s probably the only ciy in the world where you could make a viable jump from mayor to POTUS. He needs a bigger platform, and that’s going to be very hard to find in Texas. iirc he’s Harvard educated, which makes him an Ivy League Hispanic Democrat. He’s hitting the trifecta in terms of things Texans will reject politically!

1808

That’s a great quote.

1809

At the risk of sounding cynical, all this stuff sounds like they’re pre-emptively trying to rehabilitate Romney’s image so that he’s viable for the rubber chicken circuit after the election. “Nice guy, good boss, lousy candidate” is a hell of a lot more marketable than “guy who assaulted classmate, strapped his dog to the roof, and tripped his daughter in law at a family picnic”. The former is a guy you let lurch around, Bob Dole-like, and do Pepsi commercials. The latter is toxic. And, since there’s no percentage in the Obama campaign pursuing the rebranding - neither image affects the election, and they’ve got better targets - the narrative’s uncontested.

1810

Saw this on NRO. Brutally effective attack ad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R-lDL9_qDDs#!

1811

I’m not sure what skin in the game Politico has with regards to Mitt’s post-political career. And really, who cares what he does after he gets out of the spotlight? If he wants to go make $1 million per speech in the private sector, more power to him. As long as he isn’t my President.

1812

Never heard of the guy, and pay no attention to Florida local politics, but out of curiosity I visited West’s web site. What an awful web site. He really needs a better media team.

1813

That’s one of the dirtiest races in the country right now.

West, of course, is the guy who compared the Democrats to Goebbels, called Obama a “low-level socialist agitator,” and declared that there are over 80 secret communists hiding among congressional Democrats.

1814

West was also asked to leave the Army after firing a pistol next to an Iraqi prisoner’s head during an interrogation.

1815

Wait, you mean a political attack ad was less than honest? I … My word!

1816

Clearly his only crime there is loving his country too much.

1817

And, in the view of many far right folk everywhere I’m sure, having criminally lousy aim.

1818

I kind of love this article. It takes the left to task for demanding that the politicians they largely agree with sometime hold opinions that they don’t agree with. Since that includes me sometimes when I’m feeling all morally superior, I take it to heart.

I constantly encounter a response that presumes the job at hand is to figure out what’s wrong, even when dealing with an actual victory, or a constructive development. Recently, I mentioned that California’s current attorney general, Kamala Harris, is anti-death penalty and also acting in good ways to defend people against foreclosure. A snarky Berkeley professor’s immediate response began, “Excuse me, she’s anti-death penalty, but let the record show that her office condoned the illegal purchase of lethal injection drugs.”

Apparently, we are not allowed to celebrate the fact that the attorney general for 12% of all Americans is pretty cool in a few key ways or figure out where that could take us. My respondent was attempting to crush my ebullience and wither the discussion, and what purpose exactly does that serve?

This kind of response often has an air of punishing or condemning those who are less radical, and it is exactly the opposite of movement- or alliance-building. Those who don’t simply exit the premises will be that much more cautious about opening their mouths. Except to bitch, the acceptable currency of the realm.

My friend Jaime Cortez, a magnificent person and writer, sent this my way: “At a dinner party recently, I expressed my pleasure that some parts of Obamacare passed, and starting 2014, the picture would be improved. I was regaled with reminders of the horrors of the drone program that Obama supports, and reminded how inadequate Obamacare was. I responded that it is not perfect, but it was an incremental improvement, and I was glad for it. But really, I felt dumb and flat-footed for being grateful.”

1819

This, and often on Qt3.

1820

I didn’t start hating him until I got to know more about him.