2012 Presidential Debates

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

I can go with that.

My point is still that there are plenty of questions and points that Romney could have brought up that could have been negative for the President, yet he brought up the one that could be spun into a positive.

Which is pretty dumb.

I think it reveals that Mitt has studied some national security, but he doesn't know it or understand it.

It's amazing to me how under Clinton and then Obama the democrats are by far the strongest and smartest on national security.

By far.

[deep]

Fact check: Obama fails to mention key Libya detail

By Ken Dilanian

8:22 PM PDT, October 16, 2012
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President Obama was asked who was responsible for rejecting requests for added security for U.S. diplomatic facilities in Libya before the Sept. 11 attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Obama didn't offer a name, but the answer emerged at a House Oversight Committee hearing last week: Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary for international programs at the State Department's bureau of diplomatic security.

Lamb acknowledged at the hearing that she had declined a request to extend the term of a 16-member military team that had been based at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, which is 400 miles from Benghazi, where the attack occurred.

Eric Nordstrom, who reported to Lamb as the top regional security officer in Libya until June, testified that Lamb also turned down other requests to beef up security in Libya.

Nordstrom did not indicate that any requests were made for added security in Benghazi, however. He also acknowledged that the attack, which involved dozens of heavily armed men, probably would have overwhelmed even a stiffer defense.

Lamb explained that the State Department sought to use local Libyan security forces to scale back the role and visibility of the U.S. military in the country in the aftermath of the U.S.-backed uprising that toppled dictator Moammar Kadafi last year.

She also argued that the U.S. was unaware of a possible attack on the mission in Benghazi, and absent better intelligence, the State Department had "the correct number of assets in Benghazi" on the night of the violence.
"That doesn't ring true to the American people," responded Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who chaired the hearing.

the request was for more security in Tripoli, 400 miles away.

[Moonlit_Angel]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

It's amazing to me how under Clinton and then Obama the democrats are by far the strongest and smartest on national security.

By far.

Which makes it all the more baffling that the Republicans win elections by saying they're "tougher" on national security than those wimpy Democrats.

[mobvok]

Matt Romney.

[dazzledbylight]

here's some info related to the Benghazi situation.
From NY Times Opinion piece:

At a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last Wednesday, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California and the committee’s chairman, talked of “examining security failures that led to the Benghazi tragedy.” He said lawmakers had an obligation to protect federal workers overseas. On Sunday, he said more should be spent on diplomatic security.
But as part of the Republican majority that has controlled the House the last two years, Mr. Issa joined in cutting nearly a half-billion dollars from the State Department’s two main security accounts. One covers things like security staffing, including local guards, armored vehicles and security technology; the other, embassy construction and upgrades. In 2011 and 2012, President Obama sought a total of $5 billion, and the House approved $4.5 billion. In 2009, Mr. Issa voted for an amendment that would have cut nearly 300 diplomatic security positions.

Once again some pretty big hypocracy.

i do wish Present Obama had highlighted the incredible amount of fillarbustering etc that Repbuplican House members have engaged vin Esp as how it related to another stimulus bill that he wanted passed.


over all i was pretty to quite happy with his effort, I prefer when he's more assertive; he got some good stuff in.

[cobl04]

Originally Posted by mobvok

Matt Romney.

Looks a bit like Tuggb Romney.

[maycocksean]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

My point is still that there are plenty of questions and points that Romney could have brought up that could have been negative for the President, yet he brought up the one that could be spun into a positive.

Which is pretty dumb.

And I can go with that.

But if he tries in the final debate, I'm betting Obama will be ready.

Originally Posted by deep

the request was for more security in Tripoli, 400 miles away.

This is what I meant. No president intentionally is careless with the nation's security interests.

[MrsSpringsteen]

He also didn't throw Hillary sous le bus. Dog whistle averted.

[anitram]

I really believe that some people here are making a much bigger deal of Benghazi than the average American Joe Shmoe who sees Libya as just another $hithole in the Middle East, a region that hates us because [we love freedom/we are imperialists] (take your pick). I agree with Sean that the whole Benghazi thing during the debate and actually generally as an issue isn't going to win or lose anyone the presidency.

I also get the sense that Obama can't stand Mitt, but the reverse isn't really true. Mitt just behaves like an entitled rich prep school kid turned businessman and basically treats the moderators and Obama about the same. I know his type very well - went to law school with similar trust fund babies and then I worked with them for years.

[trojanchick99]

Not a fan of the meme in general, but this one is freaking hilarious.

[corianderstem]

Yeah, just after making my whiny post about the meme on Facebook, I saw that picture and thought "... okay, THAT one is funny."

[LemonMelon]

Obama's expression really makes it.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Mind The Binder - Talking Politics

Hey, I know about that binder! And guess what -- Mitt Romney was lying about it.

From the rush transcript:

CROWLEY: Governor Romney, pay equity for women?

ROMNEY: Thank you. An important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.

And I -- and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are -- are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we -- can't we find some -- some women that are also qualified?"

And -- and so we -- we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.

I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.
Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort.

Not a true story.

What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.

They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected.

I have written about this before, in various contexts; tonight I've checked with several people directly involved in the MassGAP effort who confirm that this history as I've just presented it is correct -- and that Romney's claim tonight, that he asked for such a study, is false.

I will write more about this later, but for tonight let me just make a few quick additional points. First of all, according to MassGAP and MWPC, Romney did appoint 14 women out of his first 33 senior-level appointments, which is a reasonably impressive 42 percent. However, as I have reported before, those were almost all to head departments and agencies that he didn't care about -- and in some cases, that he quite specifically wanted to not really do anything. None of the senior positions Romney cared about -- budget, business development, etc. -- went to women.

Secondly, a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office.)

Third, note that in Romney's story as he tells it, this man who had led and consulted for businesses for 25 years didn't know any qualified women, or know where to find any qualified women. So what does that say?

[MrsSpringsteen]

[nathan1977]

Originally Posted by deep

the request was for more security in Tripoli, 400 miles away.

A request for more security in Benghazi was included in the request for security for Tripoli. They were separate requests.

From Nordstrom's congressional testimony in October:

"Earlier post extension requests for our DOD SS team in November 2011 and March 2012 were approved. Also, in March 2012, I requested DS staffing levels in Tripoli of 5 full-time agents to be permanently assigned there, 12 temporary duty D.S. agents, and 6 mobile security deployment D.S. agents – again – to train our newly-created body guard unit. Our request to maintain a level of 5 TDY D.S. agents in Benghazi was included in that same March 2012 request."

Six months before the attacks, the administration had been requested for -- and denied -- additional security. The question is still legitimate about the degree to which additional security would have been able to curtail the attack, but the "they didn't ask for more security" line that I've seen come up lately is just not true.

[Diemen]

I tried watching the debate as objectively as I could, as if I was an undecided voter watching this debate with no preconceptions about either candidate. No obviously my inherent bias will still show through, but when i focused on Romney, I kept getting struck by the same thing: Romney was most effective and convincing when he talked about the state of the economy, so it's perfectly understandable why he'd bring it up in nearly every response during the debate. However, he seemed the most ineffective and unconvincing when talking about what he'd actually do to improve the economy, so pretty much every time he played his strongest hand it was immediately followed by his weakest, in my mind. The very first question was "how will you work to ensure that college kids will be able to find jobs once they graduate?" His answer was essentially "This economy, it's a mess! And here are some negative statistics to support my point. What am I going to do? Well... no stats or details, but... we've got to make sure there are jobs once you graduate!"

Every time he brought up the state of the economy, it was followed by similar vague platitudes that sounded nice but provided absolutely no insight into his policy ("I know what a strong economy looks like" doesn't tell us a damn thing, Governor), or in fact were in direct contradiction to his policy (Pell grants). When Obama called him on his lack of detail (on the tax plan, specifically), Romney's only response was "of course the math adds up." He couldn't actually provide any data to back that assertion up, however.

Despite Romney's gains in the last few weeks, this kind of obvious lack of a substance can't be doing Romney any favors. It might be the economy, stupid, but if you can't provide any detail to show how you'll fix it, then I can't imagine independents flocking to you all that drastically. Particularly if Obama and his administration keep up the pressure on calling Romney out on it.

[deep]

Obama wins the baby sitting poll

Who would you rather have babysit your children, (Obama) or (Romney)?

[Moonlit_Angel]

Originally Posted by dazzledbylight

Once again some pretty big hypocracy.

i do wish Present Obama had highlighted the incredible amount of fillarbustering etc that Repbuplican House members have engaged vin Esp as how it related to another stimulus bill that he wanted passed.

Thank you for your thing about the hypocrisy on that issue, that's a good point, too. Talk of security is great and all, and certainly a necessity, but it's hard to properly secure everyone when you keep voting down bills that would actually, you know, help with that stuff.

I'm honestly not well-versed enough in all the details on the Benghazi thing, but I'm fairly certain that there's a lot of circumstances that were tied to that. It sucks, absolutely, and it's a tragic failure. But I don't think it was some sort of weird deliberate thing on Obama's part or whatever the hell Romney tried to paint it as. And anitram's right that it's not going to be the defining factor for this election. Especially since I'm sure most Americans couldn't point out Benghazi, or Libya, or anyplace in that general area, on a map. The economy, as always, winds up being front and center.

I also heard about the thing MrsS shared, too, about Romney's "binders" thing being untrue. If that's the case, that doesn't surprise me, but the binder thing wasn't even the part that bothered me the most about Romney's comments at that point in the debate.

No, it was the fact that, instead of focusing on listing suggestions on how to not only bring more women into the workplace, but also make them feel part of it and valued and making sure they're being paid what they're worth, he decided to turn the whole thing into a bragging moment for himself. It came off to me as, "Look how great I am that I took the initiative to find some women to work for us, I was just SO observant in realizing we were low on female employees! Aren't I Mr. Wonderful?" No one cares, Romney, try and focus on the topic at hand.

Originally Posted by Diemen

However, he seemed the most ineffective and unconvincing when talking about what he'd actually do to improve the economy, so pretty much every time he played his strongest hand it was immediately followed by his weakest, in my mind. The very first question was "how will you work to ensure that college kids will be able to find jobs once they graduate?" His answer was essentially "This economy, it's a mess! And here are some negative statistics to support my point. What am I going to do? Well... no stats or details, but... we've got to make sure there are jobs once you graduate!"

Every time he brought up the state of the economy, it was followed by similar vague platitudes that sounded nice but provided absolutely no insight into his policy ("I know what a strong economy looks like" doesn't tell us a damn thing, Governor), or in fact were in direct contradiction to his policy (Pell grants). When Obama called him on his lack of detail (on the tax plan, specifically), Romney's only response was "of course the math adds up." He couldn't actually provide any data to back that assertion up, however.

Despite Romney's gains in the last few weeks, this kind of obvious lack of a substance can't be doing Romney any favors. It might be the economy, stupid, but if you can't provide any detail to show how you'll fix it, then I can't imagine independents flocking to you all that drastically. Particularly if Obama and his administration keep up the pressure on calling Romney out on it.

This. Thank you .

[deep]

Obama is already polling ahead in the election that has already started.

and as many have said the election all comes down to Ohio,

11 hours ago
Ohio touts early voting numbers

CNN Political Unit

(CNN) – More than 1.4 million Ohio voters have either cast or requested an absentee ballot for the November election, Ohio's secretary of state Jon Husted announced Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the state had to keep open its voting booths in the final three days–Saturday, Sunday, Monday–before Election Day, rejecting Republican-led attempts to try and force all counties to close their polling locations that same weekend.

Democrats praised the decision, arguing the original law would have disproportionately affected Democratic voters. Republicans had maintained the state needed those final three days to organize and prepare for Election Day.

Voters in Ohio began casting ballots on October 2–or on September 22 for those in the military–as part of its early voting calendar.

Of those who have requested absentee ballots to vote by mail, roughly 22% have cast their ballot, including about 16% of military service members who have asked for ballots.

Meanwhile, about 124,000 Ohioans have cast an absentee ballot in person at the board of elections or a designated early vote center, Husted's office said.

His office also points out that the 7.9 million registered voters in Ohio have 264 total hours available for in-person voting before Election Day, including the final weekend.

the voting that is happening right now in Ohio is most likely favoring Obama. On election night when the election is called and Ohio goes for Obama, keep in mind that it may have been over before that day began.

[MrsSpringsteen]

So Tagg Romney wanted to take a swing at Obama when he called Mitt a liar during the debate. Can't remember exactly when that was.

Now that would have been entertaining. He was joking of course LOL.

He did say that's the nature of politics and they signed up for it. He better get used to it, if dad wins it will get much worse. The secret service being there comment was a bit odd