A Public Service Reminder for those worried about a Romney success in the Debates

[1-Old-Man]

In the end debates are won on the issues. On the issues Romney doesn't have a leg to stand on not only for his failing to have coherent policy objectives but as close as can be told for his lack of understanding just what is and is not national policy. Romney's only issue is tax reduction and as emotion inspiring as the marginal and investment tax rates might be they are dwarfed by the nation's other problems - once again, those pesky issues. Unemployment, medical cost containment, the aging of society, infrastructure fail, and on and on. President Obama knows the issues, he's been working them every day for four years. More importantly President Obama has the speaker's gift of being able to explain the issues in terms the guy who own's just one flat screen can understand. So don't worry about "zingers" or flashy little two steps by Governor Romney, they are no substitute for knowing what one is talking about.

[Blue Meany]

1. All Obama has to to do is ask for a DNA test to see if "this is the real Rommey" n/t

[Generic Other]

4. Zinger!

[Panasonic]

2. The first question to Rmoney is this: Where are your 12 years worth of taxes that your father George

started in 1968 as an effort to be transparent.

Apparently you aren't like your father. Why? What do you have in there that makes you hide your taxes?

Then Rmoney will look like a stunned mullet.

Ambulances from the nearest Seventh Day Adventist hospital (Porter Hospital) will take away Rmoney for ECT sessions five times a day.

[Proud Public Servant]

3. Here's the real public service announcement:

Debates haven't made a damned bit of difference in the outcome of presidential elections since Kennedy -- and arguably not even then.

Seriously, name a debate in the last 50 years that reversed the way an election was trending. There have been debate moments that sealed the deal (Ford's gaffe on Poland, Reagan's "There he goes again," Dukakis' dispassionate answer to the rape question), but there hasn't been a single moment that actually proved a game changer.

So on Wednesday night sit back, relax, and enjoy the White Sox-Indians game; that really could change something.

[Savannahmann]

6. Walter Mondale said it did.

In an interview a few years ago, I think on PBS, Walter Mondale said that he knew he'd lost the election when Ronald Reagan promised not to use his opponents youth and inexperience as an issue in the campaign. That was a set up question, predictable, to point out that Reagan was old and demented. Reagan smashed it out of the park, won the debate in the eyes of the people, and won the election in one night.

The debates matter, especially now in the era of multi channel 24 hour news and internet video/news sites. Don't write them off, win.

[Proud Public Servant]

7. Nonsense, even if he did say it

He debated Reagan in October. By then, Reagan had been polling way ahead of Mondale, far outside the margin of error, for months. No candidate, and no incumbent, had ever come back in October to overcome that kind of deficit. Mondale should have known well before then that he was toast.

[lumpy]

8. The Mondale campaign was simply not on a par with Reagan's glitzy show.

Elaborate sets and Hollywood glamour, sparkly, the wow must have appealed to the average voter. I don't recall anything quite like it unless the appeal of John Kennedy's campaign. Reagan was so down-home at the same time.
Mondales campaign was rather pityfull in comparison, more serious and heady,no glitz, although that certainly did not prevent me from voting for Mondale.

[Savannahmann]

5. I'm wary.

I know our fellow citizens well enough to know that they can go either way this election. If President Obama comes out strong, we can and almost certainly will win. If he fumbles an answer, or gets thrown off his game by one of the zingers, we can, and just may lose. If President Obama gets angry, and loses his composure at one of the zingers, we're screwed. The latter is unlikely to the extreme, but is barely possible.

All I am saying is don't pop the champagne until we have the win in hand. We face a dangerous enemy, one who will destroy this country if they win. We can not afford to underestimate our opponent, or write him off already.

[Savannahmann]

9. I was wondering, how do you feel about the debates and the potential effect now?

What I want to know is what in the Hell is it going to take for us to get serious about this election?

[bigwillq]

10. The only debate that matters in the next one

Yeah, las t night's debate is still all the buzz, but that will only last until the next one. It will likely be the last debate that the public really remembers.