Moe Lane

…in my official capacity as a RedState Contributing Editor:

One approach might be to start with a list of intelligent right-of-center people who will ask reasonable questions eliciting substantive responses. You can find them in abundance at such places as the National Review, the Weekly Standard, Breitbart.com, Townhall.com, HotAir.com, RedState.com, and, to be self-serving, PJMedia.com. There are plenty more, including, naturally, the Wall Street Journal opinion pages.

And to be as equally self-serving as Roger Simon is being.  But, honestly, the current system is as just as awful as Roger describes.  Remember all that stuff that we were yelling at the computer screen during the debates?  Wouldn’t it have been great if we were the people asking those questions? …Well, could we have made matters worse? (more…)

Jonathan Last has an interesting thought:

[H]ere’s my question: Imagine a world in which, during and after the debate, the left didn’t have a collective, public freak out. In other words, a world in which a still-functional Journolist-type of operation was able to corral lefty elites and get them into something like a coherent message instead of having them set themselves on fire over Twitter. Imagine if they had gotten some message discipline and taken a line more like Republican heads did after the second and third debate–Yes, our guy probably lost this on points, but this was a strong performance and blah-blah-blah.

Would it have made any difference? The debate would still be the debate, and the insta-polls would have been the same. But if Chris Matthews and Andrew Sullivan and their fellow travelers hadn’t micturated on the carpet in public panic, would the story out of the Denver debate been anything more than, Strong performance by Romney, Obama needs to up his game.

(more…)

…while at the same time eviscerating Barack Obama. Below are two video clips, and the relevant transcript.   I created a shorter and a longer version: some people like the thirty second clips, and some people want the full version for full effect.  Also, note that I’ve cut out the bit where Romney hammered Obama for lying about Romney’s contraception position, and the bit where Obama whined about not having yet more time to say nothing in particular: while important in general, neither bit is relevant to this specific discussion.

Enjoy!  I certainly did – and I like George W Bush, mind you.  But the way that Romney pinned Bush’s deficits to Obama’s insanely higher ones was choice.  Bet you Obama never contemplated that he was going to have to defend his predecessor there, afterwards…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

(more…)

In vague order:

• President Obama is unlikely to do worse today than he did two weeks ago.  That means that at least one major network (and MSNBC) will declare him the winner tonight.  If Obama does do worse, then the election is over and we need to start thinking about how to increase our Senate majority*.
• Whether he actually wins tonight will depend on whether Barack Obama was able to successfully transform himself into a personally likeable and attentive listener (with a healthy amount of ambition, but very little hubris) in two weeks. I was going to add ‘charismatic,’ but you can’t teach that**.
• What we’re likely to get is instead someone in attack mode.  This is certainly what people on the Left are advocating; and I suspect that not many of them have contemplated that Barack Obama has had very few opportunities to participate in ‘fights’ where the other side can hit back (don’t remember where I saw this point made first, sorry). Couple that with Obama’s tendency to drone, and drone, and drone…
• Mitt Romney, on the other hand?  Needs to be relaxed, needs to be peppy, needs to not get rattled, needs not to make stupid jokes, needs to not get cocky, and generally needs to see this whole thing as being a contested business pitch to a bunch of uncommitted but receptive stockholders, which is actually not too bad an analogy. That’s pretty much it.  Romney’s not the one who has to play catch-up, here: it’s Obama, and Romney can do well for himself by simply making it as difficult as possible for Obama to recover.  Bottom line is: Romney’s got a margin, and the goal here is to not lose the margin.
• This isn’t going to be a cakewalk, though.  Obama will lash out.  He will get at least one hit in.  You have to be ready for that happening, going into this debate.  We cannot legitimately hope for a replay of the first one.  Sorry.

I think that covers it.  Summation: we’re in a good place, but we can still lose.  It that concerns you: volunteer.

Moe Lane

*Yes, I know that it’s a Senate minority for the GOP right now.  But you can safely assume at least R+4 if Obama collapses.  And possibly even if he doesn’t.

**Barack Obama is not charismatic.  Bill Clinton was charismatic. George W Bush was charismatic. Ronald Reagan was charismatic.  Barack Obama is inspirational.  The difference is subtle, important, and currently biting Barack Obama on the tuchis.

Via the Foundry comes these two word clouds of yesterday’s debate:

…and here’s an interesting game to play: quick, which one is which? (more…)

Yeah, I’m thinking Barack Obama didn’t really think that Joe Biden saved the re-election campaign last night:

(more…)

From Reuters, a surprisingly funny headline: Obama crams for debates, works on being concise.

(pause)

(opens mouth)

(pause)

(closes mouth)

(pause)

…I got too much, sorry.

Via Hot Air Headlines.

Via @mlcalderone comes a touch of schadenfreude at Gwen Ifill’s reaction at the news that Jim Lehrer got the nod to be a debate moderator.  Well, schadenfreude for me:

More surprising was the reaction at PBS’s NewsHour, Mr. Lehrer’s home for more than 35 years until his retirement last year. The morning editorial meeting was under way on Monday when The Drudge Report revealed the names of the four moderators. Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff, the leaders of the program’s political coverage, were stunned to see the names.

In the suddenly gloomy meeting, some wondered if the list was legitimate. Others murmured that the selection of Mr. Lehrer was a setback for the “NewsHour,” which has been trying to show off younger stars like Ms. Ifill. Ms. Ifill, in particular, was livid, according to several people present. “I was indeed disappointed,” she confirmed Friday.

(more…)

Then we’re probably still doing OK:

A Jordanian member of parliament pulled a gun on a political activist during a furious debate live on Jordanian TV on Thursday.

(more…)

It’s on at 8 PM, and I am not particularly convinced that I have anything worthwhile to say about this one at this point.  It’s almost over, one way or the other, and pretty soon we can all get on with our lives until after the convention.

So: should I tweet this one as usual, or should I go play some more Skyrim?

Ben Shapiro, on the news that we’re now all done with debates, apparently:

The big question is: now the debates don’t matter?  For months, all we heard was that debates were the best way to select our candidates.  On that basis, we ousted Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. Now debates have taken a backseat to basic campaigning.

(more…)

…since other sites are: do we need more primary debates?  I certainly don’t want any more, given that at this point I can feel my IQ points ablate away with every new one.  And I can’t imagine that any more of them will move the needle at this point.

I could, however, be wrong. Thoughts?