Month: October 2012

My quick take on the debate. [UPDATED]

So, the narrative on debates is that the eventual winner loses the first debate badly, then roars back to decisively win the second one.  Barack Obama managed the first part, and did not manage the second.  The CBS flash poll has it roughly tied between Obama winning (37%) and a tie (33%), with Romney winning in third (30%).  Obama improved his game; but then, his game already sucked.

Romney flubbed the Libya answer, but there’s a couple of minutes of footage elsewhere that will make good ad fodder. [UPDATE: here it is:]

 

I don’t know if Obama will get anything comparable.

Lastly?  Keep the 47% rhetoric, Obama.  Undecided voters hate it when you bring it up.

#rsrh Hey, do you want to see Laura Ingraham eviscerate a NYT reporter over Benghazigate?

What am I saying?  Of course you do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yuQY4zl_ank

Kinda-sorta via AoSHQ.  Ingraham is not particularly on my radar – honestly, I don’t really watch or listen to many television/radio pundits, except as necessary to do the blogs – but she was kind of ruthless, here.  For those without video, she pointed out to the NYT guy’s face that his paper was a hypocrite for not covering the Benghazi lying/incompetence/whatever with nearly the same recklessly fevered  enthusiasm that the Media did over, say, Plamegate.  Good stuff, and nicely concentrated down into a reasonably pure form.

She also happens to be right.

 

#rsrh Some thoughts on tonight’s debate.

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.

New Sean Bielat (R CAND, MA-04) ad.

The major trouble with trying to talk about Joe Kennedy III as a candidate is… oh, heck, let the Sean Bielat campaign explain it:


(Ad done by RedState’s own Ben Howe, btw)

That’s it, in a nutshell: there’s nothing there except the ‘Kennedy’ and the ‘III.’  If this kid was named ‘Patrick Dolan’ or something then he wouldn’t be the Democratic nominee for MA-04 – and this is not even remotely a revelation. Sean Bielat even said it to Kennedy’s face: “I don’t think in any other state, in any other district in the country people would consider you qualified for this office.”

Continue reading New Sean Bielat (R CAND, MA-04) ad.

Three admissions fueled by a glass of Yellow Tail Sweet Red Roo.

In no particular order:

  1. I sometimes wonder if there’s anything wrong with me because there’s nothing particularly wrong with me that keeps me from doing regular updates and posts and creative work on this blog.  It’s like half the artistic types I see online are always telling me about the last thing that legitimately knocked them on their butts; after a certain point you start to wonder if that’s, well, normal.
  2. …It is depressing that a single glass of red wine can make me slightly loopy like this.  Dammit, I had an apple and cheese while imbibing.  This is not me drinking on an empty stomach.  This is me apparently getting old.
  3. “Yellow Tail Sweet Red Roo” sounds more and more unfortunate, the more and more that I think about it.  But that might simply be #2. Or maybe I should have opened the Chilean merlot* instead.

That’s it.

Moe Lane

*Dammit, Firefox, ‘merlot’ is a word.