"Super-monumental ass-kicking" delivered in third presidential debate

[Spider-Dan]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57537795/poll-decisive-win-for-obama-in-final-debate/

53% Obama - 23% Romney

This is as compared to the 46%-22% victory for Romney in the first debate, and the 37%-30% victory for Obama in the second debate.  Not that debate polls matter.  Unless the Democrat loses... then it's a Game Changer!

Romney was clearly out of his depth in foreign policy and kept trying to pivot back to the domestic economy.  How many times did he say, "I agree with what President Obama is doing" on foreign policy?  This was a bad subject for Romney.  I mean, just listen to his closing arguments: this is the foreign policy debate, and yet Romney made zero mentions of the war, our military, or anything foreign-policy-related beyond "promoting principles of peace to make the world a safer place."  He looked clueless, and the right can't even complain about the moderator this time.

Of course, since the media only has an interest in down-to-the-wire horse-race politics, expect this brutal beatdown to be quickly swept under the rug as "having no impact," unlike Romney's less-decisive first-debate win that was immediately proclaimed a crippling blow to Obama.

[TonyB0D]

Yeah, he looked pretty lost.  You can't keep saying you agree with the guy you're trying to oust.

Romney actually flip-flops more than John Kerry!

The best part was the bayonets and horses routine.....burn!!

[CF DolFan]

It's funny to me how blatantly slanted people can be. If you think that was an arse kicking you obviously are biased.  Obama charged his base but according to early reports did nothing to sway the undecided. I think he bayonet thing excited his base but confused other people according to discussions I had this morning. People took it like he thought we didn''t still use them and yet we do.

I, like most people, think Obama won the debate but I also don't think Romney was there to debate. Winning the debate was not his priority as it wasn't a contest. He was there to win over the undecided. He wanted to show he wasn't a war monger and that he could lead. He also kept pointing to how important the economy was in not only on the home front, but how that gives us the ability to lead the world. Time will tell if that works for him.   

If the race really was tied and momentum on Romney's side then it was up to Obama to stop it and change the momentum. I honestly don't know if he did that. To me it really seemed like this debate, as well as the last one, didn't give us anything new. The question is how it affects the undecided.

Edited to add this from CNN which kind of supports what I said.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/22/cnn-poll-who-won-the-debate/?hpt=hp_t1

Posted by
CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser


...  Obama's aggressive strategy led the debate audience to give him a narrow 51%-46% edge on leadership, but it may have come at the cost of likeability.

"A majority of debate watchers said that President Obama seemed to be the stronger leader," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "But on the question of likeability, the two candidates are essentially tied on a trait that has generally been an advantage for Obama. That's probably due to the fact that two-thirds of debate watchers felt that Obama spent more time than Mitt Romney on the attack."

But according to the poll, both candidates were seen by debate watchers as able to handle the responsibilities of commander in chief - an important threshold for Romney since he is not the incumbent. But men and women see the commander in chief question very differently.

Majorities of both genders saw Obama as capable of handling that role, but women were split roughly 50/50 on whether Romney had proven himself on that measure, while men responded well to Romney's performance. Women also saw Obama as the stronger leader; men saw Romney as having the edge on leadership. As a result, women saw Obama as the winner of the debate by 22 points, while a plurality of men saw Romney as the victor on Monday night.

Bottom line: The debate appears to be a draw when it comes to affecting the vote of those who tuned in to the faceoff.

[Phishfan]

As a decided voter, I think the debate was a bit difficult to judge. I also find it diffciult to call it a debate as Romney was not trying to distance himself much from Obama's administration in many areas. He even reversed his stance in some areas and now agrees with Obama. I'm not sure what to think about that personally. I think it is fine for people to change opinions but to have 100% reversal in the manner in which Romney has makes him seem to be playing to the masses rather than being a leader. Just my opinion on it.

[Brian Fein]

Last night, more than ever before, I heard the two candidates saying the exact same things as each other.

The more this goes on, the more Romney appears to be saying what Obama-followers want to hear.

[mboss]

^^Exactly...Mitt pretty much agreed with everything Obama has done on foreign policy while still trying to unearth his common Republican base digs on "apology tour" and "4 years closer to a nuclear Iran". Mitt has come so much to the middle, it is ridiculous, considering the rhetoric and bluster that was a huge part of his campaign in the primaries.

The problem with Mitt is, you never know where he stands on anything because he flips on almost every issue. Why his supporters or Independents don't see that I don't know. If he does happen to win, I think he'd be a fairly moderate republican.

However, I just don't believe in his budget proposals, his social agenda or that "He knows how to get the country working again" with out any specifics. I believe the economy is turning around, slowly but surely. And I just think that more things will get done in a 2nd Obama term in Congress than a new Romney presidency because the Democratic senate would turn to obstructionism as the Republicans did during Obama's time.

[Spider-Dan]

It's funny to me how blatantly slanted people can be. If you think that was an arse kicking you obviously are biased.

I specifically compared it to the first debate, which was categorized here as a "monumental ass-kicking" (and none of your comments at the time seemed to refute that).

I, like most people, think Obama won the debate but I also don't think Romney was there to debate. Winning the debate was not his priority as it wasn't a contest.

I certainly would have been glad to hear that debates are not actually contests to be won right after the first debate.  Somehow, that point didn't seem to come up at the time.

[suck for luck]

A thread based on one cbs poll. LOL

[CF DolFan]

I specifically compared it to the first debate, which was categorized here as a "monumental ass-kicking" (and none of your comments at the time seemed to refute that).

I wouldn't have said that but it was the largest margin of victory ever recorded for a debate. 

I certainly would have been glad to hear that debates are not actually contests to be won right after the first debate.  Somehow, that point didn't seem to come up at the time.

High school and college debates are for winning. There are probably other tyoes of debates as well. These debates are to get votes. At the end of the day if Obama lost every debate by 70% but won over the voters because Romney came off as an angry, war mongering racist then it wouldn't matter. It's not about peppering your opponent with points they don't counter (which will win a debate) if no one cares about the point being made.  The first debate caused people to start backing Romney so regardless of if he won the debate or not it did what he wanted.

[Phishfan]

  The first debate caused people to start backing Romney

It may have, but I would argue that we should not let anyone vote who was still undecided by that point as they are uninformed voters which is the worst possible scenario for the US.

[Cathal]

^^^ And the die-hard partisan voters are better? I'd say that's the worst part for the country.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I wouldn't have said that but it was the largest margin of victory ever recorded for a debate. 

So was this one.  It was wider. 

[Spider-Dan]

A thread based on one cbs poll. LOL

The thread is actually based on the ass-kicking.  The poll is just one example of how bad the ass-kicking was.

It seems that you have developed much more discriminating tastes in thread standards since the thread you created about the first debate.  Funny, that.

[Phishfan]

^^^ And the die-hard partisan voters are better? I'd say that's the worst part for the country.

A lot of times they are one in the same

[Spider-Dan]

High school and college debates are for winning. There are probably other tyoes of debates as well. These debates are to get votes. At the end of the day if Obama lost every debate by 70% but won over the voters because Romney came off as an angry, war mongering racist then it wouldn't matter. It's not about peppering your opponent with points they don't counter (which will win a debate) if no one cares about the point being made.  The first debate caused people to start backing Romney so regardless of if he won the debate or not it did what he wanted.

Again, it would have been great to hear this fresh new perspective on how "debates are not about winning" right after Romney won.  Because right now, it sounds like the spin one would give if their guy just got hammered.

I also find it kind of puzzling that Romney winning the first debate is somehow completely divorced from the shift in the polls following it, as if they shifted not because he won, but because he convinced people.  When you win a debate, that almost always means you had a more convincing argument than your opponent.  That's what winning a debate IS.