Halftalk Newsworthy : US 2012 Elections

This is taking the whole "I'll answer the question my way" concept to a new level.
Question: How was the weather Governor Romney?
Romney: I'll tell you what the weather needs. Small businesses.
Now Obama is talking about teaching math in small class sizes, again not quite a foreign policy issue, traditionally.
An almost interesting question: "What is your position on the use of drones?"

I'm all for it, says Romney, who somehow then turns this into the Iran-Middle East-tumult answer, almost word for word an answer he gave earlier this evening. He really likes the word "tumult".
Obama then avoids all mention of drones.
That's it for drones, thanks for coming. No mention about how the damn things are used, and the legal issues surrounding the same, but hey, the word got a mention so be grateful.

Obama says nothing terribly new or excititng, and neither does Romney. "I want to get people off food stamps not by cutting the program but by getting them jobs," says Romney. But he'll cut the program as well, just in case.
Anyway, I'd say Romney won it because he just lashed away at Obama without regard to subject or logic, showed that he knew enough about what passes for foreign policy that he's not going to fart in front of the Queen or whatever. And Obama did what he did in the first debate: lay out Romney's multiple positions and expect that would be enough. Well it wasn't then and it wasn't now.
Everyone will say Obama won the debate because he supposed to up on foreign policy and Romney's not, so in the lazy way journalism works that's the outcome we'll get.

If it matters at this point. I hear all three remaining undecided voters in Ohio went to the bar tonight anyway.

Will this debate make a difference? Probably not. Although Romney was poor, he was not disastrously bad. And he got across his message that he is not belligerent. Talking about Iran, he said the US "can't kill our way out of this mess". That is what a war-weary America wants to hear. An attack on Iran would be a last resort, Romney said. He made peace a central part of his closing speech.
Neither Obama or Romney made any serious gaffes or produced any zingers. The first debate in Denver, where Obama was overwhelmed, was a game-changer. But neither this one nor the one in New York have had the same impact or are likely to. The debates in New York and Florida have seen Obama climb back aboard the campaign but his performances have not been strong enough to determine the election outcome.
Other things that didn't get mentioned tonight: climate change.

Israel: 22 mentions. Japan, Europe, India: 0.
I think Europe did mentions somewhere, in the Syria and Iran replies. And Japan got a drive-by mention. On the plus side, Mali ? or Molly, as Romney seems to call it ? got three namechecks. They'll be dancing on the streets of Bamako tonight.

The problem is that his attacks, over and over again, are just buzzwords and slogans. He?s entirely dependent on people being eager to believe him. On the economy, that may be the case; on foreign policy, it?s unlikely that very many viewers or foreign policy experts see the administration?s policies as ?unraveling,? as Romney continues to insist he sees. That is, it?s unlikely that very many viewers agree unless they get the bulk of their information from Fox News.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012