Obama-Romney II

by JASmius

(Hey, O had his tag team partner, I had mine.  And I'll take ten hours of sleep over Candy Crowley any night.  Hell, I'd take being comatose over Candy Crowley.)

So...who won?  As always with campaign debates, it depends on factors having nothing to do with technical debating criteria and everything to do with the needs of the respective candidates at the time of the event.  Or, put more succinctly, think strategic, not tactical.

If you WERE to think tactically, you would have to score it a draw, more or less.  King Hussein actually showed up for this one rather than his department store mannequin stand-in, which was all his Resident Evil supporters were looking for.  Which, again, is consistent with his megalomaniacal psychological profile; I think he thought that all he had to do in Denver is literally just show up and his blinding transfigurational radiance would so dazzlingly terrify all present, including Governor Romney, that all could not help but bow down to him, after which he'd still have time for eighteen divots holes.  Instead, Mitt's inner eyelids kicked in, one of those massive eyebrows tellingly rose, and the nut-stomping began.  Consequently, for the Hofstra return match Red Barry knew he'd actually have to put forth some effort, even if it was a two-on-one handicap match.  But he was still pissed about it; it's a microcosm of how he feels about the campaign in general, about having to actually go out and debase himself begging for [ugh] votes from [blecch] ordinary people who are naught but his [yecch] subjects and unworthy of anything beyond waving his palm fronds and carrying his club bag.

That definitely came out in his performance, which was otherwise described as far more "energized" and "aggressive," which is to say he was scarcely any less of a prick than Biden was last Thursday, minus overt symptoms of the onset of senile dementia.  And in, turn, the post-debate snap polls reflected it with the CBS and CNN results more or less evenly split between Obama, Romney, and "draw".  As O's primary task was, as with Slow Joe last week, to bring his Walking Dead base back in off the ledge onto which his Denver non-performance sent them (break out the Crisco, "Mr." Sullivan!), you'd have to call that "mission accomplished".

But that's all The One accomplished Tuesday night.  His only attainable goals were tactical, because the strategic cast of this race has been set from day one.  With a disastrous record of across-the-board failure on which he cannot run, no popular accomplishments and a buttload of unpopular ones, and most Americans having tuned him out several years ago after none of his ridiculously overgrandious BS promises panned out, Barack Obama's only possible avenue to re-election always was as his strategists "civilly" quipped a year ago: "Kill Romney".  However, a hundred and fifty million dollars of smear ads over the summer never moved the needle at all; from St. Patrick's Day forward, the race remained either tied or a slight lead for Governor Romney.  Only twice has that dynamic changed: (1) the Democratic National Convention, when Bill Clinton's speech put over Dr. Chicago as the victim of circumstances too traumatically adverse even for a god to "transform" all at once, giving O a small lead to which the Obamedia tried to apply the same "inevitability" gimmick they used to pre-emptively bury Bob Dole in 1996; and, of course, (2) The Denver Debacle, where a president sure as shinola showed up, and he wasn't wearing mom jeans.  Or, put another way, somebody else had to sell Obama (and backhandedly at that) because he can't sell himself.  Whereas Governor Romney (for whom, thanks to Team Messiah's crap-hurling, the task of direct self-salesmanship was gobsmackingly simple) had to merely appear on stage and not drool on himself to be a plausible, acceptable alternative.

And, of course he did much, much more.  And the preference cascade began.

The Mitt who took the stage on Long Island (Since when is New York a swing state, BTW?) was the same one who dominated the first debate (despite the [GASP] high altitude), proving that Round #1 was no fluke.  Was he perfect?  No.  He had a missed opportunity here and there.  I, personally, don't include the Libyagate question among them because of "Miss" Crowley's blatant and mendacious interference on BO's behalf (kind of like when the babyface is whaling on the heel in the corner and the heel referee low blows him from behind), but your mileage may vary.  Besides, that simply set the table for next Monday's foreign policy-oriented, blessedly non-Town-Hall formatted finale.

So....who won?  Well, on specific issues, Governor Romney ran the table in those same post-debate snap polls, including nearly three to one on the economy.  Which helps explain who got a quick-turnaround campaign commercial out of it (that didn't mention "binders full of women"):



This presumeably helps explain why so many Obama 2008 voters are turning from the Dark Side this time around:



So yes, the Li'l President was more energized; yes, he was more aggressive; yes, he was in there swinging away with his entire arsenal of lies ("Read the transcript!", "I've laid enough pipe to encircle the planet" or words to that effect) and smears (47%!!!!!  BAIN!!!!!  $5 TRILLION TAX CUT!!!!!).  But the truth is, there is nothing Barack Obama can personally do to change the stategic direction of this campaign because his 2008 overpromising and complete failure to deliver in office has laid waste to any ability he ever would have had to influence it.

The 2012 election is Mitt Romney's to lose.  If he performs in Boca Raton, Florida next Monday as he has at Denver and Hofstra, the deal will be sealed.  That's the reality.

And as has been the case for the past 1,366 days, reality is not Godbama's friend.


[cross-posted @ Hard Starboard]