Obviously Democratic 14th Congressional District candidate (and former congressman) Nick Lampson really doesn’t like being asked how often he voted with Nancy Pelosi in the middle of his lecture on bipartisanship.
I talked about the CD14 race between Lampson and Randy Weber earlier this week.
I was going to have an insightful, data-filed post on the Texas 23rd Congressional district race, but then I realized that the Los Angeles Times data I was relying on flipped at least one bit of information (NRA-ILA is doing independent expenditures against Pete Gallego, not against Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco), which means I can’t trust the rest. Super executive summary: Canseco has a huge cash on-hand advantage, $785,623 to $23,250, but assuming the other LA Times numbers are right, the independent expenditure race is a lot closer to even.
Now on to a LinkSwarm a week before the election:
Obama is clearly winning the race for military endorsements, having 6 endorsements to Romney’s paltry 359.
Given that Miklosi has raised about half of what his Republican opponent incumbent Mike Coffman has for the Colorado Sixth Congressional District race, but only has about one-fifth the cash on hand, Livoti seems to have retained his magic touch.
Mitt Romney just kept slamming them out of the park at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner. “In the spirit of Sesame Street tonight, the President’s remarks are brought to you by the letter O and the number 16 trillion.”
Lots of commentators said that Joe Biden did better debating against Paul Ryan than Obama did against Mitt Romney. I found Biden the far more irritating of the two, his his constant grinning and interrupting. He was like some weird, glad-handing political coelecanth that had somehow survived into the 21st century, and didn’t realize how fake his antics look on high def television. (And that’s to say nothing of Biden’s outright lies. No evidence of green pork cronyism? Right. Pull the other one.)
This unsigned Houston Chronicle liveblog tries to be evenhanded, but dings Biden for his jackassery. “Biden’s contempt for his rival is palpable. Biden’s constant interruptions and grinning and head shaking could turn off some viewers.”
The Weekly Standardnotes that “You don’t win a nationally televised debate by being rude and obnoxious. You don’t win by interrupting your opponent time after time after time or by being a blowhard. You don’t win with facial expressions, especially smirks or fake laughs, or by pretending to be utterly exasperated with what your opponent is saying.”
NRO’s Yuval Levin thinks that “Biden’s hyper-aggressive and at times buffoonish performance (and perhaps especially his Joker grin, which seemed to me as much a product of nervousness as of intent) hurt the ticket some with independent voters and especially with women,” but also thinks he did what he needed to do (stop the liberal bleeding).
By contrast, NRO compatriot John O’Sullivan thinks Biden won on points, but as engendered a “hostile reaction from women to his amazingly blatant mugging and grinning at the camera during Ryan’s arguments.”
Forbes also wasn’t impressed with Biden: “Television provided split screens, so while viewers saw Ryan calmly responding to the questions that came his way, on the other half of the screen they saw a batty older man laughing obnoxiously at someone who, even if voters disagree with him, comes off as very reasonable. The contrast can’t have worked in Biden’s favor.”
The Daily Gator says that Biden was “rude, condescending, and acted like a bully. Biden did not make any glaring gaffes, but, how he conducted himself might have been more damaging. His over the top smiles, really creepy smiles to be honest, his constant interruptions, which the moderator did nothing to stop, and his other facial gymnastics made him look like a man with nothing to say.”
Best tweet of the night (from Dave Itzkoff): “I’m told Joe Biden was just a small-time hood before Batman dropped him in the vat of chemicals that left him with a permanent grin.”
This RNC ad spliced together from last night’s debate already has over a quarter-million hits:
And finally, complete video of the debate in case you missed it:
The Libyan embassy had repeatedly asked for additional security and were refused In fact, their security was reduced. “We couldn’t even keep what we had.”
Watching and listening to Romney now, who do you agree with more: Mitt Romney, or reporters sounding outraged at his criticisms of the Obama Administration?
Both the Obama Administration and their lapdog media surrogates seem far more interested in defeating Obama’s political opponent than America’s Jihadest enemies, or telling the American people the truth.
Take a gander at the latest ad from American’s for Prosperity:
Not only does it work for me, it has a subtle, minimalist brilliance that not only makes it stick in the mind, but makes it hard to fight. What are liberals going to say? “No, unemployment isn’t high?” “No, middle class families aren’t suffering?” “No, it’s all Bush’s fault?” “No, let’s keep doing the same thing?” The very lack of dialog all but eliminates attack vectors against it, and any attacks against it will only make more people watch it.
I got this via Ace of Spades who, strangely enough, doesn’t like it. A commentator suggests that it’s because it stresses feelings over facts. But if facts and figure by themselves swayed the majority of voters, Obama would never have been elected President, and would stand no chance now.
If you have liberal friends on Facebook, chances are that they’re not forwarding links that show how objectively great a job Obama is doing. No, what they’re doing is forwarding links designed inflame fellow liberals with what horrible people Republicans are by focusing on the stupid things said by a few Republican office-holders. (Todd Aiken before, Paul Broun this week.) It’s meant to distract from Obama’s manifest failures by making the opposition evil incarnate. Political ads play on emotions because playing on emotions works.
Which isn’t to say it’s the only advertising you should be doing. But as part of a larger advertising strategy I think this particular ad is very effective.
You know what they could do to make liberals really crawl of their skin? Do the exact same ad with a black family.
The Onion is merciless: “President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Sasha reportedly asked her father why he was ‘acting like such a goddamned pussy up there.’ ‘Daddy, how come you were being such a little bitch?'”
Uh:
Jon Stewart piles on:
How do you know Romney slaughtered Obama? Even Taiwanese animators celebrate the pummeling:
Larry Kudlow: “Mitt Romney politely cleaned Barack Obama’s clock tonight. A lethargic and at times tired looking President Obama was out-hustled, out-facted, out-energized, and out-informed by Former Governor Mitt Romney.”
And Jim Treacher has still more. “I’m glad the Greatest President Ever spent so much time stressing the importance of education, because he just got schooled.”
The Washington Postcalled Romney “well prepared and aggressive.”
I didn’t see the entirety of the debate, but in the parts I did see, Romney firmly trounced Obama. Romney looked sharp, engaged, lively and presidential. Obama looked like he was looking at his Blackberry when he wasn’t speaking.
Nor am I alone in my judgment, as even the Obama-friendly press and liberal pundits said Romney won (some in NSFW language):
John Hindraker: “It’s over. I’ve been watching presidential debates for quite a few years, but I have never seen one like this. It wasn’t a TKO, it was a knockout. Mitt Romney was in control from the beginning. He was the alpha male, while Barack Obama was weak, hesitant, stuttering, often apologetic. The visuals were great for Romney and awful for Obama. Obama looked small, tired, defeated after four years of failure, out of ammo.”
Jonah Goldberg: “I had a pretty good feeling about tonight’s debate. But I had no expectation that Romney would simply control the night the way he did. I don’t think Obama did terribly on the merits, even though he clearly lost by a wide margin on points. But you don’t really score a debate like this on points. Romney simply dominated and deflated Obama.”
Rich Lowry: “It was overwhelmingly Romney’s night. He was more confident, more energetic, and better informed than President Obama. He exposed the president’s shallowness and got under his skin.”
On Twitter, gay righty turned lefty Andrew Sullivan bluntly declared “this was a disaster for Obama.” Also: “How is Obama’s closing so fucking sad, confused, lame? He choked. He lost. He may even have lost election tonight.”
Hell, even CNN’s non-rightwing audience thought that Romney won the debate by a landslide of 67% to 25%.