They just don’t come bigger than this. Obama says he had an off night during the first debate and that if you read the transcript instead of looking at the body language he took Romney apart. But those who watched, and the analyses that came later, were almost unanimous in seeing a decisive win for Mitt Romney. Romney was in command. He totally outshone and overshadowed a tongue tied and incoherent President, supposedly our modern Demosthenes, Pericles and Cicero all in one. Or at least that was the general perception until he was forced, for almost the first time since he began his run for president, to defend his policies in public, under challenge and without a teleprompter. Obama’s dismal showing has led to a surge in support for Romney and unless Obama can pull it back in this debate, the odds that he is about to lose the election will become very short indeed. But once again I point out the one advantage Obama has which is the phenomenal data mining operation he has put in place. Once more I raise that passage from Peggy Noonan written well over a year ago:
The other day a Republican political veteran forwarded me a hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign. It read like politics as done by Martians. The ‘Analytics Department’ is looking for ‘predictive Modeling/Data Mining’ specialists to join the campaign’s ‘multi-disciplinary team of statisticians,’ which will use ‘predictive modeling’ to anticipate the behavior of the electorate. ‘We will analyze millions of interactions a day, learning from terabytes of historical data, running thousands of experiments, to inform campaign strategy and critical decisions.’
There are the things that must be done to fix the American economy and to restore some kind of order in America’s foreign relations. That is Romney’s speciality. There are also the things that can be said that will gather votes but if implemented would bring further ruin to the United States and to us along with them. That is Obama’s speciality. If the result of the American election interests you, it may all come down to this hour and a half. It will be Mitt Romney’s sound policy and good sense against Obama’s disastrous policy record and far left agenda. Obama also promises to be more aggressive. Mitt will just be Mitt.
The viewing details here in Australia:
Wednesday October 17: Presidential debate #2: Foreign and domestic policy
Watch the debate live on SBS ONE or streamed live on the SBS World News Australia website from 12pm ADST.
[My thanks to sdog for spotting the video]
This from the man who walked off the stage of the last debate thinking he had won. Perhaps his judgement doesn’t count for all that much. Obama could get behind a podium, say absolutely nothing all evening and walk away being completely confident that he had carried the day simply because he’s Obama. Funny that he himself is one of the tiny handful of non-disillusioned Hope and Change true believers from 2008. What a dope.
Oh come on
16 Oct 12 at 2:16 pm
Lots of people in IT sell the ability of machines to predict human behavior en-masse in order to make money – mostly outside of the most closed, structed systems (public transit, etc) it’s an absolute farce.
twostix
16 Oct 12 at 2:19 pm
*structured
twostix
16 Oct 12 at 2:20 pm
All that the advanced data mining allows Obama to do is identify and target niche constituencies where they exist. Problem is that these niches will be ameliorated if there’s a strong prevailing anti-incumbent sentiment.
Oh come on
16 Oct 12 at 2:24 pm
There will be more plants than an abortoreum in this audience. Bring weed killer, Mitt.
Infidel Tiger
16 Oct 12 at 2:25 pm
Twostix, if you watch that 1st debate again and listen carefully, you’ll hear the sound of $200 million being flushed down the toilet in 90 minutes.
John Podhoretz noted that Obama made all that data mining, expertise and spending on attack ads redundant by his insipid debate performance.
Podhoretz also has a bit of fun with the post debate quote by Obama where he notes his wife is his “harshest critic”.
Token
16 Oct 12 at 2:30 pm
More plants than Joe Biden’s scalp.
C.L.
16 Oct 12 at 3:02 pm
Apparently the buck doesn’t stop with the President.
It stops with Hils (until she isn’t really that guilty she was just following Obumma policy but that comes later).
LOL
JamesK
16 Oct 12 at 3:10 pm
Toesucker on Hannity: “This election will be a landslide for Romney”
Dick Morris says that the MSM isn’t explaining correctly why the momentum has shifted toward Romney after his big win in the first debate. They attribute it to a lackluster president, but Morris says it has to do with the strategy of demonising Romney that the Obama campaign employed early on to defeat him.
Indeed, the Obama campaign has been trying to reaffirm since the last presidential debate that the real Mitt Romney was in their ads, not before the voters’ eyes in that debate.
JamesK
16 Oct 12 at 3:20 pm
JamesK @3.20pm Interesting clip
Exactly what Bligh tried to do to Newman in Queensland and Gillard is trying to do to Abbott. What they all lack is any semblance of a track record of credible achievement in government. When you got no positives – you gotta go negative.
H B Bear
16 Oct 12 at 3:43 pm
The bookies still don’t believe in Mitt….$2.88 is superb odds on the polling data.
My fondest hope is that the bookies, thanks to Mitt, will be paying for our Alaskan fishing trip come Inauguration.
Alfonso
16 Oct 12 at 3:50 pm
That’s Obama with everything.
Like the story when he first became president, and an intern – in a major security breach – sneaked her way into his office. He asked what she was doing there and she said, “I’m a big fan of yours, Mr President, and… I’d like to give you a blowjob!”
Obama said, “Of course you do… but what’s in it for me?”
Fleeced
16 Oct 12 at 4:01 pm
We picked up Mitt at $3.08; damn good odds in a two horse race. I don’t think Australian bookies have ever heard of Romney or for that matter the Republican party.
Ubique of Perth
16 Oct 12 at 4:03 pm
I’d better put some moolah on Mittens!
Rabz
16 Oct 12 at 4:06 pm
Australian punters, perhaps. Bookies know their craft – I’m sure it simply reflects bets placed.
We should thank the local media for the financial opportunity with which they’ve presented is.
Fleeced
16 Oct 12 at 4:07 pm
is -> us
Fleeced
16 Oct 12 at 4:08 pm
Pro-tip: never give a Clinton kudos for being selfless until you’ve seen it with your own lying eyes & ears:
Token
16 Oct 12 at 4:10 pm
Betfair is holding over $10 mill US on this race and they are just as skewed. Remember that the market has been open for 4 years and all the money until 2 weeks ago was coming for the dog eating cock gobbler.
This market is a reflection of what has been bet not the expected outcome.
Infidel Tiger
16 Oct 12 at 4:14 pm
The Toesucker’s great. He is a very compelling mix of avuncular eccentric and razor-sharp pundit.
Oh come on
16 Oct 12 at 4:15 pm
And if he’s right about a Romney landslide, he’s going to be able to dine out on that for years, because he was saying it when just about every prominent right wing talking head in the MSM was soiling themselves over Obama the Invincible and his team of uber-genius political fixers.
Oh come on
16 Oct 12 at 4:22 pm
The man-o-sphere, an amusing off-shoot of the unauthorised Right, has an interesting take on Debate One: Romney turns out to have Alpha male je ne sais quoi.
The only problem area for Romney and the GOP has hitherto been white women, who have tended to favour Obama much more than their husbands (do).
Big Jim
16 Oct 12 at 4:45 pm
Obama seems to lack practice at fighting back from behind.
Jim Rose
16 Oct 12 at 5:10 pm
Cute photo. Good copy.
Gab
16 Oct 12 at 5:25 pm
“Bookies know their craft – I’m sure it simply reflects bets placed.”
Not necessarily Fleeced. The huge US betting market on the same subject means Aussie (battler) bookies can lay off whatever they need to in the US, so they don’t have to run like a TAB……if they have taken a view on the matter and are still offering more than $1.50 on their perceived outsider you should never interrupt them making a mistake.
I feel another coupla k coming on.
Alfonso
16 Oct 12 at 5:28 pm
I thought a former associate claimed he liked coming from behind?
Fleeced
16 Oct 12 at 5:33 pm
Obama’s Debate II Prep [cartoon]
sdog
17 Oct 12 at 12:17 am
[...] I mentioned on an earlier post, there are the things that must be done to fix the American economy and to restore some kind of [...]
Reminder – Romney v Obama on SBS today at noon at Catallaxy Files
17 Oct 12 at 9:57 am