First Presidential Debate

Professor S · 10-04-2012, 10:19 AM

Thoughts?

Teuthida · 10-04-2012, 10:38 AM

I felt bad for Jim Lehrer.

thatmariolover · 10-04-2012, 12:09 PM

Obama was a pushover and Romney was a Liar. Both of them were bad about following the time constraints, and were frequently rude in interrupting the moderator, Jim Lehrer. It didn't help that Lehrer did an extremely poor job of keeping them on topic and should have had a button to cut the microphones when they went over.

Obama still found time to dissemble about Polly Prettypants from Petunia Pavilion who had a pretty pink baby and COULDN'T GET HEALTHCARE. Or Molly Middleclass from Mud Mountain, who couldn't make ends meet. I almost ragequit when he started going on with his sob stories instead of saying something substantive. He's been claiming to have a plan this whole time, and then what, he chokes?

All around, not impressed.

Bond · 10-04-2012, 04:13 PM

Just amazed Mr. Lehrer lived through the debate.

TheGame · 10-05-2012, 03:02 AM

In my opinion Romney won the debate. Hands down.

...though I haven't had a chance to look over the fact checks yet.

I think the bar was set very low for him by Bush and Mccain (and himself) and he easilly exceeded the level of expectations that I had for him. That seems to be the opinion of a lot of people I work with too.

On the other hand, Obama just looked like he didn't want to be there and was letting Romney have the last word on everything. I know that they're trying to get away from blaming Bush and the Republican party for the crisis, but I think he should have. If the right wing is going to blame him for all of the jobs lost in his first 10 months as president that's his only defense.

thatmariolover · 10-05-2012, 09:55 AM

I'm sure Obama didn't want to be there. He'd been in a NATO briefing on Turkey/Syria all day and then a couple hours after he finishes he has to go debate Mitt. All on his wedding anniversary.

Fact checks are not coming in favorably for Governor Romney. Think Progress is hardly impartial, but they have a well formatted article here: http://thinkprogress.org/politics/20...in-38-minutes/

Vampyr · 10-05-2012, 10:12 AM

I think they should start doing fact checks in the middle of the debate. Have a team dedicated to it and scroll it across the bottom.

It's kind of ridiculous. It's easy to "win" a debate when you make shit up.

Teuthida · 10-05-2012, 08:25 PM

Someone suggested this guy moderate the debate:

TheGame · 10-06-2012, 03:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vampyr

I think they should start doing fact checks in the middle of the debate. Have a team dedicated to it and scroll it across the bottom.

It's kind of ridiculous. It's easy to "win" a debate when you make shit up.

Agreed.

Professor S · 10-06-2012, 10:32 AM

http://factcheck.org/2012/10/dubious...-declarations/

Fact Check is the best site for debunking things like this.

To add some context: As stated n the debate, Romney's tax plan also relies on economic growth, and not just deduction cuts, to drive tax revenue after his proposed cuts. You can say that it's wishful thinking, but looking at the the historical numbers you can easily argue that any tax plan relies on economic growth to remain viable. As Bond and I have cited multiple times, GDP drives revenue, not individual tax rates.

Overall, I think Romney's most effective claim, and what separated him the most from Pres. Obama, were his statements on bipartisan governance. Listening to people in the middle, I think that resonated with independents.

As for Pres. Obama, he didn't look like he wanted to be there, and missed several opportunities to swing at lobbed softballs. Dems better hope he was simply tired, and that this isn't a strategy. If it's strategy, he's in trouble.

TheGame · 10-06-2012, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor S

As for Pres. Obama, he didn't look like he wanted to be there, and missed several opportunities to swing at lobbed softballs. Dems better hope he was simply tired, and that this isn't a strategy. If it's strategy, he's in trouble.

I agree with you 100%. But one of my co workers brought up an interesting point...

He thinks that Obama was baiting Romney into talking too much on purpose, so the media can discuss what Romney said and debunk it themselves. He compared it to a boxing match where someone's using a 'rope a dope' strategy, and letting them win the first rounds.

To me it didn't seem like it is a strategy, but only time will tell. So far the fact checkers have dinged Romney much more for inaccurate information than Obama.

And as I expected, Obama got dinged for not telling the 'complete truth' about jobs growth in his time in office. But like I said, I think a better strategy then ignoring what happened in the first 10 months of his presidency would be to blame it on the republican and Bush ran congress. Anyone with any sense can't blame him for 750k jobs being lost per month as he was being sworn in. The unemployment rate sky rocketed to 10% in that first year, and its back down to like 8% now.

Professor S · 10-06-2012, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGame

He thinks that Obama was baiting Romney into talking too much on purpose, so the media can discuss what Romney said and debunk it themselves. He compared it to a boxing match where someone's using a 'rope a dope' strategy, and letting them win the first rounds.

If this is the plan, it's a mistake. Americans can't stand weakness, and regardless of his advantage of having a cheerleader media behind him, Pres. Obama looked weak and that will work against him with voters on a subconscious level. He needs to be aggressive next round or he might be done. Romney has already closed the gap, or moved slightly ahead, in many swing states. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._tracking_poll

Quote:

And as I expected, Obama got dinged for not telling the 'complete truth' about jobs growth in his time in office. But like I said, I think a better strategy then ignoring what happened in the first 10 months of his presidency would be to blame it on the republican and Bush ran congress. Anyone with any sense can't blame him for 750k jobs being lost per month as he was being sworn in. The unemployment rate sky rocketed to 10% in that first year, and its back down to like 8% now.

It' actually below 8%, but most serious analysts continue to believe our employment situation is getting worse, not better. The problem is the unemployment rate on surveys those who are actively searching for work. If you follow the labor participation rate, we are at the lowest point since 1980 or so. As the graph below shows, participation has continued to plummet under Pres. Obama. http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

What is the reason why participation has dropped while unemployment has gotten better? People have given up, and/or their unemployment benefits have expired. I won't even get into underemployment or forced early retirement...

TheGame · 10-06-2012, 10:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor S

If this is the plan, it's a mistake. Americans can't stand weakness, and regardless of his advantage of having a cheerleader media behind him, Pres. Obama looked weak and that will work against him with voters on a subconscious level. He needs to be aggressive next round or he might be done. Romney has already closed the gap, or moved slightly ahead, in many swing states. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._tracking_poll

It may be, time will tell. I don't even know if it's even a strategy at this point...

Quote:

It' actually below 8%, but most serious analysts continue to believe our employment situation is getting worse, not better. The problem is the unemployment rate on surveys those who are actively searching for work. If you follow the labor participation rate, we are at the lowest point since 1980 or so. As the graph below shows, participation has continued to plummet under Pres. Obama. http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

What is the reason why participation has dropped while unemployment has gotten better? People have given up, and/or their unemployment benefits have expired. I won't even get into underemployment or forced early retirement...

What do those percentages stand for? I clicked on your link and it said database unavailable. I'm ASSUMING it stands for percentage of americans who are actively looking for work over time (and I'm not sure if the pool is the total poulation of the US, or they limit it by age, or exclude people going to school etc etc).

I'd like to see a graph of that going back to the 90's. It's hard to put a 2% drop in perspective without knowing what was happening before he got elected.

Bond · 10-07-2012, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Professor S

It' actually below 8%, but most serious analysts continue to believe our employment situation is getting worse, not better. The problem is the unemployment rate on surveys those who are actively searching for work. If you follow the labor participation rate, we are at the lowest point since 1980 or so. As the graph below shows, participation has continued to plummet under Pres. Obama. http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet

What is the reason why participation has dropped while unemployment has gotten better? People have given up, and/or their unemployment benefits have expired. I won't even get into underemployment or forced early retirement...

This is true. To be honest, I don't think most economists take the CPS unemployment rate (at 7.8% now) very seriously. The methodology is rather wacky, but the issue is if it were changed the survey loses its historical persuasiveness. I used to have a nice flowchart that explains the telephone question tree to determine if one is 1) employed, 2) unemployed, or 3) "out of the workforce," but I can't find it.

This is a good Wikipedia graph explaining the various rates:

Professor S · 10-07-2012, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheGame

What do those percentages stand for? I clicked on your link and it said database unavailable. I'm ASSUMING it stands for percentage of Americans who are actively looking for work over time (and I'm not sure if the pool is the total poulation of the US, or they limit it by age, or exclude people going to school etc etc).

It's the percentage of Americans currently participating in the labor force. Something else to keep in mind is that while unemployment dropped to 7.8%, we only added 114,000 jobs. We need to add about 200,000 just to keep up with the population. To me, though, the most disturbing trend is the increased percentage of young people who are dropping out of the labor force, and that more people are continuing to work well above retirement age.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm

Quote:

I'd like to see a graph of that going back to the 90's. It's hard to put a 2% drop in perspective without knowing what was happening before he got elected.

I'll do better than that:

This goes back to 1980, the last time our participation rate was this low. It started to significantly drop during the 2008 crash and has continued to drop since then. But as you see, the downward trend started after the internet bust.