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The Last Presidential Debate - 10/22/12
Topic Started: Oct 19 2012, 01:51 PM (4,189 Views)
foxglove

Baldo
Oct 21 2012, 08:01 PM
Monday’s Debate Puts Focus on Foreign Policy Clashes
By DAVID E. SANGER NY Times

When President Obama and Mitt Romney sit down Monday night for the last of their three debates, two things should be immediately evident: there should be no pacing the stage or candidates’ getting into each other’s space, and there should be no veering into arguments over taxes.

This debate is about how America deals with the world — and how it should.

If the moderator, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, has his way, it will be the most substantive of the debates. He has outlined several topics: America’s role in the world, the continuing war in Afghanistan, managing the nuclear crisis with Iran and the resultant tensions with Israel, and how to deal with rise of China.

The most time, Mr. Schieffer has said, will be spent on the Arab uprisings, their aftermath and how the terrorist threat has changed since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. No doubt the two candidates will spar again, as they did in the second debate, about whether the Obama administration was ready for the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed J. Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador, and three other Americans. Mr. Romney was widely judged to not have had his most effective critique ready, and this time, presumably, he will be out to correct that.

The early line is that this is an opportunity for Mr. Obama to shine, and to repair the damage from the first debate. (He was already telling jokes the other night, at a dinner in New York, about his frequent mention of Osama bin Laden’s demise.)

But we can hope that it is a chance for both candidates to describe, at a level of detail they have not yet done, how they perceive the future of American power in the world. They view American power differently, a subject I try to grapple with at length in a piece in this Sunday’s Review, “The Debatable World.”

But for now, here is a field guide to Monday’s debate...snipped

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/mondays-debate-puts-focus-on-foreign-policy-clashes/?hp


I think most pundits underestimate Romney.
It sounds like Sanger's article is pro-Obama and the next debate will probably be tougher on Romney than Obama because of Schieffer's ideological bent.

A tough question for Obama, IMO, would be why is he trumpeting bin Ladin's death when terrorists were able to kill an American ambassador? Bin Laden's death does nothing to quell other terrorist and terrorist networks. Has Obama really given foreign affairs the attention it deserves if he misses the daily intelligence briefing as much as it has been reported that he has?

A tough question for Romney. This goes back to Romney's statement about the US and Israel that "the world must never see daylight between our two nations.'' What does that mean, exactly? Netanyahu has been vocal about the release of Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel and has been in jail because of that. Does it mean Pollard should be let out of prison-- pardoned by Romney? Does it mean that there should be complete sharing of military technology, etc. between the two nations? Are the national interests of both countries the same?
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kbp

DP'04
 
...The great Presidents in our history (with the possible exception of F. D. R.) would have done miserably; but our most notorious demagogues would have shone.



Good thing you let us know it was published before Reagan!
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Baldo
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I agree with DP2004, but one does have to admit that in a media age the President's ability to communicate and present an image is important.

Unfortunately it is the format that causes problem because it is a made for TV event with sound bites. I would like to see a formal debate under non-partisan debating professors. But where do you find those?

But really most citizens would tune out at a real debate and that might be the real problem
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kbp

Baldo
Oct 21 2012, 09:15 PM
I agree with DP2004, but one does have to admit that in a media age the President's ability to communicate and present an image is important.

snip
TOTUS
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Duke parent 2004
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Baldo
Oct 21 2012, 09:15 PM
. . . but one does have to admit that in a media age the President's ability to communicate and present an image is important.
My dear Baldo,

I fear you have begged the question.

The full title of later editions of Boorstin's book is The Image:. A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.. Presenting an "image," defined and shaped of course by the media, was precisely what Boorstin was railing against.. The word itself connotes something insubstantial, contrived, artificial, and therefore misleading, if not illusory.

A question worth pondering:. Might not the majesty of the Presidency gain from fewer rather than more gum-flappings and media appearances on the part of its holders?
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Baldo
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I wouldn't disagree. I would hope a man/woman running the the President would be competent. Perhaps that is where I overstepped.
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I just with that the President would have spent more time with the business of governing the United States than in campaigning and doing talk shows. I believe that he has done more talk shows than press conferences, probably because he just loves the trivial banter of the talk show hosts, and is totally incompetent in the press conferences because he can't use his teleprompter and at least a few of the reporters aren't inclined to kiss his ring... and oh yea, that ring is another subject.
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kbp

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/category/obama-administration/
October 18th, 2012
"...al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead," Obama said at a campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.

next...

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/10/2012101961410321358.html
"Yemeni military officials have blamed al-Qaeda for setting off a bomb during an assault on an army base that killed at least 15 soldiers and wounded 29 others."



Kinda fits in with the pattern we're seeing from the Arab Spring …BLACK flags flying freely in the mideast. I wonder if we'll hear anything on that defeating al Qaeda?
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Baldo
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BLACK flags flying freely in the mideast

That says it all!

Trouble is spreading in Syria, In Lebanon, in Jordan

Oh we got trouble!
Edited by Baldo, Oct 22 2012, 09:31 AM.
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Baldo
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How Romney Can Make It 3-0 In Debates Tonight – Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!

I discuss what Romney needs to do in tonight’s third debate to sweep the series.

http://www.dickmorris.com/how-romney-can-make-it-3-0-in-debates-tonight-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
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kbp

Baldo
Oct 22 2012, 09:35 AM
How Romney Can Make It 3-0 In Debates Tonight – Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!

I discuss what Romney needs to do in tonight’s third debate to sweep the series.

http://www.dickmorris.com/how-romney-can-make-it-3-0-in-debates-tonight-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports
WHOA! I promise I had not seen this yet when I had posted similar comments!

The idea of children fighting just popped into my mind, thinking of how Barry had said "proceed" and followed it by asking Candy to repeat herself louder.

The rest that is similar (defeating al Qaeda, Iran's nuke, only foreign topics, killed Osama, Israel security, Arab Spring...) are just topics and concerns we all see in the news.

Edited by kbp, Oct 22 2012, 10:03 AM.
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Baldo
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Huh?

Tonight's third and final presidential debate will focus entirely on international politics and foreign policy. Expect Benghazi to be one of the major issues, a subject on which, for the first time in nearly a month, the Obama administration will have the upper hand.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/romney-needs-tonight-foreign-policy-debate-105750153.html
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kbp

Baldo
Oct 22 2012, 10:40 AM
Huh?

Tonight's third and final presidential debate will focus entirely on international politics and foreign policy. Expect Benghazi to be one of the major issues, a subject on which, for the first time in nearly a month, the Obama administration will have the upper hand.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/romney-needs-tonight-foreign-policy-debate-105750153.html
The video is a little different than the text.


"Of course the administration's argument that they were just incompetent and not misleading is not a perfect argument," says Rogin with a laugh, "but that's the one they're going with."


Unless Candy is in the audiemce and Barry keeps asking for her to speak up, the Rose Garden is probably a non-issue. Mitt could just call it unclear wording on Barry's side and stick to the incompetence it openly displays ...why did Barry fail; A, B, or C?

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kbp

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dee-evans/media-bias-debates_b_1989561.html



A parallel universe here ...attributing the climb in the polls to conservatives sticking together well.
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kbp

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-a-thiessen-why-mondays-debate-will-be-a-slugfest/2012/10/22/2af2c508-1c65-11e2-ba31-3083ca97c314_story.html

Why Monday’s debate will be a slugfest

By Marc A. Thiessen, The Washington Post
Before last week’s presidential debate, the conventional wisdom was that it would be a more subdued encounter — because it is hard to attack your opponent in a town-hall format. Well, as we all saw, the conventional wisdom was dead wrong. So we should take with a grain of salt the talk about how tonight’s foreign-policy debate will be a more serious and subdued affair. It will be a slugfest — because Barack Obama has no choice but to come out swinging.

Mitt Romney has the momentum going into tonight’s debate. He is rising in polls and has persuadable voters moving his way. He does not need a decisive win tonight. His goal should be to look presidential — to come across as serious, knowledgeable and ready to be commander in chief. His objective will be to make a clear and effective case against Obama’s global leadership, to lay out an alternative vision for America’s role in the world and, above all, to not say anything that disqualifies him for the job in the eyes of persuadable voters.

Obama, by contrast, needs a clear and decisive win. Because the momentum is against him, a tie that simply slows Romney’s momentum won’t be enough — he needs to reverse it.

So he will go on the attack and try to disqualify Romney as a potential commander in chief. He will make fun of Romney’s foreign-policy trip this summer — if he can’t go to the Olympics without offending our closest ally, how is he going to rally our allies to stop Iran’s nuclear program? Obama will make the case that Romney is the second coming of George W. Bush, who regrets ending the war in Iraq, wants to keep us at war in Afghanistan and wants to start another war with Iran.

Romney will respond calmly by arguing that he wants to avoid war — and that the best way to prevent war is to make sure your adversaries don’t doubt your resolve or your capabilities. He will point to the Middle East on fire and describe it as the result of a policy of U.S. weakness. On Iran, he will point out that Obama’s policy is failing — that Iran has made more progress toward a nuclear weapon in the past 31 / 2 years than it did in the previous three decades — because Iran does not believe that there will be consequences for its defiance.

Romney will also spend a lot of time hitting Obama on domestic policy by wrapping it in a foreign-policy veneer. Romney will make the case that you can’t have a strong military and a strong foreign policy unless you have a strong economy — and use that to hit Obama’s economic record and talk about his jobs plan. He will hit Obama for his failure to conclude a single trade agreement — and then lay out his own plan for expanding trade and U.S. exports. He will talk about the need for energy independence and highlight his plan to create energy jobs here at home. He will talk about defense sequestration and highlight both the danger to our national security and the impact on defense jobs in states such as Virginia, Florida and Ohio.

Romney also gets a second chance on Libya tonight. Look for the GOP candidate to point out that Obama failed to answer the question put to him in the last debate by undecided voter Kerry Ladka: Why were requests for additional security in Libya denied? Since Ladka asked his question, Romney can say, we have learned that Ambassador Christopher Stevens sent repeated cables warning of “an increase in attacks targeting international organizations and foreign interests,” as well as a rising al-Qaeda presence in the area, and complaining about the lack of security. Romney should say: “Mr. President, Americans deserve to know, why were those reports ignored and those requests for additional security denied? So I thought you might like to answer Kerry Ladka’s question tonight.”

This would put Obama on the defensive. He couldn’t charge Romney with politicizing the incident — because the question comes not from Romney but from an undecided voter, and Obama ducked it last time. And it also would guarantee that we will be talking about their exchange on Libya for days to come — which, unless Romney has a major gaffe, benefits him over Obama.

Bottom line: Obama cannot afford another draw. In this third and final debate, a tie goes to the challenger. Which means Obama will, in all likelihood, be going for a knockout tonight — and that means the sparks could fly.

Marc A. Thiessen, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, writes a weekly online column for The Post.


Good column, but he does not describe much of "a slugfest".
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