Who won the vice-presidental debate last night?

[Tino]

I actually think the President edged out, but that could be because I don't buy into Romney changing positions and his "clarification" that he cares about 100% of America.

OK my Obama-supporting friends, it's time to call you out on this 47% business. You like to claim that the conservatives/republicans are out of their minds when they try to say that Obama meant it when he said "If you've got a business - you didn't build that" because you say it has to be interpreted in the context of the point he was making. So with that enlightened view in mind, let's take a look at what Romney said, by first looking at the question he was asked:

Audience member: For the last three years, all everybody's been told is, "Don't worry, we'll take care of you." How are you going to do it, in two months before the elections, to convince everybody you've got to take care of yourself?

So the question is, how do you convince people that they've got to take care of themselves?

Romney answers first by saying "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that's what they sell every four years. "

The next sentence is the one that created all the fuss, but remember, the context is how do you convince those people, and I think it's clear that Romney means that he's not going to worry about convincing those people - they're a lost cause in terms of voting for Romney since they have become so dependent on Obama's government. Here's the actual sentence:

"And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. "

Then he continues to talk about the problem of convincing people:

"What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like. I mean, when you ask those people…we do all these polls—I find it amazing—we poll all these people, see where you stand on the polls, but 45 percent of the people will go with a Republican, and 48 or 4…"

Also, I accuse Obama of cowardice in waiting until his final two minutes, when he knew that Romney did not have an opportunity to respond, to bring up the 47%. That's the only way Obama can try to make this 47% business work - when Romney can't answer - like commercials or final statements.

Here's a link to the whole speech transcript, courtesy of the lefty bomb-throwers at Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012...cret-video