Who won the vice-presidental debate last night?

[festive1]

The real winners to emerge from the VP debate are Biden's dentist and the late night comedians....so when did Biden and the Obama administration finally realize that the Benghazi attack on our embassy was actually a terrorist attack?....and why did the State Department ignore requests from our Lybian embassy for more security?

Of all people, Ben Affleck made a very good comment about this issue on last night's Real Time... He said something to the effect of, no president has ever been able to inform someone on the fly of each individual embassy or consulate's security detail.
I have to agree with you about Biden's dentist though... that man's got a set of chompers.

[Manowar]

Intead of starting a new thread I wondering how the president did on the Oct 16th debate. This time came out much better but Romney was good as well, in the president's face. I call it a tie? or maybe Romney just by a nose. I just don't believe that when the time comes to vote, Romney will pull it off, afterall the guy is "Batshit crazy: with his religious beliefs and that's going to count when people have to make a choice

Manowar

[Tino]

Intead of starting a new thread I wondering how the president did on the Oct 16th debate. This time came out much better but Romney was good as well, in the president's face. I call it a tie? or maybe Romney just by a nose. I just don't believe that when the time comes to vote, Romney will pull it off, afterall the guy is "Batshit crazy: with his religious beliefs and that's going to count when people have to make a choice

Manowar

Obama believes in god too, he just uses a different book of spells. Woo is woo. At least Romney didn't sell his pastor down the river.

[thesummerqueen]

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.

[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

[thesummerqueen]

I applaud Obama for sticking to the topics at hand instead of harping on the 47%. I've heard the entire thing and read the transcript.

Romney doesn't give a fuck about the little man, but this close to voting day he'll say whatever the fuck he needs to make people think he's not so bad.

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Also, as far as I heard, Obama didn't sell out his religious leader/religion - he left it out of the debate (unless it was touched on earlier, though I don't think I missed but a few minutes), which, go figure, is what you should do about your religion. Leave it the fuck out of politics.

[festive1]

Obama's "You didn't build that" comment, when placed in context, was clearly referring to American infrastructure. Big business didn't build the roads, didn't build the power lines, the government did that, not business. Yes, a lot of these infrastructure items were literally built by businesses that were sub-contracted by the government. However, they were planned and paid for by the government, hence the "you didn't build that" statement. Businesses and average Americans benefit everyday from these types of infrastructure projects. Econ 101 teaches us that the goal of business is to make money, the almighty bottom line. To suggest that businesses built these infrastructures to benefit society at large is at odds with the basic driving force of business.
The quote, with my bolding of the line in question, and my italics for how this line was meant to be interpreted, and for giggles, a link to the entire speech: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-offi...e-virginia
[quote/]
There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
[/quote]

As for Romney's line: Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect... 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.

Perhaps, offering a plan (with details) to create jobs that would net these people a high enough income to be taxed would be the way to reach them? Yes, there is a segment of the population that doesn't want to work, that is content to receive hand-outs and not apply themselves, but that is not the entirety of the 47% Romney is speaking of, far from it. The 47% Romney is mentioning includes people who have worked their entire lives and are now receiving social security benefits and elderly people who receive Medicare.
Then there is the issue of how do we motivate the people who are content to receive hand-outs? How do we get them to want to be a functioning part of society? Romney, just brushes them off and says there's nothing he can do about these people, that's hogwash. To me, this answer lies in leveling the playing field, through dealing with socio-economic inequalities, renewing the discussion of race and how that effects one's chances at socio-economic success, better drug treatment programs, earlier and better interventions for kids from neglectful and abusive homes (including, but not limited to, better parenting education), an over-haul in how Americans in general view the value of everyone's contribution. Admittedly, these aren't the sorts of things that would change overnight, but if that's the direction we need to go, why not start now? Why would anyone be motivated to be a blue-collar laborer, when the social view of blue-collar workers is so negative? Same for white collar workers, who would choose to spend their days and their career being a cog in some corporate machine, if they don't feel valued? That's the crux of this issue, how do we make everyone feel like an asset to society? People who feel like they are making a difference or contribution, even if it's a small one, are far more motivated.

As for the debate itself... I think it was a wash, and I got very frustrated watching Obama avoid coming off as the "angry black man" that was clearly at the forefront of his performance.

P.S. My quotes don't work, but you can clearly see where they are... What am I doing wrong?

[thesummerqueen]

Yeah, but you don't want to encourage people to help society, festive - that's bordering on communism! Everyone out for themselves! Pass out copies of "Anthem"!

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(No, seriously, my boyfriend and his mother have this argument all the time - a society that works on making a standard of living that's acceptable for everyone apparently means that a certain subset of people lose out by not being able to play the "keeping up with the Joneses" game. You are not worthwhile unless someone sees that you are doing much better off than them. You also lose individualism and character. Or something like that.)

[festive1]

I desperately need a tee-shirt that says, "This is what a socialist looks like."

[thesummerqueen]

I bet you and I could find whopping awesome socialist shirts on cafepress.com.

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your quotes aren't working because you have an extra slash in them.