The Politics Thread

[GoldenDogs]

I know... and it worked so well the first time for Obama - wonder why it's not working out so well this time...

Ohhh, you mean the media has a boner for Mitt!

Riiiigght...

[GoldenDogs]

Obama has to explain the state of the economy and the country after four years... And he's having difficulty doing so.

[quartermainefan]

You know from reading my posts I am not a republican. Did you see that even SNL did a number on Obama's debate performance? The same SNL that zeroed in on Sarah Palin? It is not proof of conservative bias to see that Obama turned in one of the worst debates maybe ever. You probably need to go back to Ford denying the Warsaw Pact and Carter discuss policy with Amy, only Obama didn't even have a single quote that could run again and again. He just spent 90 minutes looking feeble and incompetent. It does not serve liberals well to deny a disaster any more than it serves conservatives well.

But anyway, there are more debates but Obama really messed up. Had he won that debate Mitt was at risk of seeing donors start to divert money down ticket as he fell further in the polls. Obama with his incompetent debate performance revived Romney's campaign.

Edited October 9, 2012 by quartermainefan

[DRW50]

What are you referring to? The media never went this wild over Obama in any debate. McCain sunk himself in the debates but that was never seen as being about Obama's great abilities. If you mean gushing media coverage for Obama in 2008, there was still plenty of garbage (Rev. Wright, lipstick on a pig, Michelle Obama hating America).

Have you noticed some of the slightly relieved, quasi-gushing tones lately to stories about Mitt going "back to the center" and "being a moderate"? That's where you will most see the bias. The Beltway needs to believe Mitt is their secret friend, who might try to placate those crazies, but will go talk to the "real media" privately about Serious Issues and tell them how important and special they are.

Edited October 9, 2012 by CarlD2

[DRW50]

SNL isn't political (Sarah Palin was a national joke, not just to liberals). I think Lorne Michaels donated to McCain. They go after what is easy pickings, on either side of the fence. It's why their political stuff has sucked for the last fifteen or so years.

The coverage often isn't about Obama sucking as much as it's about how awesome Mitt is and how he kicked ass. Romney needed a win. Obama was awful but that wouldn't have mattered. Kerry did a good job in 2004 and the media still focused on his mistakes.

Edited October 9, 2012 by CarlD2

[quartermainefan]

Unfortunately he did kick ass. That moment when Obama was discuss tax write offs if you outsource jobs out of the country and Mitt looked at him and said "I don't know what you're talking about" was damning. Obama needed to educate Mitt and make him look like an ignorant fool or come off looking like someone mistakenly thinking there was a tax law that didn't actually exist. He chose the latter and looked like an idiot.

[DRW50]

He was better than Obama, but he also told a ton of lies which would have been picked apart if someone like Al Gore had been in his place. You only get away with a debate performance if the media lets you get away with it.

[Ann_SS]

CarlD2, I cannot believe you of all people who can be so cynical at times, are not acknowledging the shear ignorance and shallowness of the American people to be sucked in by Romney's bluster and lies resulting in these more positive polls for him. Obama's poor performance in the debate cannot be dismissed. He did himself no favors. Biden will have step up in his debate and Romney do better in the next debate.

I never doubted the "well done" polls before the debate and I do not doubt them now. I fully believe that there are people who are uninformed and easily influenced are now leaning towards voting for Romney. However, like Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, I look at trends over time as well as the historical view of both the national and state polls and see that the President remains on track for reelection. http://fivethirtyeig...164E70D30C43879

I love how the Republicans are crowing over the polls that show Romney gaining ground. I guess, the Democratic conspiracy is over until the polls settle down and go back in the other directions. RME.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Ann_SS

[DRW50]

I've mostly been responding to the comments here which are horrified at the thought of the media ever being pro-Romney.

I'm not too shocked about the public reaction, even if it's probably not totally accurate in polling. Remember in 2008 that the public began to move toward supporting McCain/Palin until the economy collapsed and McCain clearly had no idea how to respond.

Romney and Paul both know how to smile at the camera and at their best, they know what to say to pull a con job. They will always remind you of your place, and they will always remind you in code words to hate those (the poor, minorities) who have forgotten their place. And that is deeply popular with many in the public.

[marceline]

Of course there's a large pro-Pomney contingent to the media. The media is run by corporations and "corporations are people, my friend."

I don't dispute that Obama performed poorly but the response from the left and the Dems is a perfect example of what drives me crazy about both. The left doesn't know how to fight. Not really FIGHT. The left specializes in feeling superior so anything that makes that harder causes an outsize hysteria. Obama knows he fucked up. Now it's time to work on fixing it. When Republicans screw up even the rank and file pretend everything is fine. That's why it's so amazing when someone like Peggy Noonan finally calls out someone like Romney. Conversely, when someone on the left screws up, we trip all over ourselves to tell the world because we want to show the Right that we're more willing to do it. (See how HONEST we are?!!) It's superiority over strategy.

We have a month left in this election. To spend any more time rehashing something that happened a week ago is burning up precious time and media bandwidth that should be used to tear Romney apart on 1.) his newest lies re: foreign policy, 2.) The improved jobs numbers. The Foxbots won't believe them but their votes aren't in play and 3.) Big Bird. When the neocons targeted NPR no one said anything but the general population has a far more personal relationship with PBS. Use that.

Obama knows that he has to bring it in the next debates and so does Biden. The only people who should still be rehashing last week's performance are the two of them and their prep team.

[GoldenDogs]

How can you honestly deny that the mainstream media has been in the tank for Obama since he challenged Hillary for the nomination? It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that the media in any way has been pro-Romney. Do you watch MSNBC? Do you read the New York Times? CBS News? Unless you are suggesting FOX News alone is controlling the airwaves... but with people like Shepherd Smith leading two newscasts a day there and conservatives like Bill Crystal and Charles Krauthammer frequently slamming ROMNEY, I'm not sure the argument FOX is bias washes these days. Even blowhard Bill O'Reilly is frequently critical of Obama and Republicans - to the point where I've often wondered if he's bending over backwards to be overly fair.

No, I haven't. I've seen stories about how Obama lost the debate for reasons all his own. I've seen forthright liberals like Lanny Davis say Obama is blowing it big time because the media HASN'T called him out on policy and asked him tough questions... so when it came time to account for the past four years, he stumbled horribly! Univision broke it open when they asked him tough questions about Libya he couldn't answer... Real journalism... FINALLY. You think UNIVISION is in the tank for ROMNEY? Puh-lease, Carl...

[GoldenDogs]

Carl, I'm sure he didn't tell any more lies than the President did during that debate. Romney certainly didn't misrepresent what Obama has done and continues to do to Medicare or private insurance in the name of Obamacare. Romney certainly didn't misrepresent the massive failure the stimulus was, or Obama's boner for failing green energy policies. But what Romney did that Obama didn't do was offer more specifics, to explain the differences between himself and President Obama.

I seem to remember George W. Bush getting TRASHED after his debates... Remember the "hunchback" deal... thinking he had a device for cheating under his jacket? The mainstream press floated that BS for a week or two... And they tried it again with Romney's handkerchief. Good grief.

If Romney is getting any favorable coverage at all right now, it's because he won the debate... NOT because the media LOVES Romney. They hate him and you know it.

[GoldenDogs]

Actually, Ann, if you really dig into the polling, you'll find that they have been consistently oversampling Democrats this entire election cycle. Sometimes they oversample by as much as 10%, and that's not counting those who call themselves independents who often swing Democrat.

The significance of these polls showing Romney in the lead is that they are STILL oversampling DEMOCRATS. In other words, even fudging the polls to oversample Dems, they are still showing Romney pulling ahead.

I still don't believe the polls are accurate because they are still oversampling Dems! The truth is that Romney may actually have a wider lead than the polls reflect. This is why Liberals are in freak-out mode right now. The Obama Machine's internal polling is revealing this, too, and it's scaring the crap out of them. But don't take my word for it... go to Gallup or Pew or any of them and look at the polling data - the breakdown of those called. There is also a difference in accuracy of results when considering likely voters versus registered voters. I generally throw out a "registered voter" poll because those people may not even show up on Election Day... LIKELY VOTERS is a more accurate sampling of what might happen on Election Day...

[quartermainefan]

I agree with all that but that is their job, to con the public. It's Obama's job to con the public too to get elected. The news is not as liberal as republicans like to claim, but nor is there this giant conspiracy against Obama. Yes, the media will adopt any republican talking point and couch it in BS interviews where someone like Candy Crowley says "some people claim" and then recite whatever Karl Rove wants them to say.

Before the debate the media was burying Romney daily because that was where the story was. The collapse of Romney was more interesting than the election itself. As soon as Obama messed up the media had a new interesting aspect. If tomorrow another video emerges of Mitt talking in secret, bet your bottom dollar that will be the new thing the media will run with. No one told Obama to stand there with his head down and nod his head and pretend to write notes while Mitt gave a 90 minute presentation on all that was wrong with Obama's presidency. That was Obama's strategy, and whoever came up with it needs their head examined. I don't know why you think that didn't actually happen and what really is going on is Obama gave perhaps a slightly mediocre performance and the Media is brainwashing everybody.

I can't wait for Biden, I bet he is going to come out locked and loaded ready to do soundbite ready attacks.

[DRW50]

For the same reason that you deny the media doesn't have an interest in supporting Romney.

The first 2004 one, maybe. The last one, all the focus was on the evils of Kerry bringing up Mary Cheney. Even Anderson Cooper, who is probably seen as some type of liberal by the right, went on about it.