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A Debate Handily Won!

by Conservativity Staff,
Originally Posted: 10/3/2012 11:49:26 PM

Mitt Romney won the October 3, 2012 debate - handily. As Cal Thomas said in the post-mortem, Mr. Romney was not the attack dog that some wanted. Instead, Mr. Romney was firm and Presidential. Mr. Romney has a firm command of the facts, and used them cogently to refute Mr. Obama, who was clearly fishing for talking points.

Mr. Obama also tried to score points, vainly, by noting that Mr. Romney failed to give "exact" details for his proposals. And here is where Governor Romney shone brightly. He grabbed control of the debate (Mr. Romney effectively controlled the tempo of the entire of the event) and explained that he, like Ronald Reagan, articulates principles, but recognizes that he has to work with the Congress to get things done, and then he says that this is not compromising principles, this is recognizing that things must be done together.

Of course the "Democrat operatives with bylines" have stated that Mr. Obama won the debate. This fits precisely with Rush Limbaugh’s prediction. If Mr. Obama would have thrown himself onto the floor, kicking and screaming, George Stephanopoulos would still declare that Mr. Obama had handily won the debate.

Mr. Obama was unfocused and searching for his sound bites. He seemed ill-prepared at times. Mr. Romney, on the other hand, was assertive, clearly addressed the President and Jim Lehrer (moderator) with eye contact, and appeared more presidential, by far, than the President.

‎"Mr. President, you’re entitled as a president to your own airplane, and to your own house, but not to your own facts." - Mitt Romney. Here is the line of the night! Mr. Romney did not back down, He did not cower before Mr. Obama. The sanguine attitude to the juiced polls that the Leftist "Democrat Operatives with Bylines" attempted to use to depress the GOP turnout was well-justified. Mitt Romney had a secret weapon to use against the Obama-bloviations: Mitt Romney!

Mr. Romney was tightly focused and incredibly well-prepared. He showed himself to be the Bobby Fischer of debate chess. Mr. Obama would move, and it was as if Mr. Romney knew the move before it was made; Mr. Romney had laid things out so that there was but one move that Mr. Obama could make. Then, when the move was made, Mr. Romney was ready with his coup de grace. We saw it over and over during the debate.

And so did at least some of the Democrat Operatives With Bylines. Andrew Sullivan, among the most rabid of the leftist Obama-shippers, live-blogged the debate, writing such things as, "Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn’t there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment." [emphasis in the original]. This was a "disaster for the President" - again, Mr. Sullivan’s words, not mine.

Chris Matthews lost the tingle in his leg, saying of Mr. Obama, "I don’t know what he was doing out there. He had his head down; he was enduring the debate rather than fighting it. Romney, on the other hand, came in with a campaign. He had a plan, he was going to dominate the time, he was going to be aggressive, he was going to push the moderator around, which he did effectively, he was going to relish the evening, enjoying it…"

This was the kind of debate night of which conservatives did not dare to dream! Mitt Romney dissuaded independent voters’ fears, ginned up by Democrat B.S., that he would come into Washington and eliminate all semblance of regulation. He spoke sensibly about regulation, noting that a certain level of regulation is a necessity. Of course, the Democrat Operatives with Bylines quickly labeled Mr. Romney a liar (Sullivan. Above, and Ron Fournier of National Journal come to mind), but their labels were based on the same nonsensical B.S. that the Obama campaign (their sole source of "facts" about Mr. Romney) has been spouting off; a call of reduced or streamlined regulation equals anarchy; a call to reform Medicare becomes a wholesale destruction thereof; the same old same old.

However, there is no amount of faux cheerleading from the throng of left-wing media sycophants that can change the fact that Mr. Romney was better prepared, assertive without being a bully, and the only presidential person on that stage on October 3. All that Mr. Obama and his team could do was to whine. Specifically, I refer to Stephanie Cutter, the Obama lackey known for the outrageous calumny accusing Mr. Romney of a felony with respect to his leaving Bain Capital. Her chief response to Mr. Romney’s brilliant work tonight was to lambaste Mr. Lehrer on CNN: "I sometimes wondered if we even needed a moderator because we had Mitt Romney." Realizing the stupidity of that remark, Cutter tried to walk it back with Politico, but the damage was done; the horse out of the barn; the bell rung and unable to be un-rung.

And now we celebrate! Hugh Hewitt writes, "It wasn’t just that Obama was so bad, but that Romney was so good. Conservatives see a candidate they did not know they had, and independents see a candidate who could turn the country around. No way to predict what this will do to campaign over a week." I partially agree with Hewitt. I believe that this will turn the tide towards Mr. Romney. I expect a three point bounce within the next week. And just as that bounce is about to fade, Paul Ryan debates Joe Biden! This is sort of like Bambi Biden v. Godzilla Ryan. To all of the Democrat Operatives with Bylines who have been prattling on about what they perceived as the stupidity of the Ryan pick, they will be subjected to a repeat of the grownups in the room teaching the same lesson again for emphasis.

Here is food for thought. This was written in The Huffington Post by none other than Bill Galston: "First, Romney presented himself as a reasonable man -- neither an extremist nor an ideologue. He calmly rebutted familiar attacks on his proposals. He was clear and forceful, tough but respectful. He sounded knowledgeable. He conveyed an impression of competence and experience as a potential manager of the economy. He praised some aspects of the Obama administration’s program, such as its Race to the Top education reform program. And when he insisted on the importance of working together across party lines, it sounded as though he meant it." What this boils down to is this: Even the leftists out there realize that Mr. Obama’s clock was clean; hit hat was handed to him; his goose was cooked and served to him cold.

This was a wonderful night. It was the night that Mitt Romney won the debate and the election, and set hit feet onto the path of saving the United States of America.