Get your tweet on
Here are the tweets of a few of my blogging friends. We’ll have some of Anne’s awesome graphic quotes along with periodic updates during the debate, as well.
I highly commend your attention to barackobama.com/debate for lots of debate extras.
Enjoy.
[Tweet stream and live video feed deleted]
Stephanie Cutter, Obama for America Deputy Campaign Manager, has put out a memo about what we can expect from Mitt Romney at the debate tonight. You can read it HERE (pdf).
She had this to say in an email from the Truth Team today:
The three most important issues I expect to come up during this debate are jobs, taxes, and the deficit. Here’s a quick cheat sheet about the facts on each:Jobs
If I were a betting woman, I could wager you $10,000 that Romney will claim that he has a plan to create 12 million jobs over the next four years. If he does, it might sound like a bold promise, but it isn’t — independent economists project that we’re going to create that many jobs anyway on the path that we’re on. Those same economists have also studied Romney’s proposed policies, and they agree that they would actually slow our recovery, and cost more than a million American jobs.Taxes
Romney has a $5 trillion tax plan that would give millionaires and billionaires huge tax cuts. But independent experts say the only way to pay for that sort of plan is to raise taxes on the middle class, increasing taxes for families with children by an average of $2,000. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan deny this, but when Ryan was asked this weekend to explain how it would work, he said he didn’t have time to explain the math. We’ll see if Mitt Romney finds some time in tonight’s 90-minute debate to tell us specifically how he can avoid raising taxes on middle-class families and still pay for another $250,000 tax cut for multimillionaires.The deficit
Tonight, Mitt Romney will tell you that he’s going to cut the deficit. But he won’t tell you how he’ll manage to do that while keeping his promises to not to raise a penny in new revenue. Without raising revenue, Romney wants to pass a $5 trillion tax cut favoring millionaires and billionaires and add $2 trillion in new defense spending that military leaders didn’t ask for. How does all that add up to cutting the deficit? It doesn’t — like President Clinton said, it’s just simple arithmetic.
On a conference call with bloggers, Ben LaBolt, National Press Secretary for the Obama campaign said, “We’ve heard that Mitt Romney is preparing a series of ‘zingers’ for the debate. We’ll leave that to David Letterman. President Obama will be talking to the American people about his plans for the next four years.”
Seems like Mitt Romney is trying to put David Letterman out of a job. As if. ; )
UPDATES will be below. All times are Eastern.
8:01 p.m. – From the press pool report:
Under darkening skies and in a gusty wind, President Obama’s motorcade pulled out of his hotel at 6.00 pm headed to the University of Denver.The pool heard cheers and chants of “four more years” from a good size crowd opposite the hotel, but didn’t see the President climb aboard his car.
Before he left, David Axelrod, Jon Favreau and Gene Sperling, clutching a Starbucks cup and Brian Deese chatted to each other and others outside the staff buses.
8:21 p.m. – Did you know that Mitt Romney once again purchased a Twitter trending topic? He did: #CantAfford4More. He paid $150,000 for it to run for 24 hours.
Here’s what it looks like:
8:29 p.m. – Anne’s first graphical quote of the evening with a great quote from the inestimable Eugene Robinson:
8:56 p.m. – Pool report:
Pool Report #10Inside the debate hall.
The crowd stood and cheered as Mrs Obama and Mrs Romney were introduced and they walked in from either side of the stage. They met in the middle and shook hands and Mrs Romney drew the First Lady into a hug. The pool was too far back to opine on the fashions, but Mrs Romney looked like she was wearing a yellow outfit and the First Lady’s clothes were darker.
Jim Lehrer is now addressing the crowd requesting quiet and respect for the candidates.
He is jokingly asking Mrs Romney and Mrs Obama to “enforce the rules” on their respective sides of the audience.
The set for the debate, with a familiar blue backdrop, red carpet and two podiums angled towards each other is below the red rafters of the building. There are rows of seats on the floor of the arena, on a red carpet. Other spectators are sitting in the seats of the ice arena at one end. The pool is towards the back of the arena as well on a balcony overlooking the scene.
Grassroots supporters and national and local officials sitting with the First Lady tonight at the debate.
