Yesterday, the Small Business Association of Michigan heard from both Democratic and Republican candidates for Governor and the U.S. Senate. They were asked a single question to answer: “If elected, what will you do to help small business thrive in Michigan?” Republicans Rick Snyder and Terri Lynn Land appeared in person while Democrats Mark Schauer and Gary Peters appeared via […]

Drubbing. Clobbered. Embarrassed. Schooled. Pwned.

I made a prediction last night and it was this:

“This debate won’t change the polls. It will harden the camps and confuse the stupid people who are still ‘undecided’.”

Why? Because we are so polarized in the USA right now that the people who are paying attention and actually get most of what’s going on in our national discussion have already chosen their candidate and are simply looking for reinforcement of the choice. The remaining people — the so-called “undecideds” — are simply low-information voters. Which is, of course, the nice way to say “dumb”.

Seriously, if you can’t make up your mind between these two candidates by now, there is something wrong.

Much more analysis after the jump.

The return of the Romney Stench

I was a little concerned going into last night’s presidential debate. Not because I was worried that the President Obama that I know and trust wouldn’t show up. I was confident about that. I was concerned that the town hall debate format wouldn’t allow him to be as effective as he needed to be at pushing back against Mitt Romney’s incessant lying. We all wanted him to, and I predicted that he would, go on the attack much in the same way Vice President Biden did against Paul Ryan last week. But town hall debates are notorious for penalizing aggressive, attack-style approaches. Just ask Al Gore or George H. W. Bush about that.

I needn’t have worried. Just like Joe Biden invented a new way to debate liars last week, President Obama figured out a way to go on the attack in a way that seemed compassionate and strong at the same time without coming across as too aggressive. How did he do this? By being angry, and helping the audience to be angry, that his opponents wasn’t compassionate.

Dude totally got Bidened…

The epic performance last night by Vice President Joe Biden is destined to go down in history as one of the finest debate showings ever. Three things conspired against Congressman Paul Ryan: the truth, a debate opponent well prepared with facts and a ‘tude, and a debate moderator that was skilled and educated enough not to put up with any bullshit. This perfect storm left Ryan flopping on the beach like a fish, mouth gawping for air, completely knocked out of his zone.

It’s not easy to debate someone who tells lie after lie after lie. You risk spending your entire time refuting the lies without ever getting your own message out. Last night, Joe Biden taught us how to do it. He started out grinning whenever Ryan lied. By the end, he was openly laughing and, in what was almost like a live-tweeting of his own debate, responded in the background to each lie that rolled out of Ryan’s mouth with a refutation so that, when it was his own turn, he could actually deliver his message.

Much more after the jump.

Call for the fainting couch! Pearls for clutching!

You’re going to have to pardon a bit of a rant but, after watching the reaction to the first presidential debate yesterday and reading/listening to countless pundits and commenters talking about absolutely blown away President Obama was by Mitt Romney, I have a few things to get off my chest.

The general criticism of President Obama’s performance is that he was too passive; not aggressive enough. Follow me after the jump for an explanation for why this is exactly what he needed to do at the first debate.

Big Bird is why we can’t have nice things

Last night was a victory of sorts for Mitt Romney. He came across as almost human and actually seemed to be delivering facts and substance in his comments. But the reality is that he did nothing of the sort. He made a lot of comments that sounded like facts and like he was staking out a position but, when you scratch the surface, you find it’s just a thin layer of whitewash on the same undefined, nebulous candidate that we’ve watched for the past year.

Much more after the jump.

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.

Updates will be after the jump.

Trying to leave a mark, trying to make it sting If reporting by the New York Times is accurate, Mitt Romney will be lacing his debate performance tonight with “zingers” designed to make the news. I envision his staff working hard all day today, crafting 140-character tweets that are ready to be launched the minute Mitt utters them onstage in […]

A crisis counselor will be on hand for John King USA Sit down. I have news. This will likely be the last GOP debate of 2012.  And it’s a sit down debate. Yes. The last one is a sit-down affair. Or as Newt Gingrich calls it, home court. Never again will we see the adept intellects the GOP can gather […]

This Wednesday, the train wreck known as the GOP primary crashes its sorry way into Michigan when the skabillionth debate will be held at Oakland University. As you might imagine, there are a few folks that would like to “welcome” them to our fair state. First, Planned Parenthood of Michigan (PPOM) will be there to meet the GOP contenders, every […]

During the first and only gubernatorial debate of the 2010 season, Rick Snyder made a little-noticed gaffe that proves that he is either ridiculously ill-informed about infrastructure projects in his own backyard (almost literally) or that he’s a liar will to spout lies to promote his agenda (the agenda of getting himself elected governor of Michigan.) It was little-noticed by […]