All,
Whether many people who support Obama wanna hear it or not every single thing that the excellent progressive political journalist Howard Fineman says in the following article about President Obama's stunningly and inexcusably bad debate performance is 100% true and he must do much better in his final two debates with the pathological liar Romney if he seriously wants to win this election because the dirty lowdown truth is that his previous "safe" 5-6 point lead has been cut IN HALF in national polls since last Wednesday night which is an astonishing decline in just FOUR DAYS. So no matter what we supporters want to think otherwise the BOTTOMLINE is that Barack had better come out blasting in the final two debates because this race AIN'T over yet--not by a long shot--precisely because Obama did so poorly in the first debate. So both the President and the rest of us better not take ANYTHING FOR GRANTED in the next 4 weeks before the election because if we do Obama will wind up having the election TAKEN from both him and us because the President stupidly and erroneously thought he could simply cruise and "play not to lose" instead of being assertive and aggressive AND MAKING SURE HE DOES WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN by laying the hammer down on Romney's sociopathic head. If the President doesn't get his head out of his own ass and fails to do what he needs to do in the next two debates--and comes up LAME again--- mark my words: HE WILL LOSE and we simply can't afford to sit back and allow that horrific catastrophe to happen...Stay tuned...
Kofi
Barack's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day: Countdown Day 33
by Howard Fineman
Editorial Director
by Howard Fineman
Editorial Director
Huffington Post Media Group
October 7, 2012
October 7, 2012
DENVER -- Yes, we can. But can he?
Something is not quite right with President Barack Obama. That was clear long before his passive, distracted performance here Wednesday night against Mitt Romney. The president needs to get back some form of his old magic if he hopes to secure a victory that, until the Denver debate, seemed all but inevitable, even to many of his foes.
The evidence of the president's distance and distaste for the campaign is everywhere. He is invisible around Washington, a place he clearly doesn't like and where he has made few new political friends. He mailed in his acceptance speech in Charlotte, N.C., looking at the end like a man who couldn't wait to get off the stage. He has dutifully hit the campaign trail, but not with the zest or the frenzied response of 2008. And he clearly didn't master his brief for the debate when he went to ground in Las Vegas, though he did take time for a day trip to Hoover Dam.
What gives?
Well, no president, cocooned for four years in the adulation of staff and riding around in Air Force One dealing with global issues, like to descend back into the muck of the campaign world.
But most manage to pretend to relish it. Not this president, certainly not last night. He seemed to be close to pouting at times.
This not-quite-there Obama has its roots in the kind of campaign he decided to run: lacking in big new ideas for a second term, essentially defensive, based on the destruction of Romney as an alternative. It doesn't fit the positive, good-guy image that the president had built for himself in his relatively short political career -- and indeed, that he had built in his entire adult life as a star student, community organizer, civil rights lawyer and law professor.
He'd rather be the master of uplift than the king of the put-down.
And any president would rather tell a simple, positive story than a complex, gray one. Obama is stuck with the need to do the latter.
He has been extraordinarily lucky in politics until now. Two opponents' sex scandals, one each for the primary and general elections, cleared his path to the Senate. With luck and timing, he rode to the White House on a wave of disgust with George W. Bush.
But as president, he has faced the worst and most intractable recession since the 1930s, a Republican Party that refuses to deal in good faith, a world economy in the midst of wrenching change and a decline in institutions that once provided order and respect.
It's a tough row. He has had successes, but he has also made mistakes. For a man who was used to getting an A on every exam and winning every coveted accolade, it's tough to know that barely half of the American people, if that, think you are doing a decent job in your current course work.
Obama is trying to deal with this unsettling personal reality largely alone -- in good part by his own choice. He is surrounded by a small circle of good friends that has, if anything, grown smaller and tighter during his time in Washington.
The inner circle -- Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Eric Whitaker, Jim Messina and David Plouffe, to name most of them -- tell him how wonderful, destined and inevitable he is. But the president didn't act Wednesday night like a man who believed it. Perhaps their advice is getting a little old, or repetitive, or unrealistic.
The return of Bill Clinton, including his role as the star of the Democratic convention, is a mixed blessing for a prideful, competitive president. After all, in 2008 Clinton dismissed him as a "fairy tale" candidate who was nothing more than an Ivy-educated Jesse Jackson.
Now he needs Clinton more than ever. It's an awkward, galling man-hug.
Obama loves to be liked and doesn't like direct confrontation with people he knows or thinks he knows don't like him. Those two qualities have hampered his presidency and limited his first-debate presentation. He gave up trying to work with congressional Republicans, yet in Denver he tried lamely to claim credit as a deficit hawk, playing a GOP game he was never going to win.
Seeking to be agreeable or at least not confrontational, he allowed Romney -- who cheerfully tossed off inaccuracies or outright lies all night -- to cozy up to him and steal his lunch money on issues such as Social Security and commitment to bipartisanship.
Romney would be a bipartisan president? Did anyone see how he cravenly quaffed the Tea Party Kool-Aid? Did Obama not notice? If he did, he didn't say so.
Above all, President Obama has always believed he was on the right side of history: the brainy young hipster from Hawaii, body-surfing to power on the Big Wave of social and demographic change. That sense of destiny was what he sold so effectively in 2008. When he said, "We are the change we have been waiting for," he meant that he was the change that we had been waiting for.
But now the destined Obama must become the determined one.
He has the inner resources to do it. He has to remember the lessons he learned as the son of a hard-luck single mother: that life isn't just about catching a wave. It's about learning to swim upstream.
For Howard Fineman's full 2012 Countdown, click http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/2012-countdownhere.
Turner’s Two Cents: Obama Blew It in First Debate
VIDEOOctober 4, 2012
by Cameron Turner
EurPublisher
Scroll down to watch Cameron Turner deliver his Two Cents on the Obama/Romney debate.
Watch as a none too pleased Cameron Turner delivers his Two Cents on the 1st Obama/Romney debate:
Obama Wimps Out in First Debate:
TEXT OF VIDEO:
"That mess was pitiful. Mitt Romney didn’t win last night’s Presidential debate. President Obama gave it away!"
Barack Obama is an incumbent President with an admirable record of accomplishments, but he didn’t act like it Wednesday night on the debate stage. The President could have easily run the stage but, for some bizarre reason, he played a weak, apologetic and defensive game. President Obama allowed Mitt Romney to dominate the discussion, to trash his record and to define him.
Over and over again, President Obama allowed Gov. Romney to get away with outrageous, easily-refutable claims. The President did a pretty good job of challenging Romney’s newly-minted claim that he won’t reduce income taxes for the rich. But Obama blew it when Romney accused him of cutting $716 billion from MediCare, and claimed that the President’s healthcare reform law will cost jobs and force people to lose their medical insurance. When Romney made those allegations, the President should’ve pushed back hard with the facts – but he didn’t.
And when Romney stated, over and over again, that he is compassionate toward the poor, children and the elderly, President Obama could’ve hit an easy homerun by mentioning Romney’s cruel, inaccurate and elitist claim that 47% of Americans think of themselves as victims entitled to government handouts and who are not willing to take responsibility for their lives. But the President didn’t do that either.
Worst of all, President Obama didn’t defend his record. He didn’t brag about the 18 months of private sector job growth, or the 4 million jobs created on his watch or the fact that he saved the American auto industry. He didn’t talk about the American Jobs Act and his other employment bills that were killed by Republicans in the House and Senate. He didn’t play up his defense of women’s reproductive rights, or women’s right to equal pay for equal work. Neither did he dwell on his support for marriage equality, immigration reform and the DREAM Act
And when Mitt Romney accused him of failing to bring bipartisan leadership to Washington, President Obama should’ve pointed out that he bent over backwards to cooperate with the Republicans on Capitol Hill, but that he was rebuffed blocked at every turn.
But the worst part of Wednesday’s debate was President Obama’s pathetic closing argument, which was a basically rehash of his wimpy Democratic National Convention speech – only wimpier. Instead of touting his achievements and telling the American people why they are better off now than they were four years ago, President Obama apologized for his imperfections and begged folks to vote for him. That is not leadership. Especially for a President who has accomplished so much in the face of historic challenges and unprecedented opposition.
President Obama has a proud record and the best plan for the future of our nation. His heart is in the right place, he’s on the right side of the issues and his policies are working! He is simply a better man for America than Mitt Romney. The polls show that the public trusts him.
Mitt Romney can’t beat him. But if he doesn’t put up his dukes and start fighting, President Obama could mess around and beat himself.
Thanks for listening. I’m Cameron Turner and that’s my two cents.
Watch as a none too pleased Cameron Turner delivers his Two Cents on the 1st Obama/Romney debate:
Read more at http://www.eurweb.com/2012/10/turners-two-cents-obama-blew-it-in-first-debate/#0wtSe2mX1FeY5Prc.99
