Monthly Archives: October 2012
October 23, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
If there’s a common takeaway from the four debates of this presidential cycle, it’s the indiscipline of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The problem manifested itself in different ways in different debates. In the first debate, Obama apparently lacked the discipline to treat the event with the seriousness it required. He seemed comparatively unprepared, unwilling to treat Romney as a serious opponent until it was too late, and unable even
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October 23, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
We’ve commented on the performances of the moderators of the first three debates, so I’ll say a few words about last night’s moderator Bob Schieffer: Job well done. Schieffer stuck to his assignment, which was to ask topical questions that provoke discussion; to move on to other topics after both candidates had a roughly equal opportunity to address the pending one; and to ensure that, overall, the candidates received equal
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October 23, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Well, that didn’t take long: the Romney campaign has already come out with a new ad on Obama’s apology tour, over which there was a sharp exchange in last night’s debate: [jwplayer file=”http://youtu.be/_rE3NZr_oMo”] It is a good ad on a topic I am sure Obama would rather not hear about at this point in the campaign.
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October 23, 2012 — John Hinderaker
One thing we can infer from both the strategies and the demeanors adopted by Romney and Obama last might: the candidates’ pollsters are telling them the same thing. Romney is winning. Obama was like a fighter who comes out for the last round having been told by his corner, “You can’t win on points. You have to go for a knockout.” Romney was like a fighter who has been told,
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October 23, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Getting to know Tom Cotton has been one of the highest (and most humbling) of the highlights of my experience writing for Power Line. National Review’s Jay Nordlinger headed down to southern Arkansas to watch Tom campaign for Arkansas’ Fourth District congressional seat. Yesterday NRO posted part I of Jay’s report. In part II today, Jay tells how we first got to know Tom, while he was serving as an
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October 23, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Mitt Romney gave a risk-avoiding performance last night, one rather obviously designed to maintain his current position in the race. His approach was extremely conservative in its restraint, as Paul notes (and I agree), but I thought Romney nevertheless landed the better punches. Indeed, I thought that Romney threw just about all of the knock-out punches in the debate (transcript here). All in all, an impressive performance. I thought Barack
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October 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
A CNN/ORC International Poll following today’s presidential debate found, in CNN’s words, that those who watched the third and final head-to-head matchup of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney did not identify a clear winner.” Debate viewers split 48% for Obama and 40% for Romney in the poll, a margin within the sampling error, according to CNN. As Ed Morrissey points out, Obama “won” the insta-poll after the second debate
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October 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
This morning, I wrote a debate preview post called “Thoughts on Playing to Win Tonight’s Foreign Policy Debate.” I was tempted to call my debate recap post “Thoughts on Playing to Draw Tonight’s Foreign Policy Debate.” For Romney did not attempt to outdebate Obama point by point on foreign policy. And in most instances, he was content to agree with what Obama currently is doing on this or that foreign
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October 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
I tried something new this time: I watched sports on television while following the presidential debate on PL Live. It was fun, and much easier on my nerves. Plus, my wife watched the debate and kept me posted, and I caught a few minutes here and there. So what’s the bottom line? Our people were generally pleased; the ones who weren’t wanted Romney to be more aggressive. That’s a good
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October 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
What better way to follow the last presidential debate than with your friends and fellow conservatives at Power Line Live? We’ve had big crowds for all of the debates so far; tonight’s crowd may be down a little because of competing sports events. But, hey, look at it this way: if you have the baseball game or the football game on television, you can tune in to Power Line Live
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October 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
This post is categorized under “The Sick Left:” [Wisconsin] State Senator Neal Kedzie says his son was attacked while trying to stop someone from stealing his Romney/Ryan yard sign. … Here is the statement released by Senator Neal Kedzie: Early on Friday morning, October 19th, my son Sean was awakened by noises outside his residence in Whitewater. As he went to see what the commotion was about, he noticed an
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October 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
On Friday in Virginia, Chris Christie went after Barack Obama in epic fashion. Here is one of the high points: You’ve been living inside 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for the last four years. If you don’t think you can change Washington from inside the White House let’s give you the plane ticket back to Chicago you’ve earned. … If he believes that, then what the hell is he doing asking for
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October 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
Here in Minnesota, we have initiatives relating to voter ID and marriage on the ballot next month. The key organization supporting the voter ID amendment is ProtectMyVote.com. Protect My Vote has done some cute ads, illustrating how silly it is to oppose a requirement of photo identification for voting when we rely on it for practically everything else. This is the most recent TV ad, titled “What If Banks Operated
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October 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
The latest Monmouth University poll came out this morning. It sampled 1,402 likely voters and has a margin of error of 2.6%. It doesn’t contain any surprises. Like almost all current polls, it shows Mitt Romney in the lead, in this case by 48%-45%. It shows that almost all Republicans support Romney and almost all Democrats support Obama. It indicates that Paul Ryan is better respected than Joe Biden. It
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October 22, 2012 — Steven Hayward
Today is the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s nationally televised address informing the nation of the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, and his intention to make sure they were removed. The Kennedy glorification industry has pointed to this episode as Exhibit #1 of JFK’s coolness under pressure, etc, etc, and the outcome has always been regarded as a great triumph of American statecraft. To be sure, as
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October 22, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
I expect that tonight’s presidential debate will draw many fewer viewers than the first two. After all, it must compete with Monday Night Football and Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. On the other hand, the first two debates (for different reasons) served up compelling television experiences. Female viewers, at least, may by unwilling to resist the encore, sports viewing opportunities notwithstanding. Foreign policy, tonight’s topic, isn’t foremost
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October 22, 2012 — John Hinderaker
One of this year’s hottest races pits far-left Ohio senator Sherrod Brown against Power Line Pick Six candidate Josh Mandel. Josh, currently Ohio’s Treasurer, is a young (35), principled conservative who is running a great race. We heard from Mandel’s campaign this morning that their current polling has Josh up by one point. The Left is sending millions of dollars to Ohio to smear Josh and try to keep Brown
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