Some post-Presidential Debate thoughts… {#1}

Well, last night was the first debate in the 2012 Presidential Election. Be sure to check out the various Fact-Checks going around the web (here’s The New York Times and POLITICO). So far, it looks like Romney stretched the truth or was wrong more often, but that was because he said so many more specific things than Obama. These were some of my thoughts from the evening:

I’m sorely disappointed my Presidential Debate Drinking Game term “fiscal” got absolutely no play tonight. C’mon guys: pick it up.
Mit Romney shockingly and unquestionably won this debate. Those that think otherwise are too blinded by their own partisanship.
Obama supporters: fear not. George W. Bush had almost the exact-same sort-of lame first debate performance against Kerry. Dry your tears. It’s not over.
Obama, in every way, epitomized his campaign stance thus far: let Mit do the talking, hoping that he will harm himself. That may have worked for the rest of the campaign, but definitely not in this debate.
Chris Christie is a political genius and may also be a soothsayer.
I kept thinking of that video that the far-Right are recycling in some weird attempt to both bring back up Obama’s ties to his old pastor and to make him seem like a racist (notably, the Romney campaign has not jumped at this. They know it’s silly). It came to my mind because the Obama that speaks in that video is so dynamic, so passionate, and so different than the man we saw tonight. Even his lame Convention speech was far better.
I would loved to have seen Bill Clinton debate Mit Romney.
To go alongside my absolutely base-less psycho-analyzing of Mit Romney from a few weeks ago, one theory I had as to why this Obama was so soul-less was my firm belief that you genuinely have to de-humanize yourself to be able to unilaterally call for the death of specific individuals every week of every month, for years on end. To be so cavalier in taking away one’s right, not only to privacy, transparency, due process, dignity, or equal protection under the law, but, to life itself can do nothing, in my opinion, but shape and warp you into a person unable to empathize or feel passion (or compassion) on behalf of others you’ve never met. (Again, this is just a theory. And that’s also not to imply that Romney has any greater bent towards empathy for the Everyman, just that Obama lost his.)
Speaking of “security”, whenever I maybe started tracking with Romney, he simply had to throw in some reference to how he would build up the military and not do any cuts to them. Defense is a third of our nation’s budget. We spend more than any other nation in the world on it, and if you combined the next nine countries, they don’t even spend 2/3 of what we spend. The Defense Department is, hands-down and un-arguably, the biggest source of waste and fraud in our entire government. They have failed every one of the audits performed on them, and continue to claim that they are “un-auditable”. The hypocrisy of Romney to say that Obama’s $90 billion on green energy could have paid for 2 million or so teachers. How many teachers could your unnecessary $2 trillion increase to the military buy, eh, Willard? it’s too bad that Obama is just as much a hypocrite on this, he couldn’t call out Romney on this point.
I found it infinitely fascinating that Romney was the only person that mentioned the poor in the entire debate. He claimed, if I heard him correctly, to not only not cut Medicaid, but increase it’s funding on top of adjusting it for inflation, and giving it as a block grant to states to do with it as they judge most rightly. Being in social work, and seeing the very real ground-level effects of Medicaid spending, this is absolutely the right way to go in serving the medical needs of the poor. But, unfortunately…
I can’t help but continue not trusting Romney when he talks about his “absolute willingness and priority” to help those (he feels) are “truly” in need and “truly” in-capable of working. I have a feeling that his and my standards for this would be dramatically different and truly suffering people will only suffer more under his Presidency. (One example: his frequent attack on food stamps. It’s one of the only government programs that makes money for the government and increases the economy.) If he could genuinely demonstrate to me a greater and immediate priority for the poor than Obama (and not just some long-term “well, as we make more jobs, they’ll eventually be helped”), that might be enough for me to get past my one-issue voting. Seriously.
And lastly, this was the most poignant tweet I saw during the entire debate (thanks go to Jonathan Fitzgerald for retweeting it):

Glad the prez candidates have so much concern for the middle class. The Bible often talks about Jesus' deep concern for the middle class.

— Jim Moss (@revjimmoss) October 4, 2012