It seems as if over night the country decided no more Bullshit...

[WCGreen]

The GOP convention was an exercise in how much you can speechify and not say one thing concrete.

About how a candidate for the highest office is so vacuous and yet believes he is a learned man and that his highly touted wonderkid running mate is causing more people to wonder how he got this far into the leadership of a major political party.

The more these two parade across the national stage away from the protection of partisan power brokers, they wither especially when played against the ease that president Obama and vice-president Biden have at defending their policies and positions with confidence and passion.

The debates are the last chance for these two to make any kind of change in their presentation.

In some ways Ryan is worse than Palin because she had such low expectations to begin with that Biden kind of went easy on her. Not this time. Joe knows his way around the wonkiness that Wisconsin wunderkind will be presenting because he was in the senate for two decades.

Mitt, well I believe Mitts problem will be that he will find himself against a foe who is charming, likable,brilliant and someone who is comfortable within his own skin.

Only time will tell.

Mitt and Paulie are about to meet their betters because Obama and Biden don't think they are the most brilliant people to ever walk across a stage, they know who they are and what they know and will conduct themselves with the calm, reassuring delivery that has made them both men comfortable with nothing to prove to themselves or anyone else.

[pinboy3niner]

1. The debates will be our side's 'October Surprise'

President Obama will be in his element. Mitt--not so much, .

[mucifer]

2. I remember thinking John Edwards was gonna tear cheney a new one.

I was very disappointed. He was a trial lawyer. These things aren't always predictable.

[glowing]

4. 2004 was an odd year.. People were still

supporting the troops.. Rah, rah bs. The afghan war was 2 yrs old, the Iraq war barely began (started in spring of 2003). It was tricky to attack a sitting war time president and one that the both of them had voted for.

Plus, I'm not sure if he was using the stage for a name OR just didn't want Cheney to disappear his family to a CIA torture chamber?

On the other side of the coin, Ohio was actually won by Kerry. The Pukes cheated, again. It's always interesting to know the state that media claims will be the deciding state, ends up with a fucked up report.

Even in our last 2008 election, Obama needed enough polling, early registered Dem voters turning out, and Nate Silver's probability of winning plus the In-trade bet all to be higher to keep the election much more honest. But on 2010 when the Tea Party was at a high and the economy was ugly and it was a mid-term election where younger people tend not to bother to vote, I think they were able to play with the tight races and swing favorability towards the right.

Also, with the feshmen tea party obstructionists that ran on a jobs platform, has done everything but create a job. I really wish that President or his surrogates would tell people that the jobs bill he proposed is sitting on Boehner's desk waiting to be voted on, would create 1-2 million jobs, and had it passed at the beginning of the year, the jobs number report would be much higher. The congress is literally holding America back from moving forward. I really wish they would hammer this point out!! President Clinton was the only one who added this fact in, and I'd almost bet that was and adlib part of his speech. If they would point this out a bit more, I think down ticket would switch easier too. On top of that, most of them voted "yes" on Paul Ryan's budget. If Biden does his job in the debate with that weasel, then I think we could turn the House blue and hold onto the Senate. I actually wish we could see 75 Dem senators, so that Ben Nelson can safely obstruct without harming policy.

[karynnj]

16. Many posted that, but Edwards had not really been all that good

in the primary debates. In the general election I sensed that he was almost just going through the motions - and that he looked disinterested when anyone - whether Kerry or Elizabeth - was the one talking or the center of attention.

After the awesome first Kerry debate, I really did expect the campaign to have done some good practices with Edwards.

[randome]

3. Just like the fall of the USSR caught everyone by surprise.

[Art_from_Ark]

14. It might have caught Soviet "expert" Condi Rice by surprise,

but I had two college professors who were predicting the USSR's downfall in the mid- to late-80s.

[mojo2012]

5. WCGreen & Glowing - great comments

Both posters, WCGreen & Glowing are so right on the money. I truly believe that the debates will be the tell all. Multiple Choice Mitt and Lyin' Ryan are way over-confident and underestimate President Obama & Joe Biden. Lyin' Ryan probably thinks that he's gonna "beat" the old man in the debate. Well, he has no idea. Joe Biden is an experienced political figure and the last of the ones who really does care and relates to the American people. As fluid as Lyin' Ryan can spin the web, I think the American people will see how insincere Lyin' Ryan is.

Mulitiple Choice Romney, well what can I say. He can't remember which position to take until he opens his mouth. As long as President Obama can get Romney off script, it will clear to the American people.

I think the key is that during the debates, the focus should be on hammering Multiple Choice Mitt & Lyin' Ryan for specifics. I think the Town Hall Debate will be awesome to watch. It's supposed to have undecided independent voters there. Not sure if they will be allowed to ask questions. Multiple Choice Mitt & Lyin' Ryan are weakest outside the FOX News (safe house) setting. We'll see if they really say what they mean about facing the tough questions.

[pamela]

6. I think their two biggest tactics are backfiring.

The first is counting on the Obama haters to spread their venom to the rest of the electorate. The problem with that is these people have been spewing their venom for four years non-stop so everyone who would be swayed by that is already a hater. The rest either like Obama or feel somewhat neutral but are sick of the spewing. Win Romney and Ryan and the other Repubs try to fan those flames, it backfires. Those that like Obama become more motivated and the neutral folks just end up disliking the spewers.

The second mistake, I believe, was playing the "are you better off..." card. Almost everyone agrees that, while they may still personally be reeling from the repercussions of the Bush recession, Obama has helped make a lot of things better. They should have remembered the old lawyer warning, "don't ask a question if you don't know the answer..." or in this case "don't ask a question if the facts don't support the answer you want." Asking that question enabled our side to recite the fairly long list of things that HAVE improved since the Bush years. Plus, it reintroduced the specter of Bush which will always help our side.

[abolugi]

11. That "are you better off..."

strategy backfired almost immediately. Even people who have not been paying a whole lot of attention heard that and remembered how scared they were back then. That "fear" has dissipated.
MSM is not pushing back on that so much any more because all signs and graphs point to the fact that " Yes, as a whole, we ARE better off.

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. I believe Biden was in the Senate for THREE decades plus

[Marrah_G]

8. I think Palin got away with her lies and "mis-speaks" because she was seen as not so bright

When you put up two guys who are supposed to be incredibly intelligent and competent and self-proclaimed "wonks" and THEY tell lie after lie after lie, it's much harder for them to look cute and say "oops".

[karynnj]

17. I think you are right

and I think there was a concern in the Biden camp that it is tricky for a male candidate to attack a female candidate. (There were bits of that in the Hillary Clinton Senate race,)

[mojo2012]

9. Just to add...

This is a good opportunity to boot the 2010 Tea Party freshman elected Congress. I agree that in 2010, many people weren't paying attention and didn't vote, thereby, these folks just snuck in.

I agree that the jobs bill has been just sitting on Boehner's desk for over a year for the sole purpose to be obstructed by the "newbies" so it could be blamed on President Obama for a lack luster economy. This has to be on the forefront to show that not only is the presidential election at stake, but many of the congressional seats are at stake

[WCGreen]

10. I look forward to see a couple of the crazies who will not be back...

I was so disappointed in Ron Klein getting beat by Adam West down there in Florida.

Klein was from the Cleveland area and we were pages together back in the late 70's. He stayed on to work in government.

I was disappointed that he voted against some stuff that I thought were no briner's. I think his advisers convinced him to veer right when he should have stayed pat. I noticed he wasn't the candidate to be running against him this year. I wonder what happened.

He was very likable and smart.

[lindysalsagal]

13. More like a 12 year learning curve, but who's counting?

I honestly said to myself, when I woke up and Shrub was pres in 2000, that this was going to be a slow, long, hard learning curve.

I hope your post is true, and we're getting there.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

15. I was very surprised that the Republican team agreed to any debates.

They are going to get their clocks cleaned, and how!

K&R

[hifiguy]

18. Joe will carve Ryan up like a Hallowe'en

jack-o-lantern and smile all the while. He won't be Mr. Nice Guy like he had to be with Grifterella.