The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Peter Robinson ·
October 12, 2012 at 7:47pm
Commenting on Rick Wilson's post, "The Edge of Panic," below, Ricochet member Patrick in Albuquerque asked a question so marvelously pertinent that I thought I'd reproduce it right here:
There have been two debates now. In prep for debate #3, what has each side learned from the first two?
Ricochetti, have at it.
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Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
What Mitt Romney learned:
"Math is hard for President Obama."
What Barack Obama learned:
"Michelle is the one who should be up here debating Mitt."
What Joe Biden learned:
"Neil Kinnock is a blended Scotch, not a single malt." (Cue insane laugh track).
What Paul Ryan learned:
"Chris Christie would have ripped Biden's arm off and stuffed it down his throat. Can't wait for the pay per view."
Jun '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Romney: Has learned that he must be prepared for opponents who desperately need the base to stay engaged, and will therefore attack histrionically to show they (the candidates) are standing up to the evil, lying Republicans.
Obama: Has learned absolutely nothing.
Sep '12
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Democrats: Aggression and lies works better than passivity and lies.
Republicans: Promoting our ideas with a combination of a calm, proactive, leadership style works best.
Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
"Independence is a town in Missouri."
Sep '12
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Each side has learned the strengths and weaknesses of the other as well as the focus-grouped and polled responses to them. Obviously both of the top-of-the-ticket candidates will attempt to invert their weaknesses to strengths to catch their opponent off guard while amplifying their own strengths to secure the rout. This means that Obama will speak to the issues in focus-grouped sound bites while boring alpha-male stink eyes into Romney's forehead while Romney speaks more measuredly but not ponderously while leaving Obama some infinitesimal space where his ego can remain intact.
Edited on October 12, 2012 at 7:58pmJun '12
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Obama is already perfect in his own mind, therefore he has learned nothing, and will not.
Romney has learned that he has to keep what made him so successful in the first debate, and be ready for a very desperate Obama to be on the attack in the next debate.
Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Big lesson:
There's a reason Governors get elected to the executive branch. Legislators, beware.
Mar '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Both sides learned the same thing... Offense scores points, Defense doesn't.
Jan '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
As I've said in previous threads, if you show you are the alpha, you win. Dominate the other; content doesn't matter (much).
Overtalking, interrupting, correcting, objecting, that's what wins the debate.
Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Male moderators are better than female.
May '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Jonathan Alter has an entry:
"Could Biden Be Obama's Improbable Henry Higgins?"
Reminds me of an old saying: "You're tying to rocks together and hoping they float..."
Jan '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Well, what they did learn and what they should have learned are two different things.
Facts don't matter, since the only people who would be swayed at this point don't pay enough attention the rest of the time to know a fact from a made-up statistic. What you say could be insightful or nonsense. What you say doesn't matter.
How you say it is everything.
(Remember, this is a political TV event. It isn't your thesis defense. No one relevant is going to research what you say. Fact-checkers will, but everyone knows the fact-checkers are partisan anyway, so who cares?)
Instead, what matters is that you deliver whatever nonsense you're going to say with firm conviction. It helps to be coherent, and have all your nonsense in a straight line, but given a choice between prudential reticence and unproven confidence, go with unproven confidence.
Have you see those post-debate focus groups? They won't know the difference.
Oct '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Two sides to the same coin:
The Right has (I pray) learned never again to accept anyone from the "mainstream" media as a debate moderator.
The Left has (I fear) learned that the Right will never learn the moderator lesson.
Mar '12
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Romney has learned to get Jim Lehrer for moderator.
BO has leaarned to get Michael Moore as moderator.
Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Gee, thanks for the recognition. The most obvious thing to ponder is Biden's behavior. It was SO over the top, even for Biden, that it could only have been purposeful. What were they up to? My two guesses, neither of them original in the aftermath: they're panicked that the base is going to throw them overboard and Joe offered red meat. And probably they wanted to see if theycould get Ryan to blow up. As for the former, the base is happy today, but we'll have to see how the populace at large reacts over the next week to the boorish behavior. Would the Dems want BO to be boorish, and what would that be like -- especially without TOTUS?!? As for Ryan's reaction to Joe, I think it showed that the kid is cool under fire; not a bad quality for one who is only a heart beat away.
Mar '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
The right has learned that the Obama ticket is a bit desperate and hopefully how to let the left defeat itself through that desperation.
The left has learned that the mainstream media will let them run with the "liar" narrative. (I don't think it's going to work, though.)
Nov '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
The "liar" strategy is like the opening statement in My Cousin Vinnie. No points, no coherent arguments, just, "Everything that guy just said is BS." It didn't work then, and it won't work now.
I think/hope that the Obamoids are so cocooned that they honestly think Joe Biden ran away with the debate, and Obama is going to try and duplicate that performance. Considering his alleged likeability is the only thing he has left, it will backfire mightily.
Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Two more things: Romney has got to say in some form or fashion that the bishops right away disagreed with Biden, AND he has to say succinctly why the bishops disagree - looking first at BO and then straight at the camera. He should even wonder why Biden would make the claim he did.
And he's got to deal with the 47% issue; I would do it using essential elements akin to Bissinger's piece.
Dec '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Be aggressive in explaining the facts and do not be shy about overriding the moderator or interrupting your competitor when he runs over the time limit. There is a way to do this gracefully as Mitt so eloquently examplified during the first debate.
Edited on October 12, 2012 at 10:27pmApr '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
They should have learned that when problems need to be solved by adults, it is best for your side to be represented by adults.
The GOP has seen this in action in the two debates.
The Dem. don't have a clue and are loosing a great portion of the electorate because of it.