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Romney wins first debate: spanks dazed and confused Obama like a foolish child

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The debate was the worst ass-kicking in a Presidential debate that I have ever seen.

The transcript is here. And here’s the story on what went down.

Excerpt:

GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney tonight charged that President Barack Obama’s jobs plan is a failure, with millions out of work and looking for help.

“My plan is to put people back to work in America,” Romney said tonight at the first of three presidential debates scheduled for the 2012 presidential election season.

“Look at the history of the past four years. We have 23 million people unemployed. Keeping with the status quo is not going to work for the American people.”

Obama returned to his oft-repeated theme of blaming George W. Bush, asserting the taxation approach Romney was proposing was nothing more than a return to the “trickle-down” economy of the Republican plan.

Obama began the debate by reciting familiar campaign themes, suggesting once again that his administration inherited from Bush one of the worst economies in the history of the United States.

But Romney struck a theme of energy independence and advancing small business as keys to getting the U.S. economy growing again. He accused Obama of proposing “trickle-down government,” represented by more government regulation and more taxation.

Romney disputed Obama’s assertion he was locked into a tax cut, charging that under the Obama administration the middle class has been pressed by reduced income, diminished job opportunities and increased food and energy costs.

From the first moments of the debate, Romney looked Obama directly in the eye, took exception to president’s assertions about Romney’s policies, and gave more precise answers.

Obama pressed that Romney’s economic plan called for $5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in military budget increases, a program Obama asserted would demand tax increases on middle-income earners.

“Look, I’ve got five boys and I’m used to somebody saying something that’s not true and hoping that by repeating it I’m going to believe it,” Romney countered, asserting that everything Obama said about his tax program was inaccurate.

Obama insisted Romney’s tax-reduction plan of necessity would either increase the deficit or demand tax increases for the middle class, charging that under Romney’s definition Donald Trump would be a small business.

Objecting to Jim Lehrer’s interruption that the first segment was exceeding the 15-minute limit, Romney charged that Obama would increase taxes on small businesses at the cost of 700,000 jobs.

As the discussion advanced to the nation’s deficit, Obama reiterated his statement that he inherited a massive deficit, and appeared on the defensive.

“You have been president for four years, you said you would cut the deficit in half and you have run $1 trillion in deficits each of the four years,” Romney attacked. “That does not get the job done.”

Romney pointed out that when the economy was growing as slowly as it is now, more slowly than when Obama took office, this is no time to increase taxes.

“You never balance the budget by increasing taxes,” Romney insisted. “I don’t want to go down the path of Spain.”

And:

Romney said “ignoring the 10th Amendment is not the way to have a vibrant economy.”

Romney said the key to education is great teachers, and he raised a reference to the U.S. Constitution regarding citizen rights.

“I interpret our founding documents as providing a responsibility for religious freedom – to pursue happiness by taking care of the less fortunate – but massive government involvement limits freedom – the path we are taking is not working with 23 million Americans unemployed and 50 million on food stamps.”

Obama said the responsibility of the federal government was important in improving the educational system in America.

“Budgets reflect choices. If we cut taxes to benefit people like Gov. Romney and me, it makes a difference,” Obama. He again demanded specifics of the GOP plans.

“When it comes to making college affordable, whether it be two years or four years, we cut out the middleman and eliminated banks from making a profit in student loans. Gov. Romney believes in education but he tells kids to borrow from their parents to go to college.”

Romney responded, “Mr. President, you are entitled to your own airplane and your own house – but not to your own facts.”

Romney said Obama put $90 billion into green jobs, but half of the recipients went bankrupt and others were owned by contributors to your campaign, and questioned the number of teachers that would have hired.

Romney proposed grading schools to know which were succeeding and which were failing.

“Massachusetts schools are ranked No. 1 in education because I care for education for all our children,” Romney said.

It was so bad that even gay activist and radical leftist Andrew Sullivan called it for Romney: (H/T Hot Air)

Look: you know how much I love the guy, and you know how much of a high information viewer I am, and I can see the logic of some of Obama’s meandering, weak, professorial arguments. But this was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look…

The person with authority on that stage was Romney – offered it by one of the lamest moderators ever, and seized with relish. This was Romney the salesman. And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It’s beyond depressing. But it’s true.

A post-debate poll from left-wing CNN found that an astonishing 67% of registered voters thought that Romney won the debate.

Even the radically left-wing National Journal says:

Call it the curse of incumbency. Like many of his predecessors, President Obama fell victim Wednesday night to high expectations, a short fuse, and a hungry challenger.

If Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney didn’t win the first of three presidential debates outright, he more than covered the spread. He was personable, funny, and relentlessly on the attack against a heavily favored Obama.

The president looked peeved and flat as he carried a conversation, for the first time in four years, with somebody telling him he’s wrong.

This debate was a blowout – and that’s just the reaction of the left.

Left-wing reactions on Twitter

Bill Maher: (HBO)

Bill Maher says Romney defeated Obama
Bill Maher says Romney defeated Obama

Peter Beinart (The New Republic)

Peter Beinart says Romney defeated Obama
Peter Beinart says Romney defeated Obama

Piers Morgan: (CNN)

Piers Morgan says Romney defeated Obama
Piers Morgan says Romney defeated Obama

And CHRIS MATTHEWS too:

Something else ran down his leg tonight, and it wasn’t a tingle, it was a tinkle.

Romney leading by 4 points in swing states

The latest poll of swings states from the left-wing Politico shows Romney leading Obama by 4 points, even with a 2 point oversampling of Democrats.

Breitbart explains: (links removed)

This week, Politico released its latest Battleground pollof the presidential race. Despite coming from the left-wing news site, the poll is one of my favorites. Its put together by respected pollsters from both parties, makes available its full cross-tabs and uses a very modest and reasonable turnout model for its sample. Including leaners, the sample in the poll is D+2. Nationally, Obama leads by 2-3 points, but, in the critical swing states, Romney now has the edge.

Each candidate leads in states considered “safe” for their party. In safe GOP states, Romney leads by 8. In safe Democrat states, Obama leads by a massive 22 points. But, in the more numerous and more important “toss up” states, Romney leads by 4, hitting the critical 50% threshold.

In the slightly different category of “battleground” states identified by Politico, Romney leads by 2, 49-47. Romney’s lead over Obama is powered primarily by his edge with independents. Romney leads Obama by 4 among the important swing voters. By 11 points, these voters think Romney would do better on the economy than Obama, 51-40.

Romney also has a big edge with middle class families, who prefer him over Obama by 15 points, 56-41.

My prediction for this election remains Romney 52, Obama 47.

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New study: women economists more likely to support higher taxes and bigger government

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From liberal USA Today.

Excerpt:

A lot depends on whether the economist is a man or a woman. A new study shows a large gender gap on economic policy among the nation’s professional economists, a divide similar — and in some cases bigger — than the gender divide found in the general public.

[…]Female economists tend to favor a bigger role for government while male economists have greater faith in business and the marketplace. Is the U.S. economy excessively regulated? Sixty-five percent of female economists said “no” — 24 percentage points higher than male economists.

[…]The genders are most divorced from each other on the question of equality for women. Male economists overwhelmingly think the wage gap between men and women is largely the result of individuals’ skills, experience and voluntary choices. Female economists overwhelmingly disagree by a margin of 4-to-1.

More findings:

  • Health insurance. Female economists thought employers should be required to provide health insurance for full-time workers: 40% in favor to 37% against, with the rest offering no opinion. By contrast, men were strongly against the idea: 21% in favor and 52% against.
  • Education. Females narrowly opposed taxpayer-funded vouchers that parents could use for tuition at a public or private school of their choice. Male economists love the idea: 61% to 14%.
  • Labor standards. Females believe 48% to 33% that trade policy should be linked to labor standards in foreign counties. Males disagreed: 60% to 23%.

According to a recent research paper, single women tend to vote for bigger government in order to have security.

Excerpt:

Giving women the right to vote significantly changed American politics from the very beginning. Despite claims to the contrary, the gender gap is not something that has arisen since the 1970s. Suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government expenditures and revenue, and these effects continued growing as more women took advantage of the franchise. Similar changes occurred at the federal level as female suffrage led to more liberal voting records for the state’s U.S. House and Senate delegations. In the Senate, suffrage changed voting behavior by an amount equal to almost 20 percent of the difference between Republican and Democratic senators. Suffrage also coincided with changes in the probability that prohibition would be enacted and changes in divorce laws.

[…]More work remains to be done on why women vote so differently, but our initial work provides scant evidence that it is due to self-interest arising from their employment by government.The only evidence that we found indicated that the gender gap in part arises from women’s fear that they are being left to raise children on their own (Lott and Kenny 1997). If this result is true, the continued breakdown of the family and higher divorce rates imply growing political conflicts between the sexes. 19

A recent New York Times poll found that Obama led Romney by 29 points among single women, whereas Romney has a slight edge with married women.

I think one of the reasons why single women are so willing to look to big government as a substitute for a husband is because lately they seem to be struggling with 1) the ability to choose a good man by evaluating him rationally and objectively, and 2) the willingness to sacrifice and compromise in order to keep a good man. In my experience, single women today seem to be concerned that men might somehow place obligations on them that might limit their automomy with respect to the pursuit of happiness. That is why they often (but not always!) delay marriage and focus on their careers, and often vote for bigger government to provide them with a safety net. I think that women spend their 20s trying to drift into marriage by working on their careers and by having a good time with the wrong sort of men – men who don’t perform the traditional male roles. Single women vote for bigger government because deep down they know that the binge drinking and the hook-up sex are not likely to find a good man and produce a lasting marriage. But they just can’t stop themselves from having “fun” – big government is their safety net for their own choices with men.

I was having a conversation with a Christian woman on the weekend about Christian women and the men they choose to pursue.  She said that divorce was not something that she was worried about because she had undertaken a careful study of men and marriage and she knew how to choose the right man for the job. She said that she was very clear on what men are supposed to do in a marriage, and that she had confidence in her ability to assess men for those duties. Secondly, she said that she knew what her responsibilities were as a woman in a marriage towards a man, and that she had complete confidence in her ability to perform those duties, based on careful, study, planning and training.  I was impressed because she was taking responsibility to make good decisions and to perform her duties, and she had confidence that this would reduce and even eliminate the risk of divorce. But I doubt that she would say that she learned these things from the secular culture, and probably not even in the church.

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Congressman Allen West gives the Republican weekly radio address

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It’s about time that Allen West be allowed to give the official GOP weekly radio address. His topic is the automatic spending cuts to the defense budget that are scheduled to occur soon.

Description:

In this week’s address, Congressman Allen West, a Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, discusses the deadline for the sequester, and the White House’s devastating inaction on what was originally their idea. The Republican-led House has proposed responsible replacements to the sequester’s historically crippling across-the-board cuts to our nation’s military. The recent vicious attacks on embassies in the Middle East underscore the need to preserve our military strength. The president and Senate Democrats must put aside partisan politics to work with us to preserve our military and replace the sequester.

For those who can’t see the video, here is a report from the radically leftist CNN:

Rep. Allen West of Florida cited his military experience on Saturday in the Republican weekly address, where he called for action from the Senate and White House on the sequester set to begin in January.

“I spent 22 years in active duty in the United States Army and served in several combat zones,” the retired lieutenant colonel said. “I can not understate the amount of damage these cuts would do to our military. They would essentially hollow out our armed forces.”

“Mr. President, for you, the Commander in Chief of our armed forces, to sit idle and do nothing while this dark cloud hangs over our military – it is shameful, it is irresponsible, and it is wrong,” he said.

Included in the cuts – which would reduce the federal deficit by approximately $1 trillion over the next decade – are reductions in defense spending, as well as nearly every other area. On Friday, a White House report found the cuts “would have a devastating impact on important defense and nondefense programs.”

While House Republicans have acted to find alternatives to these cuts, the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House have not, he said.

“The president himself has opposed or disregarded every attempt we’ve made to work with him on a solution,” West said. “Dodging his responsibility is how the ‘sequester’ came about, so it is no surprise the president is doing the exact same thing now.”

West called to mind violence in the Arab world this week – including that which led to the death of four Americans at a U.S. consulate in Libya – as a sign of “how critical it is that the United States projects strength,” including military strength.

“It is because of these threats that America must continue to fund its military and support its armed forces to the fullest extent,” West said. “The lives of all Americans depend on it, as do the memories of Ambassador Chris Stevens and the public servants who perished with him.”

West says this in his address: “Mr. President: for you — the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces — to sit idle and do nothing while this dark cloud hangs over our military, it is shameful, it is irresponsible, and it is wrong. It is dead wrong.”