Who would be stronger?

[Meeker]

I think many people are making the mistake of substituting Obama's stump speech abilities for debating skills. They are very different animals. Obama isn't very good at handling tough questions, he doesn't do well when he gets knocked off talking points, he lacks confidence when he has to think on the fly, he doesn't maintain an internal database of facts to make a case when he needs to, when he's on the fly he sucks at driving a point home, and lastly he has zero wit when its unprepared. Don't get me wrong Bush was way worse so I think many people have a skewed image of what good is, but when you compare it to what is normal(either by looking at past presidents and candidates or both parties long term elected politicians) he is still way lacking.

Of course Perry is beyond horrible at debating and his only achievement is going from the kiddy table to GWB's level with some practice, but lets face it Gore, Kerry, B. Clinton, H. Clinton, HW, Reagan, Carter, Romney, Huckabee, etc. are all better debaters than Obama is. None of them except maybe B. Clinton are even close to Obama on the stump. And Gingrich is in a completely different class altogether.

Now here comes a few people who will disagree because they don't understand the different skill sets in impromptu debates vs. prepared stump speeches.

I think you need to go watch the video of Obama taking questions from House Republicans at their issues conference back in January 2010.

[Meeker]

I think many people are making the mistake of substituting Obama's stump speech abilities for debating skills. They are very different animals. Obama isn't very good at handling tough questions, he doesn't do well when he gets knocked off talking points, he lacks confidence when he has to think on the fly, he doesn't maintain an internal database of facts to make a case when he needs to, when he's on the fly he sucks at driving a point home, and lastly he has zero wit when its unprepared. Don't get me wrong Bush was way worse so I think many people have a skewed image of what good is, but when you compare it to what is normal(either by looking at past presidents and candidates or both parties long term elected politicians) he is still way lacking.

Of course Perry is beyond horrible at debating and his only achievement is going from the kiddy table to GWB's level with some practice, but lets face it Gore, Kerry, B. Clinton, H. Clinton, HW, Reagan, Carter, Romney, Huckabee, etc. are all better debaters than Obama is. None of them except maybe B. Clinton are even close to Obama on the stump. And Gingrich is in a completely different class altogether.

Now here comes a few people who will disagree because they don't understand the different skill sets in impromptu debates vs. prepared stump speeches.

I think you need to go watch the video of Obama taking questions from House Republicans at their issues conference back in January 2010.

I saw it back when it happened, and...

LOL, that thing Obama was both moderator and the primary speaker? Please! He kept on using the exact same play over and over again which was a dismissive response stating that each question, comment, etc. the GOP had was "playing politics" or "not serious", etc. That doesn't hold up when you aren't running the show like he was.

And it wasn't a caucus meeting, but don't worry you were only a few miles off.

I'm not really sure how letting your opponents pick the questions is "running the show". You can argue that the House Republicans did better than Obama (that's mostly rooted in which side's policy one agrees with, I suppose) but no one objectively watching the interactions there could say Obama did poorly or is bad at taking tough questions as you claim. And I never said it was a caucus meeting.

Also, why do you insist on interacting with people in the manner you do? It's obnoxious, unnecessary and shows a great deal of immaturity.

[Meeker]

I just don't understand why you have such a chip on your shoulder. It's weird to get so worked up about things on an Internet forum.

Whatever. To the ignore list you go.