Who won the Debate?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Romney won on the theater but it was one of the most unbelievably dishonest performances I've seen. The problem for Obama is that it's virtually impossible to pin Romney down and attack him on anything. Romney's established his ability and willingness to change his position entirely on a dime, as many times as it takes, depending on wherever he's speaking.

All Romney has to do is say "No, that's not my position" and Obama can do nothing about it in a debate setting without looking petty; there's no way to prove it even though you can immediately show Romney is an outright liar as soon as the debate is over with video of his previous statements and policy positions. It's impossible to debate jello, and that was Obama's problem.

[Marokai Backbeat]

A very typical sort of Democratic way of losing. Obama spent most of the debate desperately trying to make the debate substantive and coming at Romney under the assumption of how Romney previously described his own policies. But whenever tax cuts were brought up, Romney basically just started denying his own plan in whatever way he could. "Tax cuts? Huh? Five trillion? Who? Me? I would never!"

It's a very bluntly dishonest way of performing in a debate but it's a frustratingly successful one because Obama can't have any response. How can you respond to someone who has such a sparsely detailed plan that he just changes it on the fly?

[Marokai Backbeat]

A very typical sort of Democratic way of losing. Obama spent most of the debate desperately trying to make the debate substantive and coming at Romney under the assumption of how Romney previously described his own policies. But whenever tax cuts were brought up, Romney basically just started denying his own plan in whatever way he could. "Tax cuts? Huh? Five trillion? Who? Me? I would never!"

It's a very bluntly dishonest way of performing in a debate but it's a frustratingly successful one because Obama can't have any response. How can you respond to someone who has such a sparsely detailed plan that he just changes it on the fly?

LOL, at Dems.  Obama wants to attack the technocratic guy with over ten times more details and specifics than him.  Hypocritical whining is all you got?  

Technocratic? Romney is a lot of things but he ain't technocratic. He proposes repealing Obamacare, but what to replace it with? No specifics, and two competing answers for that matter; on the one hand, it's a state issue, on the other, he'll actively replace it with something. What? We don't know. His tax cuts would cost roughly 5 trillion, how do you make up the money? He can't really say. Obama asks how he would avoid savage domestic spending cuts to make up for the cost, Romney just says "I won't do that." No, seriously, just trust him. Repeal and replace Dodd-Frank? With what, we don't know.

Each time Obama tried to establish, not what Romney's policies would affect as Obama saw them, but simply what Romney's policies self-descriptively are, Romney would just immediately deny whatever they were characterized as. We weren't having a debate over policy effects, because Romney continued again to be deliberately evasive on what his policies even are. It is ridiculous that a candidate is campaigning on shapeshifting policies that change from audience to audience, from sentence to sentence. It seems to display poorly on a candidate that doesn't seem to have the confidence in his own policies to even openly and specifically lay out what they even are, let alone defend them.

It is an effective strategy, but the least you could do is admit its cynical dishonesty.