MWAH-HA-HA … of course it's biased. I confess it freely.
Obama actually bothered to show up this time. I don't know if in Debate 1 he was trying to be dispassionate and presidential, or was suffering from jet lag, or was fighting off the flu, or what, but he was disengaged and (nigh on) pathetic.
This night, he was out there swinging — hitting Romney on his record, hitting him on what he'd said during the primaries vs what he's saying now, calling out at least some of the lies. He wasn't flawless — he bobbled the narrative facts on the Benghazi attacks (even while he did a hell of a play on the emotional part of things), and sometimes he stumbled over himself trying to get to his talking points, and I'm not sure how hard he wants to push the "I'm a big believer in oil and coal" schtick — but he was definitely in the game.
Romney didn't lie down and get steamrollered, by any means, but the turn-around on Obama's part seemed to catch him off-guard. He got more and more anxious in hitting his "5 points" and repeating the same attacks, and his shoulders kept tensing up further and further (trust me, I know), and his expressions while not being the question answerer varied between smarmy and dyspeptic.
Obama managed to talk for longer (by a few minutes) on the overall timer, but it sure felt like Romney was the one interrupting and trying to get the last word in and rushing the ref. Candy Crowley got pushed around some, but she didn't just cave to Romney's "I want to respond before we can move on" tactics, either.
Net-net (and I confess my Democratic bias here), I think Obama won on points. It wasn't a TKO, certainly, and some might call it a tie, but I think he hit Romney harder than he was hit in return, and at the very least he demonstrated that he could work effectively in the debate format. After his poor showing in Denver he had to do just that, and I strongly suspect (to the extent that I trust, let alone can predict, polls) that any remaining Romney surge from Debate 1 will be stopped, and perhaps even rolled back some.
Which leaves things far too close for anyone's comfort, frankly, but that's overall not a surprise.
We watched CNN this evening (vs. CSPAN last time), largely because I wanted the split screen. It was fine, during the debate, but the pre-debate nattering was vapid beyond all understanding (there was first a gaggle of female correspondents going on at length about how both wives were wearing, gasp, pink … and the a gaggle of male correspondents going on at length about the best debate tactics to use, as if).
I thought Crowley did a decent job of moderating. She still let both candidates get too many words in edgewise, but short of cutting off their mics (not a bad idea) she did what she could.
My faith in the electoral system and the power of reasoned rhetoric is by no means restored, but I am, a bit, glad I watched.
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Come on +Dave Hill we know you're in the tank for Obama….oh wait, you said that…sorry 😛
I was glad to see Obama actually come to debate this time. A few times he came close to Biden territory, but I'm sure it's been hammered into him to step it up a bit from his last performance. Good for him.
My only 'issue' was….you guessed it….with Candy Crowley. I'm not going to whine and cry and say "she's biased" (though I think she is), or whatever, but she came off like she was trying to 'steer' the President in certain directions with some follow ups and her little impromptu 'fact check' about the Rose Garden was totally out of line for someone who's supposed to "moderate". (which she was wrong on, anyway).
Candy Crowley ADMITS Romney Was Right On Libya
Clearly, Obama didn't need any help.
I thought both men did pretty well on stating their points and trying to back them up as well as clarifying (when given the chance). A good debate all around, in my opinion.
While I was a bit surprised that Crowly called out Romney about when Obama raised terrorism on the Benghazi incident, she did also note that the idea that it was all obnoxious-movie-inspired didn't exit the discussion until long after. I don't know that I consider that bias in either direction, and I didn't get the sense of "steering" that you did (and, as far as that goes, was Mitt's attempts to dominate her into letting him talk out of turn response to such steering, if it exists, or a provocation of it?).
I agree that both parties managed to get their bullet list of talking points out. I think (biased or not) that Obama did a better job, but not so much better that I'd be flabbergasted if some folks thought it was a tie, or even a narrow Romney win (unlike Debate 1 where even Jon Stewart was raking Obama over the coals http://bit.ly/RRCteT ).
At a minimum, I think it was better representative of both candidates, good and ill.