Why not? For those staying up real late or are in a more convenient timezone, I’m going to attempt to make some real-time comments on the most important debate in human history (unless the President loses, in which case debates don’t really matter). Regional ale will be involved. Then we can look at the BBC’s own live text coverage and compare.
(NB: Page is set to refresh automatically every two minutes. Apologies in advance if that screws up anyone in the middle of a comment.) (Yeah, like anyone’s even paying attention. Get over yourself. -ed)
[liveblog]
Excellent, my new job doesn’t start for a couple of weeks, and I’ve half a bottle of wine left so game on!
PS What’s this ‘regional ale’ you talk of? Sounds nice!
I’m warming up with a Dogfish Head 60-minute IPA, from Deleware. From then on it will be Six Point Bengali Tiger Ale from Brooklyn.
Lagunitas’ A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ here …
One of my favorites. I assume you’ve also tried Little Sumpin’ Wild?
Yeah, but I’m not a big fan of the funky barnyard flavors produced by Belgian yeast.
Hmm I’m beginning to get a thirst for these American IPAs. A new ale shop has opened up where I live and they have a whole wall dedicated to American beers… Liberty Anchor, Blue Moon, Brew Dog Tripe American IPA and so on. Very nice!
That’s ‘triple’ btw, and NOT TRIPE LOL!!! (which in England has a whole different meaning)
Nice. You have to really like hops and fizz, though.
It really is embarrassing when BBC ” journalists ” / fans cover Barak ” The Risen Christ ” Obama.
They just can not hide their bias, a black muslim marxist president, it’s as if all their Christmases have come true.
Not for much longer. It all ends on November 6, when the American people kick this bum out of The White House.
I was going to try to stay up for this one but it’s not going to happen. Eyes closing.
I’ll know immediately how it all went from the tone of the Today headlines in a few hours.
DB, please feel free tomorrow to insert any amusing things you find elsewhere in between my comments. Oo er.
We desperately need some good chat window action going on here. Question Time chat and this (if it were a chat window) were one of the real highlights of this site. Is it possible to introduce a ‘gold membership’ of £1/month or the like to pay for a chat facility if needbe?
David, I’ve been hitting the dogfish 90 minute IPA because of the great taste but my wife suspects it’s the 9% alcohol. Silly woman.
Don’t want to scare you guys but 9% is way to high for a decent ale.
This is the US, man. Of course we’re going to ramp it up to 11. Er, 9.
LOL! Great comments by the way, here in Mexico following them.
Thanks. All done now. It’ll probably make no sense out of context tomorrow. The plugin seems to work nicely, though. Definitely need to use this in future, although I prefer the group format, once the PTB get stabilization (and, I think, cost) finally sorted.
Time to finish my last SixPoint brewery Bengali Tiger IPA. 62 IBU, 6.4%. Is that acceptable?
16oz cans, though. It’s the specially lined cans, poured into a proper glass, of course.
6.4, yep just about right! 🙂
Fox News talking heads obviously trying to figure out how to spin this as a tie for Romney. Not working at all. Makes a couple of them look stupid (yeah, I know, you’re welcome for the straight line).
This is the online people I’m talking about, by the way, not the shouting talking heads from the regular TV (excluding the torpid basset hound, Brit Hume). The hostess came out looking more straight-talking than the rest of them, too.
Lovely, sharp African-American woman, Harris Faulkner, who has a regular daily hour on the FoxNews.com live stream. She’s way better than most of the rest of them, and something you don’t see on the BBC with its vaunted advocacy for diversity (since ageism got to Moira Stuart, anyway). She’s better than any of the usual Radio 5 suspects, as well as at least half of the News Channel Beeboids.
Mark Mardell just called it a draw on Radio 4.
So Romney won by a country mile then?
I thought the President would have come across as having laid out a bit more substance to uninformed, undecided voters (probably the same thing at this point in the game), which is how I was trying to look at it. Mardell was the faithful acolyte, waiting for inspiration, which wasn’t really there. The President calmed down quickly and played it more straight. No wonder he didn’t see that the President got more points across (wrong as may have been) while Romney was waffling more, and saw only a few clever lines.
Amusingly, Mardell says he expected Romney to say silly things and make mistakes, and was surprised that he didn’t, yet doesn’t see the President’s condescending, ignorant mini-rant about how we don’t use horses or bayonets, and now have “these things called aircraft carriers where planes land” as silly and foolish. Of course, Mardell thought it was a brilliant line, that it “undermined” Romney. Obviously he didn’t notice the inherent contradiction in the President’s claim that he would both cut defense spending and make our military the strongest in the world. More college dorm argument than reality. Similarly, I assume Mardell agrees with the President’s ridiculous claim that a vote for Romeny is a vote for George Bush. Does that line ever get old for these people?
Mardell didn’t seem to recognize that Romney’s quip about criticizing him not being a real plan was a very clever line indeed, and has become the take-away line for a lot of people.
Still problems with Biased BBC server. Keep getting comments on US version of prime minister’s questions.
Don’t think much of shadow front bench – being paid by Democrats to throw the election I reckon. Now what’s on BBC News 24…..
thanks David – made interesting reading and a better flavour than I would get from the BBC
Just caught it on C-Span.
I thought Romney came back into it but overall I personally was left with the impression that Obama was cogent and authorative compared to Romney who was on the whole lacklustre. At times, especially at the beginning, it seemed like the first debate in reverse, but Romney came back into it and the margin in Obama’s favour was narrowed quite a bit.
Obama had his glitches, and the worst I thought was towards the end of his closing remarks when I felt he sounded a bit desperate. Romney more or less excelled in his closing remarks.
I guess Romney was really toting towards the wavering voters and determined to be moderate and avoid controversy, despite all the very legitimate attack material to come at the President on.
Overall, I felt Obama came at the debate from the Right and Romney from the left. Let’s see election day how Romney’s debate triangulation strategy works. However America votes, I think Romney’s defintely done himself credit as a person. According to what I read in the Mail or Telegraph, he actually shades Obama in likeability ratings.
It’s oft said that debates dont win elections, but if Romney wins that definitely wont be the case.
He was trailing Obama by about 4-6 points prior to the first debate, after that, and inspite of him losing the next debate, he was edging Obama.
I guess this was because given a chance to see and hear Romney directly away from the biased media filter, it made a decisive difference.
I guess the axiom may be that if the media is impartial, debates dont make too much difference, if it isn’t, they can.
That said, Obama’s going to win the election by 1-2points – the msm propaganda guns will tell, as much as one truly hopes to be wrong.
Mardell’s fascinating take that it was a draw:-
Mardell’s intriguing take:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20038363
I actually thought Romney sounded more desperate in his closing remarks – “Please vote for me. Please? Please?” – than the President, but otherwise I pretty much agree with what you say.
The Rightosphere is abuzz with people rationalizing it by trying to prove that a tie is a win for Romney. That’s pundit-world stuff to me. Those of us in the lower orders want to back a strong horse already.