Obama lost three ways

Ben Shapiro writes at Brietbart.com:

Actually, Obama lost in three major ways.

Economy. The first loss is the most obvious. Mitt Romney absolutely dismembered Obama on economics. Obama wasn’t merely outclassed. He was out-leagued. Take, for example, the Romney-Obama exchange on gas drilling. After Obama blathered on about how he’d been great for oil supply (false), Romney gutted him with a single line:

The proof of whether a strategy is working or not is what the price is that you’re paying at the pump. If you’re paying less than you paid a year or two ago, why, then, the strategy is working. But you’re paying more. When the president took office, the price of gasoline here in Nassau County was about $1.86 a gallon. Now, it’s $4.00 a gallon.



Obama’s response was perhaps the worst economic gaffe in modern debate history:

Well, think about what the governor — think about what the governor just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was $1.80, $1.86. Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse, because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression, as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney’s now promoting. So, it’s conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices because with his policies, we might be back in that same mess.



This is perhaps the dumbest economic argument ever. Obama is essentially arguing that gas prices were low four years ago because low gas prices cratered the economy. He even says that if Romney brings down gas prices, it would crater the economy again. This is pure insanity. …

Libya. At first glance, this issue looked like a loss for Romney. Romney’s attack on Obama’s Libya policy was anything but smooth, and he allowed Obama to play the wronged man of honor – even though it is Obama who refused to take responsibility for a month, lied for weeks about whether Benghazi was a terrorist attack, blamed a YouTube video, and threw the intelligence community under the bus.

But the exchange drew light to the Libya issue. And not in a way Obama liked. … Now we’re going to spend another week or two hashing out just why this president, who wants to claim he’s tough on terror – and a quick labeler of terror – has trotted out administration official after administration official to deny that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Even Candy Crowley admitted that Romney was basically right, and that Obama had not called Benghazi a terrorist attack for weeks. …

The Media. The greatest threat to a Romney victory after a good debate tonight was the mainstream media. It was obvious before this debate that they would spin anything but a full-on catatonic episode from Obama as a full-on Obama triumph. And it was also obvious that they’d jump all over Mitt Romney as a liar, a cheat, a fraud, a racist, a murderer, and a genocidal maniac. A desperate media with the patina of objectivity would have been Romney’s worst nightmare.

Thanks to abysmal moderator Candy Crowley, however, the mask is gone. Crowley handed Obama three minutes of extra time. She interrupted Romney far more than she did Obama. She stacked the questions two-to-one in favor of Obama-friendly questions. And she jumped into the Libya question to save Obama when he was on the ropes. Even Crowley recognized what a booboo she’d committed with that one. Meanwhile, as Obama played his class warfare card, media types cheered – literally cheered – in the other room.

The media is out of the closet. We know who they are. As the details of Crowley’s catastrophic intervention hit the airwaves, the American public will be wide awake to the mainstream media’s agenda. And they won’t believe them.

Here’s the bottom line: Mitt Romney got everything he needed from this debate. Obama didn’t. He got everything he already had: a devoted media and a vitriolic base. There are no independents who will turn his way after that debate. He turned them off with his aggressive style and his failure to even bother defending himself on his record.

Mitt Romney was the big winner last night. And he’s an even bigger winner if the media continues to pretend that last night was an Obama victory, even as the American people ignore them and move toward the Republican challenger.

Romney shortchanged; focus groups sway Romney

First of all, even Politico admitted that Obama got more time than Romney:

Amid persistent complaints and interruptions from both candidates, President Obama ultimately got more than three extra minutes of speaking time than Mitt Romney during Tuesday’s debate.

According to CNN’s timekeeping, Obama got 44:04 minutes of speaking time, while Romney got 40:50.

MSDNC “undecided” panel leaned Romney — mostly because of the economy (top) — and a Luntz focus group of mostly 2008 Obama supporters switched to Romney (below).