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The Morning Flap: October 23, 2012

Romney State of the Race October 23 2012From 270towin.com

These are my links for October 22nd through October 23rd:

  • 2012: The battle for 7 states – Jonathan Martin – POLITICO.com – RT @jmartpolitico: A grudging consensus in Boca: the 7 states where the election will be decided >
  • Josh Kraushaar’s post on Capitol Hill Insiders | Latest updates on Sulia – Per @mikeallen, this is Romney map. They think they’re up 271-261 (with IA tossup) …
  • Krauthammer: Romney Won Unequivocally; Obama’s Responses Were Petty– I think it’s unequivocal, Romney won. And he didn’t just win tactically, but strategically. Strategically, all he needed to do is basically draw. He needed to continue the momentum he’s had since the first debate, and this will continue it. Tactically, he simply had to get up there and show that he’s a competent man, somebody who you could trust as commander in chief, a who knows every area of the globe and he gave interesting extra details, like the Haqqani network, which gave the impression he knows what he’s talking about. But there is a third level here, and that is what actually happened in the debate.We can argue about the small points and the debating points. Romney went large, Obama went very, very small, shockingly small. Romney made a strategic decision not go after the president on Libya, or Syria, or other areas where Obama could accuse him of being a Bush-like war monger. Now I would have gone after Obama on Libya like a baseball bat, but that’s why Romney has won elections and I’ve never had to even contested them. He decided to stay away from the and I think that might have actually worked for him
  • Obama may have won the Boca debate battle but he knows he is losing the election war to Romney– If you had been on an extended vacation for the past four years, you would have been forgiven for watching this debate and thinking you were viewing a President Mitt Romney being challenged by a pretender called Barack Obama. It’s not that Obama did not have command of foreign policy issues or did not make some telling points against an opponent who was vague at times and occasionally uncertain. But Obama clearly came into the debate believing he had to score points and change the dynamic of the race.In short, Obama started the 90 minutes here in Boca Raton, Florida believing he was losing his bid for re-election.Romney, by contrast, felt he could play things safe. He was a kinder, gentler presence than he was in the second debate in Hempstead, New York, when he fought back hard against a hyper Obama desperate to make up for his catastrophic performance in the first debate in Denver.By and large, Romney succeeded in Boca. He came across as knowledgeable and reasonable and made no mistakes. In short, he passed the commander-in-chief test. Having proved in the first debate he had the backbone, policy expertise and determination to try to tackle America’s economic woes, tonight he showed that he was a plausile commander-in-chief.It was not an especially high bar, but he cleared it.
  • A Perfectly Plausible President– Mitt Romney needed to pass the usual tests for Republican presidential candidates in his debate Monday night with President Obama.There was the Ford test (alternatively known as the Palin/Cain/Perry test): Would Mr. Romney say something so obviously misinformed, so manifestly silly, so revealingly ignorant as to disqualify him from serious consideration as a prospective commander-in-chief? He said nothing of the sort.There was the Goldwater test (unfairly named, but reputations are stubborn things): Did Mr. Romney make pronouncements so belligerent as to make ordinary people fear for their children’s safety—or at least provide David Axelrod a chance to make it seem as if he did? He did not, though that won’t stop Mr. Axelrod from trying.And there was the Bush test (not unfairly named but mistakenly understood to mean ideology when it ought to be about consistency): Would Mr. Romney find a deft way to define his foreign policy as something other than a retread of the 43rd president—but also as something defensible, distinctive, and (not least) identifiably Republican?On this score, Mr. Romney succeeded, too, if only in a manner coyly calculated to raise the hackles of every conservative who has harbored doubts all along about the Massachusetts governor.
  • Obama wins final debate, but does it matter?– Three debates down and two weeks of campaigning to go.A forceful President Barack Obama put Republican challenger Mitt Romney on the defensive on foreign policy on Monday night, with analysts and an immediate poll giving him the victory in their final debate just 15 days before the November 6 vote.Now the candidates hit the road for the final sprint to Election Day, focusing on the handful of battleground states considered still up for grabs and therefore vital to both their chances in a razor’s edge race.Obama kicks off his “America Forward” tour on Tuesday with events in Florida and Ohio, where he will be joined by Vice President Joe Biden, while Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, campaign in Nevada and Colorado.On Monday, Obama displayed the experience of a commander-in-chief in explaining U.S. policy under his leadership and attacking the views and proposals of Romney, a former Massachusetts governor with less experience on international issues.

    Romney ended up supporting most of the Obama administration’s steps involving hotspots, such as the civil war in Syria, and preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, giving the president the advantage in a debate in which his GOP rival needed to question foreign policy of the past four years.

    Analysts agreed that Obama won on points, but questioned if the result would have a big impact on voters and the race as a whole.

  • Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-10-22 – Flap’s California Blog – Flap’s California Blog @ Flap Twitter Digest for 2012-10-22
  • Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-22 – Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Flap’s Blog @ Flap Twitter Daily Digest for 2012-10-22 #tcot
  • My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-22 – Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S. – My Daily Twitter Digest for 2012-10-22
  • Obama and Romney duke it out on foreign policy – Right Turn – The Washington Post – RT @JRubinBlogger: Romney nails Obama on apology tour, education, Iran.. Obama major gaffe on navy .. Romney sails on
  • CA-26: Early Vote By Mail Report Favoring GOP’s Tony Strickland – CA-26: Early Vote By Mail Report Favoring GOP’s Tony Strickland #tcot
  • Trooth.Com – The Tate Viehweg DMD Interview Part One – Flap’s Blog – – The Tate Viehweg DMD Interview Part One #tcot
  • Day By Day October 22, 2012 – Try Hard – Flap’s Blog – Day By Day October 22, 2012 – Try Hard #tcot
  • Untitled (http://www.rgj.com/needlogin?type=login&redirecturl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rgj.com%2Farticle%2F2012102) – Untitled (… #tcot
  • The Morning Flap: October 22, 2012 – Flap’s Blog – The Morning Flap: October 22, 2012 #tcot