NY Times Article On McCain's Amazing Debating Skill - Is McCain That Good Or Romney That Bad?

[Median Democrat]

I saw this recent article on McCain's debating skills. I did watch some of the RNC debates, and McCain did manage to repeatedly get Romney to lose his cool by lieing about Romney alleged support of Iraq withdrawal timetables, which did not play well in front of GOP audiences. Romney repeatedly melted down, then interrupted McCain, which made an impression, as McCain sat there grinning in a condescending manner, as Romney sputtered about McCain's lies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/us/politics/23mccain.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1222281353-fnGYWO2qP0J4lXa8WIaKfQ

/snip

He has used fairly consistent techniques during his roughly 30 debates on the national stage: he is an aggressive competitor who scolds his opponents, grins when he scores and is handy with the rhetorical shiv. Just ask Mitt Romney, whom Mr. McCain filleted on several occasions in debates during the primaries, perhaps most infuriatingly for Mr. Romney when Mr. McCain misleadingly asserted that Mr. Romney favored a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

A review of several of Mr. McCain’s debates shows that he is most comfortable and authentic when the subject is foreign policy. And in a stroke of good fortune, foreign policy is the topic for Friday, the first of three 90-minute debates with Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

/snip

Here is the NY Times video preview of the debate:

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=a2436819abf89ee8d3f4f571e7895c4309265b0d

[Connie_Corleone]

1. Romney had the big problem of being a frequent flip flopper.

I watched those debates, and Romney biggest problem was trying to explain his shifting positions on the issues.

[BlooInBloo]

2. It's like college football....

One little-remarked aspect of college football (bear with me, please) is the *depth* of a team. Of course the most obvious effect of a team having good depth is that injuries don't result in a lot of talent drop-off.

But a deeper and more important aspect of depth is the practices that take place 5 times a week. When your starters are practicing against people damn near as good as they are, they're in a FAR better position come Saturday than a team who's starters - let them be supposed to as good as the other team's starters - are practicing against lesser 2nd-teamers. When you practice against better people, your improvement is FAR more pronounced than someone who practices against scrubs. Abstractly, it becomes a situation of the rich get richer, and the middle class get poorer.

That's what the situation surrounding the candidates' practice opponents sounds like to me. Even if we supposed - contrary to actual fact - that Obama and McPOW were equal talents in themselves, even the briefest look at their sparring partners' bios shows a VAST difference in their talent levels. Under the false supposition - which is extremely gracious to McLiar, the end result of such a hideous choice of sparring partner would naturally tend to be that he'd end up worse off than Obama.

But the supposition is, of course false. In actual fact, McDirt is starting off the blocks a few pints short of a gallon, while Obama overfloweth. Thus adjusted, McNounVerbPOW might literally end up brain-dead (the only way he could be any stupider), while Obama will end up even sharper than he already is (it's almost *unfair* - lol).

In college football, of course, the coach doesn't really have a choice about who his starters practice against. You go into practice with the 2nd string you have, and not the 2nd string you wish you had, as it were. But this is not the situation with McAdulterer. Although they're uniformly evil, there are a fair number of very bright and talented debtaters he could have chosen from - hell, Rove himself would've been an excellent choice to *improve* McPanderer's debating abilities.

While certainly his choice of a *black* sparring partner is tied up with his (and his party's) inability to see anything more than Average Leroy Black when they look at Obama, I think there must also have been a conscious *requirement* on Mc13Cars' part TO NOT SPAR WITH ANYONE WHO COULD SHOW HIM UP.

There might be various reasons for this: simple vanity (likely), not wanting to get McFlipFlop's spirits down before the debate, and so forth. But whatever the precise components of the vector-sum of rationales might be, it seems clear to me that Obama will be about as well-off as he can be going into the debates, and McLoser about as poorly off as he could be.

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. Ron Paul roasted McCain in the debates when he was allowed to participate

The networks cut out that roasting in later video clips.

[Median Democrat]

4. I Agree But Ron Paul Had Nothing To Lose

He was just cutting lose and ripping on John McCain, and McCain really did not want to pay attention to him, which is what caused McCain to lose it. However, Paul was sort of just ripping everyone apart, which really energized Paul's campaign, but Paul was never viable. Ron Paul makes even John McCain look cool and collected, so I don't think Obama can take tips from Paul.