Winners and losers from the second presidential debate

Debates are about moments — the moments that get replayed again and again in the after-action analysis — and President Obama had three: 1) his line about how his pension wasn’t as big as Romney’s 2) winning, against all odds, the scrap about the Benghazi attack (with an assist from moderator Candy Crowley) and 3) his strong close in which he used Romney’s “47 percent” comments as a cudgel to beat up his rival. Obama’s performance wasn’t flawless and he didn’t score a clean win as Romney did in the first debate. But, he was the better performer this time around.

Winners and losers from the second presidential debate

[Pet peeve: Obama’s line wasn’t “about how his pension wasn’t as big as Romney’s” it was “about how his pension isn’t as big as Romney’s.” I hate this convention of making something past tense that wasn’t and still isn’t past. It’s lazy, at best.]

From video to terrorist attack: a definitive timeline of administration statements on the Libya attack – The Washington Post

“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths.  We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.  But there is absolutely no justification to this type of senseless violence.  None.  The world must stand together to unequivocally reject these brutal acts…No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.”

— President Obama, Rose Garden statement, Sept. 12

From video to terrorist attack: a definitive timeline of administration statements on the Libya attack – The Washington Post

Mitt Romney’s Pork Barrel Olympics | Mother Jones

What Romney doesn’t talk about is how he succeeded in Utah with government help—lots of it—and how millions in assistance that he pried out of the feds ended up bankrolling subsidies, sweetheart deals, and giveaways for land developers and other well-connected Utahns. …

Romney is simultaneously touting an Olympic effort that, more than any other in American history, succeeded thanks to public investment—some of it sunk into questionable projects of marginal value to the Salt Lake games. "The $1.5 billion in taxpayer dollars that Congress is pouring into Utah is 1.5 times the amount spent by lawmakers to support all seven Olympic Games held in the U.S. since 1904—combined," Donald Barlett and James Steele reported for Sports Illustrated in 2001. Those numbers were adjusted for inflation.

How the Salt Lake Games came to receive more money than any games in American history isn’t much of a mystery. The organizers, including Romney, asked for it.

Mitt Romney’s Pork Barrel Olympics | Mother Jones

The candidates enter two soundproof rooms simultaneous with nothing more than blank paper and a pen. Cameras record every moment from entry to exit. A panel of journalists selected by their peers asks questions voted on by the public. The candidates don’t know which questions are coming. The same people ask the same questions of each candidate. A clock starts running at the end of the question. The candidate has whatever amount of time – say 5 minutes – to say anything he or she chooses. At the end of the time, the cameras stop recording. Next question.

Third party candidates could go through the same process. Voters could compare Gary Johnson or Jill Stein to Obama and Romney, if we so choose. Candidates and other citizens could post continuations, clarifications, elaborations, and counter-points on their own websites at their own expense. Granted, this would be ripe for parody, but that might get people more interested in the election.

Zakaria is always thoughtful and thought-provoking. Let him moderate a debate.

I wonder if we can rely on comparisons of infrastructure as a percentage of GDP – we spent huge amounts between 1950 and 1970, when China spent relatively little (I guess). Granted, 40 years later, we need some maintenance. [hat tip to Rebecca Lasley] mjh

What voters are really choosing in November « Fareed Zakaria

Below all the mudslinging lies a real divide. Obama has been making the case that the U.S.economy needs investment — in infrastructure, education, training, basic sciences and technologies of the future. Those investments, in the president’s telling, have been the key drivers of American growth and have enabled people to build businesses, create jobs and invent the future.

Romney argues that America needs tax and regulatory relief. The country is overburdened by government mandates, taxes and rules that make it difficult for businesses to function, grow and prosper, he says. He wants to cut taxes for all, reduce regulations and streamline government. All this, in his telling, will unleash America’s entrepreneurial energy.

Both views have merit. It would make for a great campaign if our nation had a sustained discussion around these ideas. Then the election would produce a mandate to move in one of these directions.

In both cases, the candidates would have to explain how they would square their ambitions with long-term deficit reduction. If Obama plans to invest government funds in infrastructure, or if Romney intends to cut taxes, each needs a serious strategy of fiscal reform. Obama has been more specific than Romney, but neither has been entirely honest about what the numbers show are necessary to get America’s fiscal house in order: cuts to entitlement programs and higher taxes (whether through higher rates or the elimination of deductions such as the one for mortgage interest).

On the broader economic strategy, I think that Obama has the stronger case. …

The result is that we’re falling behind fast. In 2001, the World Economic Forum ranked U.S.infrastructure second in the world. In its latest report we were 24th. The United States spends only 2.4 percent of GDP on infrastructure, the Congressional Budget Office noted in 2010. Europe spends 5 percent; China, 9 percent. In the 1970s, America led the world in the number of college graduates; as of 2009, we were 14th among the countries tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Annual growth for research and development spending — private and public — was 5.8 percent between 1996 and 2007; inSouth Korea it was 9.6 percent; in Singapore, 14.5 percent; in China, 21.9 percent.

In other words, the great shift in the U.S. economy over the past 30 years has not been an increase in taxes and regulations but, rather, a decline in investment in human and physical capital.

What voters are really choosing in November « Fareed Zakaria

Captain of Industry, second alternate of the debate team.