Good news from the Bronx!

Our US Senate candidate, Wendy Long, was on the Fred Dicker radio show this AM. You can listen to the pod cast here or read about it here.

Why does Senator Schumer always lead from behind?

For anyone who does not believe that Social Security needs reform,  this is a must read.  The article indicates that the interest on the principle is not included which would modify the 4% loss on payouts.  Interest?  Have you looked at what you earn in interest on your savings account?  Adding to the Social Security fiscal problems is the fact that baby boomers will be collecting for an average of 20 or more years, then add the fact that Americas birth rate is down for the fourth year in a row,  then you will have a better understanding of the urgent need for reform. 

First it was VP Biden who unwittingly spoke the truth, now David Axelrod is.  This morning on MSNBC he said ""You can't square the circle, and Gov. Romney is going to be held accountable for that."  Actually Mr. Axelrod, last night  Governor Romney held  President Obama accountable for trying to square the circle.

The Heritage Foundation assesses  on debate.  The Weekly Standard; Larry Kudlow; the Washington Examiner; Jonah Goldberg; the NY Sun; and the NY Post all give Governor Romney kudos. 

A very special thank you to Jim Geraghty who writes the Morning Jolt for National Review Online for the great recap of last night's debate or what he calls The Denver Knockout...the quotes are just too good to leave out of today's  blog.



Morning Jolt – October 4, 12

By Jim Geraghty

Here’s your Thursday Morning Jolt.

Enjoy!

Jim

The Denver Knockout

“I can't believe I'm saying this, but Obama looks like he DOES need a teleprompter.”

Guess who said that?

Bill Maher.

Chuck Todd: “Very important night for Mitt Romney. And he rose to the challenge.” Later in the evening, Todd reported, “[The Obama campaign] knows they lost tonight.”

Rachel Maddow began by saying, “I don’t know who won this debate.”

Chris Matthews was morose: "I don't know what he was doing out there. . . . He had his head down."

Go watch the video of the meltdown. It’s worth it. The transcript doesn’t capture just how epic it was:

"Where was Obama tonight? He should watch -- well, not just Hardball, Rachel, he should watch you, he should watch the Reverend Al [Sharpton], he should watch Lawrence. He would learn something about this debate. There's a hot debate going on in this country. You know where it's been held? Here on this network is where we're having the debate," Matthews said.

"We have our knives out," Matthews said, admitting his network is trying their best to defend Obama and his policies. "We go after the people and the facts. What was he doing tonight? He went in their disarmed."

"He was like, 'Oh an hour and half? I think I can get through this thing. And I don't even look at this guy.' Whereas Romney -- I love the split-screen -- staring at Obama, addressing him like prey. He did it just right. 'I'm coming at an incumbent. I got to beat him. You've got to beat the champ and I'm going to beat him tonight. And I don't care what this guy, the moderator, whatever he thinks he is because I'm going to ignore him," Matthews said.

"What was Romney doing?" Matthews asked. "He was winning."

Ed Schultz, MSNBC: "I was disappointed in the president tonight. . . . He was off his game. I was stunned."

Michael Moore: “This is what happens when you pick John Kerry as your debate coach. . . . What's that silence I hear? No one throwing a party? No one saying this election is a slam dunk for Obama? What happened to the victory lap?”

Van Jones: "Up until tonight, we were told Romney was Thurston Howell. . . . Tonight, he was presidential."

Larry Sabato: “Probably Romney's best debate ever. Maybe Obama's worst. I lost count of # of opportunities Obama missed. . . . This debate may build audience for other 3. Voters will want to see if Obama can stage comeback. . . . Mr. President, cancel all your golf games. You did miserably tonight.”

Wolf Blitzer: “This was a pretty good night for Mitt Romney. He clearly held his own. We didn’t hear the attack lines from President Obama that we were expecting . . .”

John King: “A lot of liberals complaining about Obama’s performance. He was rusty. He hasn’t done this for four years. We didn’t hear about Bain Capital, we didn’t hear about the 47 percent.”

Anderson Cooper: “Critics of the president often say he can be professorial, I imagine they’ll be saying that tonight.”

Terry Moran: “Obama's passivity in this debate, his lack of oomph and clarity, plays into the Romney narrative: Nice guy; can't lead. Big W for GOP.”

Nicholas Kristof: “Romney is relaxed and empathetic, while Obama comes across as a constipated professor. C'mon, Mr. President!”

David Corn: “Romney looks like he's having a good time. Obama does not.”

Josh Greenman of the New York Daily News: “Possible upside: Some people might feel a little sorry for Obama?”

Michael Crowley of Time magazine: “Sensing weakness, Sasha and Malia just hounded dad into doubling their allowances.”

I mention all of these liberals and MSM folks to demonstrate that it wasn’t just us feeling good about seeing what we wanted to see in Romney. One last one:

Andrew Sullivan:

“This was a disaster for the president for the key people he needs to reach, and his effete, wonkish lectures may have jolted a lot of independents into giving Romney a second look.

Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn't there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment.

The person with authority on that stage was Romney -- offered it by one of the lamest moderators ever, and seized with relish. This was Romney the salesman. And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It's beyond depressing. But it's true.”

As for the folks watching at home . . .

CBS News instapoll: 46% said Romney won. 22% said Obama won. 32% said tie.

CNN InstaPoll: 67% say Mitt Romney won, 25% Obama, registered voters who watched the debate.

Mark Knoller: “Poll shows 56% of uncommitted voters say their opinion of Romney has changed for the better. 13% say that about the President.”

Laura Ingraham: “Obama is not good at debates because Obama is rarely challenged by anyone on anything.”

Exurban Jon: “Expected spin: ‘Obama didn't lose this debate to Romney, he just lead from behind.’”

Jim Pethokoukis: “Romney's command of detail really showed on the small biz stuff. Knew both the sides of the argument cold.”

Matt Cover: “So, looks like Eastwood wasn't so crazy after all. #emptychair”

Biased Girl: “Barack Obama was exposed tonight.”

Jonah: “Romney should FedEx some apples to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave with a note, ‘How do you like these?’”

Iowahawk: “That faint sound? Millions of faded Obama posters coming down.”

The Right Dame: “This isn't breaking news to us, but to the rest of you who seem so confused, this is the result of an inept media. You didn’t know either man.”

Ross Douthat: “Sweet spot for GOP politicians: Center-right not hard right on substance, but w/strong attack lines against liberalism. Romney hit it.”

Patrick Ruffini: “The broader problem for Obama that surfaced tonight: He's acting like a liberal ideologue running against a pragmatic problem-solver.”

Kevin Eder: “Obama looked very tired. I'd be too if I spent all my time in partying in Vegas, chatting with Letterman, & livin' it up with Jay-Z. #buried”

AG_Conservative: “Liberals have been told for months that Romney has no specifics. No wonder they were shocked when Romney was the only one who did.”

Mary Katharine Ham: “I had no idea the 20th anniversary was the Embarrassing Capitulation Anniversary.”

Mark Hemingway: “That wasn't a debate so much as Mitt Romney just took Obama for a cross country drive strapped to the roof of his car.”

It will be interesting to see how the Obama campaign responds to this. Some new document dump? Surrogates playing the religion card more explicitly?

Josh Trevino: “Chance of unilateral US action in Libya in the coming fourteen days just went up by seventy thousand percent.”

How would you like to be Vice President Joe Biden right now? He already thinks he’s God’s gift to audiences, and in his one debate with Sarah Palin, he described some alternate-universe history that almost no one in the press called him out on, because of the ongoing Palin obsession at the moment. Michael Totten wrote:

“When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, “Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know -- if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.” Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.” [Emphasis added.]

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

That night Palin turned in a pretty solid performance, but she wasn’t prepared to fact-check Biden on the spot when he started telling tales about Middle East policy that sounded like they might be based on classified briefings or something. Yet if Biden starts rambling a week from now, and starts offering BS stories that sound good but that do not match any known facts at all, it’s easy to picture Paul Ryan staring at him, incredulous, and saying simply, “Mister Vice President, with all due respect . . . what in God’s name are you talking about?”

I want Joe Biden swinging for the fences a week from now, feeling like he has to turn the ship around all by himself.

ADDENDUM: Toby Harnden: “Jim Lehrer telling Denver audience that "absolute silence" is required: ‘If you hear something you don't like -- sit on it!’”

Who is he, The Fonz?

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