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Romney Wins Debate on Critical Issues

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President Obama showed up ready to rumble last night at the Hofstra University, unfortunately for him, so did Mitt Romney.

But Romney had to debate the President and a mediator who thought she had to pitch in to help out the President if he appeared in trouble. Candy Crowley interrupted Romney 28 times, while she only admonished Obama 9 times for exceeding his time.

There are analysts saying President Obama scored some debate points and critiqued Romney for not taking advantage of clear openings to land a knockout blow on Obama. But when the “fog of the debate” clears, polls will show that Mitt Romney has picked up more support from the American electorate.

Some after the debate flash polls showed that Obama had an edge in the debate. But the question asked was who was the most improved from the Denver debate, of course that was Obama….and who performed close to expectations: Romney.

The left leaning CNN poll shortly after the debate showed that Romney had a 58-40 edge on the issue of economics/who had the best plan for righting our economic ship.

Additionally Romney had the edge in the following 3 key areas:

• Taxes 51-44

• Solving budget deficit 59-36

• Healthcare 49-46

President Obama still had a slight edge on Mitt Romney when it comes to foreign policy. But ominously for President Obama, the Benghazi attack on our consulate and murder of 4 Americans is becoming a big issue. Additionally it seems Al Quaeda and terrorism didn’t disappear from the scene when Osama Bin Laden was killed.

Another key item that will vex President Obama, is the sky high cost of gasoline plaguing American motorists and businesses. Last night Mitt Romney was able to lay that blame squarely on the shoulders of Obamas last 4 years of energy policy.

Political scientist Frank Luntz monitored a panel of 21 voters, many of whom previously voted for Obama in 2008. After the debate a majority of them said they will be voting for Romney.

A newly released Gallup Poll showed that Mitt Romney has jumped to a national lead against President Obama 51-45.

Romney’s popularity in the national polls is making a difference in swing states that were formerly assumed to be President Obama’s, or were leaning his way. They are now very close or leaning Romney.

Pundits might say they give the edge to Obama in points in this last debate, but the points that really matter to Americans all belong to Mitt Romney.

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Ed Farnan’s articles are also carried in:

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Why Romney Is Now Winning With Women

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I still remember the day that I learned the most important lesson a man can ever learn about women. It was the first semester of my sophomore year of college. My girlfriend had broken up with me the last semester of the previous year and I still hadn’t figured out why. I had begged her to stay. I told her that I was nothing without her and even cried in front of her. But she still left me for another guy.

What I didn’t understand was that when she had tried to break up with me just a month before, the emasculation of myself seemed to work wonders. She decided we’d give it another try and things seemed to go back to normal. But at the end of that month, she wasn’t snookered by my antics.

Don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t faking. I felt like my world was ending and that she alone held the key to my happiness in life. So it was easy to cry and tell her that I “dwelled in darkness without her.” But I allowed myself to do it because I thought it would work. I thought that getting sympathy could buy me some points with the gentler sex.

I thought that right up until the day I took mental inventory of my recent experiences with women. Since I’d been back as a sophomore, women had been treating me differently. The ones I thought were out of my league were inviting me to have lunch with them. Senior girls were taking walks across campus with me simply because they saw me passing by. Two girls who I’d been friends with for over a year were literally feuding over the “rights” to me to the point that they stopped being roommates.

What had changed? I had. Rather than being a soft spoken weenie whose only skill with women was attempting to solicit sympathy, I had improved myself. I didn’t do it to “get chicks” or win back the girl who’d dumped me. I did it for me. I’d begun a part-time business, started back lifting weights with a buddy, and reunited with friends I had basically ignored when I was infatuated the year before.

I’d become someone that girls wanted to date because I was going places, had a life outside of any one woman, was physically stronger, knew how to have fun and the “looks decent wagon” hadn’t passed me by. I’d earned it.

When I’d cried and begged my ex to stay, she stayed for a little bit because she felt sorry for me. So she felt good in giving me another chance that I really didn’t deserve. But that never works long term. It’s like a sympathy date in high school, it’s a short term relationship because it’s based on sympathy, not attraction and love.

So what does this have to do with Mitt Romney closing the gender gap with Barack Obama? Simple, Obama was a sympathy date in 2008.

He hadn’t earned anything. He had been a senator for less than two years when he started campaigning. He rose to the top because women got warm feelings by voting for him. They felt like they did him a favor. He wasn’t qualified. He hadn’t earned what he got by having a record of successes to point to (or much of any record at all).

But as I said above, the sympathy date is temporary just like the sympathy reconciliation I received. This is especially true of Obama when women are able to see the resume of Mitt Romney. Romney has never been anything but a winner. He’s wealthy, not because he sold a book based on unearned and faddish popularity but because he turned around failing businesses and took the Olympics from debt to profit. He won the governorship of Massachusetts and actually balanced the budget instead of just talking about it – a rare feat these days. He persevered and won the nomination of his party and now he’s standing up to someone who doesn’t have successes to under his belt. In fact, Obama is in a similar spot to where I was the second time my girlfriend tried to break up with me. I relied on what had worked before because that’s all I had. But sympathy didn’t work the second time. She wanted a winner. She wanted a man who had things going for him and was a strong leader in life.

So when women are faced with the choice between a man who’s using the same ole “give me another chance” line she’s heard from him before and a man who doesn’t need another chance because he’s already done the things Obama couldn’t, they’ll likely pick the man who’s already a winner in his own right. The sympathy date rarely happens more than once. And the same is true for the sympathy vote when the country is in need of someone who can actually do what needs to be done.

Who’s Going to Win in November? The Experts Say It’s Anybody’s Guess

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If the presidential race seems like it’s hard to get a grip on, that’s because it is — the contest has gone through at least three distinct phases at this point, and where it might go over the final three weeks seems to be anyone’s guess.

In the lead-up to the conventions, President Obama appeared to hold a small lead on Mitt Romney. The national polls would vary slightly, but the president generally held an edge of a few percentage points. This narrowed to an exact tie in the RealClearPolitics average on Sept. 5 — the second day of the Democratic convention — indicating at least something of a post-convention bounce for Romney.

After Obama’s convention, the president got his lead back, and he eventually expanded his national polling edge to 4.3 percentage points in late September. While this was not Obama’s biggest lead of the cycle — he was up 4.7 points as recently as mid-August — it was enough to signal that, barring some big outside development or gaffe at a debate, the president was in a strong position to win reelection.

Obama’s lead was down to 3.1 points by Oct. 3, the day of the Denver debate — and we all know what happened then. Over the course of just a handful of days following Romney’s Mile High rout, Romney took his first national polling lead of the calendar year in the RCP average, reaching a high of 1.5 points on Oct. 10, a week after the debate. And then, over the past week, the race settled into effectively a national tie — as of midday Wednesday, Romney held a tiny 0.4% lead; that includes Gallup’s seven-day tracker, which showed Romney up 51%-45% Wednesday (that does not include any polling following Tuesday night’s debate).

While it has been a topsy-turvy race, it’s also been one without particularly commanding heights or punishing valleys. Since April 10 — when Romney effectively clinched the nomination — he has never topped 48% in the RCP average and never dipped below 43%; Obama has never exceeded 49.5% and never gone below 45.4%. That points to a pretty stable and polarized electorate.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Latest Debate: Presidential?

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Besides CNN Candy Crowley’s biased performance tonight, perhaps the most memorable aspect of the Romney-Obama debate was its confrontational style. This certainly wasn’t what many expected from the town hall format.

Both candidates repeatedly pushed against each other, interrupting and talking over one another. And both, on occasion, went after the moderator and spoke over her as well.

Perhaps the most combative exchange of the night arose over whether or not Obama cut permitting for onshore and offshore drilling. Both candidates got into each other’s face, and Romney wouldn’t let up.

Turns out that Obama was on the wrong side of this issue: Romney’s assertion that the President had significantly cut permitting was accurate, contrary to Obama’s protests.

The candidates also clashed on whether oil and gas production had increased or decreased during Obama’s presidency. See an article that fact-checks the production question HERE.

As to the moderator’s bias, Obama ended up with about three more minutes than Romney, not a big deal in a forty minute plus debate. But Crowley’s intervention after a question about Benghazi and whether Obama had initially attributed the attacks to terror was particularly memorable. Crowley actually backed up Obama’s false statement that he called Benghazi’s attack terror from the outset. That caused Obama to dig in even deeper.

Reince Priebus, the chair of the RNC, flatly called the President’s statement on whether he called the Benghazi attacks terror, “a lie.”

Some pundits have said that the rough and tumble approach used by both candidates turned off women and entertained men. If so, Obama and Romney were pretty much equal offenders.

On the facts, Romney comes out on top. But each base has something it can point to in championing its cause. Although there was not a flat-out winner, my take is that undecided voters who watched the debate will break strongly for Romney.

Video: KISS’s Gene Simmons Endorses Romney, Says Obama is a “Piss-Poor President”

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Rock and roll star Gene Simmons lays into Obama in this AOL interview.

He states that “the country is so divided” and that he’s been “very disappointed” in Obama.

On the other hand, Simmons believes that Romney is much more qualified to be president because he knows how to run a business, create jobs, and rescued the Olympics.

Simmons concludes by saying that Obama is “a wonderful family man” but that’s “where his resume stops.”

The political discussion begins at about 1:15 in the below video clip:

Fact Checking Romney’s Claim that Production of Oil on Public Lands is Down (+video)

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One of the most intense exchanges of the night arose over the question of permitting and oil production on public lands.

In the segment below, Romney claimed that hydrocarbon production on government land is down. He stated that oil production is down 14% and gas production is down 9%.

Although Obama vigorously denied this, the Washington Post states that “Romney’s telling the truth when he says, ‘Production of oil on public land is down 14 percent and production of gas on public land is down 9 percent.’ That’s because energy production on federal lands is down compared to 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration.” However, the Post adds that production is “still higher than where production stood under President George W. Bush.”

The National Journal has a different take because it evaluated three years of production (2008 to 2011) rather than comparing just the last two years. By reviewing production over the longer range, it found both candidates were right and wrong: “Oil production on public lands is up 12 percent from 2008 to 2011, according to a March report by the Energy Information Administration…Natural-gas production on public lands is down 16.5 percent between 2008 and 2011, according to the same EIA report…Coal production on public lands is down 7.8 percent from 2008 to 2011.”

Video: CNN’s Candy Crowley’s Outrageous Tagteam Hit on Romney Over Libya

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CNN correspondent and second presidential debate moderator Candy Crowley disgraced herself tonight, repeatedly intervening to save a floundering President Obama and showing why many Americans were rightfully suspicious of her ability to moderate a presidential debate fairly.

Her most outrageous act tonight was her incorrect seconding of Obama’s statement that he declared the Libya terrorist attacks to be “terror.” While Obama did indeed use the word, this is not what he meant by it. Instead, he was simply referring to “acts of terror.” There was no mention of Al Qaeda or any of its affiliates with respect to the actual attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.

Crowley bungled the facts in attempting to save Obama from his administration’s dreadful bungling of the Libya situation. She owes the American people an apology for inserting herself into the debate in such an inappropriate and embarrassing fashion.

Obama deliberately quoted himself out of context and Crowley not only allowed him to do so, she validated his intentionally narrow reading of the facts even before he pleaded for her to come to his rescue.

Here is the full Obama statement in reference to “terror” in Libya. As you can see, this was purely a generic discussion of violence:

“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. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Fact Checking Romney’s Permits Claim: Under Obama Permits Declined Over a Third (+video)

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During the Presidential Debate this evening, Romney asserted that permitting for oil and gas on federal lands decreased by 50% under Obama.

Although Obama denied this, the Los Angeles Times states that there was a significant drop from 2008 forward:

Mitt Romney said “the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands and in federal waters.”

According to the Bureau of Land Management, in fiscal year 2011, 2,188 leases were issued for energy development on federal lands. Four years earlier, in fiscal year 2007, 3499 leases were issued. So, not quite a 50% drop, but a drop nonetheless.

Here’s a clip from the debate where Romney went after Obama on the permits issue:

Make or Break Debate: Obama’s Support Among Women Now Collapsing

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Obama’s biggest task tonight in the second presidential debate will be to woo back ‘waitress moms’ so crucial to his re-election, after a poll showed Mitt Romney has stole their votes in the first showdown and they are now neck and neck among women voters.

According to a Gallup/USA Today poll of 12 swing states, Romney leads Obama by 12 points among men. But it is his surge among women voters to within one point of Obama that has given him a four-point overall lead that sets him on course to win the White House on November 6th.

The poll, released on the eve of the second presidential debate in Hampstead, New York, marks an apparent end to months of double-digit Obama leads over Romney among women and has plunged Democrats into panic mode.

Unlike the first debate, the second meeting will be in a ‘town hall’ format in which undecided ordinary voters – probably about a dozen – will pose questions. At least half of them are likely to be women. In addition, the debate will be moderated by a woman – CNN’s Candy Crowley.

Democrats traditionally enjoy a marked advantage among women. Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election was said to have been based on winning over middle class, aspirational so-called ‘soccer moms’. But Obama’s popularity among females has plummeted after Romney’s commanding debate performance in Denver nearly two weeks ago.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hispanic Voters: Obama Not Masculine Enough

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Mitt Romney aides say he has made crucial gains among Florida’s Hispanic voters by portraying Obama as fatally weak, a perception they argue has particular power in the Latino community.

A new Florida International University/Miami Herald poll released over the weekend shows President Obama leading Romney among likely Latino voters by just seven points, 51-44 percent. A Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald poll released late last week actually showed Romney ahead of Obama by two points — an 11-point shift from a month earlier. And a third poll, released Sunday by Public Policy Polling, shows Romney down just three points among Florida Hispanics.

By contrast, Obama won 57 percent of Florida Latinos in 2008, according to exit polls.

One Obama campaign adviser, requesting anonymity to address the polls frankly, contested that they were likely skewed by oversampling Cuban-American voters, who are mostly conservative. And the adviser stressed that Obama still maintains a wide lead among Latino voters nationwide.

But nationally, Hispanic voters are also among the lowest enthusiasm levels of any demographic in the country. And oversampling Cuban-Americans doesn’t explain the 11-point bounce Romney received in the days since the debate. For the Obama campaign, which is banking on a Latino landslide similar to 2008, the numbers could spell danger.

Read more from this story HERE.