The Candy Man

Updates below

I made a mistake. I thought Candy Crowley would be fair and I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Her "moderation" of the debate was an embarrassment to herself and her profession. Not unlike Obama, she was in over her head, and she showed herself not up to the job. In fact, she was so bad she made Jim Lehrer of the first debate look like a genius. She couldn't control the two debaters (although she tried), she was unable to keep control of the time, she inserted (threw) herself into the debate to throw Obama a lifeline on the Libya question, and, frankly, she chose stupid questions. I'm sure the left loved her.

Actually, she probably did exactly what was expected of her. Again, as in the first debate, Obama had a more-than 3-minute edge in the amount of time he spoke. In a 90-minute debate, that's significant. So can Romney have seven minutes of extra time in the last debate? Some wag this morning is calling Crowley Obama's "tag team partner."

Despite all of that, Romney gave a good showing, especially when he was answering questions on the economy. Obama was declared the winner, as expected, by the lamestream media. He would have had to set his hair on fire for them not to say that he won. All he had to do this time was show up with a pulse to have a better showing than in the first debate, but I'm not sure on what criteria they think he won, especially since he still isn't able (or willing) to tell voters why he wants another four years and what he'll do with them. I think he may know what he wants to do, but he also knows that if he shares his plans with the voters, he won't stand a chance in hell of getting re-elected. The CNN snap polls gave Romney a 58-40 edge on the economy, a 51-44 edge on taxes, and a 49-46 edge on health care. But Obama won the debate. Haha. On this question: "Did Obama offer a clear plan for solving the country's problems?" --38 yes, 61 no. But Obama won the debate. On the question of who is the stronger leader --Romney 49, Obama 46. But Obama won the debate. Based on what?? That he showed up and didn't puke on his shoes?

Complaining about the debate set-up or the moderator after a debate is a loser's game. It's "unsporting" to complain about the conditions after the game is over, since it makes your side look like they couldn't hold their own. But I would like someone to tell me how those 80 "undecided" people were chosen to be in front of the candidates last night. How were these people chosen? Does anyone know how they were proven to be undecided? How do you prove a negative--"No, I have not made up my mind." There was the young Latina woman sitting in the front with the camera on her much of the night. Did you see her body language? Did you see her looking daggers at Romney all night? Her question: What are you going to do about the millions of immigrants without green cards? Uh, I think those used to be called ILLEGAL immigrants, but evidently, just like "terrorist," to utter the phrase "illegal immigrant" is verboten. In my view, if you're an "undecided" voter at this point, then you're really too stupid to be part of this process. But what do we do? We give these people a front row seat at the debate.

Update. Here's what little I could find about how the "undecided" people were selected for the audience of the second Obama/Romney debate:

They were all from Nassau County, New York.

They were found by Gallup through phone calls where they were asked if they lean more toward Obama or Romney.

"If voters identify as truly undecided" then they're invited to participate in the debate. But how that miracle of identification is made, who knows?

The voters met with Crowley ahead of time to "discuss" their questions. The ones she chose were questions all America is sitting on the edge of its collective seat, waiting to be answered: Mitt Romney's tax plan (how about a question about Obama's tax plan--or any plan, for that matter); workplace inequality and contraception access (seriously--this is what we're voting about?); assault weapons (??). I think my favorite was the question for Romney--how are you different from Bush? Where was the parallel question about how Obama's failed administration is different from Carter's?

On her blog, Ann Althouse says that Erin Burnett from CNN said that these supposedly "undecided" voters voted overwhelmingly in 2008 for Barack Obama. I wonder what "overwhelmingly" means? Can you imagine the leftist outrage if it was known that these so-called undecided people "overwhelmingly" voted Republican in the last election?

Althouse points out that Crowley was snarky towards Romney ("Governor Romney, I'm sure you have an answer"). Alternately, she seemed to prompt Obama, suggesting the substance of the answer. "Almost patronizing," said Althouse. I thought Crawley came across in those moments like a stage mother prompting her brilliant child.

Another update. This is from Breitbart's Big Journalism: "Crowley Interrupts Romney 28 Times, Obama Just 9." To put this into context, Martha Raddatz interrupted Paul Ryan 15 times and Joe Biden only five. She kept saying to "Mr. Romney" (that's Governor Romney to you, Ms. Crowley) "I'm going to give you a chance here. I promise you, I'm going to." She didn't.

This interjection from Crowley is priceless: "Governor Romney, you can make it short. See all these people? They've been waiting for you. Make it short."

Another one: "If I could have you sit down, Governor Romney. Thank you." Do I even need to add that she never asked Obama to sit down?

Hilarious. One of the commenters for this article suggests that we have another debate, same format as this one, but let Ann Coulter be the moderator and choose the questions. Haha.