1 more comment have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

Dear Obama, please please bring this *quality *standup to the next debate.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by hpqp.

Adding video to channels (Standup) - requested by hpqp.

*smackdown

Wish he had brought this last week. Maybe he will bring it next week:

My opponent has now changed his position - even HE understands that plan won't work.

I'm really starting to think Obama has a secret twin brother.

One is President Obama. He's highly intelligent and capable, but he's boring. He's stiff. He's nerdy. He's professorial. He's understanding of divergent views almost to a fault.

The other is Campaign Obama. He's just as smart and capable, but he's also loose, confident, funny, and interesting. He's a skilled communicator, and can be extremely persuasive. He fights for his principles, without demonizing his opponents. He's inspirational, and he's charming. He's who won the election in 2008...and then went into hiding.

President Obama was who showed up to the first debate. Campaign Obama better fucking show up at the second, or he'll just be Mister Obama next year.

>> ^NetRunner:

I'm really starting to think Obama has a secret twin brother.
Perhaps it has something to do with the level of support or attention that he gets from a crowd that is, or isn't, there.


For some that have conquered their fear of public speaking, there's a huge rush in being a single lone person in front of a huge mass of people that are obviously enjoying your perspective and supporting your message. It can carry you along, buoy you up, and inspire you.

Obama seems incredibly comfortable in this video's atmosphere of obvious support, but the bland and structured venue of the debate completely lacked it. Perhaps he does much better when he has that sort of crowd...?

This article does a fair job of explaining how each candidate is "roughly correct" on taxes.

I don't think it was that. The best speculation on what went wrong that I've heard is that Obama went into it looking for a draw -- the campaign just wanted him to hold on his lead, so they told him to play it safe. Don't go for the jugular, don't make a big show of calling out Romney for being a liar, just be Presidential and rise above the slings and arrows of his opponent.

Instead he seemed to just leave every lie unchallenged, and largely took a pass on even trying to attack Romney.

I don't really think Obama needs the crowd on his side to be charismatic, I think he was just given bad advice by his debate coach.

>> ^Retroboy:

Obama seems incredibly comfortable in this video's atmosphere of obvious support, but the bland and structured venue of the debate completely lacked it. Perhaps he does much better when he has that sort of crowd...?

That does sound more reasonable, yes.

Raises a question though: should it have been obvious to Obama that he was getting trashed half-way through and should have changed that approach on the fly? Or was that something that you could only really pick up after the debate when reviewing viewers' reactions?