Who's going to watch the debate tonight?

I know that discussing politics on a video game forum would be an exercise in futility, but I'm actually pretty stoked to see what goes down. Expectations have been lowered for both sides, but given that Romney can't come out of this with anything other than a win I predict he's going for a hail marry to salvage is campaign.

Thoughts on the debate and your expectations.

I hope my candidate (optimus prime) will break through the roof and explain his platform before turning into a rig and driving off into a beautiful sunset.

I will say I'm not a big fan of politicians, but I do love optimus prime.

Maybe if they actually answered questions rather than give the popular statement I would be interested.

You are fucking mental if you think Romney has a chance at winning this debate.

They're super boring, over-produced, over-moderated and we're not going to hear a single new thing about Romney's plan (I'm not convinced he actually has one.) But yeah, i'll watch it.

I lived in New Zealand during election time, their debates were way more interesting, it was just the canidates and the question asker (a popular newsman) alone in a conference room, no crowd, very little moderation, so much more freedom.

@TooWalrus said:

I lived in New Zealand during election time, their debates were way more interesting, it was just the canidates and the question asker (a popular newsman) alone in a conference room, no crowd, very little moderation, so much more freedom.

In terms of format, that doesn't differ from the presidential debates that much. Two candidates, one moderator (a popular journalist), a crowd that is not allowed to many any noise. The idea of letting the candidates simply talk to each other without a structured debate format was presented by Peter Jennings many years ago, but it never caught on.

I will if I remember.

The Daily Show is enough for me.

Yep, can't wait to hear Mitt's zingers!

Is it going to be streaming somewhere?

@crazyleaves said:

Yep, can't wait to hear Mitt's zingers!

Romney's Retorts™

@runnah555 said:

Maybe if they actually answered questions rather than give the popular statement I would be interested.

Obama shall provide a substantial amount of humor.

@CrossTheAtlantic said:

Is it going to be streaming somewhere?

Pretty sure it will be broadcasted on all major news networks and their respective websites.

A year plus of campaining did't give you enough of an idea on each candidates stances and opinion? No, I have seen enough the candidates I am considering to make my choice.

It should be an entertaining bloodbath at least.

Obama is going to stunt on all of them.

If I'm not busy and I remember, sure.

@pizzapotomus said:

A year plus of campaining did't give you enough of an idea on each candidates stances and opinion? No, I have seen enough the candidates I am considering to make my choice.

It's not hard to imagine some people still on the fence about who they want as President. Some people are stuck between economic policies and social ones. I read about one Latino lady from Nevada that liked Romney's economics but didn't like his stance on immigration. But she also didn't like what Obama was doing with everything. I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm for gay marriage, pro choice and pro evolution with immigration reform. But I'm for small federal government and bringing factories back, bringing jobs back, cutting all the government jobs down by a lot (we don't need 100 IRS employees working half-assed as opposed 25-50 working at a decent pace.) But I think the economy is the most important to fix right now, so I'm leaning Romney. I'd really rather have Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, but yeah that'll never happen. EDIT: I'm also for giving teachers all the funding they need because they're the most important people in the country. They can do pretty damn good on a shit budget, just imagine if they had near unlimited funds to teach with.

@Jams said:

@pizzapotomus said:

A year plus of campaining did't give you enough of an idea on each candidates stances and opinion? No, I have seen enough the candidates I am considering to make my choice.

It's not hard to imagine some people still on the fence about who they want as President. Some people are stuck between economic policies and social ones. I read about one Latino lady from Nevada that liked Romney's economics but didn't like his stance on immigration. But she also didn't like what Obama was doing with everything. I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm for gay marriage, pro choice and pro evolution with immigration reform. But I'm for small federal government and bringing factories back, bringing jobs back, cutting all the government jobs down by a lot (we don't need 100 IRS employees working half-assed as opposed 25-50 working at a decent pace.) But I think the economy is the most important to fix right now, so I'm leaning Romney. I'd really rather have Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, but yeah that'll never happen. EDIT: I'm also for giving teachers all the funding they need because they're the most important people in the country. They can do pretty damn good on a shit budget, just imagine if they had near unlimited funds to teach with.

Sounds to me like you lean far more D than R.

@mtcantor said:

@Jams said:

@pizzapotomus said:

A year plus of campaining did't give you enough of an idea on each candidates stances and opinion? No, I have seen enough the candidates I am considering to make my choice.

It's not hard to imagine some people still on the fence about who they want as President. Some people are stuck between economic policies and social ones. I read about one Latino lady from Nevada that liked Romney's economics but didn't like his stance on immigration. But she also didn't like what Obama was doing with everything. I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm for gay marriage, pro choice and pro evolution with immigration reform. But I'm for small federal government and bringing factories back, bringing jobs back, cutting all the government jobs down by a lot (we don't need 100 IRS employees working half-assed as opposed 25-50 working at a decent pace.) But I think the economy is the most important to fix right now, so I'm leaning Romney. I'd really rather have Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, but yeah that'll never happen. EDIT: I'm also for giving teachers all the funding they need because they're the most important people in the country. They can do pretty damn good on a shit budget, just imagine if they had near unlimited funds to teach with.

Sounds to me like you lean far more D than R.

@Turambar said:

@CrossTheAtlantic said:

Is it going to be streaming somewhere?

Pretty sure it will be broadcasted on all major news networks and their respective websites.

I realize it'll be on the news networks. I just don't have a television right now (trying to save up for a good one).

Debates are fun to watch when one of them is an idiot. 
 
I may watch this year, I don't know. Sometimes it can be funny or interesting- you never know with debates.  

Nope, not going to waste any of my life on politicians. My mind was made up a long time ago. I can read the cliffnotes on the web which will let me know if something crazy happened.

I will just to get the gold spartan armor avatar on the 360!

Alright maybe not just for that, I think it might be interesting, I've never actually watched a presidential debate before.

My candidate (John Wayne Gacy) is going to win because he has super clown molesting powers that are useful in raping and mutilating the opposition :)

I can't be bothered to care about politics anymore, so no, I won't.

They aren't debates.

It's hard to imagine the debates having a very big impact, Obama has a pretty solid lead in most swing states, but it will be fun to watch Romney trip over himself attempting to keep up with Barack tonight.

I'm already booked to watch some paint dry.

Presidental debates in American politics are a waste of time. It's just a prepared talking set piece countered by another prepared talking point set piece with a few memorized zingers thrown in for good measures. Hard questions are skirted around and few election defining moments have occurred in the last 50+ years. Most voters, like myself, have already decided upon a candidate and I will probably vote early tomorrow to avoid the Election Day madness at the polls.

Better question: For those of you who ARE watching the debate tonight, how many of you will be watching on your Xbox?

If I end up hanging out with my girlfriend today, which I probably will, then no I won't watch it. If something comes up I'll probably at least turn it on in the background and try to listen for funny shit Romney is bound to say.

It's meaningless trash.

I'm not American (WHEW!) but I wouldn't waste my time voting when both candidates are identical and the democrat is nothing more than a more radical Bush.

Sad times to be a leftist.

I will watch it.

If it's online, sure I'll watch it. I got a long night of cutting and categorizing hours of interview footage so anything to break the tedium is nice. Even if it's political nonsense. I hope it's entertaining nonsense.

I will watch it, I hope it is as entertaining as the Republican Primary debates, because those were just bat shit crazy

Political debates are nothing but a bunch of crap. Instead of logical reasoning, valuing principles and refuting arguments they focus on demagogery and meaningless rhetoric.

I'm not interested in seeing two people argue about which one of them is the worst, but I'll probably catch some bits later on.

They really are just attacking each other. I dare anyone here to bring me one political ad that isn't prefaced by an attack on the other candidate.

Will there be a livestream?

@Jams said:

@pizzapotomus said:

A year plus of campaining did't give you enough of an idea on each candidates stances and opinion? No, I have seen enough the candidates I am considering to make my choice.

It's not hard to imagine some people still on the fence about who they want as President. Some people are stuck between economic policies and social ones. I read about one Latino lady from Nevada that liked Romney's economics but didn't like his stance on immigration. But she also didn't like what Obama was doing with everything. I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm for gay marriage, pro choice and pro evolution with immigration reform. But I'm for small federal government and bringing factories back, bringing jobs back, cutting all the government jobs down by a lot (we don't need 100 IRS employees working half-assed as opposed 25-50 working at a decent pace.) But I think the economy is the most important to fix right now, so I'm leaning Romney. I'd really rather have Ron Paul or Gary Johnson, but yeah that'll never happen. EDIT: I'm also for giving teachers all the funding they need because they're the most important people in the country. They can do pretty damn good on a shit budget, just imagine if they had near unlimited funds to teach with.

It might surprise you to know that Obama supported legislation that would offer more affordable loans to small businesses. People like to associate government jobs with lousy office jobs but a good bulk of it is scientists, teachers, police officers, hospitals, firemen, etc.

Furthermore, the whole expansion of the government thing isn't the biggest thing running down the deficit. It's simply the fact that all the baby boomers are now getting old and there's a huge disparity in who is paying for the social security. From what I recall, social security and medicare accounts for around 60-66% of our current debt problems.

Romney likes to say that he has solutions but has never said that he's willing to cut specific parts of social security or medicare only that he is for "reform". But this is a stance that both parties follow. Obama believes that investing in the health of Americans will ultimately make them healthier and more productive (better economy) but this belief hasn't been tested or supported by scientific evidence.

So to me, I'd much rather have a president who is more willing to invest on science and technology than a president who believes that the world is 6,000 years old and that the Garden of Eden was somewhere in Missouri.

No, I think I'm going to bash my head into a wall for a couple of hours, I'll probably enjoy it more.

The former governor of Mass debate?

ehhh heheh...

; )

Yea probably.

I'll watch. I know who I'm voting for, but I do love a good bit of theatre as these two essentially make their case for two diametrically opposed views of how we should orient policy in the next four years, with Obama making the case for collectivism and Romney making a case for rugged individuality, at least in so far as either actually prescribes to the ideology of political base they are trying to excite, which I doubt in both cases

Yeah "debate"

@crazyleaves said:

Yep, can't wait to hear Mitt's zingers!

Nope .... I aint no gringo dude

@Castermhief117 said:

It might surprise you to know that Obama supported legislation that would offer more affordable loans to small businesses. People like to associate government jobs with lousy office jobs but a good bulk of it is scientists, teachers, police officers, hospitals, firemen, etc.

Furthermore, the whole expansion of the government thing isn't the biggest thing running down the deficit. It's simply the fact that all the baby boomers are now getting old and there's a huge disparity in who is paying for the social security. From what I recall, social security and medicare accounts for around 60-66% of our current debt problems.

Romney likes to say that he has solutions but has never said that he's willing to cut specific parts of social security or medicare only that he is for "reform". But this is a stance that both parties follow. Obama believes that investing in the health of Americans will ultimately make them healthier and more productive (better economy) but this belief hasn't been tested or supported by scientific evidence.

So to me, I'd much rather have a president who is more willing to invest on science and technology than a president who believes that the world is 6,000 years old and that the Garden of Eden was somewhere in Missouri.

By 'invest' you mean 'force other people to pay for under the threat of force', correct?

I'm sorry but you make it sound like the government has some resoucres to 'invest' and 'redistribute' which were not obtained through the barrel of a gun.

@Aegon said:

Will there be a livestream?

I would also like to know this.