Election Night: Part 1

I'm trying to make up for the fact that I missed the late debate by documenting election night.  I'll be flipping back and forth between the three cable networks.  I don't know where I'll spend the most time, but I know that I want to be watching the losing side whenever they call an important state, because that's where it's the most fun (I mean, if you like despair, which I do).  Enjoy!

6:02PM: Every time I turned on Fox today, they were talking about voter fraud or the new black panthers.  I think it's very telling that every other channel spent the day occasionally telling you what you can do if your voting rights are being curtailed in some way while, conversely, Fox kept promoting their voter fraud email hotline.  You get the sense Republicans aren't too optimistic about tonight.  We'll see.

6:05PM: Matthews on MSNBC - "Mitch McConnell is the firewall against the crazies".  We may need a little more help than that.

6:09PM: Over on Fox Brett Baier is telling me about Virginia counties.  Who let him in the building tonight? He's an idiot.  And Megyn Kelly's here too.  Maybe they're saving the smart people for when the votes actually start coming in.

6:11PM: Well here's Chris Wallace anyway.  He just called Karl Rove "the architect of George W. Bush's Presidential victories".  Yes, congratulations Karl on building the most amazing shit sandwich we've ever seen.

6:17PM: CNN already has John King playing with a magic wall.  Anderson Cooper is also standing by what I'm going to call the wall sized TV screen of nonsense.  At least the dopes at Fox have a desk.

6:20PM: CNN's Erin Burnett is in Ohio.  Her and her pretty eyes say we might know who won Ohio around midnight.

6:22PM: CNN is reporting that Florida had a problem with about 35,000 ballots that were not printed correctly, so now volunteers have to transpose those faulty ballot results onto good ballots so they can be scanned and counted.  Really Florida? Twelve years later and you are still fucking awful at this?  Just understand that we all hate you.

6:24PM: CNN is hard to look away from.  Right now some guy is standing in the middle of what appears to be a virtual fake Senate chamber where they're using the individual fake virtual desks to display different issues that the next President will have an impact on.  I can't do it justice with words, you really had to see it.

6:28PM: While some MSNBC lady reports from what appears to be an empty Mitt Romney auditorium in Boston, someone in the background appears to be playing smooth jazz.  Rachel Maddow noticed too and called it the "we don't know yet jazz".

6:31PM: Steve Schmidt is on MSNBC sadly recounting being on the wrong side of the 2008 electoral beatdown dished out by the Obama campaign.  He's talking about the importance of Mitt Romney's impending concession speech.  He may not have put it exactly that way.  He added "winning is a lot more fun than losing".  Glad he's here.

6:35PM: Fox's Bill Hemmer is reporting from the "Bill"board.  Ohhhh, I see what they did there.  Hemmer eventually added "red is Republican, blue is Democrat".  That's super helpful, thanks.

6:38PM: Megyn Kelly just told me that they have Charles Krauthammer coming up.  I don't know if that was meant as a warning or a threat, but either way, thanks Megyn.  Let's see what CNN is up to.

6:44PM: Summary of analysis from all three networks so far.  If the people who would vote for (insert candidate here) actually come out to vote, (insert candidate here) will win the night.

6:48PM: Alex Wagner is covering Senate races for MSNBC.  She says a recent poll had Scott Brown leading Elizabeth Warren.  That makes me grumpy, but Alex is kind of adorable so it's OK.

6:52PM: CNN just ran a montage of soundbites from past elections.  You know, back when they were a news network.

6:54PM: I've been watching CNN for three minutes now and all I've seen is different montages.  Maybe they just gave up and went home.

6:57PM: MSNBC is reporting tonight from "Democracy Plaza".  That's right across the street from Fox's famous "Fascism Square".

6:58PM: By the way, I'm not calling CNN's magic wall a "magic wall" because I think it's funny or clever, I don't think that.  I'm calling it a "magic wall" because the people who work at CNN keep calling it that and I think they're morons.

6:59PM: I'm going to Fox for the 7:00PM results because I want to see how excited they get about Romney winning Kentucky (turned out, sadly, not very).

7:01PM: Romney won Kentucky and Indiana, Obama won Vermont.  There you go.  Fox is still sticking with Kelly and Baier.  Where's Shepherd Smith? Is he being held hostage somewhere?

7:07PM: CNN exit polls in Virginia look pretty craptastic for the President.  Good thing he doesn't really need it.

7:12PM: MSNBC has a magic wall too, but you don't hear them yapping about it the whole time, do you CNN?

7:18PM: Related note.  I didn't get my "I voted" sticker when I voted today.  What's up with that?  I heard the same thing on Twitter from other people in my area.  People in Massachusetts aren't getting our "I voted" stickers.  If that's not a good enough reason to vote Scott Brown out of office, I don't know what is.

7:21PM: I just hit the rare triple commercial situation.  What should I call that?  It's really the shittiest thing that could happen on my TV right now, so I'm going to call it a Gingrich.

7:24PM: MSNBC's election night anchor desk is so big Congress just granted it three electoral votes.  The Romney campaign has already dispatched Paul Ryan to give a speech, but I'm pretty sure it's Obama country.

7:29PM: Fox's Kirsten Powers says she would read something into the exit polls if the exit polls are right.  Wait, what?  Wouldn't everybody read something into the exit polls if we knew they were right?  She's lucky Kirsten is one of my favorite names.

7:31PM: Megyn Kelly called West Virginia for Romney and added "the President's stances on energy policy and social issues are very unpopular there".  Also, the President's continued insistence on being black is very unpopular there.

7:35PM: Fox is making Chris Wallace sit in a dimly lit room with Karl Rove and Joe Trippi all night.  He must have really pissed somebody off.

7:39PM: MSNBC's Chuck Todd - "the joke in Ohio is that it's five Ohios".  I'm pretty sure Chuck just made that joke up.

7:48PM: Bernie Sanders won another term in the Senate.  Fox added "that's right, a socialist in the Senate, that's Barack Obama's America".

7:50PM: Fox is now covering Twitter activity.  Fox viewers have no earthly idea what they're talking about.  Three million grandparents just called their grandkids and asked "what's a tweeter?"

7:54PM: Fox just called Georgia for Romney.  I never understand how Republicans do so well in Georgia.  I know it's got a lot of rednecks, but Atlanta's a pretty big city.  Shouldn't it at least be a swing state?

8:00PM: Obama wins Connecticut, Delaware, Washington DC, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine (3 of the 4 electoral votes...why do you have to be special Maine?) and Rhode Island.  Romney gets Oklahoma.

8:03PM: Alabama polls closed at 8, but they don't have internet there yet so we don't have official calls until they send a redneck in a pickup truck up to the CNN studio with the actual numbers.

8:08PM: Four crucial Senate races leaning Democrat.  Congratulations Republicans, you moroned your way right out of a Senate majority.

8:11PM: Ohhhhh, Shep Smith is on the actual Fox network, that's why the cable channel gets team dumbass.

8:15PM: O'Reilly just showed up on Fox.  Where did he come from?  Is he only allowed to start talking at 8PM?  He thinks if Obama wins it's because he's pandering to people who want the government to do stuff for them.  So true.  It was really unfair of the President to campaign on the idea that he might actually, ya know, help some people.

8:18PM: Sounds like O'Reilly's leaving already.  That was quick, and weird.  That's what she said.

8:20PM: Apparently Indiana voters are rejecting the idea that rape babies are a gift from god.  Better start re-working that platform before the next election.

8:22PM: Dave adds "instead of Hofstra, I wish I graduated from Electoral College".

8:23PM: CNN is doing a suspenseful countdown to when Arkansas polls close, because Arkansas is the only state that closes at 8:30.  How long before each state closes at a slightly different time so they all get their moment in the spotlight?  "ohhh, its 8:36, one more minute until Illinois polls close!"

8:28PM: I haven't checked in on MSNBC in a while.  It's always good to check back from time to time to make sure Matthews is still conscious.

8:31PM: Chris Murphy beat the wrestling lady in the Connecticut Senate race.  I feel a little better about my country just now.

8:33PM: Me, just now - "zombie JFK would do very well with Irish Catholics...and zombies".  How did that come up?  I don't have to explain myself to you.

8:37PM: On Fox, Huckleberry is talking about how Barack Obama's been trampling all over religious liberties for four years.  I wish I could go on TV and report things that only happen in my imagination as actual news.

8:40PM: Almost another Gingrich, but MSNBC saved the day.  I swear running a campaign which included Sarah Palin replaced every other emotion Steve Schmidt used to be able to feel with sadness.

8:46PM: Ken Blackwell on MSNBC - "nobody's out there trying to suppress the vote".  Everyone on MSNBC's panel took turns telling him how he was wrong about that.  He agreed that trying to reduce early voting was bad, but still somehow defended the current Ohio Secretary of State for doing it.

8:52PM: Do you think Linda McMahon will run for the Senate again someday?  I feel like she can't stop herself.

OK, end part one.  I'll start part two in a few minutes and post it whenever we have a winner or I have to go to sleep because I have work tomorrow.

Undecided

I was talking to a friend Saturday night and she made me realize that I am, in fact, an undecided voter.  If I lived in a swing state, I would vote for Barack Obama, because Mitt Romney is just awful.  But I live in Massachusetts.  Unless Mitt Romney has a photograph of Barack Obama pooping on Ted Williams' grave while wearing a Lakers jersey, Massachusetts is safe for the President.

I like the President, but I don't like everything he's done.  More importantly, I don't like that I only get two real choices.  Two choices that aren't as different as they and the media would have me believe.  Is Barack Obama a better President than Mitt Romney ever could be?  Of course he is.  But that doesn't make him the best possible President.  On the contrary, it could easily just make him the 2nd worst possible President.

So I'm torn.  Use my meaningless vote to cast one more drop into the ocean of Massachusetts Obama votes, or use it to at least make a point about third party candidates.  I'm looking at you Gary Johnson.  I don't know, I honestly don't think I'll decide until tomorrow when I get there.

Speaking of undecided voters, on the eve of Election Day (honestly one of my favorite days), I thought it would be fun to try and sum up some of the last minute campaign issues for anyone who's still mulling it over.

Senate Races

Senate races have become important nationally because the first rule of Republican Misogyny Club is you don't talk about Republican Misogyny Club, but Todd Akin and that Mourdock clown from Indiana didn't get the memo.  More than any other recent election, Republicans are making it clear to everyone that they think women should be second class citizens who have their rights dictated to them.  Even Mitt Romney tipped his hand a little.  I mean, he's OK if you ladies want to work a little, he thinks it's cute, but once 5PM rolls around, your ass better be in Mitt's kitchen making him a delicious dinner.  That beef isn't going to roast itself, and your lady work can wait until morning, we don't give you anything important to do anyway.

I have an idea for Republicans.  You obviously have no interest in growing up or moving into the current century, so how about this?  Whenever the word rape comes up at one of your press conferences, just walk away.  In fact, whenever anybody asks you anything about women, just slowly back away from the microphone.  It isn't the best strategy, but I think it's the best you can do based on your policies and beliefs and, honestly, it's better than your current strategy of looking like idiots all the time.

Speaking of Senate races, this is where reasonable Republicans really need to look at their own party and get angry.  Republicans have pissed away at least three easy wins in the Senate by nominating awful candidates.  Linda McMahon in Connecticut may not be anyone's fault, and maybe they couldn't have won that seat anyway, but Missouri and Indiana were easy Republican wins for even halfway decent candidates.  Democrats have the tea party to thank for keeping control of the Senate, plain and simple.

I disagree with Republicans a lot, but I understand we need at least two functioning parties for our system to work.  Please Republicans, chase these tea idiots back into whatever caves they crawled out of four years ago, they are killing your party.

Chris Christie

I may have made fun of Chris Christie once or twice, or almost every time he's opened his mouth in front of a camera, but let me tell you why independent voters like him.  Most normal people understand that you can't expect a political party or a candidate to agree with you on everything.  All I want is for politicians to tell the truth about what they believe so I know who to vote for.

I still think Chris Christie is mostly a bully and a dumbass, but I like that he's at least honest.  It's sad that I know that's all it takes to make him one of the most respectable politicians in the country right now, but here we are.

Benghazi

You know this pisses me off, but Fox won't stop talking about it so here we go.  I have a vague recollection of something like 3,000 Americans dying all at once in a terrorist attack the last time a Republican was in the White House.  I could swear I was supposed to never forget that.  I could also swear that it took years for us to find out what actually happened and that the Bush administration had good intelligence that could have prevented it more than a month in advance.

I remember these things, just a little, but I don't remember it being an issue in the 2004 campaign.  Actually I do, I remember that same Republican President using it as a rallying cry.  What I don't remember is John Kerry trying to use the deaths of thousands of people as a political tool in an effort to win an election.  That's not why John Kerry lost, he lost because he was awful, but at least he lost with a little integrity.

So, Republican voters who are parroting this nonsense, I'm begging you to be smarter than this.  And for a more direct message to every Republican candidate, surrogate and person at Fox trying to use the deaths of four Americans to win an election because you don't have anything else to try.  You are a terrible human being.  Please go fuck yourself, and have a nice day.

Jeeps

The only thing I have to say about Mitt Romney being a liar is that he seems to be a little better at it than the rest of us.  Nobody is ever 100% sure what Mitt believes and trying to pinpoint his real position on anything would require a sort of political quantum mechanics that I don't think anyone has invented yet (possibly because Republicans don't believe in quantum mechanics, I'm not sure).  Having said that, I don't understand why people are so surprised by the Romney campaign's totally false commercial about shipping Jeep jobs to China.  A political campaign lied while also putting winning ahead of the good of the voters.  People are acting like nobody's ever done that before.  Welcome to politics folks.

Climate Change

This huge, unprecedented storm that basically shut down New York City really has a lot of people in public office and in the media talking about the effects of climate change and energy policy and what we have to do to get our climate back under control.  Ha! No, that's not true, I'm just fucking with you.  Nobody cares about that shit.  Science is hard and confusing.  Let's get back to talking about campaign tactics and why I'm supposed to be interested in Ohio once every four years.

FEMA

There are enough stupid things that Mitt Romney actually said that Democrats really don't need to twist words and extrapolate things to make him look stupid.  All Romney said was that, in general, it's always better to give things back to the states, and it's even better to give them back to the private sector.  Take it from someone who watched every minute of every Republican primary debate, this wasn't anything.

This wasn't serious suggestion about getting rid of FEMA, it was just another expression of the Republican fantasy that the private sector does everything better.  It's stupid and not even a little bit true, but saying things that are stupid and not even a little bit true is how you win Republican primaries.

OK that's it.  Please go vote tomorrow.  Try to vote for somebody smart and reasonable, but even if you can't bring yourself to do that, you should still vote.

Marathon? Seriously?

If you've been following the news lately, you made have heard that the New York City marathon organizers are planning to go through with the marathon this Sunday even though 1) parts of the city have been underwater all week 2) thousands upon thousands of New Yorkers are still without heat or power and 3) any police, other public servants or volunteers that you might use for a marathon would be about a million times more useful in the Rockaways, on Staten Island or at any one of many many other hard hit locations.

At first I honestly thought this must be a joke or a miscommunication.  Maybe Mayor Bloomberg (who was actually doing really well with this until now) said something like "marathon?  are you fucking kidding me?  My city is underwater.  What kind of a stupid question is that?", but because people are stressed and probably weren't really paying attention, it somehow sounded like he said the marathon was actually still going to happen.  Apparently I was wrong.

Many of the people who read my blog already know me a little, but for those who don't, I grew up in Rockaway Park in Queens.  It was an amazing place to be a kid and really is a wonderful little town.  If you've never been there, you just wouldn't believe a place like it could exist within the borders of such a large and crowded city, but that's just one of the things that makes New York better than everywhere else.

I literally don't have a word for what Hurricane Sandy did to my home town.  Every picture and description I see is worse than the one before it.  It's worse than anything I could have imagined.  Now, the people there are tough and it's a great community and they'll rebuild, but in the mean time, it seems the city is going to have a marathon. 

Because it's really important, in this time of great tragedy, that a bunch of people run around the city for a few hours.  Who cares if people in the Rockaways and Staten Island and other parts of the city have no power and no heat?  Who cares if hundreds of homes were destroyed and thousands of people lost everything?  Fuck that shit!  That was like, five days ago.  I guess everybody just needs to get the fuck over it, right?

Listen, I understand that events bring money into the city, money that a recovering city needs, but that doesn't explain why they can't run a marathon on November 25th, or December 2nd.  Do it a month later and everybody still gets their money.  Too cold to run around outside that late in the year?  Really?  Do you remember last paragraph when I said people lost their houses?  If December 2nd is too cold for you to run, then you can run around the city by yourself sometime when the conditions suit you a little better. 

Now you can say I shouldn't be too hard on the actual runners.  They've trained for years and it isn't their decision.  I disagree.  Everybody makes a choice.  You can choose to not participate in this ridiculous farce.  You can choose to do something more productive with your time, like volunteer, or just donate to the Red Cross http://www.redcross.org/  See look, there's the link right there. 

I've seen some stories about people who are going to run the marathon and use it to raise money to donate to victims.  That's nice, but couldn't you just collect money for victims and not spend all day running around a decimated city?  Personally, I would much rather do that.  Running 26 miles is tiring and really hard.  When I was a kid my elementary school did a math-a-thon for St. Jude's hospital.  I suspect my grandma still would have given me a check for the sick kids even if I didn't bother actually doing the math.

And as for the mayor and the organizers of the marathon, I don't know enough different forms of the word fuck to properly address them.  The symbolism alone of the marathon starting by running away from devastated Staten Island should be enough to tell anyone with a brain what a bad idea it is to go through with it.  It's a good thing the rubble of my home town won't disrupt the marathon path, or they might have to run somewhere else.

You know, sometimes I get on here and rant about things that really bother me, but then I have to admit that there's no easy solution and it's not as simple as I'm making it sound.  Not this time.  Just do it later.  How hard is that?  Personally, I don't know why they can't just cancel it altogether and tell the people who would have spent money on the day of the marathon to just donate the money instead, but maybe that's asking too much.  I hope, at least, that this will convince everyone in New York that they can't ever vote for Bloomberg again.

Bad News

Sadly, tonight's final debate of the long campaign season will go off without my commentary, as I'll be at work for most if not all of it.  I may try to do something with Election Day, but seeing as this is the last debate, I wanted to say thank you.  For anyone who took the time to read and/or comment, I've enjoyed following all of these debates and I hope I gave you a laugh, and maybe even encouraged one or two more people to pay more attention.

It's probably for the best, I hate foreign policy debates.  Not because Mitt Romney will spend the night pandering to the simpletons in his party.  Not because Mitt Romney will say many many things that expose how little he knows about foreign policy only to have the media talk about how good he looked and how strong he sounded doing it.  Not even because I find it difficult to find any real difference between the two parties on many issues.

I hate foreign policy debates because I'm not sure they matter.  In my adult life, I've learned that we have no idea what foreign policy disasters the guy who wins this election is going to have to deal with. I'm not super interested in what these guys say they would do if something happens, because it's always the thing we don't expect that gets us.

What I want to know is who's smarter?  Who's more reasonable, who's more rational?  I don't care about canned answers on the issues we already know about.  I need to know which guy shows me that he's ready to handle the unexpected crisis?

And that's why I'm voting for Barack Obama.  Because he's just smarter.  He knows more and he's willing to learn more.  I honestly think Mitt Romney sees foreign policy as a campaign issue, not something he actually cares about.  And that's fine, but that's why he doesn't get my vote.

Binders Full of Women And (More) Things I Don't Care About

I've mentioned this before, but there are still a great many things in this world about which I do not care.  Now, to be fair, I'm not exactly the model for caring about stuff.  At any given time in my life, there are a few things and/or people that I care about very much, and everything else can pretty much go fuck itself.  So, I wouldn't suggest that everybody should not care about the same things I don't care about, but there are some things that make me wonder why anybody would care about them.  Like...

The superbowl halftime show.  I'm done with this, OK?  Beyonce is great, and maybe she'll bring her husband and that would be even better.  And maybe he'll bring some people he's worked with in the past.  I'm not saying I won't enjoy the Beyonce/Jay-Z/Rihanna/Eminem halftime show, I'm just saying I don't care.  My superbowl Sunday wouldn't really be any worse if they had just decided to dig up another bunch of fossils to throw on the stage. 

You know why?  Because you know what always sucks no matter how good the artist is?  A fifteen minute concert in front of a crowd that may or may not even like the performer because that's not what they came to see.  Especially since halftime is the best time for the crowd to go pee and get more beer and a nacho refill.  Even when The Who played it wasn't really that good, and they've been practicing ever since they played the halftime show at the Civil War (which was also terrible and caused President Lincoln to quickly declare "Christ this is awful, can we just get back to killing each other?").

Speaking of sports, I don't care about any summer sport once football starts.  Seriously.  Baseball, NASCAR, golf, whatever else i forced myself to watch all summer in the gap between hockey and football; please stop.  All of you need to have your championships in late August or on Labor Day weekend and then you need to shut up and watch football like the rest of us. 

If you don't care that nobody is watching, then just think about your poor athletes.  Baseball players have to spend three hours every Sunday in September playing baseball instead of watching football.  NASCAR drivers don't get to watch football until some time in November.  Don't those leagues feel bad about that?  They should.

I don't care if Lance Armstrong cheated.  First of all, seriously, who gives a shit?  He cheated in a French bicycle race.  Read that last sentence a few times and ask yourself what part of that should matter to anyone.  I never liked Lance Armstrong that much anyway, but hasn't he raised like eleventy billion dollars for cancer research?  But now fuck him because he was the one guy in cycling who was taking performance-enhancing drugs, except for, ya know, EVERY OTHER FUCKING PERSON IN THE SPORT!?! 

The chances of a Tour de France winner eventually getting stripped of the title for using performance enhancers are basically the same as the chances of everything that John Calipari does at Kentucky eventually being vacated for recruiting violations.  Like 98%.  Cycling is a perfect example of why sports really need to think twice and make sure they really want to know what's going on before they start with a testing program.  But somehow Lance Armstrong is now a big evil man.  I don't understand people sometimes.

I still don't care about reality TV.  I mentioned this last time http://somethingclever13.blogspot.com/2009/12/things-i-dont-care-about.html but it's only getting worse.  The Learning Channel used to air legit valuable television about science and stuff.  Now it's amish people in New York City and honey boo boo.  When I was a kid, the Real World San Francisco was the best thing I'd ever seen on TV, and it's been all downhill from there for reality TV.  Where's Puck when you need him? 

The bigger point is, by replacing actual, valuable, educational TV, reality shows on channels like TLC are, literally, making us dumber.  To paraphrase; honey boo boo, you are one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever seen. At no point in your rambling, incoherent nonsense are you ever close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this country is now dumber for having experienced you. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Finally, I don't care about Mitt Romney's binder o' hoes, er, I mean, binders full of women.  Honestly, we all know what he was talking about and it wasn't anything offensive.  He just worded it a little strangely, which is kind of his thing.  Ginning up outrage over some stupid little comment is the Republicans' thing, and when the Democrats try it they pretty much always fail miserably. 

More importantly, wasn't the actually bad part when Romney suggested that a necessary part of hiring women is making sure you let them leave in time to go cook dinner?  I mean, you wouldn't want the hard working husbands of the women you hire out of pity to come home after a long day of working way past 5 just to find an empty table because you kept their wives at work too late.  Is it even possible for dinner to happen without a woman cooking it?  I don't know, and Mitt doesn't want to find out.

And what about all the other stupid things Mitt said Tuesday night?  He said his answer to gun violence in America involves 1) not ever considering any new gun legislation, but 2) telling people who have babies to get married.  This one statement alone should disqualify anyone from holding any kind of public office, but somehow binders full of women gets more press. 

Did you also notice how Mitt quickly threw in that the two parents had to be a mother and a father?  The only thing Republicans hate more than single moms is multiple homosexuals.  Ya know, as far as I know, Mitt had a mom and a dad, and he still turned out pretty useless.  Maybe it's time for the country to stop taking family planning advice from these idiots.

Round Two

This is very exciting.  Tonight's debate is being held at my alma mater, Hofstra University.  I assume the candidates will be expected to address important Hofstra issues like "can you still call it a unispan if there are three of them?" and "why didn't they have a Nathan's when I went to school there?" and "Is Hofstra red a real thing?". 

Tonight's debate is a town hall.  Yuck, these are always murder.  If professional grown-up journalists like Jim Lehrer can't even do a decent job of asking questions, what makes you think random people off the street (off the streets of Long Island, no less) can do it.  Maybe someone will get lucky and trip Mitt Romney up with a trick question like "Can you give us some specifics on your policy proposals?" or "I'm not wealthy, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much does that make you hate me?".

During the last debate, Dave suggested these things should be scored like boxing matches, and I couldn't agree more, so that's what I'll be trying to accomplish tonight.  Since I'm the only person left in the world who actually watches boxing, a quick review of boxing scoring is in order, so let's go to HBO's Harold Lederman...

"OK Jim, the Barack Obama/Mitt Romney fight is scheduled for 10 rounds using the unified rules of the association of boxing commissions.  There is no three knockdown rule and a fighter cannot be saved by the bell in any round, including the 10th and final round.  Scoring is based on four criteria; clean punching, effective aggression, defense and ring generalship, with an emphasis on clean punching."

9:00PM: Tonight's moderator is CNN's Candy Crowley.  This is a perfect match for a town hall style debate since CNN gave up on journalism years ago and now basically just re-tweets the "news".

9:00PM: Once again, CNN's John King provided some piercing pre-debate insight by pointing out that the candidates shouldn't insult the people asking the questions.  Good tip John.  Also, they should try not to set anything on fire and they should definitely not take their pants off.

9:03PM: Romney says he knows what it takes to create good jobs again.  He didn't tell us what it takes, so you're just going to have to take his word for it.

9:06PM: Obama comes out swinging, mentioning the 5 million jobs created since he took office and laying out three specific points on job creation.

9:09PM: Romney accused President Obama of "taking Detroit bankrupt".  Dave asks "can you take something bankrupt?".  Mitt Romney can.

9:10PM: Obama says Romney doesn't have a five point plan, he has a one point plan, to let people at the top of the economy play by different rules.  I'm going to call that clean punching and effective aggression.  Round 1: 10-9 Obama.

9:12PM: Some guy just asked the President if he agrees that it's not the job of the Energy Department to lower gas prices.  Sigh.  In what way do people think the government controls gas prices?  Are these guys running for President of OPEC?

9:15PM: Romney says that the rise in oil production under President Obama hasn't come from federal land.  Does oil from non-federal land not make my car go?  I don't understand this criticism.

9:16PM: Mitt Romney is in favor of the energy sources of the future, specifically, future coal.

9:17PM: Obama "very little of what Governor Romney just said is true".  Ha!  He followed up immediately by citing something Mitt Romney said a while back and pointing out how it's completely different from what he just said.

9:18PM: Romney says oil production is down on Federal lands, Obama swears it's not.  They can't both be telling the truth.  If only there was some kind of journalist around who knew stuff and could tell us who was lying.

9:20PM: Romney says he will fight for oil, coal and natural gas.  That sounds 100% true to me.  If that's the President you want, go ahead and vote for Mitt.

9:21PM: Obama makes the most important point about gas prices, which is that they were just about where they are now in early 2008, then Bush detonated the economy and gas prices were almost cut in half, then Obama took office.  Round 2: 10-9 Obama.

9:23PM: Candy Crowley has already lost all control.  This is going to be a mess.

9:24PM: Romney says the middle class has been buried over the last four years.  He means the last 32 years, but who's counting?  Then he, once again, claims that he can cut everyone's taxes without anyone having to pay for it because he's a wizard (OK, I made up the last part).

9:27PM: Romney promises to cut the capital gains tax to 0% for middle income families.  He seriously doesn't understand that regular people don't have capital gains.  I don't have a joke for that one, that statement is its own joke.

9:30PM: I don't know why Romney continues to claim that he doesn't want to cut taxes for wealthy people.  That's literally the only thing his party believes in that isn't named jesus.

9:32PM: Mitt Romney is not going to stop talking until you acknowledge his five point plan.  It has five points!  Why aren't you listening to Mitt?  Five points!

9:34PM: Obama just called Romney's tax plan "a sketchy deal".  Zing!  Round 3: 10-9 Obama.

9:36PM: Romney says 4 trillion dollars in deficits is math that doesn't add up.  Actually, it adds up to four trillion.

9:37PM: My reaction to the girl asking the question about equal pay for women was "oh, that girl's cute".  I think I probably feel bad about that, though I'm not 100% sure why.  I'm not saying I wouldn't give her equal pay for equal work, I'm just saying I also think she's pretty.

9:40PM: Romney on equal pay for women; "bitches be trippin".  OK, he didn't really say that.  He actually told a story about how he tried to hire some women when he was Governor of Massachusetts and how he worked with them on flexible hours so they could get home and take care of their lady problems while the men kept working.

9:42PM: Obama takes the equal pay question as an opportunity to talk about contraception.  I'm going to have to deduct a point for that.  Round 4: 10-8 Romney.

9:46PM: Mitt Romney is really concerned about the rules of the debate, not really a good look for him.

9:46PM: An Obama campaign staffer, er, I mean, an undecided voter, just asked Romney how he's different from George W. Bush.

9:47PM: Mitt says his plan is so much different that what George Bush would have done.  Yeah, I mean, for one thing, Mitt's plan doesn't have a goofy Texas accent.

9:49PM: "Pioneer of outsourcing" was actually Mitt's nickname in high school.

9:51PM: Obama just suggested that Romney is actually worse than George Bush.  Ouch.  I'm scoring round 5 9-9 after deducting a point from Obama for the low blow.

9:52PM: Obama says he passed the toughest Wall St. reform since the 1930's.  He added "the implementation of that whole thing has been a clusterfuck, but hey, we passed it".

9:54PM: Not to agree with Mitt's incessant whining about the debate rules, but Obama is dominating the time of possession here.

9:55PM: Romney; "we can't afford four more years like the last four years".  That's basically his only point, and that's OK, but we also can't afford four years of stupid Reagan economic policies, so I feel like we're kind of at an impasse here.

9:58PM: Romney is sternly lecturing Obama on what a terrible President he's been.  I thought he was leading up to firing him.  Round 6: 10-9 Romney.

9:58PM: Oh, they got a Latina lady to ask the immigration question #classy.

10:01PM: Me: "wouldn't it be fun if they got a white person to ask the immigration question for once?".  Dave: "what, like a Canadian?"

10:02PM: I stopped listening for like 10 seconds and all of a sudden Obama was talking about gang-bangers.  OK, OK, I'm awake.

10:04PM: Romney just answered Candy Crowley's question by saying "no" and then making up his own question to answer, which included him defending the fact that his blind trust has invested in companies in China.

10:05PM: Romney to the President "have you looked at your pension?" Obama "mine isn't as big as yours so it doesn't take as long".  He got a good laugh out of the audience for that one.  Round 7: 10-9 Obama.

10:09PM: Obama started the Libya question by pointing out that ambassadors aren't some political football for him, he actually knows these people.  Honestly, that's the only thing I wanted to hear on this question.  Round 8: 10-9 Obama.

10:11PM: Romney says he feels deep sympathy for the families impacted by the Libya attack.  That didn't stop him from trying (and failing) to use it to score political points.

10:14PM: Obama is legit angry about having to keep talking about this Libya thing.  I have to say I'm happy to see him not being afraid to seem a little angry when anger is called for.

10:16PM: Mitt said Obama didn't call the Libya thing terrorism for two weeks and Crowley actually corrected Mitt and pointed out that Obama called it terrorism the next day.  Look at someone from CNN acting like a real journalist!  Blitzer must be so proud!

10:18PM: Question about the 2nd amendment and assault weapons.  Obama failed to point out that the 2nd amendment was written long before assault weapons were invented, but he did talk about trying to re-introduce an assault weapons ban, so that's better than nothing I guess.

10:20PM: Mitt says he isn't in favor of making new legislation about guns or taking guns away.  Another moment of honesty from Mitt, but then he somehow jumped from gun control to talking about how we should encourage people to get married if they're going to have a kid.  I'm counting that as a knockdown for Obama.  Round 9: 10-8 Obama.

10:24PM: Obama points out that Romney was for an assault weapons ban before he was against it.  That line works better if you get him to say it about himself like John Kerry did.

10:25PM: Obama jumped from guns to education.  Well, that's closer I guess, but I still don't really get it.  Crowley, as she did with Romney, jumped in and pointed out that the question was guns.  The candidates do not care.

10:27PM: Romney says he's going to make America more attractive again.  I feel like Romney's idea of more attractive would be lots of make-up, new expensive clothes and maybe some fake boobs.  I'm really more into a jeans and t-shirt, comfortable, casual looking America.

10:29PM: Me: "is this debate going to run long?  Is that even allowed?".  Dave: "No, res life has the room reserved at 11 for an in-service training".  I wouldn't include that joke, but so many people who read my blog were RAs or RDs at some point that I feel like everyone will get it.

10:31PM: Obama says Romney's company invested in "pioneers of outsourcing".  He says that's not his phrase, reporters said it.  Well, if reporters say it, it must be true.

10:32PM: How would Mitt Romney convince a company like Apple to bring jobs back to the US?  Come on, you know this one.  That's right!  The magic power of tax cuts!

10:33PM: Obama; "Candy, there are some jobs that are not gonna come back."  That's 100% true, but I feel like he's going to regret saying it.  Round 10: 10-9 Romney

10:34PM: Some guy just asked Romney what the biggest misperception about him is.  That's the same question I ask graduate students when I interview them for a job.  I guess I'm saying that I should be allowed to moderate the next debate.

10:36PM: Mitt says he believes in god.  Good for you champ.

10:37PM: Mitt says we're all children of the same god.  He added "I mean, not homosexuals and immigrants, but, ya know, regular people".

10:38PM: Obama "I believe Mitt Romney is a good man".  That's not going to poll well.  I'm not sure Mitt Romney believes Mitt Romney is a good man.

OK then, no closing statements.  My final score card has it 95-92 Obama, and as arbitrary as my scoring system was, I feel like that's pretty close to the mark.  Obama was tougher and more active this time.  I honestly think being out from behind a podium and being able to walk around like a normal person was good for him.  Romney only came armed with his one talking point about how bad the economy still is, and it got old after a while.  I'd call it a solid win for Obama, which is good because the third fight is already scheduled and nobody wants to see a third fight if the same guy wins the first two.

Undercard

I think it's perfectly fair to ask why we even have Vice Presidential debates.  What kind of person would decide who they're voting for based on what the VP candidates have to say?  And why would we let that person vote?  Honestly, I know they take over if the President dies, but who would bother to assassinate Mitt Romney?  He's basically just a Republican spokes-model, like Reagan was.  A conservative mascot.  It would be like assassinating Ronald McDonald.

So, why watch the Vice Presidential debate?  Well, because something might actually happen, and not just because Joe Biden is a gaffe machine and Paul Ryan lies every time he talks.  These guys only get one shot at this, and after the insane reaction to the first Presidential debate, they both have to feel like there's a lot at stake.  And also, yes, Biden's crazy sometimes, so there's that.

9:00PM: Before the debate on CNN, John King called Paul Ryan a strong advocate for smaller government.  No, that's still a lie.  Then some other guy called Biden "middle class, beer drinking Joe Biden".  He's not some coal miner from West Virginia, he's been in the Senate since he was 30.

9:00PM: OK, I'm going to start by admitting that I don't know who Martha Raddatz is.  I'm not the leading authority on debate moderators or anything, but I feel like that's not a good sign.

9:03PM: On the question of who the fuck the moderator is, my buddy Dave adds "according to Fox News, she caught the bouquet at Obama's wedding or something like that".  Well there you go.

9:05PM: It took approximately 37 seconds for Biden to mention that time when Obama ordered Navy Seals to shoot bin laden in the face.  Good move since Obama never actually got around to that last week.

9:07PM: Ryan says the Obama administration is projecting weakness abroad.  Yeah, all this face shooting and drone attacking looks really weak.  President Romney would go to other countries himself and kill terrorists with his bare hands.

9:09PM: Biden after a three minute Ryan ramble.."with all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey".  Biden is bringing the zingers tonight.  He could also be a little drunk.  Either way, this should be pretty fun.

9:11PM: We're spending a lot of time arguing about the terrorist attack a couple of weeks ago.  The fact that this is a political argument is really a pox on both of their houses, and I really don't want to talk about it.

9:12PM: Ryan says we should not be apologizing for standing up for our values.  OK, well nobody's doing that, but we'll keep an eye out.

9:15PM: Biden cracks himself up.

9:16PM: Biden keeps calling Ryan "my friend".  Important note, in Delaware, "my friend" means "this douchebag over here".

9:17PM: Ryan on Iran working toward a nuclear weapon.."they're spinning the centrifuges faster".  Wait, is that how building nuclear weapons works?  I honestly don't know.

9:20PM: Biden just called what Ryan was saying "a bunch of stuff".  I think we need an HBO VP debate so Biden can speak freely.

9:21PM: Biden on Iran.."if we ever do have to take action the world will be behind us, and that matters".  Well, not to Republicans.

9:22PM: Biden keeps trying to interrupt every time Ryan talks.  It's really funny.

9:24PM: Stupid question "can you get unemployment under 6% and how long will it take?"  The correct answer is, no, and I have no idea how long it will take before everyone realizes that.

9:27PM: Ryan.."I think the Vice President knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way".  Zing!

9:29PM: We're in the middle of a who can tell the saddest car accident story contest.  Biden won, I think.

9:33PM: I'm starting to think Paul Ryan might not actually be Joe Biden's friend.

9:35PM: Ryan says there's an "Obamacare board" that will be in charge of taking money out of medicare.  There's nothing Republicans hate more than Obamacare boards.  Biden agrees with me saying "it seems that every four years I hear the same thing about these panels". Ha! Although, no matter what you think of Paul Ryan, comparing anyone to Sarah Palin is a low blow.

9:38PM: We're drowning in a horrible discussion about medicare and vouchers now.  I promise to vote for whoever stops talking about this first.

9:41PM: So far I'm still voting for nobody.

9:41PM: It couldn't be any more clear that these two guys can't fucking stand each other.  Biden's five minutes away from ripping his shirt off and challenging Ryan to a wrestling match.

9:45PM: Raddatz finally ended the medicare discussion, so I'm voting for her.  I'm a man of my word.

9:46PM: Are we calling the 2008 economic disaster "The Great Recession" now?  Is that a thing?

9:47PM: Ryan says we shouldn't tax wealthy people more because it won't pay for anything anyway.  I don't really know what to say about that except, so?  Can we just do it for fun?

9:51PM: I'm sorry, I got lost in Paul Ryan's eyes for a few minutes.

9:55PM: Just to be clear, by Paul Ryan's logic, we would never cut the defense budget or make any branch of the military smaller in any way, because it would always be a sign of weakness.

10:00PM: Simple distinction on Afghanistan policy.  Biden (and Obama): We're leaving in 2014, so get your shit together.  Ryan (and Romney): We're leaving when you decide to get your shit together, and we're hoping you do it by 2014.

10:01PM: When Paul Ryan turns on his television these days, he sees the absolute unraveling of the Obama foreign policy.  He needs to check out some other channels.  Has he seen honey boo boo?

10:05PM: Biden is literally yelling at the moderator now about when they pulled the surge troops out of Afghanistan.  If Obama did that he'd get hammered by everyone, but I feel like Biden gets away with it.

10:07PM: Paul Ryan can name any city in Afghanistan.  Just try him.

10:07PM: Biden cracks me up too.

10:10PM: Paul Ryan wants to arm the freedom fighters in Syria.  Right, because arming the rebels in the middle east always works out well and never backfires in any way.

10:14PM: Ryan says you only put troops on the ground for national security interests.  This from the party that invaded Iraq for shits and giggles.

10:15PM: We're talking about religion now.  BOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

10:16PM: I should be able to hit Paul Ryan with a shoe whenever he uses the word faith in the same sentence as the words science and reason, unless the sentence is something like "Faith is completely incompatible with science and reason".

10:18PM: Biden says he refuses to impose his religious beliefs on others.  Paul Ryan is baffled by that whole concept.

10:20PM: Republicans believe that reproductive rights (and marriage rights, for that matter) should be up for a majority vote.  I wonder if they'd feel the same way about freedom of religion if they suddenly found themselves in the minority.

Closing statements, mostly nonsense, but I really liked how Biden framed his demeanor.  After seeming kind of angry all night, Biden said, if he seemed a little frustrated, it's because of how Romney and Ryan see the American people.  I don't know if that's bullshit or not, but it was a hell of a way for him to wrap it up.

I'm not sure how to sum this debate up, except to say this.  Every time Paul Ryan was talking, Biden's face was saying "I hate you, I hate you, I'm gonna punch you, I hate you".  Every time Biden was talking, Ryan's face was saying "Oh crap, oh crap, he's telling people all the things I don't really want them to know about".  I would say that Biden was passionate, tough and didn't let Ryan get away with anything. I'd also say that Ryan came off as more affable and maybe more likable, although I think Biden helped himself out with likability at the end, and he's always kind of likable anyway.

I would have bet just about anything on the media saying Biden won tonight no matter what happened, so I assume that'll be the prevailing wisdom.  I kind of don't care because it's a Vice Presidential debate and it doesn't really matter.  See you Tuesday for the next real debate.