Associated Press
Pierce Hawthorne tried memorizing "zingers," too.
The good thing about debates, at least in theory, is that they're unscripted. Campaigns may go to great lengths to keep events "highly polished and hyper-scripted," but debates are intended to have some spontaneity -- the candidates don't know what they'll be asked, so they'll be required to think on their feet.
That said, the effort to drain the debates of their spontaneity is well underway.
Mr. Romney's team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August. [...]
Mr. Obama is not particularly fluid in sound bites, so his team is aiming for a workmanlike performance like his speech at the Democratic convention.
As a tactical matter, I have no idea why Team Romney would consider it worthwhile to tell reporters in advance that the candidate has memorized "zingers" written by his staff.
Regardless, the strategy itself strikes me as a mistake. There was an episode of "Community" in the first season in which Pierce Hawthorne was going to watch a movie with some friends. He desperately wanted to impress them, so he rented the movie, hired some writers, and memorized a bunch of "zingers" in the hopes of dazzling the room with his wit.
If you saw the show, you know the result -- the "zingers" came across as obviously forced. Pierce hoped to prove how clever he is by memorizing lines written by others and then mechanically repeating them, but he ended up doing the opposite.
Romney is inviting the exact same problem. By announcing the plan in advance -- "Romney = Zingers!" -- the campaign is only inviting eye-rolling when the candidate forces the lines into the debate. No one will be impressed with Romney's quick wit because we've already been told (a) the zingers were written by others; (b) Romney's been forced to memorize them; and (c) he's been "practicing" his spontaneous delivery for over a month.
I'm sure the little quips will be delightfully clever, but I can't help but wonder how many viewers will be left laughing at, not with, the candidate.
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I hope someone told Mitt that "yo Mamma" is not a zinger.
LOL, hysterical.
Yo' Momma is such a heathen my church baptized her into our faith years after she died without telling you. BURN!
I'm Mitt Romney and I approve this message.
I wonder when he is going to say "That's what she said!"
Hehe....
Don't learn the tricks of the trade. Learn the trade. "Zingers" are not a substitute for debate skills or policy.
I think the Data's in on this strategy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h3MOeeLBkc ("Zing Went the Strings ...")
Mitts going to look funny with all that chocolate on his face and fingers as his zingers melt.
All I have to say is...this oughta be good. Romney might say something like "My what nice podiums these are, I like wood."
"The podiums in Colorado are the right height."
They say 30 million watched the conventions, and 50 million will watch the debates. I assume quite a few have not been paying any attention otherwise.
Obama will continue to speak like a professor explaining an arcane subject.
Romney apparently plans to appear as Rodney Dangerfield-"You have good looking kids, Barry. Who's the father?"
Even when a little long-winded, Obama is much better at that sort of answer than, say, Al Gore. I think he will do fine.
And generally with respect to these being "unscripted," when was the last time you watched a debate where the candidates did not take every question and twist it in order to deliver a pre-scripted talking point?
At least Obama doesn't tell us "there is no time for me to explain to you how on earth my plan is going to work". I'll take "long-winded" over "hiding something" any day.
Exactly, Mike. And it doesn't even matter what the question is.
I wish there were a debate rule that required candidates to begin their response to a Yes/No question with only the word Yes or No. If they don't, they give up the rest of their time for the answer. Of course they could and should expand on it after that, but at least answer the damn question.
As president, Obama has an excellent command about the policies, but his style is too wonkish. Obama needs lessons from Bill Clinton on how to be more down to earth in style. Romney has no ability to change his style because the best he can do is scripted. And when he goes off script is when he fumbles. Canned answers will not work with follow up questions because people will see Romney as evasive.
The problem with forcing a yes/no start to an answer is that it invites things like wifebeater questions[1]. At the very least you have to include the responses "it depends", "the question is badly formed" and "the question relies on a false premise."
[1] As in "have you stopped beating your wife?"
If Romney delivers a 'zinger', all Obama has to say is 'Gee, is that one of your pre-scripted zingers that we've all heard about? The truth is......'
I can't picture Romney coming out with zingers, he's gonna look like a deer caught in the headlights probably, the whole debate, That and a bunch of nervous laughter, coupled with a never ending Mitt's Mendacity chapter. He's gonna be trying hard not to smirk.
He is going to be so deathly afraid of screwing up he probably will have trouble the first time the question goes off script .
And note to Willard : I don't think they'll be asking you what kind of peanut butter you like or your favorite ice Cream like in the primaries.
"Note to self: avoid references to arboreal height, how much I love the local delicacies, and my tax returns."
SHHH!!!! Obama isn't supposed to know!!! It's a SECRET!!
Romney's most basic problem is that the media have a preconceived view of him as a rich condescending liar. Any slight move in that direction by him (and it is almost unavoidable considering his history) will be the headline Thursday.
I think that the general public has conceived a view of Mittens as a rich condescending liar. The credit goes to Willard, not the media.
Total agreement with SoV- Mr. Romney did this to himself (see: video, 47%).
He showed in that video alone that he is a rich, condescending liar.
The Media had nothing to do with that other than bring it to life.
estamm....a little more subtlety "That was a good one, now turning to the question at hand..." ;)
Steve B.: Looks like you made a mistake. Thats Chevy Chase in that photo, looking like a champ in his late sixties...
Pierce Hawthorne is the character, and Chevy Chase is the actor.
"I'm sure the little quips will be delightfully clever,..."
You're giving team Rawmoney far more credit than they deserve. Those "zingers" are bound to add fuel to his slow burning campaign.
"..the candidate has memorized "zingers" written by his staff.."
Because they've proven themselves to have such great comedic timing.
He's focusing on 'zingers' because those are what 'worked' for, especially Mr. Reagan.
'There you go again', for example.
However, while Uncle Ronnie was an 'actor', (at least on some levels), Mr. Romney is, well, he's not.
To have those sorts of things be effective, there has to be a subtle mix of timing, facial expression, and that sort of 'gee shucks' attitude that makes it feel genuine and spontaneous.
Mr. Reagan was excellent at this. Even 'W', for all his massive flaws, could easily pull off that 'gee shucks' hominess despite the fact he was every inch the plutocrat as is Mr. Romney.
Mr. Romney belives he should be like simply because of who he is and how 'successful' he has been and no other reason than that. It is what works in the business world (who you are, who you know, and how well you've done in making people money), but doesn't work at all in the 'real world'.
Rather than zingers I was thinking the team has borrowed from Melanie Griffith's character in "Born Yesterday" where she is taught a short list of generic answers that will cover any question she doesn't have the depth to answer. The answers will allow Mitt to dodge and that's what he really has to do to be successful.
Isn't that what they tried in 2008 with Palin?
"Which newspapers and magazines do you read?"
"Any of them. All of them."
Great strategery. I hope they go with that.
What if the "zingers" are really mis-direction? That is, Romney hasn't really memorized anything, but Obama's team thinks the zingers are coming, so they change their planning strategy.
(Just a thought from something I read this weekend, although I really don't remember where.)
I think that would require a lot more strategic maneuvering than Romney can provide us with, unless it was an old Bain trick.I think Romney is going to be the one with egg all over his face.
Oh, I think this strategy has failed no matter what. Whether Romney has or hasn't practiced zingers, everyone's going to think he has. And along the same lines, people will either think the zingers are lame (much of his off-the-cuff stuff is) or they'll think that the zingers are only successful because he practiced.
I have to believe that they're also coaching Mitt to throw out the zingers when Obama says certain key words or phrases. It would be hilarious if Obama were to say the opposite of the expected phrase and Mitt would barf out a zinger that didn't even make sense in the context of Obama's words.
I'm guessing this will happen at least once Wednesday night.
When confronted with either/or logical branching decisions, robots are easy to fool.
The whole idea is intrinsically idiotic but its already slim chances of not being a total disaster would be even further reduced by failing to keep it secret. Which made me wonder whether this is just some kind of disinformation campaign from the Romnoid Collective to try to mess with Obama's debate prep.
But then I looked at how bad this "we're preparing a zinger strategy" thing works even as a disinformation campaign and wondered what they could possibly think it would accomplish. It has no actual capacity to affect the other side's debate prep and sets media expectations that will be unfulfilled followed by a Big Reveal of their Real Secret Strategy that will just have everyone doing a "WTF? Those people are just so weird."
At which point, I realized that that's exactly the kind of College Republican conflation of ineptly executed immature prankery with tactical genius--like that whole thing with the buses this summer--they've been doing all along. These guys, from Romney down, are all just really immature, bra-snapping, sign-stealing, arrested development College Republican twits who think they're political geniuses. So, yeah, odds its some kind of lame-ass attempt at disinformation are high.
My fear is that the zingers approach will work. Republicans are good at plausible sounding blurbs that don't hold up to scrutiny. The problem is that the blurbs come by so fast that you don't have time to debunk them all. It's like a high stakes game of Whac-A-Mole.
Republicans are good, yes. This is Mitt we're talking about. He's been practicing with a hard core debate master for weeks, and still can't get his points across when on the stump.
Mitt's consistently wooden and stilted, and I anticipate the delivery of his zingers to be masterpieces of wood and stilt.
And for which Obama is he practicing for? The real Obama or the Obama that exists only in right-wing paranoia? Considering how welded Romney has been to the far-right, I suspect the latter. If Romney were capable of and willing to take on the real Obama, I suspect he'd be doing better than he has done.
Romney says to Obama, "I knew John Kennedy. John Kennedy was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no John Kennedy." Romney turns to the camera with a smug, self-satisfied smirk on his face.
Obama: "Governor, I believe the correct zinger is, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy. And might I add, Governor, you are no Lloyd Bentson, either."
I would pay to see that.
Zingers instead of policy explanations are sure to change the minds of a handful of low information voters who lean republican. Not one single sentient being will believe a zinger carries weight over a policy idea. The basic fact is that Mitt Romney has no convictions. He is not running for a purpose other than to be President. Obama, on the other hand, has an agenda that he BELIEVES in...it is obvious at every turn that this is the separating factor.
Beer and popcorn ready.
Only reason I'm watching is to see Obama put the gun in Romney's hand and invite him to take aim. Hilarity ensues.
Hopefully the zingers will be articulate explanations of policy implementations, and a clear presentation of which previously held belief or viewpoint will be the consistent guiding light going forward.
And Obama can ask ."Which version of Romney was that 2.0 or 3.0" In 1955 you said ...in 2000 you said in 2005 you said in 2010 you said .....and now you say ....
One of my hopes for the debate is that, if Romney chooses to elect one of the pre-written pre edited pre-approved "zingers" on stage, Obama take a moment to stare at him, brow furrowed as if to say "you are running for the highest office in the land and you thought THAT was how you should spend valuable debate time?" Then visibly roll his eyes, shrug it off like he just got a chill and then use his time to talk about whatever he thinks is worth talking about. Make it abundantly clear - if this guy isn't serious about this debate, than I am only going to address the people who are serious about it, the people."
Will Mitt show up in 'whiteface' or with a bullwhip?
Let us appreciate the thought that Mitt is willing to enter a debate that ,supposedly, has not been scripted. It should be interesting,if the host asks real questions and refuses to let the candidates simply ignore the topic or give vague answeres. But we all know that debates of today are jokes so let Mitt show us his own joking attitude.
The link for the Community episode goes to Wikipedia's "Romantic Expressionism" page. Dying to see Chevy Chase pull the zinger-tricks!
Because they are taking their strategy advice from Dr. Strangelove: