One of the reasons why Governor Romney's debate preparation was superior to that of President Obama's is that the left does not understand conservative arguments and defaults to the ad hominem attack or straw man arguments that caricature them.
However, conservatives understand leftist arguments very, very well, living in a see of progressive ideas that most of us start imbibing with our mother's milk in North America.
Many conservatives are former leftists and I count myself in that group. We know what arguments began to convince us that the progressives have an underlying totalitarian and nihilist philosophy that sees the end justifying the means. Utopian thinking that breaks some eggs to make the omelet really only produces power for the progressive elite. The utopian, statist ideas have been tried and proven to be failures.
So here come Obama who has probably never really encountered a conservative who could pierce his leftist bafflegab and cogently argue for free markets and smaller government. He probably does not have one person on his staff who understands conservative ideas and he certainly has not been held to account by the news media. So Romney wiped the smug smirk off his face with gentleness and respect, while obliterating his ideas one by one.
One of the things that began to convince me of the merits of conservative idea were the calm, rational, and generous behavior of conservatives under fire by the left in contrast to mob-like behavior such as shouting down opponents, character-assassination Alinsky-style and outright lying in order to score political points.
Romney's graciousness the other night will go a long way towards having the same effect on others who have, like I used to, default progressive, statist programming because we were never taught there were alternative points of view.
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