Laurence O'Donnell suggested that the media is too quick to think it can tell you who won the debate that we won't know until after the election. He admits that he thought Kerry won all three debates in 2004 but that he was wrong.
He also argues that we should watch debates more like court reporters-who see every day the lawyer with the seemingly better more dynamic argument, losing while the seemingly outclassed opposition wins.
A great example was ObamaCare: most pundits decided that it was in trouble after the questions the SC Justices asked in the opening arguments. This turned out to be a red herring.
To be sure, it's not clear that we know who wins the debate simply on who wins the election. What about the possibility that debates are less important than is believed?
I'm not at all sure that Romney hit the grand slam that everyone says he did. For one thing he didn't make a single substantive point that has stuck. If Romney did win it was all style. That brings us to the interesting fact that the President while some may think him lackluster, didn't make even a single meaningful mistake. No unforced errors. No gaffes, no comments that require some "xplaining to do."
While it may be that the Obama team was a little too conservative here-the proverbial game where the team with the two touchdown 4th quarter lead tries to sit on it's lead and let's the opponent back in-overall if he was trying to play it safe, it worked very well in that there were no fumbles or picks or major penalties.
Romney for his part did make some unforced errors. The President didn't call him on it-last night he was probably a little too unconfrontational-but they are out and they will fester-like his attempt to mislead viewers into thinking that he would protect those with a preexisting condition when he plans nothing of the kind as his staff later admitted.
He again tried to deny reality about his tax plan-that it cuts taxes on the rich while raising them on the middle class. And he actually had the audacity to claim credit for passing ObamaCare in Massachusetts while vowing to end it for the country as a whole.
I think David Axelrod is exactly right:
"President Obama’s top aides didn’t deny on Thursday that Mitt Romney had a strong first debate. But by taunting fact checkers with a vague set of newly centrist claims, they believe the governor has left himself open for a major counteroffensive this week."
"Obama senior strategist David Axelrod characterized Romney’s debate strategy as “effective in the short term, vulnerable in the long term.”
“Governor Romney came to give a performance and he gave a good performance and we give him credit for that,” he told reporters in a conference call. “The problem with it was that none of it was rooted in fact.”
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/obama-camps-post-debate-plan-expose-serial-evader-romney.php?ref=fpb
What I find interesting is that what polls we have so far-admittedly not much yet-doesn't indicate a big bounce for Romney. In Retuer/Ipsos Obama led 47-41 percent prior to the debate and 48-43 after. Interestingly 54% said the debate didn't change their view of Obama, only 18% it did for the worse-16% better.
Gallup actually showed a spike in the President's approval rating today to 54% approving and 42% disapproving. Now the Gallup Presidential approval poll is a three day moving average-today's was composed of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, though admittedly very little of it would reflect the debate as this was after most interviews were conducted.
Nate Silver's 538 actually has seen the President spike in probability of winning the electoral college from just over 84 percent to almost 87. How can it be that the President numbers are going up after this alleged "debacle?"
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