It's amazing to me that almost three quarters of people polled think Romney won that debate. No doubt this is a real perception but it's probably been helped along by the media as well.
For someone that is held to have given such a dominating performance, it's amazing that you can't think of really even one substantive point Romney really made. What seems to be going on is what Ezra Klein said-his vagueness paid off.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/04/romneys-policy-vagueness-pays-off/
Indeed, one widely repeated piece of ideology is that Romney moved to the Center in the debate. Which is not exactly true. What he did do is spin his positions in a more moderate sounding way. There were no new positions, though he did it in as confusing a way as possible-it seems that the President himself was confused when Romney said he's not doing a $5 trillion dollar tax cut and that the rich will get no big tax cut.
The media, however, has been very complicit in not calling out Romney on any of his lies and disinformation. Indeed, after claiming that he has a plan to protect those with preexisting conditions even if he repeals ObamaCare, his campaign had to walk that back after the debate. The media actually had done a pretty good job after Ryan's speech at the RNC in Tampa of pointing out that while Ryan's speech was poetic oratory it was entirely non-fact based.
Romney's debate performance was just a factually challenged and yet who in the mainstream media has pointed this out? Krugman questioned them on this in his Sunday appearance:
"Hmm. A late thought about the discussion on This Week. I suggested that it was the job of the news media to check on and report falsehoods from politicians. The response of the other panelists was that the media can’t do that if the opposing candidates didn’t make an issue of it — which as far as I can tell makes no sense at all."
"But even granted that, the fact is that the Obama campaign is making an issue of Romney’s falsehoods, or at least trying to. Yet this is apparently considered unworthy of attention, because Obama didn’t make a forceful attack right there on the spot."
"So let’s see if I have this straight: it’s not the job of the press to take on political falsehoods unless the other side makes a forceful case in 30 seconds or less. Glad to see that this has been clarified."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/the-30-second-rule/
It's amazing that no one can really tell you anything about this debate other than that Romney won it going away. There are no issues or substance that anyone remembers, just that Romney was aggressive and the President glanced down. The media have played a big part in this perception. Largely, in fact, they have created this perception.
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