What’s stupid and incomprehensible is that a 2-hour PERFORMANCE should apparently have the potential to affect the election so profoundly. The candidates’ experience, policies, history, resume, track record, and everything else goes out the window because one man talked louder and waved his arms more than the other.
Ironically, Obama was criticized for being cool, but some have lauded Ryan for being cool.
There was foreshadowing. The Republican debates during the primary season were unusually important, causing candidates to rise or fall based on their performances.
And while I see your point, I can’t help to recall that many rather smart people declared Bobby Jindal’s future ruined by a bad speech. I’d say a debate is a better insight into a candidate’s fitness for office than a speech.
Any particular reason? Why would that be preferable to being able to write a good essay? Or, far as that goes, a good speech. IIRC, Stephen Douglas was accounted a much better debater, but now is remembered mostly because of Lincoln.
Did you see any of the preliminary debates, like Gingrich? He has some major debating skills, which almost obscure the fact that he’s batshit. And if he were elected president, I would make a straight run for the border before the Canadians close it.
It shouldn’t be surprising at all. Obama wasn’t ahead in the polls prior to the debate because people agreed with his policies or ideology. He was polling well because he connected with people better than Romney, he cared about people more than Romney, etc.
Frankly, this is exactly why I supported Obama over Clinton in the primaries in 2008. To me, Obama cared way more, he had a more sympathetic past, and was generally much more inspirational. Policy-wise, they were almost identical.
Debate skills don’t trump a candidate’s record, but they certainly tell you more than a speech written for the candidate by someone else.
Best is an analysis of their policies and the honesty of their presentation. Case study: GWBush and his administration. His tax policy was designed to thwart Forbes in the primary: it was a budget-buster, turning surpluses into a sea of red ink. And he misrepresented its cost by skipping over $300 billion dollars of interest payments due to paying the debt down slower, in addition to all sorts of accounting tricks. Given his mendacity about that, is it surprising that he would shape intelligence around pre-determined conditions in order to railroad the nation into the Iraq War. Dishonesty in one realm follows from dishonesty in another.
If you want to judge a candidate’s character, study their presentation of their policies. If you don’t care, then don’t pretend that you do.
Hmmm, if only there were some forum where candidates could challenge each other on that.
I have six studies that say that there’s no such forum.
So, what you are saying is the fact that Romney lied through his teeth in the first debate in order to “win” shows us a lot about his character? I agree.
I wonder if the debate was useful at swinging uninformed voters. I can’t imagine an informed voter ditching Obama and switching to Romney based on what they heard at the debate. But if you’re uninformed, you might think that Romney had some pretty good ideas and that he would do a good job. The poll number swing was so drastic this time because there was such a big difference in performances. Usually the debates are pretty boring with each guy doing a pretty similar job. This time you had a guy putting on a pretty good show and the other guy taking a nap. So if you are an uninformed voter, you may be basing your vote on what you saw that night. Unfortunately, I don’t see Obama swinging many of those people back to his side. Once they’ve made a choice, I think they would be more likely to stick with their choice than switch.
Did he lie more than Obama? No. That’s just whining. But let’s say for the sake of argument that he lied his ass off. Obama is supposed to challenge him on it.
The voters it swung were voters who wanted to replace Obama but needed to know that Romney was an acceptable alternative.
And the swing was only drastic in the context of a very stable race. Romney’s bounce was only 4-5 points.
Don’t really have much more to say other than that the latest polling in Ohio is awfully comforting to me. I don’t see how the Hell Romney is going to erase his deficit in that state, and if he loses Ohio, then he has probably lost the election.
“You fucked up! You trusted us!”
I always thought that early voters were military types but I guess I was wrong. No wonder the GOP tried hard to shut it down.
This makes me wonder. Who are the early voters? Students? The disabled? A large part has got to be military, no? I’m a little surprised by the wide gap and am hoping it is the start of things to come.
Also, it can be pointed out after the debate. Which is what I and others are doing.
But oddly, Obama did challenge him on it.
Emphasis added. The problem is prepping for a shape-shifting politician is hard and Obama has pronounced conciliatory instincts. He should do better during the Town Hall debates. If he doesn’t, the race could tighten further.
As an aside, public presentations without the benefit of charts tend towards bullshit. You can see that on Meet the Press et al. Here at this message board, it’s pretty easy to call out posters who constantly make unsubstantiated factual claims without citation: they are pegged as unreliable. On TV though, it’s a lot easier to just provide empty jabber. This applies to weakly moderated debates as well as Sunday talk shows.
What I honestly don’t get is what Romney’s defenders get out of all of this, unless they are hedge fund managers. I haven’t seen anybody explain why a financier should pay 15% on his taxes, while the middle class -and CEOs in manufacturing or software- should pay 35% or whatever. That’s a big difference. Sure, Romney was a successful man – but an inspection of his record shows a lot less than meets the eye. The best appeal I can think of is for a Tea Partier who supports the loons in the Republican House of Representatives and trusts them to keep Romney in line. So it’s not that Romney has personal appeal: it’s more like he’s the front man.
Biggirl: IIRC, 20% vote early now. So whatever the demographics were 10 years ago, they are probably different now.
Perhaps. Funny they weren’t paying attention all those months previous, though.
I wonder, given a better performance by Obama, what they would’ve done then. Held their nose for Romney? Stayed home? Or was Romney’s performance good enough in a vacuum that they would’ve gone with him anyway?
Obama’s up by 1.7. And Romney does have a path without Ohio, although it’s harder.
But as I keep saying, Romney will not win the popular vote by more than a percentage point and still lose the electoral vote. And the national vote polls are more accurate than the state vote polls. If you click on the links that show the final polls in Ohio from 2004 and 2008, the pollsters missed the final results by pretty widely varying margins. A 1.7 point lead in an aggregate of state polls is nothing, just means Obama is slightly favored.
They were paying attention: to a biased media and an incumbent vastly outspending his opponent and defining him.
That’s why debates rock. They make all those advantages go away.
Yeah if the election were held right this minute he is probably a slight underdog in Virginia (remember independent in some of these places means Tea Party) but he was ahead by 5% the night before the debate. At this point I don’t think anyone can take anything for granted (I only wish it didn’t take the horrible results of a terrible debate for Obama to figure out to take this thing more seriously).