Has it ever mattered to them?
He’s been the candidate for a while now. Previous moves toward the center were greeted with shrill alarm. So what’s different now?
Relatedly, the conventional wisdom was that Romney had not yet tacked to the center because (1) he was afraid of reinforcing the flip-flopper narrative and (2) he was more beholden to the right-wing than the typical candidate because of the nature of the election. Was that wisdom wrong?
I think the simplest explanation is that Republicans are terrified of losing after the last couple of weeks and are prepared to give Romney a lot more leeway.
Could it be that blowhards such as Limbaugh and Coulter know Romney doesn’t have a chance unless he moves more to the center, so they’re keeping their traps shut?
ETA: Wait a minute though. I take that back. It’s only a day later. We’ll see.
Yeah, I think that’s probably right. If so, it was very shrewd of Romney to seize that moment.
Actually, it is pretty much in the 4th quarter, as this Nate Silver post from a week and a half ago points out:
Romney’s position is…
“evolving”
Heh.
Conservative pundits haven’t exactly been lovey dovey with Romney here lately. They surprised me by pointing out Ryan’s untruthfulness, they distanced themselves from Romney when he tried to exploit Libya, and when the 47% crap happened, folks like Scarborough and David Brooks took a very critical stand against him.
So to expect them to go continue this unprecedented streak of criticism, even after he’s done the Party proud for once by being crowned the debate winner, is probably asking too much. Quietly they are probably burning, though.
Next debate is foreign policy. Expect some round-for-round on China, obviously Iran, Israel, Libya… maybe Mexico if they have time for it.
This is why I said the 47% thing was a wasted opportunity. The third debate is “social policy” but we’ll be a couple weeks off from last night by that time. I guess Biden will bring it up but it’ll have less impact as a grenade against Romney’s running mate versus Romney himself.
Well in terms of keeping his base happy, yes. In terms of crafting a coherent message for the general election not so much. Obama is already going hard at Romney as a faker. If Romney had prepared the ground for the last few months that would be much harder to do. It's one thing to pivot soon after winning the nomination when most people aren't paying attention. It's another thing altogether to pivot a month before the election.
I think the last debate will be the *best *time for Obama to get into it, if he thinks he needs to go on offense. That one will be freshest in people’s minds on Election Day, and this one will be pretty much forgotten.
Hey, maybe the chair would do a better job?
I don’t understand why Obammy didn’t bang his chest over the “Shovel Ready” jobs.
The media really wanted to give this one to Romney, because for all the talk of liberal bias the real media bias is toward the story, and a horse race is way more interesting than runaway in early October. So anything less than a crushing Obama victory was going to be played as a mixed bag, a tie would have been played as a win for Romney, and a modest Romney victory (which is what it was) was going to be turned into a spanking.
I think that’s why Obama was holding back. Better to let that play out now than later–just take it easy now and don’t screw up by coming off as arrogant or dismissive. As a student of “sport”, as Romney might put it, the President is familiar with the rope-a-dope.
I’m afraid it might not have worked here, though, because he let some pretty egregious bullshit go unchallenged and the media response has been pretty harsh. He has given up more momentum than he probably intended to.
Well, if that helps you sleep at night. Last night was just evidence of what we conservatives have long since known. Obama is great with a teleprompter and when he’s being thrown lobs, but sit in in a room without a teleprompter and hit him with tough questions and he collapses like a straw stair under the weight of an elephant. Or put another way…
“Ugh, ummm, ummmm, ah, well Boosh…”
No, no, your thinking of Mitt Romney #4.
“Ugh, ummm, ummmm, ah, well Teleprompter…” :rolleyes:
The thing is that Obama tried to treat Americans like an adult. Replies like yours are the reason why this was a bad strategy - as David Axelrod admitted:
Was it a bad strategy? Apparently. Did it work? No. Do you not think that he will change things up in the next debates? Do you really think this puts the election in the win category for Romney? Really?
Obama supporters are realistic enough to realize that was not a good debate for Obama. Romney supporters apparently are not realistic enough to see what that really means, which is why they trot out “teleprompter” garbage.
Either this doesn’t take into effect the full debate impact… or the “winner” of last nights debate isn’t who everything thinks it is.
Bottom line.. politics, like quantum physics, makes my head hurt. Me go sleep.
The polling was done before the debate, but I can’t imagine a sub-par debate performance would impact whether people approve or disapprove of his job performance as president.