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The [2012 Presidential Election] Thread Needs Moar Panic, Less Stacey...Dash? Who the...?
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You know you're in trouble when even the BBC accuses you of being too professorial during a debate.
Colorado is a tossup again and NC already went solidly back to Romney.
Romney just reset the electorate.
I suppose for actual content I should say three things:
1) Favorable numbers didn't move in the snap polls (coincidentally, CNN's was a pretty Romney friendly sample, with a +11 rating for Romney and a -1 for Obama coming in... that is not reflected in the nation at large). I suspect this will become slightly more obvious when all the lying gets hit on over the next few days.
2) North Carolina has been within two points for like 13 months. Events have not changed it. It's a contest of if the Obama campaign can turn out black/Research Triangle votes vs. the Romney campaign turning out evangelicals.
3) Ohio. Big lead there and the map is prohibitive without it.
Does Mitt actually think of himself as a small business owner? Does he consider Bain to be a small Mom&Pop style business?
It’s not a very important country most of the time
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I still think he was shaken up by Romney just outright denying all the things he's said in the past.
How do you debate someone who has no stance?
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The only part that stuck with me was when Obama called out to Michelle about their wedding anniversary. Romney's response about how romantic it was that he took her to a debate, was a good joke(not great, but good). Romney said it in a manner that was not mean spirited and got a laugh out of the audience(who moments before had been told to be quiet). It neutralized the Obama calling out to Michelle and generated some perception that Romney was a man with regular humor. Since it was in the beginning of the debate(first two minutes in fact) it set the tone.
Thing is, that shout out from Obama was fairly predictable. Their wedding anniversary is public knowledge and if Obama hadn't mentioned it, Romney could have gotten some surrogates to mention it in passing after the debate(making the president seem wonkish after the fact).
That zinger was probably pre-scripted and pre-acted by Romney. It makes me wonder how long he spent training on how to tell that one joke. It paid of in any case.
I keep hearing this point about Romney "getting his act together" repeated ad infinitum. What act? Has he finally stumbled upon the real Romney? This kind of soul searching may be okay for some kid on psychoactive drugs who is questioning reality and hasn't made his mind up yet, but Romney is running for the presidency of the United States of America-- He should know what he believes and what his stances are by now.
Anyways, some initial impressions from some of the media. To summarize:
-This was a stronger debate performance for Romney, which I don't think anyone is going to dispute. The nineteen primary debates weren't a complete waste for Romney after all.
-Body language has value. Without the sound on Romney seemed more enthusiastic instead of coming across as robot. Obama seemed reserved.
-Obama was probably holding back so people couldn't criticize him of not being presidential.
-Obama's smile actually helped him and blunted some the damage caused by seeming so reserved. Romney didn't smile enough and when he did it seemed too much like a scowl.
-There were lots of specifics to look through, granted most of Romney's were bullshit.
-This debate isn't game changing. Neither candidate scored a knockout, nor did either one fuck up horribly.
-Big Bird, Romney wasn't wise to suggest putting him down.
mmm, not sure what point you're trying to make.
I'd like to think that a 90 minute debate would be rather useless in changing someone's overall opinion of somebody (unless they said or did something really fucked up).
If the Friday jobs report is bad, this will be a dangerous affair. Obama has enough firewalls, but not a very good share of voters. How many viewed this mess?
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It's usually a lot. Based on Twitter more than the convention speeches.
Estimate for Friday is like 160k private. Expectations is like 110k
-Depends on the republican and what they are talking about. Some of them, like Cantor, actually don't want to talk for a lengthy bit of time because they tend to hang themselves.
-We're going into the holiday hiring season, I'd expect the numbers to go up in every case but a recession.
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It's not gonna change the fundamental math here. Some GOPers will get energized for a bit on the high of the media telling them their horse one this heat, but that's about it.
And likely that will fade because I don't expect Romney to pull any sort of victory out of the next 2. Certainly not the foreign policy one.
If he does what he did here and hijacks the proceedings. Say, if he ignores the time limit and talks about the Olympics for 90 minutes, he could make a strong showing.
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I may be biased, but Romney seemed arrogant and disrespectful to both Obama and the moderator. Rather Nixonesque (against JFK that is).
I'm already seeing fact checks out that point out he was wrong on his healthcare claims (some of which had been debunked before), wrong with his claim that no one called out his tax plan and how more than half the green energy businesses that benefited from stimulus are still in business contrary to what Romney said. We'll see what else that came out of Romney's mouth tonight gets debunked. Romney probably over-extended himself, some of what he did to come out stronger tonight, possibly ahead (I don't think he won) is going to come back and bite him in the ass.
Now does anyone remember how much cash Romney has on hand because it looks like he might be going into the red soon, much to the misfortune of those in swing states. I'm sure he'll get a slight boost in fundraising after tonight from the donors he hasn't tapped out, but I doubt he has enough money to live up to his promise of matching his April ad buys. He still has spend money on things that aren't TV ads.
In other foreign matters that may have an impact on the election. Those sanctions that the republicans and Isarelis's PM claimed weren't working, well they seem to be working and we might see a push for regime change in Iran. If this becomes more newsworthy, I expect that's going to help Obama with some voters.
Methinks you put too much weight on the media's interpretation of the debate. There are roughly 792 hours until the election, so I think it's unlikely focusing on just six of those will affect the outcome.
That said, if the media actually does their job this should wind up being seen as a loss for Romney as his lies are uncovered over the next few days. Whether the media will do so is another question entirely--Romney campaign is clearly banking on them not.
This shouldn't have been that big a surprise for Obama. Changing opinions at any time to win is Romney's M.O.
Maybe not. Candy Crowley's the moderator for the next debate. :?
They can matter as much as three percentage points in the polls IIRC. Whether that's due to a huge fuckup or just a really big win by one of the candidates I don't know if matters.
I think the issue is what they do to the narrative more than what they convince people of. Previous to this debate we had "Mitt Romney is terrible!" and now we have "Mitt Romney, keen debater!" which I'm hoping turns into "Mitt Romney, lyingest liar who ever lied a lie."
Problem with this analogy is that it doesn't matter who wins the game, it's all about how excited the crowd in the final seconds. Even if Obama goes for a big scoring play, and doesn't fumble, then everyone decides the game is over and heads for the parking lot. Romney scoring drives up turnout for both sides, so it's very questionable whether that's a "win" for him or not.
Can't that be countered by pointing at Obama leaving healthcare reform to congress?