First and foremost I do think it was a close debate, but Romney won. CNN's poll says 67% of the public thought Romney had the better night- doesn't mean the debate wasn't close. 100 people watch a 4 point football game, and you ask them afterwards, which was the better team, and some will indeed think that the better team lost, but most will say that the team winning by 4 was better. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a close game, and think the same thing applied to tonight's debate. If it'd been a boxing match, it would've been a split decision, or maybe a unanimous one with one or two of the judges scoring the bout very close. But by no means a KO or TKO. In fact, a CBS poll gave it to Romney, 46-22-32, and a real time Google poll had Obama winning. Point being, Romney did win, but by no means was it a blowout.
Another point worth making is that most of the debate polls were taken of undecided voters, many of whom may have been looking for literally any reason in the world to vote for Romney- and many of whom, likely would've voted for him on election day, anyway. In this respect, many of them were already predisposed to like Romney.
I thought each candidate did a pretty good job of laying out what he would do as president. And I thought there were points where Obama beat Romney, hands down, and vice versa. Romney simply had more of these moments than Obama did. I also think Romney benefited a little bit from the gain-loss effect, in which the public's opinion heading into the debate was that Obama would win. Thus, any time Romney looked Presidential, I think that in the minds of a lot of people watching who were unfamiliar with him, he got a little "extra credit"- but that is, indeed, a one trick pony, to whatever extent Romney benefited.
Also, first debates, in general seem to favor the challenger. I think there are more than a few reasons why this is the case. The first is, as many observed, 'rust'. Obama hadn't debated in 4 years, and it showed. Romney's spent the last year being attacked from all sides on everything, and knows by now how to fend off an attack or two. Other reasons include the fact that Obama, in order to win, needs to run on his record; Mitt, as is the case with most challengers, either has no record, or a record so obscure or distant in people's memory, that he can say or be whatever he wants. Which Mitt shows up for the debate- centrist Massachusetts governor Mitt, or plutocrat puppet Mitt...or maybe it's the pander to born again Christians Mitt? No one knows until he actually starts debating. This makes preparation a little difficult. Mitt meanwhile, knows exactly who he'll be debating, and exactly how Obama will answer just about every question. This is an advantage Mitt won't have for the remaining debates: people will remember the centrist Massachusetts governor who showed up for tonight's debate, and if he's noticably absent from the remaining debates, they likely won't give him the nod, come November. If, as is more likely, the same guy shows up for the next debate that showed up for this one, Obama will now be able to 'peg' him, where he previously could not. Simply, Obama isn't the first, and likely won't be the last president to suffer from a lack of aggression in the first debate as an incumbent.
It'll be interesting to see how, if at all, the debates affect the polls. One thing I noticed was that, during the debates, a group of undecided swing voters in Colorado were having responses measured. It didn't escape my attention that the gender gap was still very much present. Going into the debates, Obama had up to 50% in several swing state polls- enough to give him an Electoral majority. The problem that this poses for Romney is that, if the polls are true- and in the weeks leading up to an election, polls have a way of reverting to the eventual electoral percentages, especially when averaged, unless Romney can get some voters to reconsider, all the gap closing in the world won't matter: he can't beat Obama 51%-50%; the first guy to 50% usually wins. This means that even with a "bad" debate performance, if Obama can simply reassure his base that he'll keep his promises if re-elected, all that he really needs to do in any debate is avoid the knockout.
It's also worth pointing out that debates don't really move the polls that much. Most people don't watch them, and most of the ones who do already have their minds made up. The Kennedy-Nixon debate is well documented as an example where a candidate used the debate to win the presidency, but there were 4 of them, and Nixon won: 2-1-1. He lost the election because he ran a horrible campaign down the stretch, campaigning literally everywhere, while Kennedy catered to his base voters, and areas likely to give him lots of votes, and in states that would ultimately matter. He also made good use of surrogates like LBJ and Richard Daley. Nixon foolishly treated every state and every voter as equal. In 1980, Reagan was already leading Carter, who was unpopular and leading a badly fractured Democratic party. The debate was more of a requiem for Carter than a swan song. It can be argued that George Bush lost as few as 4 and as many as all of his 6 debates with Kerry and Gore...it didn't matter, and most people think his father lost 2 of the 3 against Dukakis. I'm not saying it won't matter this time around, but past is prologue, and Mitt still has a women voter problem, as was evidenced by the response measurements, and he'll still need to explain to Ohio voters why the bailout was such a boondoggle, and he'll still need to close the, by some estimates, 5-1 early voter gap in Iowa. Or else, all the changing in the world- unlikely is it would be- won't matter either.
Mitt's other problem is the Etch a Sketch thing. Nearly every commentator who thought that he won also pointed out that he all but abandoned the tax, education, and health care platforms that he'd been running on for the past year. Obama lost the debate becuase, while he pointed this out, he didn't clobber Mitt with it- and if Obama goes 4 more weeks without telling this to voters, he'll lose, and more importantly, he'll deserve it. But I don't think he's that stupid or that incompetant. He got Mitt to do two things tonight, in winning, that Obama can use against him later: He got Mitt to double down on running away from what he'd previously said on each of these issues; then he got Mitt to deny that he ever said otherwise. This is an easy fact check, and all Obama really needs to do is run an ad of Mitt talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Obama's spent the better part of the last year painting Romney as a guy who is a puppet for rich plutocrats, and who'll say literally whatever it takes to get elected. If I were Obama, I'd use tonight's debate and employ a rope-a-dope. Mitt literally spent two hours tonight out debating Obama, but in doing so, possibly out debating himself. He wants voters to gut Obamacare, and support the plan he employed in Massachusetts: unfortunately, he's forgetting the part where they're the exact same plan. Obama needs to ask Mitt to explain why, if Obamacare's so bad, he'd essentially replace it with its own clone.
On education, Mitt wants to do what Massachusetts did- under Deval Patrick. And again, he failed to mention that it's what Obama is already doing. And he supported this plan in tonight's debate, while simultaneously advocating the voucher program which was in direct contrast to what Patrick did. He simply can't have it both ways.
Either Obama was a failure because he attempted, on a national level, what Mitt did for Massachusetts, and it didn't work, and now America should hire Mitt because they think he'd do a lesser job of mismanaging; or America should hire Mitt Romney because they think he'd do a better job of doing what Obama's already succeeded at doing. If Mitt can sell that, he'll make a damn good President.
Finally, there is simply not enough math in the world to explain how cutting taxes for the rich doesn't increase the deficit- unless he wants to raise taxes for the poor and middle class, as he'd previously advocated, or cut Social Security. Now he's saying he'll cut taxes for everyone, but somehow thinks the deficit will magically take care of itself; yet, when pressed about which programs he'd cut, he's repeatedly demurred.
Obama needs to reiterate Clinton on this. The American people can have any two of these three options: 1. cutting the deficit; 2. Bush tax cuts for the rich or the poor and middle class; or 3. Medicare and Social Security cuts. But they can't have all three. The math just doesn't add up. In fact, Obama needs to point out that this is exactly what America tried under Bush, and it blew the deficit to a record high- so bad, in fact, that Obama has cut it each of the 4 years he's been in office, and will likely cut it again in 2013, and still has run up a bigger deficit than all of the previous Presidents, combined.
What this means, is that Mitt is either a) incompetent; b) lying; or c) so great of a politician that he can out-Bush George W. Bush, while simultaneously out-Obama-ing Barack Obama. Obama needs to point this out to the public. If they think c, then Romney's their man; if it's a, then Obama's likely the winner going away. But if most Americans find themselves somewhere in the middle, they need to ask Romney which of the three items above he'd cut. He's lambasted the deficit, and getting rid of the Bush cuts for the rich is a non starter. This really only leaves two options: raise taxes on the poor and middle class, or cut Medicare and Social Security. In the debate, Mitt said he'd keep taxes where they're at, and maybe even cut them. His vice Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, has, on multiple occasions, advocated privatizing Medicare and Social Security. So, Mitt has a little explaining to do, there. And if he really wants to take the privatization route, then Obama needs to point out that if we'd have done that, in 2005, like Bush had wanted, when the market lost half its value in 2008, our seniors would've gone broke. That's the point Obama needs to make: that Mitt would have America put Granny in the poor house so that a handful of millionaires can save a nickel on every dollar that their Apple stock went up.
If Obama can make these points over the next 4 weeks, he'll keep his job. If he can't explain to America why he should keep his job, the same thing will happen to him that happens to anyone else who can't explain why they should keep their job. In other words, regardless of how bad last night was for him, it's still his race to lose.
