Who won the Debate?

[Brittain33]

Obama was meh, Romney was energetic and the only obvious gaffe was joking about firing Big Bird. This was a very necessary lift for Republicans who were going to vote for him anyway, and will firm up some undecideds.

It was mostly a very boring debate and I'll be shocked if it's a game changed, if only because this feeling of enthusiasm from seeing your maligned candidate express himself fluently and effectively on tv is very familiar to me from 2004, and Kerry still lost.

Obama doesn't seem to be a good debater. Fortunately, like Bush and unlike Romney, he's a good campaigner with a large and devoted base.

This is the first good night our Republicans have had since Paul Ryan was named and we had polls showing WI was a toss up. Enjoy it.

[Brittain33]

I hardly think it would have been a good idea for Obama to go too aggressive, that can backfire.

Every time he did, the CNN dial rating dropped.

Indeed, going hard negative on Romney was not an option.

[Brittain33]

At the end of the day, Romney is still Romney, his policies are still the same and there was no game changer in the debate. Romney's win is that he made it through the debate without giving the opposition any fodder to use against him.

It may be a game changer.

When in the past several decades has a first debate ever been a 'game-changer'?

Didn't it bring 2004 from a Bush lead to a virtual tie?

Check it out at RCP's graph. It's a little confusing because Bush's convention was late, but it reduced Bush's lead to 2 points from more.

[Brittain33]

Also, you people remember John Kerry right? He blew Bush out of the water is a much more undisputed way in his first debate with him and still lost.

Kerry may have won on certain style points, he certainly didn't have a substance edge anywhere close to the blowout Romney just ran up.  

That's exactly backward on pretty much every point.

[Brittain33]

I can be pretty emotional, and I was blasé about this last night and equally so this morning. If I weren't, I'd have taken a break from here. But let's break down what we know:

Romney won the debate. He was energetic and articulate and controlled the time flow. Obama looked tired and disengaged.

Romney cut off the "loser" narrative. He invigorated Republicans who had written off his candidacy (you can see that here--The Vorlon is back, and J.J.'s posing volume is way up) and this will pay dividends among donations and volunteer work. A lot of people who were going to vote for him apathetically are now back in the game because he doesn't seem like such an awful standard bearer for his team.

But what else happened?

Obama lost by looking dull, but he didn't make any gaffes or give Romney anything he can hang on to. This is important. What's Romney going to say after this debate about Obama? Obama didn't "admit" something he shouldn't have, he didn't make any failed attacks, he didn't look angry or testy. He was a non-entity. That made Romney look good, but it didn't give him anything he can ride other than that he won the debate. That's too meta.

Romney gave Obama some powerful ammunition. If we don't hear Obama say "You can't close the federal budget deficit by firing Big Bird" in the next few days, I'll eat my hat. It plays into every stereotype about Romney that the Dems have so successfully tarred him with. Similarly, he agreed he was voucherizing Medicare. Obama will use that, as well. I repeat my above point - what did Obama hand Romney that he can then use?

Romney did well by shaking the etch-a-sketch. This was a good thing for Romney - he needed to stop campaigning as a tea partier and run as a moderate. It was the right thing to do. It also threw Obama off his game because suddenly Romney was running against his ridiculous tax plan (which, let's be honest, would never be passed anyway), bragging about Romneycare, bragging about his record in Massachusetts. This will give conservatives some pause but they will forgive him because he's doing better. However, he didn't put to rest the questions about his tax plan not adding up.

People still don't like him and find him dishonest. Romney did well because this was a forum for him to issue pure, unfiltered bull[Inks]. Which is what politicians do. But unlike George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, who had licenses from the media to do that and get away with it because they were so good, Romney is still hated by the media and considered a liar. He's going to get fact-checked if he tries to keep running with some of his misrepresentations, and the same people who were pleasantly surprised by his performance are going to be brutal in their return to form.

He didn't sway the undecideds. Mostly because the undecideds right now are not easy to reach and aren't looking for the same things as a disillusioned Republican. But the polls showing Romney won the debate are also saying undecideds split or didn't care.

We've seen this picture before. This is exactly what happened with Kerry. I came out of the debates in 2004 thinking, wow, I'm really proud of this guy, he's smart, he's got the potential to go the distance. We know how that ended.

[Brittain33]

Obama didn't bring up the 47% thing because Romney was standing there. You can't use despicable strawmans when the guy is allowed to respond.

How is referring to the guy's own words captured on videotape, completely in context, a "despicable strawman"?

[Brittain33]

All good points, brittain33. Bringing up 47% would have been a risky gamble; it could easily have backfired and allowed Romney to go on about poverty.

I have to think Obama chose not to go with any of his previous attack lines because Romney's debate prep would have outfitted him with good responses, and Obama would prefer to make those attacks on the campaign trail where Romney can't reply directly, seeing how effective Romney was in this format.