Is anyone else getting Deja Vu from 2012 tonight?

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Look at the similarities of the early debates:

1st Debate, 2012: Obama was very close to having the race completely locked up, perhaps even getting his 2008 margin all over again. The debate happens, he loses by a wide margin, and Romney gets a significant bounce.

VP Debate, 2012: Biden and Ryan both perform well, but Biden is viewed as the slightly better debater. Romney's bounce comes to a halt and even recedes slightly.

1st Debate, 2016: Trump was very close to becoming the favorite. The debate happens, he loses by a wide margin, and Clinton rebounds.

VP Debate, 2016: Kaine and Pence both perform well, but Pence is viewed as the slightly better debater. If Clinton's bounce halts/recedes slightly, this will be a repeat of 2012, just with the opposite party benefiting.

In the 2nd and 3rd debates in 2012, Obama came back with a vengeance, won convincingly in both debates, and won the election fairly comfortably.

This could mean that in the 2nd and 3rd debates in 2016, Trump comes back with a vengeance, wins convincingly in both debates, and wins the election. Since everyone knows Trump is stupid on FP, the media might "sympathy swing" that debate to him even if it's a narrow Clinton win.

Honestly tonight has made me start to worry again.

[Fusionmunster]

This is dumb.

[Nyvin]

No, because Obama was winning "before" the debate and lost the lead "after".   Trump never held the lead the entire time.

Also Obama was an incumbent so the debates naturally put Obama into the defensive position, while during these debates it's "mostly" Trump on defensive (so far).

[DrScholl]

Trump is not Obama.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

This is stupid, even for you.

[Orthogonian Society Treasurer]

[Yank2133]

No, because Obama was winning "before" the debate and lost the lead "after".   Trump never held the lead the entire time.

Also Obama was an incumbent so the debates naturally put Obama into the defensive position, while during these debates it's "mostly" Trump on defensive (so far).

He didn't even lose the lead.

On top of that Obama is a generational political talent and Trump is well Trump.

[Maxwell]

yeah... no. As much as we all liked Biden eviserating Ryan, it didn't really change the tide of that election.

and unlike Pence, Biden actually liked Obama and gave a sh**t whether or not he won.

[Dr. Arch]

Trump is not Obama.

1) Literally this, and, judging by Trump's behavior, he's probably going to bring up the infidelity issues in the next debate, which will bury him.

2) Clinton has always been solidly in the lead over the long term. This is something Obama had and Romney didn't.

3) The last debate is on foreign policy, which is HRC's best and Trump's worst.

4) The first debate was Trump's best chance, and he blew it.

[ApatheticAustrian]

depends on only 2 questions.

1) the dislike for HRC is still soooo big that a restrained trump would instantly becoming the frontrunnter again.

2) trump being even able to copy a pence style...and melting his former stands into this.

[Fargobison]

I'm not sure you can compare Biden to Pence.

Pence could die a death of a thousand fact checkers in the next few days.

Trump was the same Trump in debate #1 that he has always been. He needs to be something we haven't seen before to win. Obama just needed to recover from a bad debate, he didn't need to take himself to a level we've never seen before.

 

[Yank2133]

depends on only 2 questions.

1) the dislike for HRC is still soooo big that a restrained trump would instantly becoming the frontrunnter again.

2) trump being even able to copy a pence style...and melting his former stands into this.

She isn't popular, but the gap between her and Trump in terms of favorabilities is larger then the one between Obama and Romney.

[ApatheticAustrian]

She isn't popular, but the gap between her and Trump in terms of favorabilities is larger then the one between Obama and Romney.

you are absolutely right but something MUST going on or trump would not have been able to crawl back so many times.

either the polls are off or unpopular isn't enough to kill trump.

my hope would be that the undecided and the johnsonists are now converted....

[Yank2133]

She isn't popular, but the gap between her and Trump in terms of favorabilities is larger then the one between Obama and Romney.

you are absolutely right but something MUST going on or trump would not have been able to crawl back so many times.

either the polls are off or unpopular isn't enough to kill trump.

my hope would be that the undecided and the johnsonists are now converted....

He hasn't really crawled back. Clinton has consistently been ahead for the majority of the race, the only time Trump had the lead was during the RNC. Most of Trump's rising and falling numbers come from him doing better with the GOP, not with undecideds.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Obama crushed Romeny in the third debate

[OSR stands with Israel]

I would say 2012 was more similar to 2004

1st debate: Both challengers Kerry and Romney crush the incumbents Bush and Obama who both look lost and weak

VP debate: Both incumbent VP takes back the momentum from the challengers by winning their debates substantially

2nd debate: Bush and Obama both do much better against Kerry and Romney which makes them the favorites in the race once again

3rd debate: Bush and Obama crush the challenger Kerry and Romney and become heavy favorites for election after this debate

[HisGrace]

Obama crushed Romeny in the third debate

Yep. To be honest I didn't get the big deal about the first debate. Obama was a bit "low energy" and didn't seem like he wanted to be there, as others said, but it's not like Romney was oozing charisma and content-wise it was a draw. I thought the second one was a draw too. Obama killed it in the foreign policy debate, though, as you'd expect from a sitting president.

[pbrower2a]

Look at the similarities of the early debates:

1st Debate, 2012: Obama was very close to having the race completely locked up, perhaps even getting his 2008 margin all over again. The debate happens, he loses by a wide margin, and Romney gets a significant bounce.

Donald Trump never had the race nearly won. It was close to a tie. Trump did horribly. Subsequent polls suggest a collapse.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I doubt that Kaine or Pence did anything to lose core support -- or convince anyone who did not already lean toward Clinton or Trump. Pence was more ideological (as on abortion) and more willing to push special interests (coal). We shall see as the polling continues.

Pence is not as poor a VP pick as Ryan. Ryan had a House seat to defend while running for the VP spot, and he hedged.  

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I see evidence of a collapse for Trump in polls of Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. If you are to compare Donald Trump in 2016 to Barack Obama in 2012... Barack Obama said nothing offensive, and Donald Trump said much that could offend many of us. Trump furthermore got caught in some lies that he cannot undo.    

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The VP does not count that much. Think of 1988: Senator Lloyd Bentsen made the rhetorical equivalent of a punching bag out of Dan Quayle, and the elder Bush won in a landslide.  

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Barack Obama is a cautious, gracious, erudite speaker generally good at avoiding offense to people. Donald Trump is the near opposite in those aspects of political debate.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

What has The Donald ever said that convinces you that he can win convincingly in a debate? "Sympathy swing"? Not for the Presidency. One might show sympathy for a relative who has done some backsliding (like going off the wagon) who shows some repentance, but that sympathy is not enough to advise him to go into elective politics.

I can see an analogy between Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan with Hillary Clinton as the equivalent of George H W Bush. But Tim Kaine is definitely not the new Dan Quayle. Comparing Donald Trump to Mike Dukakis is a travesty; Dukakis had some political virtues.  

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Hillary Clinton wins, Democrats take back the Senate, and the House becomes a haven for reactionary obstructionists. We have seen that as the norm between 2011 and 2016.

What merits the worry?

[Ljube]

The Art of the Comeback.

[Higgs]

I sure hope it works out like this, really no reason to predict it will just because it happened in 2012 though.

[Saint Milei]

Obama just underestimated Romney

[OSR stands with Israel]

Obama crushed Romeny in the third debate

Yep. To be honest I didn't get the big deal about the first debate. Obama was a bit "low energy" and didn't seem like he wanted to be there, as others said, but it's not like Romney was oozing charisma and content-wise it was a draw. I thought the second one was a draw too. Obama killed it in the foreign policy debate, though, as you'd expect from a sitting president.

ironically in 04 Kerry beat Bush in the foreign policy debate while Bush beat Kerry in the 3rd debate which was about domestic policy

[OSR stands with Israel]

This is how bad that third debate was for Romney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfkOXQXdUjs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z0WrEb6p6I

[SteveRogers]

The main logical fallacy at play in the OP's reasoning is that Biden's debate performance in 2012 didn't cause Obama to come back with a vengeance in the 2nd and 3rd debate.  Sure, Biden's debate performance helped rally the base after the first loss and change the media narrative, but it was Obama's performance going forward that moved the polls. Nothing in your historical parallel here provides any plausible causal link that would indicate that just because Pence comported himself well tonight, Trump will stop being Trump on the 9th.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Obama crushed Romeny in the third debate

Yep. To be honest I didn't get the big deal about the first debate. Obama was a bit "low energy" and didn't seem like he wanted to be there, as others said, but it's not like Romney was oozing charisma and content-wise it was a draw. I thought the second one was a draw too. Obama killed it in the foreign policy debate, though, as you'd expect from a sitting president.

ironically in 04 Kerry beat Bush in the foreign policy debate while Bush beat Kerry in the 3rd debate which was about domestic policy

I remember that according to polls Kerry won all three debates. Not as decisively as the first one but still.