The Democratic ticket won all 4 debates, so I don't see how it hurt them.
I knew you'd be one of the two people voting Obama/Biden. I wonder who the other blindly partisan person is?
Romney is the obvious answer. Frankly I'm mystified as to why the first debate moved his numbers on such a historic scale. It seems as if voters were looking for an excuse (any excuse) to embrace the challenger and when they found one after the first debate, they rushed to his camp.
That would be a logical thing to happen if Obama was an unpopular incumbent like Carter was in 1980. But with his approvals hovering around 50% and the fundamentals trending favorably (economic growth-albeit slow, booming stock market, falling unemployment, unpopular wars winding down) I would have expected a much more modest effect on his numbers.
If anybody can offer me a non-hack explanation ("OMG, RACISM!!!" or "Illegitimate Kenyan Socialist Obumbler was xposed to Amurica!!!") then he is more than welcome.
I think there was a significant group of voters who likely weren't going to vote Obama in any case as they had already made up their mind about Obama, but weren't certain whether Romney would be a sufficiently better option as to be worth the bother of voting for. The first debate thus served as a catalyst that caused these potential Romney voters to become firm Romney voters. Even if the Obama/Biden team had won all four debates, there likely would have been a mild Romney bounce as some of those potential Romney voters would have found what they were looking for. It's why in general challengers love debates and incumbents loathe them. Obama's disastrous first debate performance allowed for almost all of the potential anti-Obama voters to find a reason to support Obama's challenger at the same time.
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