Who won the Debate?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Alright, let's just return to reality for a minute here... nobody 'wiped the floor' with anybody.

Obama was disappointing and flat, Romney was better than he was in all of the GOP primary debates... The Romney people did an extraordinary job of ensuring that Obama could only 'win' in an extreme circumstance. But Romney could have still 'lost' so I'll certainly give him and his team credit for that.

I don't know how anyone is genuinely surprised by the outcome... Obama is not a great debater, Romney has had months to work on this and is a smart guy... I should stress I'm not making excuses for Obama, because he should have been better than this.

Hopefully, this serves as a wake-up call to the president...

Obama was a great debater in 2008, and he is supposedly running against a Mitbot. 

Clinton got his wake up call in 1994.  Obama put the alarm on doze. 

Then we saw a different Obama in 2007/8...

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

As long as we're grading their performances, I'd call it a B+ vs. a C-. Romney was energized, aggressive, all while still being respectful, and seemed informed and caring. Obama was bland, didn't really hit back, and countered few if any of Romney's claims. This was Romney's best performance of the campaign. If only he'd been able to include a few details for his plans and policies, Romney could have knocked this one out of the park. (And if he hadn't made that inane Big Bird comment.)

[J. J.]

Then we saw a different Obama in 2007/8...

The little engine thought it could, but realized it couldn't?

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Then we saw a different Obama in 2007/8...

The little engine thought it could, but realized it couldn't?

That was like a Politico level of unrelation to the point, but that's unsurprising of late...

[Politico]

Alright, let's just return to reality for a minute here... nobody 'wiped the floor' with anybody.

Obama was disappointing and flat, Romney was better than he was in all of the GOP primary debates... The Romney people did an extraordinary job of ensuring that Obama could only 'win' in an extreme circumstance. But Romney could have still 'lost' so I'll certainly give him and his team credit for that.

I don't know how anyone is genuinely surprised by the outcome... Obama is not a great debater, Romney has had months to work on this and is a smart guy... I should stress I'm not making excuses for Obama, because he should have been better than this.

Hopefully, this serves as a wake-up call to the president...

Obama was a great debater in 2008, and he is supposedly running against a Mitbot. 

Clinton got his wake up call in 1994.  Obama put the alarm on doze. 

Yeah, Clinton was smart enough to consult with Dick Morris. Obama simply surrounds himself with Chicago sycophants who bought into the hype.

[Franzl]

Obama on substance, but clearly Romney on putting on a show, and that's what counts with the American voters.

So Romney gets a moderate bounce, I agree.

[Cobbler]

Romney, definitely. He came off as very prepared and as a viable alternative to the President, while Obama seemed like he was tired and didn't want to be there.

[TheGlobalizer]

Romney took Obama to the woodshed.  Keep in mind that this is the first look at the matchup for a lot of casual voters.  This will alter not just votes but LV composition / enthusiasm.

I expect we'll see some Romney +2 - +5 national polls within a week.  If he came out with a plausible immigration reform package, he could end this.

(I'm still voting for Gary Johnson.)

[BlueSwan]

If you read a transcript of the debate, you'd probably be puzzled to learn that Romney was considered the overwhelming winner.

This was all about style. Romney had far more positive body language. Was often speaking directly to the camera. Was speaking far more enthusiastically. Obama looked defeatish, was squirming, didn't look like he wanted to be there. Romney won COMPREHENSIVELY on style, and style is what gets you debate wins in these types of TV "debates".

[Grumpier Than Thou]

Romney was the obvious winner. This one's coming down to the wire, fellas.

[Silent Hunter]

Romney (although I accidentally clicked Obama), but not massively. I found myself agreeing far more with Obama on the substance.

Remember that Obama has to do a full-time job as well as run for re-election; Romney doesn't.

[BlueSwan]

Remember that Obama has to do a full-time job as well as run for re-election; Romney doesn't.

There's no doubt that Romney was better prepared, but Obama didn't lose because he wasn't well enough prepared. He lost this big primarily because of his body language. It doesn't take too much preparation to at least seem excited about ones own plans and seem excited to be able to address the american public. This is where Obama failed the worst.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I didn't watch it. But it's fairly clear from the reactions here that Rhymney won.

[Badger]

I didn't watch it. But it's fairly clear from the reactions here that Romney won.

[AmericanNation]

He didn't even bring up the "47%" remarks. Romney was clearly much more energized and ready for this.
 They might be able to stop Mitt's momentum in the VP debate next Thursday however.

Joe Biden is going to beat Paul Ryan?? I mean you really can't expect that to be an outcome with a chance of happening...  maybe a 5-10% chance?  Biden needs to try to tie or not lose big, best shot at it.  

I've been watching MSNBC people say things like "He didn't even bring up the "47%" remarks" or "He had so much to go after Romney with".  Also, this weird line about Romney not being specific or "abandoning his plan", than they will mention that Romney was way to wonky to really connect to regular people.  

This is a really interesting thing to observe because you have the 'leftist press' confronted with reality and it seems like their is a chance that they will figure things out, but then they cling to the last weak 'lefty lies' you possibly can.  

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.  The leftists are really saying: "if only Obama would suspend reality and say empty platitudes that magically made everything better, than he would have won."  It would have been like when Obama lied about tax credits for moving a factory over seas... Romney could just set up his expertise on the subject, outline some facts and hammer Obama with a "I don't know what you're talking about."  

Than they are on this tax plan thing as if they actually think Romney hasn't been running on a revenue neutral tax cut/reform plan for over a year and a half.  Do they believe their own propaganda?  Do they really think Romney was cutting taxes on the rich and raising them on the middle class?  

Than they grasp at the flimsiest line about "details".  Romney knew the ins and outs of everything, Romney is a technocrat who has a team of guys running 100 models and simulations on everything, whereas Obama kinda wanders awkwardly without displaying any firm grasp of anything.  

[krazen1211]

You do all realize that Obama will probably win the instapolls right?

Lol.

[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"?

[krazen1211]

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.

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Every time he did, the CNN dial rating dropped.

Can someone link to these dial ratings?

[Silent Hunter]

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.

[Eraserhead]

You do all realize that Obama will probably win the instapolls right?

Lol.

Yeah, I was wrong about that, but people do generally like to have their initial opinions reinforced (and most people were expecting an Obama victory). I was definitely surprised by the poll results. But I did caveat what I said with a "probably" for the record.

[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.

[krazen1211]

http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollPrint.aspx?g=9ace0839-f6ed-4a7f-8889-7392b50b1dea&d=0


Bay Area:

Romney 41
Obama 38

[ZuWo]

Substance aside, Romney came across as more likeable, which is probably the most surprising result of this debate. He made a dynamic and energetic impression, while Obama looked annoyed at times.

[Eraserhead]

Substance aside, Romney came across as more likeable, which is probably the most surprising result of this debate. He made a dynamic and energetic impression, while Obama looked annoyed at times.

I really don't agree with that one and even the instapoll showed an even split on the likability question. To each his own though, I guess.