Who won the Debate?

[J. J.]

Obama ground his teeth; bad visual.

A good performance; surprisingly little ego.  

Mitten!

[J. J.]

Romney won by about 2:1 in football terms.

But Obama will probably do better in the 2nd and 3rd debate and fully attack Romney.

Every time Obama tried to attack, his numbers went down.

[J. J.]

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

They are doing the focus group later.  

Romney at 31.8% on Intrade.

[J. J.]

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.

[J. J.]

CNN focus group of undecided voters:

Romney had more high points.

5 to 16 Romney won.

8 to 8 split vote changes, which is Obama's best news tonight.

[J. J.]

CBS poll of undecided voters:

Winner:

46% Romney, 22% Obama.

Opinion of Romney:

More Favorable:  56%

Less Favorable:  11%

Cares about your probles:

Obama:  69%

Romney:  63%

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57525698/poll-uncommitted-voters-say-romney-wins-debate/

[J. J.]

Have to think this means several of them were already Obama voters..

CNN focus group of undecided voters:

Romney had more high points.

5 to 16 Romney won.

8 to 8 split vote changes, which is Obama's best news tonight.

No, they were all undecided.

[J. J.]

BUT - I think Obama won the substance war, problem being, style always trumps substance in these things.

I doubt anything beyond a Romney meltdown would have resulted in a win, but Obama deserves a lot of blame for allowing the perception of a bigger win that it actually was.

I think Romney did win the war of substance, in that he articulated how lowering unemployment would help the deficit and how lower taxes would help lower unemployment.  He offered a competing vision of America.

Now, if, within the fortnight, we get bad employment numbers (they are due Friday), it will validate that Obama has failed.  Either a static rate, and/or no growth in employment could be the one-two punch that knocks Obama out.  Conversely, good numbers could save Obama. 

[J. J.]

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. 

[J. J.]

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

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