Who won the Debate?

[AmericanNation]

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.

Exactly, Obama was terrible on offense against Romney.  Not surprisingly he's never been challenged on the straw mans he campaigns with, so Romney gained yardage every time Obama tried to run a play.  If this was football, Obama got shut out; he scored zero points, and probably had negative yards.  Romney was a very smooth machine that produced first down after first down.  

[AmericanNation]

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

CBS KN instant reaction poll: Big win for Romney. By 46-22 say think  won, 56% have better opinion of Romney, Romney cares up from 30 to 63

Romney will get a significant bump out of this.  CO, WI, NH, VA, and maybe IA will swing into Romney's favor.  OH is the only state left for Obama.  

[AmericanNation]

A very typical sort of Democratic way of losing. Obama spent most of the debate desperately trying to make the debate substantive and coming at Romney under the assumption of how Romney previously described his own policies. But whenever tax cuts were brought up, Romney basically just started denying his own plan in whatever way he could. "Tax cuts? Huh? Five trillion? Who? Me? I would never!"

It's a very bluntly dishonest way of performing in a debate but it's a frustratingly successful one because Obama can't have any response. How can you respond to someone who has such a sparsely detailed plan that he just changes it on the fly?

LOL, at Dems.  Obama wants to attack the technocratic guy with over ten times more details and specifics than him.  Hypocritical whining is all you got?  

[AmericanNation]

Nate Silver ran a post today talking about how the first debate usually helps the challenger. It's usually their final chance to put themselves and their ideas out there free of caricature from the other side. People think, "hmm, maybe he's not so bad after all." Mondale actually gained in the polls after his first debate with Reagan. But debates usually aren't the game changers they are made out to be, unless one guy just completely blows it out of the water/sucks it up.

Romney won, but not enough to shake up the race in any big way. And there's still two more debates to go, in which, historically, the incumbent comes back swinging.

Obama lost yardage every time he tried to go on offense.  Straw men are harder to sell when you aren't the only one on stage.  

[AmericanNation]

A very typical sort of Democratic way of losing. Obama spent most of the debate desperately trying to make the debate substantive and coming at Romney under the assumption of how Romney previously described his own policies. But whenever tax cuts were brought up, Romney basically just started denying his own plan in whatever way he could. "Tax cuts? Huh? Five trillion? Who? Me? I would never!"

It's a very bluntly dishonest way of performing in a debate but it's a frustratingly successful one because Obama can't have any response. How can you respond to someone who has such a sparsely detailed plan that he just changes it on the fly?

LOL, at Dems.  Obama wants to attack the technocratic guy with over ten times more details and specifics than him.  Hypocritical whining is all you got?  

Technocratic? Romney is a lot of things but he ain't technocratic. He proposes repealing Obamacare, but what to replace it with? No specifics, and two competing answers for that matter; on the one hand, it's a state issue, on the other, he'll actively replace it with something. What? We don't know. His tax cuts would cost roughly 5 trillion, how do you make up the money? He can't really say. Obama asks how he would avoid savage domestic spending cuts to make up for the cost, Romney just says "I won't do that." No, seriously, just trust him. Repeal and replace Dodd-Frank? With what, we don't know.

Each time Obama tried to establish, not what Romney's policies would affect as Obama saw them, but simply what Romney's policies self-descriptively are, Romney would just immediately deny whatever they were characterized as. We weren't having a debate over policy effects, because Romney continued again to be deliberately evasive on what his policies even are. It is ridiculous that a candidate is campaigning on shapeshifting policies that change from audience to audience, from sentence to sentence. It seems to display poorly on a candidate that doesn't seem to have the confidence in his own policies to even openly and specifically lay out what they even are, let alone defend them.

It is an effective strategy, but the least you could do is admit its cynical dishonesty.

Listen, the president who has yet to pass a full budget for a fiscal year (over 3 years without a budget) can not lecture a ticket with perhaps the two biggest policy wonks in American politics.  Romney could have knocked him out with this point, but probably held back because he didn't want to risk a big swing / he was winning by so much / and it's a stupid straw man anyway.    

[AmericanNation]

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.  

[AmericanNation]

You ever watch Talladega Nights? you remember when Ricky Bobby crashed and lost his mojo and that french dude went ahead in the races? this is what happen. Obama will get his balls back in the next debate but for now he needs to recover.

Ricky Bobby knew haw to race before the crash ...Obama would have to learn how to be a serious person from scratch.  

[AmericanNation]

My view - Romney won the debate, for a number of reasons...
a) Obama got off to a bad start, he looked annoyed and only got into his stride well after the half-way mark
b) Romney dropped a number of clangers (especially medicare) and Obama didn't touch them... I dont get it. Yes, don't be a prick... But don't be ... You know, the other either
c) Romney won the expectation war, Obama was set up to fail and add that Obama seemed flat and Romney looked more poised, so a blow out was pretty much destined from the start...

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.

yes the guy with less substance than the other guy won on substance.  Also the guy with the least amount of specifics raised a great point in bringing up the other guys specifics. 

[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.  

[AmericanNation]

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"?

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.

Right, he likes to pretend Romney "wrote off half the country" or "doesn't care about half the country" or "only cares about the rich"  all untruths (which weren't captured on tape, they are completely invented distortions) that Obama pedals in order to construct a strawman.  I personally find hanging your hat on complete distortions unserious and somewhat despicable.   Romney would not only be able/allowed to respond, but he was obviously well prepared and likely would have inflicted a lot of damage on BO.  The president takes huge risks every time he spouts unserious rhetoric because he looks really bad when/if Romney points it out.   

[AmericanNation]

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. 

Romney came in with something like a 10 to 20 point deficit in likeability and walked out up a point... That means he was more likeable in the debate or he was even but strongly appealing to the segment that changed their opinion of him on the likeability question (which would be a type of win/edge).     

[AmericanNation]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Obama is terrible when he's off his teleprompter. I expect that they'll give him an earpiece in the second debate like a hearing aid so that he can just say whatever they tell him to say.

His address after winning the Iowa caucus in 2008 was off teleprompter.

boy that's thinking on your feet.  All those tough questions and challenges from your opponent... O' wait, never mind