Posted on 10/17/2012 8:20:54 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
In my estimation, last night’s debate was a draw. Both men did what they needed to do for the debate, but neither had enough of a breakout performance to make much of a difference in the race. I’d expect to see very little impact to the Mitt-mentum that developed after the first debate, for reasons which I’ll address in a moment.
That wasn’t the conclusion reached by Frank Luntz’ focus group of former Barack Obama voters, and now undecideds, in Nevada. That panel overwhelmingly chose Mitt Romney as the winner, with observations about Romney’s presidential mien and Obama’s defensiveness and lack of vision for a second term. But one woman, whom (as Luntz jokes) bears a strong resemblance to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, neatly sums up the status of many undecideds, as well as Obama’s big problem with these debates:
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“I was not undecided between Obama and Romney. I was undecided between Romney and not voting.”
That’s the problem for any incumbent President in the final days of the election. They get almost four years to make the case for another term. If voters are still undecided with three weeks left to go, the best an incumbent can hope to do is convince them not to vote at all. That has been the explicit campaign strategy of Team Obama since Romney wrapped up the nomination in May — to make him so toxic that the protest vote against Obama stays home.
Unfortunately, that strategy collapsed after the first debate, and its collapse made the strategy obvious enough to be offensive. Last night, Obama finally decided to show some passion about wanting a second term, but he still hasn’t explained why he wants it or what he’ll do with it, even during last night’s debate. The only case he offered was that he wasn’t Mitt Romney, the same argument that Obama used before the first debate. And he spent most of the evening speaking with an oddly high-pitched tone, as if he was offended that he even needed to go that far.
Obama gave those undecideds no reason last night to vote for him or to stay home on Election Day. That’s why nothing that happened in the debate will change the trajectory of the race.
Meanwhile, if you’re unimpressed with a Fox focus group, you can always balance that out with MSNBC’s focus group of undecideds from last night. Final score there: Obama 1, Romney 1, with the other six abstaining from a choice until after the next debate:
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That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for an Obama victory claim.
Update: My Townhall brother Guy Benson says I should rewatch the MSNBC focus group:
Hey Ed, saw your post (I have one going up on the focus groups later, too)….I’d gently nudge you toward re-watching MSNBC’s. I think 1-1 and 6 undeclared is very generous to Obama. Two people explicitly said they’re going Romney, and another said she’s leaning towards him now. One girl said Obama, the others didn’t commit, but even the African American remained unsold on O. Just wanted to point that out!
I’d watch it again, but it seems to be down on the YouTube site for some reason. I relied more on the tally from the moderator of the group, but Guy may well be correct.
Obama did better than the last debate but he certainly did not win this one, he simply lost by a lesser margin than the last debate. And the Benghazi debacle did severe damage.
That's a win in Liberal-land.
Then O says he has streamlined legal immigration and there are more agents on the border than ever... huh???
“In my estimation, last night’s debate was a draw.”
How can it be a “draw,” idiot Ed, when the Kenyan bastard lied continuously from beginning to end?
He never said one truth.
But then again, it sounds like you are a liar too and wouldn’t know the truth if it stepped on your face.
On FoxNews last night immediately after the debate, they showed the official time and Obama actually got 4 minutes more time but somewhere in between last night and today it got changed to 2 minutes more time for Obama. I have seen it several times that it was 2 minutes more today.
Most of the comments are that he won the debate against his first debate. So he is a WEINER.
Most of them voted for him on ‘08 though.
The fact that Mitty was debating two opponents - Bammy and a supposedly neutral but antagonistic and ugly moderator - made Mitty look like an underdog under attack by both the president and a corrupt media. That it was two against one and Mitty still managed to fight them to a draw, if not outright win (which I think he did) makes him seem that much more cool, collected and in command.
Corrupt Candy trying to save Bammy’s bacon on Libya was just the icing on the cake - an unadorned and unspinnable episode of blatant, outrageous media bias for all to see.
It was a disaster for the 0 campaign, despite the yowling and howling of the liberal lapdogs. The very same lapdogs, by the way, who were charmed by Biden’s mugging and smirking.
You mean the "unbiased moderator"?
Thanks,...got to work thru that one.
When scoring debates, lies only count against the speaker when their opponent refutes them in the context of the debate.
Scored as a debate, one could easily justify the conclusion it was a draw. The aftermath, though, with Crowley’s intervention proved to be a lie on Obama’s behalf, probably puts it in the record books as a win for Romney (with an asterisk) on pure debate-scoring grounds.
As a political event, it went to Romney as both the Fox and MSNBC focus groups show. And that tilt will become more apparent as the number of lies Obama told becomes more apparent. I watched online via the BBC — I had some sort of glitch when connecting to C-SPAN — and bounced between actually watching and looking at the NYTimes “live fact-check” which, amazingly considering the source, supported Romney on every point, except for posting a stupid graphic of the $5 trillion dollar static scoring of Romney’s tax proposals with no accounting for the $25K deduction cut-off as if the cut in rates without broadening the tax base were the sum content of his proposals.
Romney was able to lay out substantive answers on the economy and that is what the focus group said would determine who they were voting for.
What specifics did Obama lay out to address: the 23 mill unemployed people, $16 trillion in debt, $4 gas, no budget in 3 years, the poverty rate at it’s highest since 1960’s, median incomes dropping 7.3% since taking office, 47 million on food stamps, and the doubling of the deficit?
Those were the questions that the focus groups and the undecideds were looking for and did not get from Obama and what they did get from Romney.
Ought to show up on many threads on the topic....
Should be a thread starter,....
See link at post #28.
Obama was awake this time, and if he ‘won’ it was by being more petulant, angry, agressive, and a liar.
But that is not the same as ‘persuasive’.
He can spin the BS all he wants but people know his record now.
Were there two debates last night?
The one I watched on c-span showed to me that Obummo did show up and talked back to the canddidate-in-charge.
Perhaps I should have changed channels and watched the other debate on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, et. al. Might have been less one sided than the one I saw!
“I’m still laughing at the guy who said, “Obama’s been bullshitting the people” and the word “bullshitting” got thru unedited!”
When that guy started talking I turned to my wife and said they better put this guy on a tape delay. You could see he was building to an emotive obscenity and he delivered beautifully.
It was done beautifully and so fit the whole debate scene and the media headlines ....
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