Free Republic

Forget about Barack Obama’s eagerly awaited emergence from his first debate coma: the biggest question about the second candidate confrontation centered on whether Mitt managed to maintain his undeniable momentum. After all, a flurry of pre-debate polls showed Romney as the newly minted frontrunner—especially a Gallup survey that gave him a commanding 50-46 percent lead among likely voters in all twelve swing states, including such purportedly impregnable Democratic bastions as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and (surprise!) New Mexico. Did the Mittster do anything to disrupt or accelerate his apparent progress toward a solid victory on Tuesday, Nov. 6, which is three...

Topic: Town meeting format including foreign and domestic policy Air Time: 9:00-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time Location: Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York (Tickets) Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates Participants: President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney Moderator: Candy Crowley (CNN Chief Political Correspondent) The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which citizens will ask questions of the candidates on foreign and domestic issues. Candidates each will have two minutes to respond, and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion. The town meeting participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup...

You’ve seen them in interactive focus groups, and most recently in the Town hall debate: The Undecideds. It makes a normal voter wonder, “Where in the heck to they find these people?” The answer was inadvertently revealed at by Domenico Montanaro in his interview with “undecided” voter Oliver Clark, one of the Town hall debate questioners … …the Sunday before last, I received a call from the Gallop Poll. They asked a few questions regarding my choice in the Presidential election. They asked who I would vote for. I said most likely I would be voting for Barack Obama. They...

That debate at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, was no town hall meeting. It was highly ritualized Kabuki Theater. To begin with, instead of just letting the first 5,000 people to show up into the Curb Event Center and taking questions from the audience at random, The Gallup Organization hand-picked 80 uncommitted voters from the Nashville area to participate. What’s this fetish the MSM has with uncommitted voters? Allowing a committed voter to ask a partisan question gives the candidate from the opposing party a chance to rebut a claim or make a case for a divergent position – and,...

When pro-Kerry commentators solemnly pronounce Debate Round 2 to have been "a draw" — you know George Bush won that round. The president won because he went in with a theme spoken by the heavyweight champion Joe Louis, just before his 1946 victory over the lighter, faster Billy Conn: "He can run, but he can't hide." (The Brown Bomber caught up with Conn in the eighth round of that first TV spectacular.) Bush's debate plan was to keep boring in on the Kerry record: flip-flopping this year on the war, but all too consistently liberal for 20 years on tax...