Posted on 10/06/2012 2:43:10 PM PDT by presidio9
The first presidential debate of 2012 is now behind us. The reviews suggest that many were surprised at how well Mitt Romney did and how weakly President Obama performed.
The Instant Polls conducted by CBS and CNN showed Romney as the big winner. In fact, CNN found that Romney emerged with the largest advantage from any debate since they began the instant debate poll three decades ago.
This leads to two questions. The first is: How much of a difference will it make?
As I noted last week, debates rarely have a major impact on a campaign, but a small shift could be decisive in a race as close as this one. Roughly 5 percent of all voters are still uncommitted to either candidate. Another 10 percent indicate they could change their minds. That's more than enough to change the race from a slight Obama advantage to a slight Romney edge.
That's especially true when the first debate focused on the key issue of Election 2012 -- the U.S. economy. Coming into the debate, 43 percent of voters gave the president good or excellent marks for handling the economy, while 46 percent said he had done a poor job. Those aren't great numbers, but the trend has been very good to Obama. The 43 percent who say he's doing a good job is up 2 points from a week ago, 8 points from a month ago and 13 points from a year ago.
Romney's comments in the debate were designed to have people rethink that assessment and reverse the trend. He said that the status quo "is not going to cut it" and talked of the need to find a "new path." He added that "under the president's policies, middle-income Americans have been buried. They're just being crushed. Middle-income Americans have seen their income come down by $4,300. This is a tax in and of itself. I'll call it the economy tax. It's been crushing."
Obama seemed less interested in defending his track record, telling the national audience, "The question here tonight is not where we've been but where we're going."
It will take a week or so to really see what impact all of this has on the polls.
But it also leads to a second question. How will the president perform in the second debate? Incumbent presidents often struggle in the first debate and do better in the second. Ronald Reagan may be the greatest example of this.
After a very poor performance in the first debate of 1984, many wondered whether Reagan's age had caught up with him. Walter Mondale and his team thought they had a chance. But the veteran performer turned it all around at the beginning of the second debate by pledging not to make his "opponent's youth and inexperience an issue" in the campaign. Even Mondale laughed, although he had to know his chances of winning the election disappeared at that moment.
Does Obama have a comeback like that in him? We'll find out on Oct. 16.
Until then, all we can say for sure is that Romney had a good first debate and the next four weeks should be a lot more interesting on the campaign trail.
That’s enough to make a Romney landslide possible. Plus, I keep hearing that they over poll democrats, not sure if that is accurate, but it’s what is being said.
“Again, he (Obama) will do just fine in the townhall format, where the primary objective is to feel the questioner’s pain.”
I agree as far as you went, but Romney ought to stick to what he does well.
In the debate, Romney responded to questions with details and numbers, especially when it came to healthcare and the economy. This is normally a turn off to people like reporters. But it was a breath of fresh air to the mass audience because we sensed that he personally had been in up to his elbows with health care legislation when he was governor of MA. He obviously had a better understanding of Obamacare than Obama ever did.
Romney’s genuine involvement really contrasts with Obama’s glibness, and even more with Barry’s disappearing act during the Libyan crisis.
Bobo thought he could show up to the debate and vote "present".
The candidates do not get to pick the questioners in a townhall format. The moderators do.
Me like.
seconded
I’m curious how the losers in past debates tried to spin it before the second one. I wasn’t paying as close attention then. Did Carter try to call Reagan a liar or disrespect him like O has been doing? O in my opinion, is coming across as mean and petty. “Mean” in the sense of small.
I don’t think you’ll get as many viewers for the rest of the debates either.
I don't know where you are getting your facts from, but numeous sources (both liberal and conservative) on the web recall Obama as having been a very competant president of the HLR. Furthermore, Laura Ingrham, herself a member of the Univeristy of Virginia Law Review spoke admiringly of his tenure there this week on O'Reilley. While Obama's record as a student at Occidental College is open to debate, there are numerous records and first-hand accounts from teachers, as well as conservative fellow students, that paint him as a dilligent model student there. He did not enroll at Harvard until he was almost 30, and had spent a few years working in the real world. Again, his race and his politics undoubtedly helped him get in. President of the Law Review is the top position at the school, competition for which is very competitve. His fellow students did not give it to him out of charity. Lawyers, even liberal ones, generally don't do charity.
Furthermore, there are Obama-written articles from the HLR available on the web. He did not contribute as EDITOR, and that is not uncommon.
I don't like being in a position of defending a guy I can't stand, but if you are going to criticize someone, you need to have your facts straight.
“Bobo thought he could show up to the debate and vote “present”.”
And about 20 minutes into the debate, the expression on his face said “may I please leave the room?”
I DO have my facts straight as to the changed criteria for becoming President of the HLR. I knew someone who’d held the post under the old requirements (and, amazingly,I didn’t learn that factoid from him, but from someone else). The first ‘diversity” president of HLR was an Asian woman; BHO was 2nd. He might have been a good student, but not THE top student as had been the requirement.
If you or Laura Ingraham or anyone else can find the first article he wrote for the HLR, please do post it. I know a lawyer who actually went through every HLR journal from that period (original source) and there was nothing, nada,zip. It was thought that he’d written one article prior to becoming editor. That is the extent of his legal scholarship. Think gruel.
All this speculation about how or if Obama could come back from the proverbial dead is becoming a tad bit... unsettling.
Everyone - especially his minders - knows that the kid is an arrogant, vacuous poser. Obama projects “you didn’t build that” upon productive Americans because he himself has accomplished nothing. He has been hoisted up and [precariously] balanced upon the enormous bubble of his ego and lies by a host of enablers, so he projects that everyone else is similarly situated and surely “had help with that.”
The bubble didn’t shrivel from a slow leak, it forcefully popped due to the unsustainable pressure from the falsehood within. The smug idiot riding on top plummeted to the ground without a parachute or safety harness to break the fall. He perceived them as unnecessary. Humpty Dummy is busted.
Therefore, in order for a resurrection to occur (or appear to occur), he’ll be happy to make a deal with this father. And that fellow, being a murderer from the beginning, would be eager to repair the little lad in exchange for say, an all-out war on those nasty people who have made the devil and his worshipers look bad.
Obama... exacting revenge upon the unbelievers and haters, those hostile entities who hate lies and embrace truth? You betcha. He may be lazy, but he can hold a grudge with an iron fist. A real Daddy’s boy he is, desirous to please and impress his pops. (Of course his father doesn’t give a **** about Barry and never has, but this is a big part of the psychology of sociopath Obama.)
Mitt had better 1) choose his own path wisely, and 2) nuke all of Humpty’s pieces from orbit, just to be sure.
“Mitt had better 1) choose his own path wisely, and 2) nuke all of Humpty’s pieces from orbit, just to be sure.”
#2 coming up shortly!
First, the prep work by Ryan. ;o)
Second, when you persist on making up the criteria for membership to the law review to fit your own personal fantasy. There is an academic requirement for membership, but the final selection is on a writing element that is anonymously judged by members of the editorial staff. Race has nothing to do with it. And anyone who says different sounds a lot like a sore loser to me.
Third, Laura Ingraham has made her career criticizing Barak Obama. She is intimately familiar with the selection process at the HLR, and it simply makes no sense that she would conceed this point.
Oh, and BTW, here is Obama's 1990 HLR article. Not that I agree with it, but it exists, and the HLR later confirmed that it was witten by him. So unless you think that the HLR is lying (ridiculously unlikely -there are plenty of Conservatives at HLR who would like nothing better than to embarrass the president), you are talking out of your ass.
Unopposed in that format, he might do very well. I believe that being in the presence of an obviously superior man will put a big damper on the town hall "debate" for Zero.
That's a good question - I mean, there's quite a few people who really don't want to watch their candidate get destroyed in a debate. After the first debate, they have got to be very nervous. OTOH, they would then be more susceptible to the MSM bases syphilitic ravings on obama's performance.
But in the end, they'll know their guy is a loser... ; )
with regards to your sandlot experience...there is an amazing, amazing, amazing poem by BH Fairchild about baseball pick up games that you simply must read. Talk about learning lessons of life in this context.
Here read this and get back to me with your impressions:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/body-and-soul/
It does have some strong language in it...but it’s all worth it.
(Then...you should consider putting YOUR experience as you described it into a column, or a short story or something....I really liked your post).
You are quite welcome. Glad to share it...I’m impressed that you nailed Commerce down so quickly!!
On my end, I also can hardly get through the lines about how the men refused to walk the young Mantle. They were post-war men, and this was what they had. That era sacrificed so much for us, and then they endured their post war lives in silence and dignity. I’m not certain that they didn’t carry around a lot of pain. And I find that thought incredibly poignant.
Fairchild, incidentally, is a genius. He’s probably not a conservative...but...he is a genius and he does love America in his own way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.