Posted on 10/06/2012 11:48:20 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Wednesday night's presidential debate in which Mitt Romney shellacked Barack Obama attracted the biggest audience since the debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan seven days before the 1980 election..
About 70 million Americans watched, a little more than half the 131 million voter turnout in 2008. That's an estimate, because the ratings companies don't count those watching on C-SPAN, PBS or the Internet.
Did the debates matter? The first state polls, conducted by Rasmussen and We Ask America on Thursday night, suggest the answer is yes.
Rasmussen reported that Romney was down 1 point in Ohio. We Ask America had him up 1 there.
Rasmussen had Romney up 1 in Virginia. We Ask America had him up 3. And in Florida, We Ask America had Romney up 3.
These states are important because the Obama campaign has spent millions on anti-Romney ads there, to build a fire wall blocking Romney from getting to a 270-vote majority in the Electoral College.
The arithmetic is fairly simple. The 28 states plus D.C. and one Nebraska congressional district that Obama carried in 2008 have 359 electoral votes this year. Subtract Indiana, which has fallen off the target list, and the Nebraska district, and he's down to 347.
Subtract also the 15 electoral votes of North Carolina, which Team Obama hoped to contest but where it hasn't been spending much money lately, and you're down to 332.
Obama's next three closest states were Florida, Ohio and Virginia, which together have 60 electoral votes. In every other state he carried, he ran ahead of his 53 percent share of the national vote.
Up to the debate, the tristate strategy seemed to be working. Obama carried Florida by 3 points in 2008, and the realclearpolitics.com average of recent polls going into the debate showed him up 2 there.
Obama carried Ohio by 5 points and predebate polling had him up 5 (I've rounded off the percentages and rounded .5s to the lower integer). Obama carried Virginia by 7 points, and predebate polling had him up 3.
In contrast, predebate polls had Obama lagging further behind his 2008 showing in five other target states -- Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Not to worry, Obama strategists said. If we hold Florida, Ohio and Virginia, we've got 332 electoral votes, way more than 270. We can afford to lose the 35 electoral votes in those other five states.
But what if the fire wall doesn't hold? If the big three go for Romney, Obama is down to 272. If he loses one more state, he can join Al Gore on Current TV.
The Obama strategy didn't count on a debate performance like the one 70 million Americans watched Wednesday night.
As his dazed spin team pointed out, other incumbent presidents have stumbled in their first debates. But none ever had an instant poll report, as CNN's did, that the challenger won by a margin of 67 to 25 percent.
The fact is that for all his professions of bipartisan amity, Obama cannot bear to listen to tough questions or well-made counterarguments. He certainly hasn't had to in the 200-plus fundraisers he's attended.
On the split screen, we saw the same expression of irritation -- as if he smelled something really bad -- as we did when he faced tough questions from Fox News' Bret Baier, when he had to listen to Paul Ryan demolish his health care plan at the Blair House summit, when he was probed on his broken immigration promise by interviewers on Univision.
What we didn't see is the Obama who is supposedly fascinated by the details of public policy. Sans teleprompter, he repeated the talking points of his television ads, and, when Romney responded sharply, he had nothing to fall back on.
We saw the president who found it fitting to jet off to campaign in Las Vegas the day after the first murder of a U.S. ambassador in 33 years.
As you read this, you have more polling information than I do as I write. It's possible that the trend suggested by the Rasmussen and We Ask America results in Florida, Ohio and Virginia will not be confirmed by other polls. And there's a whole month till the election.
Obama will surely perform better in his next two debates. Romney may not perform as well. But the first numbers suggest the fire wall may be crumbling. We'll see if it holds.
What is really bothering me these days is the concept that our "President" is a filthy, disgusting, depraved individual.
I have read multi-sourced articles that all say the same thing: Barry Obama was a member of Rev Wright's "Down Low" Club for homosexual men and his campaign had 2 men murdered to cover it up.
Various leader in history have been homosexual, from Ernst Rohm to Caligula - and all of them are are full of horror.
How could we ever, ever, get to this place?
You can choose your own starting point, but we got there via the “Liberal ratchet”, one click at a time. America’s decadence is the end result of 60 odd years of social “progress”. Parole for murderers, no fault divorce, gay rights, abortion on demand, add your own...
We didn’t fight back, in some cases we even approved. Each click of the ratchet brought us closer to where we are now. But each click, even the most disgusting, were considered relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things, so they didn’t raise any alarms.
We have ourselves to blame.
Obama’s record sucks. No getting around that. Romney will hammer on the last 4 years and the fact Obama has no plan going forward - except to tax the rich.
The tax the rich thing is funny, because twice in the last 4 years, Obama could have vetoed spending bills which extended the Bush Tax Cuts, but both times balked. Romney used Obama’s own words against him- that you can't increase taxes during bad economic times; and right now is worse that when Obama said that.
I am expecting another great debate for Romney and an angry, combative attack mode debate from Obama. It will backfire. People can finally see what he is really made of. Bring it!
(BTW, Ryan / Plugs should be fun this week too!)
“I am expecting another great debate for Romney “...
Gotta’ agree. Romney is like a fighter with all the necessary skils who only has to wait to see what his opponent does and adjust his own response accordingly. Obama looks good shadowboxing but he won’t be fighting a shadow when the bell rings.
there is little doubt
What I saw on stage last week was a 40-point IQ difference.
The truth is (at least as far as we can tell from that debate) is that "Obama" is a dope, which means that all the praise for him by those who supposedly know him is a big fat heap of lies.
THAT means that the whole "Obama" phenomenon is manipulation, from beginning to end.
THAT means that others, who we don't get to see, are running the government.
And THAT means that we'll be lucky to get out of this without tears, because "Obama" his own self isn't the real problem.
“What I saw on stage last week was a 40-point IQ difference.”
40 easy. Maybe 50 or even a little more.
As Clint noted, the Empty Chair improved by codetoad:
ROMNEY LOST THE DEBATE! OBAMA IS IN CONTROL!
It is past time to fire Barack and his empty chair and have both of them hit the road back to Chicago!
So hit the road Barack and take your empty chair and empty suit with you!
As Clint noted, the Empty Chair improved by codetoad:
ROMNEY LOST THE DEBATE! OBAMA IS IN CONTROL!
It is past time to fire Barack and his empty chair and have both of them hit the road back to Chicago!
So hit the road Barack and take your empty chair and empty suit with you!
I agree with your assessment of Obama’s lack of intelligence, decency, and common sense. Clint Eastwood’s comment in his interview with the Carmel, CA newspaper, “Obama is the biggest hoax perpetrated upon the US citizens ever.” is right on target.
BTTT!
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.