Just how bad is the damage?

Salon ^ | October 4, 2012 | Steve Kornacki

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Let’s get the obvious out of the way:Barack Obama lost last night’s presidential debate. The question is how badly it will hurt him.

Heading into last night,the president enjoyed a lead of 3.1 points in the Real Clear Politics polling average. The margin was roughly consistent with where the race has been since Romney secured the Republican nomination in the spring,but it did reflect a slight tightening over the past week. But the immediate verdict from voters who watched the debate was clear,with 67 percent saying Romney fared better in a CNN flash poll,compared to just 25 percent for Obama. In CBS’s poll of undecided voters, Romney was the victor by a 46-22 percent spread.

Over the next few days,Romney stands to reap some significant benefits from what happened in Denver:

* The best press coverage of his life. Well,that’s probably overstating it, but Romney is in for the most favorable stretch of media treatment he’s received as a general election candidate. Since late August, when Republicans staged a dud of a convention,Romney has been portrayed as a candidate in decline, and Obama as a resurgent front-runner. There was good reason for this. Democrats put on perfectly choreographed convention, Romney suffered through the release of the devastating “47 percent” video,and polls confirmed that the momentum was squarely on Obama’s side. Anything short of a clear victory by Romney on Wednesday would have perpetuated this narrative. But he turned in the performance he needed (with a huge assist from a bafflingly docile Obama) and has given the media a new storyline: Romney’s back in it – now we have a real race! At least for the next few days,it will be Romney who is treated as the candidate on the rise,and Obama as the one desperately seeking to contain the damage..............

[TangoLimaSierra]

but there would not be a 16 TRILLION national debt.

No doubt. My point was that the same figures would have been manipulated with a different formula to hurt Repubs.

[The_Reader_David]

The response is: He plans to cut rates across the board, and cap deductions — he talked about an aggregate cap on deductions, not eliminating deductions. Many in the middle class, esp. in the lower middle class, will not be affected by the cap on deductions, but will still see their rates, and thus their taxes drop. The cap on deductions will mostly prevent upper income earners from shielding their income from taxation.

As an aside, I’d prefer a more radical version of Romney’s idea: a cap on the amount of personal income excluded from taxation at the normal rates by any means (though obviously business expenses would remain fully deductible, since only the profit, not the revenue is actually income and I’d leave charitable contributions uncapped — we need to support the civil society, the ‘space between government and the individual’), I’d apply the cap to the total amount of deductions (other than charitable contributions and business expenses), plus tax exempt income, plus the amount of tax credits divided by the taxpayer’s marginal rate, plus the amount effectively shielded from taxation by favorable lower tax rates on classes of income (I don’t feel like working out the formula this morning).

[depenzz]

Exactly-— 100%

[Obadiah]

LOL!!!

[GeronL]

After last night I think the Obama “base” has shrunk a bit

[Mountain Mary]

The base for Romney has been energized bigtime.
I just contributed to campaign Mittens this morning...never thought that would happen in a million years.

[nanetteclaret]

***the real loser was the MSM. They were exposed as complete sycophants.***

Watch for them to turn on him. They now smell blood in the water.

[commish]

Post debate, every CNN commentor and Stephanie Cutter, whom they interviewed, said that Romney wasn't specific. But the way they said it was forced. Anderson Cooper seemed to be saying it as an afterthought, like oh, yeah, I forgot that I was told by the Obama team before the debates to say 'Romney wasn't specific.'

I actually thought the exchange where Obama charged Romney with not being Specific was one of the key ones of the night.

Romney's reply was basically "I am not required to be specific, as President I will say 'this is what I want to do' and then will sit down with congress and figure out the best way to do it."

[Daveinyork]

I hope you’re right. If so, that means the pollsters will have to do even more oversampling of Dems.

[depenzz]

Thanks for the good laugh this morning, I find that picture very funny. You could use many captions with it or nothing at all. Thanks again.

[arbee4bush]

Thanks-I am better debating conservative principles and social issues. Taxes/numbers are harder for me to grasp and thus debate.

[patton]

Windows in office building no longer open.

Guess why?

[Bigg Red]

People who were planning to vote for Obama are not going to change their minds, and in fact many of them are claiming that Obama won the debate, and that Romney told a bunch of lies, irrational as it might sound, but they are irrational people. Therefore, I don’t think the debate will have much, if any, effect on the election.

&&&
Exactly. As I said on another thread, I cannot believe any more than 20-80 voters changed their minds because of the debate. The percentage of 0bama voters who even watched was probably 10% or less.

[ladyjane]

President Xanax just doesn’t cut it.

This in the New York Times? Very damning statement about a president. Perhaps he knows something the rest of us only suspect?

[Cboldt]

-- Romney said: "Listen, I've been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you're talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant. The idea that you get a break for taking jobs overseas is simply not the case." --

It depends on what "getting a tax break" means. I think what Obama is saying is that the taxes overseas are lower than in the US, so it's attractive for businesses to move overseas. So, he's going to save jobs by raising taxes? Maybe save jobs overseas, but not in the United States.

[ken5050]

Bingo..the only thing MORE important to the MSM than their ideology is their vanity..the need to seem correct on all things...it will become very difficult for them in the next few weeks to continue the fiction that Obama’s win in inevitable..

[patton]

I can’t remember where I read it, but I always loved this exchange:

“What kind of obsequious sychophant are you?”

“What kind of obsequious sychophant would you like me to be?”

[Fawn]

I stole it off of Facebook....feel free to use and post everywhere!

[PapaBear3625]

If his handlers decide it was so bad that they don’t think he’ll do much better next debate, there will be drone attack in Libya to show everyone how presidential Obama is & that he’s been distracted by more important things than debates.

Yes. Expect the Middle East to blow up sometime in the next few weeks.

[KC_Conspirator]

I disagree with your assessment on the conventions, but agree with much of what you say.

This is the first time most American voters got to see Romney unfiltered and not just being attacked in the press or lied about in a 30 second attack ad. Most people liked what they saw; a presidential looking man.