Charlie Cook: First Debate is reason why Romney is still in the race

[WI_DEM]

First Debate Gave Romney a Chance
Charlie Cook: "A strong performance in that first debate would have probably closed the sale for Obama. Instead, his lackluster showing shifted a bunch of voters who had seemed to be drifting gradually in his direction back into neutral, with some reversing course and moving into Romney's column."

"This race is still a challenge for Romney. Although tied nationally in this new NBC/WSJ and most other polling, he still carries a great deal of scar tissue in some of the swing states--most notably, Ohio and Wisconsin, but also Colorado and Iowa. Romney is clearly better situated to win the popular vote than the electoral vote; Obama is much closer than Romney to the magic 270 number in the Electoral College. But this is a horse race, a very close one that can still go either way, and that was not the case before the first debate. The debates--and I would say all three of them--hit a reset button for Romney and put him back into this contest."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/10/26/first_debate_gave_romney_a_chance.html

[VirginiaTarheel]

1. Paging Captain Obvious.....

[smorkingapple]

2. No one here agrees with this

But it's dead on accurate. Whoever advised Obama to go soft in first debate should be fired. Including Axelrod and or Plouffe.

That was one of the dumbest strategies in political history even if Obama wins.

[fugop]

3. How can he say all three of the debates hit a reset for Romney?

Romney was shellacked in the third (and beaten in the second). By the CBS snap poll, Romney lost the third debate by more than Obama lost the first one.

Said it before and will say it again: It was more about the coverage than the debates. When Obama won, the media said debates don't matter. When Mitt won, it changed everything.

So glad people care less and less about tv media. Young people get it all on their computers and phones, and that alone might allow thinking people to eventually take our country back and put the media harpies out of business. Their influence is waning. It's still there, but I think it's going to continue to disappear.

[Liberal1975]

8. Agreed

It was the narrative the media chose to go with that created the situation, not the "loss" itself. I have never seen a debate where a challenger switches positions to agree with his opponent as Romney did in the third debate and not have THAT be the principal story. Instead we get vapid thinly disguised partisan "opinions" that Romney passed the "Commander in Chief" test. What if Obama had suddenly decided in the first debate that he was suddenly for a twenty percent across the board tax cut? Are you telling that wouldn't have been the main story? Even above his listless performance? To be fair as the incumbent that would be a larger story since he has an actual record which is solid and all Romney has is a string of disconnected, unfocused contradictory talking points. That being said, for a Presidential candidate to double back on his promise to cut taxes on the top one percent and on of having a timeline to exit Afghanistan when he has been campaigning for a year and half on these points and not have that be the primary narrative coming out the debates speaks volumes about the quality of "information" we are being given by our media.

[Firebirds01]

16. Romeny "wins"

not by beating Obama but at least appearing to be a viable alternative. That is the goal of any challenger to an incumbent president. Apparently a lot of people think Romney passed that test. In the third debate Romney knew he couldnt beat Obama on foreign policy. So he just agreed with whatever Obama said. That way he appeared no worse than Obama and, again, passed the test that he could be viable.


His win is that viewers didnt think the completely collapsed.

[Liberal1975]

21. Since when?

Since when is it acceptable for a challenger to morph into the incumbent? Without the media driving that narrative this "truth" simply wouldn't exist. I am 37 years old and I have never seen such a thing. Romney has switched positions so many times on so many issues why isn't THAT the story?! In 04 John Kerry was crucified for changing his mind on Iraq. Yet this guy can reverse his position 180 degrees, on a dime in a debate and that is not the primary story?
What happened to the "Bush may be bad but at least he stands for something" narrative that was rammed down our throats 8 years ago? Where is the "conventional wisdom" that Americans hate leaders who appear weak and shifty even when they agree with their opinions? And how does going against everything you campaigned on to agree with your opponent (who is the Kenyan love child of Karl Marx and Joseph Stalin according to your imbecilic base) demonstrate that you are a viable alternative? Isn't this supposed to show that you are an opportunistic politician who can't be trusted? And that inconsistency is death to a candidate in American politics? I guess it is no longer the case....

[still_one]

4. Interesting. So romney won the first debate even though everyone agrees what he said was a lie.

What does that say?

[VirginiaTarheel]

5. The Media are either horribly biased or asleep/stupid

[fugop]

6. So are voters...

I read in the Gallup poll they took a few days after the debate their numbers, which were good for the president. But their description of the poll said flat out that while snap polls gave it to the president, they wanted to wait and see what people thought after a few days of media analysis and coverage.

So basically, they said, "We wanted to see what people thought after the media spent a couple of days telling them what to think."

How freakin' sad and scary is that? And yet, people still watch.

Thank God for the Internet. I really think as more and more younger people (i.e., Democrats) tune out on the mainstream shit, our elections will change for the better. Hope so anyway.

[Cosmocat]

9. The scoring for debates this cycle was set

by the first debate.

WHAT they said did not matter much at all.

Whoever verbally controlled the debate, won it.

Biden saw this, and ran roughshod over Ryan, who was passive like BO was.

BO used his status as the President to control the last two debates.

I think Romney was also helped by the fact that he LONG AGO unabashedly given up on having any consistency in what he has said, and by the media allowing for this, people have just accepted the fact that he will say anything to anyone at anytime.

I hated it, it turned my stomache, but regardless of WHAT he said, that first debate completely altered the trend of the election.

[Liberal1975]

15. Don't underestimate the Narrative...

Yes the first debate changed the trend. But the question I am asking myself is whether or not that trend was changed by what actually occurred or by the story line which was picked up by the media.
Hypothetically speaking what do you think the story line would have been if Obama had fought back in that first debate? Are we sure that the narrative wouldn't have been poor Romney is being bullied by the President? Would the media have blasted Obama for being "unpresidential" ? I am not pretending I know the answer but I think it is safe to assume that one of these two stories might have changed the trend just as much. Let's face it like minorities in other professions, our President is ham strung by a double standard. If Romney bullies an 80 year old man and runs over the truth with a steam roller he is seen as "assertive" and demonstrating that he "wants the job" if Obama did that he would be viewed as an angry black man not fit to be President.

[Cosmocat]

19. Absolutely

no doubt about it, the media AT BEST wanted a horse race, and their baseline is ALWAYS negatively framing a D/positively framing an R.

He really was in a no win situation in the first debate, but he did himself no favors by being exceedingly passive.

But, he won the second and third debates clearly, and the media didn't give them to him.

[Liberal1975]

22. I Agree.

Though I'm still not sure an "assertive" Obama would have produced any other outcome in terms of "bumps" and "momentum".
I'm just trying to imagine what the story line would have been had Obama called Mitt Romney a liar in the first debate..."President appeared angry in the first debate" or "President wins debate but likeability suffers, may cost him in the polls".
Couldn't agree more with the baseline that you mentioned in 04 Kerry couldn't be trusted because he changed his mind on one issue. In 08, Romney changes his mind on EVERY issue almost daily and it is "good campaign" strategy. Whatever.

[bama_blue_dot]

7. I think the media had already set such a low bar

for Romney before the first debate, so it was probably inevitable that he would've been predicted the "winner".. I agree that Obama was definitely way too passive, and of course the total flip from "Severe Conservative" Mitt, to "Moderate Mitt" was mind boggling..

[JiminyJominy]

10. First Debate Screwed Us

i will be honest, i was so angry after the first debate. i was angry at the President. i felt let down and maybe even like he didn't even care or wana win again. maybe he was tired of the life of a President and wanted to retire peacefully back to Chicago.

HOWEVER....

as time has gone on since then we know what happened...

Romney came into that debate spouting things/views/policies that were so contradictory to what he had said before that it stunned Obama and he had no response. It stunned him to the point that the lies and changes were so outta whack that Obama stood up there thinking to himself "What? Maybe I read his policies wrong...I'm not gonna call him out because it might backfire".

But then we found out this was Romney's plan..to keep flipping and flopping..and we finally caught on.

[leftynyc]

11. I was more angry at the liberals on TV

They acted like the sky had fallen in and that created another narrative. Even after mitt got his ass kicked in the 2nd and 3rd debate, you never heard a conservative say anything other than he won.

[Iceberg Louie]

12. Absurd to equate Romney's performance in the first debate to Obama's in the other two

Money Boo-Boo did the exact same thing in all three; shot off pre-scripted talking points, most of which were 180 degree turnaround from his positions in the primaries, on the campaign trail, on his own website, etc. The only difference was he lost steam as the debates wore on, whereas the President gained traction. I'm still not sure if President Obama actually planned to rope-a-dope Romney in round 1, leaving highly-prized policy wonk Ryan wide open for a pummeling by Biden before moving in for the kill through the next two rounds...or if he unintentionally underperformed, heard the chatter about the rope-a-dope, and played off that notion. Nonetheless, Obama's relative listlessness in the first debate (I still feel his only real crime was not being theatrically aggressive enough) was nothing compared to Mittens' colossal stuttering and stammering, his appearance of severe weariness and constipation, and buckets of flop sweat in the third.

What it comes down to was media spin, which has been mentioned several times in this thread. The M$M much more highly ballyhooed Romney's first debate "win" (much like they did for Palin when she managed to be anything but an utter catastrophe) than they did the President's decisive (IMHO at least) wins in the other two. The impression made by the media is much more prevalent among older voters, to who M$M is their primary source of information, than among younger voters who gravitate towards alternative sources (and, coincidentally, happen to be far better informed). What I don't buy is this manufactured horse race the media is working so hard to create. This 47-47 b.s. seems to me to be cut from whole cloth.

I guess we'll see what happens next. Only 11 days to go!

[progressivebydesign]

13. It wasn't his PERFORMANCE, it was his UNCHALLENGED LIES....

that is what helped his campaign. A few newspapers fact checked his outrageous lies and sudden change to Mr. Mitt Moderate, but the majority of MSM sat there with their thumbs in their asses.. talking about how the President didn't perform.

The President told the truth. Romney LIED repeatedly but very very loudly and forcefully. The idiots in the MSM should have ripped that asshole to shreds over his lies and weird demeanor. BUT his lies go unchallenged STILL.

Mitt is doing the Etch-a-Sketch again. The "Say ANYTHING to get elected." He doesn't want the job, he wants to WIN. He wants the title. And the MSM is so fucking clueless or corrupt that they are NOT playing his video saying "I was a SEVERELY conservative Governor." they've let the 47% comments go...

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. So I guess the conventional wisdom that "debates don't matter"

doesn't really hold anymore.......

[reflection]

17. He's in the race the same way I would be in a 200m race with Usain Bolt

it would not be over 2 seconds in, but it would be obvious how it was going to play out.

[faithfulcitizen]

18. well yeaaaaaaaaah....

[OldDem2012]

20. No, Charlie. What kept Romney in the race was the switch by the pollsters at the....

...time of the first debate from the registered voter model to the likely voter model, That allowed the pollsters to claim Dem voters were not as enthusiastic as GOP voters and were therefore less likely to vote.

That created the false tightening of the polls, not Romney's lying performance in the first debate.

The media jumped on this "tightening" in the polls as a way to keep their viewers interested in tuning in to the various news programs and that resulted in more ad revenue. With the media, it's all about the money.

[Lucinda]

23. Nope.

Even if Romney had tanked and Obama had been spectacular, the media would have kept this a horse race.
The first debate just provided something useful for them to blather about.