Nate Silver: Romney’s ‘Prevent Defense’ Yielding Big Gains to Opponents
Most football fans have learned to hate the “prevent defense,” a strategy that is employed when a team holds a lead late in the game. In theory, the strategy involves being willing to yield short completions to the offense in an effort to prevent a big gain. In reality, it seems to yield plenty of short completions — but also its share of big gains as the offense takes advantage of the soft coverage. Hence the aphorism “the prevent defense only prevents you from winning.”
During Monday night’s debate in Myrtle Beach, Mitt Romney seemed to be engaging in a political version of the strategy, avoiding direct confrontation with his opponents while giving evasive answers on issues ranging from his tax returns to the role of “Super PACs.” Fox News, which hosted the debate, encouraged viewers to use the Twitter hashtag #dodge to indicate when they thought candidates were not giving a straight answer — and Mr. Romney received considerably more dodges than the other candidates.
I wrote on Twitter during the Monday night debate that I thought this was a smart strategy for Mr. Romney. At the time, he held a reasonably large lead in South Carolina and was also in a very strong position in Florida and in subsequent states. Sometimes a risk-averse strategy is the right one, even if it isn’t viscerally pleasing.
What has happened since then, however, has frankly surprised me a great deal. The momentum in South Carolina shifted literally overnight; one pollster showed an incredible 22-point swing against Mr. Romney and toward Newt Gingrich over the course of a 24-hour period after the Monday night debate.
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Link: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/romneys-prevent-defense-yielding-big-gains-to-opponents/
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And based on recent polling it looks like Newt might pull out a victory there. Anthing that challenges the assumption that Mitt will be their eventual nominee, and thus drags out the nomination process even longer, is good with me!
It's just too bad that Bachmann and Perry dropped out so quickly. They were great for entertainment value!
We need to revive him somehow.
