First Presidential Debate

[The Germanator]

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Swing states polls still holding pretty well for Obama. Lots are pretty close obviously, but Nate Silver is a pretty smart guy and he seems to have a pretty good feel for the race statistically. Until his Electoral forecast actually swings in Romney's favor, I won't get too worried.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by Bond

(2) failing to offer a plan for growth for the next four years / why the next four years will be any better.

This, I think, is Pres. Obama's greatest failure in these debates. As simplistic as Pres. Obama wants to call Romney's plan, Romney has presented a plan while Pres. Obama has accepted the default position of the status quo.

Also, I think Romney's arguments on the economy have been far more effective than the President's. Even the CNN poll says that while Romney lost the debate, he won the economic portion by a landslide. In this voting environment, I think this will be weighted more heavily than Romney's "Binder full of women".

[Bond]

I think the "binders" attack will be about as effective as the "Big Bird" ad. All of these trivial and lame attacks make the President appear small and un-presidential (especially when one considers these attacks are not coming from PACs, but rather directly from the Obama campaign).

It's also worth nothing the October jobs report will be released a few days before the election. I wouldn't be surprised if last month ends up being a statistical anomaly, and that the unemployment rate goes back up to 8.0% or higher.

[Bond]

RCP provides a better aggregation (aka. higher standards) of the polls in my view: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...llege_map.html

[The Germanator]

Originally Posted by Bond

RCP provides a better aggregation (aka. higher standards) of the polls in my view: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...llege_map.html

Hmm, well...I know Silver got 49/50 right in 2008. I find it a little funny in that map that they give a "likely GOP" to states (AZ, NC) that Romney leads by 5.3% and 5.6% respectively, but they don't give that same designation to the two states (PA, MI) that Obama leads by exactly 5% each. Those states are worth 36 electoral votes. Maybe 5% is their cut-off for what is a "toss-up" but it's slightly misleading.

[Bond]

I suppose that's fair, but I think any cutoff between "toss-up" and "likely / leaning" will necessarily be arbitrary.

I like RCP because it's nonpartisan and only aggregates polls that poll consistently, survey likely voters, and come from reputable sources.

[Professor S]

Is anyone watching the debate? I'm not, but I'm curious.

[TheGame]

Watched it. Obama won as I expected. Mitt's biggest failure in the 2nd debate was forgein policy, and he just continued it tonight. He sounded like a completely different guy then I expected though... just agreed on forgein policy, and tried to drag it to the economy.

[BreakABone]

Originally Posted by TheGame

Watched it. Obama won as I expected. Mitt's biggest failure in the 2nd debate was forgein policy, and he just continued it tonight. He sounded like a completely different guy then I expected though... just agreed on forgein policy, and tried to drag it to the economy.

To be fair, they both tried to bring it back home as often as they could.

I mean where Obama led was that Romney couldn't really disagree with a lot of his stances, and the ones he did he couldn't articulate well or would open the President up to an easy counter-attack like his battleship comment.

[Teuthida]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...ther_countries

That's nuts.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by BreakABone

To be fair, they both tried to bring it back home as often as they could.

I mean where Obama led was that Romney couldn't really disagree with a lot of his stances, and the ones he did he couldn't articulate well or would open the President up to an easy counter-attack like his battleship comment.

True.

[Professor S]

Reading a lot of the recaps, I think Romney played it safe for a reason. The third debate got the fewest number of viewers of the three. The Romney team believes that the race will be won by the final advertising push over these next few weeks, and they didn't want to give Pres. Obama anything provocative to exploit in an ad or by the media.

In the end, Romney attacked most and shined most in his comfort zone, the economy, and avoided any pitfalls by tying his foreign policies to those shared by Pres. Obama (basically nullifying any advantage).

[Professor S]

Yeeeaaaaahhhh.... about that unemployment thing....

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Reading a lot of the recaps, I think Romney played it safe for a reason. The third debate got the fewest number of viewers of the three. The Romney team believes that the race will be won by the final advertising push over these next few weeks, and they didn't want to give Pres. Obama anything provocative to exploit in an ad or by the media.

In the end, Romney attacked most and shined most in his comfort zone, the economy, and avoided any pitfalls by tying his foreign policies to those shared by Pres. Obama (basically nullifying any advantage).

Lol, Romney lost the third debate.. period. All this down playing is amusing though.

-EDIT-

Just watched that video. Unless the unemployment rate spiked, all of those 'firings' don't really mean much.

[Bond]

I really see no substantive differences between the two on foreign policy. I don't think the debate changed anything.