Readers of these pages won’t be surprised to hear non-leftists
suggest that Mitt Romney won last night’s debate.
But let me tell you of a few early reactions you might not have
heard about (other than in Stacy McCain’s excellent
article) and which are perhaps more informative simply due to
their objective or even anti-Romney fundamental nature, starting
with the rabid Obamaphiles at MSNBC:
- MSNBC hosts this morning made a comparison between Buster
Douglas and Mike Tyson, asking “Where did that come from?!?”
- More: “Performatively, the president of the United States did
not show up last night…Obama really was passive, annoyed-looking,
looking away. It really was dispiriting. It might have been the
worst performance in a debate, not just the worst performace by
Obama in a debate. He did not show up and he has to next
time.”
- “It was one of the great debate performances that anyone has
ever seen on Mitt Romney’s part last night. Barack Obama let Mitt
Romney back in the game.”
- “The president’s weakest moments were when he was trying to
defend his record…Rope-a-dope without the knockout punch.”
- Chuck Todd said “I was amazed how poorly (Obama) defended
Dodd-Frank.”
- One point they made which also really struck me at the time:
“Obama had a bad closing two minutes”, with the commentators
wondering aloud why Obama was not better prepared? “He knew his
closing was coming, and it was just so flat.”
- They noted that he never mentioned women’s issues, “the 47
percent”, or President Bush.
- This was a “stylistic disaster” “much worse” for Obama than the
Republican convention was for the Republicans.
- “Mitt Romney was reasonable, compassionate, in touch with the
middle class. He seemed like a guy who had a plan.”
Again, those were all on MSNBC. The fact that an outlet so
biased against Romney had no choice but to make statements like
these; the reality was that clear.
- BBC hosts said Obama looked tired and that Romney was far more
energetic and in command. They also noted, as others have, that
Obama kept looking down, or at the moderator, while Romney kept
looking at Obama.
- It was interesting to hear BBC interviews of Democrats at a
“debate watch party” in Washington, DC. Each of them said that
Obama was better and clearer than Romney. They were obviously
watching another debate, but the real take-away from those
interviews is that Romney is wasting his time to go after urban
Democrats. Obama, liberalism, and the Democratic Party are their
religion.
Influential Democratic strategist
James Carville said that Obama looked like he would rather have
been somewhere else.
In terms of more objective measures of who won the debate:
- Stock index futures immediately rallied last night and are
holding the gains into Thursday’s market opening.
- Betting odds at
Intrade.com of Obama’s being re-elected plummeted from 74
percent to 66 percent (accelerating a slight downward drift from
nearly 80 percent a week ago. 80 percent was the culmination of the
GOP’s polling and betting weakness which began shortly after the
Republican convention and took Obama’s odds from 58 percent to 80
percent over the course of three weeks. Most that month-long gain
in Obama’s betting odds has now been erased.
The question is whether the debate performance moved voters,
i.e. whether it moved undecided voters to Romney and whether it
re-energized Republican voters, activists, and current or potential
volunteers and donors. I expect it must.
In addition to Romney and his campaign, the most relieved people
of the night must be Republican congressional candidates across the
country. If Romney can win with coattails, or even if Romney loses
but prevents Obama from having coattails, it’s a massive benefit
for those candidates and for the nation. After all, Republican
control of the Senate would make a tremendous difference no matter
who is president.
In the wake of Todd Akin and other memories of Republicans who
can fairly be portrayed as stupid or extreme, Romney needed to come
across as intelligent, reasonable, and able to connect with people
of all stripes. In addition to his serious but likeable demeanor,
his repeated statements about how he was able to work with
Democrats in the Massachusetts legislature to “get things done”, in
stark contrast to Obama’s “my way or the highway” approach, was
very effective, in part thanks to Barack Obama’s failure to use any
of his most aggressive talking points.
Between Romney giving the best debate performance of his life
and Obama giving his worst, Wednesday’s debate was a huge win for
Republican electoral hopes next month.
Keep an eye on tomorrow’s employment report where, if the trend
continues, the unemployment rate may drop to 8% or even 7.9% but
primarily because people are dropping out of the work force much
faster than they are getting jobs. Since Obama took office, more
than 8.4 million people have dropped out of the work force. If they
were still in the work force, the reported unemployment rate would
be over 11 percent. The final employment report before the election
comes just 5 days before the November 6th election date.
