Both national polls that were taken immediately following last night’s presidential debate at Hofstra University show President Obama besting Romney by 7 percent. A CNN/ORC poll indicates that 46 percent of voters who watched the debate said that the president won, while 39 percent said Romney won (and the sample in the poll was about 8 points more Republican than polls taken among all Americans this year).
In a CBS News instant poll taken right after the debate, 37 percent of “uncommitted” voters said the president won, 30 percent gave Romney the edge, and 33 percent said it was a tie. Although the CBS poll gave Romney a sizable edge with respect to managing the economy, it’s hard to pinpoint anything the GOP nominee said that was especially persuasive in terms of his economic policy.
A snap poll by Public Policy Polling in swing state of Colorado gave President Obama a 48-44 edge, while CO Independents said that the President won by 58-36 percent.
For those who want a detailed point-by-point review of the debate in print as well as video, The New York Times has an interactive transcript of the Hempstead debate with a dynamic fact-checking sidebar.
Probably the most noteworthy screw-up of the evening was Governor Romney’s ‘Benghazi boomerang,’ in which he launched a badly-botched ‘gotcha’ ploy to portray the president as distorting his description of the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans as “an act of terror.” When moderator Candy Crowley quickly fact-checked Romney’s allegation and determined that the president was correct — that he did indeed call it ‘an act of terror’ at that time — Romney appeared reckless, desperate and embarrassed.
Earlier in the exchange, President Obama’s strongest moment came when he looked the challenger squarely in the eye and delivered a withering put-down of Romney’s cheesy attempt to politicize a tragedy at a moment that called for bipartisan unity in condemning terrorist violence. “Governor Romney put out a press release trying to make political points. And that’s not how a commander in chief operates. You don’t turn national security into a political issue, certainly not right when it’s happening.”
(Dems who want to get up to speed on the politics of the Benghazi tragedy should check out James Heffernan’s HuffPo post, “Benghazi and Republican Hypocrisy.”)
Obama also scored sharply in highlighting Romney’s investments in companies that are “pioneers of outsourcing to China,” and added, “Governor Romney, you’re the last person who’s going to get tough on China.” He also stung Romney for Republican plans to voucherize Medicare and the GOP nominee’s support for “self-deportation” of undocumented immigrants. I thought Romney also fumbled his defense of his ‘let Detroit go bankrupt’ policy.
Romney’s best zinger was repeatedly noting that the number of women living in poverty has increased substantially during the Obama administration. Alert voters know, however, that the comparison suffers from using 2008 statistics, since the effects of the Bush meltdown reverberated well into the Obama administration.
Other than that, my guess is that Romney’s overbearing attitude towards moderator Candy Crowley — the first women moderator of a presidential debate in 20 years — who had to straighten him out several times, bordered on arrogance and did not play well with many women. There are reasons why Romney is not infrequently likened to an obnoxious boss. President Obama, on the other hand, struck the right tone, it seemed to me, in terms of being both assertive and respectful.
Democrats can rest assured that President Obama is back in top form — I don’t recall him ever doing better in a presidential debate. No telling at this point whether or not he will get a nice bump in national polls as a result, but it seems reasonable to expect a point or two shifting in his direction.
The final debate next Monday, October 22nd, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, FL will focus on foreign policy, and Romney will be back with new soundbites and zingers on the Benghazi attack, Iran and trade with China. The president’s solid performance last night indicates that he will be ready to defend and attack as needed.

Associated Press previews the Tuesday night presidential debate at Hempstead, NY and probes the ramifications of the town hall format.
At The Fix, Chris Cillizza has a good capsule desription of the debate format: “…The setting for the second debate will be a town hall full of “average” Americans with CNN’s terrific Candy Crowley moderating. The questions in the debate will be asked by people in the audience, with Crowley following up or holding the candidates accountable as she feels it’s needed. That sort of format makes it tougher for the candidates to go harshly negative on each other than if it was simply the two of them standing behind podiums with Crowley seated at a table between them. The town hall backdrop puts a premium on trying to connect with the struggles, worries and hopes of the person asking the questions, not scoring points on scripted attack lines — although there probably will be plenty of those, too. The bar to being seen as overly or unnecessarily negative is far lower in a town hall debate than in a more traditional setting, meaning that both candidates will need to walk a very fine line with their attacks.”
All good Democrats will love the title and theme of this Telegraph article by Dan Hodges, whose bionote reads “Dan Hodges is a Blairite cuckoo in the Miliband nest. He has worked for the Labour Party, the GMB trade union and managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation.”
Paul Krugman rolls out the alarming cluelessness/dishonesty of Romney’s assertions about health care in the U.S.: “Last week, speaking to The Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Romney declared…”We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance….” Krugman adds,”these are remarkable statements. They clearly demonstrate that Mr. Romney has no idea what life (and death) are like for those less fortunate than himself…the reality, to which Mr. Romney is somehow blind, is that many people in America really do die every year because they don’t have health insurance…States that expand their Medicaid coverage, and hence provide health insurance to more people, consistently show a significant drop in mortality compared with neighboring states that don’t expand coverage..The fact that the United States is the only major advanced nation without some form of universal health care is at least part of the reason life expectancy is much lower in America than in Canada or Western Europe.”
Dan Balz and Jon Cohen report that “Presidential contest tight nationally ahead of second debate,” and they cite the new WaPo/ABC poll showing Obama leading Romney 49-46 in the “If the election were held today” question.
The Virginia race for the U.S. Senate — and perhaps control of the U.S. Senate — may turn on a key constituency, northern Virginia seniors. Ben Pershing has the the story at the Washington post.
At The New York Times, Jim Rutenberg reports that Libertarian Gary Johnson “is on the ballot in every state except Michigan and Oklahoma, enjoys the support of a few small “super PACs” and is trying to tap into the same grass-roots enthusiasm that helped build Representative Ron Paul a big following. And with polls showing the race between President Obama and Mitt Romney to be tight, Mr. Johnson’s once-fellow Republicans are no longer laughing.” Hmmm, makes you wonder if there might be some benefit for Dems to do a McCaskill in a couple of states.
In his New York Times op-ed, Steve Rattner has some good talking points explaining why “The Radical Is Romney, Not Ryan.”
Sarah Jones takes the mask off Romney’s claims about his supposed bipartisanship as Massachusetts Governor, noting at Politicus USA that “All told, Romney issued 800 vetoes in his one-year term as Governor. 800. Nearly all of them were overridden – 707 to be exact. Romney doesn’t mention that part in his “I like vetoes” ad.” Jones adds, “A March 2005 poll found that only 32 percent felt Romney should be re-elected if he ran for a second term as governor.”
The lede of the week award will probably go to Alex Altman for his “As his standing in the polls improves, Mitt Romney is piling up public endorsements from a new cohort of voters: the celebrity train-wreck set.” Altman’s post at Time Swampland, “The Lohan Effect: Will Romney Get a Boost from Low-Information Voters?” also has this insightful observation: “UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck has been tracking a large group of uncommitted voters since December 2011. As they’ve made up their minds, those voters have gravitated in roughly equal numbers to Romney and Obama. Obama “has the advantage among undecided voters who are making choices as Election Day draws near,” Vavreck wrote recently.”

Bill Maher’s tweet in the title above pretty much captures my impression of the veep candidates debate. I would also be comfortable with the headline of Alessandra Stanley’s New York Times article, “Night of Withering Ripostes, Mostly Delivered by Biden.” Although, even Ryan’s big zinger about Biden’s gaffes came off as scripted and labored.
It really did look and sound like the seasoned veteran having his way with the smarty-pants college kid. Ryan appeared a little intimidated, and with good reason. He was up against the Democratic party’s toughest debater.
Half of the ‘undecided voters’ polled by CBS agreed, with 50 percent saying Vice President Biden won and 31 percent giving the edge to Rep. Ryan and 19 percent calling it a draw. CNN’s poll gave Ryan an M.O.E. edge, 48-44 percent. The CNN sample was 381 registered voters, compared to CBS’s 431 ‘undecided voters.’ Which poll strikes you as more relevant? As always, Nate Silver has a solid wrap-up of the data points.
As for issues analysis, it wasn’t much of a contest. Biden had a strong, credible response to every Ryan talking point, with respect to both the economy and foreign policy. It would be a stretch to say the reverse was also true. Biden’s edge in experience served him very well, and Ryan wisely clammed up at several points.
The post-debate spin is predictable enough. I thought the CNN stable of pundits, for example, looked a little embarrassed to be calling it a draw. But what could they do — trash their own poll?
Some commentators griped about Biden grinning and chuckling at Ryan’s prevarications. I was a little worried at first about it, but as the debate wore on, it was clear that it was part of Biden’s more easy-going personality. He could have been having a friendly argument in a bar. My guess is his demeanor played well enough with most informed voters, in contrast to Ryan’s chilly, stiff persona. Despite pro-Republican comments about Biden’s ‘rudeness,’ by the end of the debate, no one could fairly argue that Biden denied Ryan a chance to respond at any point.
As Silver explains, “Vice-presidential debates rarely move head-to-head numbers between the presidential candidates…One should err on the side of caution in assuming that the debate had much influence either way.”
But my bottom-line take-away is that I feel even better about Biden being a heart-beat away from the presidency, as well as more confident about President Obama’s judgement in choosing Biden. I don’t think he could have done better.
As for Ryan, well, he’s brighter than Dan Quayle, and I credit him with being more conversant on foreign affairs than I thought was the case. But Ryan is still a rigid right-wing ideologue. And, despite his comments about the need for more bipartisanship, his track record and personality scream otherwise. It’s hard to envision him providing leadership in bringing the two parties together.
All in all the Biden-Ryan debate was an encouraging — and instructive — win for the Democrats, one which should build interest in the October 16th presidential debate in Hempstead, NY.

In his WaPo post, “Vice presidential debate’s No. 1 rule: If chatter’s about Biden and Ryan, they’re doing it wrong,” David A. Fahrenthold unpacks what he believes to be the most important tip for both of the vice presidential candidates in tonight’s debate. NYT’s John Harwood has a diffrerent number one rule.
Pew poll shows expectations for Rep. Ryan actually higher than for Vice President Biden, according to the Wall St Journal.
Matt Miller has a pretty good script for Vice president Biden in his WaPo column. Among Miller’s suggested comments: “Let me be clear: I’ve worked with Republicans over my entire 40-year career. You can’t accomplish anything in Washington if you don’t. But something a little crazy has gotten into the water the GOP has been drinking these last few years. Too many Republicans today won’t support the policies we need to renew America’s middle class and assure opportunity and security in a global age…First, on taxes: The single highest priority of Mr. Ryan and Republicans in Congress has been to cut taxes on America’s top earners — even though we’ve been at war for a decade and have huge deficits to shrink. This is the first time in our history that America has cut taxes for top earners at a time of war. Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans think we should let other people’s children fight our wars, and let other people’s children pick up the tab for them later. The president and I believe this is wrong.”
E.J. Dionne, Jr. mines “Sherrod Brown’s lessons for Obama” in his WaPo column, quoting Sen. Brown thusly “Ryan, Brown said, has “dressed up trickle-down economics and wrapped it in an Ayn Rand novel.” The vice president, Brown added, should highlight the Republicans’ desire to privatize both Medicare and Social Security, reflected in Ryan’s own record and Republicans’ attempts to do so whenever they thought they had the votes. “It’s clear they want to go there,” Brown said.”
The National Journal’s Steven Shepard says “Polls Show Small Romney Bump in Swing States,” while Tom Sherfinski of the Washington Times reports that “NBC/WSJ poll: Obama leads by 6 points in Ohio, virtual tie in Fla., Va.”
But today Nate Silver’s latest numbers crunch gives Romney just a one in three chance of winning the Presidency.
At HuffPo, Alan I. Abramowitz reports on the “Dramatic Change in Racial Makeup of Gallup Tracking Poll as Likely Voter Results Begin.”
For those seeking refuge from panic-driven journalism, Ed Kilgore puts the presidential campaign in sober perspective in this Washington Monthly column.
Regarding the Romney campaign’s deployment of Kid Rock to help win youth votes, you have to wonder how cultural conservatives — especially the evangelicals — would feel about the over-the-top vulgarity of Kid Rock’s songs. See here and here for a couple of examples.
Ahh, the wisdom of Google.

Mitt Romney’s latest schizoid experiment to see how much flip-floppage he can get away with may not end so well. Romney sent out an “anti-abortion legislation? who me” trial balloon in an interview appearing in the Des Moines Register yesterday, and it is already doing a number on what’s left of his credibility.
After quoting from Romney’s support for a host of extreme anti-choice legislative measures in a National Review article, Ed Kilgore adds in his Washington Monthly post on the latest Romney evasion.:

So last year, in a carefully considered and drafted statement, Romney was all for new legislation to ban federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and promised to “advocate and support” federal “fetal pain” legislation along the lines of bills being promoted by anti-choice legislators from sea to shining sea. He basically agreed to do anything within the president’s power to help The Cause, with the exception of administering litmus tests to a host of his appointees, which is what the SBA List was asking him to do. To some extent, his comments to the Register simply reflected the limitations of the executive branch on this particular subject, which has been a source of great frustration to anti-choicers over the years.
But Moderate Mitt should not be able to get away with bland reassurances on this issue–with his own campaign repudiating him almost on the spot–without dealing with specific pledges he made during this very campaign. Is he–on behalf of himself and his loyal running-mate, Paul Ryan, who up until now has been universally considered a leader in the anti-choice cause–specifically retracting promises to promote a funding ban on Planned Parenthood and federal legislation flatly banning abortions prior to some arbitrary point in the second trimester of pregnancy?

It’s another 180 degree flip-flop for Mitt the Mullet, and it will be interesting to see how many are willing to let it pass unchallenged.

If anyone has earned the right to advise President Obama on how to juice up his presentation in the next debate, it would have to be former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, who delivered the most energetic speech of the Democratic convention. In her HuffPo post, “Mr. President: Next Debate, Make Moral Choice Clear,” riffing from an earlier conversation she had with message strategist George Lakoff, Granholm explains:

Every one of the president’s most moving speeches — the speeches where he inspired and lifted our country up — had one thing in common. Speeches like his 2004 convention speech, the speech on race and the speech in Osawatomie, Kansas all spoke with moral clarity about who we are, about deep American values.
Yes, they talked about issues, but the issues were an outgrowth from the call to our character.
So, with respect, Mr. President, when you walk on stage in the next debate I would like to hear you say that the choice is not just about whose tax plan you like or who has the better health care strategy. It’s much more fundamental than that. This is a choice about our national character.

Obama’s problem has never been eloquence, but Granholm suggests a script for the President, the nut of which includes,

…That great small business owner that you talk about?
We all contributed to make sure she was educated at the public schools and public university. That we all participated doesn’t take anything away from her individual accomplishments. It’s okay, really. We’re proud to have helped. We all, together as Americans, invested to build the public libraries and the roads and the national parks. We have organized ourselves, as a country, in a way that allows us to pool our resources to make sure that we all have the chance to be successful and to exercise that liberty. It’s who we are as a nation.
My God, it makes me proud.”

Not bad. Passion, clarity and appeal to the higher citizen in every viewer– it hits some sweet spots. Granholm continues:

Say it at the start of the debate: “This election involves a moral choice. As an American family, will we force autistic children to simply be on their own? Will we force Uncle Ron, with a history of heart disease to go uninsured? We. Will. Not. ”
Say it strong, Mr. President. Say, “I’m determined, in this family, that all of the children will be fed, and have shelter. In our family, we insist that we honor those who have brought us along — the elders in our home, the veterans who have served us — and we make sure they don’t have to worry about health care or social security. Compassion as strength, not as softness. In our larger family, we take care of our own. That’s who we are; that’s what we do. This is a moral issue.”

Granholm concludes,

That’s the moral choice I’d like to hear about at the next debate, Mr. President. Sure, you could talk about the $716 billion in Medicare savings and the capital gains tax rate. But that’s not what I really want to hear. Those are the little things, I want the big things. I don’t want to hear about our smallness, I want to hear about our greatness. I don’t want to hear about lies; I want to hear great truths. Tell us about our great national heart, our compassion, our character as a nation.
Tell us that, sir, and we’ll follow you anywhere.

It’s about understanding that the moral vision is what energizes the presentation and connects with real, flesh and blood people. Romney can connect to some extent with animated body language, as he did in the first debate. He can blither on with glittering generalities about “freedom,” as Republicans like to do. It’s like sleight-of-hand that distracts from his lack of substance. That can work against someone who doesn’t bring his “A” game. But he can’t really touch the energetic appeal to the commonweal that Granholm is talking about. Lack of a compassionate moral vision is Romney’s Achilles’ heel.
Speeches and debates are like apples and oranges to some extent. But debates do offer opportunities for “mini-speeches.” The President does just fine in his speeches. He’s just got to bring that energy to the next debate and Granholm makes some good points about keeping centered on an energizing moral vision. View and hear Granholm’s lively editorial at The War Room right here.

Nate Silver mulls over the latest presidential race polls at Five Thirty Eight, and says, “Mitt Romney remains in a considerably stronger polling position than he was before last Wednesday’s debate in Denver. But the polls released on Sunday did not tell quite as optimistic a story for him as those in the debate’s immediate aftermath…Based on the numbers that the tracking polls published on Sunday, however, Mr. Obama’s lead was down to just 1.7 percentage points on average — a net shift of 2 points toward Mr. Romney since the debate…If the polls settle in at showing something like a 1- or 2-point lead for Mr. Obama by this point next week, that would be reasonably well in line with where our model and others think that the election “should” be based on economic trends; it would no longer be as appropriate to think of Mr. Romney as being an underachieving candidate.”
Good to see MLK III stumping against voter suppression in Florida. King slammed “elected officials…who are trying to keep people from participating in the process. That is unconscionable” and urged the reelection of President Obama, adding “This really is the most important election for the next 50 years. It will set the tone for the next 50 to 75 years.”
At Politico, James Hohmann reports on the evidence in the Politico/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll of LVs that the “enthusiasm gap” favoring Romney is back. Chuck Todd has more to say about it right here.
But Jamelle Bouie reports at Greg Sargent’s The Plum Line that “Democrats steadily gain in Senate races nationwide.” Bouie explains “While most political observers have been focused on the size of Mitt Romney’s bounce from last week’s debate, something else has been happening at the state level — Democratic Senate candidates have begun to break away from their Republican opponents.”
Fox News Latino actually has a decent report on Dems’ prospects for a Senate seat pick-up in AZ: “Arizona’s Richard Carmona, Democrat, in Race to Replace Retiring GOP Senator.”
And at Salon.com, Alex Seitz-Wald’s post “Democrats really do have a shot at winning the House” offers this ray of hope for Dems, despite pundit skepticim: “…In early August, the Reuters/Ipsos poll House generic ballot test — which asks if respondents would vote for a generic Democrat or generic Republican — showed the parties tied at 46 percent. In September, this same poll showed Democrats leading by 6 points, 49 percent – 43 percent. An NBC/Wall Street Journal generic poll from July had similar movement since July, as did an An Economist/YouGov poll. The most recent generic poll comes from NPR, which shows Dems up 3 points. Another recent poll of exclusively battleground congressional districts, conducted by Politico and George Washington University, had Dems up 2.”
WaPo columnist Chris Cillizza is undoubtedly right in saying that “Foreign policy isn’t going to decide the 2012 election” in his post “Mitt Romney and the (foreign policy) vision thing.” But referring to the reportage of Romney’s clownish mess of a foreign policy trip as “decidedly mixed press coverage he received during his trip to Britain, Israel and Poland…” may merit Cillizza a nomination to the False Equivalency Hall of Fame.
Ron Rosenbaum asks the right question in his Slate.com post “Is the Republican Party Racist?” But if the Republicans take the white house next month, it will have more to do with the GOP’s embrace of the politics of racial resentment than with any particular region.
Also at Slate.com, Eliot Spitzer’s “Jack Welch’s First Stage of Grief: Denial of Strong Jobs Report” has this richly-deserved skewering for a once impressive-now ridiculous corporate ‘leader’: “Shame on you, Jack. The notion that the Department of Labor plays games with these numbers for political reasons is silly, ludicrous, and insulting to government workers who have reported new figures–good and bad–faithfully for many decades. It strikes me, Jack, that there have been more cases of corporate gamesmanship with financial numbers in the past few years than cases in which the government wasn’t honest. In fact, didn’t your company, GE, have an accounting issue that led to a big SEC settlement not so long ago? So, Jack, now that you have made this outlandish claim, where is your proof–your evidence, any facts–to substantiate your assertion? Or is it just a partisan screed? You might recall that when my office charged GE–then under your leadership–with a range of impropriety, we had the proof, and a judge forced your company to take out full-page ads admitting your wrongdoing…”
In case you were wondering about the answer to another good question, “Why Do the Sunday Shows Suck So Much?,” Paul Waldman has the answer at the American Prospect. “I live and breathe politics, yet I find these programs absolutely unwatchable, and I can’t be the only one. On a typical episode, there is nothing to learn, no insight to be gained, no interesting perspective on offer, nothing but an endless spew of talking points and squabbling.” Waldman sees a ray of hope in “Up With Chris Hayes” on MSNBC. Waldman says Hayes’s program “shows what the Sunday shows could be. Hayes doesn’t bother interviewing politicians or party hacks; instead, he brings on people who know a lot about whatever issue they’ll be discussing, aren’t constrained by the need to score partisan points, and might have something interesting to say.”

Via Chris Bowers, Daily Kos has a couple of posts up skewering Romney for his outright lying in the first presidential debate, Barbara Morrill’s post, “Mitt Romney: Lying to victory” and Voter123’s post, “NPR: Romney Goes On Offense, Pays For It In First Wave Of Fact Checks.” See also Sara Jones’s “The 12 Lies That Made Mitt Romney’s Debate Performance Pure Fiction” at PolitcusUSA.
Romney also had a disturbing gaffe, missed by many, but not by the Boston Herald’s Frank Quaratiello, who noted: “The GOP nominee, who co-founded Boston-based private-equity firm Bain Capital and has been blasted for outsourcing jobs and laying off workers at some of the companies he took over, tried to take the president to task…”You said you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas,” Romney said. “Look, I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” If he had stopped there, Romney might have been fine, but his next line was: “I maybe need to get a new accountant.” The implication was stunning and crystal clear: Romney, who has been trying to dodge his image as a ruthless corporate raider, or his accountant would have known about any tax break for outsourcing — and would have taken advantage of it…The Republican’s implication was clear: I ought to know.”
It’s good to see that the Prez already has his mojo back, according to David Nakamura’s WaPo post, “After sluggish presidential debate, a more combative Obama appears at Denver rally.”
At WaPo, James Downie sees it like this: “…The president’s supporters would be wrong to wring their hands. Fundamentally, Obama’s loss will not matter. At most, Wednesday night was a case of “too little, too late” for Romney. Yes, the polls will probably move a point or two in Romney’s direction after the first debate. But all the evidence suggests that for Romney, whether or not you believe he should be president, closing the gap and beating Obama is a bridge too far…never has a challenger’s strong first debate performance closed as large a national polling gap as Romney faced going into last night’s debate…The majority of voters have already made their decision, and the debates won’t provide enough of a boost to alter the contest’s trajectory. Sadly for Romney, the path the race is stuck on ends with his defeat.”
Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog post “How much will the debate move the polls?” offers this guestimation: “…Wednesday was as good a night as Romney can expect to have in the rest of this campaign, in front of as big an audience as he’ll get, with a maximum of media coverage. So his bounce will help tell us how many voters really remain persuadable, or at least how many of the persuadable voters are paying attention to the final events of the campaign. If that number is high, Romney should close the gap substantially, if not pull slightly ahead. If it’s low, he won’t see much bounce, and it will be that much harder to see his path to victory.”
Mother Jones’s David Corn has a revealing explanation for “Why Obama Didn’t Mention the 47 Percent Video.”
At the Crystal Ball, Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley say “Given the polarized electorate — which Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz has written about at length — we believe poll respondents when they say that the debates probably won’t change their minds…If Romney cannot significantly move the polls after turning in such a strong performance against Obama, what is left on the calendar to change the numbers in his favor? (Maybe the two jobs reports or an unscheduled October/November surprise?) Meanwhile, if Romney does make significant gains — cutting into or even erasing the president’s national lead and gaining ground in the swing states, particularly in vital Ohio — will Obama be able to recapture momentum in the debates to come? At least we now have a reason to stay tuned.”
In “The Return of Massachusetts Mitt,” Jonathan Chait opines at New York Magazine, “I do think the instantaneous, echo chamber reaction that is handing Romney an overwhelming victory is overstated. Romney made a huge error selling his Medicare plan, promising, “if you’re around 60, you don’t need to listen any further.” It was a moment in which he went from smooth to oily — when you urge voters to stop paying attention, and especially on an issue where they start off distrusting you, it heightens the distrust. Obama replied, “if you’re 54 or 55, you might want to listen, because this will affect you.””
For an interesting take on the debate by award-winning debate coach Todd Graham, read “Debate coach: Obama, heat up; Romney, stay cool” at cnn.com. Graham says: “Obama will need to stick to one subject over a series of exchanges. If he doesn’t, Romney will be like Teflon, and nothing Obama says will stick to him in these debates…And the president should utilize the backward-step-pivot-forward technique as often as possible. Since Romney will continue to put him on the defensive (and this is guaranteed), Obama must turn potential flaws into strengths. It’s easy enough to predict Romney’s attacks. Now, the president must figure out rhetorically how to turn those criticisms into benefits.”
Just to bring today’s Strategy Notes 10-pack full circle, check out Mike Luckovitch’s cartoon, The Great Debate

I’ve heard it said somewhere that in every defeat you can find the keys to a future victory — if you learn the lesson(s) of the loss. Here’s hoping President Obama has debate coaches that will give it to him straight. And while no one has appointed me to that lofty position, it appears that the president’s coaches could benefit from some unsolicited advice, which is what the political blogosphere is supposed to provide.
Lesson #1: Style, unfortunately, matters. If you look at the actual transcript of the debate, and read it in context of Romney’s record and his unflagging vacillations, Obama won. He was far more truthful and accurate, and made more well-stated points — on paper. But no one is calling it an Obama victory, because his presentation was, well, kinda wimpy.
It’s clear the President forgot about the split screen format (I refuse to believe his coaches didn’t tell him — they can’t be that bad…can they?). As a result, he spent a huge portion of his on-camera face time looking down and taking notes, like a chastened schoolboy. Romney, in stark contrast, stood rail-straight and looked directly at Obama when the President was talking.
Lesson #2: Give your inner wonk a rest. Stated another way, go lighter on the policy analysis and show more compassion and moral concern, as psycholinguists like George Lakoff and Drew Westen have urged. Here’s an excerpt from Lakoff’s HuffPo post, ‘Why Obama Lost the First Debate“:

You don’t win a presidential debate by being a policy wonk. Obama violated all the basics of presidential debating. The best defense is a good offense. You have to set the terms of the debate and press those terms. Obama failed. Here are those basics:
-State your moral values. Contrast them with your opponent’s.
-Project empathy and enthusiasm. Connect.
-Communicate clearly and simply.
-Be authentic. Say just what you believe.
-Project trust.
-Present an authentic view of yourself that the public can identify with and be proud of.
Obama did none of this. Instead he talked about policy details.

Lesson #3: Attack. Obama seemed verbally stuck in a defensive crouch. He scored a couple of jabs. But his hits should have been harder. While I would give Obama an “A” for civility and graciousness, at a certain point civility can morph into surrender, when your adversary is hitting hard. It’s possible to be both civil and strong. Where were the attack points on Romney’s hidden taxes and offshore bank accounts, Bain’s outsourcing or his condescending dismissal of the 47 percent who need some government help? There should be brief, well-crafted soundbites for each of these attack points on the tip of Obama’s tongue, and at least one or two of them should blister.
President Obama is much sharper than Romney on a broad range of issues and his policies merit the support of an overwhelming majority of voters, in contrast to those of his adversary. But it won’t do the president any good unless he distills his attack points and hones them to do serious damage to Romney’s bloviating persona. Defeat can be an excellent teacher, when the student is paying attention.

At the Hill Sheldon Alberts reports that 53 percent of likely voters now believe President Obama will be re-elected on November 6, up from 43 percent just before the Democratic convention, according to The Hill’s latest election poll.
After examining all presidential polls since 1972, Nate Silver reports at The New York Times that the “Last 10 Presidential Elections Show No Consistent Bias in Polls.” Silver explains: “Data suggest that polling in presidential elections has no history of partisan bias, at least not on a consistent basis. There have been years, like 1980 and 1994, when the polls did underestimate the standing of Republicans. But there have been others, like 2000 and 2006, when they underestimated the standing of Democrats…In all but three years, the partisan bias in the polls was small, with the polling average coming within 1.5 percentage points of the actual result. (I use the term “bias” in a statistical sense, meaning simply that the results tended to miss toward one direction.)”
Will the GOP’s edge in money and redistricting empower them to hold their House majority? Alex Isenstadt reviews the strength of their “firewall” at Politico.
John Harwood has an historical retrospective at the NYT on how “Debates Can Shift a Race’s Outcome, but It’s Not Easy.”
Miranda Green observes at The Daily Beast that “Data from the Gallup study also saw no direct correlation between the winner of each debate and the winner of the presidency. The 2004 Kerry vs. Bush debate was cited as an example. Kerry was considered the victor of all three showdowns, but still lost the election.”
WaPo columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. has an insightful preview of Wednesday’s debate, and a couple of good tips for President Obama: “Obama will have to avoid intimations of arrogance or overconfidence. Al Gore marred an otherwise strong night with his rather dismissive sighs during a 2000 debate with George W. Bush…Obama’s aspiration is for a showdown in which he calmly, perhaps even amiably, maintains focus on the subjects that have consistently given Romney such trouble. Every mention of the number 47 will be a victory for Obama.”
J.D. Kleinke has a NYT post, “The Conservative Case for Obamacare.” Kleinke notes, “The individual mandate recognizes that millions of Americans who could buy health insurance choose not to, because it requires trading away today’s wants for tomorrow’s needs. The mandate is about personal responsibility — a hallmark of conservative thought. …The same goes for health insurance exchanges, another idea formulated by conservatives and supported by Republican governors and legislators across the country for years. An exchange is as pro-market a mechanism as they come: free up buyers and sellers, standardize the products, add pricing transparency, and watch what happens.”
From the Columbus Dispatch, Derrel Rowland’s post “Dispatch Poll: Obama widens lead as balloting starts” gives president Obama a 9-point lead — just as early voting begins — the fifth consecutive poll to report a 5-10 point edge for the President..
Demos reports that a coalition of nonprofits has produced some dramatic improvements in the enforcement of the national Voter Registration Act (NVRA), including: “Mississippi particularly deserves a huge shout-out. After implementing all suggestions for improvements in voter registration procedures undertaken by public assistance agencies, there has been a nearly 2,500 percent increase in the number of voter registrations per month…”
Something I’ve wondered about — Is it possible that Republican voter suppression will backfire in a big way? The Economist’s ‘Lexingon Notebook’ has a post “If America had compulsory voting, would Democrats win every election?” noting that, “…The idea that Republicans are trying to suppress black and low-income votes has energized the Democratic base like “rocket fuel”, to quote the chairman of the [PA] state Democrats, Jim Burn. In short, the voter-ID law could end up being a net positive for the Democrats.”