In preparation for the debate tomorrow, Obama might want to borrow a line from one of the Die Hard movies with Bruce Willis.
In the film Willis’ character John McClain is racing to save his kidnapped daughter, accompanied by a geeky computer kid. As they near the kidnappers hideout the geeky kid asks “What’s your plan, McClain?”
Willis answers: “I’m going to bust in there, kill all the bad guys and rescue my daugher.”
The geeky kid responds: “That’s not a plan McClain, how you do that is a plan.”
In the coming debate, when Romney recites his completely vacuous “Five Point Plan” (eliminate regulations, cut taxes etc. ) Obama should say:
“Gov. Romney, you don’t know what a plan is.That’s not a plan. How you actually do that is a plan.”

At Esquire, Charles P. Pierce channels a little Hunter Thompson and comes up with one of the more blistering — and perceptive — takes on the vice presidential debates. Here’s an excerpt:

For the second time in as many presidential elections, Joseph Biden got to debate a young, attractive Republican candidate who was demonstrably less qualified to to be president than I am to be chairman of the World Bank…
There is a deeply held Beltway myth of Paul Ryan, Man of Big Ideas, and it dies hard. But, if there is a just god in the universe, on Thursday night, it died a bloody death, was hurled into a pit, doused with quicklime, buried without ceremony, and the ground above it salted and strewn with garlic so that it never rises again…
The battering that Biden gave Ryan brought something into sharp relief that the Republican party has been fudging ever since Romney put the zombie-eyed granny-starver on the ticket — that, for his entire political career up to that point, on critical economic issues, Paul Ryan was an extremist even by the standards of the modern Republican party, which are considerably high indeed…For years, Paul Ryan has been the shining champion of some really terrible ideas, and of a dystopian vision of the political commonwealth in which the poor starve and the elderly die ghastly, impoverished deaths, while all the essential elements of a permanent American oligarchy were put in place. This has garnered him loving notices from a lot of people who should have known better…
Joe Biden laughed at him? Of course, he did. The only other option was to hand him a participation ribbon and take him to Burger King for lunch.
You know what’s the difference between Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan?
Lipstick

Pierce has written a great piece, and with luck, it could serve as a fitting epitaph for Ryan’s political ambitions. Read the rest of it here.

Ed Kilgore has some salient thoughts about last night’s debate in his post, “Leaving it All on the Field” at the Washington Monthly. From a couple of his article’s nut graphs:

…Biden’s performance, whatever its effect on swing voters, dispelled a dark cloud over the Democratic tribe. And that’s not just because it might have interrupted Romney’s “momentum” or countered the president’s “loss” last week.
In retrospect, what dispirited an awful lot of Democrats about the first presidential debate was that it emblemized the fear that in an intense, high-stakes battle with an ascendant and radicalized conservative movement, progressive elected officials just didn’t have the willingness or ability to make a full and passionate case for their own cause. That was at the heart of criticisms not only of the president’s demeanor, but also of his many missed opportunities to rebut Romney and expose the rickety substructure of the mendacious self-presentation Moderate Mitt was attempting. And this is obviously a complaint that’s been just under the surface of mixed progressive attitudes towards Obama and many other Democratic leaders for years now.
…Biden “won” because he achieved an important objective for Democrats who were beginning to wonder if all the Romney-Ryan ticket had to do to achieve victory for the most radical major-party agenda in decades was simply to change the packaging and play the horse-race-expectations game to the hilt. Whatever ultimately happens, the dynamics have now changed, and Joe Biden deserves the credit.

Kilgore has more to say about what Biden has accomplished and an observation about the victimization bragging rights Ryan’s GOP groupies got out of it. You can read it all here.

The following article, by Erica Seifert, is cross-posted from The Carville-Greenberg Memo:
When Barack Obama and Mitt Romney met for their first debate one week ago, we were there — in the swing-voting state of Colorado — to track voters’ opinions during the debate.
Based on dials that voters used to register their real-time reactions and post-debate interviews, the results of our research were lackluster, at least for the president. During the debate, the dial lines fell flat when the president emphasized the progress his administration had made over the last four years.
By contrast, Romney performed well among independents when he talked about his plans for the future and the middle class. In our post-debate focus groups, voters told us they were “surprised” by Mitt Romney and “confused” by the president.
This was a different Barack Obama (and definitely a different Mitt Romney) than we had observed in September. Following the party conventions, our tracking showed stronger margins for President Obama, although the race remained close. And then Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” video suddenly appeared on the Mother Jones website. For many voters, this footage really changed the choice and the stakes. We saw the poll numbers move decisively in Obama’s direction and against Romney.
On the eve of the first debate, half of all voters (50 percent) gave Mitt Romney a negative rating and the president took a commanding lead on the ballot–leading by 7 points nationally and 6 points in the battleground states. More voters said they trusted Obama on key attributes that predict their choices–focusing on issues important to ordinary people and making the right decisions to address big national problems–and he had pulled even with Romney on issues where he had previously trailed, including the economy.
But the trend in the polls has changed course in the week since the debate. What happened? In the first debate, the president touched on none of the themes that had fortified his lead in the post-convention period–focusing on the future, emphasizing economic policies that build the middle class, and clarifying the choice over the “47 percent,” which Bill Clinton had summed up at the convention: Democrats believe “we’re in this together”; Republicans say, “you are on your own.” In many ways, Obama let Romney own the future and the middle class in the first debate.
We saw the results on the dial lines in Denver. And we have begun to see the impact in the polls. To win over swing voters and energize his base to turn out, the president needs to speak to these themes clearly, meaningfully, and emphatically. He needs to stand up for, and advocate policies to advance, the so-called “47 percent.”
The “47 percent” theme works because voters believe that if it was more than a simple gaffe, it revealed something important about Romney. It also works because Democrats can offer a powerful contrast: Medicare, Social Security, taxes, and a political outlook that rejects the “you’re on your own” economics advanced by Romney, Paul Ryan, and the Congressional Republicans.
Barack Obama has the chance to make this election about a country and an economy that works for all Americans. If he does that, Mitt Romney will not win.
Why is the “47 percent” so powerful? Our extensive research shows that voters–the elderly on Social Security, unmarried women, young people, veterans, the working poor, and even those in the middle class–strongly identify with the “47 percent.”

Read more…

The following post comes from an e-blast from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Readers are strongly encouraged to click on the link below for a more in-depth look at this innovative Democracy Corps study:
Single women, people of color and young people – the Rising American Electorate — voted for change in 2008. To understand the dynamics of this election, Women’s Voices. Women Vote Action Fund and Democracy Corps engaged in a three-phase research project with a particular emphasis on disengaged voters, Obama defectors, and unmarried women. This project included a national survey, focus groups among unmarried and married women in Fairfax, Virginia and Columbus, Ohio, and dial meter research during the first presidential debate with follow up focus groups in Denver, Colorado.
What is clear is that unmarried women are more likely to engage and turn out when they are convinced they have a stake in the outcome of the election – and that there is a powerful argument that can be made to persuade them to show up and vote their values.
It is a pretty straightforward story. President Obama was pushing toward his 2008 margin among the Rising American Electorate- particularly unmarried women – according to this pivotal research completed right before the first debate. But the debate touched on none of the issues that have moved these voters.
According to this survey and focus groups, Obama can get to 2008 levels when he makes Romney own ‘the 47 percent’ and offers a robust message to make this country work for the middle class again – with more punch and choice, more values, more on the consequences of unequal power, and above all, big policy choices that go well beyond the thin rhetoric of the first debate.
Read the full memo at Democracy Corps.

During the last week, many Democrats have succumbed to poll-induced panic syndrome in the wake off the first presidential debate. But Douglas E. Schoen and Jessica Tarlov have a soothing balm for the malady in their Daily Beast post, “Stop Panicking, Obama Supporters!” As the authors explain:

This has been a race of extreme narratives. Before last Wednesday’s debate, commentators were confident of an Obama victory. Now, the media have gone from riding high on Obama to previewing a Romney win. The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan, for instance, is arguing that Obama may have forfeited the election with his debate performance.

Tarlov and Schoen review all the latest polls indicating trouble for Obama, including the Pew Research poll, which has caused so much weeping and gnashing of teeth among Dems. In addition, say the authors,

But while these numbers are painful for Obama supporters, the election is close to a tie overall. The Pew survey is just one poll, capturing one moment in time. Consider Monday’s Washington Times/Zogby poll, which showed Romney and Obama in an effective tie, with Romney slightly ahead by 45.1 percent to 44.5 percent. If you factor in libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Obama is actually ahead by half a point, 45.5 to 45 percent.
Meanwhile, Rasmussen’s tracking numbers also show a tie, with both candidates at 48 percent. The Gallup numbers put Romney only slightly ahead at 49 to 47 percent. And yesterday, Rasmussen reported that 55 percent of likely voters still think Obama is probably going to win in November.
The electoral map also continues to shape up in the president’s favor. Although Romney is ahead by 1 in Ohio, according to the latest ARG survey, he trails by 3 in both Pennsylvania (PDF) and Virginia (PDF).

As Schoen and Tarlov conclude, “In other words, we are not looking at an assured Romney victory. We are looking at a very, very close race.” Greg Dworkin’s pundit round-up at Daily Kos reaches similar conclusions.
You really have to put alarming poll numbers into broader perspective. Dems should remember that the presidential race always narrows in October. If you absolutely must worry about polls, save it for the last couple of days before the campaign, when polls actually have some value in predicting the election outcome.
After all the spin is spun, and regardless of what the polls say, in a close race, it’s who shows up to vote that counts. Stay focused on what Democratic rank and file, as well as campaign workers need to do to get registered voters to the polls. With voter registration deadlines passed in most states this week, it’s time to get involved in preparing a GOTV mobilization of unprecedented proportions.
Residents of states that are pretty much decided should get involved in GOTV to either build and strengthen the Democratic Party in their own state, join in GOTV phone banking campaigns in other states or help out with fund-raising for Democratic candidates. For fund-raising, check out ActBlue. To get invloved in phone-banking and other GOTV action projects click here and/or here.

The following article, by Democratic strategist Mike Lux, author of The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
In politics, as in sports, the psychology of a team matters at least as much as other factors — and usually more. In sports, something like this happens all the time: one team is kicking the other’s butt, breezing along to what seems like an easy victory, when all of a sudden something dramatic changes. One big play, one dumb mistake, one moment on which things turn. All of a sudden the team that was losing comes back hard and strong, and the team that had been winning freezes up and starts playing poorly. Now, that purely psychological momentum shift doesn’t mean the change is permanent, or that the team that was ahead loses in the end, but it is a critical moment in a contest. It needs to be dealt with aggressively, generally by taking a deep breath, calming down, and going back to what was working before.
As you astute readers probably guessed, that metaphor relates very much to the moment we are in right now in the presidential election. The Obama campaign had built a solid lead and had been running very smoothly, while Romney kept making dumb mistakes and had dug a hole for himself. When Obama had a bad night and Romney had a good one, it threw the Obama team for a loop and gave the Romney team confidence. Almost a week after the debate, what it feels like is that the Obama team still has not gotten its rhythm or confidence back. What they need to do is to go back to what was working for them before the debate. I have seen nothing in the polling I am looking at that makes me think the core dynamics in this race have changed, and we need to go back to what was winning before: contrasting the basic differences in philosophy, values, and economics — and driving home the 47 percent video which defines Romney so well.
What the Obama ads have been doing ever since the debate is to say, in a variety of ways using a variety of validators from the media, that Romney lied. It sure is true, but that isn’t convincing to swing voters. What is convincing is to show them Romney being two-faced. And the policy stuff is less important than the values piece. All you have to do is directly juxtapose a clip from the debate with the 47 percent video, as in:

You can’t have a starker contrast between someone saying one thing in private and something else completely different in public. It would be powerful and dramatic, and it would get you out of the he said/she said of who is a liar.
The Obama campaign has been consistently winning the debate in this election — on economic policy, on values and on philosophy. Romney gave us an incredible gift with the 47 percent video, because it shows as clear as a bell what his values are, and it powerfully reinforces the debate victory we were already enjoying. We need to shake off Obama’s bad night, stop playing defense and go back to the game plan that was working very well for us.
Oh, and keep using the Big Bird thing, because it really is fun. Here’s a great new ad: