Presidential Debate #1 Observations

[PAllen]

I know who I'm voting for (not Romney, not Obama), but Romney clearly won, and got everything he could hope for from the debate. It will be interesting to see how the polls shift.

 

[Evo]

The average person doesn't follow policy or politics much. They form their opinions based on the debates.

Nah. Most people won't even watch the debates and have already made up their minds, very few are swayed by debates in this sort of situation. We have a known and an unpredictable unknown, IMO. Not much will have changed.

 

[CAC1001]

Nah. Most people won't even watch the debates and have already made up their minds, very few are swayed by debates in this sort of situation. We have a known and an unpredictable unknown, IMO. Not much will have changed.

Perhaps (I am no expert). But I would think that with the economy the way that it is, lots of people would watch the debates in this type of situation. If the economy was doing fine and the unemployment rate was at 4%, then people overall would probably be a lot less interested. People paid attention with the Reagan-Carter debates in 1980. But we will see.

 

[Pythagorean]

It seemed like Obama thought he was just going to coast through it and didn't expect Romney to have upped his public speaking game so much. Romney came out really strong and Obama tried to just play it cool.

No new insights about their campaigns really came out of this debate. It's basically everything that's being going on in their campaigning, just face to face.

 

[KiwiKid]

Nah. Most people won't even watch the debates and have already made up their minds, very few are swayed by debates in this sort of situation. We have a known and an unpredictable unknown, IMO. Not much will have changed.

Not sure if you're speaking solely about elections in the USA, but if not, I have a comment. During the election a month ago here (in the Netherlands), debates really *did* matter. The socialist party held about 40 seats in parliament in the polls, with the labour party having only 15 or so, but they pretty much switched places after a debate or two. The labour party is now the second-biggest party in the Netherlands.

Of course, I'm not sure whether any of this applies to the USA. We don't have only two parties (some would say we have too many), so there generally are fewer people being totally cool about one party, and totally hating another (and thus making debates not matter). It happens, but perhaps not as much as in the USA. There's also the fact that the socialist party and the labour party switched places, of course, and those aren't *that* far apart. It would be much more strange if the people's party for freedom and democracy (a more right party... in European terms) switched with the socialist party, for example.

 

[Pkruse]

The members of this forum are not a representative sample of the voting public at large. We like details of real plans, and we like to hear verifiable facts to support any statement made. Most folks don't need any of that.

Only two things matter. For those who watched, it matters how they felt after the debate. For the majority who did not watch, it matters how the debate is interpreted by whatever part of the media they pay attention to, be it Fox, CNN, or whatever.

And at this point, it only matters for those with an open mind who have not already decided who to vote for. I'm happy to see many like that on this forum.

 

[Jack21222]

Politfact's fact-checking of the debate: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m.../03/fact-checking-denver-presidential-debate/

A TON of half-truths last night from both candidates. A few "mostly trues" from Obama and a couple of "mostly falses" from Romney, but on balance, a ton of "half trues" for both sides.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I wasn't feeling well last night so I went to bed soon after the debate began. I did watch long enough to hear President Obama start hemming and hawing about something and I decided that he had lost and went to bed. When I woke up, it turned out that the consensus is that he had indeed lost. I look forward to seeing what effect, if any, this has on the polls.

 

[SixNein]

The members of this forum are not a representative sample of the voting public at large. We like details of real plans, and we like to hear verifiable facts to support any statement made. Most folks don't need any of that.

I'm afraid your right.

Politics is more about emotions than facts.

 

[azdavesoul]

Nah. Most people won't even watch the debates and have already made up their minds, very few are swayed by debates in this sort of situation. We have a known and an unpredictable unknown, IMO. Not much will have changed.

Why are these debates important?
I imagine that there is a spectrum of support for each candidate. There are extremes that will vote for their choice no matter what information is presented. More toward the center of this range are people who have made up their minds but there is a possibility they could change (I suspect this group is very small). In the center are the undecided. They may lean in one direction or the other but they could be won over by either candidate. The debates are one element of the campaign that might win over the undecided. I do not believe winning or losing is the primary effect these would have on the undecided. We get an opportunity to see the candidates in the closest approximation to a real, unscripted, portrayal of what they support and who they really are. This is one factor that may influence what could be a very close election.

 

[chemisttree]

Romney wins big in this debate. This could very well be the beginning of the turnaround for Romney. Obama was totally flat and off-balance. Even Chris "thrill up my leg" Matthews was fuming mad.

Matthews said it best. "What was Romney doing? He was winning!"

 

[turbo]

I was terribly disappointed. Obama failed to deliver, and failed to tie Romney to GOP House obstructions to job creation. Romney was vacuous on details, and Obama never called him on it. Lehrer got steam-rollered, IMO, and was not a moderator, but a hapless participant. Nobody acquitted themselves well, as far as I could see.

Lots of blather, and very little debating. I had to force myself to watch the full debate this morning. I couldn't get past 30 minutes of that crap last night.

 

[russ_watters]

From a "nuts and bolts" perspective, debates are important because at all other times, the things they say are separated by time and space, making mudslinging and misrepresentation easier than when you are face to face. In a debate, the public gets to hear/read the candidates answer the same questions and respond directly to each others' statements and accusations.

This is also part of the reason debates favor the challenger: Obama has a record to run on in addition to a vision for the future. So there are a lot more facts (pro and con) people can look at to base their decisions on and it is a lot harder to misrepresent who/what he is. For example, you don't have to wonder (nor is it even relevant anymore) what his vision for healthcare is; he got an actual law passed that people can judge without having to ask him what it means. Romney has only his claims about what he wants to do, so selling his candidacy is more about arguing hypotheticals about the future than showing facts about past performance.

A little more concise: The challenger can attack the record and the vision of the incumbent, but the incumbent can only attack the vision of the challenger.

Romney also had the added need to shift the focus of his campaign from his recent gaffes.

At the same time, Evo is right: because re-elections are mostly a referrendum on the job performance of the incumbent, more votes are decided earlier than in an election where both candidates are new (and on equal footing). This means that debates often don't matter. If the record of the incumbent is great, he'll win (the election), if it's terrible, he'll lose. So in order for the debate to matter, you need a specific set of conditions, including a muddled record resulting in a small lead for the incumbent and a challenger who wins the debate by a lot. And that's what we have. So yes, debates often don't matter, but this one matters more than any in the past several decades.

Also, one does not need to watch the debate to be affected by it. Everyone who checks today will read/hear - from virtually every news outlet - that Romney won big. Hearing someone else tell you who won (and by how much) can be as effective, if not more, than seeing it for yourself.

And how big of a win was it? According to CNN, 2/3 of respondents said Romney won, the largest percentage since they started asking the question in 1984, by a healthy margin. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/03/cnn-poll-romney-wins-debate-by-big-margin/?hpt=hp_t2

So there will almost certainly be a bounce from this. We'll have to wait and see how big it is and if it has any persistence.

 

[azdavesoul]

Obama failed to deliver,

It’s rough not having a Teleprompter.

 

[chemisttree]

It’s rough not having a Teleprompter.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Lehrer got steam-rollered, IMO, and was not a moderator, but a hapless participant.

I think the moderator did fine given the circumstances, in reality he's just there to present the questions and keep them appraised of time limits as best he can (what can he really do to enforce them after all?) I would have been far more annoyed if the moderator screamed and yelled over the two of them until they stopped talking.

 

[Jack21222]

They need to do it like the Ig Nobels and have Little Miss Sweetie Poo repeatedly yell "please stop, I'm bored" once they go over time.

 

[azdavesoul]

I’m glad we got this cleared up. President Obama doing so poorly at the debate was not his fault, it was Romney’s. After hearing for years how everything was Bush’s fault, now we have someone new to accept blame.

http://news.yahoo.com/team-obama-fights-keep-lead-romney-shines-debate-134951176.html

 

[mheslep]

...

So there will almost certainly be a bounce from this. We'll have to wait and see how big it is and if it has any persistence.

Intrade swung ~11pts, from a peak of ~79:21 favoring reelection on Sept 29 to 68:32 now. Still 10 pts off the ~58:42 odds prior to the Romney fundraiser video.

 

[dlgoff]

I was terribly disappointed. Obama failed to deliver, and failed to tie Romney to GOP House obstructions to job creation.

Yep

Romney was vacuous on details, and Obama never called him on it.

Yep

Lehrer got steam-rollered, IMO, and was not a moderator, but a hapless participant.

Yep

I had to force myself to watch the full debate this morning. I couldn't get past 30 minutes of that crap last night.

What a trooper.

 

[BobG]

Lehrer got steam-rollered, IMO, and was not a moderator, but a hapless participant. Nobody acquitted themselves well, as far as I could see.

Lots of blather, and very little debating. I had to force myself to watch the full debate this morning. I couldn't get past 30 minutes of that crap last night.

In some ways, this format should be better, with the candidates controlling the debate and confronting each other on their own terms. Usually, the rules put in place keep the candidates from actually debating each other. The debates usually turn into a quiz show with each candidate answering the moderator and people evaluating who gave the best answer.

In practice, it made for a messier debate than I'd expected and possibly made it harder for the average viewer to really follow the substance of the debate. I don't know how likely it is to see this format again given the difficulty for a moderator to control that type of debate.

To be honest, it's up to the candidates to control this type of debate, but it's a format they're not that familiar with either. I'd expect it to work better next time (if there ever is a next time), just because the candidates would have an actual example of the possible pitfalls and opportunities.

As far as how it actually worked, I think it diminished the substance and made overall impressions more important - and Romney definitely looked better than Obama.

Did it really give people something to hang on to for the rest of the campaign? Probably not, since that opportunity was also diminished by the messy flow.

But it still goes as a plus for Romney. Just hard to say how much.

 

[BobG]

You have to give Romney credit for one thing, though. It's takes a bit of moxie to fire the moderator in the middle of the debate.

Romney told us he enjoys firing people and, from the expression on his face, I think he really does!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uWp8BZpEZYs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWp8BZpEZYs

 

[CAC1001]

The jobs report out today has a slight reduction in the unemployment rate, which will allow Obama to claim that we are moving in the right direction.

I am fascinated by all the obsession and demanding of details and specifics from Mitt Romney. I remember during the 2008 race, how Republicans wanted such from Obama, but from whom the media did not demand any specifics whatsoever. Not saying specifics aren't important, but it seems a double-standard is going on.

Romney told us he enjoys firing people and, from the expression on his face, I think he really does!

I don't think he said he enjoys firing people, but that he likes being able to fire people, in reference to the private-sector versus the government, where you can't necessarilly fire incompetent people.

 

[rootX]

Few weeks ago I was saying ...

Yes certainly true Romney has nothing to defend but his personal life. Aren't we comparing apples against oranges? Romney only need to be offensive while Obama will be quite defensive about his policies in last few years.

It turned out to be quite true. I doubt Obama can do much because he has to defend policies he actually implemented but one good news for Obama:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19845234

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

We're going to close shop on this debate thread.

Next debate is for the vice presidents on Thursday Oct 11th. We'll open a thread for that on Wed.

thanks all!