Just felt like writing my first diary with some analysis about the debates and what they mean going forward, looking at raw numbers and some history. First, I thought Romney beat the crap out of Obama. He took it to him. Second, at first glance the snap polls and analysis seemed to bury Obama and signal a comeback story and possible game change. Finally, some deeper analysis and history tells us that the Obama prevent defense strategy was the correct one. Follow me below the cool line for more.
Ok lets just get into the numbers. The big news out of the snap polls were the 65 to 27 Rmoney CNN win and the 47 to 20 something CBS victory. Both those numbers seem to indicate a Romney domination and potential game change. But lets go beneath the superficial crap and look at if this actually could have radically changed the race. Lets be honest here, if we were polled we too would say Romney won but that doesnt mean we are going to switch our votes. First the CNN poll had a very interesting highly republican lean. Forget about the demographics as we will give CNN the benefit of the doubt. What matters is that they did have pre debate numbers on favorability. Unbelievably their pool had a Romney fav of 54! and Obama of 49! That tells u exactly how republican leaning the poll was. That being said how did the debates change the numbers? Not at all. Meaning that regardless of how badly romney won it didnt move the needle on an important indicator of voting at all! zero erosion of obama support.
Next lets look at the CBS poll. 2 to 1 margin once again and this time with a sample of all self described undecideds. But only 47 percent of the people labelled it a Romney victory. Meaning 53 percent thought that it was either a draw or an Obama win. Oddly enough, that 47 percent is just about where you expect romney to be polling at. Now the poll did show that romney gained 12 percent in leaners. But once again, obama didnt lose any of his leaner support. And some simple reasoning indicates that his ceiling in this group is around the 50 percent mark. That isnt a game change.
Now for some history. Debates very rarely change election outcomes. But you do get bounces. Kerry and Mondale both got bounces out of their first debates. But lets remember that both were polling atrociously before the debates. and their bounces ended up being just leaners saying that they were back in the fold.
Finally, I want to bring you guys back to something that has been forgotten by almost everyone here and the MSM. The first 2000 presidential debates. Everyone now laughs and talks about Gores bad performance but that is revisionist history at its finest. The post debate focus groups and pundits all scored it a huge Gore victory. Gore destroyed Bush. What happened? The polls ending breaking in Bush favor over the ensuing days and people went back and noticed all the weird body language. Things the pundits didnt notice at first. Why am I bringing this up? because for all that romney did well, he still came off as a douche and a bully. He didnt make himself anymore likable. in fact he played into the Obama narrative as the tough ceo guy who fires u, It will take some time to bear this out but I think all the gains that Romeny will make by shoring up republican leaners he will lose by making it even harder to win soft dems. Obama lost but came off as nice. A lot of swing or low information voters vote on things like that. There is a reason bush was elected twice in this country and that is because low information voters just liked him better. Obama is likable. Way more so that Romney and didnt jeopardize that at all last night. Sometimes you can lose a battle but win the war. I disagree with the strategy and I think team obama was going for a draw and were surprised at how badly they lost but if the polls dont move significantly in Romneys direction in the next week look for there to be massive blowback and second guessing about Romneys bluntness and rudeness.
GOTV and lets finish what we started.