So, Mitt Romney "won" the debate, right? That's what everyone is saying. But what does that even mean? What, exactly, did he win?
Two guys went into a room and argued about politics for an hour and a half. One guy was loud and dickish and rude to the nice older gentleman who was there to keep the thing in order. The other guy was polite, refused to talk over the moderator, did not take personal swipes at his opponent, but also kinda looked like he didn't want to be there. But seriously, with Mitt being that much of a douchebag, do you think America blames him?
Please remember, folks, that a huge part of winning elections is getting people to like you.
American Presidential politics are no more different from high school SGA elections than a high school baseball game is from game 7 of the World Series. The stakes are higher, sure. And the people involved are highly trained experts coming out of a massively competitive field who have been doing this their whole lives, so they're a lot better at it. But the basic rules of the game are the same. Three strikes, you're out. You win elections by being the guy people want to be buddies with.
It drives me nuts every time Bill Maher brings up how stupid the American people were for voting for the guy they wanted to have a beer with in W over first Gore, then Kerry. Let me posit this query - who had more charisma, Barack Obama or John McCain? Bill Clinton or Bob Dole? Clinton or HW? Ronald Reagan or either of his two opponents? Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford? Nixon had the deep manly voice and the authoritarian disposition that people wanted out of a leader in 1968, when the world seemed to be going crazy, but that wasn't what folks were looking for 8 years earlier, when he got beaten by one of the most natural politicians in American History. Jack was Mickey Mantle. Eisenhower or Stevenson? The only presidential election in the last 50 years where the winner of the general election was not clearly the more charismatic candidate was Bush over Dukakis, where neither candidate had any real charisma whatsoever, and so America gave the Republicans the tiebreaker because they still liked Reagan so much. Reagan, by the way, was Reggie Jackson.
(And by the way, don't think for a second voters everywhere else don't pull the same stupid shit. You think it's a coincidence that the last president of France was married to the hottest woman in a country filled with hot women? It's just that when their voters fuck up and elect a likeable dipshit, who the fuck cares? When we elect the wrong guy, shit goes downhill for everyone. I have a real good rant about the phrase "European-Style Socialism", but I'll save that for another day...)
People don't like Mitt Romney, and with good reason. The guy, it has been noted here, ad nauseaum, is a dick. People don't want to vote for dicks. That's why Dick Cheney had George W as his puppet instead of just running himself. W was always smiling and goofing around - people like a guy who enjoys himself. Do you really think Mitt Romney won anybody over to his side, carrying on the way he did last night? Was anybody watching Mitt Romney act like an enormous prick for an hour and a half thinking to themselves, "yeah, that's the guy I want in charge", who wasn't already thinking that before?
So I ask you again, Mitt Romney won the debate, really?
And another thing - last night's debate was not some independent event happening in a vacuum. In was the first in a series of four debates, which is in itself a part of the stretch run of the Presidential election. Whose to say the reason the President didn't go on an all-out offensive last night wasn't that he plans to lull Romney in in the first debate, and then come out firing in round 2, catching the guy off guard? Where was Bain Capital and the 47%? Well, maybe Obama wants to harp on that in the final debate, to make sure it's fresh in everybody's minds come Election Day, and he doesn't want to be repeating it over and over again, because he doesn't want the American people to think that personal attacks are all he's got.
The pundits love their sports analogies, and so do I (I was a big fan of the one Rachael Maddow used last night, about how the debate was like a football game and Mitt dominated time of possession). So here's one more:
A Presidential Election is like a 12-round boxing match. And the debates are rounds 11 and 12. In a neck and neck match-up, they can make the difference in the final score. But if one of the two competitors has been getting his ass kicked from pillar to post all fight long, he can't be trying to win the match on points. He needs to land a knock-out punch. And Mittens didn't come anywhere close to anything like that.
Obama is still way ahead in Ohio. He's still winning Florida, and Virginia. And New Hampshire. And Colorado. Nevada. Wisconsin. He still has that big 78 vote electoral bomb that's gonna come down for him at 11:00 PM Eastern sharp, when polls close on the west coast & in Hawaii.
Obama is toying with Romney, right now, circling, dancing around, clutching and grabbing, waiting for the bell to ring. We'll see if he comes out in round 12 like a bat out of hell and whips Romney's ass like he did all summer. I hope he does, because Romney is such an asshole and it would be awesome to watch, but even if he just runs out the clock, he still gets to keep the belt.
CHILL THE FUCK OUT! HE'S GOT THIS!