Given today's numbers from 538, and the reaction of many here to those numbers...I thought we might start a mothership for teeth gnashing.
Please add links to your teeth gnashing, chill out or Obama's 11 dimensional chess debate strategy below.
As for me, I am sticking to what I said the day after the debate.
After all the post game analysis, I'm sticking with what I thought last night.
Romney won the debate, but said a shitload of lies to do it. Obama failed to point them out, meaning that he has to rely on the media to point them out for him. That was Obama's biggest mistake. Never count on the media to do the work that the candidate should be doing. He's hit back well today, but he shoulda done it last night.
As far as the long term impact, for the first time in this entire election cycle, Romney landed a punch and pushed Obama on his heels. In comparison, Obama has hit Romney repeatedly, pushing him onto his heels from the day Romney won the primary. The score right now would be something like 30-1 in Obama's favor.
Think back to 2008, Hillary Clinton landed many hard punches, and even McCain landed several. Obama weathered them and took back the offensive. This is the first punch Romney has landed, let's not give it more significance than it deserves.
Kos's analysis tells us that Romney's win was not a even in the neighborhood of a knockout punch. So, enough post-game analysis.
Refocus, get back on offense, and get to work.
As for Nate's analysis, I'm sticking with my comment in the first diary on the subject.
No, Nate hasn't lost his mind. He is sane, and he is honest...even when it hurts.
Nate has a model. It puts in most of what you mentioned (less the Biden debate stuff that has not worked its way into the polling yet). It also puts in the bad news you failed to mention (Gallup and a few others I can't think of right now). He presses the button and sees what pops out.
Is it right? I think so. I have always been a fan of 538. It seems to get it right most of the time. More so, Nate is clear that he does not adjust his algorithms mid-stream. That's good, changing the rules is the hallmark of bad pollsters.
As far as the VP debate, Biden cleaned Ryan's clock. But the reality is that people ain't voting for the VP. So, until Obama gets back up and kicks Romney's ass in the next debate, there is still gonna be a big drag on his numbers.
It sucks, but let's not be as stupid as the republicans...denouncing the specific pollsters when they report bad numbers and celebrating the same pollsters when they report good ones.
If you liked Nates numbers two weeks ago, you can't start complaining about them now...cause they are based on exactly the same assumptions.
So, please let everybody know what exactly you think of Nate Silver.