Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Debate Recap

Do I look like a divorced mother of two children who's had some college education but not a 4-year degree, living in suburban Denver, DC, or Columbus? No? Then why do you care what I thought of the debates?

I confess, I didn't watch. I've experienced the debate solely through Twitter and reading the transcript. This makes me a bad political junkie, I know. My twitter feed seems to be disappointed that Barack Obama failed to capitalize on every single opportunity to attack for flip flopping (and then flipping again tonight), for the 47% comment, for making the tax cut and health care arguments bloodless rather than visceral, etc.
I note these are the same people who have cautioned the Romney campaign against going the full wingnut, lest he alienate the handful of remaining undecided votes.

That said, one can see even from the transcripts from that "professorial Obama" definitely showed up, which didn't help matters much. Every response from the President features a one sentence attack buried in four paragraphs of context.

I suspect that we'll most likely see a modest tightening of the polls, as we did in 2004, or even 1996, since for many voters this is their first look at Mitt Romney outside of the caricature they see in TV ads. I'm skeptical it will be enough, though.

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