Kyle Leighton looks at the candidates’ standings on the issues they discussed last night:
As barefaced as it was I honestly don’t think Mitt Romney’s live-action Etch-a-Sketching Wednesday night should have come as such a big surprise. Yes, that’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight. But this wasn’t a stump speech to base Republicans, it was his great entree to the full spectrum of voters, most of whom like President Obama pretty well.
What is a big surprise to me — and what I think has the real potential to shake up the nature of the campaign — is how hungrily all the conservatives who’d crapped on Romney for being a moderate squish lapped up all that mushy centrism.
Think about it. Read More
I’m not sure I’d agree with this. But I did see several readers who cast President Obama’s debate performance last night as part of a larger problem of resisting or retreating from confrontation. One of them was TPM Reader HM. It’s something the campaign and the president need to take note of …
Longtime reader with a take on the debate that I’ve not seen stated elsewhere:
I’ve been an avid Obama supporter, voted for him in 2008 and will be voting for him again, but Obama’s performance last night highlights the very real, absolute worst thing about him as a president and leader:
With the heat of the election upon us, polling data and the voter suppression campaign are at the top of our list of things we’re paying close attention to. So we’re currently scheduling online discussions at TPMPrime with a series of experts on public opinion and the nationwide voter suppression campaign — something that’s been a main focus of our reporting for literally a decade. We’ll host those the second half of this month and then the final week of the campaign in early November. More details soon.
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Mitt Romney disputes that his tax cuts will cost the government $5 trillion in revenue — the number independent tax experts have calculated — but he doesn’t say what he thinks the actual number is. Ask his campaign, and they won’t say either. What does that tell you?
Obama: “Thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird. It is about time.”
Romney surrogate Jon Sununu just said the problem for Obama last night was that Obama is simply too “lazy” to do debate prep. Doesn’t like to work.
Andrea Mitchell didn’t seem to like it.
Video after the jump … Read More
Obama camp tells reporters they’ve got their post debate plan: Hammer Romney’s lies and evasions in the debate.
Obama, in his first public appearance since the debate: “When I got on to the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney.”