Two things happened in this debate. Romney had the energy and focus, a long series of arguments packed and tight to dish out in the debate. He didn’t get distracted. He had a game plan he stuck to. What struck me a lot of times through the debate was that Obama seemed pained. He didn’t seem happy. And people like seeing happy people.
President Obama almost seemed like he came to have a discussion. But debates like these aren’t discussions. You come in knowing what you’re going to say. And you find ways to say it. That’s what Romney did.
Romney’s focus though came at the cost of a few key things. Read More
Lemme know when folks see any real fact checks of Romney’s claims in the debate. That’s where this goes.
Top Romney advisor says people with pre-existing conditions will need their states to enact versions of RomneyCare after Obamacare is repealed at the federal level.
(Ed. Note: See updates below.)
Getting a massive amount of coverage this morning is the CNN snap poll of the debate, which showed Romney winning the exchanged overwhelmingly.
But the internals of the poll look really strange. If you look at the breakdown of the sample, it doesn’t appear to contain anyone (or doesn’t appear to contain any representative sample) under 50, anyone outside of the South or anyone who’s not white. (See page 8 of this pdf.)
I doesn’t make sense to me that they’d do or release a poll like that. So really curious if anyone has an explanation. Read More
Chris Matthews’ post-debate rant on Obama’s performance (plus special network promo-fest). Watch.
Looking at the reaction Democrats and the Obama campaign are having to the debate this morning, I sense some may be making a form of the mistake I said President Obama made last night.
Are they coming to have a discussion or coming to make a point? Debates are seldom graded by the debates themselves. The verdict comes as people and the press pick apart what was said over a period of news cycles. Read More
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina last night in Denver on why Obama never mentioned the 47 percent: “It just didn’t come up in the debate. It wasn’t a deliberate decision.”
TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro bravely entered the spin room in Denver after the debate … and emerged with actual news.