Lol okay, Listen dude, you can believe all the conservative biased facts you want. In the end, debates DONT have much of any effect on the outcome of the election. If you want to believe it does, okay, well, thats your misguided perspective. History does prove they don't over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over *repeat as necessary.* Here's a website you can start with:
Google. Ask it if presidential debates matter, I'm sure you'll find some CRAAAAAZY info that suggests otherwise. If that doesn't suit your likings, ask Bing, or Vivisimo - I don't care. At this point, youre not going to listen. If Romney wins (which, at this point, is unlikely for Numerous reasons besides this debate) ill buy you a coke. Scouts honor.
Do me a favor though, take a gander outside of the Republican/Conservative support group and see how much historical and logical evidence there is against your data.
Oh, and Presisident Bush won the 2000 election before the debates? There's a reason that election went all the way to the Supreme Court and its not because Bush won the popular vote.
LMFAO! If you can't refute the facts that I presented, call them conservative! I took All the stats and facts from the same very sites that you were using, RCP and Pollster reporting of all polling about the presidential race...
(Psst... when you start a post with “LOL Okay, Listen Dude” it's pretty much an indication that you can't refute what I'm saying)
It's a fact, all the polls you mentioned and quoted on RCP are pre-debate or include a significant amount of pre-debate sampling, & they show a large 5-10pt lead for Obama...
The only post debate polls show a 1-2pt lead for Romney. So if you wanted proof that the debate changed things, it's right there in front of you, you just dont want to accept it...
You want to challenge that it was Rasmussen, but even the Rasmussen polls had 2-3 pt leads for Obama pre-debate, then post debate had a 1 pt lead for Romney. So among that 1 polling agency there was a 4 pt swing from the debate...
Oh, and I love the suggestion to use Google.com... since that's obviously the brainchild of human knowledge right now--a liberal based seach engine, that donates to the Democratic Party, and rather than linking to the most impartial and factual sites possible, just comes up with the most read liberal blogs and other such opinionative publications it can find...
I don't have to use "Google" to find information about stuff I already know. I'm a Harvard educated Social Science major with a concentration in History, who has studied presidential elections, the debates, etc. extensively... and seen them all more than once... I don't have to Google for research about things I'm just as much if not more qualified to speak on than the pundits selected by those publications Google is linking to...
I'll use google, wikipedia, etc. to find quick reference guides to link to for the sake of these online discussions, but that's in place of numerous non-fiction books, journal publications, and data sets compiled on the topic which I've dealt with over the years... Not to mention that my girlfriend of multiple years is a specialist in survey design and analysis who knows how and why which surveys are biased and what specifically they've intentionally done to skew their surveys. So we don't have much respect for poll numbers and biased news agencies using stats, since anyone who knows stats well knows you can manipulate them to say anything you want them to.
So let's go back to what I said.
Obama had built a lead up to the point where even a narrow split decision would've had people still saying the election is over. Going into the debates Obama has ALL the momentum, and is expected to be so much smarter than Obama, that he's going to trounce him. Romney had been seen as uncaring, all about the rich, & aloof to average Americans... Instead, at the debates Romney comes off as more alert, compassionate, full of knowledge on the relevant topics, & able to refute all stereotypes that had been built up against him over months of liberal media reports and advertising dollars...
That changed the entire campaign. I didn't say it changed the result, that’s yet to come. I said it changed the outlook of election, which it has.
I also said if Romney goes out and earns just 2 draws he’ll win the election based off the debate performances.
Also, I never said Bush won the election before the debate. I said Bush was losing the election before that debate, it was a 47%-47% that was favoring Gore... Gore had everything going in his favor, by inheriting the Clinton economy and everyone despising the Newt Congress... He wasn't very well liked, and viewed as an arrogant blowhard, who couldn't get things done. While the election went down to late on election night, & a challenge to the Supreme Court. The factors that changed the election, were Gore's poor debate showings in the 1st & 3rd debate & the appearance on a beach with a focus group when it appeared he had lost momentum of the election of what they thought he should do. It indicated he wasn't a leader, but a follower. Bush came off with the appearance as a decisive leader. Also, similarly, Bush was supposed to be viewed as the village idiot that Gore was going to trounce... but with the debates Bush came off as able to hold his own on stage against Gore, and Gore came off as a pedantic blowhard who talked too much... By his obnoxious sighs & walking over to Bush's personal space while he was speaking, Gore came off as a dismissive prick that people didn't want as president. He had all the traditional indicators in his favor to win the election, but he lost it with his performance.
Like I said, the reason most debates haven't changed the election, is because they havent had decisive winners or any real game changing moment to them. Most debates come up as draws with both sides arguing a win, but no one bringing anything new to the table. We just listed 4 instances where the debates had a major impact of the election. That’s 4 out of the 10 of them. For the rest of them, there really haven't been decisive winners, which is why they haven't impacted the elections...
McCain/Obama debates were 3 draws really. The only thing being McCain was supposed to outmanuvere Obama with his experience on foreign policy. When Obama came out and was able to articulate foreign policy matters. It solidified his lead, put to bed the 3am phone call criticism, and ultimate victory. It wasn't the reason people voted for him by their self-identifying measure of wanting Hope, Change, and the first Black President...
Kerry/Bush, were a wash. On the first debate, Bush seemed weak, but by the 2nd day most Republicans felt he had won (it was more of a 55-45 win for Kerry than a 65-35 win like Romney had), then Bush came out and won the 2nd debate by a similar 55-45 measure, with the 3rd debate being a meaningless wash between the candidates and no new news... thus we went to the polls with two evenly unimpressive candidates... both painted as ineffective wishy washy and potentially corrupt...
Bush/Gore as I've discussed, was a potential lead that Gore pissed out of the window by being an arrogant dismissive blowhard, who was contemptuous that he couldn't actually outdebate "the village idiot" who was only there because his father. For that matter, the village idiot actually looked presidential at the debates. It wasn't a huge tipping point, but they were influential on the actual outcome of the race.
Clinton/Dole. These debates didn't really matter in the sense that although Perot's support had drastically diminished, the fact that he was there and attacking Clinton on the same points Dole was split Dole's ability to capture the anti-Clinton vote. The final election results had Perot's support at about the exact difference between Clinton and Dole. Still, in the debates, Clinton came in with a huge lead, played it safe with hollow platitudes & tried to pat himself on the back, while Dole may have won substantively, he stylistically lost heavily, with his age being a major concern of the populace & he looked old, tired, & cranky during the debates. They weren't a game changer, but they did nothing to dispel preconceived notions prior to the debates in order to become a game changer.
Bush/Clinton/Perot was definitely an influential debate season. The fact that Perot got into the debates added legitimacy to the support he was receiving as a 3rd party candidate. Most people thought Perot even won the 1st debate. While Bush & Clinton were fighting each other in a really partisan petty manner, Perot sat back with his "I'm the only one talking to the American People" comments, and was able to poke at both Bush/Clinton, while making himself look good. He potentially could've won it, but when his VP candidate Admiral Stockdale went into the VP debate & made a mockery of the ticket, it furthered the notion that Perot was a crazy loon that wasn't serious about the election. Then, in the Town Hall debate, when Bush was asked "how have you been effected by the recession?" & he fumbled the answer, but Bill Clinton stepped up to say "I think I can answer this" & did his I feel your pain BS, they all fell for it & for Clinton, and further cemented the image of Bush as aloof on the economy...
Bush/Dukakis were not influential debates, because Dukakis had already made a fool of himself with the photo in the tank, that looked like a kid with a Tonka. That & he was hammered by ads on the Willy Horton scandal. In the debates, Bush did an effective job of continually bringing up Willy Horton, Taxachusetts, & every talking point he had. Dukakis was all over the place. It was also one of these debates where the larger more presidential looking Bush peered downward towards the short statured funny eye browed Dukakis. Bush won the debates & the election, not because the debates, but they were part of the overall scheme that was successful in painting Dukakis.
Reagan/Mondale debates were a spectacle. Neither really won them. In many Democratic minds Mondale actually won the debates. Reagan was a great speaker, and despite several key debate quotes, his debate style wasn't very good, his positions weren't easy to articulate, and his opponents often scored major points against him. Mondale lost the election because the economy had a massive turnaround, there was a huge amount of nationalism in the wake of the 84 summer Olympics, & he nominated a female VP candidate really as a stunt that backfired when the controversy about her husband’s wealth came into play.
Carter/Reagan. This debate effected the election, because it was such a process. Reagan's success in the VP debates to fight hard to defeat the challenge of Bush was what propelled his momentum. That the 1st presidential debate was skipped out on by Carter was a telling sign he was an ineffective leader, & Reagan's quote "It's a shame that we are the only two candidates here when our positions are so similar" or something to that extent help solidify him as the opposition candidate. When Reagan chose to agree to have a one on one with Carter he already had a lead. The draw in the debates did nothing to change the momentum. Reagan actually appeared to win, because he framed the election as "are you better off than you were four years ago?" while suggesting a litany of reasons that most people weren't. The debate wasn't the reason Carter lost, he lost because of stagflation, the Olympic boycott, the Iranian hostage crisis, etc. but the debate was the memorable image in people's minds which capped off the Carter presidency.
Ford/Carter was a moot point. You keep going back to this example as how Ford’s “gaffe” isn’t what cost him the election. No, really? In the 1st presidential election since the Watergate scandal broke the debate isn’t what cost Ford? You’re right. Ford had very little chance of overcoming anti-Nixon & anti-Vietnam war sentiment. This was much like 2008 anti-Bush…
Kennedy/Nixon was a HUGE influence on the election, and on politics in general since. I doubt you’d argue that in any way.
So, in the entire course of Presidential debate history, there hasn’t been a single debate to compare to this one… Where you had an incumbent president with a big lead, get sizably beaten in the first debate? The only case was Kerry beating Bush… but, it wasn’t as big a lead for Bush or as sizable a victory by Kerry, and Kerry couldn’t follow it up…
So the 1 debate alone won’t change the result of the election, if Romney doesn’t do well in the other two debates… but the result of this debate changed the outlook of the campaign…