Could Obama's debate nap be fatal?

Questions:

1. Why did Obama do so poorly in the first debate? His winning the other two debates appear not to have helped him much.

2. Romney was starting to look like a dead duck before the first debate but now some polls show him ahead. What is happening?

1. Hard to say, but I'm sure that the fact that he hasn't had a debate in four years had a lot to do with it. Remember that Romney had 26 debates in the primary so he had a huge preparation advantage.

2. While the first debate was undoubtedly beneficial for Romney, I suspect the significance attribute to it is somewhat overblown. I think that a lot of the support Romney picked up was support he was eventually going to garner anyway: right-leaning types who were going to wind up behind Romney eventually just got knocked off the fence sooner rather than later.

No, he appears to be in good health.

Glowpun said:

Questions:

1. Why did Obama do so poorly in the first debate? His winning the other two debates appear not to have helped him much.

2. Romney was starting to look like a dead duck before the first debate but now some polls show him ahead. What is happening?

Click to expand...

For the life of me, I can't imagine what happened to Obama in the first debate. But it was fortunate for Romney. He aced it; and he desperately needed that. The other two, while Obama may have won one or both by a hair, didn't impress many people, I don't think. Those on the fence who watched the debates? I'm betting they jumped to Romney. Just an opinion, of course.

This race probably wasn't even destined to be close before the debates. Now? I think we're going to see a pretty exciting horse race.

Back to Obama. His performance in Debate #1 was truly puzzling. I'm betting he wasn't feeling very good at all. That's one thing it's hard to fake. The campaign said that the altitude bothered him. I've heard that about going higher than Denver*, but not in Denver. So....just don't know.

*Travelers are often advised to layover in Denver a day or two before going higher.

The reason Romney was doing poorly before the first debate had a lot to do with Team Obama painting Romney as some kind of uber right wing crazy who wanted to end contraception, wage a war on women, bomb Iran, and steal from the poor to give to the rich.

The first debate was the first chance a good chunk of Americans had to get to know Mitt Romney. What they found was he is a good man, and not the devil Team Obama made him out to be. They figured out that Mitt Romney is a moderate who cares about 100% of Americans, he's been a governor for left-leaning Massachusetts, and he's got some pretty good business acumen to boot. On social issues, he's a centrist. He has no intention of limiting contraception, and he is quite middle-of-the-road.

Where he picked up the most was among women. I believe he gained some 15 points among women once they figured out he was a decent guy.

What's baffling about Obama's strategy of painting Romney as a conservative hack is that during the primaries, the uber-conservatives didn't like Mitt Romney at all. They went for Santorum, Gingrich, Cain, and Bachmann. Romney has always been seen as a centrist Republican among conservatives.

So Obama's strategy of trying to paint Romney as a right wing nut failed, because as soon as America met the real Mitt Romney, all the paint fell off that one.

Glowpun said:

Questions:

1. Why did Obama do so poorly in the first debate? His winning the other two debates appear not to have helped him much.

2. Romney was starting to look like a dead duck before the first debate but now some polls show him ahead. What is happening?

Click to expand...

Peter Grimm said:

The reason Romney was doing poorly before the first debate had a lot to do with Team Obama painting Romney as some kind of uber right wing crazy who wanted to end contraception, wage a war on women, bomb Iran, and steal from the poor to give to the rich.

Click to expand...

I think it had more to do with Romney painting Romney as a right wing crazy through 26 Republican debates.