Who won the Debate?

[Wonkish1]

Look I'm no Biden fan, but when that debate was over I thought Biden won. When the poll results came in my mouth dropped. I sat their scratching my head for a while.

Then slowly the rationale started coming out. Women! The story of the night is that women felt that he had gone so, so, so far overboard in his behavior that they couldn't stand it which resulted in a bit of a stalemate.

I wouldn't think that women would have seen things so completely differently than I did. Apparently they did see it differently and this site is basically one large sausage fest. That could be your answer as to why your seeing some GOP posters saying that Biden won on here, but a different result outside of here.


The apparent conclusion to draw from this: A few interruptions = net bonus. Go overboard with that and add some condescension and women apparently think you're an A-hole(but less so men).  Learn something new everyday. They'll probably be some obscure manual/book written by a consultant about this and disseminated to the all the political consultancy firms for a high price after this election. Hell it may even quantity the exact amount of interruptions one should engage in(focus group tested of course) and how many seconds of condescension a politician should practice in a single debate.


PS: If women really did dislike Biden's performance a lot than under the surface that's a little bit rough for Dems. That would mean that they have turned in 2 debate performances that women disliked.

[Wonkish1]

The main event will take place on Tuesday. If Obama wins the debate, the election is over. If Romney wins, I think he becomes the favorite to win the election. If it's a tie, it will be close with Obama the favorite.

The last debate is going to likely be the main event just because of the relatively short memories of voters.

If you actually watch Obama's old debates he may do well in townhall setting next week, but don't expect really much better performance(than last time) at the podiums. The way he talked in last debate was much the exact same way he talked all over 2008. The only 2 differences is Obama's face and that McCain sucked at debating in 2008. The "uhhh...uhh..uh...you see (moderator's name)...uh...uh...we..uh..we need to blah, blah, blah." Romney can get in almost twice the amount of words per minute as Obama can and no matter what performance you grab in Obama's past he's never been able to overcome that. It will be there in the last debate. Obama's best shot in the last debate is to jam in a zinger that Romney can't respond to causing Mitt to look bad.

[Wonkish1]

Everybody had their expectations so far off going into these debates.

If you asked the average person 3 weeks ago what they thought the performances would be...they would have said Obama > Romney and Biden < Ryan.  That is just so naive. Going into the Romney, Obama debate I had a lot higher expectations for Mitt than most and going into Biden, Ryan I was telling everybody around me to mute their expectations because the higher expectations for Ryan are undeserved.

People are forgetting that Biden largely survived in presidential nominations almost exclusively on debate skills. He had nothing else and if he didn't have that then he would have been the first one out of every presidential election. People also seem to make the mistake of applying Obama's oratory skills to the debate. They aren't the same thing. They seem to forget that Obama takes considerably long times(at least for a politician) to gather his thoughts in response to a question. Paul Ryan has talents suitable for a committee hearing more than anything else. He asks good questions, he talks intricacies of policy well, etc. He also is the type that deliver one hell of a power point presentation. In none of these situations does he do rough and tumble.

So when I read and watch the expectations put out there by pundits, media, etc. I just assume that they don't watch debate reruns and they don't understand the types of talents that go into debates vs. other communication delivery methods.

[Wonkish1]

Nah, the third debate is usually the least watched and most people who are "undecided" make up their minds by then. The second debate this year will be crucial merely because how poorly Obama did in the first debate. People will tune in to see if he can rebound and if Romney can continue his momentum.

What about Reagan vs. Carter last debate? Reagan vs. Mondale last debate? Or W. vs. Kerry last debate(where at least W. stopped the bleeding).


Going into next debate I think the overwhelming odds are for next debate that it will be a tie. The reasons include:
1) Obama will feel more comfortable in a town hall setting
2) But he still will not be able to get over his excessively long time to gather his thoughts while he drops his 'umms', Romney will still be able to get in more words per minute.
3) The fact that responses are directed to the audience with the candidate standing instead of directing it more to the other candidate will mean that Romney's ability to be somewhat combative will be muted.

The big mistake for Obama: Is to try to overcompensate for his last debate performance and try to direct tougher hits toward Romney instead of engage in the audience. Town hall style is not a place to go after the other guy. Remember the moment where Gore got up and tried to 'intimidate' Bush in 2000. It didn't work well.

The big mistake for Romney: Interruptions. While it seems that a few(but not many) interruptions in a podium debate is a net positive, I find it hard to believe that could ever go well in a town hall debate. First of all, you have to physically stand up to pull off the interruption and that isn't a good visual.

[Wonkish1]

Nah, the third debate is usually the least watched and most people who are "undecided" make up their minds by then. The second debate this year will be crucial merely because how poorly Obama did in the first debate. People will tune in to see if he can rebound and if Romney can continue his momentum.

What about Reagan vs. Carter last debate? Reagan vs. Dukakis last debate? Or W. vs. Kerry last debate(where at least W. stopped the bleeding).


Going into next debate I think the overwhelming odds are for next debate that it will be a tie. The reasons include:
...
3) The fact that responses are directed to the audience with the candidate standing instead of directing it more to the other candidate will mean that Romney's ability to be somewhat combative will be muted.

Then, again, the multi-millionaire technocrat will have the opportunity to empathize with Middle-America when he speaks directly to audience. Medium family income fell about $4,000 during Obama's reign. He doesn't need to ask, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" because it is simply a fact that they aren't. He merely has to show that he is a viable alternative.

Yeah and he did that so well at the RNC (rolls eyes). Don't laugh Dems Obama was even worse.

[Wonkish1]

Nah, the third debate is usually the least watched and most people who are "undecided" make up their minds by then. The second debate this year will be crucial merely because how poorly Obama did in the first debate. People will tune in to see if he can rebound and if Romney can continue his momentum.

What about Reagan vs. Carter last debate? Reagan vs. Mondale last debate? Or W. vs. Kerry last debate(where at least W. stopped the bleeding).


Going into next debate I think the overwhelming odds are for next debate that it will be a tie. The reasons include:
1) Obama will feel more comfortable in a town hall setting
2) But he still will not be able to get over his excessively long time to gather his thoughts while he drops his 'umms', Romney will still be able to get in more words per minute.
3) The fact that responses are directed to the audience with the candidate standing instead of directing it more to the other candidate will mean that Romney's ability to be somewhat combative will be muted.

The big mistake for Obama: Is to try to overcompensate for his last debate performance and try to direct tougher hits toward Romney instead of engage in the audience. Town hall style is not a place to go after the other guy. Remember the moment where Gore got up and tried to 'intimidate' Bush in 2000. It didn't work well.

The big mistake for Romney: Interruptions. While it seems that a few(but not many) interruptions in a podium debate is a net positive, I find it hard to believe that could ever go well in a town hall debate. First of all, you have to physically stand up to pull off the interruption and that isn't a good visual.

You lose then. If the next two debates are ties then Romney-Ryan lose narrowly, a la 2004.

Where did I say the last debate will be a tie? I said that the next debate will be a tie. Once we return to the podiums Obama is going to have a rough night again although not as bad of a rough night as last time because this time he'll be smiling instead of ticked off.

People aren't matching up the raw skills of these 2 people when they judge debates. It's really weird. Instead they matching up the images and narratives of these 2 people. They aren't the same thing.

1) Obama can't move and adjust on the fly mid debate like Romney can. I.e. if the opponents strategy is different than you thought Romney will adapt quickly, Obama wont
2) Romney will respond with substantially more points per minute than Obama can which means that Romney will have points that go unanswered.
3) The public assigns the label of confidence to the person that can speak fluidly off the cuff with answers that pertain exactly to the subject matter. Going off the question entirely(which neither of them do, but something that people like W., Palin, and Kerry do) or struggling to frame your response comes off as a lack of confidence in what your saying.

I could go on and on. The reason why Obama is going to tie the next debate is because they're not going head to head at the town hall. Instead they take turns making small speeches to the audience with no real ability to interject themselves onto the other. Once they go back to the debates Obama wont even be able to tie.

Watch the old videos of Obama's debates and Romney's debates and you'll see how Obama's debate performance last week was almost identical in style to all of his old debates with the exception of facial expressions. The only other difference is that Romney is now very good and McCain is a terrible debater who speaks slower than molasses.

There is a degree of a strong performance by one person makes the other look worse by comparison. Had you thrown McCain into the debate last week the media and the viewers would have judged it a tie, I guarantee it.

[Wonkish1]

Strangely enough I agreed with Ezra Klein before the debate; when pointing to an article about how Ryan's team was admitting that they were trying to cut back on his 'wonky-ness' he said that was likely a mistake.

The worry of Paul Ryan 'Coming off as a young know it all' is way overblown when your running for President or Vice president of the United States. Bill Clinton proved that. Yet some idiot staffers get him to water down both his RNC speech and his debate performance.

He should have been the 'explainer in chief' last night. I would have rather had him bore people to sleep than what he did last night. Because at least when things go over their head they'll be thinking 'damn that guys smart'. Instead all we got a $hit load of rapid fire memorized statistics and talk about 'mixed signals' in the Middle East. That means a net zero gain on any key competency. Thank God Biden was an "A-hole" otherwise this would have been a rough night for us.

Biden gave him opportunities what he should have done was:
1) In response to Biden claiming that they received bad intelligence. Ryan should have fired back with, "So are you calling *Hillary Clinton's state department* a liar because they said the opposite? There is no good way for Biden to answer that. It's either implicitly or explicitly throw Hillary under the bus or dodge, duck, hide and hope he doesn't fire another follow up.

2) He should have asked him where Biden got the number that 97% of all businesses don't pay the highest tax rate. Besides the fact that Biden was wrong about that number(Obama usually says that '97% of *small* businesses are below which could be true because it all rests on what you define as small) all you need to do is ask the question and immediately the public gets the idea in their head that Biden is full of it without you even have to say that's he's 'full of stuff'

3) He should have pointed out that if you take into account those that have literally given up on finding a job unemployment has steadily gone up.

4) Hell he should have even gone all wonky on how the larger supply of labor than demand has been what as aggravated inequality.

5) He should have had a populist response to the moderator when she decided to go back to foreign policy(something I've never seen before in any debate where the primary subject was sandwiched between the less important subject) by saying something like, "Well you can do what you want, but I don't think your doing the American people any service only spending a few minutes on their most important topic. I came here to talk about what Americans care about.

6) Should have asked Biden to explain how tax cuts could possibly result in a housing crash 'because to me that just sounds like terrible rhetoric that in reality falls on its face."

7) The list goes on and on.


I would have rather had Ryan use the debate to just explain how the world worked instead of relying on memorized data.

[Wonkish1]

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And this is uh, quite likely why Biden performed poorly among women.

Honestly, if he had cut down on the smirks and laughing and just took a step back from interrupting, he probably would have had a real victory.

No $hit! Biden being an A-Hole saved our @$$ today.