Who won the Debate?

[Eraserhead]

You do all realize that Obama will probably win the instapolls right?

CBS KN instant reaction poll: Big win for Romney. By 46-22 say think  won, 56% have better opinion of Romney, Romney cares up from 30 to 63

Romney will get a significant bump out of this.  CO, WI, NH, VA, and maybe IA will swing into Romney's favor.  OH is the only state left for Obama.  

Haha, I seriously doubt that... and I was really thinking along the lines of the polls CNN does after the debates. I'm not sure what the CBS KN Poll is exactly.

Also, you people remember John Kerry right? He blew Bush out of the water is a much more undisputed way in his first debate with him and still lost.

[Biden 2024]

Mitt got a B. Obama got a B-. No lead for Romney though in the polls.

[Brittain33]

Obama was meh, Romney was energetic and the only obvious gaffe was joking about firing Big Bird. This was a very necessary lift for Republicans who were going to vote for him anyway, and will firm up some undecideds.

It was mostly a very boring debate and I'll be shocked if it's a game changed, if only because this feeling of enthusiasm from seeing your maligned candidate express himself fluently and effectively on tv is very familiar to me from 2004, and Kerry still lost.

Obama doesn't seem to be a good debater. Fortunately, like Bush and unlike Romney, he's a good campaigner with a large and devoted base.

This is the first good night our Republicans have had since Paul Ryan was named and we had polls showing WI was a toss up. Enjoy it.

[Eraserhead]

67-25 Romney victory

REGISTER VOTERS CNN

WOW!

You were right Bandit...Obama won

I will admit, I'm surprised by that.

[J. J.]

At the end of the day, Romney is still Romney, his policies are still the same and there was no game changer in the debate. Romney's win is that he made it through the debate without giving the opposition any fodder to use against him.

It may be a game changer.

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Every time he did, the CNN dial rating dropped.

[Brittain33]

I hardly think it would have been a good idea for Obama to go too aggressive, that can backfire.

Every time he did, the CNN dial rating dropped.

Indeed, going hard negative on Romney was not an option.

[AmericanNation]

A very typical sort of Democratic way of losing. Obama spent most of the debate desperately trying to make the debate substantive and coming at Romney under the assumption of how Romney previously described his own policies. But whenever tax cuts were brought up, Romney basically just started denying his own plan in whatever way he could. "Tax cuts? Huh? Five trillion? Who? Me? I would never!"

It's a very bluntly dishonest way of performing in a debate but it's a frustratingly successful one because Obama can't have any response. How can you respond to someone who has such a sparsely detailed plan that he just changes it on the fly?

LOL, at Dems.  Obama wants to attack the technocratic guy with over ten times more details and specifics than him.  Hypocritical whining is all you got?  

Technocratic? Romney is a lot of things but he ain't technocratic. He proposes repealing Obamacare, but what to replace it with? No specifics, and two competing answers for that matter; on the one hand, it's a state issue, on the other, he'll actively replace it with something. What? We don't know. His tax cuts would cost roughly 5 trillion, how do you make up the money? He can't really say. Obama asks how he would avoid savage domestic spending cuts to make up for the cost, Romney just says "I won't do that." No, seriously, just trust him. Repeal and replace Dodd-Frank? With what, we don't know.

Each time Obama tried to establish, not what Romney's policies would affect as Obama saw them, but simply what Romney's policies self-descriptively are, Romney would just immediately deny whatever they were characterized as. We weren't having a debate over policy effects, because Romney continued again to be deliberately evasive on what his policies even are. It is ridiculous that a candidate is campaigning on shapeshifting policies that change from audience to audience, from sentence to sentence. It seems to display poorly on a candidate that doesn't seem to have the confidence in his own policies to even openly and specifically lay out what they even are, let alone defend them.

It is an effective strategy, but the least you could do is admit its cynical dishonesty.

Listen, the president who has yet to pass a full budget for a fiscal year (over 3 years without a budget) can not lecture a ticket with perhaps the two biggest policy wonks in American politics.  Romney could have knocked him out with this point, but probably held back because he didn't want to risk a big swing / he was winning by so much / and it's a stupid straw man anyway.    

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

At the end of the day, Romney is still Romney, his policies are still the same and there was no game changer in the debate. Romney's win is that he made it through the debate without giving the opposition any fodder to use against him.

It may be a game changer.

When in the past several decades has a first debate ever been a 'game-changer'?

[Eraserhead]

Anybody else scared to look at Drudge Report right now? I'm afraid my computer might ejaculate on me.

[Dereich]

Part of CNN's poll: Romney's more likeable then Obama 46-45 after the debate.

It's official: We're living in the twilight zone.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

At the end of the day, Romney is still Romney, his policies are still the same and there was no game changer in the debate. Romney's win is that he made it through the debate without giving the opposition any fodder to use against him.

It may be a game changer.

When in the past several decades has a first debate ever been a 'game-changer'?

Didn't it bring 2004 from a Bush lead to a virtual tie?

[AmericanNation]

Also, you people remember John Kerry right? He blew Bush out of the water is a much more undisputed way in his first debate with him and still lost.

Kerry may have won on certain style points, he certainly didn't have a substance edge anywhere close to the blowout Romney just ran up.  

[Brittain33]

At the end of the day, Romney is still Romney, his policies are still the same and there was no game changer in the debate. Romney's win is that he made it through the debate without giving the opposition any fodder to use against him.

It may be a game changer.

When in the past several decades has a first debate ever been a 'game-changer'?

Didn't it bring 2004 from a Bush lead to a virtual tie?

Check it out at RCP's graph. It's a little confusing because Bush's convention was late, but it reduced Bush's lead to 2 points from more.

[Napoleon]

Obama got embarrassed.

[Brittain33]

Also, you people remember John Kerry right? He blew Bush out of the water is a much more undisputed way in his first debate with him and still lost.

Kerry may have won on certain style points, he certainly didn't have a substance edge anywhere close to the blowout Romney just ran up.  

That's exactly backward on pretty much every point.

[Hash]

Romney won on the theater but it was one of the most unbelievably dishonest performances I've seen. The problem for Obama is that it's virtually impossible to pin Romney down and attack him on anything. Romney's established his ability and willingness to change his position entirely on a dime, as many times as it takes, depending on wherever he's speaking.

All Romney has to do is say "No, that's not my position" and Obama can do nothing about it in a debate setting without looking petty; there's no way to prove it even though you can immediately show Romney is an outright liar as soon as the debate is over with video of his previous statements and policy positions. It's impossible to debate jello, and that was Obama's problem.

Thank you for making this post, and the others in this thread. Unfortunately, voters are imbeciles and once again they've proven how easily they can be fooled and led wherever by an incessant stream of outright lies, dishonest crap, bullsh**t, platitudes and so forth.

Romney didn't do badly and Obama was mediocre, but I have a hard time telling myself that Romney honestly won, because if he did it's through lies, bullsh**t and more lies.

Extremely frustrating that nobody can take on Romney's dishonesty and lies. The media was too busy ejaculating all over itself in excitement at Romney's win and what that entails to actually do its job, but I won't blame them. Few in the media today are actual journalists who do their job, most are overpaid morons or hacks.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

Drudge Report

ROUND WON: Romney Seized Offense in Debate...
You Were Fighting For Obamacare, Not Jobs...
'The Path We’re Taking Is Not Working'...
FOURNIER: Cursed Obama Falls...
MSNBC MATTHEWS: 'What Was He Doing!'
Cutter takes swipe at Lehrer...
Andrew Sullivan: 'This was a disaster'...

UH O

[xavier110]

Romney won. I am livid--Obama was ABOMINABLE tonight, the night he could have finished Romney off for good

[Joe Biden is your president. Deal with it.]

You ever watch Talladega Nights? you remember when Ricky Bobby crashed and lost his mojo and that french dude went ahead in the races? this is what happen. Obama will get his balls back in the next debate but for now he needs to recover.

[RJ]

This is rediculous.

Media outlets are claiming it was a clear win for Romney, but they're just trying to sell this election as competitive. Romney was more aggressive, but this debate was not the "game changer" it was made out to be. I only watched about half of it, but unless the ground collapsed under Obama and he fell into a giant sinkhole, this debate will be forgotten by next week, let alone election day. If Romney gets any bounce from this, it will be maybe a point nationally. Lower tier swing states that are marginally in Obamas column now will become toss ups but I saw nothing that will erase a 6-8 pint advantage in Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, or even Iowa.

This whole thing is completely overblown.

[Peeperkorn]

A B  vs a B-? It's funny how fanatics watch de debate....it was a A- vs an F.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Romney wins. Subject matter was dry as hell, and that's Mitt's strong suit. Big minus for talking about firing Big Bird, though. That'll haunt him.

[AmericanNation]

You ever watch Talladega Nights? you remember when Ricky Bobby crashed and lost his mojo and that french dude went ahead in the races? this is what happen. Obama will get his balls back in the next debate but for now he needs to recover.

Ricky Bobby knew haw to race before the crash ...Obama would have to learn how to be a serious person from scratch.  

[Reginald]

Romney won, such that it is; he was more energetic (I had the misfortune of hearing Obama’s performance deemed ‘professorial,’ which is evidently the most horrible of traits to exhibit in what is still branded a serious discussion of policy) and avoided making a fool of himself, which is all he really needed to accomplish from the outset. Of course, he effectively skirted addressing his deficiencies—and yes, Obama did perform admittedly poor here—but everyone knows the nature of these debates freely permits this.

But this by no means entails a monumental tightening in the polls. Tonight clearly wasn’t that decisive.

[pepper11]

wow....just watched chris matthews...lov it...

romney now leads