Do you know what happened yesterday? No? Jennifer Aniston purchased received the biggest engagement ring anyone has ever seen. No, seriously, that thing was bigger than a Pillsbury biscuit on her next-to-FU finger. Sure. Haha. No one cares about Jennifer Aniston’s diabolical plot to in-yer-face get married before Brad and Angelina. What we cared about in droves was the recent poll numbers that showed Barack Obama IS FARGING LOSING THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE! Foiled again, Aniston.
And if you thought Chris Matthews nearly had an embolism last week, you should read some of the stuff Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast is saying. That guy has jumped out of the Obama airplane sans parachute while threatening to strap the entire Democratic Party to his chest. Sheesh, Drew. Calm down. In an epic freak-out that can only be classified as a “political paper bag hyperventilation diatribe” Sullivan in his article, “Did Obama Just Throw the Election Away?” (How are there not like fifty exclamation points here?) pretty much predicts Mitt Romney winning the election by a landslide — based on one debate.
The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Obama had a 51-43 lead; now, Romney has a 49-45 lead. That’s a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. Before Obama had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Romney leads in almost all of them. Obama’s performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing.
Romney’s favorables are above Obama’s now. Yes, you read that right. Romney’s favorables are higher than Obama’s right now. That gender gap that was Obama’s firewall? Over in one night.
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Seriously: has that kind of swing ever happened this late in a campaign? Has any candidate lost 18 points among women voters in one night ever? And we are told that when Obama left the stage that night, he was feeling good. That’s terrifying. On every single issue, Obama has instantly plummeted into near-oblivion.
Someone cue up Bill Murray’s A Christmas Carol promo from the movie Scrooged. You know the one with all the death and destruction including a mushroom cloud, seas boiling, and whole planets bursting into flames. End times is it, Drew?
Sure, we can all admit that the President didn’t do his best, that he came off lackluster and tepid, and what we were all looking for was a hungry, attack bear of an Obama who would call out all of Romney’s lies as they spewed forth with ease and with what some are calling debate brilliance. Oh, no, not that Romney is brilliant, but the fact that he wagered facts and truth against looking and sounding like he had ideas and a plan. And (Dear God) it worked. Thanks, Honey Boo Boo America. Of the pundit responses which have ranged from Obama engaging in Rope-A-Dope tactics, to Romney attempting a tried and true debate strategy that works by flooding the opponent with data, to even the thought that Romney couldn’t give two farts about lying during the debate — because, really, when 70 million people are watching him bulldoze all over the president — who’ll really care the next day if most of what he said were complete lies? All of these notions have served to do one thing. They’ve all kept Obama’s performance in the news and caused for more introspection of the first debate than is truly warranted. And now look what you’ve done? Now Trump is speaking.
Democrats are of two minds on this as The Atlantic Wire has pointed out and with Talking Points Memo calling it, “Team Freakout vs. Team Optimism.” Yes, there are those who are openly panicking, and there are those who are standing behind the curtain stage-whispering to the panickers to get down off the damn ledge and shut their “flipped-wig” faces, because, yes, you’re putting out too negative a perception. Who cares if you think you’re right. Shut the hell up! (See? There’s an exclamation point.) So who’s right? Should the Andrew Sullivans continue to mash the computer keyboard with every poll number result, or should he and others, just chill out and put the debate in a different kind of perspective — one that says, “This was going to be a highly contested fight from the beginning. Stop Fox Newsing every result and let’s wait out the long game?”
The latter may be better for the party. We say this because if you’ll remember a month ago, it was the Republicans pulling out their hair day after day over the latest Romney gaffe to the point that there was infighting, a loss of confidence, some saying the election was all but over, satire floating around that labeled him The Stench…etc. etc. How fast the Democrats forget how easy it is to get pulled into the machine — which fed ad nauseum can change the narrative completely. It may be time to sit back and let reality wash over us all. There are two more debates to go and you better believe Obama is not going down without a fight. Maybe he underestimated Mittens. Perhaps he was gob smacked by Romney’s sheer ability to lie his goddamn face off and smile while doing so. Or perhaps he thought, even though he understands the way the 24hr news cycle works, especially when it’s working for him, that Romney was indeed toast, and all he had to do was not make a huge gaffe and get his facts out there and that would be enough.
Now he knows there is an entirely different game being played. So he’s working on changing strategy, and let’s not forget that Joe Biden has been waiting, just waiting, for a chance to go unhinged at Paul Ryan. It’ll be all the moderator can do to keep this one inside the ring, eh? And speaking of which, the most interesting thing we’ve read today comes from Metro New York columnist, Brayden Simms, who says the blame for the debate debacle last Wednesday should fall on the moderator. He thinks even if Obama had called Romney on his lying, Romney would’ve just doubled down, and then it would be a game of, “Yes, you are.” “No, I’m not.” and then, sheesh, it would’ve been time for a nap with no one getting a fudgesicle. See what he’s saying?
He believes that the whole point to why moderators are usually members of the press is so they can be the impromptu fact-checkers and use their considerable talents to rein candidates in and maintain control. Imagine if Lehrer had said, “Well, Governor, you’ve explicitly stated otherwise on the campaign trail. Mr. President, care to rebut?” (Simms! Y U NO HAS LINK ON WEBSITE?) This is an interesting premise. Not sure if it would hold up, but one thing’s certain, the old format isn’t working, and the moderators should do more than just ask repeatedly, and to the point of lunacy, if the candidates can name any “differences between the two of you” because this line of questioning makes us want to gouge our eyes out with a contest-winning cockroach.
