Re: First Presidential Debate
 

It's all opinion, so you can certainly feel that way. I think Pres. Obama had a solid win if measured topic by topic, but it was by no means a clean sweep. Romney is still much more effective regarding the economy, and polling numbers show this.

Overall, I've been thinking about Romney's surge for a few days, and Pres. Obama's campaign made a huge miscalculation: They made their campaign about the Romney the person, and not his views. Many of the ads they have put out concentrated on Bain painted him as a heartless person who ruined lives without a care, and even implied he killed someone with cancer. They painted Romney as a bad person, and not simply a bad governor or choice for president. In fact, the campaign has barely addressed Romney's public service record other than to applaud his HC plan.

When the debates took place, and not only did Romney come off as a reasonably compassionate person, but both Pres. Obama and VP Biden SAID HE WAS A GOOD PERSON in the debates when pressed. Their own words invalidated the implied content of most of their effective advertising.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/

Swing states polls still holding pretty well for Obama. Lots are pretty close obviously, but Nate Silver is a pretty smart guy and he seems to have a pretty good feel for the race statistically. Until his Electoral forecast actually swings in Romney's favor, I won't get too worried.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

RCP provides a better aggregation (aka. higher standards) of the polls in my view: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...llege_map.html

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Hmm, well...I know Silver got 49/50 right in 2008. I find it a little funny in that map that they give a "likely GOP" to states (AZ, NC) that Romney leads by 5.3% and 5.6% respectively, but they don't give that same designation to the two states (PA, MI) that Obama leads by exactly 5% each. Those states are worth 36 electoral votes. Maybe 5% is their cut-off for what is a "toss-up" but it's slightly misleading.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

I suppose that's fair, but I think any cutoff between "toss-up" and "likely / leaning" will necessarily be arbitrary.

I like RCP because it's nonpartisan and only aggregates polls that poll consistently, survey likely voters, and come from reputable sources.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Is anyone watching the debate? I'm not, but I'm curious.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Watched it. Obama won as I expected. Mitt's biggest failure in the 2nd debate was forgein policy, and he just continued it tonight. He sounded like a completely different guy then I expected though... just agreed on forgein policy, and tried to drag it to the economy.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

To be fair, they both tried to bring it back home as often as they could.

I mean where Obama led was that Romney couldn't really disagree with a lot of his stances, and the ones he did he couldn't articulate well or would open the President up to an easy counter-attack like his battleship comment.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...ther_countries

That's nuts.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

I really see no substantive differences between the two on foreign policy. I don't think the debate changed anything.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

There was a big difference back when the republican primaries were going on. As you stated earlier in the thread, Obama's team needs to capitalize on the fact that Mitt is a flip flopper.

With that said, I still agree with you.. I don't think this changed anything. People generally don't care about forgien policy as much as they did in the last 2 elections. It would have changed things if Mitt clearly won, but he didn't. To me the clear favorite to win is still Obama.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

True.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Reading a lot of the recaps, I think Romney played it safe for a reason. The third debate got the fewest number of viewers of the three. The Romney team believes that the race will be won by the final advertising push over these next few weeks, and they didn't want to give Pres. Obama anything provocative to exploit in an ad or by the media.

In the end, Romney attacked most and shined most in his comfort zone, the economy, and avoided any pitfalls by tying his foreign policies to those shared by Pres. Obama (basically nullifying any advantage).

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Yeeeaaaaahhhh.... about that unemployment thing....

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Every American should try to make this happen. Best of both worlds.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2...llege-tie.html

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Lol, Romney lost the third debate.. period. All this down playing is amusing though.

-EDIT-

Just watched that video. Unless the unemployment rate spiked, all of those 'firings' don't really mean much.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

It's not about winning debates, it's about winning the election, and polls continue to tighten in swing states even after Romney "lost" the last two debates. Momentum for Romney has slowed a bit, but it is still with his campaign. In fact, if current polls remain stable and momentum dies all together, Romney is likely to win the popular vote but get "Al Gored" and lose the electoral college and presidency. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a second term...

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

You're right, it's about being elected. You don't think the polls would have ended up any differently if Romney/Ryan would have 'won' the last 3 debates? They didn't win, and that's just one of the reasons why they're still sitting behind and likely won't win the election.

I'm not saying Romney didn't have his reasons for his preformance in the 3rd debate, just like Obama may have had his reasons for the 1st one. It's just that an L is an L... no matter what, Romney/Ryan could be potentially doing better if they would have won.

Also to clarify, I was referrng to the downplay by mainstream media, not nessicarily by you. It's just funny how they try to look at all the positives of a loss when they want to keep things close and interesting. Since Obama came into the debates much futher ahead, the media was quick to paint him as a loser so that things would be closer and look more unpredictable.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

One area of concern for the Obama campaign is that he isn't above 50% in any major poll. Also, many of the polls are using 2008 turnout models, and it's yet to be seen if 2012 will mirror 2008 in terms of minority and youth voting.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Again, are you talking national polls? Nate Silver just posted about how Obama is leading in 19/20 of swing state polls that came out today...If he wins just a few of those (especially Ohio), it's simple he'll win...And the polls are especially strong in Ohio.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...ically-biased/

Sam Wang at the Princeton Election Consortium is even more bullish on Obama, basically giving him a 98% chance to win. He was even more accurate than Silver last election.

http://election.princeton.edu/

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

I'm looking at the RCP information, and considering past history of incumbents with less than a 50% polling average, and well behind in independent voters. As I said, the current models are anticipating something close to a 2008 turn out, and that would mean an Obama victory. If dems do not come out in large numbers, Romney's lead with independents will likely lead him to victory.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...llege_map.html

I have a feeling this is going to be a weird election night with some serious surprises going both ways. I have this nagging feeling PA is in play...

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

I think the voter turn out will be high, which is the only good thing about the media's 'falsely balanced' coverage. People who are pro Obama actually think he can lose, so they'll be more likely to vote... If the media told the truth and labeled it as Obama being clearly ahead all the time, then it would probably cost him some votes.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

I dont think there is any way Obama loses.


...But im going to vote just to be safe.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Looking at the latest polling data, I have no idea who is going to win. Romney's momentum seemed to stop when Sandy hit the east coast, and Pres. Obama saw a spike of independent support as undecideds started the melt away in the last week.

Then again, there seems to be a last minute Romney surge in PA, and several prominent Bishops just openly endorsed Mitt, or more accurately came out against Pres. Obama. Pres. Obama took the observant Catholic vote in 2008.

I still think this comes down to turnout, and that waits to be seen. A push always goes to the house, so if I were forced to make a call, I would call Pres. Obama winning re-election. Still voting in case I'm wrong, though. :D

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Definitely voting! Nate Silver has Obama up to a 92.2 % chance of winning tonight! Looking good.

Still have my nervous celebration/sadness beers for tomorrow night.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

I'll say 289-249, Romney.

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

What about this nightmare scenario... *shudder*

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

I'd be extremely shocked. lol

I can't really give set numbers, but I think Obama's winning florida, likely going to break 300 electoral votes. Popular vote, idk.

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Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Hindsight is 20/20, but sure seemed to be cognitive dissonance going on here by Bond/Professor S (EDIT: Oops, my fault, I hadn't kept up with Prof's latest posts). All the aggregate polls I saw (I think one of which was the one Germanator referenced) had Mitt's chances at less than 10%. PA in particular went landslide to Obama, didn't it?

Am I wrong?

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Can someone please explain to me how my estimation that Pres. Obama was going to WIN is cognitive dissonance on my part?

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Oops, sorry about that. I hadn't been reading your latest posts close enough apparently. Fixed my original post.

On another topic, can you explain a little more why you thought PA was in play?

Re: First Presidential Debate
 

Discussion moved into this thread (my explanation is second from top): http://www.gametavern.net/forums/sho...t=22677&page=3