A lot of us did. And I like the underdog component.

So 'lucky' or 'masterful' the effect is still the same. As long as the remaining debates are strong, that is.

one might pull punches to avoid looking mean, but no one TRIES to lose.

but the article is correct in that there are some advantages to losing, and in particular, rmoney's victory may be pyrrhic in part because of the WAY in which he won. the big bird comment and the lies and the policy shifts might ultimately do him more damage than the "victory" might gain him, although the "victory" is instant while the self-inflicted wounds may take some time to make themselves apparent.

i do not think this was a genius move on the part of obama or his strategy team.
rather, i think the fundamentals haven't changed and that a weak debate performance won't move the needly come election day.

i like very much the "decontextualized" concept. fine, rmoney won the debate, but so what? the election is what matters, and bin laden is still dead and gm is still alive. unemployment is down and the stock market is up big and near record highs.

according to lichtman's keys to the presidency, debates only matter if they can somehow flip the "charisma" keys. this cycle, neither candidate has charisma (obama had it in 2008, but hasn't brought it back this time). the debates only matter if rmoney can suddenly become charismatic through the debates. i don't see this happening, even if his likeability is slightly bumped. he still ain't no jfk or reagan or obama 2008 for that matter.

in any event, rmoney still wouldn't have enough of lichtman's keys to win.

..for the first time, really. People didn't really expect that.

is the new old Romney..."

He was more than ready to attack Romney from the right. Now, he's prepared to attack him from the left (?!?!?!).

Romney played his ace too early. His bounce won't last for a whole month, and he has no cards left on the table. He can't attack Obama on the economy nor on foreign policy, and he has to keep being Moderate Mitt (which may soon start to anger his base).

Obama now knows how to attack him, and he has plenty of arrows to use.

I'm really hard pushed to come up with a tactic Obama could have used during the debate against an opponent who was willing to shift his ground any way it took to try to win points.

Ascribing "win" or "lose" to a debate like that is facile, the only verdict that counts will be on November 6th.

Whether deliberate or not (I doubt it was deliberate, but at the same time I don't think they intended Obama to come straight out of the gate and plaster Romney), there are a few possibly unintended consequences that could play in our favor anyway, and this article sets out some of them.

The major one for me is that after the debate GOP big money diverted funds from state downticket races back to Romney. That could prove crucial.

point out, hey, you said x two weeks ago at that rally in ohio, but now are saying the opposite;
or know that 600 economists and the cbo disagree with what you just said, etc.

and you can't really call out just ONE lie. if you're going to do this, you have to be prepared to call out lie after lie after lie.

you really need to be encyclopedic to pull that off live.


but as to the theme here, obama still has time to capitalize on rmoney's whoppers. he didn't HAVE to beat him IN the debate to emerge with a victory in the end.