The media should be chided for shamelessly and irresponsibly promoting the first of these debates (beginning just hours from now) as a do-or-die, Thrilla-in-Manila showdown. After all, every single reporter or pundit worth his salt knows that no presidential debate in U.S. history has ever been a decisive factor in the outcome of any presidential election.
(“The presidential debates: just making waves,” The iPINIONS Journal, October, 3, 2012)
Well, if you believe the polls, I was dead wrong.
More to the point, the Obama campaign spent hundreds of millions in TV ads portraying Mitt Romney, among other things, as a cold-hearted rich guy whose plan for economic growth is to let the rich get richer and hope their good fortune trickles down to the poor … eventually; and whose plan for the nearly 40 million uninsured is to repeal Obamacare and let the poor go to the emergency room … as they do now.
Yet there seems little doubt that, based solely on his “Etch-a-Sketch” performance in their first debate (on October 3), Romney made it seem like all of that money was wasted targeting some phantom candidate. And, as he morphed from Tea Party-Mitt to “moderate Mitt” right there on stage, all Obama did was look on is utter stupefaction.
Meanwhile, the effect of Romney’s performance, according to the polls, was to erase in one 90-minute debate the seemingly insurmountable lead Obama enjoyed all year – not just nationally and in all swing states, but also among key demographic groups like women and the elderly.
This is why the twitterers who frame media storylines are now giving the impression that debates will factor decisively in the outcome of a presidential election this year for the first time in U.S. history. And even though the media consensus is that Obama recovered enough to win the second debate (on October 16), polls suggest that his performance was rather like closing the barn door after the horses were already running wild….
Nevertheless, the media are missing no chance to buildup tonight’s debate as the rubber match for the presidency. This debate is supposed to be exclusively on foreign policy, but I suspect domestic issues will still predominate.
Frankly, I remain as stupefied by Romney’s surge in the polls as Obama was by his performance in that first debate. Because I refuse to believe that the majority of the American electorate are so stupid as to vote for a president based solely on how he performs in debates.
For example, polls indicate that the vast majority of women are pro-choice, support the services Planned Parenthood provides, and support healthcare reform. And, despite what Ann Romney says, these polls also indicate that, for women, these social issues (all of which Obama has championed and Romney opposes) will factor far more than the economy when they vote for president.
Yet these same polls would have us believe that, based solely on Romney’s impressive (but plainly disingenuous) performance in that one debate, the 20-point lead Obama once had among women has been completely lost. They say women are fickle; but such a change would reflect more self-abnegation than fickleness.
So, despite all the polling and commensurate hype about Romney erasing every advantage Obama once enjoyed, I remain convinced that, when all is said and done, Obama will win this election in a landslide. Current polling data merely reflect the fleeting impressions Romney created with his performance, which will have no impact once people actually vote.
This, of course, will vindicate my abiding view that, like everything from Reality TV to professional wrestling, presidential debates are still far more about entertainment than elections.
Enjoy the show.
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