As expected, the media is casting the Second Presidential
Debate as a win for Barack Obama. This
is no surprise, not only due to the known bias in broadcast media, but also to
keeping the drama alive in the election race.
Anyone saying Romney won Tuesday’s debate is essentially saying the
election is over. There’s a lot of
advertising money to be made or lost on the question of when and how the
election is decided, so two losses into the debate series, the media was nearly
as desperate for an Obama win as Mister Obama himself. In addition to the media environment, the
location and structure of the second debate was heavily weighted in Obama’s
favor. While ostensibly designed to
provide a forum for ‘undecided’ voters to ask questions from candidates in an
open ‘Town Hall’ forum, the facts tell a different story – the location was in
New York, a heavily pro-Democrat state, the moderator stated before the debate
that she would not agree to the written format for the debate as negotiated by
both candidates in advance, the moderator would know all the questions in
advance and would select which questions would be asked and when and by whom,
and would be in control of how much time each candidate would have to speak,
and when.
In the actual debate, the moderator’s bias was immediately
evident, as she allowed Mister Obama additional time, refused to allow Mister
Romney the opportunity to counter false claims by Mister Obama, failed to apply
follow-up questions evenly, and overall showed an appalling partisanship in
favor of Mister Obama. Mister Obama was
alternately arrogant and disingenuous, and oddly spent more time
mis-characterizing Mister Romney’s plans than presenting his own. At several points, Mister Obama ironically
bemoaned Romney’s supposed lack of detail, but provided none for his own
plans. In the end, however, the Obama
Camp failed for a third straight attempt, which may prove to be fatal to their
dwindling re-election hopes.
I will freely admit I am biased in Mister Romney’s
favor. I also recognize that many on
Obama’s side will imagine he won last night.
But that’s rather the point.
Solid supporters for each candidate cheered their man on last night, but
there was no realistic expectation that those voters could be moved. The debate was about the undecided voters,
and on that focus Mister Romney won the debate.
First, Mister Obama.
The Obama Camp radically changed their campaign strategy after the first
Debate disaster, recognizing that Obama’s apparent apathy was devastating to
his support from all demographic groups, and recognizing further that Romney’s
credibility was skyrocketing from his Debate One performance. This led to a much more aggressive posture
and a far more negative approach to the debate.
The odd thing about this plan for the second Presidential Debate, is
that this was the plan for Mister Biden in the Vice-Presidential Debate last
week. For President Obama to repeat the game
plan of his Vice-President can only be taken to mean one or more of the
following possibilities:
[] Enthusiasm by
Democrats fell so sharply after the first Presidential Debate, that the new tactic
was meant primarily to re-energize Democrats;
[] The Obama Camp
believed in the negative strategy so much that they abandoned the entire summer
campaign strategy;
[] The Obama Camp was
so unable to get their candidate on message that they simply let him do what he
wants.
The polling consensus prior to the first debate was a narrow
Obama lead. Between the first
Presidential Debate and the Vice-Presidential Debate, the consensus shifted to
a narrow Romney lead, and after the Vice-Presidential Debate the lead for
Romney increased just a little. As a
result, not only did Team Romney win both debates on the matter of voter
support, they did so at both the national and battleground state level. It would seem, then, that the negative
tactics employed in the Vice-Presidential Debate were unpopular with voters, and
therefore a strange choice to repeat in the next Presidential Debate. It is difficult to believe that Mister Obama
genuinely thinks he will win using such tactics.
Next, Mister Romney.
Romney was less polished in the Second Presidential Debate, but as noted
the moderator’s obvious partisan support for his opponent forced him to handle
two opponents in the Debate. Mister
Romney stayed on message, largely avoided negative tactics except to point out
the failure of Mister Obama’s first term, and showed credentials worthy of the office
he seeks.
Undecided voters this late in an election are looking for
answers on specific issues and questions.
Likeability is a factor, but anyone still undecided just three weeks
before the election is basically waiting for a specific answer to a critical
question. Historically, undecided voters
weigh the incumbent’s record against the challenger’s qualifications, and
discount spin meant to distract from the key data. That means the undecided voters are not impressed
with Mister Obama saying what he wants to do in a second term, and they may not
be particularly interested in events perceived as one-off incidents, like the Benghazi
attack or the death of Osama bin Laden. Those
just don’t move the needle for most voters in the middle.
That means the undecided voters will be eager to hear about
Romney’s credentials and Mister Obama’s criticism of them. They already have a good idea how to count
Mister Obama’s record for the first term.
They will probably ignore talk they consider a distraction from their
key questions, but they will probably pay attention to – and dislike – attempts
to smear the other opponent; it makes the attacker look petty and
dishonest. That’s why ‘gotcha’ video
clips and sound bites won’t get much traction with undecided voters, unless the
target allows them to indicate there is substance to them.
With this considered, then, the victory by Mister Romney in the
Second Presidential Debate becomes obvious.
While Mister Obama may have felt good about his performance (as he said
he did after the first debate), and his aggressive style may please his core
supporters, the blatant bias by the moderator and the character of some questions
(really, what objective voter still wants to know about Bush eight years after his
last election?) are sure to have displeased genuinely undecided voters seeking
information and a few straight answers. With Romney having gained the advantage on all
major issues through the first two events, the burden last night was squarely
on Mister Obama, who failed to meet the challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment