SALON

Thursday, Oct 4, 2012 1:57 PM UTC

Mitt’s meaningless victory

The former Massachusetts governor won the first presidential debate. Too bad it won't change the campaign

By

Topics: 2012 Elections, The American Prospect, Republican Party, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Democratic Party, 2012 Presidential Debates,

Mitt's meaningless victory (Credit: AP/Charles Dharapak)
This article originally appeared on The American Prospect.

The American Prospect For the last two weeks, I have argued—consistently—that the debates don’t matter for the outcome of the presidential election. And now that we’ve had the first debate, I still think that’s true.

Which is not to say that this wasn’t interesting. For the first time since he began running for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney looked comfortable. During his debate with President Obama, he took command, clearly explained his points of disagreement, and offered a little humanity with stories of the unemployed and suffering.

He even shook the Etch-a-Sketch; on everything from tax policy—he disavowed his plan to cut taxes across-the-board—to health care (where he praised his Massachusetts reform bill), Romney made an abrupt move to the center, and it was hugely effective. It’s no exaggeration to say that Romney gave one of the best performances of his political career.

President Obama, on the other hand, didn’t fare as well. He couldn’t complete a statement without pausing. When Romney spoke, he looked down. When given the chance to offer a sharp contrast to the Republican nominee—“How do you and Governor Romney differ on Social Security?”—he demurred. And despite Romney’s willingness to bend or disregard the facts, Obama had little to say about his opponents honesty, or lack thereof. Romney’s excellence in this debate was matched—pound for pound—by Obama’s failure.

For pundits, journalists, and commentators across the spectrum, this is clear evidence that the presidential race has become a toss-up again, providing fodder for endless analysis, and justifying their continued employment. “A week ago, people were saying this was over. We’ve got a horse race,” said David Gergen in a bit of post-debate analysis. On the other side of things, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews had a near-meltdown over Obama’s listless performance: “I don’t know what he was doing out there, he had his head down, he was enduring the debate rather than fighting it.” According to CNN’s instant polling, 67 percent of viewers say that Romney won the debate, compared to the lonely 25 percent who say that Obama had the advantage. Overall, viewers gave Romney a win on everything, from the economy and health care to taxes, the deficit, and views of government.

There’s no question that Romney crushed the president, who gave a poor performance. But the facts are clear: This won’t determine the outcome.

It’s worth looking back to the 2004 presidential debates. The unanimous opinion was that John Kerry punished George W. Bush. Whereas Bush was churlish, impatient, and aloof, Kerry was dynamic and aggressive. He came away from the debates with momentum and a boost in the polls.

Twenty-two days after the final debate, Bush won reelection with 50.7 percent of the vote.

Winning debates doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t do much to help either. At most, this debate will give Romney a bump in the polls. But even that’s an open question. Kerry’s gains came from winning Democratic voters back from Bush, and moving Democrats away from the undecided column. There was slack in the electorate, and that gave Kerry a little space to grow.

The same isn’t true this year. Obama is winning the vast majority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters, while Romney is doing the same for Republicans. There isn’t much across-the-aisle voting in this election, which means that Romney needs to win undecideds and break Obama’s coalition to make gains. To do that, he needs to offer a convincing argument to Democratic voters and, so far, his campaign hasn’t been able to clear that hurdle. Yes, the debate helped him look serious and presidential, but that’s never been his problem: Romney moves with an aura of competence. What he lacks is detail and conviction.

Put another way, Romney gave a great performance, but there was nothing in his rhetoric that would convince an Obama voter to switch sides. By next week, polling will catch up with events and we’ll have a sense of how voters reacted to the first presidential debate. My guess? The polls will show little or no change. To borrow from political scientists Robert Erikson and Christopher Weizen, “the best prediction from the debates is the initial verdict before the debates.”

At the end of the month, odds are good that Obama will be where he was at the beginning of the month—ahead.

Read more of The American Prospect at http://www.prospect.org.

More Jamelle Bouie.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 30 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations