My initial reaction to the debate has been a lot like many of the diarists, Obama got his clock cleaned. All the while I was asking myself, how could they let this happen? I thought, Obama's team is smarter than that. He just laid down for Rmoney. I watched the post debate coverage and the reaction of the punditocracy was a lot like mine.
The next day, I began to see the fact checkers on all the legitimate networks paying as much attention to the lies, as to Obama's sub-par performance. That got me to thinking about how and why that happened. My thinking is below the squiggle, I'd really like some feedback on this.
Suppose the Ali-Foreman fight had taken place over the course of a month, instead of 8 rounds. To just about everyone who has seen the original rope-a-dope, people were wondering, "What is he doing? He's not even trying to hit this guy." I figure this is probably around round 5.
Romney grew ever more confident as Obama refused to call him out on his lies, making bolder and bolder statements (Rich people wont pay less, pre-existing conditions, etc.). IMHO what he was really doing was giving him enough rope. At the town hall debate, citizens will ask for clarification and specifics (I hope) as opposed to boxers or briefs. At that point, I believe, Obama will point out the differences and the lies. I think, after all the fact checking from the first one, these counterpoints will resonate more deeply.
If Obama calls Romney out in the first debate, it becomes a shouting match since Lehrer didn't want to get involved. If Obama brings up the discrepancies, how much coverage do you think the mainstream media would have given to fact checking? After the initial coverage, it's old news and Obama already called him on it. That it comes from the press and not the candidate makes it more believable to most people. Otherwise, it's "Everybody has statistics that can be twisted".
I've been thinking about this for the last couple of days. I'd love to know what others think. Perhaps Obama had a good idea regarding the nature of today's jobs report, would that affect the strategy he chose?