Yes Mitt Romney won the first debate. Yes this might sound like spin or delusion on an almost psychotic and sycophantic basis but if I've learned anything from candidate Obama or President Obama it's to never think he doesn't have a plan.
All week we watched both campaigns go to mockable and comical levels of spin to try and deflate the expectations for the debate. All Mitt Romney had to do to hold his own in the debate was to not blurt out something stupid like he does so frequently on the campaign trail or in some of the Republican debates. All President Obama had to do was explain the complexities of his four years of massive legislation, economic depression, political treachery, seem like a really cool guy and top it all off with a couple of great soundbites, essentially the bar for the President to win the debate was rather absurdly high. However like I said in the intro, never assume Barack Obama doesn't have a plan.
What's the one way the President's team could definitely reset the expectations game and ensure that now the President can have his own comeback story? Lose the debate.
As I watched the debate play out my heart told me I should get enraged and start throwing stuff but my brain told me to play it cool and finally realize that if I'm playing checkers Barack Obama is probably playing chess. Suddenly Mitt Romney is the big winner, suddenly all the attention is going to be on him, suddenly we're going to just have to count the hours (or maybe minutes) until he says something completely stupid and patently offensive. And when we get to the next debates the President is suddenly going to come out of this "subdued" shell he created and look like the comeback kid. Especially when we get into the famous town hall style debate that helped Bill Clinton triumph over the out of touch, plutocratic, George H.W. Bush by seeming like a normal rational person and not a statistic spewing machine that Mitt Romney played with perfection tonight.
Plus you don't have to believe one piece of this crazy scheme to calmly look at the electoral map and realize that Romney has to sweep almost all of the swing states to pull this thing off. On top of that who honestly thinks this or ANY debate is going to change women's minds on reproductive rights, or sway Jewish Americans, or African Americans, or LGBT Americans, or somehow equalize the almost 70/30 lead the President has with hispanics? Frankly the issues or the media doesn't really matter much for the Presidential race at this point. It's a demographics game and the President has built a social coalition to rival the economic coalition of the New Deal.
So really everyone, keep calm, carry on. And never count Barack Obama out.
Oh and vote.