It's like a great majority of games - the team with the big lead at halftime let up in the third quarter. But the MAJORITY OF THE TIME, the team with the big lead makes a correction in the final quarter and wins a close game. It's the same with Obama - if he just does the right things to win.
We had a pretty good-sized lead at half. But we got a little lazy and tried to milk the clock in the second half - too early it turned out. The other team made a run. Maybe even took the lead for a couple minutes in the fourth quarter.
But the team that built the big first-half lead didn't do that by accident. Pretty soon, they made the necessary adjustments, the other team got a bit tired from coming back from so far behind and didn't have enough energy/cushion to withstand the late charge.
Hate to break it down to such a simple sports analogy, but really pearl clutchers, take heed: Obama is the team that let up in the third and early parts of the fourth quarter. But they want to win this thing, and they have just too much time to correct themselves for Romney to realistically take it from them.
Obama no doubt is prepping 16 hours a day for the next debate. He's not going to make the same mistakes in the first. He is PRACTICALLY GUARANTEED to get a much better write-up from the media after this next debate. Really, he can't do any worse than the first one.
That by itself will change the narrative back to his favor: "OBAMA FIRES BACK", "OBAMA EVENS SCORE ON DEBATES." These will be the headlines from the horserace-loving media after the next debate. Mitt Romney is NOT going to get away with what he did in the first one. The media will be more attuned to his bullshit lies this time. They're just itching to write a "Obama calls out Romney's bullshit" story for the next debate.
The polls will readjust. Obama will regain a small but important lead going into the final few minutes of the game. The desperate Romney/losing side will have to put Obama at the free-throw line to stall the clock. Obama will then only need to sink a couple of free throws and this thing will finally be over.
It'll be tight - no doubt. But we're still headed for a 101-99 win in this thing if we just play it by the averages from here.