Mark Blumenthal:
For the moment, the only evidence of a Romney bump comes from a handful of one-night, automated, recorded-voice surveys released Friday whose methods and timing may exaggerate the change. At the national level, the daily tracking surveys are still based on interviews conducted mostly before the Denver debate.
Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can't debate so change numbers
— @jack_welch via Twitterrific
David Corn:
So he's changed his tune. Big surprise? Not really. This is an indication, though, that he and his strategists believed his 47 percent minute are still an important factor in the race and a profound problem for him. Romney wouldn't otherwise shift his response at this stage. Focus groups conducted by the Obama and Romney campaigns have indicated that his 47 percent remarks have alienated independent voters and even "weak Republican voters." Apparently, the 47 percent effect is not fading fast.
More trouble for Romney: Occupy Sesame Street formed--and its leader is an angry Grouch.
http://t.co/...
— @GregMitch via web
AP:
Sasquatch might as well have traipsed across the White House lawn Friday with a lost Warren Commission file on his way to the studio where NASA staged the moon landing.
Conspiracy theorists came out in force after the government reported a sudden drop in the U.S. unemployment rate one month before Election Day. Their message: The Obama administration would do anything to ensure a November victory, including manipulating unemployment data.
The conspiracy was widely rejected.
RT @JonEasley: Stuart Varney on Fox, jobs numbers a straight up conspiracy: "Oh how convenient...five weeks before the election..."
— @daveweigel via TweetDeck
Meanwhile,
Kathleen Parker summarizes the pre-jobs post debate victory lap:
Contrary to conventional wisdom that debates are rarely, if ever, game-changers, the first presidential debate was a demolition derby.
Victory lap a bit premature?
AP:
The cheering stopped on Mitt Romney's campaign plane Friday morning.
The day before, aides had whistled and clapped when the Denver control tower commended the Republican presidential nominee's debate performance. It was a rare moment of exuberance for a campaign that had fallen behind President Barack Obama in a number of polls.
Click for bigger picture
here
The euphoria ended after the morning report that the nation's unemployment rate had dropped to 7.8 percent, its lowest level in Obama's presidency. Romney and his team sat stone-faced and quiet on the flight to Virginia's coal country, taking in the good news for the country that's bad news for their political prospects.
While it's
too early to tell, we are not seeing a game-changing poll just yet. And note to Kathleen, the idea is to win the election, not the debate.
Simon Jackman:
I thought it would be helpful to give a big picture review of the state of play before we're starting to see polls with post-debate field periods.
The graph below compares two-party vote share for Obama in 2008, by state, with last night's estimates from our model-based poll averaging. Pre-debate and nationwide, Obama was performing about a percentage point below the 2008 election result, from just over 53 percent (2008) to just over 52 percent (current estimate from our model-based poll averaging). Most states appear to be swinging away from Obama by a similar amount. This small amount of swing isn't translating into many states changing hands relative to 2008. A large win for Obama in the Electoral College is the clear implication of the current polling and our modeling.
Charles Blow:
Big Bird is the man. He’s 8 feet tall. He can sing and roller skate and ride a unicycle and dance. Can you do that, Mr. Romney? I’m not talking about your fox trot away from the facts. I’m talking about real dancing.
About 2/3rds of Minnesota Republicans on the 1st night of our poll say they think the BLS manipulated the unemployment numbers to help Obama
— @ppppolls via web
This may be a speed record for a conspiracy theory taking hold with the GOP base- less than 12 hours
— @ppppolls via web
Gail Collins:
There are 33 Senate contests this year, although voters in some of the states may not have noticed there’s anything going on. In Texas, for instance, Paul Sadler, a Democrat, has had a tough time getting any attention in his battle against the Tea Party fan favorite Ted Cruz. Except, perhaps, when he called Cruz a “troll” in their first debate.
In Utah, Scott Howell, a Democrat, has been arguing that if the 78-year-old Senator Orrin Hatch wins, he might “die before his term is through.” Suggesting a longtime incumbent is over the hill is a venerable election technique, but you really are supposed to be a little more delicate about it. Howell also proposed having 29 debates. The fact that Hatch agreed to only two was, he claimed, proof of the senator’s fading stamina.