Friday, October 5, 2012
How much do the debates matter?
After the debate Wednesday night, there is a general question of how much the debates truly matter. A rasmussen article came out with effects of the firsts debates on the past election.
This chart conveys that the debates had an effect (some more drastic than others) on the past elections. However, the main indicator in this data is that the candidate that was ahead prior to the election, normally stayed ahead after the first debate. Furthermore, a CNN article mentioned how Obama's fundraising prior to the debates raised the largest amount of money during this campaign, which provided positive news after the not perfect debate. Yet another positive for Obama was the drop in unemployment rate to 7.8%. Are these positives going to keep Obama ahead in the race or do the debates have more weight than the polls say?
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3 comments:
The effect of the recent debate on this year's election has still yet to be determined. While most agree that Romney's performance, or his active enthusiasm and aggressive yet cheerful behavior, in the debate was striking compared to Obama's performance, watching the debate and listening to the debate are two completely different things. Romney's enthusiasm may have surprised and impressed some Americans, but one cannot forget his lack of specifics and his vague plans to promote deficit-neutral tax cuts. Americans must look beyond all of those "glittering generalities" when casting their election vote.
I think this debate will have some effect on people's decisions, but not enough to turn Romney into a winner. As Samantha pointed out, the debate did highlight some of Romney's weaknesses. Although Obama's math was repetitive and annoying, Romney never gave a satisfactory response, in my opinion. In fact, it seemed to me that he was using a lot of spin. "I'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut. What I've said is I won't put in place a tax cut that adds to the deficit. That's part one. So there's no economist can say Mitt Romney's tax plan adds 5 trillion (dollars) if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan." It sounds to me like he really does plan to cut taxes by that much but has convinced himself that not adding to the deficit is the same as not cutting taxes. I suppose tax cuts are good, especially if they don't add to the deficit, but they way Romney talked made me feel suspicious, like he was spinning everything. This part about the taxes is what I remember most clearly from the debate, and i think many other people remember it too because it was repeated many times at the beginning while everyone was still paying attention. This is not to say that I think Obama did better, but I don't think Romney did that well either. And anyways, it was only the first debate. Things may change around later.
I don't think the recent debate will sway public opinion that drastically, but as Tina said, it will have some effect. Obama's lack of eloquent responses to Romney's statements and his seemingly distant demeanor to the debate won't be enough to turn away his strong supporters, I think. His supporters will probably reason that he is indeed capable but just wasn't showing it that night and that he could and will do better at the next debate. After all, some pundits have asked frustratedly, "Where was Obama?", meaning that they probably set high expectations for him, but Obama did not deliver. However, it is highly likely that less strong, ambivalent supporters of Obama might switch sides and that Romney supporters will feel stronger in their position. As shown by the poll http://www.people-press.org/2012/10/08/romneys-strong-debate-performance-erases-obamas-lead/ Obama has lost some support. If Obama steps up his game in the next debate which I'm pretty sure he will, due to the complaints, then voter opinion may stabilize back to pre-first debate.
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