Six reasons Mitt Romney won the first debate

Six reasons Mitt Romney won the first debate

Most everyone agrees: Mitt Romney won the first debate of the 2012 presidential election on Wednesday.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll released after the debate showed 67 percent of viewers thought Romney won, while just 25 percent said the same of President Obama. And a CBS poll showed 46 percent of undecided voters said Romney won, compared to 22 percent who said Obama won.

While Romney’s workman-like performance may have lacked one single big moment, there were a lot of reasons he came out ahead.

Below, we expound upon six of them:

1. He controlled the format: For better or worse, moderator Jim Lehrer largely let the candidates sort out the debate themselves, essentially broaching broad topics and letting the candidates duke it out on their own terms — with almost-endless rebuttals. This format favored Romney. Romney’s campaign went into the debate with an attack mindset (as most candidates who are behind do), and by allowing all those rebuttals, Lehrer gave Romney a chance to execute. He did. Obama wasn’t as focused on attacking, which works less well when there is so much back-and-forth.

2. Obama seemed frazzled: He didn’t have an Al-Gore-sighs moment, but Obama was clearly not having a good time on stage. His head was down when Romney was talking, his responses were halting at times, he often nodded (as if showing approval) or smirked when Romney was talking, and he even conceded some points to Romney on issues like deficit reduction and not being a “perfect” president. None of these were by themselves huge moments (as Gore’s sigh was), but the totality suggested a candidate who wasn’t terribly comfortable. And he wasn’t.

3. The politics of preemption: Romney knew going into the debate that he was going to be attacked for raising taxes on the middle class (according to an oft-cited study) and favoring the wealthy, so what he did was preemptively assure that he would not raise taxes on the middle class, repeating that over and over again and suggesting that it’s Obama who would raise taxes on the middle class. He also made a point to emphasize the poor (think: “I’m not concerned about the very poor“). By setting the terms of the tax cut debate, Romney offset the gains that Obama might have been able to make on a class issue that polls suggest the president is winning.

4. Obama didn’t get his big talking points in: If you would have told us before the debate that Obama would mention the auto bailout and Osama bin Laden only once and wouldn’t mention Bain Capital or Romney’s “47 percent” comments at all, we would have told you you were crazy. Yet that’s exactly what happened. Obama seemed predisposed with not engaging too much with Romney, but the debate was all about engaging with one another, and Obama didn’t even register the biggest hits on Romney.

5. The expectations were low: There’s a reason the campaigns spend so much time lowering expectations for the debate; expectations matter. And polls showed that, going into the debate, the American public, by a large margin, expected Obama to win. With the bar relatively low for Romney, it was that much easier to clear. That’s not to say Romney didn’t have a good debate. He did. But candidates will always be graded on a curve, and Romney beat the curve.

6. Romney avoided a stumble: Romney’s campaign has been colored by the occasional gaffe which shows the candidate to be out of touch or just plain awkward. There were a couple iffy moments on that count (Big Bird, anyone?), but the GOP nominee’s performance was largely gaffe-free. Without a “47 percent” or “I’m not concerned about the very poor” moment, Romney allowed for the post-debate analysis to focus on other things, which is what he needs.

Condoleezza Rice

 

 

Condoleezza Rice stamps her ticket for 2016/2020

TAMPA — The next time Republicans are searching for a presidential candidate, rest assured: Condoleezza Rice will be a part of that conversation.

Rice’s speech Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention was easily the best-reviewed of the week so far and, at times, even seemed to out-hype vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s keynote remarks.

The former secretary of state used her time on stage to deliver a speech that was at times wonky, at times red meat for the base, and at times personal reflection. It was good without being gimmicky — a trap other GOP speakers seemed to fall into. Through it all, the audience was rapt.

And really, it’s not all that surprising. Rice’s popularity in the GOP seems to transcend whatever reservations exist about George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House and her close ties to it. And by delivering a rousing speech Wednesday, she created a new version of Condi that could put some distance between her and that resume.

Towards the end of her speech, Rice even alluded to the idea that she could be president.

“And on a personal note: A little girl grows up in Jim Crow Birmingham – the most segregated big city in America,” she said. “Her parents can’t take her to a movie theater or a restaurant, but they make her believe that even though she can’t have a hamburger at the Woolworth’s lunch counter, she can be President of the United States. And she becomes the Secretary of State.”

This wasn’t thrown into Rice’s speech on a whim; these speeches are meticulously combed for their content. And while it could be dismissed as Republicans again seeking to play up the electoral achievements of black and Hispanic members of the party, this seemed to take it a step further.

In other words, it’s clear that Rice — and Republican officials — are happy to have her name bandied about in the context of future presidential elections.

The question from here is whether she actually wants to be president — or serve in some other elected position (senator from California, perhaps?).

Rice has made a significant effort to stay in the political game in recent months, and there is clearly a place for her there. A recent Fox News poll in advance of Ryan’s selection as vice president showed that Rice was the No. 1 choice for the job, with 30 percent of Republicans picking her, well ahead of Ryan and even Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Much of that could be attributed to the fact that she had higher name ID than the likes of Ryan and Rubio, but it shouldn’t be discounted as a reflection of enthusiasm for her role in the party.

As we’ve written several times, there were plenty of reasons she wasn’t the V.P. pick this time — not least the fact that she has expressed some pro-abortion rights tendencies and may or may not have voted for President Obama in 2008. Oh, and there’s also the matter of her having served as a close adviser to Bush, who Republicans would still like to pretend doesn’t exist. Rice was deeply involved in the Bush administration’s foreign policy, which even many Republicans now balk at.

But time heals wounds, and parties (and politicians) evolve. The fact is, if Rice wants to run in 2016 or 2020, abortion may not be as huge a hurdle as it once was. And by that time, Rice will only be in her low-to-mid-60s, and Bush and Obama could be a relatively distant memory.

One thing’s for sure: the Republican base already liked Rice a lot even before Wednesday night. And on Thursday, they are going to like her even more.

The speech she gave is the kind that keeps politicians in the national dialogue for years to come. It wasn’t on the same level as President Obama’s 2004 Democratic convention keynote — which effectively stamped his ticket for the 2008 race — but it’s along the same lines.

Rice has said she’s not interested in running for elective office, but things can change, and the will of the masses can be pretty compelling, if in fact a movement materializes in advance of 2016 or 2020.

From there, the question is whether she has the desire to jump into that arena — an arena, we should note, that is looking very receptive to her.

Mormonism makes a comeback: As we noted late Wednesday, Mormonism has really fallen off the radar of most Americans, despite Romney’s nomination for president.

That’s about to change.

Paul Ryan and Mike Huckabee addressed Romney’s religion in their speeches Wednesday night, urging evangelicals to vote for Christian values rather than for the one man in the race — Obama — who is an evangelical. And Thursday, Mormonism is expected to be a significant part of Romney’s speech and the night’s overall message.

Huckabee, perhaps the preeminent evanglical voice in the GOP right now, offered this: “Of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is Barack Obama, and he supports changing the definition of marriage, believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb or even beyond the womb, and tells people of faith that they must bow their knees to the God of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he calls health care. … I care far less as to where Mitt Romney takes his family to church than I do about where he takes this country.”

Ryan added: “Mitt and I also go to different churches, but in any church, the best kind of preaching is done by example.”

This is a tough issue for Romney to talk about, given the reservations of some in the evangelical community — and outside it — toward the Mormon religion.

Expect this to be a major subplot tonight.