Thursday, October 4, 2012

Post-Debate Panic Among Democrats

Most of my Democratic friends (which is most of my friends) are in full freak-out mode about Obama's debate performance. Some of these people value my opinion on these things. Some of them seek out my opinion not because they believe it but because they figure I'll give them the pro-Obama spin and they just want to be comforted. Still others don't ask me for my opinion because they think I'm an apologist for everything Obama's ever done. Whether you want my opinion or not, here it is:

Settle down people, settle down. Read what John Sides has to say. Or read what Sam Wang has to say.

These are smart people. Very ... professorial. When did THAT become a bad word???

Look, the only way Romney can gain ground is if he wins over some undecided voters or if he wins over some voters "leaning" towards Obama who are persuaded to move. There are VERY few undecided voters out there. If half of them made up their minds tonight (not likely) and those people break for Romney 5 to 1 (not likely) ... he picks up a net of about a point to a point and a half. How many of those "leaning" towards Obama changed their mind? Not a lot. Could Romney gain 2 points? It's possible but 1 point is a better bet.

2 comments:

Jonathan Keller said...

Well, yes of course it's not catastrophic. But can we say at least that it will almost certainly arrest Obama's momentum, as well as tack 1-2 pts. on for Romney. These are not insignificant developments, by any stretch.

But really I just wanted to offer an observation more in line w/ my bona fide expertise: Obama seems to really like to "Armando Benitez it," as a general rule.

Larry Becker said...

Momentum is definitely arrested. I guessed a 1-2 point gain for Romney in the post. A lot of people think it is worse. I don't. We'll see what happens.