What I'm not convinced of is the idea that Barack Obama would not be dealing with some sort of media-driven perception of a first debate loss. The campaign had almost no control over the expectations game. It looks to me like it was rigged to declare that ANY fault from the president would translate into a major 'loss.'
And, I don't think I'm coming at this conclusion from the same place that you're criticizing him. I don't think the Obama camp anticipated that the blowback would come from a flood of folks criticizing them for not being hard enough on Romney. I just don't think that's what they went into the debate to do; they didn't have placating their base of supporters desire for a brawl at the head of their debate agenda. That may well have been a mistake.
We can't wish scenarios into place; as you say; but, I'm not sure that the President's desire to follow his own game-plan of defining his own agenda and contrasting the substance of his initiatives against Romney's anticipated that he'd be defending himself against his own constituency; buttressed by the almost universal decision to judge the contest on the music, rather than the verse. There wasn't any need for the Romney camp to tear down the substance of the President's actual remarks and responses (and he didn't give them any); They have this hollow narrative of a 'win.' on cosmetics and 'style.' That's it. Not a finger has been laid, by the press or the Romney campaign on what the President asserted in that debate.
On the other hand, there's Romney and the majority of his debate patter regarded as shady and false. That's been effectively capitalized on in the aftermath of the debate by the Obama camp, and, it's hard to imagine that ANYTHING else that he did in that debate would have done him anymore good. I say this because of the historical fault in these first debates for the incumbent. The challenger always gets a few points for standing tall alongside the president of the United states; for being on the same stage. That's all that's reflected in the polls with most of the movement, momentarily, solidifying the republican base to rally around their nominee. Nothing has changed in our registration and organizational efforts which will determine the race in these final days. No major shift looks to have occurred which, I don't believe, would have occurred anyway.
Now, of course, the President is going to perform for his supporters Tuesday. He got that message. I'm sure he gets it now. Yet, I can't help but wonder what we're losing in giving more credence to the posture of these candidates than to the actual substance of what they're saying. That's a slope that we should want to stay on top of; rather than sliding down with folks who couldn't care less about the pitfalls below.
= new reply since forum marked as read