May I inject a brief history lesson into all of this poll panic? [View all]
During the 1984 campign, the news media was TOTALLY in the bag for reagan to have a landslide over the Mondale/Ferraro ticket. We were being deluged by the media every day prior to the first debate that it was going to be the political equivalent of a public execution and that Mondale had NO CHANCE against "the great communicator".
In the first debate, Mondale was in control from the opening statement and reagan was every bit the senile, doddering old idiot that he was ever since a few months after he was shot. I remember a highly placed Democrat proclaiming that there was now a new "great communicator". Mondale's highlight in that debate was how he was able to turn the tables on reagan when he again used the "there you go again" line that he'd used (pretty effectively) against President Carter in their 1980 debate.
A few days later, Geraldine Ferraro did pretty damned well against bush senior in thei VP debate. Mondale/Ferraro went from being down by 15 to down by 4 in a matter of days.
In the second debate, reagan used a line about Mondale's "youth and inexperience" to "win" their second and final debate.
We all remember who won that election and by how much. For those of you who weren't around then, it wasn't Mondale.
One consequence that I'm sure the media hasn't anticipated is that now, going into the second debate, the expectaions for President Obama are near zero in the public's collective mind. The media has been on a steady drumbeat of willard's brilliance as a debater. They kinda forget willard's biggest problem, which is that willard is STOOOOOPID!
I'm fully expecting a very significant turnaround after the second Obama/willard debate. Our president is a very intelligent and very competitive man. He won't allow this to happen to him twice.
That's my 2 cents, and quite possibly overpriced at that!
PEACE!
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