Category: Keepers

There are two snapshots of the polling right now. One of them comes from Rasmussen and Gallup, which show a clear lead for Romney; the other comes from all the other polling organizations that show a slight Obama lead. Rasmussen, a firm headed by a committed partisan Republican, whose polls are the basis of countless polling quotes from the Republican blogosphere, has nonetheless been removed from Fox News' polling unit, which tells you something. Even Fox News doesn't trust him. And they shouldn't.

Gallup, though, is a different case. There's no indication of editorial partisan bias – or an obvious strategy to provide polls for purely propaganda purposes for one party. Just a party identification sample that produces different results than every other polling organization. Nate Silver noted:

[Gallup's] results are deeply inconsistent with the results that other polling firms are showing in the presidential race, and the Gallup poll has a history of performing very poorly when that is the case.

To wit: in 2008, Gallup missed the margin of victory for Obama by six points. That's a huge discrepancy. And that time it was in Obama's favor: they predicted a landslide double-digit 11 point victory, when it was only 7 percent. But they were dead-on in 2004; and now they are claiming that the demographic make-up of this year's electorate is almost exactly the same as they measured 2008. So with the same turn-out in terms of race, age, gender etc. they are predicting this time a Romney victory over Obama of five points. From 2008 to 2012, Gallup believes that Obama has lost 17 points to the Republican challenger.

Gallup weights its sample for measures party identification, but doesn't put much emphasis on it in their model. They say their model for 2012, with the same demographics as 2008, is 36 percent Republican; 35 percent Democrat; and 29 percent Independent. The poll of 705 other polls shows party identification as 29 percent Republican; 36 percent Democrat; and 31 percent Independent. What has happened since the summer is a sharp drop in the "Independent" category – giving gains to Democrats and Republicans pretty evenly, with the Democrats gaining a tiny bit more.

Here's the Gallup/Rasmussen analysis of the race since September, if you just use those two polling outfits:

Here's the same graph in the same period for all the other polling organizations combined:

In the model with the least smoothing, Gallup and Rasmussen have shown a clear Romney lead since the beginning of September. Obama has never led the polls on that graph since September 1:

In all the other polls, on the same unsmoothed graph, Romney was only ahead from October 6 – 13; and then briefly on October 23.

So you either believe that Romney has held the national lead 100 percent of the time since September 1; or you believe that Obama has had the lead for 86 percent of the time since September 1. Obviously, the two models cannot both be true.

They are in completely different universes. Well, as Larkin put it, we shall find out.

We've talked a lot of policy on the Dish this election cycle – airing legitimate differences on how to handle foreign policy, or taxes, or how best to run a healthcare system. And that's absolutely part of an election, and I fully accept the validity of the views of those who legitimately disagree with me on what are essentially prudential judgments. I've supported Democrats and Republicans in my adult life, for different prudential reasons at different moments in time. In politics, I'm a conservative; not an ideologue.

But there is another dimension to politics and it's about morality. Some issues are not subject to prudential or utilitarian reasoning, but are fundamental a priori moral questions. Let me cite three areas where I think the difference between Obama and Romney is a deep and moral one and requires the exercize of conscience as well as judgment.

The first is universal access to healthcare. I've long been a fan of the great parts of America's private healthcare system: its treatment of patients as customers they want to keep, as opposed to human beings they are simply mandated to treat; the innovation of the pharmaceutical companies in a free market; private hospitals and doctors. But the fact that tens of millions of human beings cannot afford access to this often excellent private healthcare, even in a basic form, remains, to my mind, a scandal. That there are two nations in this country – one with the security of healthcare and one with no security at all – remains, to my mind, a moral disgrace.

That view comes ultimately from my Catholic faith. But it also comes from my surviving a plague and seeing so many die in often unbelievable neglect. It comes from realizing that if I encounter a sick person, every particle of my being wants to see that person get care, and it's only by looking away that I can ignore this core truth. It comes from understanding that as someone with a pre-existing condition, I would be bankrupted if I ever lost insurance through an employer. And I am so much more privileged than so many.

I don't believe in the kind of socialized medicine they have in my home country, where the government really does run the industry. But I do believe as a core moral principle in universal access to basic healthcare in wealthy countries.

This election is really asking you: do you believe everyone should be able to have access to private health insurance or not? When I examine my conscience, my answer has to be yes.

I believe in equal human dignity, and denying someone medicine to live healthily denies that dignity. To run a campaign in favor of removing that kind of security for tens of millions of Americans and replacing it with nothing remotely comparable is simply, deeply, morally wrong.

Torture is also a non-negotiable issue for me. It is simply unacceptable. It is the negation of the West's entire founding principles. Any candidate of any party who supports it rules himself out for me on that ground alone. Romney will bring it back. He will make America a torturing nation again. He would employ the former war criminals of the dark years of Bush-Cheney and legitimize them still further. He would reinforce the idea, propagated by Cheney, that torture is a "no-brainer", giving comfort to every vicious dictator on the planet to do the same. This was not the case in 2008, when both candidates disavowed torture, and one of them had actually suffered by the exact torture techniques approved by Bush-Cheney.

Finally, I cannot reconcile a pre-emptive war against a country that only has the technical ability to make a nuclear bomb, but has not weaponized it or threatened its use, with any reading of just war theory.

I have no illusions about the evil in the Tehran regime. This page was obsessed with the suppressed Iranian revolution three years ago and covered it like no other. I despise theocracy perhaps more than any other form of government – because it is a blasphemy as well as a dictatorship. But when the Supreme Leader of that theocracy publicly declares as religious doctrine that using a nuclear bomb is a sin, and when the opposition in Iran favors the nuclear program as a matter of national pride, and when Iran's nuclear capability would still be no match for Israel's massive and fully actionable nuclear apparatus, then pre-emptive war is morally unconscionable. To use an expression like "mowing the lawn" to decribe such acts of war that would kill countless people makes me sick to my stomach.

If the Iranian theocrats were to constuct an actual nuclear bomb and directed it toward other countries, I still would favor containment. I believe in the doctrine of deterrence. But I can see, given the evil nature of the regime, especially its disgusting anti-Semitism, why some may disagree with that view, including the president. I can also see why the Jewish people, given the enormities they have suffered and the extraordinary achievement of their dynamic, tiny state, would lean on the side of extreme caution. But to launch a war with necessary ground troops and brutal bunker-busting bombs simply because a country has the technical capability to enrich enough material for a nuclear bomb – that's immoral. It's unjust. When that country poses no threat to the United States itself, it's way outside the parameters of a just war.

Romney favors such a pre-emptive war based merely on Iran's capability. Obama favors it based on the actual decision to construct a nuclear weapon. Both, I believe, are morally troublesme, from a just war perspective. But Romney's is far worse. I'm no pacifist. But I also deeply oppose war except in self-defense with as few civilian casualties as is possible.

I'm not citing civil rights issues, but they of course factor in. The GOP's institutional bigotry toward gay people and our lives and families and its stated intent to keep a whole class of us disenfranchized from the basic right to marry the person you love appalls me. But I understand this is a state matter, not a federal one. And I'm addressing presidential decisions here. I endorsed George W. Bush and Bob Dole who explicitly opposed marriage equality. Heck, I supported a Democrat named Barack Obama who did at the time as well. But I believe in federalism on this. And always have.

On the universality of access to healthcare, on torture, and on pre-emptive war, my conscience therefore requires me to withhold support for the Republican candidate. I disagree with him on many prudential policy grounds – but none reach the level of moral seriousness of the above. Yes, a lot of this comes from my faith in the teachings of Jesus and the social teaching of the Catholic tradition in its primary concern for the poor and weak and the sick – rather than praising, as Romney and Ryan do, the superior morality of the prosperous and strong and healthy. But on all three topics, a purely secular argument also applies, simply based on the core dignity and equality of the human person, and the fragile advances we have made as a civilization against barbarism like torture.

That matters. It matters in a way that nothing else does.

(Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama addresses a campaign rally at the Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport October 25, 2012 in Cleveland, Ohio. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.)

Because I don't:

He misread his Republican opponents from day one. If he had been large-spirited and conciliatory he would have effectively undercut them, and kept them from uniting. (If he'd been large-spirited with Mr. Romney, he would have undercut him, too.) Instead he was toughly partisan, he shut them out, and positions hardened.

Funny how the first group of non-pols that Obama sat down with were leading conservative writers, like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer (the liberals came second); that he asked Rick Warren to give the invocation at his Inauguration; that his stimulus was a third tax cuts (the only big tax cuts Republicans have ever voted against in my memory); that his healthcare reform was not single-payer, but one modeled on Mitt Romney's moderate version in Massachusetts; that he has given Israel more military and technological support than any previous president; that his foreign policy is now praised by his opponent; that he killed bin Laden; and gave a speech urging freedom in the Arab world in his first few months, and that popular democratic revolutions broke out in Iran, Egypt, Tunisia and Libya on his watch. Funny also how one of the first things Obama did was to extend the Bush tax cuts – such an obvious partisan move designed to shut Republican ideas out of his agenda.

Noonan is actually trying to turn president Obama into the hostile partisan who refused to adopt any Republican ideas from the get-go. Maybe she believes it.

Maybe she read the following summary of the early Obama days from the Washington Post at the time:

In the end, despite visiting Republicans in Congress Tuesday, stripping out two provisions the GOP objected to, and inviting several Republicans for drinks at the White House this evening, Obama did not get a single Republican to vote for the [stimulus] bill. Obama's efforts did win him some compliments from Republicans who figure they can make deals with the Democratic president when the bill goes to the Senate next week. … "The president was clear that he was going to continue to reach out to us, continue to listen to our ideas and I think we have to remember we're at the beginning of this process," House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told "Good Morning America" today. Those comments marked a softer tone from Tuesday morning, when Boehner and other Republican leaders tried to head off Obama's lobbying efforts by calling on Republicans to oppose the stimulus plan even before the president had met with them.

My italics.

More to the point, the set of actions I have outlined above could quite easily have been George W. Bush's agenda (or David Cameron's, if he were on the right of his own party). There was plenty of compromise by Obama from the beginning, both symbolically and substantively. But a Republican decision was made that, even in the worst recession since the 1930s (whose impact on unemployment was devastating) not a single Republican House vote would go for the stimulus. It shocked me at the time, coming so soon after such a big election. I was naive enough to think that an emergency action that prevented a second Great Depression was something the opposition party might have supported, after losing an election badly to a newly elected president in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. I naively believed that just as a group of Democrats had supported Ronald Reagan's massive tax cut because they thought he had a mandate for one, a group of House Republicans might put country before party and give the man who ran on bipartisanship a chance.

Instead, they set out from Day One to destroy him, because they knew that if his moderation and modern cultural identity succeeded, their reactionary radicalism would be sidelined for good. And Rove's method is always to see what your party's own worst flaw is among the public and, with a straight face, accuse your opponent of it.

You know what we're fighting in this election? That cumulative, snow-balling, post-modern, cynical faction of deceit and partisan amnesia. If we are to get past the Cold Civil War we are in, the defeat of the rigidly ideological and theiological GOP is vital.

(Photo: anti-gay evangelical pastor Rick Warren, giving the invocation at Barack Obama's Inauguration.)

Kessler looks at the latest post-modern Romney ad: post-modern because truth is completely immaterial to this propagandist dreck. It's one thing to broadcast untruths, or misleading half-facts as obvious truths; it's another to be called out on them, refuse to change them, and intensify their reach.

But it's working. There seems increasingly little doubt to me that Romney has the momentum now, and that October 3 was indeed the moment this election completely re-shaped itself. None of the proposals domestically add up (which means much more Republican-driven debt); we will be soon engaged in a protracted war against Iran, regardless of the views of the American public (more debt, untold damage to the global economy, a wave of renewed Jihadism to be met with more bombs and restored torture); millions will soon lose the only decent chance they had for health insurance, and those of us with pre-existing conditions will remain vulnerable to bankrupting ourselves if we ever lose private insurance for a period; but we sure will have more battleships for the long hoped-for neocon Cold War with China. And billionaires sure won't pay more to help out.

I've long argued that attacking Romney wouldn't be enough. EJ reminds us today of the potential of an Obama second term, as I attempted in my recent cover-story. But implementing Dodd-Frank fully, resolving the Iran conflict peacefully, making universal healthcare work are vital – but not new. Immigration reform matters. What Obama has laid the basis for in cleaner energy and education is also the kind of quiet policy reform that historians will one day note.

I remain of the view that radical tax reform, rather than simply taxing the wealthy more, would have given Obama the newness he needed to break through. The recovery was never going to be enough; and an entirely negative Romney strategy – so potent for so long – was torn to shreds in the first debate. Obama and his aides chose the more cautious, traditionally Democratic route. I can see the rationale. I can also see why the momentum is with the guy who is talking about actual reforms – however deceptive, unpaid-for and cynical.

Obama is now fighting for his political life. And right now, to my genuine horror, he's losing to a fraud, a war-monger, a liar and a budget-buster.

(Graph: Obama's fast-narrowing lead in Ohio.)

10.40 pm. To my mind, Obama dominated Romney tonight in every single way: in substance, manner, style, and personal appeal. He came back like a lethal, but restrained predator. He was able to defend his own record, think swiftly on his feet, and his Benghazi answer was superb. He behaved like a president. He owned the presidency. And Romney? Well, he has no answers on the math question and was exposed. He was vulnerable on every social issue, especially immigration. And he had no real answer to the question of how he’d be different than George W Bush.

I’m excitable – but sometimes politics is about emotion as well as reason. And my view is that Obama halted Romney’s momentum in its tracks and his performance will bring women voters in particular flooding back. He’s just more persuasive. On watching with the sound off – apart from weird gaps in the CSPAN coverage – Obama did not grin like Biden; he smiled confidently, leaning forward. Within twenty minutes, Romney looked flush and a little schvitzy.

Game, set and match to Obama. He got it; he fought back; he gave us all more than ample reason to carry on the fight.

10.39 pm. That was the best answer of the night and for Obama to tackle the 47 percent question as powerfully as he did at the end was brutal.

10.36 pm. Romney’s answer to the easiest question imaginable was so sad. He was boasting of universal healthcare as a sign of his compassion. So why does he oppose so vehemently Obamacare? Shouldn’t that speak well of Obama by Romney’s own argument. He also failed to offer a single anecdote of his own personal life.

10.31 pm. Obama’s actual answer to the China question – some jobs aren’t coming back – was as honest as his prescription is obvious, with respect to education. He has won every single exchange in this debate; and he has also appeared calmer and more authoritative.

10.30 pm. Regulations have quadrupled? Really? Over to the fact-checkers.

10.26 pm. This gun exchange is a little blurry. But the pivot to education was worth it. Romney is clearly rattled. The look on his face as he went to the final question was almost creepy.

10.24 pm. This has been a sustained lie from Romney and Ryan:

GOP vice presidential nominee Paul D. Ryan said it took President Obama two weeks to label the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans as “a terrorist attack.” In fact, Obama labeled the incident an “act of terror” during his remarks on Sept. 12 in the White House Rose Garden.

10.21 pm. In the transcript of the Rose Garden press conference, we have the following sentence:

No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.

He did not even mention the inflammatory video. Romney was wrong. Crowley was right to call him on it.

10.16 pm. Wow. President Obama just eviscerated Romney. As an alpha male. It’s hard to convey genuine offense without seeming aggressive. But Obama made Romney look cheap and political over a tragedy like Benghazi. But I’m not sure what the Rose Garden transcript actually says. We’ll find out.

10.12 pm. I thought that was a terrific response from Obama on the Benghazi clusterfuck – especially reminding us that Romney tried to politicize the issue. And Romney is now saying that Obama should have suspended his campaign, as McCain did, because of the Benghazi error.

10.06 pm. If Obama had passed immigration reform in his first year, Romney would have attacked him for not focusing on the economy. We all know what happened. The GOP stopped it. Period. Romney’s bulldozing through these questions, talking over Obama and Crowley, makes him look like a bully. And Romney just heckled Obama.

10.02 pm. On immigration, Romney cannot answer the core question, except by self-deportation. And Obama is reminding him of the fact. Romney just told Candy Crowley to shut up. He’s treating her with contempt.

9.57 pm. Romney is blaming the recession on Obama, who inherited it. Romney – who said that Bush was in a different era and couldn’t be compared with him today and then uses Reagan’s Keynesian recovery with much less debt and far more fiscal lee-way to indict Obama. Any argument at hand.

9.50 pm. Obama flunks the opportunity. It’s easy: Bush wanted tax cuts as the magic bullet; so does Romney; Bush wanted to invade Iraq; Romney wants to attack Iran. And yet Obama does not bash Bush – perhaps very cannily; he pivots to pointing out how Romney is to the right of Bush. And then he makes his key pitch in defense of his record. He’s on. Romney, meanwhile, looks flushed and uncomfortable.

9.46 pm. Romney just denied his position on the HHS contraception mandate. But he gets my question! The critical question. And he has no real answer. I mean: really new oil fields? This is a ball hanging in the air now – and Obama should be able to nail it.

9.44 pm. It’s fascinating how contraception is now an issue in this campaign and Obama is owning his Obamacare position; and he is doubling down on Planned Parenthood. This is going to hel win him back women’s votes. He’s on tonight. Nice touch on his daughters. And obviously sincere.

9.42 pm. Romney’s response on women’s pay is strongest when he mentions his old cabinet in Massachusetts. But his segueway to the economy seemed a little desperate.

9.38 pm. Obama has owned the first half hour. This campaign is turning again. Now we get a very Obama-friendly question about women’s pay. And a great answer on women’s pay. Hard to beat that answer.

9.33 pm. Obama does now point out the phony math. Obama is now dismantling Romney. It is a joy to watch these lies exposed. Game back fucking on! I love that formula of saying Romney wouldn’t accept the same sketchy sales pitch he is now selling to Americans.

9.32 pm. More vague uplift from Romney – but it sounds devoid of content. But Obama missed an opportunity to say to the last questioner: did you notice he didn’t answer your question?

9.29 pm A good answer from Obama but he missed a key opportunity. To tell the middle class that Romney’s math does not add up without getting rid of middle class deductions. Obama nonetheless won that exchange.Romney is lying. He cannot cut the debt, and cut tax rates without removing major deductions which will affect the middle class. It’s deceptive.

9.25 pm. The key question: show us your math. Which deductions would you remove from the middle class to pay for the cuts in rates? Now he’s saying he will limit the amount of total deductions for most people, at least I think that’s what he’s saying. The answer is obviously evasive, it seems to me. He has no details or specifics.

9.22 pm. A brilliant debating pivot from Obama on the price of gas. It was so low in 2008 because of the recession. Romney now seems as if he is bullying Crowley and Obama.

9.20 pm. It’s getting very testy, and Obama’s getting angry at the flim-flam. Romney is now simply saying that higher gas prices is entirely the fault of Obama, which he knows is wrong.

9.18 pm. Obama calls Romney a liar to his face; and rebuts his entire point on oil drilling on public lands, by citing his record compared with Bush’s. He’s kicking Romney’s ass right now. His point about efficiency and long-term investment works.

9.13 pm. Go defend your stellar record on domestic energy production, Barack, and the new standards for emissions. Obama corners Romney on his inability to support clean energy, while focusing on carbon energy. Romney’s only response is to say we should drill in national parks. A meandering answer from Romney. And substantively weak. Because again, he’s lying. He wants to gut investment in clean energy.

9.11 pm. Thanks, Mr president, for calling a lie a lie. Finally. That second round was a knock-out for Obama. Thank God he’s alive!

9.07 pm. Obama’s back on. I recognize this guy. Energy; focus; ability to relate. Did Romney just say he “presumes” he’ll be president in 2014. Obama won the first exchange, although he got a little dull as his answer went on.

9.05 pm Did Romney just say he wanted to expand Pell Grants? Aren’t they on his chopping block? How many bald-faced lies he is going to say tonight?

9.02 pm. Striking isn’t it that the man who’s in his early fifties has more gray hair than the dude in his sixties. That’s the end of the hair-blogging. Promise.

9.01 pm Well it’s a Town Hall format and it’s with the great Candy Crowley, so why not? Has he put extensions in her hair? Is that the gayest thing I ever live-blogged?

In so many ways, this is a staggering chart. On October 2, Obama was given by Nate Silver a 97 percent chance of winning. In just two weeks, his odds have sunk to 65 percent. The now-cast for the popular vote is 50-49 percent in favor of Obama. Two weeks ago, it was 52 – 46. Here’s a Dishhead bleg: when was the last time that a sitting president in a re-election campaign lost six percentage points in the polls in two weeks in October? There’s some stabilization now, but that’s because it would be close to mathematically impossible for a collapse that massive to continue indefinitely. If it did, we’d be looking at a Reagan-style landslide for Romney.

I was wrong about that first debate. I was far too optimistic about what would follow. Even in my hysteria, I didn’t believe that one debate would hand an entire election to the challenger. But that’s how execrable Obama was that night. I suppose the good news is that if one debate can do this much damage, another one or two can repair it some. But the trouble is: the Obama camp did such a good job in defining Romney before the debate that his sudden new personality implant – compassionate, caring, realistic, moderate – didn’t just help Romney but also made Obama’s campaign seem deceptive and too negative.

That’s the trouble when you run against a shape-shifter. He has no shame in jettisoning every position he took in the primaries. That was a different market to sell to. Now he has a new market, so he has new policies and a new persona. In office, he will find a new market to sell to day to day. And the GOP base so wants Obama out of there, and out of history, they don’t care that Romney is a self-serving opportunist. He’s their self-serving opportunist now. While Obama’s supporters are either deeply demoralized, as I am, or so scrupulous on certain issues that they refuse to vote for him.

Bill McGurn is half-right:

Perhaps Barack Obama can reassert himself in Tuesday evening’s town hall in Long Island. But his problem is this: In Denver he didn’t just lose a debate—he lost the carefully cultivated illusion of a larger-than-life figure who was Lincoln and FDR and Moses all wrapped in one.

That’s an exaggeration. I never thought Obama was a demi-God. But I do think his steady accretion of policy gains and the new demography of the US gave him a chance to be a second Reagan in re-shaping America and the world. And I remain of the view that his temperament, policies and persistence remain remarkable strengths. And if he somehow manages to display those qualities again tonight, all is still possible.

But the Obama who showed up on October 3 was not the Obama any of us had seen in five years. Maybe a glimpse or two – I sat through a couple of snore-fests from the guy. But on the most important night of the campaign? I remain baffled. You cannot hide a real person behind a curtain for five years straight. So who was that guy last time around? And will the actual Obama show up tonight?

If anyone thought that the feisty Biden debate undid the massive damage the president did to himself in the first debate, the news isn’t great. Biden does seem to have reversed the speed of Obama’s free-fall but not the decline itself. Romney’s debate obliteration of Obama – something that, in my view, irreparably damages a sitting president – does not seem to be a bounce, but a resilient jump. It’s not going away by itself. That is: not a bounce. And if you were a low-information voter and watched the first debate with one man with energy and ideas (however deceptive) against a president who looked like he was making small talk with a bore at a cocktail party, you’d pick the challenger yourself. It turns out it wasn’t the economy (it’s been perking up lately) that’s become the main challenge for Obama. Nor the Electoral College. Nor a motivated, radical GOP base. It turns out that the main challenge for Obama’s re-election in the final stretch is Obama himself. I’ve been pilloried for being excitable about that epic first debate. But just look at that graph above (with heightened sensitivity) of the campaign poll of polls since February and tell me I was wrong.

Romney is now comfortably ahead nationally, gaining four points, as the president has lost three, since that debate. The result is a seven point swing in a couple of weeks, with momentum now firmly in Romney’s direction. Momentum matters. Obama had it. He threw it away. It will be extremely hard, with such little time left, to get it back.

As an Obama supporter, I remain committed, if deeply demoralized. The reason for that new ambivalence is not that the reasons for re-electing him have changed – we desperately need to raise revenues to tackle the debt, we cannot launch a new Judeo-Christian war against Islam in the Middle East without igniting an even more ferocious global religious conflict; it’s just wrong to cut off healthcare access for tens of millions, while ending homecare for countless seniors, while not even making a dent in the actual budget – because of give-aways to the extremely rich. And the way the Obama campaign had made those arguments clearly and consistently and built a brilliant campaign all the way to the first debate was quite something to behold. To be given a gift like the Romney 47 percent video is a rare event in national politics. To get it in the fall of an election should have made an Obama victory all but assured.

But Obama threw it all back in his supporters’ faces, reacting to their enthusiasm and record donations with a performance so execrable, so lazy, so feckless, and so vain it was almost a dare not to vote for him. What he has to do now is so nail these next two debates, so obliterate Romney in both, that he can claw his way back to victory. But if he manages just evenly-matched debates, let alone another Romney win, he’s a goner. Elections for president comes down to two individuals. You only get to see them up against each other in the flesh three times. The first time – always the most important – made Romney look like a president and Obama an ex-president. It will take a lot of intelligence, fire and argument to turn that around in the time remaining. And for the first time, after the sucker-punch of the first debate, I’m not entirely sure Obama has it in him.

10.33 pm. I have to say that Biden did to Ryan what Cheney did to Edwards in style and demeanor and authoritah. Ryan was hampered by an insurmountable problem on the impossible mathematics of the Romney budget. I think his inability to answer that question – how do you pay for it? – has to be the driving question now. The only way to afford it is to cut middle class deductions and middle class entitlements much more than Obama-Biden would. I'd love radical tax reform – but I'm not crazy enough to believe you can actually tackle the debt by cutting taxes and increasing defense spending and leaving Medicare basically alone (no ACA-style cost-controls) and only removing deductions for the very rich. It doesn't add up. They know it. And when challenged – even by Fox News – he cannot provide the details.

So this was a solid win for Biden, I'd say; as well as a competent performance by Ryan. The star? Raddatz – the woman the far right just tried to intimidate. She was tough on both, controlled the debate, and knew her shit cold. Sorry, Tucker. But you were pwned by a pro. One day, you may grow up to be a journalist half her caliber.

10.28 pm. Both have performed well, I think. Biden's final performance was pure emotion, deep passion and classic Irish-Catholic middle-class sentiment. Ryan did well in making his case, despite being unable to make the core case that the middle class won't get hurt in a huge tax cut for the wealthy and big defense increase.

10.24 pm. Biden is in a zone – a focused, positive, aggressive zone, and was poignant and calm in response to a question referencing a decorated soldier's question. Ryan is earnest and effective in hs closing peroration.

10.17 pm. Both were poignant and impressive on their faith in their lives. Most Catholics in America will side with Biden, I suspect. And Ryan could not guarantee that abortion rights would not be infringed in the Romney administration. I notice on this hot-button that the Christianist position did not look good in the dialing insta-polls.

10.16 pm. Ryan reiterates that secularism – the distinction between politics and religion, between state and church, cannot and should not exist.

10.12 pm. I don't think Ryan is going to win on Syrian intervention. I'll say this though: this is a real debate as a debate. Raddatz has asked them specific questions with authority and they have gone back and forth, rebutting each other. That's not Lehrer's open-ended "tell us about your differences" blather.

10.09 pm. "The last thing America needs is another ground war in the Middle East." I notice the approval rating went up big in that statement. Noeconservatism has no popular base. It depends on deception and fear-mongering.

10.03 pm. A word about Raddatz: she is making the case for Jim Lehrer's retirement. Notice also two things: both agree on withdrawal from Afghanistan. But both agree that Iran must never be allowed a nuke. They cannot wait to end the current war; but they cannot wait to launch the next one either, can they?

10.02 pm. Ryan says that "jobs are not growing at home," but abroad. Unemployment in America is now at 7.8 percent; Europe's is headed toward 12 percent. Lie.

9.58 pm. Did Ryan just say that the new Romney position is to be in line with the Obama 2014 deadline for withdrawal? That's an insta-flop, no? Meanwhile, Biden manages, unlike Obama, to home in on the goals achieved in the war on al Qaeda. But Biden's affect is the most important thing tonight. He seems like the elder statesman but also a pitbull.

9.49 pm. Ryan has just failed to answer how he will pay for his tax cuts. Quite obviously. He has no answer. Biden kills the argument stone dead. He has exposed the mathematical impossibility. Ryan is losing on this critical question of whether the Romney-Ryan math adds up. He has no answer either on the Romney proposal to increase defense spending. He just cites the sequester as if it were Obama policy. He wasn't wiped out; but he has been solidly put on the defensive.

9.45 pm. A classic left-vs-right fight over Medicare. For me, it was a draw. For seniors, I suspect Biden won. Now he's kicking ass on tax cuts for the rich. Biden is doing his job tonight. And doing it much better than I certainly expected. The case that millionaires should sacrifice nothing in the sacrifices we all need to cut the debt is simply immoral. It requires a Randian mindset to hang onto it.

9.39 pm. The Onion's Biden is absent. This is a calm, strong forensic refusal to accept any of the bullshit being delivered by the congressman. But he shouldn't laugh at Ryan's flim-flam. He should do what he just did: calmly, relentlessly expose it.

9.35 pm. Ryan has basically said that he favors redistribution of money from the young to the old, one of the generations struggling the most to the generation that has benefited the most from the post-war boom.

9.29 pm. Biden just turned a good debating point into a brilliant reminder of his own experience of tragedy – not a second-hand story planted for obvious political reasons – and finally, finally hits back at the gall of Ryan and Romney and the Republicans in blaming the debt on Obama. And now Biden is filleting Ryan on the stimulus. Biden is now on a roll! Game on!

9.27 pm. Ryan says that unemployment is growing everywhere in the United States: that's Lie Number 3. And I'd say he screwed up because Biden has rattled him a little. Now, Ryan if offering pabulum as an economic program and a weepy story about Romney's compassion.

9.25 pm. Fuck yeah, Joe! Finally, Biden nails it on the 47 percent.

9.24 pm. Raddatz actually uses the February 2009 assessment based on false information about the depth of the recession to use against Biden. It's absolutely unfair.

9.17 pm. Ryan is now again saying that the Obama administration has watered down sanctions. My question is: why has Biden not brought up Iraq, the last war the GOP backed to prevent WMDs in the Middle East? But Biden is now authoritative. "A bunch of stuff." "Malarkey". Two euphemisms for bald-faced lying. Biden is now kicking ass on Iran.

9.14 pm. Women like Ryan more than they do Romney. A second possible lie: the Obama administration watered down previous existing sanctions. When? How?

9.10 pm. Biden should not smile condescendingly when Ryan lies. But he's calm, clear and forceful. And seems much more authoritative than Ryan. But Ryan gets his points in. And the CNN approval line gives Ryan an advantage. That surprises me so far.

9.07 pm. Lie One: Obama didn't negotiate a SOFA with Iraq. Because it was already negotiated by Bush! But Obama simply enforced the withdrawal date.

9.04 pm. Libya up first. Tough question, unlike any of Lehrer's. And Biden handles it perfectly and then gives us a clear, compelling case for Obama's superior record in foreign policy. Then a perfect and important reminder that Romney and Ryan are prepping for another war in the Middle East over non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

8.57 pm. First up: yes I was a bit of an hysteric last week, but it turns out, given the astonishing turn-around in the polls, I was right. Like last time, what you'll get is just my hermetically sealed individual, flawed live response to what I see in the debate. And now we've seen the worst debate performance in modern history from the Democratic side and the most shameless from the GOP's candidate, tonight might even be fun.

I propose a drinking game every time Paul Ryan tells a whopper. I will abstain until the end, and then drink them all at once.

 

A few thoughts on the sudden attention this blog has gotten from the rightwing blogosphere. Drudge is Drudge. He does sometimes link to me, and has had me on his blog-roll for years (we were roughly the only two people on the planet live-blogging the 2000 election campaign and are both unrepentant, obsessive Petheads). But of course, the big love comes when I give Obama a tongue-lashing (which I've done several times in the past few years). And, of course, it's all part of the fun and games of the web that linkage is used a lot of the time for mockery or drama. Hence my Moore and Malkin and Hewitt Awards.

But I also have an Yglesias Award and often link to those on the US right making a decent point, sometimes in contention with the Republican consensus and brutal partisan discipline. And while a few pro-Romney columnists capable of attacking their own preferred candidate – Noonan comes to mind with her recent comments on the "rolling calamity" of the Romney campaign – I cannot imagine a pro-Romney blog doing what I just did to Obama.

They infer that I've given up or turned on him or whatever. And, yes, I am prone to drama, but have safeguards against it – we made sure to run dissents all day yesterday, and the Dish team's mission is to push back at me, not echo me. I just want to reiterate a few things: that I still firmly believe it is essential for global stability and economic recovery that Obama be re-elected; that his record is about as good as anyone could expect given the circumstances; and that I have seen the alternative to him lie and shape-shift so much in the last couple of weeks, he is even less principled and more ruthless than I feared.

Obama let him get away with it for one devastating night. The Dish won't for a second from now until the election. I haven't given up. I've just been given an electric prod to get back into the arena. And fight back.