Dick. My operating theory of this race has been that it was over when Republicans allowed Mitt Romney to be defined as an asshole, elitist, out-of-touch vulture capitalist over the summer. He had lower favorabilities than any other Republican presidential nominee in history (or at least, since polling was invented), with nothing in his personal story or issue portfolio to turn those numbers around.
I also argued that the debates would provide Romney little room to grow, as he'd be forced to be aggressive'reinforcing his "dick" negative image. Ha ha, I assumed that President Barack Obama would deliver a credible performance as well, which obviously didn't happen. It wasn't that Romney wasn't a dick in the first debate. He was'he interrupted and acted haughty, smug and entitled. It was just that Romney's demeanor was completely overshadowed by Obama's implosion. Thus, instead of ending the race at a time when Romney was running low on cash and GOP intensity was dropping, Obama managed to reinvigorate Romney's candidacy and GOP intensity. Oh well. People have bad days, and sometimes those bad days come at the wrong time. This one gifted Romney a 4-5 point bump in the national polls and about a 2-3 bump in the States That Matter.
Regardless, no matter what the national polls said, Obama still led in the battlegrounds. Sure, the margins were tighter, but fact was that the president still led where it mattered despite suffering the worst blow to his campaign. That first debate, as good as it was for Romney, still wasn't good enough for victory.
You wouldn't know it from the angst from our corners. For a crowd that likes to say "act like we're 10 points down!", we saw them collapse in a puddle of hysteria being just 1-2 points back. If Obama was actually 10 points back, I suspect they'd be jumping off bridges.
This story, however, has a happy ending. It has something to do with last night's debate, below the fold.
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