paul ryan will walk joe biden s dog in this debate, and that s a down for him. i would venture that the vice presidential debate may get the largest audience of any vice presidential deda debate we ve d so far. in 2008 with the introduction of sarah palin was the first time the vice presidential debate was ever the highest ratest debarate e ed debate. we have this again. governor romney, last night, people say he mangled the truth to put it gently. the obama campaign they did a smart thing today. got up bright and early this morning realizing they took a loss last night and began pointing out where governor romney had not said what he said before, had not stuck to the truth. however, we learned again last night, if we needed reminding, that there s power in taking the view. listen, i m frequently in error, but never in doubt. i believe what i m telling you. and that carries its own power and strength. especially when you re
i also think president obama made the classic mistake, which is to underestimate his opponent. and the second mistake, this is a long list, that he viewed this apparently more as a seminar than a debate. where you want to say, sir, please, excuse me, mr. president, sir, this is a debate, not a seminar. there were moments when he came off rather professorial rather than seeking re-election. there are factors of holding the presidency, itself, that disincline a president toward a good debate against a challenger and the way you re describing there. are there historical precedents of chief executives, of presidents turning it around and doing a much better job in subsequent debates? are they structurally bound by what it means to be president that they can t be good debaters or do they learn? each case stands on its merits. there have been cases over the years where it s a wake-up call,
and no fever, we got richard nixon with no makeup and a fever. what we got on tv in the first televised presidential debate in our nation s history was beauty and the beast. right? of course, jfk went on to win that election that year, whether or not it was because of the debate, i don t know, but thus was born the entire school of punditry that says it s all about the optics and watching things with the sounds off and all that existentially exhausting stuff we still say today. but here is the relevant context for understanding what happened last night. when mitt romney beat president obama in last night s televised debate. so the first televised presidential debate that we had was in 1960. here are all of the other years that we have since have televised presidential debates. every four years now we have these debates on tv. the only years, though, so these are all the years, right, right? the only years, though, in which you had an incumbent president running against a challenger in
debates. that was the record for incumbent presidents and their challengers. heading into last night s showdown between incumbent president barack obama and the challenger, mitt romney. the record was 1 for 5 for presidents going into a situation like president obama went into last night. and now, of course, the record is 1-6. as president obama is pretty unanimously seen, okay, no, unanimously seen as having had his clock cleaned by mitt romney last night. there s more to say about the substance about what claims were made during the debate, about what was true and what was not true and what will live and what will be forgotten and how the candidates seem to be adjusting their campaigns and messages to reflect what happened last night, in order to position themselves better for the debates coming up. we will get to a lot of that this hour. that is all still to come. in terms of the nationwide democratic bedwetting going on today over the challenger having won this first debate against
romney a answchance to get a se look from the electorate. when he was in a bad patch after the 47%. you said, what does he need? not to make any more big mistakes and needs an outstanding first debate. the advantage for romney now, a lot of people, most importantly independent swing voters and undecideds in the key battleground states, he has an opportunity to get a second look. i would say the danger there s a danger for the obama people. the danger for the romney people is that they start moon dancing in the end zone, begin high fiving saying we ve turned this whole thing around. i think it s very dangerous for them. on the obama side, important to remember, yes, they were beaten, but you take the view, i can be beaten but never defeated. this doesn t mean he s lost the whole election by any stretch of the imagination. clearly they re going to have to rethink whatever strategy they had last night. i found this a very curious performance by president obama.