With The New Yorker’s endorsement of Obama and several additional Romney endorsements, my reckoning of the total is 34 endorsements of Obama, 33 endorsements of Romney. None of the new endorsements I’ve found constituted a reversal so I don’t plan to link to them or excerpt them.
Schuler you choose wisely in not even bothering to mention that you would be ignoring the debate. Probably a modest Obama win – right up until the closing statements. Obama sounded petulant, as though he couldn’t believe that anyone could possibly vote for the failed policies of the past, while Romney sounded hopeful and upbeat. Romney probably lost modestly during the debate as a whole but the upbeat ending probably reinforced his overall messaging.
I still think its Romney’s to lose, and I don’t think he will at this point. The frustration at the networking meeting for professionals tonight was palpable – everyone seems to think that world has changed completely and that the best any of us can hope for is some job that pays us less than half of what we used to make. The fact that the state of Florida produced 800 jobs (on net) in September when about 800,000 of us are (officially) looking for work was a real fucking downer. B+ indeed….
Obama was typically petty.
My wife’s word for it (and I thought it was good) was ‘petulant’. But remember that most people watching are relatively low information voters. It will play differently for them.
The big difference is that Romney sounds like an optimist, and has an optimist’s hopefulness. Obama just sounds pissed off.
Something distressing to watch was that Obama didn’t even seem to realize where his advantage was. He kept veering back to the economy and domestic policy, where Romney hammered him on lower median incomes, increased food stamp usage, a 9,000,000 job gap from the President’s forecasts to reality, et cetera. Shouldn’t the most brilliant man in the room know where his advantage is and, you know, take advantage of it?
Late in the debate it veered almost strictly into domestic policy. It was interesting to listen to the back and forth between Romney and Obama. It was also interesting that Schieffer just let ’em go. It was a good decision on Schieffer’s part.
I finally wrote up my recent adventures in sign counting. (Mostly.) The results are here. A lengthy summary and additional thoughts are here.
I really don’t think Obama can win Florida at this point. Especially if (as is rumored) Romney is making inroads in the South Florida Hispanic population. He doesn’t have to win that group, just dent Obama’s advantage. (Romney will win older Cuban-American voters, but other groups will skew Democratic, or so it is said.)