promblem with town hall debate though is it hard for obama to attack romney as his back will be to him often because of trying to talk to some of the audience.Predictions? Romney bounce? Obama? None?
The 1st debate changed the tone of the election, and clearly gave Romney a much needed bounce. I'm thinking no bounce from the VP debate, but Romney will have stopped gaining ground.
I think Romney stopped gaining ground before the debate...
But the Veep debate won't make that much of a difference because only the base watches those. Biden did a good job in that he got the base excited, and he called Ryan on his lies.
Will that move independents? Probably not so much.
Again, we've seen this before.
The Incumbant president has a horrible first debate because while he's been busy being president, the challenger has been spending the last four years thinking of nasty things to say to him if they ever got on the same stage. This was true of Reagan in 1984, Bush in 1992, Clinton in 1996, and Bush-43 in 2004. This was the case this year. A combination of bad moderation and an uninspired performance by Obama, Romney got away with lying his ass off.
Then you have a veep debate, where an experienced veep makes mince-meat out of some person who only got the pick because the Challenger was throwing a bone to a key constituency. This was the case when Jeri Ferraro whines "Don't patronize me" when Bush-41 handed her her ass in 1984, it was the case when Edwards tried to shrilly criticize the war and remind everyone that Mary Cheny was a Lesbian in 2004. Gore spanked Kemp in 1996.
It doesn't always work. What everyone remembers about the 1992 Veep Debate was poor Admiral Stockdale seemed lost. But it was the case here. Ryan got spanked.
If the next debate holds true, the Incumbant is going to come out a lot more aggressively, and hit back pretty hard. Reagan did so brilliantly in 1984. Bush also came back a lot stronger in 2004, and everyone will remark how much he improved since the first debate. I think that's what they will say here.
Also, I think the moderators in the next two debates are going to do what Lehrer didn't do. Go after Romney.
I think the next debate has an additional problem for Romney. It's Town Hall style, and Romney never does well when he has to talk to "the little people".
also does not always mean president have good second debate after bad first. in 1992 bush was not good in first debate but he was even worse in second debate when he looked at his watch and did not answer a voter question well on the debt celing.
Also romney does not like town hall but watching him at rallies he much improved at them. For me though what worries me is unpredicatble nature of the questions from audience which might not help the president.
he under pressure. fail to peform again and its all over in my view sadly.