Round Three

The third and final presidential debate was last night. Scoring on the 10 point must system, Obama won 10 points to 8.

The CNN snap poll had the viewing audience giving the win to Obama 48% to 40 percent for Romney, as announced on t.v., although the spread on the website was different.

What's the net effect of the debate?  Well the national opinion polls will start to show that on Wednesday.  By a week from today any further bump will be known.

A deeper dig into the CNN poll provides some insight.  I suggest you take a look at the CNN site which notes:

[A]ccording to the poll, both candidates were seen by debate watchers as able to handle the responsibilities of commander in chief - an important threshold for Romney since he is not the incumbent. But men and women see the commander in chief question very differently. 

Majorities of both genders saw Obama as capable of handling that role, but women were split roughly 50/50 on whether Romney had proven himself on that measure, while men responded well to Romney's performance. Women also saw Obama as the stronger leader; men saw Romney as having the edge on leadership. As a result, women saw Obama as the winner of the debate by 22 points, while a plurality of men saw Romney as the victor on Monday night.

Bottom line: The debate appears to be a draw when it comes to affecting the vote of those who tuned in to the faceoff.

In the end both sides are going to take from this what they want.  Personally, I thought I would walk away from the debate with a clearer picture on the effect.  Didn't happen.  

I get the idea behind Romney's more restrained approached.  I get the idea behind Obama's aggressive approach.  

I am just not sure I get the idea of how anyone can be zealously behind either one of these two.  Is it too late for a draft Hillary movement?

I watched the talking heads last night.  First one CNN and then on Fox News.  I have been watching the two cable stations enough to have a solid guess as to who was going to say what.  None of them disappointed me.  

There is another page on CNN worth your time.  It is a pretty succinct wrap up of the analysis from the people who I consider to have an inkling.

One page not to miss, especially when the zealots come out arguing about the truth in the debate, is FactCheck.Org.  Nothing burns me more than when any person starts clamoring about the "lies" from the other side, and fails to even remotely look into the reality of what their candidate is spewing.

Let's put the cards on the table here folks.  On foreign policy, both candidates stretched it, tw2isted words, and resorted to sound bites.  Digging deeper into other areas, both sides rely on too many assumptions to bolster their economic plan, and to try and bury the other's plan.

If someone ever writes a book on this campaign, and I am sure several will, you can pretty much bet you will find it in the historical fiction section of your local library or bookstore.

The truth is the truth.  You can twist it, you can ignore it, you can decide to attempt to rewrite it, but up to this point in time, neither side has any monopoly over it.

The only truth that is going to matter at this point will become self-evident, hopefully, sometime just before midnight two weeks from today.  

As to what that will be, the the RCP average of national polls as of 4:30 A.M. had Romney with a 0.4% lead. a tie for all intents and purposes.  The thing is that while this is an election conducted across the nation, it really is 51 separate elections (the states and D.C.), each would determining a set number of electoral votes.  

By the end of this week, we will see the path a bit clearer in the swing states.  We will see where volunteers from all over the country will be sent to bolster the troops in the battleground counties and cities.  I am still betting Ohio is the key. 

In closing for today, let me add that the best part about last night's debate:  it was the last one.