Debating the Debates

There you go again, "liberal media!"

Looks like once again, the famed "Liberal Media" is going through conniptions to avoid stating the obvious: that Vice-President Biden kicked Paul "Lyin' Ryan" Ryan's ass last night.  To anyone watching, it was an evisceration.  An embarrassment.  A beheading.  A smackdown.  A thrashing.  A thumpin', as George W. Bush might have said.

Yet today, the pundits have a different take.  While Mitt Romney was unanimously declared the hands-down winner of the first Presidential debate for being aggressive and smiling into the camera, even though he lied about the issues and adopted most of the President's positions on the issues where his stance is unpopular, Biden received a different analysis.

HIS smiling and aggressive takedown of Paul Ryan, the professional pundits have declared, was "too aggressive," "contemptuous," and makes it "unclear" who was the winner.  It could have gone either way, they say.  So eager is the "liberal media" to avoid making the obvious observation that Biden scored a dominant victory that they actually called a poll in which 50% picked Biden the winner to 31% for Ryan "ambiguous."  Based on that kind of reasoning, I guess it was also ambiguous who won the Presidency in 2008.  After all, Obama only got 365 Electoral College votes to John McCain's 173.  On the other hand, no one can question that in 2004, Bush won decisively over John Kerry, grabbing an overwhelming 286 votes to Kerry's measly 251.

I, for one, am thoroughly fed up with the ridiculous double standard the Media applies to Repubs and Democrats.  If a Republican manages to maintain their composure, speaks articulately and avoids saying anything overtly stupid, they are declared the resounding winner.  If a Democrat, on the other hand, fails to wear a large enough flag pin, glances at his watch, allows himself to be interrupted, or doesn't allow himself to be interrupted, his performance is questioned, and he is called a wimp, a bully, too aggressive, too docile, a sleepwalker, or a madman.

Note that, in either case, the issues are not considered at all in evaluating debate winners and losers by this cadre of professional pundits.

Now, let's take a look at what actually happened last night.

Joe Biden spoke clearly, coherently, forcefully, truthfully, and with conviction, making none of the gaffes that the "liberal Media" has made such hay of claiming he is prone to.  He showed a thorough command of the facts and displayed an easy fluency with foreign policy, Medicare and tax policy.  He has no trouble giving direct answers to the moderator's questions.

Paul Ryan, by contrast, continued a pattern he has developed (to the dismay of Republicans who now are wondering whether promoting him was a good idea after all), of failing to respond directly to questions. Similarly, he was unable to provide any specifics about his and Romney's plans, even when asked for them directly.  He reiterated his prepared talking points over and over again, often even when the question was about a completely different topic.  Most troubling was that, when asked what he personally, as a man and a human being, could bring to public office, he gave an answer that had nothing to do with himself.  When asked whether he felt any regret for the negative nature of the campaign on both sides, he answered by repeating his attacks on Obama.

By any objective standard, Biden won the debate resoundingly.  He pointed out, clearly and repeatedly, that:
- The Republicans want to voucherize Medicare.
- Romney and Ryan have no plan for Syria, even though they accuse Obama of handling it wrong.
- Romney/Ryan would cut taxes on the uber-wealthy and raise them for middle-class taxpayers.
- Romney opposed the auto bailout.
- Ryan asked for stimulus money, even though he now criticizes it.
- Romney & Ryan want to privatize Social Security and cut funding for education.
- etc, etc.

But apparently, because Biden refused to sit dumbly and look down while Ryan lied about what he had done in the past and now believes, Biden is now being called "too aggressive."  How DARE he?  He's a Democrat, after all!

Yes, the Liberal Media is at it again.

The Latest Poll

In this day of non-stop and up-to-the-minute polling, the latest Presidential-election polls have raised a few questions, in my mind at least.  Let's start with a couple of apparently innocent "facts:"

1) The pollsters keep telling us that there are very few, in fact almost no, "undecided" voters left.
2) The polls keep shifting, almost on a daily basis.

Last week, for example, Obama was said to be moving into a decisive lead in the polls, both nationally and in most of the "battleground" states, the only states that matter in this election, thanks to the Electoral College.

This week, however, after a debate in which Mitt Romney was universally declared the winner, even though, in my humble and apparently irrelevant opinion, he lost badly (see related post) - the polls have shifted dramatically in Romney's favor, to the point where he is, depending on which poll you believe,  currently tied with Obama, or even in the lead.

Here's the question:
Since there are so few undecided voters out there, how exactly can the polls shift so dramatically from day to day?  Since presumably different people are being polled each time, it hardly seems credible that the minimal number of who supposedly still haven't made up their mind are present in sufficient numbers to swing the entire poll results.  It made absolutely no sense until it dawned on me:
The pollsters must only be recording results from self-proclaimed undecided voters.  Here's how I imagine a typical conversation between a pollster and a voter:

POLLSTER: Hello, have you made up your mind yet who you are going to vote for?
VOTER:  Yes, I -
POLLSTER: Thank you, have a nice day.
-Click-

POLLSTER: Hello, have you made up your mind yet who you are going to vote for?
VOTER:  Well, I just can't make up my mind...
POLLSTER: If the election were today,...

etc, etc.  it's the only explanation that can explain the "facts." Clearly pollsters have no interest in the opinion of already-decided voters, since their votes cannot change and therefore cannot provide the endless intrigue of a "neck and neck" election, which sells more papers and magazines, keeps people logged onto websites, and so on.  This could also explain why the media had decided long in advance that Romney would be declared the winner of the first debate (again, see other post).

Of course, this analysis still leaves open the question of which polls, if any, can be believed, and who can be expected to win this election.  Will it be close enough that Republican voter fraud and malfeasance will be able to decide the outcome, as in Ohio in 2004?  Or will it be another Obama landslide, like in 2008?  Stay tuned.