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Tuesday, October 23,
2012 - Volume 3, Number 16 © Copyright 2012, The Ultrapolis
Project. All Rights Reserved.
3rd Debate
Close to the Wire Forecast “Originally”
Closer to Actual Debate, Except for Benghazi The Internet’s
Orwellian Effect on News Reporting We said
yesterday this last debate would feature the smallest perceived differences
between the two, and that polls would “reveal only slight majorities favoring
one or the other as the victor of the last debate.” Initially, we heard David Brooks on PBS say
he gave Governor Mitt Romney a win over President Barack Obama by a tiny
margin. Later a reported CNN/ORC poll
appeared to reinforce the notion of a draw.
Around 11 PM it said: A CNN/ORC
International Poll following Monday's presidential debate found those who
watched the third and final head-to-head matchup of President Barack Obama
and Mitt Romney did not identify a clear winner. Debate viewers split 48% for Obama and 40%
for Romney in the poll, a margin within the sampling error of plus or minus
4.5%. Originally, the report
headlined the debate watchers as “split,” and pointed out that the spread was
within the margin of error (in a moment we will note why we say
“originally”). To keep this in
context, The CNN poll conducted after the first
debate found Governor Romney was a clear winner by 67% to 25% for President
Obama (again, we believe social media influenced the polls by producing a
herding effect). After the second
debate, the split was 46% for President Obama and 39% for Governor
Romney. Last night, reading the report
on the third debate poll numbers, not two hours after we first accessed
the report, the report on the very same
poll numbers on the very same link
was re-written to say this: Thanks to an aggressive
performance and a couple of zingers, a plurality of debate watchers
questioned in a national survey say that the president won his final faceoff
with Republican nominee Mitt Romney. But a CNN/ORC International poll
conducted right after Monday night's faceoff here at Lynn University in south
Florida also indicates that the debate may be a draw when it comes to whether
it will affect the choice of voters who watched the showdown, and Romney held
his own with the president on the commander-in-chief test. And according to
the survey, unlike previous debates, there was a big gender gap, with women
responding much more favorably to Obama's performance and men giving a small
advantage to Romney. The headline was changed to now refer to a victory for Barack Obama, and
references to a statistical draw in the poll disappeared, replaced by a
reference to a draw as to whether votes will be changed. To see what it says now (no telling what
that will be) visit CNN.com
reported. A visitor to this page would not have known that the original angle of
the story was different than what was later deemed a more, shall we say
‘concurring’ perspective. We suspect
that the release and coverage of a CBS ‘insta-poll’
of only uncommitted voters that gave a clear win to the president may have
influenced the reporting. (In George
Orwell’s 1948 sci-fi novel 1984,
past newstories were continuously re-edited and
re-written to constantly agree with “the Party,” which controlled every
aspect of political thought.) This morning PBS stuck with its moderate approach to the story, merely
posting its post-debate
broadcast, while NPR
headlined “Little
Daylight Between Obama, Romney,” and reported that “commentary on Twitter and television networks suggested
that partisans in both camps believed their own champion got the better of
most exchanges during the debate.” In the latest Pew
Research poll, party identification is at 48% for Democrats and 43%
Republican, which mirrors closely with the CNN/ORC post-debate poll. For our
part, UWFR gives the nod to the president in coming across as more formidable
on the topic, if just a tad ungracious (granted, in politics when you are
losing momentum, grace can be costly).
Nevertheless, when it comes to foreign policy, sitting presidents
always have an advantage because they have access to so much more
information, not to mention the practice.
It would appear Governor Mitt Romney’s campaign opted to play it safe,
and adopted a strategy focused on not stepping on any policy or rhetorical
land mines that could disturb his current momentum, or give the president an
opening for a strike that could put him off balance and accomplish the
same. This may be the reason there was
no hard attack on the Benghazi issue. Other
commentators had speculated that the Governor would avoid arguing over the
Benghazi fiasco because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took
responsibility over the security failures; and given that she is a woman and
(incredibly) one of the most popular politicians in the U.S. today, the fear
was American women voters would not take kindly to an assault that took on
the woman secretary – particularly in view that Benghazi is just not a
priority for most Americans, female or not.
We at UWFR do not agree with that view of American women. If a clear case could be made that the
administration knowingly misled the public, we think American women would be
disturbed by that, regardless of whether a popular woman was
responsible. On the other hand, maybe
a clear case could not be made. In any case,
we don’t expect the votes to sway either way due to this debate, and
preliminary instant polls seem to be bearing this out. The
Difficult Truth About Telling the Truth One
example of how difficult it can be to make a clear case, even if the facts are
on your side: During the debate, the
president made much ado about Governor Romney’s position on keeping troops in
Iraq after 2011, while the President claimed credit for overseeing their
complete departure. The governor tried
to point out that the president himself had also (very responsibly, we might
add) favored keeping U.S. troops in Iraq past 2011, and only oversaw their
complete departure because of his administration’s inability to get Iraq to
sign off on a new Status of Forces (SOF) Agreement (a.k.a. SOFA). A previous SOF agreement had governed the
rules by which American troops could operate and stay in Iraq. Most Iraqi government officials also wanted
to get a new SOF agreement, because they wanted to keep the Americans longer,
fearing a resurgence of violence and instability. But negotiations failed, and the last SOF
agreement expired on December 31, 2011. In other words, it was an Obama
administration policy failure, not a planned strategy or policy, which led to
the total withdrawal of U.S. ground troops.
The real policy disagreement was that Governor Romney favored keeping
more troops because he felt fewer would be too weak and subject to attack,
and was criticizing the administration for failing to successfully
renegotiate a new SOF agreement at all.
But, we are certain that fine point got lost in the interruptions, and
what stuck in people’s minds was that Governor Romney favored keeping troops
in Iraq, while President Obama withdrew them, and most Americans wanted them
withdrawn. The governor dropped the
subject, wisely realizing it was a lost cause.
Comments may be
directed to contactproject@ultrapolisproject.com,
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