People I respect and think are well worth listening to seem to all have the same four words for Andrew Sullivan: "Settle the f**k down." On the subject of a debate which resulted in what was most likely a Romney bounce, Sullivan posted a piece he titled, "
Did Obama Just Throw the Entire Election Away?" If it were a blogger who got less traffic on a regular basis, I'd suspect link baiting. But Sullivan is no slouch for eyes on ads, so it's clearly histrionic hyperbole and blind animal panic.
The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Obama had a 51 - 43 lead; now, Romney has a 49 - 45 lead. That’s a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. Before Obama had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Romney leads in almost all of them. Obama’s performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing...
For his part, Ed Kilgore says that Sullivan is guilty of confirmation bias. "He is someone who clearly thought the first presidential debate was a disaster at the time, and is now freaking out because he’s seeing confirmation of his worst fears,"
he writes. "So telling him that
this is just one poll (or two polls counting
PPP’s new survey showing Romney up by two points among LVs) won’t cut much ice, since he’s now expecting others to show the same confirmation of his own impressions of a catastrophic debate defeat for Obama."...[
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