When it comes to real news on the matter, there was very little. As Maddow pointed out, it's common for the incumbent seeking reelection to flag in the first debate so Obama's "lackluster" (perfect word agreed upon by the talking heads) was not really news. It would have been news if Obama came out and kicked Romney's ass.
Even since the primaries, (legitimate) news sources have held that this election would be very close. Now that the election is close, it's being treated as news. As far as the final outcome, it seems to me that most people have conceded for a while that Obama would pull out a victory. I put money on it a year ago. Ace prognosticator Nate Silver has consistently had an Obama win predicted at varying margins since, well, for a long enough time now to say with more than enough confidence that there is a trend. A successful Republican coup bred from desperate Republican trickery is not completely out of the question, but barring that, things are headed right where everyone expected. I must admit that Election Day will still be exciting. After all, it was exciting in 08 when an Obama victory was even more guaranteed. But gone is the organic electoral drama of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Also, with headlines referencing Romney's attempt at Obama's Ohio firewall, we know where all the attention really is. Plain and simple, a Romney loss of Ohio's electoral votes would make his victory extremely difficult. Ohio has consistently been polling blue as have the majority of states Romney would need to win in order to make up for the loss of Ohio. So if Romney continues to talk about the momentum he built coming out of the first debate, let it be known that he is is talking about a past phenomenon.
But the real winner of this election season is the word "conflate," along with its many tenses and forms. An informal definition of the word would be to glom two things together into one or somehow relate them, e.g. "Romney himself was conflating the events in Cairo and Benghazi." The word has been bandied around so much lately I don't remember what word news people used before the popularization of "conflate."
"Conflate" goes down with other words that burst on to the scene during a political season like "gravitas" which was a biggey during the 2004 elections. "Game change" (two words, I know) was something McCain needed twice during the 2008 election, first, after his initial lagging in the polls during the primaries and then after his lagging in the polls heading into the conventions in 2008. It's now the title of a book about the candidacy of Sarah Palin and its companion Emmy-winning HBO movie. Take that, conflate!
hope to all begeezus
ReplyDeleteyou are right...