((10/7/12)  Update:  Romney has gained 1 in Rasmussen’s polling among those certain to vote, 48-46 but leaners remain the same at 49-47 with Romney ahead.  Gallup is unchanged today with Obama up 3, 49-46 among registered voters, though this poll is a registered voter poll that is a 7 day tracking poll.  What that means is Gallup could see some wild swings toward Romney this week as the pre-debate daily samples come off the Gallup tracking poll.  The big news of the day is Rasmussen having Josh Mandel tied at 46 with Sherrod Brown for the Ohio Senate seat.)

The Massive Romney Victory in Debate #1 Has Created A Gordian Knot for Obama

According to the Rasmussen national presidential poll this morning, Mitt Romney has pulled ahead with a 49-47 lead (leaners included) on a 2/3 post-debate sample as Rasmussen uses a 3 day tracking poll.  Other national polls have shown at least a 5 point swing for Romney and it is uncertain just how big of a swing that Romney will get from this.  However, it does look to be substantial.  Tomorrow, we will get a true 3 day tracking poll that is purely post debate from Rasmussen.   Rasmussen is currently using a D+2-3 weight on his national poll currently.  Earlier this week, Rasmussen released his September numbers earlier this week for his Partisan Trends index which has accurately determined the turnout of the electorate within 1.5 percentage points since 2004.  The latest figure shows to be the electorate at R+2.6.  So why is Rasmussen using a weight of D+2-3 instead of this?  Well, the race can still change and it’s not over.  Rasmussen in the past usually changes his weight when the October Partisan ID numbers come in at the beginning of November.   However, if the election was held today and the turnout was R+2.6, Romney would probably carry the national vote by 6+ points and have a 300+ electoral vote victory.   However, using a D+2-3 weight, it is entirely realistic to think that Romney will settle into a 4-7 point lead sometime during next week considering the trend and the variables that have yet to play out.  Recent state polls bear this out.  Florida and Virginia have Romney leads, Ohio is tied, and Romney has pulled ahead in Colorado and likely in Nevada, Iowa and Wisconsin.   So just how big was this debate for Romney?  HUGE  Here are the reasons why and what has created a gargantuan amount of difficulty for Obama:

1. The next presidential debate is not until October 16 at Hofstra University in a town hall format.  Obama isn’t going to get any positive bump from Biden in his debate with Ryan on October 11.  The negatives that the Obama campaign had spent over $150 million in ads over the air waves were in the words of Charles Krauthammer, turned into dust. Two weeks for this dominating debate performance to remain out there in the public’s mind with a month to go leaves no time for Obama to turn this around.  People typically become certain whom they are going to vote for during this time frame with about 5% of undecideds outstanding.  Those undecideds historically make their decision within 72 hours.  However, with Romney being the challenger to an incumbent whom has a lousy record to run on, these undecideds will break 4 to 1 for Romney.  For Romney to have such a substantial lead from now until that next debate with undecideds likely breaking his way says that the only way Obama gets back into this thing is if Romney lets him.
2. Early Voting will go heavily to Romney these next two weeks.  This is a monster.  In particular, Obama needs to have a significant early voting edge in Ohio.  However, the early voting returns out of Ohio and observational results thus far are predicting disaster for Obama in Ohio.  A key passage from the internals of the most recent Rasmussen poll of Ohio showing Obama with a one point lead, 50-49:  “But the poll internals show 10 percent greater certainty among Romney voters.  Romney is actually ahead 51 to 48 among highly enthusiastic voters (and 92 percent of Ohio voters say they fit that definition.)  Among the equally remarkable 83 percent who say they’ve already made up their minds, Romney leads 52 to 48 percent.  And that tally does factor in the effects of Wednesday night’s presidential debate.“
3. Fundraising — One of the most ironic and striking revelations of just how pivotal this debate was is that, it looks like the Obama campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the media were set to bury Mitt Romney after Wednesday night’s debate.  How?  If Obama had drawn or won, the Obama campaign and the DNC would have released their September fundraising numbers which came to an impressive $181 million dollars and the media would have announced it with trumpets and some Romney voters might have started to become discouraged.  There has been much speculation that a donor scandal is brewing that has the Obama campaign apparently in a big worry.  My take is I’ll believe it when I see it.  Bottom line, Romney’s monster win turned that equation completely upside down.  Now Romney has the money pouring in, his ground game is expanding as more volunteers are signing aboard, and Obama’s supporters have become very discouraged.
4. The Debate on Wednesday was the one that addressed the number 1 issue on people’s minds, the economy and jobs.  This is another catastrophic consequence for the Obama campaign.  The town hall format will likely have questions on the economy but there will be questions on a broad range of issues from the undecided voters in the audience.  However, Obama’s record of failure was prosecuted by Romney and Obama didn’t defend himself very well.  Actually, he couldn’t because everything Romney said was FACTUAL and TRUE.  Romney was incredible in referencing his sources of information and he did it in a manner that was friendly and likable.  There was nothing Obama could do to defend.

The worst about this for the Obama campaign is that the worst could very well be yet to come.

The Liberal and Media Meltdown

I don’t have to get into details but it began with Chris Matthew’s tirade on MSNBC.  Then Barack Obama joins the meltdown by acting like a petulant, tough-talking kid who just got his butt kicked and projecting to the ground “Oh yeah?  Just wait until next time.  I’ll really kick his $!!@#”  When you are reduced to trying to score political points by talking about Big Bird being defunded, that the Mitt Romney people saw wasn’t the real Mitt Romney, and that you continue talking about how Romney is going to give a massive tax cut which Obama’s own campaign spokesperson admits isn’t true, you’re in serious trouble and you’re only making the situation worse.  But it did begin to get much worse.  Liberals immediately after the debate began trashing Jim Lehrer.  Then they started howling that the only reason why Romney won was that he lied like crazy.  Then, it really hit the bottom, I think.  They began to point out to a post debate video of Romney at his podium picking up a handchief that he had wiped his nose with during the debate, saying it had notes on it and he cheated.  For a complete palate cleanser, see the tweets over at Twitchy regarding their actions the last few days.  I was laughing out of my chair and had tears welling in my eyes.  The key here is that if they are trying to figure out all of these excuses and the octaves of their voices get louder and shriller, which they have been, Romney is pulling away.

A Look Forward to the Remaining Debates and Election Night

One thing that the typical Obama supporter doesn’t understand is they really don’t know just how awesome Mitt’s depth of knowledge and understanding is, his discipline, focus, goodness, and friendliness really is.  This is a guy who has debated and beaten Newt Gingrich, held his own with Ted Kennedy and other Democrats in a dark blue state like Massachusetts, and had a huge number of debates in a contentious GOP primary.   You want to know the big secret?  Obama isn’t really knowledgeable.  The only thing he is knowledgeable in is economic dead-end Marxist ideology.  Withing the first 10 minutes of that debate on Wednesday night, it dawned on me.  “This guy (Obama) has no clue what he is doing.”  The long pauses to gather his thoughts, his filibustering, incoherent, and disjointed answers.  It truly revealed Obama’s level of competence.

Now, there is no doubt that Obama will try to come back aggressively but here is what you must remember.  His depth of knowledge, understanding, discipline of focus, and having solutions to our country’s problems is not even within the same galaxy of what Mitt Romney’s is.  This is the reason why I don’t see Obama winning either the second or, particularly, the third presidential debate which will be on foreign policy.  Benghazi, not supporting our allies, appeasement, apologist policy, weakening of America.  Yikes.  That third debate could be very, very ugly for Obama.

Obama’s best chance if he is going to be able to reverse this momentum is hope that Romney screws up in the second debate.  No doubt, there could be a few “Obama” ringers in those undecided voters that Gallup chose.  The 47% comment will come up, abortion will likely come up, etc.  Sean Hannity did a very smart thing when he asked Romney how he would have responded to the 47% issue if it had been brought up.  Romney was honest.  He simply stated that the way he said it was completely wrong.   Romney simply was trying to articulate the problems with the tax code and how government dependency is bankrupting the country.  Sure there may be a lot of people who are simply sluggards and just live off the government dole, but I believe that there are significantly more people out there who are trying to find work and feel good about themselves again.  The more people become independent of government benefits, tax revenue goes up and government expenditures go down.

I am sure Romney will be prepared for all this.  The important thing is for Romney and Ryan is to stay on offense in regards to Obama’s record from now until election day.  If Obama and Biden try to attack in the debates, defend or call out the attack as untrue, and attack intelligently with true answers of substance and a friendly warm smile.  Don’t just defend, counter-attack every time.  To quote George Patton “Always be on offense.  Never dig in.”  Don’t let the moderator try to run you over.  Jim Lehrer actually tried that a few times and Romney wouldn’t let him.  Romney doesn’t have to worry about the Obama campaign, media, and liberals trying to portray him as a bully.  That’s impossible to stick when Mitt is doing it in such a friendly way.  In other words, Romney doesn’t have to change a thing and just has to be himself like he was in that first debate.  Probably the most important thing in that second debate is just being down to earth as Romney has been in his private life which many of his friends can testify to.  The impenetrable advantage of Romney and Ryan that Obama and Biden will never be able to overcome is Romney and Ryan’s knowledgeable answers/rebuttals to any attack Obama and Biden make.  They have depth, they are true and can be verified.  One thing that we can all count on Romney doing.  Never coming in unprepared, being overconfident of victory, and relentlessly not letting up, pushing to the finish line of Election Day.  We should be the same way.  The race isn’t over.