Who Won The Obama-Romney Debate Last Night: A Closer Look At The Post-Debate Poll Shows It Wasn’t Even CLOSE.

Here’s an interesting article which has the virtue of laying out the most important facts in a very few words:

CNN Poll: Obama wins overall, Romney wins many issues
Oct 16, 2012
by Carla Marinucci

The major post debate polls are showing most debate watchers think President Obama was the winner — and a typical finding comes in the CNN post-debate poll of registered voters who actually watched the debate. They were 33 percent Democratic and 33 percent Republican — which means it’s weighted a bit to include about 8 percent more Republicans than the voting population as a whole.

Bottom line: by 46-39 percent, the CNN.com poll respondents called Obama the winner. But asked who did the debate make you more likely to vote for, the respondents were tied between Romney and Obama, 25-25 percent.

Still, Romney won in other key areas:
*On who would better handle the economy: 58 percent Romney; 40 percent Obama.
*On who would better handle health care: 49 percent Romney; 46 percent Obama
*On taxes: 51 percent Romney; 44 percent Obama
*On who is a stronger leader: 49 percent Romney; 46 percent Obama
*On who is more likeable: 47 percent Obama: 41 percent Romney
*On who cares more about your life: 44 percent Obama; 40 percent Romney
*On who answered more directly: 45 percent Romney; 43 percent Obama

Okay, first the sampling of Republicans versus Democrats that Marinucci mentions.  It is incredibly interesting to me that CNN is giving Democrats an eight-point advantage in their sampling formula.  Do you know what the balance between Democrat and Republican voting was in the historic Obama wave election of 2008?  It was +7 Democrat.  CNN says it’s going to be +8 this time.  It’s really amazing when you stop and think about it: CNN and the other polling organizations that have such an oversampling formula for Democrats are literally predicting that this election will be even BIGGER for Obama than it was in 2008 when he was the messiah and everybody was blaming Bush and nobody could blame Obama because he promised hope and change.  Is that what you think?  Seriously?  Do you believe that the masses are even crazier for Obama now than they were four years ago?  I sure as hell don’t.

Okay, so the CNN poll shows that by a seven-point margin that Romney blew the doors off in the last debate, “Obama won the debate.”  You might remember that first debate – when Romney destroyed Obama by 50 damn points.

Well, here’s the question, when it’s time to vote, do you believe that voters will ask:

Who won that second debate?  The poll says maybe Obama did.  And the first debate that Romney won by fifty points is meaningless but that second debate was huge.  I’ll vote for Obama…

Or do you think they will ask:

Who will do a better job handling the economy?

If it is the second thing, like every sentient being (sorry Democrats, I know that rules you out) thinks it is, Mitt Romney won last night’s debate HUGE.  Who would better handle the economy?  After watching the debate, people by an 18-point margin chose Romney over Obama.

[Update, 10/17/12: Oh, my.  It’s even worse than I thought it was for Obama.  I found out that the CBS post-debate poll was even WORSE in proving that Obama has no answer for the economy and people overwhelmingly know he doesn’t.  Check this CBS article points out: the American people think that Mitt Romney will do a better job handling the economy than Obama by a 31-point margin (65% to 34%).

The Gallup poll among likely voters out today has Mitt Romney up by six points nationally.  I can’t imagine that Obama even slowed Romney’s momentum down last night.