Hendrick Hertzberg, as usual, had the most concise and useful summary of how the debate went down, and how it changed the campaign. He pointed out that Romney portrayed himself as the champion of Wall Street regulation, the savior of Medicare, the friend of the middle class and Hertzberg says, "If Obama's debate performance had been half a strong as Romney's or Romney's half as weak as Obama's the result might have been a complete collapse not just of the Republican campaign but of the whole Republican project: the House , the Senate the state legislatures, the fund-raising--everything."
Intriguingly, it is women who were most dismayed by Mr. Obama's weak kneed performance. The poll that caught my eye was women with no college education showed the greatest shift away from Mr. Obama post debate. Maureen Dowd was apoplectic as was Ann Bernays.
Is it that women like the Bad Boy who will stand up to the bully, and they cannot abide the man who may wilt under fire. Why is this?
Is it some elemental thing--I need a man who will not collapse, but who I can count on to protect me? That would be to postulate women look for protection, which is not at all politically correct. I'm just thinking out loud here.
Maud, where am I going wrong?
Delayed as it is, how can I possibly pass up the opportunity to comment on this little gem. Hopefully you read it sometime...
ReplyDeleteSo your question is do women look for protection in their candidates?? Hmm..Where you are going wrong is you're making assumptions that aren't necessarily warranted. You assume women are turning to Romney because they view him after the debate as stronger than the President. But maybe it had nothing to do with perceived strength and they simply preferred his message(crazy as that may be). For the sake of argument though, let's assume they are now going with Mitt because they view him as stronger than Obama. Isn't strength an attribute both men and women look for in their leaders.(Granted you and I would disagree with them on the criteria they were using to determine strength -but that's another subject) If instead of women, the poll showed men were now favoring Romney would you have made the leap that perhaps they were doing so because deep down they wanted to be protected by Big Daddy Mitt. Doubt it.
Personally, I think the "damsel in distress" needing/wanting protection is more of a male fantasy than a female one anyway. So there. (and now we're both politically incorrect..)
Maud
Maud,
ReplyDeleteThis is science. Demand data, rather than prejudice.
I like it.
The joys of blog ville.
--Mad Dog