By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Obama shakes up the media dynamic in his favor

President Barack Obama’s commanding performance in the third and final debate mattered to the viewers at home, of course. But as we will see in the days ahead, it will matter even more in setting the tone for how the media will cover the campaign in the final run-up to the election.

Pay no attention to the silly pronouncements coming from Gov. Mitt Romney’s side — such as Bret Stephens’ analysis in the Wall Street Journal that Romney succeeded by coming across as “a perfectly plausible president.”

In fact, Romney’s timid me-too rhetoric on issues over which he’d been hammering Obama for months played poorly with the public. New York Times polling expert Nate Silver averaged the instant polls coming out of Monday night’s debate and found that Obama did even better than he had in the second one — a 16-point spread, compared to just 10 points a week ago.

Read the rest at the Huffington Post.

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7 Comments

  1. Imagine what the media would be saying if Gore ’00 or Kerry ’04 had proposed the World Court arrest Ahmadinijad. Not to mention the screeching that would emerge from Fox News. The Herald wouldn’t have a font size large enough for their “WIMP” headline. But from the media today, not a peep on the topic.

  2. L.K. Collins

    Keep whistling past the graveyard, Dan.

  3. Glen Bergendahl

    In the world of Dan, last night’s performance was commanding. Had Romney displayed the demeanor of the president, “commanding” would have been replaced by Dan’s favorite word to describe republicans. Romney would have been described here as “sneering.”

    • Dan Kennedy

      And in @Glen’s world, ripping Obama counts for nothing, while praising him is prima facie evidence of bias.

  4. Glen Bergendahl

    I have no problem with you’re ripping or praising anyone Dan. Nor do I have a problem with your bias. Just saying, if Romney came out with that puss, “sneering” would have been in your lead sentence. At least we now know the president spent a good amount of debate prep time with Tad Devine.

    • Mike Benedict

      In my opinion, Romney badly needs some sun. The dude looked positively Nixonian.

      Well, he’ll have plenty of time for vacationing in a couple weeks.

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