The CNN/ORC International survey indicates 46% of debate watches say Obama won the debate, while 39% say Romney fared better. The seven-point margin falls within the poll's sampling error. Meanwhile, 73% said Obama did better than expected, compared to 37% who said the same about Romney.

A CNN survey I saw the day following the second debate said that about 55% thought Obama was stronger, with 45% for Romney. The poll was observed and recorded immediately after the debate; CNN has had one for each debate thus far, I believe. Regardless, I'd have to agree strongly with the majority.

That was funny! Reporting that Obama won the debate,but in the same debate Romney won on the economy. I guess CNN needs to keep all bases covered.

You must have skipped CNN when you were checking on the new analyses, Ben, unless you only caught their "spin room" segment with the Democrats.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/16/breaking-cnn-poll-obama-edges-romney-in-debate/?hpt=hp_t1 CNN Poll.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/ Virtually all of the analysis and fact-checking here (Both links from CNN) give the win to the President.

Oh, so you have an inside connection? People in the administrition handing you papers showing a "secret agenda?"

What a bogus statement.

Ben - Don't you rember the cover of Newsweek after Obama was sworn in - it says "We're All Socialists Now"? I guess it's only a secret to you.

Yep. She was on the side of the truth. Mitt lied, and he should have been called out on it.

Again, Ben - Crowley even admitted that she made a mistake; I don't think she meant to lie, but she was not on the side of truth.

Ben,

It does not help your cause that you are so smug, but when you also misrepresent the facts while claiming to sit on the "side of truth," well I guess that pretty much discredits you completely. It is pretty clear to anyone with an open mind (this apparently does not include you) that Obama was dishonest and/or disingenuous with comments he made after the Libya attack.

very good points -the meat behind the headlines

Uh. No it's not. Single dad here. Liberal. Very, very involved in father issues. Almost exclusively supported by liberals. Conservatives argue that it is a woman's job to raise the kids.

It sounds like you know the laws regarding divorce, Ben. Then you know how diffucult it is to get custody if you are a father, and the laws favor the mother in so many, almost exclusive ways. Who made up those rules, and who adjudicates them? In this state, it is certainly not Republicans.

And there is absolutely nothing that indicates all conservatives argue that it's a woman's job to raise the kids. It's is liberals who argue that the mother is universally the the nurturer.

Find balance, you seem unwilling to recognize the context of the original question but per usual, prefer to skew it in the typical liberal vs. conservative fashion. As a refresher, the question was how would he address the issue of equal pay for women. Instead of actually answering the question, he chose to spin it in such a way to give himself accolades for his hiring practices, which were not all of his own doing. Same way he evaded the gun control question by practically labeling it a single mom issue. Really.

TBH – My post was in response to yours. Go back and re-read your post – *you* were the one unwilling to recognize the context of the original question (equal pay for women) in your post. Instead, you sarcastically mocked Romney’s answer with a made-up story that made it look like Romney was being condescending to women (which he was not), when you could have just written your concerns about his answer.

You also try to reduce my response with a “per usual” comment (where is the proof of that?) – keep to the topic yourself, please.

And as far as the “liberal vs. conservative” comparison, I was just taking a page out of the liberal tactics handbook - I've not seen you criticize any of the more liberal posteres when they do it.

FB, surprisingly, we seem to have one thing in common here...we both understand the context of the original question, what would the candidate do about equal pay for women? The problem is that he in no way answered the question. Deceptively saying that per his request, he was given the "binders full of women" when in fact, the initiative was taken by MassGap. In regards to equal pay, on Tuesday after the debate, his advisor said that Mitt had opposed the Ledbetter act at the time, but would not go so far as to say that he would repeal it if elected, only to retract that statement the next day, by saying that Mitt had not taken a position the fair pay law... how convenient.

"We're going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I'm going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers THEY"RE GOING TO BE ANXIOUS TO HIRE WOMEN." Wow. Just imagine that...an economy so robust, that Mitt, the Job Creator, would actually VOLUNTARILY hire women. Boom times indeed.

TBH - If we both understood the original question, I don't know why you deviated from commenting on that in your first post. Anyway, I don't think Mitt answered the specific question about women's pay, but answered the bigger-picture question of having jobs for women (and men) in the first place - that is the major theme of the election! I found Obama's avoidance of the Libya question to be more troublesome, though. My opinion, I'm sure yours differs.

"Conservatives argue that it is a woman's job to raise the kids." Wow, what a boat load of crap Ben. You are quite hateful towards your political opposites to the point where you can't stick to the facts but, instead, choose to falsely malign. I am a conservative and others like me who I know all agree children need a mom and a dad.

Surprise, that is how God ordained it. While there are times when divorce absolutely cannot be avoided, seems evident there are way many selfish men and women who decided there was no need to honor their vows or provide the environment their children deserve to grow up in. You're "very involved in father issues," well apparently not with regard to the most important duty of a dad, namely to love your child's mother.

Obamacare alone will do more damage than you could ever imagine Mitt doing. In reality, jobs will go a long way to curing what the govt has to currently support. Mitt's plan is job growth through the private sector, with a proven way to achieve job growth. Pres Obama's plan is job growth by govt spending, a proven way toward socialism.

Long term damage to America would clearly occur if Pres Obama is re-elected.

What bothers me about all the reaction concerning the attack in Libya is that people seem to act as if they know everything that might have been going on behind the scenes.

In November 1979, the American Embassy in Tehran was overrun and 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. Six members of the American Embassy staff escaped capture and hid for three months in various residences of Canadian officials in Tehran. They escaped from Tehran in January 1980 with great assistance from the Canadians.

However, the escape of the six Embassy workers from Tehran was carried out by the CIA. Canada was given all the credit for the escape as not to jeopardize the safety of the remaining hostages. It was not until many years later that the role of the CIA was made public.

My point is simple: many back channel actions and conversations occur in foreign affairs to which we are not privy.

Did Obama handle the aftermath of the Libyan attack smoothly? It seems not. Could there be an important reason for that. Possibly.

Might something have been going on behind the scenes in the days and weeks following the attack in Libya that necessitated the promotion of the video tape cover story. I don’t know. You don’t know. We may not know until Bob Woodward writes a book about it.

But until the whole truth is known, I’m not about to condemn any President -- Republican or Democrat -- for their immediate response to violence against Americans working in treacherous places.

What is even more disconcerting is Obama-supporter spin about the reaction concerning the attack in Libya.

Do you really believe there must have been something going on behind the scenes in the days and weeks following the attack in Libya that necessitated the promotion of the video tape cover story? Even if that were true, it was widely publicly known in many places *throughout the world* that it was a terrorist attack within 48 hours of the incident, so what was the point of trudging out this fairy tale for two whole weeks afterward?

It is the far more likely reality that Obama and his administration repeatedly lied over that 2 week period because it was such an embarrassment how the situation was handled before (requests denied for more security, especially when 9/11 was coming up), during (reports of it being just a spontaneous demonstration, apologies to the “demonstrators”), and after (all the lying damage control to cover up the Pres’ narrative during the election season that we are so much better off now that OBM is dead – that is the more likely thing that spurred these terrorist attacks).

And sorry - I'm not buying that you would cut a Republican Pres any slack if all this happened on his/her watch.

Dennis your theory is SO far fetched....I'll give you a pass on it though. Democrats are trying to think up ANYTHING to cover for this President. A better conspiracy theory is why didn't the Dept. of Labor release that the latest unemployment figures did not include California? More people applied for unemployment benefits last week than the 4 weeks prior. The SS Obama has sprung more leaks than the MINNOW and I don't want to be stranded on that Island for 4 more years! But lets try to see if we can fix it!