The political world is buzzing this morning after the first Presidential Debate at the University of Denver last night. Supporters of Gov. Romney were thrilled with his performance. Those backing President Obama weren't so pleased. As MSNBC's Chris Matthews fumed, "Where was Obama tonight…What was he doing?"
The debate probably didn't change the opinion of the hard core supporters in either camp. But, the opinion of those voters still trying to figure out which candidate to support – the "undecideds" – was the crucial part of the audience both candidates were trying to reach.
While some suggest a very small number of voters are up for grabs, pollster Scott Rasmussen says that 15 percent are still undecided or willing to change their mind.
Melanie Sturm, a friend of A Line of Sight and regular columnist for the Aspen Times, filed the following report after the debate giving valuable insight:
"As a guest of Colorado Christian University where pollster Frank Luntz conducted one of his famous focus groups for Fox News, I had the unique opportunity to watch 24 'undecideds' react live to the debate — the focus group was comprised of 12 who'd voted for Obama and 12 who'd voted for McCain in 2008. They were dialing throughout the entire debate, reacting to what each candidate said and I was able to watch the results of their dialing live. From the very first words uttered by Obama through Romney's closing statement, they were much more impressed with Romney. Luntz would ask them after each 'segment' to vote on who won with no segment won by Obama who garnered from 4-8 votes (out of 24) per segment. At the end, they voted 20-4 that Romney won the entire debate. They reported after the debate live on Fox News that they found Romney to be more prepared, passionate, humorous, detailed, fact-based, and were most impressed by his ability to work on a bi-partisan basis while governor of Massachusetts. They also liked how he continued to defend his plan from the mischaracterizations of the President and others."
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