Everyone knows that Mitt Romney won one of the three presidential debates and Barack Obama won two -- and that Obama won last night's debate decisively. Everyone knows that Romney won the debate he won because he phonied up his positions on any number of issues. Everyone knows that Romney last night drowned in flop sweat while repeating, "Me too! Me too!"
So who won "the debate season"? Romney, of course. Joe Scarborough: "Romney Wins Debate Season." Ron Fournier: "Obama Wins Third Debate but Romney Wins Debate Season." Rich Lowry at National Review: "A Successful Debate Season for Romney." Gosh, if I didn't know better, I'd think the right-wing journalists and the GOP pol-turned-"centrist"-pundit coordinated that message -- which the rest of the media seems to be accepting mostly uncritically.
BuzzFeed's Ben Smith knows what's going on:
Press Cheers Romney's RecoveryWhat the press wants is new, new, new. Competent, likable, possibly electable Romney is, if not a new iPhone, then at least Windows 8. Great -- that's how we're choosing a president.
...Mitt Romney['s] revival at the debate in Denver less than three weeks ago, and the Republican's, subsequent strong run have been a gift to a press corps that was deeply bored by the 2012 presidential campaign, and that was, some acknowledged Monday, frankly rooting for Romney to get back on his feet. It's a force as powerful as earlier press infatuations -- with the charm of George W. Bush in 2000, with the power of the 2008 narrative of Barack Obama's victory.
"The media is always rooting for drama," said National Review political writer Robert Costa. "Romney's resurgence after Denver made them so happy that this is really a race."
"With Romney closing the gap after Denver, it is a more interesting race because it's a real contest," said Chicago Sun-Times's Lynn Sweet, a figure on the 2008 Obama campaign trail. "The press likes a real horserace."
Democrats in Boca, in fact, had begun complaining already about what they see as a cheerleading tone in the coverage of Romney's clawing his way back into the contest.
"I don't know how else you explain some of the coverage," lamented a senior Democratic Party official. "A poll that shows Romney up one point is Romney leading race. A poll that shows Obama up one is race tied."
(You'll say that Obama beat Hillary Clinton and John McCain in '08 by taking advantage of this. But Obama also inspired genuine grassroots excitement in the primaries, while showing true mastery of the campaign process. And the public agreed that he was a better, steadier candidate than McCain, and better in every debate. There was no rewriting of the rules to say, "We in the media prefer the guy who lost this debate, so we declare that this debate didn't matter.")
Look, it's not just the press's fault. Obama and Biden worked hard to better Obama's performance in Debate #1, but the campaign never mastered post-debate spin. That allowed the story of the VP debate to be Biden's personality, the second presidential debate to be described as a mutual angerfest rather than Romney's loss, and last night's rout of Romney to be, well, instantly written out of the history of this campaign, to judge from what I'm seeing right now.
Obama could still win this. But he has two opponents to beat.
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UPDATE: I realize I'm not keeping up with the zeitgeist: Team Romney is already declaring victory, and Politici is buying the spin and has already called the race for Mitt. Jonathan Chait explains in detail why this is largely bluster.
ALSO SEE: Michael Tomasky on how the Republicans are trying to create their own reality by declaring Romney the winner.
