The presidential debates this year have been more consequential than such debates have ever been.
They've been historic, shifting the mood and trajectory of the race. They've been revealing of the personalities and approaches of the candidates. And they've produced a new way in which winners and losers are judged. It's a two-part wave now, the debate and the postdebate, and you have to win both.
In a way this has always been true. That's why there are spin rooms. But this year it's all more so—more organic, more spontaneous and powerful. And everyone knows what spin is. They're looking for a truth room. Through a million websites and tweets they're trying, in some rough, imperfect way, to build one.
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Mitt Romney won the first debate clearly and decisively, we know that. But even more he won the days and weeks after the debate, when public opinion congeals in certain directions. It was in the postdebate that people, very much including Democrats, let out for the first time their dismay at Barack Obama and their dislike of the personality he presented.
The vice presidential debate seemed more or less a draw, with Joe Biden maybe having an edge. But it was in the postdebate, in the days afterward, that Mr. Biden seemed to slip, because the national conversation didn't move off his antics—the chuckles, the grimaces, the theatrical strangeness of it all. A draw, or a victory, began to seem like a loss.
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