Did Obama lose the election last night? Of course not! Can he recover? There's plenty of time and 2 more debates.
But let's not get as delusional as the wing nuts. This wasn't 11 dimensional chess, it wasn't the moderators fault, it wasn't false snap polls, Barack Obama and his debate preparers Blew this big time! Obama got his ass kicked, he got the S*&t kicked out of him!
Now, lets get away from the delusional excuses and put some lipstick on this pig.
1) The campaign now has a set of new lies from Romney to concentrate on, I expect to see clipps of those lies in new TV ads very soon.
2) The debate over whether Obama should look "presidential" during the debates is over. This is a street fight against a pathological liar and the campaign now understands it. Along with this is the BS that voters want to have a "conversation" about policy. Obama actually won on policy points, but voters want to see a fight, so give them one.
3) Release the dogs. This will make Joe Biden's preparation a lot easier. No more bringing a knife to a gun fight. Biden will go after all the BS in Ryan's budget and all the lies Romney tells.
4) There is time to better prepare Obama for the next debate. He is WAAAAAAY to deliberative in his responses. Ummmm, Aaaaaaaand, ... he needs snap answers that have been prepared in advance. Ignore the moderator and go right after Romney's lies.
5) The bar for last night's debate was way to high for Obama, and way to low for Romney. That will be reversed for the next debate. Obama can recover in the next debate and get back on track.
6) Add a dozen more of your own non-delusional reasons that the Obama campaign can recover from this awful performance.
There is no doubt this was a costly mistake by Obama, and I expect he will take a hit in the polls, and may even start losing the national polls, but it will be much like a convention bounce, and we'll get back to a tighter race, with a slight lead for Obama.
If Romney can recover from the horrendous gaffs he has on almost a weekly basis, Obama can recover from a poor debate performance, without any gaffs I might add. For those who thought this was going to be an easy ride to election night, well, now you know we've got to fight like hell to protect our future, so get out and fight!