By Jose de la Isla
WASHINGTON ― It's too soon to give Mitt Romney the 2012 presidential debate trophy, as much of the press has done. The former Massachusetts governor and incumbent Barack Obama will present their cases twice more ― next Tuesday and again on Oct. 22 ― before projected TV audiences of 40 million.
We can't yet score Romney winning on "points," as columnist, Fox TV commentator and the former Reagan administration official Linda Chavez claims. Here's how she put it: Mitt Romney's "answers were crisp and coherent, while Obama's were slow, rambling and too much in the policy weeds to resonate with most listeners."
That partisan view doesn't wash, especially now that the stakes are higher than ever because of new voting trends.
According to The New York Times, absentee ballots and voting by mail now account for nearly 20 percent of all voting, tripling since 1980.
In the nine states likely to decide this year's presidential election, 18 percent of the votes were by mail-in the last presidential election. That number will likely increase this year.
Early voting has already started in 23 states. In six of the likely nine states that could decide this election, voters had begun casting absentee ballots at the time of the first debate.
You can't take back a vote once it's cast. Voting that takes place while the debates are going on gives a presidential candidate's spinning and posturing new significance. Persuading your supporters to cast an early ballot can put a candidate way ahead, that line of reasoning goes. Each debate becomes the final one.
Increases in absentee and early voting create an urgency to choose. They can change the focus and purpose of presidential debates. If you've voted early, the debates can provide entertainment ― or buyer's remorse. Debate series are increasingly nullified. Alternatively, the exposure people get during primaries become more significant.
Political flaks understand the debates' increasing importance as a political tactic. Their job is to persuade consumers to rush out and buy the goods. Elections become exercises in marketing a product, a brand. They are less about rational decision-making.
Romney won the debate with answers that were "crisp and coherent." Chavez makes national public policy sound like celery and lettuce. Obama's solutions and explanations, she added, were "limp," making them sound like steamed spinach or noodles.
She didn't like Obama's "manner" ― his not looking Romney in the eye, looking downward, annoyed.
Chavez also claimed the president had spent "the last four years and all of his campaign dollars" trying to divide the country and demonize his opponents."
If I remember correctly, there was hardly a breath of criticism about her side's outrageous claims that the president was not born in this country, that he is a Muslim, a socialist, an elitist, a gun-restrictionist. I heard no acknowledgement of the U.S.-born, Harvard Law School-educated former senator and Nobel laureate president.
So who's dividing the country? Isn't political debate about getting truths and facts on the table as a way to judge the incumbent and the challenger, a way to assess public accountability?
Chavez says, "Mitt Romney passed that test." She feels devoutly that voters should decide quickly and take a chance "on the new guy." There's a good reason to not follow where she leads.
The reason why still-undecided voters might wait for more debates and events to unfold is because of what happened two days after the first debate. That was the announcement of the 7.8 percent unemployment rate, the lowest since Obama took office.
That figure, like Romney's 47 percent gaffe, neutralizes the chief criticism of incumbent Obama. The unfolding facts force Romney to have to explain again why anyone would want to replace the guy producing results, even if he does glance down a bit.
Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service.
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