The End Game Begins

President Obama emerged as the clear winner in the third debate last night.  A synopsis of polls taken after the foreign policy discussion found the president besting the challenger by as much as a margin of 30 points, 53% to 23%. Obama was very much the seasoned commander in chief while Romney was strangely passive, agreeing with the President on the substance of important policies time and again.  Though strong performances in the second and third debates appear to have blunted the momentum Mitt Romney gained after the first debate, there is little evidence this latest face-off changed many votes. 

The Obama camp was apparently thinking along the same lines as my Saturday blog, "What Obama Needs to Do," for as both men opened tours of battleground states, Obama unveiled his own 5-point economic plan on the campaign trail today.  Titled "A Plan for Jobs & Middle Class Security" the "glossy new 20-page magazine" lays out a directly competing blueprint to Romney's.  The five points are education and training, manufacturing, energy, the deficit and "ending the war in Afghanistan to do some nation building here at home."  Click on the last link to examine the program in detail or see the President's latest 60-second ad introducing the initiative.

The economic plan contains focused versions of proposals Obama has already been advocating for some time.  What is novel (and more effective) is putting them together in a concise and pithy way in the manner Romney has done with his own plan.  Having this ready and printed with ads already recorded clearly shows the campaign had been planning this roll out to coincide with the end of the debates.  The timing for this to come out now, at this late date just two weeks before the election, can only be seen as intentional and carefully considered.  This was unquestionably the right thing to do.  

I'll get back to you with a "horse race" analysis piece at the end of the week once new tracking polls have digested the impact of the debate, the Obama economic roll out and the beginning of the two sides' closing appeals.