Mixed Reactions From Local Voters on Presidential Debate
 Early arrivals and members of the press get settled in to watch the first presidential debate on Wednesday. |
The debate is one of three presidential debates which the North Street eatery and downtown social hub will show projected on the big screen.
"Dottie's is a community that I feel like I belong to," said regular customer Eammon Barry on his reasoning for coming out to the cafe for this event. "So watching the debate here feels like I'm being responsible to that community, and my friends."
From the start, it was clear that the approximately 35 attendees, ranging from too-young-to-vote to middle-aged, contained no die-hard Mitt Romney supporters, though from the undertones of dissatisfaction with President Obama it was clear that this crowd could not be considered the core base of the Democratic campaign either.
Through the course of the 90-minute debate, it was Obama's quips and off-hand jibes that elicited more noise of approval from the room than any particular policy point or rebuttal. Meanwhile, Romney's remarks about his opponent drew less reaction than his references to economic mathematics, which tended to provoke a gradually louder laughter that began to turn more to occasional expletives in the final half hour.
After it was over, reactions were mixed on who had performed better.
"I don't think there was any question about who won," said Justin Allen. "I think the president made Romney look dumb."
"Romney won. Obama let him slide on a lot," said active Democratic activist Timothy Kushi. "One is citing this study, one is citing that study, and the public isn't going to read those studies. It just looked like they were arguing two different sets of facts."
"It's just so frustrating," continued Kushi, "because there's so much that they discussed, and Obama let him get away with so much. I think Romney was clearly the winner."
"Mitt won, based on sheer time possession," said another man, who like many expressed displeasure with the loose moderation style of Jim Lehrer, executive editor of the PBS NewsHour.
Many felt that the former governor brought more passion and emotion to his side of the debate, though not all found it believable.
"The emotion almost seemed like part of him trying to hard," said Margaret, an Oregon resident who was just in the area for a few weeks.
Davis also conducted an informal exit poll of about half the crowd after the debate, resulting in a tally of seven who felt Obama won, four who said Romney won, two undecided and one who felt it was a draw.
"I'd call it a draw," said Davis. "I'd put these three [two undecided and one draw answer] under Romney, because it was such an Obama-heavy crowd to begin with."
On the overall event, Dottie's proprietor Jessica Lamb was pleased, and looks forward to hosting the next two on Oct. 16 and 22.
"I was really pleased with how it all came together," said Lamb. "I thought it was the perfect amount of people."
"I thought there was a little less enthusiasm than I had anticipated," she told iBerkshires, conceding that the attendance was not particularly balanced by political persuasion. Both staff and patrons agreed: Subsequent debates could use more Republicans.
Tags: debate, obama, president, Romney,
