BuzzFeed called it early and the liberal media piled on: Mitt Romney won the first presidential debate in Denver. A number of liberals admitted to Obama's defeat, calling Romney's performance more aggressive, energetic, and confident.
Editor-in-chief Ben Smith called it at 9:42 p.m.:
Mitt Romney, trailing in the polls, needed to prove tonight that he could stand on stage with President Barack Obama as an equal and a plausible president of the United States.
He did that in the crucial first 40 minutes of Wednesday night's debate, addressing Obama respectfully, even warmly — but then tangling with a sometimes hazy and professorial Obama on taxes and deficits.
"You don't just pick the winners and losers — you pick the losers," he told Obama of his energy investments, sliding time and time again into a second person singular address calculated to level the rhetorical playing field.
Andrew Sullivan chimed in minutes later, blasting Obama's performance, calling it "exhausted, over-briefed... or just flailing":
And from there, plenty more:
David Corn:
The New York Times' Steven Greenhouse:
Chris Cillizza:
Ezra Klein:
BuzzFeed's Ben Smith:
Howard Fineman:
Jeffrey Goldberg:
Marc Tracy:
Conor Friedersdorf:
Andrew Sullivan:
"10.29 pm. How is Obama's closing statement so fucking sad, confused and lame? He choked. He lost. He may even have lost the election tonight."
Jeffrey Goldberg, again:
John Harwood:
Joy Behar:
Bill Maher, again:
Glenn Greenwald:
GQ Politics:
John Stanton:
Ari Melber:
Nicholas Kristof:
Peter Beinart:
Matt Yglesias:
Alec MacGillis:
Michael Moore:
Piers Morgan:
Robert Draper:
Chris Cillizza, again:
Roland Martin:
Jon Ralston:
Steve Kornacki:
Vanity Fair:
Sam Stein:
Adam Nagourney:
Alex Pareene:
Andrew Sullivan, again:
Steven Greenhouse, again:
Mark Halperin:
Noah Scheiber:
Andrew Sullivan, again:
Marc Ambinder:
Will McAvoy:
And if this doesn't convince you Romney won, then maybe this Bette Midler tweet should give you solace:
