Against a backdrop of ever-changing polls, the debate last night highlighted the essential political question for Americans – certainly for Mitt Romney’s disdained 47-percent and most assuredly for HispanicLatinos: Whether they believe the tiger trying mightily to shear his stripes. All Americans have heard – and seen on videotape – Romney denigrate HispanicLatinos and dismiss at least 47 percent of the American people at a time when national unity is elementally important. We do not know what he might think of undecided voters after last night. The polls will soon enough begin to tell the latest version of the tale but no one knows what other images of the candidates – stripes or no stripes – the optical nerves of 70 million Americans sent to their brains.
Did they see a President in Barack Obama or did they see through the superficial arguments that Romney floats into the air hoping that the weight of truth does not crash them back to earth? The debate and its results are important but there seems to be more going on with the innumerable polls that change storylines from day to day. Polls of states are more reliable than national polls, and so what is happening in Arizona might be instructive. Indeed, Arizona might be the most important state in the 2012 election. And the polls after the debate in Arizona will probably conclude that the public has seen enough of the campaign.