Obama Thought He'd Won The Debate;
Was Surprised By Aides Telling Him He Hadn't;
Aides Were "Stunned" By Obama's Misplaced Confidence

This isn't a re-post. It's a recontextualization.

First, some context. From @jeffemmanuel, an old quote from Obama:

“I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.”

Next, from @rdbrewer4, his favorite psychological disorder, the Dunning-Kruger effect:

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.[1]

Actual competence may weaken self-confidence, as competent individuals may falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. As Kruger and Dunning conclude, "the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others"

Or, in simpler terms: The competent understand their weaknesses and can also recognize the superiority of others (in areas where they are superior). Competent people actually rate themselves as less competent than they actually are.

On the other hand, incompetents tend to rate their competency much, much higher than reality. Because they're so incompetent they don't even know what competence, let alone expertise, looks like. And they can't even spot it when it's right in front of their faces, demonstrated by someone else.

And as I've noted a few times, Obama once said this to Newsweek:

"You know, I actually believe my own bullshit."

Those three completely unrelated points out of the way, Obama thought he beat Romney, via @slublog:

When President Barack Obama stepped off the stage in Denver last week the 60 million Americans watching his debate against Mitt Romney already knew it had been a disaster for him.

But what nobody knew, until now, was that Obama believed he had actually won.

In an extraordinary insight into the events leading up to the 90 minute showdown which changed the face of the election, a Democrat close to the Obama campaign today reveals that the President also did not take his debate preparation seriously, ignored the advice of senior aides and ignored one-liners that had been prepared to wound Romney.

In retrospect, the one-liners wouldn't have worked -- they would have seemed desperate and trivial-- but the important stuff is his blowing off his homework, and then believing he'd actually won.

The Democrat said that Obama's inner circle was dismayed at the 'disaster' and that he believed the central problem was that the President was so disdainful of Romney that he didn't believe he needed to engage with him.

'President Obama made it clear he wanted to be doing anything else - anything - but debate prep,' the Democrat said. 'He kept breaking off whenever he got the opportunity and never really focused on the event.

The Democrat, who is aligned with the Obama campaign and has been an unofficial adviser on occasions, said that David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, was stunned that the President left the stage feeling that he had won the debate.

Extraordinary. As Monty Python said of one of the Twits of the Year, "He has no idea when he's losing. He also has no idea when he's winning. He has no type of sensory awareness whatsoever." Or words to that effect.

Speaking of cognitive impairments, via @iowahawkblog: Obama now says he can only win if his supporters become obsessed.

Which I think is right.

I very much intend to win this election,” Obama told donors in San Francisco Monday night. “But we’re only going to do it if everybody is almost obsessive for the next 29 days.”

Meanwhile, Romney projected confidence, not psychosis:

Romney stood in a driving rain in Newport News, Va., his wet hair sticking to the side of his face, to join the kinds of die-hard supporters he needs for victory. “People wonder why it is I’m so confident we’re going to win,” he told them. “I’m confident because I see you here on a day like this. This is unbelievable.”

Oops: John E. covered this a few posts down. I missed it, as it's Thunderdome.

Still, I think this adds something.

Look, I spent 20 minutes on this bitch. I cleared a couple of tabs I had open for a couple of hours. I'm not just putting it into draft.

No way, Meatball. No way.

&bodytext=This isn't a re-post. It's a recontextualization. First, some context. From @jeffemmanuel, an old quote from Obama: “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors....&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 02:45 PM

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