Post Debate Thoughts

Mitt Romney did a good job tonight in the debate against the president and, man oh man, did he need it. If he had made one or two serious errors, it would have been all over.

Instead, he rose to the occasion and became the Mitt Romney that I had thought had vanished and been replaced by an android built by the right wing blogsphere. We saw this in his latest ad in which he is talking directly to the camera about the middle class. Mitt Romney, The Moderate, is back.

He spent the entire night talking about how he would help the middle class, keep Medicare and Social Security, and focus on education. Of course, he had to do all these things after the 47 percent remark. If you want to win the presidency, you have to win the middle and he was very congenial as opposed to being the red meat attack dog that we have seen for the last two years. In many ways, he essentially lopped off the far right from the campaign and...dare I say it?...shook the Etch-E-Sketch. I have to wonder...what is the base going to think about this?

The president seemed off his game tonight and I have to wonder why. Was he tired? Is there some sort of foreign policy crisis brewing that we don't know about? In many ways, this debate performance reminded me of President Bush's first debate against John Kerry (with Romney reminding me of Kerry as well) in 2004. He just didn't do a good job. The main thing I didn't like is he kept looking down, smiling and taking notes. He should've looked more often at Romney.

What's ironic about this is that the president's continued call for Romney to explain his specifics on things like what loopholes he would get rid of went unanswered. I was shocked that Jim Lehrer didn't to after this as well. Honestly, everyone seemed very nice and friendly....even down to the families getting together at the conclusions and chatting for a minute. I have to admit, it was kind of a nice break from all the ugliness.

I guess the group that I'm most PO'd at right now is the left wing pundits in the media. They are fit to be tied that the president didn't attack, attack, ATTACK!!! They have been whining all night about how he didn't mention the 47 percent and rub his nose in it. I don't think that would've worked at all and made him look less presidential. All of the undecided voters watching the debate on CNN reacted VERY negatively to any negative attacks.

In some ways, this is how the president is in a real bind. He can't be the attack dog that he needed to be to put Romney away for good but if he tries to rise above it all, he looks like he doesn't care which is essentially what happened tonight. I mean, we are talking about theater, after all:)

Of course, you could almost smell this in the air, right? The bullied and beaten up candidate..by his own hand and a rabid voting bloc...now...rising to the occasion and rising again...like the phoenix! The media just love this shit, right? We all knew that they would do this to keep people excited about the election. Well, in a few days, we'll see what the impact on the polls will be and we'll have a more accurate picture of the effect of this debate. If the CNN post debate interview with undecided Colorado voters is any indication, nothing will change. 8 flipped over to Obama and 8 flipped over to Romney!

In the final analysis, I don't think he's been bloodied enough in this election and he needed this kick in the teeth to avoid being complacent and resting on his lead in the swing states. It's certainly going to be an interesting rest of the week!

Or not.