Be as disappointed as you please with the President's performance in the debate, but he did keep the pressure on Romney. I rather appreciate that he kept bringing up Romney's clusterfuck of a deficit plan and the extreme vagueness of his policies--a running theme was that Obama was willing to reveal his policies and admit to their costs, whereas Romney kept playing a sad and bizarre shell game, presumably on the assumption that if he just pretends the costs of his un-policies aren't there, voters will imagine him to shit sunshine and rainbows.
That said, Romney was very well-prepared and well-spoken for a night of arguing. It's just that he's such a vapid excuse for a candidate that his performance was just that--a slick song-and-dance routine, and nothing more. His lying may or may not have won him the debate, but it is doubtful that it will win him the election--Romney simply wasn't thinking about the long-term consequences as opposed to the short-term ones. Obama, on the other hand, now has a whole mess of Romney lies that he can throw back in his face with poison added, in addition to the light shined on the magical faerie dust hole in his deficit policy.
Sure, if taken entirely in a vacuum, Romney did very well. The thing is... this isn't a vacuum. For all the unpleasant shit that can be said about the American voting public, they have been paying an unusual amount of attention this election cycle, and Romney was thus setting himself up for a long-term failure.
So when I was watching the debates, I was worried. But in retrospect, I think Obama was allowing Romney to tie the noose around his own neck. And I don't have any particular doubt as to whether Obama will hang him by it.
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