The Greatest Tactical Error Of The Romney Campaign ?

Felix Trinidad never ran he kept coming forward. But I get your analogy.

you pusillanimous, platitudinous, and prevaricating plutocrat

I was just waiting for a "He's despicable..."

Or should I say thpit.

What he should have learned from Obama's implosion in the first debate is:

there is no substitute for victory.

The candidate's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd priorities are: win the effing debate.

Get the better of your opponent. Put him on the defensive. Act like you're the alpha.

From Conan the Barbarian:

Tribal elder: Conan, what is best in life?

Conan: To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.

The Rombots argue that only the first debate mattered and Romney's victory was so complete that the subsequent debates didn't matter. I never bought into that argument. It contradicts the primacy and recency effect. People tend to remember the first and last thing they saw or heard and forget everything in the middle. Even if the first debate had the larger effect the third debate or rubber match couldn't be discounted.

Kasim Reed, an Obama surrogate makes a similar analogy. He said "Muhammad Ali lost his first fight to Joe Frazier and got knocked down in the process but came back to win the next two fights. History remembers victors." Ironically, Frazier fans try to make the same argument that the first fight was the most important but almost all boxing fans acknowledge Muhammad Ali was Joe Frazier's ring better.

when it came to foreign policy. Obama's much more comfortable in that subject matter, and has pursued relatively non-ideological, centrist goals. Romney was just out of his depth.

Romney had his ass kicked in the third debate. To stay with sports parlance Obama "schooled him."

What's great about it is he didn't even try to fight back. He was emasculated.

uh oh. I expect that to be on the forbidden words list!

(just kidding ...)