He needs to understand that by lying UNCHALLENGED for 38 speaking minutes and 90 minutes overall on the stage with POTUS, Romney did EXACTLY what makes soft Democrats and centrists go weak kneed. He made President Obama look weak.
It doesn't matter that what was said was untrue. Hell, when Mitt first said "I don't have a $5trillion tax cut." I actually shot some of the soda I was drinking out my nose. The lies and policies abandoned in the debate were never meant to be the issue...they wanted Obama to do exactly what he did, what is his nature - they counted on him to ponder and examine and to attempt to understand what was nothing short of craven behavior.
Bill Clinton, the most masterful instinctive politician I have ever seen, would have fileted Mitt. Bill would have hung Mitt with his own words and left the debate with a knockout on the way to an electoral college rout. Remember this one fact if nothing else - Americans don't break in any specific direction before the election outside of last weekend breaking towards the candidate seeming most likely to win. Of all the undecideds that actually vote, many are influenced the most by stories of who is "winning" because they seek a certain validation from casting their lot with the guy who is ultimately the winner....its like all the Yankee fans who show up when the team is in the World Series, or the Patriots fans who know Tom Brady and no one else on the team. Clinton knew this, but Clinton also is the consummate politician. He would have turned that debate stage into a gallows for Mitt, and once Romney stuck his neck in the noose, Bill would have nonchalantly kicked the chair out from under him and played a sax solo on the way off the stage.
But Barrack Obama is not talented in the same ways as Bill Clinton.
What Obama did was make everyone relive the health care debacle and the debt debates and every other case where he has allowed a recalcitrant Republican House to dominate his agenda, or caved to "Blue Dog" Democrats when they go weak in the knees. He made us all remember that the one thing he does without fail is attempt to allow his opponents to punch themselves out first. He was successful in the Illinois Senate race, the Presidential Primaries and the 2008 election with this strategy and he is sticking to it in 2012....the problem is that all of his previous opponents combined are not as comfortable lying as Romney is by himself. The ONE THING that shakes Mitt is when people challenge him to his face about his non-exclusive marriage to the truth. He HATES it. He hates being challenged on anything really; but like anyone else really, what he hates the most is being called out on the thing that he believes he does better than anyone else...in this case, lying!
President Obama MUST simply call out Romney's lies one by one and put him on the defensive from here out. Hit that next debate with a smug certainty that if he hits Romney with the truth, Mittens will wilt under the pressure. Don't rope-a-dope this guy...just hit him in the mouth!
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