If the National Media Has Been Unable For Months To Pin Down Romney On His Policy Proposals... [View all]

[TomCADem]

...How do we realistically expect President Obama to do so within 90 minutes?

I think President Obama can certainly point out inconsistencies in Romney's message, but the fact of the matter is that Romney has been evasive for the entirety of his campaign. Heck, even Fox News could not get Paul Ryan to explain how the math works out.

My point in reading many news articles and posts is what do people realistically expect President Obama to do? I think that realistically, you can point out that Romney has refused to disclose his tax returns, his tax proposals, his health care proposals, etc., in a way that makes sense. Yet, you will never get Romney to concede that he is full of it. Indeed, Romney will likely deny that he made the inconsistent statement that he made in the past, which of course will not be validated or proved until AFTER the debate.

Thus, at best, aside from better optics, I don't think it is possible substantively to do much better than what President Obama did in the first debate, which is to lead Romney into making contradictory statements, but waiting until after the debate to run ads that show the inconsistency. The realistic challenge is to get the media itself to hold Romney accountable for his lies, rather than celebrating such lies as good politics.