I've been a little under the weather the last two days, and working ridiculous hours in the process, so I hit the bed early last night and set the DVR in JGAH for the debate.
From what I'm reading from the pundits (on both sides, no less), and from the clips that I have seen, Romney was exactly the guy I told you he was and exactly the guy I've been saying he should be.
Me:
"The more I learn about Romney's business mind, the more I realize what a
powerful political weapon it can be. And he's not debating a
particularly smart man when it comes to business and the economy. As
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told National Review about Obama: 'he’s isn’t persuasive. There’s never any sort of economic argument
that he can make for his position. It always reverts to that
social-justice end.'"
"In the debates, Romney needs to harness that advantage. Attack Obama's
cluelessness, point out that said cluelessness is the cause of our
misery, and show how a return to good business practice and economic
common sense is what is needed to right this course. Romney needs to
use his business smarts to get the average voter to see that, when it
comes to what makes a Market Economy work, Barack Obama isn't in his
league. "
And John Podhoretz sums it up:
"He not only had 10,000 factoids, numbers, details and bits and pieces of
policy in his head, he was able to summon them up, recombine them,
improvise with them and take advantage of that knowledge in relentlessly
rebutting every jab the president threw at him."
Last night's performance by Mitt Romney makes the point that I have been repeating endlessly. I guess if anything I'm relieved that someone inside his campaign - maybe even the candidate himself - was thinking strategy along the lines I was. Its a winning one.
Rest assured, Obama's handlers will have him ready for the next debate, so get ready for the media narrative that following the next debate that "He's Back!", even if its, by any normal measure, similar to the last debate but not as much of knockout. Forget Limbaugh, you heard it hear first.
