Now that’s more like it.

What does make me wonder is just how often trade agreements were mentioned. I realize that in D.C. and in economic circles, there isn’t any significant opposition to free trade, but this is decidedly an unpopular position with the public, which sees free trade as destroying American jobs. Obama didn’t really draw much of a contrast there, but Romney mentioned them more. Wonder how blue-collar Ohio folks think about that? Romney says certain things that don’t make much sense politically, which makes me think he actually means them (see also: China bashing). That doesn’t mean they’re good ideas.

Anyway, Obama won this one clearly. Romney was on the business end of a few pretty tough potshots, and got positively owned on Libya, but I really wonder if the “Moderate Mitt” facade didn’t chip a little today. Vagueness and a lack of substance is nothing new for him, but is he really going to be able to ride such a superficial rhetorical surge all the way to the White House? Doubt it, considering it ebbed and flowed even today. After a certain point, people are going to expect more than “not as awful as we thought,” and his current avatar is not undergoing any further development. Onto the next debate, where Romney will spend much of the debate attacking the president’s strength with his weakest point. Should be fun.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>