Another debate, another opportunity for me to scorn the abysmal superficiality of modern media by reading reviews of the debate rather than actually watching it - for the debates annoy because the participants realize they must reach an audience and alas the audience to be reached is not capable of rising above the superficial, indeed, given the medium, expects the superficial - and so you get what you get: simplistic messaging. Romney's message was "look how presidential I am" - he succeeded apparently - it's the message undecideds are looking for; Obama's message was a pick up from last debate - ie contempt for the opponent in order to appease the base - I don't see that as helping him much with independents and therefore this amounts to a win for Romney even though polls suggest a tie.
Two interesting moments though. Romney doesn't go after Obama on Libya. At first glance this seems very odd since Obama is so very vulnerable here - but remember the 'messaging' they're going for - to effectively attack Obama on Libya you have to come right out and say what all objective observers know to be true: Obama's a liar or he's grotesquely incompetent, or possibly lying because he's grotesquely incompetent - the Romney team obviously felt it would look 'unpresidential' to call Obama a liar on national television so they took the high road and left the mudslinging to surrogates. Not sure that's the right play - but I see what they're thinking.
Other interesting moment was Obama rolling out the contemptuous uber-snark in ridiculing Romney's call for a larger navy - Dear Leader treated Romney like an ignorant inferior not worthy of his time - it was a very real moment where the visceral disdain Obama has for Romney and all that he represents showed through in a way that, again, may please the base but will likely not sit well with independents and moderates. And furthermore it was quite revealing in that Obama's highhandedness was that of a person who's convinced he's obviously right and he wasn't obviously right at all - there is in fact a tough debate going on throughout the higher echelons of naval strategic thinking concerning how technology impacts optimal force size [although all tend to agree that more or less the navy needs to be bigger] - there is no obviously right answer here - Romney had a legitimate point, so did Obama [sort of] - but the arrogance with which Obama expressed his opinion is what sticks in ones mind.
