It'll depend on whether people care about facts.
I'm pretty bummed about last night's debate. I can't figure why Obama was so meek when it came to Romney's blatant lies about his tax and health care plans. No matter how you parse them, no matter how much he pretended he'd never said a thing about them until last night, they were lies. They don't add up. And yet, Barack Obama was ineffectual in pointing it out.
Since Jim Lehrer essentially handed moderation away, Obama easily could have found a way to ask, specifically, how much money is lost by the cuts he proposes, and how much would be found by reducing deductions. And he certainly could have asked what The Rominee's plans are for people who park money oversees to avoid taxes. Was he afraid Romney had a zinger lined up for that one. "What do you have against money enjoying nice weather?" maybe.
As I said: on style, Romney won hands down, and from the comments from my paragon of persiflage here, it's clear that that's what matters. Substantively, Mr Romney did what he's done since he's been in politics: run away from everything he's said and pretend it never happened. It's as if he'd never kissed a teabagger ass. Nothing he said was remotely like what he's been saying, to get nominated, and to do the RWS™ bidding. It was someone else entirely up there. Except for the guy whose math skills are a little wanting.
And why not? It's always worked for him. Suddenly he disavowed everything he'd said till now; and, clearly, Obama wasn't prepared for it. Forgetting history, he probably thought Romney had meant what he'd been saying until last night, when it was as if it'd all been a dream.
So the question is: will undecided voters, teabagger-like, fall for the dissembling; or are they undecided because they want facts? In which case they'll not have been moved by The Rominee's subterfuge. And it'll be interesting to see how long it takes teabaggRs to notice they were dumped like tea in the Boston harbor. Or bankers. We'll know eventually, won't we?
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