The Second Presidential Debate - Obama Reasserts Himself, Romney's Job Gets A Whole Lot Harder

Last night's debate revealed how fragile the Romney candidacy is.  His recent surge came from his strong performance in the first Presidential debate, not some big new issue advantage.  As poll after poll has shown Romney is not winning any issue argument with the President, in part, I would argue, because he really isn't trying.  He offers strong poll tested attacks on the President, and his five point plan, which had a different order last night than before, and had a very different description of the education portion, is untethered from reality and the Governor's own budget.  It is a bit of a joke - and changing, mutating, and evolving like the fluid Romney enterprise itself.

The foundation of the Romney campaign at this point is his strong performance/strong leader bearing, and his assertion that Obama has left us less prosperous and left safe (Republicans do know a bit about these matters).  On the first part Romney took a hit last night.  He had some strong moments, but he also seemed a bit shrill, tired, confused, angry, and at times like he wanted to run over and fight with the President.  His performance and thus the perception of him as a leader was both much weaker than the last debate, and much weaker relative to a much stronger performance by President Obama.  As I have written before, as Romney has no clear advantage on an important vote motivating issue with President Obama, Romney must maintain his advantage in the strong leader/weak leader dimension if he hopes to win in November.  Last night was not helpful in that regard, and hard to see how this wildly inexperienced foreign policy hand/ticket regains this critical advantage in the final debate on foreign policy, a format which should be a good one for the Commander in Chief.

Additionally, the core argument of the Romney campaign - that Obama has left us less prosperous and less safe - is not true, and is even less true given all good economic data of the last few months (uemployment down, housing up, deficit 20% lower than last year).  That these arguments were not true was much clearer last night and in the VP debate than in the first Presidential debate.  Having to sell a manifestly untrue argument to the American people is a tall order for any candidate, let alone one not all that skilled.  The always flimsy argument/issue side of team Romney did unravel last night when challenged, and leaves him in a much weaker position for the close.  

Finally, for weeks now team GOP has been attempting to take the tragedy in Libya and use it in two ways - to undermine the President's significant foreign policy advantage, and to strenghten the strong leader/weak leader comparison for Romney.  For me it has always been much of a strong/weak leader offering by the right, for on the face of it, the underlying argument that given all the progress made in the region things are more dangerous today is silly. Team Obama has not responded well to these attacks, and it seemed like Romney and the right might actually turn this incident into something consequential in the race.  Romney's clear mishandling of the Libya exchange last night, however, also made this avenue of attack - always a reach to begin with - much less potent. 

So while the polls last night showed a modest victory for the President, I think there was a deeper structural change in the race which does not bode well for Mitt Romney.  Romney's arguments were challenged and did not hold up well, and his strong leader/weak leader advantage took a bit hit.  Like the narrow path he has in the electoral college, Romney wakes up today with a much more narrow strategic path to victory than was the case during his recent post-debate surge. 

All of this of stems from the President's strong performance last night.  He took on the fragile issue framework of the Romney campaign and tore it apart.  He did enough to explain his own policies to score a win.  And of course his performance was much much better than before, and much more what we all expected from this man who has been so much with us these last six years, and who we know so well.

What happens now?  I don't think we will really know where the race is until the middle or end of next week, a few days after the next debate.  The race is fluid, and has been moving.  My gut is that if the race was effected at alll last night might be a slight movement towards Obama.  But any momentary trend could be altered - or reinforced -  in the next debate, so close to this one.  So I am not really going to pay attention much to the polls for a week or so.

Having said all that I think Romney has far few tools today than he had a few days ago, and Obama has more.  The debate revealed the significant weaknesses in the Romney offering, weaknesses which will be well exploited by team Obama in the final few weeks.  Romney is a far weaker candidate today than he was a few days ago, Obama a far stronger one. So my sense is that in the these final few weeks, baring some extraordinary event, the President will use the more favorable structural environment to slowly pick up enough of his lost 2008 vote to win a narrow victory in November. 

But who knows - this thing feels like it has a few more twists and turns left.

Update - Was able to discuss all this today on Fox and the BBC.