I believe the debates will come down to not changing the minds of liberals resulting in them changing their vote from Obama to Romney but, at best, dissuading some liberals from voting at all. This is really not in Romney's power to accomplish even if he turns in a stellar debate performance. This is within the scope of Obama's performance. If Obama stinks, or commit some major gaffe, many liberals who support him because he is "cool" will themselves cool off. But Romney cannot do much in this regard.
The same applies, of course, in reverse for Republicans and conservatives concerning Romney's performance, if he blunders the momentum goes out of his campaign.
But the debates can be critical to the disposition of the "independents" and "undecideds." I think the common wisdom is right to the effect that those voters who are undecided are in that state precisely because they are unhappy with the incumbent but have not yet decided that they can entrust the Challenger with the keys to the treasury and the codes the nuclear football. So they will be viewing the debates to determine whether the Challenger is "presidential." If Romney appears to be the kind of man who fits that job, he will get the undecided vote regardless of the give-and-take of incidental and collateral matters during the the debate. The question for these people will be, can we use Romney to get rid of Obama?
This is almost a guaranteed win for Romney or at least the debates are his to lose. That is not to say that he cannot lose the debates, major gaffes-and even minor ones-will be magnified beyond all recognition by the establishment media. They will take hours and days to tell us what it was we saw with our own eyes.
This is where the unflappable image, the askew hairstyle can make a difference if the challenger's performance is otherwise weak.
I have a different view Romney's overall performance in the primary debates. I think he performed adequately, up to the standard which will be applied for the challenger in the presidential debate. In the primary debates the standard was, who was the most captivating? Nobody beats Newt Gingrich at that game. But note, Gingrich failed on the eve of the Florida primary because he did not live up to the standard necessary for him at that time which was to dominate. Rather, Romney came through.
My point is that after we judge which candidate advances his cause, we must ask what standard to apply and did the candidate meet that standard?
