Big & Small After 3rd Debate

My initial impressions about the 3rd debate last night:

- To begin, Obama started out attacking and personal.  Romney took a bit to get his footing as he avoided taking Obama's bait and talked 'big picture.'  From there, the trend was Romney stronger and stronger, Obama looked mostly weaker as he appeared more petty and tried to trash Romney more than establish his own foreign policy goals and rationale.  Romney went 'big' and Obama went 'small' and by the end I thought Romney appeared more presidential, and Obama diminished himself - at least in the eyes of independents and Republicans.

- By being steady and reassuring but still strong, I think Romney got the most important thing out of the debate for a challenger to a sitting president: it was clear that he would be a strong, thoughtful, very capable leader in the world.  It continues to help remove any qualms most people would have about voting for him as president.  That is a big win for Romney.  I'm not able to come up with any new advantage Obama gained from this debate.  People expect a sitting president to be brushed up on details of foreign policy.  He didn't show anything new and as I say seemed competent but kind of petty.  I don't see how that does anything more than reassure his base.

- Overall, I don't think the overall trajectory of the campaign changes much from this...which is good for Romney as things have trended his way since the first debate.

There are two weeks to go.  The race is tight.  This is the time to rise up, redouble efforts, and let's get Romney in the White House and get this country and our economy back.  We can do this!





From Keith Koffler: "The impression that will linger through Election Day is that of the sunny guy to the left of the screen who seemed to have ideas about where to go and was interrupted repeatedly by the guy on the right who made lots of points but, in the end, had no new ideas, couldn’t defend his record the few times it was challenged, and seemed a little unlikable."