Sporadic

So I think Mittens won the debate last night by not losing the debate last night. He also won by not being the Mittens we’ve come to know and fear.

Sure, he still promised that he would kill Big Bird and show Jim Lehrer the door. Yes, of course he said he would eliminate “Obama-Care”. He told us that spending money on “green initiatives” was bad, he made a point to explain how the President was doing the wrong thing by not drilling for oil in National Parks.

But, and here’s the weird thing, whenever push came to shove on Paul Ryan’s budget he basically pulled the old bugs bunny with the charging bull routine and moved away.

He spent a lot of time saying pretty words. He spent a lot of time saying that stuff that could be true but just well…isn’t. He changed his claims on health care, he changed his tax plan. He’s basically “rebooting” himself as Romney 1.0.

Mr. Romney said a similar thing on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” At the time, he said, “I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform. Of course, there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.”

But Mr. Romney’s aides later clarified that he would only explicitly guarantee insurance for people with pre-existing conditions if they have maintained coverage with no significant lapses.

Romney: My number one principal is, there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit. … I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans. … I will lower taxes on middle-income families.

He never explains how he’s gonna do this. It’s like me saying “I will promise to walk to the moon in the next 6 years by building a very tall staircase from stuff I find around the house”. Yes I have stuff around the house, but how can I make that into a moon staircase?

The interesting thing for political wonks is that he appears to have decided that America is not buying the Romney 2.0 version. He tried to be the Dick Cheney republican with the cross and the flag, the anti-gay, anti-women, anti- immigrant thing. Apparently, either he’s not good at that or America is moving away from the crazy tea-bag thing.

We’re gonna have to see in the coming days how this all plays out. Does the kinder gentler Mittens work? Will it still work when a President, who frankly looked stunned by this switcher-mitt-a-roo, figures out how to process this?

I expected to hear more about the 47%, Bain Capitol, yachts registered in the Caymens from the President. He didn’t hit Mitt where Mitt is most vulnerable- his wallet. There was also no mention of the things that make the President awesome like  don’t ask don’t tell, equal pay for women, health care for the poorest and reasonable immigration law.

There are still 2 more debates and 1 from Biden and Ryan- I guess we’ll see what happens then.