Mitt's last chance?

Is tonight's debate a last chance for Mitt Romney to shine, or is he entirely too dull?

(I just wanted to get something in pre-debate, to give myself a chance to seem either prescient or idiotic, depending.)

Tonight's debate just may be Mitt Romney's last opportunity to come across as presidential. So far in this campaign, he's been anything but. Elitist perhaps, evasive certainly, but hardly presidential. (Then again, it may not be the last opportunity...)

Look at the poles. He's badly behind right now, so badly that it's hard to imagine that he's got a realistic chance at the presidency. But he's still got a chance. And not a bad one, either.

Mitt Romney is a skilled debater. Many of us remember the endless Republican debates with a lingering horror, but we forget that when Mitt got on the ropes he tended to fight back and fight back hard. Gringrich et al found that out the hard way.

And he's got the upper hand. He doesn't have to win, he really doesn't even have to do terribly well, he just needs to appear competent and confident in order to survive until the next debate. Of course, not winning doesn't exactly knock Obama out of the fight, and Obama can still make a comeback if this thing goes the distance. And I'm sick of the boxing metaphors.

Remember that "other opportunity" I hinted at? If Romney does just tolerably well tonight, he could just give himself that opportunity.

For Obama's part, the President doesn't need to win either...he's so far ahead that nothing less than a clear Romney victory can really hurt him. He doesn't need to go after Romney, Romney heeds to come after him. Obama merely needs to come across as his own erudite and self-assured self, and wait for Romney to make a mistake. Which is kind of what I expect; Romney has shot himself in the foot so many times lately I'm surprised he still has ten toes.

Let's not forget that other candidates have been behind at this point and have come back to win the Presidency. But it's getting late...very late. If Mitt Romney doesn't win decisively tonight, there's still the next debate, but if President Obama wins decisively I don't see much chance for Mitt to make a comeback.

Like I said, look at the poles. But then, there are a lot of conservatives that don't believe the poles, not even the latest Fox News poles, and I could say something nasty about denial but I don't want to. (You may infer from that that I wrote something nasty about denial but thought better of it and deleted a couple of sentences.) If you don't believe the poles, you're not going to pay any attention to anything I have to say at this point anyway.

And I'll admit that none of this really matters; the candidates are already preped and the pundits poised to spin the results one way or the other, as is their purpose in life. Nothing I can say will have any appreciable effect on tonight's events.

Shake hands, boys, and come out fighting.

The Blues Viking

The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.