The RNC was extraordinarily weak. I mean, even from within my liberal bubble, the media went after Paul Ryan as if he weren't their rockstar sex symbol. Was very confusing and I remain confused. When you couple a weak coming out party with a weak comer-outer, it can be really damning.
This is the biggest advantage an incumbent candidate has -- politicians who haven't been involved in a presidential campaign seem not to realize what an intense ordeal it is. Nothing is more rewarding for the mainstream media than finding a reason somebody is not qualified to be the President. Everybody has some kind of weakness, and when you declare they'll find it, and they won't rest until you handle it somehow -- for Obama, for example, the test was Jeremiah Wright. For Romney it's probably the taxes. But Ryan, while he's clearly smarter than Palin, was still totally unprepared for a campaign where people would pay attention to the things he said and look for gotchas, because that whole speech was gotchas. And they got him.
I also kind of think that some members of the media just faced a Chief Justice Roberts moment, where they had to ask themselves whether they really wanted to be potentially responsible for putting Romney-Ryan in the White House because they softballed a story. I mean, you have to doubt that any of them want that.
I'm worried about the debates though. I thought Obama was fairly weak in 2008 and it was just that McCain was a complete disaster. Does anyone feel confident about those?
In terms of prepared stuff, Romney's not bad, and Obama's not amazing. When it comes to thinking on their feet, Obama is extremely good, and Romney is self-evidently terrible. So it depends on how well-prepared they are, and how well Obama can find ways to catch Romney out and make him explain stuff he doesn't want to explain.
Unfortunately for Romney, he has a severe handicap in the debates in that he has no position whatsoever and everything he's said is a lie. I mean, as everybody keeps saying, there's never been a campaign as aversive to the truth as this one. So if he has a plan to keep that up through the debates, then he'll do well, but frankly, I want to see that plan before I believe it. He won't be able to just not respond to the things Obama says the way he does with the press.
He's just in it for 2016. And, unlike Palin, he's not an idiot so he can turn this into something real for himself.
We'll see. If people really start thinking of him as fundamentally dishonest, it's going to be a real problem for him. I want to see the Biden/Ryan debate before I make any predictions.
