Election 2012

President Obama’s Ten Words for the Second Debate

My Tuesday column suggests the best line of attack against Romney, given his greatest weakness:

We've obviously entered the Emotional Roller-Coaster portion of the presidential campaign in which events and fortunes appear to be turning faster than many of us can tolerate, at least without several large high-balls filled with brown liquor.

Following a defeat in the first debate, Obama supporters careened through an array of emotions -- dismay, anger, denial, fear -- only to settle on panic-induced reloadings of Nate Silver's blog to monitor the polling damage.

Meanwhile, the solid jobs report on Friday offered an opportunity to, you know, breathe, and to bask in some good news while returning to more enjoyable endeavors like hectoring conservative Truthers and Unskewers who ridiculously thought the 7.8 percent unemployment number was a vast Chicago conspiracy. Nevertheless, maybe the unemployment rate will stop the bleeding and nullify Romney's bounce. But Monday brought with it mixed polling news. Gallup, Ipsos and, believe it or not, Rasmussen indicated that Romney's bounce was leveling off. But Pew released a poll showing Romney with a four-point lead, with PPP to follow with similar numbers today. And TPM's Poll Tracker shows and overall +2.7 percent lead for Romney.

I think I'll have a refill, please. Make it a double.

Actually, there's no way of knowing at this point whether Romney's bounce will continue or if it's only a blip. The jobs numbers are still too new to have an impact, plus there's the vice presidential debate followed by next week's second debate between Romney and the president. [continued]

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