Debate Optimism: Obama Gets It

     Every thing we've heard over the last week shows the President understands where he stumbled and what he needs to make up for it. As has been suggested what the President must do-Biden started this last week-is unmask the claim that Romney is a moderate but that in truth he is a severe conservative as advertised-based on his own policies he's running on.

     "President Barack Obama appears amply aware that he fumbled badly during a debate two weeks ago in Denver, but he’s not the only one looking for redemption: Obama’s staff, blamed in part for his weak preparation, for a flawed plan, and for a lame post-debate effort are also seeking a do-over."

 

     "The most obvious — and critical — flaw in the Denver debate was Obama’s performance, and aides say they’ve prepared him intensely not to repeat it. They’ve played him the tape of the Denver debacle, examined his facial expressions and overall body language, and prepared for how to personally engage a live audience of questioners."

      "There is also a new plan. Two weeks ago, Obama tried to stay above the fray, backing down from nearly every attack he and his campaign have been firing at Romney by proxy — both on television and in solo rallies across the country. Tuesday at Hofstra, will throw all the punches he pulled two weeks ago, his aides promise. Romney’s tax rate? Check. The 47% video? He’ll work it in there. Osama bin Laden? You can bet on it."

      "Obama is “prepared to make sure every voter out there understands the truth about Romney’s policies if he tries to obscure them,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told BuzzFeed.

       “[It] won't be a clean opportunity for Romney to claim he doesn't know anything about a $5 trillion tax cut weighted towards the wealthiest,” he added, as an example.

     http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/team-obama-looks-for-debate-redemption

     As Talking Points Memo puts it:

     "This time, Obama’s big task is to force Romney back into the “severely conservative” corner he occupied throughout the last two years."

      “At some point he needs to say there’s a profound difference between the two of us,” Tom Downey, who helped prep Al Gore for his presidential debates, told TPM. Otherwise, “Romney’s the only person defining who he is.”

      "That means women watching a nominee who says he has no interest in restricting abortion need to hear from Obama what Romney told pro-lifers all year about overturning Roe vs. Wade. People with chronic illnesses who hear that they won’t be denied insurance after Obamacare’s repealed need to hear — and believe — that Romney has walked back that claim every time he’s made it. And voters who hear that Romney won’t cut taxes for the rich or raise their taxes need to hear how he bragged about helping the 1 percent in the primaries while telling donors that his tax plan wouldn’t benefit 47 percent of Americans, nor would he want it to."

       http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/10/showmanship-and-other-items-on-obamas-debate-checklist.php?ref=fpa

       The thing is the President has lots of weapons to make this happen-today we see the market up sharply almost to its 2007 highs. The argument is there. He just has to make it effectively-it's about execution. I think he'll have it tonight.