Romney torpedoed his own campaign tonight

Romney's strategy tonight was obvious. In order to defeat a candidate, one must differentiate himself from his opponent. Former Vice President Al Gore has repeatedly warned Democrats if we want to win elections again, we must demonstrate clearly the differences between ourselves and our opponents on issues and policies.

Barack Obama's strongest credentials are his foreign policy accomplishments. Knowing that he could never best his opponent in a clear debate on foreign affairs, Romney chose to come out tonight attempting to take that advantage from President Obama by obfuscating policy and issue distinctions between the two of them. He simply agreed with him as often as possible, leaving little space for the President to take a swing. The President astutely turned those opportunities into chances to draw distinctions between Romney's positions du jour and those of yesterdays gone by.

In executing this strategy, Romney appeared not to be the statesman he hoped to project to the viewing audience. He appeared simply tranquilized, at times even stupefied. Tangled up in the ropes? This was once again a different Mitt Romney from the prevaricator in the first debate or the bully in the second debate. In the arena of performance art, he projected the new, improved Mitt Romney who had an astoundingly similar position to Barack Obama on a number of foreign affairs issues.

Al Sharpton stood out brightly tonight in describing Romney's retreats as clinching, as in a boxing scenario. Excellent word to describe Romney's antics. Kudos to the Reverend Al for his excellent call on this fight.

How did I see Romney's performance? Massive epic fail. He torpedoed his own chances to win this debate, and in the process probably sank his entire campaign.

Comments?

Sam