For months now, the spinners and surrogates of the two campaigns have said everything they could to build their candidate up and tear the opponent down....
Until last week, when the topic focused on who should be expected to perform better in the upcoming debate....
In an effort to lower the bar in the expectations game for their candidate, the minions on both sides have fallen all over themselves being effusive in their praise of the other guy's debating skills, and poor mouthing and downplaying their candidate's talents....
It's as though they all suddenly switched jerseys and started playing for the other team....
The Obama folks have been all over the tube saying things like, "Well, Mitt Romney has to clearly be considered the favorite in terms of who should be expected to have the best debate performance, since he's had so much recent experience."
And Team Romney counters with, "Oh no, Obama has to be expected to be the top performer, given his great oratorical skills, and his experience in one on one Presidential debates."
Gee, it's such a refreshing change to see this sudden outburst of appreciation for the abilities of the opposition candidate...Such atypical graciousness....
They want to try to raise the expectation bar as high as they can for the opponent...
And of course, so long as their candidate doesn't come out and stumble over his own feet, stutter like Porky Pig and blow his nose on his tie, he should be seen as performing far better than expected....
It's amusing, and also incredibly disingenuous....
The fact of the matter is that both of these guys are skilled debate performers, and there's no reason to think either is going to greatly outshine the other; it's very unlikely either will fall on his face or score a devastating pivitol moment over the other....
The greatest likelihood is that these debates will be pretty much a draw, close enough for both sides to claim victory, and change very few minds...
And of course, a tie works to the advantage of whoever's ahead...
Which happens to be Obama...
