Make no mistake, tonight’s debate will be take-no-prisoners battle between the candidates. If you thought the last debate was contentious, get ready for even more interruptions (hopefully no false, on-the-spot fact-checking from the moderator though), and more fire from both candidates. The Romney campaign has stated that this debate will not be like the last one, but once President Obama starts launching the personal attacks, as his campaign has already telegraphed that he would, the “play nice and be presidential” strategy they’ve given Mitt Romney will go right out the window.
President Obama will be vicious. He will attack Mitt Romney on every misstatement he’s made on foreign affairs, and essentially try to paint a picture of Romney that he’s too incompetent to be commander-in-chief. Romney will have to have answers for his mistakes, but he’ll also have to level the president with hard-hitting attacks on the president’s own record, namely on Libya and Iran. Romney also needs to have good answers on what he would do differently, if anything, from what the Obama administration has done.
Mitt Romney is now the narrow frontrunner in this race. A winning performance tonight can seal this race, but don’t expect that. Pres. Obama is now fighting for his political life, and his dirty, old-Chicago style campaign will do whatever they can to win. That means going even dirtier in this debate and in ads over the final two weeks than they have gone so far in this campaign. Expect the president to go after Gov. Romney with everything he can, and even make up a few facts, in his last real chance to save his presidency.
It is do-or-die for tonight for the president, and Romney had better be ready for an angry, aggressive, and possibly even offensive Barrack Obama on the stage tonight. It’s going to get downright ugly for 90 minutes in Boca Raton.