If Romney's elected, he probably will get along with Democrats as he did in Massachussetts. His problem, if elected President, will be that unlike in Massachussetts, he will have to deal with his own party.
I think that Romney did what he needed to do in tonight's debate, which was to appeal to the undecided center. And I don't think he did anything to make his tepid embrace by the GOP base any more tepid than it is already.
Washington State Democrats have a similar problem in its Governor's race–a moderate Republican who seems reasonable enough running against an uninspiring establishment Democrat. The problem, of course, is that if any Republican, no matter how sane and reasonable, will be held captive by a party that is neither.
UPDATE: Best analysis I've seen, by Matt Stoller:
From what I can tell, the trends that led Romney to do well in this debate are macro. Obama is not a bad debater, and he was not underprepared. Both Romney and Obama are executing their messaging strategy, it’s just that Romney’s worked, and Obama’s didn’t. Romney is pointing to the bad economy, and Obama is staying likeable and above the fray. Romney and his team believe that they can simply point to a failed economic strategy by the administration, and voters will fire Obama. Obama and his team think that Obama is viewed as a warm person, and they want to emphasize that he can relate to Americans in a way that Romney can’t.
As for Romney, he went to the left. Romney, just by not appearing to a creepy out of touch Mr. Burns, punctured Obama’s bubble. But he also did something that an operative friend reminded me of. He appeared just like George W. Bush in the 2000 debates, where Bush appeared more moderate and left-wing. Gore tried the math attack on Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security (Bush double counted contributions), and Bush countered with the infamous line about “fuzzy math”. This time, Romney did the same thing, he just said that Obama’s claims about his own plan weren’t true. They were true. Romney continued to lie about his plans. He said he wouldn’t cut taxes for the wealthy, slash education spending, cut health care, Social Security, or Medicare for current seniors. He went after Obama for cutting social programs. Romney, in essence, debated like a liberal Massachusetts Republican. Nothing he said was true, in all likelihood. But Romney does believe that Obama’s stewardship of the economy is terrible, and he was able to sell that quite effectively.
The reason Obama did poorly is simple. He is bad at governing America. He hasn’t solved the foreclosure crisis, the jobs crisis, the climate crisis, the energy crisis, the financial crisis, the debt crisis, the health care crisis, or really, anything. He can’t point to very much that Americans broadly like, except killing Bin Laden and the auto bailout. His second term agenda is to cut Social Security, Medicare, frack, cut corporate taxes, bust more teachers unions and pass more neoliberal trade agreements. He is proud of this record. So are his people. But he knows he can’t run on it because it’s unpopular, so instead, he presented himself as a nice likeable guy.
He frequently complimented Romney, agreed with him on most core policy arguments, and just generally avoided pointing out the many times Romney was lying. He didn’t bring up social issues like abortion, or really, any weak spots for Romney. He tried to present himself as a fighter for the middle class, but he doesn’t actually respect people he perceives have less strength than he does. Obama believes in pity for the middle class, not respect. Nor does Obama like Romney. So Obama came off passive and unpersuasive, making a case he didn’t believe in. It’s like George W. Bush, who couldn’t put two words together fluently unless he was talking death and destruction, and then he was a virtuoso rhetorician. Obama is at his best when he is talking about himself and his family, because that’s what he likes and believes in. That’s why his 2008 campaign worked, because it was all framed around Obama The Savior. It was mass narcissism (and even then, he only narrowly beat John McCain). If you’re wondering why Obama is a bad speaker now, where the old Obama went, just recognize that he’s only a great speaker when it’s all about him, because that’s where his interest is. The talent is there, the character, not.
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