Romney begins to pay the price
by David Atkins
I said last night that Romney lost the debate last night, or won a Pyrrhic victory at best. One of the reasons I pointed to was the fact that he lied continually in a surreal way, and would pay the price:
Romney's lies will come back to haunt him. Part of the reason the President may have been caught off guard was Mitt Romney's hard tack to the center, essentially throwing the modern conservative movement under the bus and pretending that his last year's worth of campaign statements never happened. On every issue from Romneycare to cutting taxes for the rich, the challenger basically pretended that he was the Mitt Romney of 2002 again.
It may be that Romney was trying to shake the etch-a-sketch starting tonight, or it may be that he was trying to win over the undecided voter who pays little attention to news except to watch one or two debates. If the latter, then it won't matter to him how much fact checkers rip apart his statements...
But the Obama campaign may see fit in the coming weeks to put Romney's sudden pretenses at being a moderate tonight alongside his actual speeches and statements from no more than a few days ago. That will have the effect of reinforcing Romney's image as an ambitious used car salesman who will say anything to get elected. And that will hurt him as voters go to the polls.
Less than 18 hours later, that pushback has already begun:
Expect to see much more of this.
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