I'm so anxious about the debate tonight I can barely stand it, and I don't want to read any more warnings of how the election hinges on President Obama's performance tonight. In Obama-Romney Debate 2012: Can Cool Hand Barack Dismantle Robomitt? Howard Fineman takes a more upbeat approach providing some encouraging insights from his sources inside the preparation team who assure us that the President is ready and "“He knows what he has to do.”
I’ve been told by a person close to the debate-prep process that whatever the question, he will stress these among other points: the impossible not-to-say cynical math of Romney’s $5 trillion tax cut proposal; his proposed the “voucherization” of Medicare; running mate Rep. Paul Ryan’s (and, implicitly, Romney’s) threat to do the same to Social Security; his support for continued and even more generous rate cuts for the wealthy; the threat his budget-and-tax plans pose to the non-entitlement portion of the budget.
In Howard Fineman's analysis President Obama's prefers "to play the cool, nice guy," perhaps because he moved from "culture to culture" learning how to be "accepted and even admired without taking on schoolyard bullies."