You have to hand it to Gov. Romney

... and President Obama has done just that.

What to make of the debates? All in all, a  serious strategic misjudgement by the Obama campaign team, and one that hands the election to Romney.

For the first debate, Obama was ill-prepared. He hadn't any response to Romeny's shift to a moderate centrist position, something that was entirely predictable given Romney's earlier shift to the right needed to get the nomination, and his previous moderate position required to get himself elected governor. Obama's lack of preparation showed in his inability to carefully but politely point out the shifts in Romney's position. That, something the media has failed to do, has been Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's lonely crusade.  

In the second Obama did better, challenging Romney on some of his inconsistencies.  But the in the third, Obama was again caught completely off guard. Given that the electorate broadly,  and undecided voters in particular, are likely to be those who don't take an on-going interest in politics, much less foreign relations, Romeny's objectives were not going to be to 'win', score points, and differentiate himself from the President, but rather to close the gap. Romeny needed only appear knowledgeable, and without having to articulate it, let the underlying logic of his position simply be that already developed by the President. Again, the Obama team underestimated Mitt Romney. 

All in all, Romney's team completely out manoeuvred the Obama team in the debates; and that might well make him an effective president. One might not like what he does (if we actually knew what that will be), but this episode suggests that what ever he decides to do when he gets into office, he will be more effective in getting Congress to do his bidding that Obama has been.

The next four years and a Romney presidency will be 'interesting'. Clearly, Romney is an ambitious pragmatist rather than a man of principle and conviction when it comes to politics. One can only hope that when finally confronted with the realities of the responsibilities of office, he will 'do the right thing' (if we only knew that he knows what that is).