As you know, my man Mitt had a pretty solid debate performance in last night’s Fox GOP debate. But when I saw Joe Klein’s post at Swampland saying that the Sunday and the Saturday debate were “two of [Mitt’s] best debate performances yet” I was sure Joe was smoking crack.
But he does make one good point. Klein says the ‘tell’ about how good a night Romney had Saturday is that none of the Republicans who were clobbering Mitt on Saturday night took after him again on Sunday.
Now, there are a few problems with this inference. One is that the Sunday night debate had the candidates sitting literally right next to each other, as opposed to spaced apart. And that creates a very different body language situation. It’s harder to get nasty. Second, the Mittster was more on his game. So Huckabee, McCain and Thompson didn’t have Mitt’s palpable confusion and disorientation to take advantage of. And it may even be that they thought Mitt did so poorly
That said, I think Klein’s at least partly on to something. He really is smoking crack if he thinks Romney had a good debate Saturday night. Mitt was barely coherent. But I could buy the idea that Mitt’s trainwreck wasn’t good for McCain or Huckabee if they seemed like they were being nasty to Mitt or taking advantage of Mitt’s achilles heel — his inner humorlessness.
So is it possible that Mitt suckered McCain and Huckabee into a trap by pretending to seem rattled, incoherent and sometimes about to cry?
