The left has painted a picture of Romney and then sold it to themselves as a reality and now the real reality is talking back. Romney has never said he would raise taxes on middle class and it was flat out stupid of Obama to think he could just make the claim and it would go unchallenged. If he wanted to claim the Romney’s plan wouldn’t work he should have done that but instead he acted like gets to define what Romney’s plan and just looked silly making an argument that was so flawed. He must spend too much of his time reading his own talking points. The left was comfortable in the in belief that Romney was a heartless scrooge who could never come across as likeably and compassionate but they ignored his life story when they made up that fairytale. Obama is going to have to recalibrate his attitude and get over the idea that he gets to define not only who Romney is but what the facts of the debate are.

Obama doesn’t know how to talk to the center and he never has. In 2008 beating Hillary in the primary and then circumstance and a weak opponent gave him reputation as a gifted communicator but the reality is once you get past lofty feel good proclamations he never really talked to anyone but his base. He was helped by the fact that most of the media was part of that base but in debates that media filter has much less impact.