Presidential debaters always want to set expectations low. On Libya, Mitt Romney has expectations about as low as he can possibly have them, at least as far as the commentariat is concerned. That's going to work to his advantage tonight.
Chris Cillizza on one of the things to watch for in tonight's debate:
Romney's third strike on Libya: The conflicting stories coming out of the Obama administration over the Sept. 11 attack that left Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead should make for a potent Romney attack line. And yet, he has swung and missed twice on the issue. First, his campaign released a decidedly political statement before the news of Stevens's death broke. Then he lost the Libya back-and-forth in the second presidential debate as he tried to corner Obama and wound up cornered himself.See what's going on? The conventional wisdom is that he's muffed this twice, and the conventional wisdom is also that he deserves to connect, because Obama is vulnerable. That means the chatterers are rooting for Romney to get this right -- which means that, for Romney, mere competence on the question will be treated as a triumph, and may even lead the press to declare him the winner of the whole debate.
Fortunately, the public may not care what the pundits think -- note that the public didn't share the pundits' fixation on Romney's Libya gaffe in the second debate. (Yes, polls showed that Obama was seen as the winner, but he merely slowed his slide in the polls without getting a bounce.) But be prepared for the press to declare Romney the winner of this debate unless he does very, very poorly, at least if he hangs in there on Libya.
