WE'LL SEE HOW CENTRIST MITT PLAYS WITH THE BASE NOW


Well, that was much better. Don't know how it's going to play, but I think it was quite a good night for the president.

I said after the first debate that right-wingers would tolerate Mitt Romney his deviations from right-wing orthodoxy because their desire to see Obama get his ass kicked supersedes even their desire for ideological rigidity.

In the first debate, Romney did very well. In tonight's debate, not so much.

So I'm wondering whether right-wingers are now going to be upset that Romney is betraying their principles -- upset only because Romney may be seen as the debate loser (or at least not the big winner), especially if he starts slipping in the polls again.

Romney did somewhat better in the second half of the debate, so maybe this will be a wash. But if this debate hurts him, Romney's going to stop being the right's hero and start being that awful centrist who never should have been the nominee.