From THE HILL:
Mitt Romney’s campaign indicated Wednesday they have no plans to rein in the GOP nominee during the third and final presidential debate.
Romney’s aggressive performance Tuesday night — directly challenging President Obama and quarreling with moderator Candy Crowley — had Democrats and even some Republicans arguing he came across as too assertive, which could turn off undecided voters.
But Team Romney claims their candidate won the night with his argument on core economic issues, which are the leading concern among voters. And Republican strategists say that Romney has more leeway to adopt the role of the antagonist because it’s Obama who is so heavily reliant on personal favorability to buoy his poll numbers…
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EDITOR: The article doesn’t get it. When a candidate steps into a debate with a sitting president, senator or governor, a big question in the audience mind is whether they can see the person in that role. As we advised trailing Republican nominee Dick Thornburg in 1978, to his long lasting gratitude, if he was to become governor he needed to consider himself half governor already and present himself as a governor.
That is what Romney did on Tuesday evening. We think that his assertiveness served him very well. He came across as the next president arguing with the current president.
In my opinion, being assertive is a good thing to be to show you can handle the role you are attempting to take on. Personally, however, I don’t feel that what Romney showed was assertiveness but blatant, nasty aggression; characteristics of a bully. Everything I have seen of Romney only seems to point to the fact that the man is a lying, manipulative, anti-anything-that-doesn’t-benefit-him-and-his-kind bully.