Moderator:
Middle of the road. Did manage to keep from being road-kill which was nimble of her given Mr. Romney's tactic of attacking the moderator and being a jerk just cause he can. On the plus side when called on to referee the point on Benghazi she did so very fairly. On the minus side, we kept screaming at the TV "shut him down" when he went into filibuster mode (which was all the time). Ultimately she was the one who picked the questions and the questioners and I couldn't help but wonder what questions she didn't pick. She did a fairly good job of keeping a balance of hard questions for each candidate, but some of them really sucked, too. A whole bunch of really important subjects (climate change, Afghanistan, abortion etc.) never touched because of her choices. So for me, Ms. Crowley gets a B.
Mr. Romney
I admit my biggest concern was for people who are just tuning in I think his apparent "conviction" could be mistaken for "facts". During parts of the debate Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama got a little too engaged in throwing "wonk" grenades at each other, and if you haven't been playing the home game I think it could have been either boring or annoying. Well, at least until Mr. Romney held onto one of his grenades too long and it blew up in his face. As the Road Runner would have said, "Beep Beep".
His best showing was when he was pimping for the fossil fuels lobby. Even though the meme hitting the internet today is all about "binders of women" (which sounds pretty kinky to me), I felt his worst answer to an audience member was on immigration. Truly ingratiated himself there to everyone who is or was an immigrant. "Hey looks folks, we're going to make your under-the-table, under-paid, dangerous, ten-to-a-room lives and make them more miserable so you'll want to leave." Has he ever considered that people who leave their own families and culture and language to go live subsistence lives somewhere else might think its still better than where they came from? Of course not. He would have to have had imagination software installed for that to happen. And then there was foreign policy, where his true flaws as a candidate become crystal clear.
Mr. Obama
His best answer was on fair pay for women, his worst on fossil fuels. I don't like his pimping for that lobby any better than when Mr. Romney did it. But at least he is looking at the entire energy mix and does want to end tax subsidies to the industry. Still bad answer, no biscuit there.
But where he really won the night was when confronted on who was responsible for Benghazi he did not scape-goat Secretary Clinton, said the buck stops with him and then turned and for the first time that night faced Mr. Romney directly and told him he found his demeanor offensive. That was powerful rhetoric; powerful, masterful staging (look at the video again, The West Wing could not have done it better) and felt absolutely true. He was angry, he was offended and it really showed. For a man who eschews emotional engagement that was a direct hit. It won him the night for its authenticity and its true emotional weight. We need more of this from him at the next debate.
The Undecided Voters
Feh. No such thing. Everyone there knows who they're voting for. They're just being coy because it makes them feel important. Get the fricken fence out of your collective asses and chose what side of the line you are on. So tired of the "undecideds". Bleh.
Shit or get off the pot already.