No way am I going to pretend that I believe that the debate unfolded according to the Obama campaign's strategy. For one thing, I just have no way to know that, and don't expect the campaign to give away its debate strategy. Second, it would be difficult to match that with the immediate reactions by the campaign itself - although this seems now to be changing.
On the other hand, I think it is possible, at least retroactively, to incorporate the opportunity into an effective strategy. There may be several, but the one that comes to mind has to do with something we very well know, namely that that Romney has a tendency to shoot himself publicly in the foot or step into it big-time, due to a combination of rashness, tone-deafness, desperation and sheer incompetence. In many cases, this takes the form of domestic and international gaffes. For his part, Obama tends to come across rather consistently and reliably as a rather soft-spoken, but nevertheless direct communicator, focused on making his points even at the expense of missing a chance to land a punch. This was the case even before he was expect to behave 'presidentially' by virtue of his position.
We also know that there are 3 + 1 debates, and that a strategy may very well not be for each individually, but encompass all three.
There may be more than one strategies, but one that comes to mind is to use the first debate to play it safe: develop some ideas communicated to the american people earlier in the campaign (which Obama did), avoid any potentially damaging attacks (which he did too), and let the candidate Romney damage himself while recording the way in which he does so in order to exploit it later. Romney can damage himself (and has done so already) by going too far on a number individual statements, or developing a record of many contradictory more or less official public pronouncements. There is only so many times Romney can say he could have chosen his words better, and it doesn't work very well with outright lies and statements of fact anyway.
If the Obama campaign uses the public record collected to challenge Romney, it would end up pushing him into an untenable position. That untenable position would be to reconcile his debate positions with those to his supporters, and of course those to his investors, that is the people we had a glimpse of in the priceless 47% video. Romney's positions in the debate, to the GOP base, and to the investors are not just different. They are mutually exclusive, impossible to reconcile with a plausible argument even by the most capable shills. And a consistent, relentless campaign message based on them would build further the a picture of an unreliable, unprincipled and untrustworthy man.
The key to this would be in adapting the message to these new conditions in time to be effective.
What do you think?
What about other ways to make the most of last night's republiefest?