Analysis: This is What Mitt Romney Must do at the Debate to Turn This Race Around

Oct 2, 2012— -- I once heard debating defined as "the most elegant contact sport inthe world". If that's true – and I believe it is – Mitt Romney needsto come out swinging in these last throes of his long bout with BarackObama. The first presidential debate in Denver could be the beginningof the end for Romney, who has lost the campaign's messaging war byallowing his opponent to define him in the voters' minds.The election has not been about Obama's shortcomings as president; ithas been about Romney's moral failings. By allowing Obama to set notonly the tone but the agenda for almost the entire campaign, Romneyhas become a figure similar to John Kerry in 2004: a man struggling toconvince an entire country that he's not what his opponent insists heis.

If he is to reverse the trend, Romney must impress and convince duringthe debates. The question is how.

The best case scenario for the GOP's candidate is to tryto be like – who else?- Ronald Reagan. In 1980, Reagan arrived at thepresidential debates battling two dangerous and seeminglyinsurmountable "image problems": the Democrats had insisted thatReagan was too conservative and too old for the presidency. Before theomnipresent 24-hour news cycle, the debates were Reagan's only chanceto counter the prevailing narrative. He did so, first, by showingup—Carter's absence in the first debate is rightly considered acolossal mistake. After using the first debate to allay fears of hissupposed radicalism, Reagan used the second one to convince voters ofhis grasp of current affairs, his sharpness and his sense of humor.Reagan, who was 13 years older than Carter, was deemed to be moreempathetic and even more youthful. By the time the election camearound, the idea that Reagan was some old, conservative grandfatherwas only a distant memory.

Of course, the worst-case scenario for Mitt Romney is toend up emulating Michael Dukakis. In 1988, Dukakis had an "imageproblem" of his own. Republicans had tried to brand him as thequintessential Massachusetts social-liberal. By October, Dukakis wasstruggling to present himself as an appealing, affable candidate.Dismissed as "cold" and "aloof", Dukakis needed the debates to show adifferent side of him. Instead, Dukakis managed the exact opposite,especially in the second debate. After Bernard Shaw's famous "rape"question, Dukakisimploded, essentially reaffirming, with his convoluted and coldanswer, his image as a man disconnected from emotional and socialreality. After that, in what was an eminently winnable election forthe Democratic party, Dukakis had no chance.