The next big event in the campaign will be the presidential debates, with the first one just a week away.
The candidates are busy playing the expectations game. John Berman tells us how they do it.
The Obama campaign has spent months and millions trying to convince voters that Mitt Romney is unethical.
He won't release his tax returns before 2010.
Unprepared.
My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy.
Unattached to reality.
My thinking is maybe you haven't gotten around a lot.
With all those alleged problems, surely he has no chance of prevailing against President Obama in the debates, right?
Well, not according to the Obama campaign.
Mitt Romney, I think, has an advantage because he's been through 20 of these debates in the primaries over the last year.
The Romney team says President Obama is weak on foreign policy.
What we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership.
Weak on the economy.
He's in over his head, and he's swimming in the wrong direction.
And just plain weak overall.
The president today threw in the white flag of surrender again.
With all those weaknesses, surely he would be easy to beat in a debate, right?
Oh no. Not according to Mitt Romney.
I mean he's President of the United States. He's a very effective speaker.
So follow this: Team Obama suggests Romney is a sure thing to win the debates. Team Romney says it's Obama.
It's like that famous bizarro-world episode of Seinfeld.
Up is down, down is up. He says hello when he leaves, good-bye when he arrives.
But bizarro Seinfeld was funny; bizarro campaign, a cynical farce --
each side trying to set the expectations so high for the opponent they can't possibly be met.
So low for the home team, merely speaking in a complete sentence would be a victory. It is a long-held tradition.
An adviser to George W. Bush once called John Kerry the best debater since Cicero,
but it is a troubling tradition. No matter what they say about each other...
Having been through this much more recently than President Obama, I think he starts with an advantage.
...elections are not graded on curves. Not even bizarro elections.
So, if you want still more proof that this whole thing is a farce, here's my guarantee:
No matter what they're saying now about who will win, once the whole thing's over, both sides will claim victory no matter what.