“Mr. President, 70 million or more Americans are counting on you."

From Michael Tomasky:

I hope that someone can say to him, “Mr. President, 70 million or more Americans are counting on you. They voted for you, they’re planning on voting for you again, and they want you to fight for them. If you lose, you let them down horribly—and you damage their lives. They’re 47 percenters, a lot of these folks. They need you. If the other side gets in, you’ll be fine, but they’re screwed.”

Obama put himself in the position of being the one person in the country all these people depend on. So he has to be their defender. And this is how I’d hope he spends his preparation time—not thinking about how he can look smarter than Romney or score this or that point, but how he can communicate to middle-class people that he’s eager to fight to protect their interests, and why his ideas will do that and his opponent’s won’t.

If that’s his mindset this week, we won’t give any recondite exegeses about the workings of the Independent Payment Review Board. He won’t just shrug and say, nah, no difference between me and the other guy on Social Security. He’ll treat every question and exchange as an opportunity to advance his vision and knock down Romney’s.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/14/now-it-s-obama-s-turn-to-win-the-debate-at-hofstra-university.html