First Presidential Debate: What will be Mitt's "zinger" at the President?

[JHB]

13. "There you go again"

He's telegraphed that he wants to use Reagan's line. He's dying for the sort of impact it had. it's a RW golden moment, and he wants it to reflect on him.

Except Reagan was vastly more at home as a public speaker than Mitt is, and Reagan literally had Carter's playbook. He was able to know ahead of time the points carter would bring up, so he was able to come up with a line to derail it ahead of time, and he had the skill as a speaker to pick the right time to deploy it. (Witness the debate 4 years later against Mondale, where he tried to reuse it and gave Mondale an opening to scold him about how his vaunted zinger was wrong on facts. It was probably Reagan's worst moment in the 84 campaign, so he went back to being President Feelgood.)

Obama and team are sharp enough to know Romney wants a zinger badly. Very likely they have counters prepped. Nothing is certain, but if Romney tries it my money (much less than $10K) would be on Obama beating him silly with it.