I thought Romney started to lose his train of thought towards the end of the debate—a couple of times he seemed to launch into one of his old speeches to very different audiences, and then caught himself. I.e., “we’ve been endowed by our Creator” does not logically segue into a call for religious tolerance. There were several times throughout the debate when he wasn’t particularly smooth, but it seemed to get worse towards the end.

And why exactly was he bouncing up and down on his toes during his closing argument? He’s going kaboing kaboing kaboing the entire time, like there’s some soundtrack only he can hear.

As for Obama—same closing as his opening, which is to say that he started out decently and stayed decent, but there was certainly plenty of opportunities for improvement.

Last thing I don’t get: Lehrer was getting savaged on Twitter when the debate was live, and I just don’t see it. Sure, the two didn’t stick to the debate format. But when they went off script, they did continue making reasonably substantive points. Lehrer got the hell out of the way and let them talk. This might have been a fairly boring debate, but that’s because both candidates were wonky in their approach; I think Lehrer did a fine job of keeping them both talking, and I don’t see that enforcing time limits on questions would have improved on what was said.