If I were scoring the Presidential election purely on debate and style points, I'd have to say that Obama's people are running a fairly on-the-ball campaign given the sorry set of circumstances they have to work with (crap economy, non-reality-based opposition, etc). And everyone knows what a genuinely terrible candidate Mitt is.
What I'm wondering, though, is will it even matter? The fundamentals of this election are pretty solid. High unemployment + de-motivated liberal base + rabid and highly motivated conservative base... even in spite of its disdain for its crappy candidate. It's hard to imagine the random silliness of campaign dynamics or the candidates' messaging operations doing much to change those circumstances.
In a way, I'm asking the same question about the campaign flacks that I asked about football coaches this year. Is what they do even going to be relevant this year?