Partisan Democrat here who thinks President Obama will be re-elected. Having said that, I wanted to muse about why the grand strategy of demonizing Romney as a caricature of a human being, a goofy, unqualified robot, failed as soon as the two candidates were on stage together.
Leaving aside the questions of why Obama performed the way he did that first debate, I think of Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, whose campaigns depended similarly on the demonization strategy. Both Reagan and GW Bush, it was held, were too stupid and too crazy to be President. That set a low bar for two experienced politicians to take the stage and prove they were neither (or at least pretend convincingly they were neither). So it was with Mitt Romney. The Daddy Warbucks-with-foot-in-mouth didn't show up because that caricature doesn't give Mitt enough credit. More below...