Obama the narcissist would never allow himself to be defeated, even for some ploy to win further down the road.That's absolutely right. He lost last night not out of some brilliant master strategy - he lost because he's an incompetent boob. However, I will say that he can only go up in the media's estimation. His awful performance last night gives his lapdogs in the media plenty of room to talk about his comeback in the next two debates.
Normally I'd agree because there is nowhere to go but up, even if he loses because the press would say he performed better than in the first debate however, foreign policy is coming up; there's NOTHING he can say on that subject that can help him. The only issues the sycophantic press have been able to manipulate are the economy, health care and immigration. Two of the three were covered last night and on these subjects, Mitt removed decades of dirt from the venue floor with Obama last night.
Obama is toast; his only options are to continue to take the beatings from Mitt and in turn, watch his residency come to its rightful end or to come up with an creative means to avoid further debate.