lowstudent: He was totally unprepared, and it had nothing to do with Kerry. He was unprepared, because he was simply lazy. He thought he would win it, and that would be good enough.

I am not defending him here, but...in the past, that has always been enough. I don't blame him for assuming it would be again. Further, he made no major mistakes, did he? None that I can recall. I thought some of his stuff was not very strong, but he sure didn't embarrass himself. His level of performance was good enough to have hung with or beaten just about every Presidential candidate debate performance we've seen over the past 20 years. The problem was, Romney just nailed it. Either that, or it was the altitude.