Rick Wilson quotes some hometown advice.

My high school debate coach was a diminutive, brilliant woman named Susan. All of 5-foot nothing, she had enormous glasses, a high, raucous South Carolina accent and a mind like Google for obscure facts. Once, during a break in a debate competition where I’d blown an argument, she said something totally incongruous that snapped me out of a growing funk.

She cocked a finger and beckoned me to lean down. She whispered, “Stop thinking about making points. You know the arguments. You just go in there and knock his pecker in the dirt.” …

Romney should walk on to the stage in Denver knowing he’s arguing against a man who is held aloft on a creaky, tottering artifice of broken jobs promises, failed policies and a promised age of social and economic miracles that never came. President Participation Trophy isn’t the giant, transformative figure of 2008: he’s got a record now, and it’s ugly.

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