After debate failure, Obama consults most trusted adviser

Himself! 
Because isolation and insularity have worked out so well for him thus far, right? Politico quotes an unnamed Obama confidant on President Eye-candy's post-debate demeanor. Having that famous first-rate temperament, he was just the right level of angry:

Nobody had to tell President Barack Obama he had whiffed when he walked off the stage in Denver Wednesday night — nor was he in the mood for a lot of advice.

“You could tell he was pissed,” said a person close to the president, “But it wasn’t like the end of the world. It was like, ‘That wasn’t good. The next one has to better.’ No apologies. No hand-wringing.”

That night, after a brief, terse chat with his advisers backstage at the University of Denver arena — “He had real clarity about what had happened,” one of them told POLITICO with a chuckle — Obama hopped in his limo, “The Beast,” and sped off to a nearby DoubleTree with wife Michelle.

He had had enough of politics for the night.

Like he does almost every time something goes wrong, Obama eschewed the mea culpas — he’s not big on apologies in front of his staff — and shut down to think things over with the adviser whose company he values most in times of trouble: himself.

LOL. And he's getting an inkling, perhaps (no, not really), of the way much of America has come to view his presidency:

At first, Obama didn’t think his performance was a complete disaster.

But he began Thursday morning by watching excerpts of his own performance and was especially struck by his own tentative, grim demeanor — especially when he and a more relaxed Mitt Romney were broadcast in split-screen. It was worse than he thought, according to one person close to the situation. He was subdued but positive on a conference call with staff.

We are assured that he didn't scream or break things, which makes me suspect his reaction was a trifle uglier than this leaked account.

The Politico account goes on to celebrate the "new narrative" of the Obama campaign, the subject of which is now reportedly "buoyant" after undergoing a "whipsaw transformation." Blah blah blah.

The polls are beginning to come in. A "whipsaw transformation" may indeed be underway, but not for Empty Chair, or at least not in a good way.

So the listless sourpuss who thought it would be enough to show up is a universally acknowledged failure. What strategy will he try in the next debate? Bigger, better lies and ramped-up nastiness are fine for campaign rallies but likely to backfire in a debate with a sharp, non-nasty opponent. "Buoyancy" and feigned hope that things will miraculously improve by trudging FORWARD down the same grim path can't appeal to anyone but true believers and those, er, let's call them low-information voters (who often lack the wherewithal to get themselves to the polls and figure out how to cast a vote).

Any other suggested approaches for a lousy speaker with a four-year record of failure who prefers not to study much?