Was the media:

Last night the GOP contender showed up to kick butt and chew bubblegum, but unfortunately for Barack Obama, Romney was all out of bubblegum. The real loser, though, was a corrupt mainstream media that had just spent months desperately crafting a Mitt Romney that doesn’t exist — a Mitt Romney voters would not find acceptable as president.

We’ve all seen what’s happened month after month after month after month: Obama’s Media Palace Guards have assured us that Romney can do nothing right and Obama can do nothing wrong. This carefully crafted media game-plan (coordinated openly with the Obama campaign) was meant to strip Romney of the single quality voters demand in a president, and that’s competence. If you’re not competent you’re not an acceptable alternative, which means we’re going to vote for “the devil we know.”

But last night all of this blew up in the media’s face, and this morning the American people trust the media even less than they did the night before — and for one very simple reason: they were lied to … again. Where was the bumbling, elitist, out of touch, awkward, wife-killing, gay-hating, corporate vulture who tortures dogs and stumbles through Europe like Chevy Chase in a “Vacation” sequel?

Well, he didn’t show up last night because that’s not who Mitt Romney is. That Mitt Romney is a media creation manufactured out of lies and desperation by those who spend 24 hours a day crafting trip wires, fabricating gaffes, and standing before the elephant of Barack Obama’s failures and asking, “What elephant?”

As I wrote earlier, a lot of votes for Mitt Romney will also be very angry votes against Obama’s supporters with bylines.