A FEW days ago, Lexington attended a breakfast in Washington for foreign ambassadors, business types and politicians, at which Charlie Cook, the veteran political sage and forecaster, was asked about the third and final presidential debate, on foreign policy. His cheerful advice to the ambassadors: just don’t watch—the debate on October 22nd will bear no resemblance to the next four years of American foreign policy. Mr Cook’s warning of a foreign-policy fudge was sound. The debate from Boca Raton, Florida, shed little light on how Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would differ in handling Iran’s nuclear programme, Syria's civil war, extremism in the Arab world, or the rise of China. To a remarkable degree, Mr Romney tacked to the moderate centre, seeking above all to distance himself from the record of George W. Bush and the sweeping ambitions of the neoconservative right. The Republican nominee stressed his desire for peace, played down the chances that America would launch fresh military campaigns on his watch and endorsed Mr Obama’s hopes for a negotiated end to such crises as the Iranian nuclear conundrum. Speaking of the threat from Islamic extremism, he agreed with the administration’s approach of targeted drone strikes, but added that America should not forget the tools of soft power. “We can’t kill our way out of this mess,” Mr Romney said. In a big turnaround, Mr Romney abandoned his pledge to review Mr Obama’s plan to pull all American combat troops out of Afghanistan in 2014. The candidate also unceremoniously dropped any suggestion that the administration covered up the role of al-Qaeda-linked militants in the killing of America’s ambassador to Libya, or contributed to the envoy’s death by stinting on diplomatic security. He only offered fleeting references to the tragedy, as he repeatedly suggested that the world was in a state of “tumult”, showing that Mr Obama’s foreign policy was unravelling. It took him fully 45 minutes to revisit a favourite charge from the campaign trail, that Mr Obama had emboldened America’s enemies, such as Iran, by projecting an image of an apologetic, weak America abroad.

That caution made it harder for Mr Romney to lose the debate by offending viewers—and he duly avoided any gaffes. Yet by hugging the president tight Mr Romney also gave up any hope of a decisive win. His objective was instead to appeal to wavering voters disappointed with the president, and to make Mr Obama’s foreign policy seem like one more broken promise. (In an opening sally about the Arab spring, Mr Romney even talked of “hope” and “change” being undermined in the region, in what sounded like a subliminal reminder of Mr Obama’s domestic pitch of four years earlier.)

As for Mr Obama, he could justifiably claim to have won the debate. With millions of Americans choosing to watch baseball or football rather than a discussion of foreign policy, the night belonged to zingers and scripted soundbites, and the president had the best of that contest. He was also able to use the dignity of his office to useful effect, repeatedly talking of lessons he had learned as commander-in-chief.

Many Americans will only see one extract from the debate, an exchange about military spending. Mr Romney has a (frankly nonsensical) plan to set American defence spending at the arbitrary level of 4% of national wealth, whether military commanders have asked for that funding or not. Seeking to paint Mr Obama as undermining the military with spending cuts, the Republican said that the present navy was the smallest since 1917, with just 285 ships. Mr Obama pounced, responding, "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets because the nature of our military’s changed... The question is not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities."

Yet if the debate was short on foreign-policy revelations, there were good reasons to tune in and watch. Above all, the event offered a snapshot of the voter blocks being targeted by the two candidates a fortnight ahead of election day.

Judging by Mr Romney’s answers, he is confident that his conservative base is fired up and ready to vote, and so can afford to tack smartly to the centre in search of rustbelt voters worried about jobs lost to China. Many of his answers sounded tailored to a block of undecided voters long ago identified by Romney aides as a key target: middle-aged women worried about schools and jobs for their children.

Mr Obama likely fired up his core supporters with aggressive swipes at Mr Romney's flip-floppery. But he was also clearly worried about rustbelt voters, especially those in car-making states, to judge by his detailed references to the administration's bail-out of Detroit. When it came to women voters, Mr Obama’s attempts to show empathy and cast foreign policy in terms of human interest, often with a female slant, were even more pronounced. Small wonder, when recent polls have shown the president’s once imposing lead among women shrinking to single digits.

At times, both men headed a farcical distance away from foreign policy, as they sought to appeal to war-weary, inward-looking voters. Thus, although they found no time to discuss climate change, the next generation of Chinese leaders, the euro-zone crisis, Africa or—in any detail—the future of Iraq, North Korea or Russia, they did tangle over optimal class sizes in American schools, tax rates and the job creation record of small businesses in Massachusetts when Mr Romney was governor.

Mr Obama’s camp will be hoping that their man’s victory in the final debate will have gone some way to rebuilding his lead among women voters, and shoring up his wafer-thin advantage in such key swing states as Ohio. The president did not hurt his cause overall, though there were moments when his aggression may have struck some viewers as too sharp and too nakedly political.

Mr Romney, though sounding more tired and waffly than in either of the previous debates, did not fall into any huge holes, and continued his efforts to appear a reasonable, moderate figure. If his main objective was to pass the threshold test of being a potential commander-in-chief, he probably succeeded, even if some of his pronouncements did not bear intense scrutiny. The Republican has never sold himself as a foreign-policy expert. For him, this final debate was about projecting adult leadership.

There will be no more face-to-face meetings now for Mr Obama and Mr Romney. Both men are off on gruelling cross-country tours that will last until election day on November 6th. After the race-altering shock of a disastrous first debate for the president, back on October 3rd, this third debate left the contest where it has been for some days: absolutely deadlocked.

(Photo credit: AFP)