"I am who I am," Romney said in the run-up to Thursday night's speech, a way to lower expectations that weren't that high to begin with.
Ms. Bricq appeared to be seeking to lower expectations that were raised last month by European and United States officials, including President Obama, who endorsed a trade deal in his State of the Union address, and Ron Kirk, the United States trade representative, who said an agreement was possible before the end of 2014.
The fourth lesson is to lower expectations that the son's war will end as quickly as the father's.
Mr. Birmingham and Ms. O'Brien have both played down their status as favorites in an effort to lower expectations that they would win the party endorsement in one of the later rounds.
Obama, in his final rallies, was already tempering his early promise of change with warnings about how he would have to curb some of his more ambitious plans, trying to lower expectations that he would be able to move quickly on health care and education reform.
In his final rallies, Obama was already tempering his early promise of change with warnings about how he would have to curb some of his more ambitious plans, trying to lower expectations that he would be able to move quickly on healthcare and education reform.
Rarely is the very first public run-through of a new musical perfect, and indeed, the creators of this "Spider-Man" — the most expensive and technically ambitious production ever on Broadway — used news media interviews recently to lower expectations that work on the musical was anywhere near done.
And we constantly tell them, explicitly and implicitly through lower grades and lower expectations, that they aren't smart enough or hardworking enough.
US officials are trying to lower expectations that Mr Obama will seek to make significant headway on restarting the Israel-Palestinian peace process.
