Obama stumbled through his opening statement as Romney
secured his position in the presidential spotlight. Instant post-debate polls from
CNN and CBS pointed to Romney as the winner.
DailyBeast columnist Andrew Sullivan characterized
the President’s debate performance bluntly saying it was “disgracefully bad,” lazy,
dumb, meandering, confused and also that no president has ever “blathered on
like that.” Sullivan went on to note that Romney didn’t just win, but he
knocked Obama out.
Sullivan and the pollsters must have been watching another
debate or maybe they just turned off the TV after the first ten minutes because
the President won that debate on the merits of his opponent’s weak argument.
The debate focused on domestic policy and for 90 minutes,
from the Magness Arena at University of Colorado, the American public listened
to wonky policy talk on spending, entitlement programs, health care, taxes, and
shrinking the deficit.
Obama won the coin toss and delivered his opening statement
first. He tripped over a few sentences and was unable to deliver his thoughts
clearly and concisely. Romney took the upper hand without making a peep.
Romney’s tone was aggressive throughout the debate most
notably when he talked over the moderator PBS’ Jim Lehrer on multiple occasions
and even threatened to cut PBS subsidies if and when elected. On the fourth
interruption Lehrer shot down the governor flat out.
Meanwhile, Obama apologized twice to Lehrer, once for
running over time while answering a question and the second for speaking on a
topic which was reserved for later in the debate. Also, Obama kept looking down
to write notes, which didn’t really exemplify the commander-in-chief persona.
However, Romney took an equally if not more awkward approach
at times. When debating, Romney takes a particular stance where he squares his body
directly in line with his opponent. While doing this and holding eye contact
with the President, Romney referred to Obama twice in the third person (not exactly normal).
Overall, Romney surpassed expectations with his on-stage gravitas
but fell far short of selling an inspirational message to win over independent
or democratic voters. Although he’s considered a middle of the road Republican,
Romney double downed on at least two politically extremist thoughts: 1) he
absolutely refuses to balance any spending cuts with tax increases, even by a
10:1 ratio; and 2) his plan to privatize Medicare.
Romney wants to repeal and replace two of Obama’s signature
laws, the Affordable Care Act and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
According to Romney, the first is too powerful and the second is not powerful
enough. Is this the republican candidate for President of the United States or
Goldilocks?
Obama attacked Romney’s policies for being antithetical to
“math, common sense, and our history.” Romney’s answer was simply to deny all
the allegations waged against him claiming that Obama was misrepresenting his
plan.
So here it is, Mitt’s plan in a nutshell: Forget about
raising taxes for the richest 3%. Instead, create incentives for businesses to
hire, allowing more people to get jobs, and therefore more taxes get paid. The
incentives will be financed through cutting spending programs like NPR (saves
$71m annually) and closing loopholes (but don’t ask which loopholes because
that’s a secret).
President Obama’s lackluster performance in the first debate
may have knocked him off his hopey-changey
pedestal but let’s not pretend that that makes Mitt Romney something he’s not
and that’s electable.
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