In the first of the three presidential debates, there has been wide consensus that Mitt Romney knocked it out of the park. He was energetic, appropriately aggressive, and showed a strong command of the facts.
President Obama on the other hand seemed far too relaxed, lacking in passion, but most importantly looked like he didn’t want to be there. One of the biggest differences I noticed between Romney’s and Obama’s performances was that Romney was standing up straight, whereas Obama was leaning against his podium, one leg propped up against the other. It didn’t look nearly as professional as Romney’s posture did. Adding to that, he looked tired and, if possible, older than Romney, who in reality is fourteen years older. This was the first debate Obama has had as an incumbent. This is also the first time he’s had to defend a governing record, and I think that in itself tripped him up. He’s used to talking about why he’d like to do things in the future, not why he didn’t do things in the past.
This was new territory for him, and he didn’t navigate it very well. Obama also missed a couple of opportunities to go on the offensive later in the debate, notably neglecting to bring up Romney’s controversial “47 percent” comments, which would likely have been an easy score for Obama.
Romney on the other hand was obviously excited to be there and excited to answer the questions as well. Very few would have expected for the Republican nominee to ask the moderator to go back to talking about entitlements to allow him more time to discuss the Republican position, which has historically been unpopular. And yet Romney seemed to revel in it.
He was clearly having fun touching the proverbial third rail of politics.
Romney also did a great job of showing people that he wasn’t the right wing ideologue that the Democrats would like to paint him as being. Its hard to imagine a radically Conservative nominee saying that regulation is necessary in a functioning free market, or saying that he thinks parts of the Dodd-Frank Act are a good idea.
Romney’s focus on his record as governor of Massachusetts was a strong point as well. Again, its hard to portray Romney as an ideologue when he had to get things done in Massachusetts only through compromising with the 87 percent Democratic makeup of his legislature.
His insistence that he wouldn’t lower taxes on upper income Americans also seemed to catch Obama off guard. This made Obama’s entire strategy of portraying Romney as someone too rich to connect with middle class Americans totally obsolete. It threw Obama off of his game for the rest of the debate.
Some people did point out that Romney stayed vague on a lot of issues, but he had a great explanation for this. By providing broad guidelines on policy, he leaves himself open for negotiation with Congress on these issues, and he would not were he to provide in depth details before the election.
This showed on tax policy too. Romney was forceful in defending his point, and very clearly enjoying himself. Warned by moderator Jim Lehrer that they had gone well over the allotted time on tax policy, Romney responded, “Its fun, isn’t it?” He reveled in policy discussion, elevating the campaign to precisely the point where it was predicted to be after Paul Ryan was selected as the vice presidential nominee.
Romney did have a couple trouble spots. At one point he stumbled over how to refer to poor children, but by and large he did an excellent job. If he can keep this level of performance up through the next two debates, he’ll be on track to an impressive turn around in the polls.
Keene is a junior majoring in political science economics and public policy.
