Mitt Romney battled back in his uphill
drive to oust President Barack Obama
on Wednesday with an aggressive
debate performance that put his
campaign on a more positive footing
after weeks of stumbles and knocked
Obama off-stride.
In the first of three presidential debates this
month, Romney went beyond expectations as
the two candidates stood side-by-side for the
first time after months of campaigning
against each other from long distance.
Looking to claw his way back into a race that
has seen Obama hold an edge among voters,
Romney was on the offensive throughout the
90-minute encounter with Obama. While the
president landed some punches on Romney’s
tax plan, he did not appear as prepared as
his rival and missed several opportunities to
attack.
With under five weeks to go until the
November 6 election, it was uncertain
whether Romney had managed to change
the trajectory of a race that has favoured
Obama. It is difficult to dislodge an
incumbent from the White House. In recent
weeks, Romney has lurched from stumble to
stumble and been unable to project a
consistent message.
“How does it translate into the horse race?
That’s unclear,” said Steven Schier, a political
science professor at Carleton College in
Minnesota. “Romney should have some
momentum. The question is whether he can
maintain it.”
But there was no question that Romney’s
campaign felt it was now in a better position.
In the “spin room” afterward, Romney
advisers hung around for 90 minutes talking
to reporters, long after the Obama side had
decamped.
A CNN/ORC snap poll said 67 percent of
registered voters surveyed thought Romney
won the debate at the University of Denver,
compared with 25 percent for Obama.
Romney and Obama clashed repeatedly over
taxes, healthcare and the role of government
in ways that reflected the deep ideological
divide in Washington and that has
contributed to political gridlock.
Romney zeroed in on weak economic growth
and 8.1 percent unemployment that have
left Obama vulnerable in his effort to win a
second four-year term. Government has
taken on too big a role under Obama,
dampening job creation, Romney argued.
“What we’re seeing right now, in my view,
(is) a trickle-down government approach,
which has government thinking it can do a
better job than free people pursuing their
dreams. And it’s not working. And the proof
of that is 23 million people out of work,”
Romney said.
Fact checkers took issue with some of
assertions by the former Massachusetts
governor, like the number of people
unemployed, but he appeared more poised
and better prepared than his opponent.
Obama argued that under his leadership, the
economy had been brought back from the
brink, with 5 million jobs created in the
private sector, a resurgent auto industry and
housing beginning to rise.
“You know, four years ago, we were going
through a major crisis. And yet my faith and
confidence in the American future is
undiminished,” Obama said.
NO MENTION OF THE ’47 PERCENT’
Mysteriously, Obama failed to mention issues
his campaign has used in attack ads to
damage Romney such as the Republican’s
now infamous “47 percent” video, job cuts he
made while at Bain Capital private equity
firm, his tax returns and previous hard line on
immigration.
The debate saw no haymaker punches
thrown and not much in the way of
memorable one-line zingers. Instead, it was a
war of attrition as each man used facts and
figures to make his points and stress the
differences between them.
Romney, however, did himself some favours
with crisper answers than Obama, who
sounded professorial and a bit long-winded
despite his staff’s best efforts to get him to
give snappier comments.
Quite often Obama looked downward at his
notes as Romney pounced on the president’s
record. At one point, the Democrat quibbled
with debate moderator Jim Lehrer who tried
to cut him off for going over his allotted time.
“I had five seconds before you interrupted
me,” Obama said to Lehrer with a smile.
Romney’s chances of winning the White
House were up by 8.4 percentage points
after the debate, although he was still only
34.3 percent assured of victory in November,
according to online betting site Intrade.
The incumbent did put Romney on the
defensive about his proposals for overhauling
the U.S. tax system with a 20 percent across-
the-board tax cut. Obama said it would cost
the government $5 trillion and that it would
be impossible to make up this amount by
eliminating tax loopholes as the Republican
talks about.
“The fact is that if you are lowering the rates
the way you described, Governor, then it is
not possible to come up with enough
deductions and loopholes that only affect
high-income individuals to avoid either raising
the deficit or burdening the middle class. It’s
– it’s math. It’s arithmetic,” Obama said.
Romney insisted his tax plan would not cost
$5 trillion, saying, “Virtually everything he
said about my tax plan is inaccurate.”
Obama also reminded Americans that
Romney was proposing more of the same
kind of tax cuts that Obama’s Republican
predecessor, former President George W.
Bush, pushed through Congress in 2001 and
2003. Most Americans are willing to concede
that Obama inherited an economic mess, but
also believe it is his responsibility to bring
back the economy.
“We ended up moving from surpluses to
deficits and it all culminated with the worst
recession since the Great Depression,” said
Obama.
In the face of attacks from Romney that the
Obama healthcare overhaul of 2010 will hurt
small-business hiring, Obama basically said
his healthcare plan was modelled after the
program Romney put in place as governor of
Massachusetts, and it “hasn’t destroyed jobs”
there.
After arguing for months that the Wall Street
regulation legislation known as “Dodd-Frank”
should be repealed, Romney was forced to
concede under pressure from Obama that he
would keep some financial regulations
established under the law.
ROMNEY NEEDED VICTORY MORE
Romney was in need of a victory in the
debate to help him put his campaign back on
a positive footing after a rocky few weeks.
He was damaged by a hidden-camera
videotape in which he said 47 percent of
voters were dependent on government and
unlikely to support him. That was among
several stumbles that have knocked
Romney’s campaign off message.
Obama, holding a slight lead in national polls
and leading Romney in some swing states
where the election will be decided, was
looking in the debate to avoid harming his
position as the apparent front-runner.
But he may have spent too much time trying
to avoid making mistakes and let Romney get
the better of him.
The debate was the best opportunity to date
to reach large numbers of voters in an
unfiltered way, with an estimated television
audience of 60 million possible.
Advisers to both Romney and Obama
predictably said their man emerged
victorious. Obama adviser David Plouffe told
reporters in the spin room that Romney
appeared “testy” at times.
As for Obama’s lengthy comments, his
campaign manager Jim Messina said, “That’s
never going to be our strong suit.”
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said if the
debate had been a prize fight, the referee
would have called it for Romney an hour in.
The debate was the first of three such face-
offs scheduled in the next four weeks. Biden
and Romney’s running mate, U.S.
Representative Paul Ryan, will debate once,
on October 11.
REUTERS
