Mitt Romney dominated the critical first presidential debate Wednesday night, landing punch after punch on a noticeably subdued President Obama.
The GOP nominee came into the evening needing to shake up the narrative of the race, and he appeared to succeed.
Throughout the 90-minute debate in Denver, the first showdown of the presidential contest, Romney aggressively questioned the president’s record while defending his own economic priorities. Meanwhile, as Obama offered a safe defense of his record and policies, Romney often interrupted and seemed eager to engage.
He spent the evening on the offensive and came off well-prepared for his encounter with Obama, who seemed hesitant and forced.
And while Romney hit his marks, Obama missed opportunities when he failed to mention two of his campaign’s most effective attacks against Romney — the GOP nominee’s tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital and the comments about the “47 percent” captured on video at a private fundraiser.
The president, wearing a clenched smile for much of the night, looked to depict Romney as deceiving people with his economic plans, arguing the GOP tax plan would shift the burden to the middle class.
“How we pay for that, reduce the deficit, and make the investments that we need to make, without dumping those costs onto middle-class Americans, I think is one of the central questions of this campaign,” Obama said.
But despite polls regularly showing that voters see the president as more empathetic and concerned with the problems facing American families, it was Romney who spoke empathetically of the effect of the still-lagging economy on individuals struggling to find work.
There was also a notable contrast in style: Obama spent much of the debate looking directly into the camera, a strategy planned by his campaign to speak directly to the American people, while Romney addressed the president head-on.
Conservatives were exuberant following the debate, saying Romney had successfully captured the moment, while several Democrats and even some of the president’s staunchest supporters were disappointed in Obama’s performance.
“He was rolled,” one former administration official said.
Obama’s top strategist, David Axelrod, said, “There’s no doubt he has a hungry challenger.”
“Gov. Romney’s always been good on the attack,” Axelrod told NBC News, conceding he would award Romney “style points.”
Liberal MSNBC anchor Ed Schultz, along with a panel of other left-leaning pundits appearing on the network, said the president was disappointing.
And former adviser to President Clinton, James Carville, speaking on CNN, said that he had “one overwhelming impression … It looked like Romney wanted to be there and President Obama didn’t want to be there. … It gave you the impression that this whole thing was a lot of trouble.” He added that “Romney had a good night.”
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One Response
People keep asking why the President didn’t bring up the 47% quote from Romney and I believe he didn’t because he knows that it was taken completely out of context as Romney only said he can’t worry about their “vote” not that he didn’t care about their struggles. I think he was scared that Romney, as he did all night, would have the opportunity to explain that to 50 million viewers and to Obama’s thinking it was better left unsaid.