I’m sure others will weigh in with posts, but I wanted to list my initial thoughts.
Obama seemed distracted last night, and everyone can feel free to list their reasons why. He missed several openings to hit Romney, but that’s hardly new for Obama. He’s not a debater – go back and watch his debates against Hillary Clinton. The best you can say about Obama is that he did no harm. So was I thrilled with Obama’s style last night? No. He lost on style, but there’s two parts to a debate and the second one is substance. (More on that in a minute) What Obama did do was deny Mitt Romney a debate ad clip. There was no gotcha moment for Mitt to seize upon.
But if Mitt walks away with no ad clips Obama walks away with a ton. Which brings us to substance.
Mitt Romney was prepared – prepared to walk away from almost every policy/statement he’s uttered for the last year. Cue the ads, because they are coming. He still avoided specifics, but the specifics he embraced were quite enlightening. He shook that etch-a-sketch hard. Romney claimed there would be no cuts to education. Really?
Mr. Romney rejected the charge. “I’m not going to cut education funding,” he said. “I don’t have a plan to cut education funding.”
But in the past Mr. Romney has said he would do just that.
In a speech to donors in Florida in the spring overheard by reporters, Mr. Romney said he would either merge the federal Education Department with another agency “or perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller.”
Well that sounds like a plan to cut education, but like mostly all of Romney’s plans it’s missing specifics and is quite a change from what he’s said in the past. Mitt Romney also said: I’m not going to cut education funding, including grants for college. The link above disproves this claim as well. And Romney has also previously said that he would allow banks back into the federal student loan system.
Last night Romney was adamant that his Health Care plan would cover pre-existing conditions. Really?
After the first presidential debate at the University of Denver in Colorado on Wednesday night, one of Mitt Romney’s top advisers acknowledged that, as a result Romney’s plan to repeal Obamacare, people with pre-existing medical conditions would likely be unable to purchase insurance.
There’s a LOT of this “walking things back” in the Romney campaign. The strategy appears to be: Go out in front of the American people and lie, and then we’ll quietly walk back what you said once everyone has turned off their TVs.
As far as lowering the deficit… The only specific program cut I heard was PBS. And given Jim Lehrer’s moderator performance last night I just might be okay with that. Seriously, why did he even bother to show up? The job of a moderator is to make the candidates get specific, not let a debate devolve into “No, you didn’t” “Yes, I did” No, you didn’t” which is what happened. Lehrer was god-awful. He simply didn’t exist, and his performance (or lack of one) was a disservice to the American people who at many times last night were looking for someone to… well, MODERATE. Ugh. Back to cutting PBS, I’m thinking there’s a Big Bird ad being cued up as I type.
And when it comes to Medicare… I’m looking for the video, but I could have sworn Romney agreed with Obama that Romney would voucherize Medicare. Did I mishear that?
Okay, moving forward to today and beyond…
Here’s what’s coming… Pundits/Journalists can only talk/write about style for so long. The 24 hour news cycle will shift to substance – in fact, Chuck Todd just did (9:20 a.m.) citing Romney’s plan to voucherize Medicare and asking his guest how this could hurt him in Florida. So, the conversation is beginning to evolve – which was inevitable.
The next question is: Who will Romney be next? Will he proceed as the “moderate” he portrayed last night, tossing aside almost everything he said during the last year… along with his base? Or will he have to go to that base – who is happy with the debate “win” but will desperately need reassurance that the Mitt Romney of last night was just saying what needed to be said in order to win. How will Romney signal to his base that he didn’t mean most of what he said last night? Or… does he think he can throw them under the bus at this point? I have no idea.
The next few weeks should be interesting.