First off, apology for being Over-Tweetful.
Bottom line: a win for Romney. Romney essentially jettisoned (or denied) everything he’s said viz the economy, the budget, tax policy, etc., and instead promsing puppies and roses and unicorns and lower taxes (but not for the rich!). Which left him free to attack Obama for everything that’s happened in the last six years. Obama seemed to be unprepared for this tactic, which left him essentially on the defensive and disorganized the entire debate.
Romney managed to do this with an open, smiling (if sometimes smarmy) countenance as if everything he was saying was perfectly consistent with everything he’s been running on for the past five years. He won’t cut education! He won’t reduce the tax burden on the rich! He believes in financial industry regulation! He’ll keep all the good things that people like about about Obamacare, but not the bad things.
Meanwhile, he managed to blame Obama for all the effects of the Great Recession, dragged in Death Panels and Medicare Cuts, and gosh wouldn’t it be nice if we let the states (and private industry) magically solve all the problems that the federal government covers (except national defense, because Obama’s out to cut the Defense Department’s budget, rather than it being part of the bi-partisan sequestration agreement in Congress).
In so many ways it was such a shotgun of blatantly bizarro attacks and defense, Obama seemed unable to address it adequately, let alone put a comprehensive attack back.
True Believers on either side won’t be swayed. The question is how the Undecided will take it (or the post-debate pundit response) will react.
And, of course, how the next debate will go.
Romney’s smile seemed to me to be a smirk.
The big moment for me (hearing/seeing only bits and pieces) was when Romney said that the government’s job is to protect people and that we therefore need a strong military. Personally, I don’t feel that foreign armies are what I most need to be protected from, which is about all the military is good for (well, except for attacking countries that don’t threaten me). I’d like to see a big chunk of the defense budget redirected to helping Americans.
@Avo – Romney’s insistence on dragging military spending into a domestic policy debate was irksomely gratuitous, except as a way of drumming up support among people who are afraid that any military cuts (esp. those agreed to bipartisanly in Congress, including by Rep. Ryan) will mean we’ll be overrun by Evil Muslims and the like.
Like you, when I say “the government’s job is to protect people,” my immediate interpretation is not about buying more tanks and jets.
When I heard Romney was practicing zingers, I thought one-line jokes. He practiced zinging lies so fast Obama couldn’t hope to correct them! The telling line for me was “I have five sons, I am accustomed to people repeating things, sometimes of questionable veracity, thinking I’ll be convinced.” The pot calling the kettle black?
@DK – Also known as “Projection”.
I don’t quite understand about the sons. Is he saying, “All five of my children are inveterate liars, and therefore I would be a good President?”
It was kind of an odd line, @Ellie. I see what he was trying to say, but it came off sort of differently.