We’ve finally returned from Bizarro World. The first presidential debate flipped everything we knew on its head: Obama looked ineffectual and weak, like a Democrat from 2004 or 1988. Romney appeared to first-time viewers to be a moderate who was chipper, friendly, and in control. (After a little bit of research, anyone could discover that just about everything Romney said was a lie, but nobody ever accused the American voting public of doing too much research.) President Obama gave a listless, off-key performance that sent Democrats tailspinning into a spiral of depression and self-loathing. The vice presidential debate, which featured Joe Biden man-handling the alleged brains of the Republican Party in a jovial fashion, wasn’t enough to turn Democrats’ spirits around. Everyone was in a funk, convinced that voters were in the thrall of a new, more competent Mitt Romney and a weak-willed President Obama who was helpless to call Romney out on his litany of lies.

All that ended last night.

More after the jump.

This debate’s winners and losers are just as clear as the last debate’s winners and losers, but the results have flipped. President Obama was relaxed, sharp, just aggressive enough, and confident. Mitt Romney was petty, awkward, robotic, and condescending. Romney tried to railroad Candy Crowley the same way he cowed Jim Lehrer during the first debate, but he failed every time, and every time he tried to get his way, he looked a little bit more ineffectual. Twice, Romney came directly to President Obama while stammering questions—once about oil drilling permits, once about pensions—and both times, he seemed to be a third grade bully attacking a high school senior: Small, angry, mindless, weak.

Last night was the return of the Mitt Romney that we’ve seen since the very beginning of his presidential campaign. When he has months to prepare, as he did for the first presidential debate, Romney can momentarily tuck this awkward, stammering, stiff cardboard cutout of a man away for ninety minutes or so. But when he only has two weeks to prepare, he simply can’t get it done. Worse, Romney can’t remember what he’s supposed to be anymore. What we saw was a Mitt Romney who was backfiring and shape-shifting between all the different Mitt Romneys we’ve seen during his long and ignominious public career. He appeared to take two very different stances on immigration simultaneously. On the liberal side, he reversed his stance on making contraception available to women. On the conservative side, he tried to blame gun violence on single mothers.

President Obama, on the other hand, was having an amazing night. He allowed himself to become angry—presidentially angry, not sputtering faux-teabagger angry, as Romney did—when he was accused of playing politics with dead American ambassadors. Twice, he talked about being there when the coffins came home. He demanded that Romney finish his attack, even when Romney appeared to get cold feet about it (“Proceed, governor,” Obama said, and it was then when I think every viewer understood that these two men hate each other on a fundamental level). He attacked Romney for trying to drag America down to Romney’s level, and he berated the Republican with all the disdain you’d expect a Commander-in-Chief to muster when he’s truly disgusted.

Romney didn’t win a single question. He came closest on a question that basically allowed him to modify his stump speech into something resembling an angry tirade, but even then he ran out of gas before he reached the conclusion of his statement. All the way through, he was feckless, slimy, and ultimately meek. He lurked in the background of many of the shots as President Obama spoke, pink-faced and grimacing, choking the neck of his microphone as he scrambled around in the depths of his brain, trying to figure out what he should say next. That expression on his face was the look of a man who knew he was failing. He brought all of his best ideas to Hofstra University, and President Obama left every single one of those ideas broken on the debate hall floor, looking chintzy and cheap in the floodlights.

15 replies on “Mitt Romney Brought Every Mitt Romney He Could to the Debate, and President Obama Destroyed Them All”

  1. I’m disagreeing. Both of them looked silly, and the moderator only somewhat managed to keep the debate in check. She routinely allowed Romney to run long on his non-answers, and when he spluttered for more time, she should’ve just said, “STOP,” like most of us would.

    Obama would have been much better off following up each Romney “answer” by asking the questioner, “Did that actually answer your question?”, but no: he decided that it would be good to lecture, because the undecideds like that so much.

    This too: the “town hall” pretense has got to go. A bunch of Chamber of Commerce assholes barely able to read “their own questions” makes for shit TV, and it still results in both politicians regurgitating their same talking points.

  2. rb: some moons ago I predicted that Romney basically wouldn’t ever answer any questions. He’ll be asked a question, and then he’ll start talking about whatever suits him. Glad to see, from your description, that this is how it’s playing out.

    (note: I only watched like 5 minutes of the debate; and I didn’t read this P Constant post.)

  3. Y’ didn’t miss much. But the problem I see on the horizon is that Romney still gets to look commanding when he’s utterly failing to answer questions, and Obama ends up looking academic when he does -sort of- answer questions.

  4. RB +1, fuck the “town hall” crap. I would love for them to drop any formalities or moderators and just debate each other directly.

    I know it’s already a dead meme (in only 12 hours!) but I actually felt a disturbance in the force when Romney answered the question about pay equity.

    And someone else said it, but all Barry needs to do to win this is do the Gangnam Style dance in the next debate.

  5. Paul Constant is really blossoming into a truly cartoonish characterization of a phony liberal pundit. He’s like the Glen Beck of the left. Even though President Douche and Mr. Turd Sandwich both present the same fundamental economic and foreign policy goals, which are, of course, not their goals but those of the global elite, Constant’s constant commitment to delusion is at least admirable.

    I hope Romney does win, just so we can all be on the same page that open war against Iran is a bad thing under a Romney administration, instead of breathlessly cheerleading world war three under Obama.

    But we have to vote for one of them right?! Lesser of two evils and all. Especially because it’s hard to vote for a third party when they’re hauled away in cuffs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4fTyBfynro

  6. And as expected, the comments on this post are far more interesting and far more intelligent than the post itself. If I want a paraphrased (or even copied-and-pasted) list of DRC talking points I’ll get them from their own email list, thanks. Even as a confirmed liberal this biased crap annoys me.

    Can someone set up a filter to block all Paul Constant posts on Blogtown?

  8. Paul, I say this as someone who has voted Democrat in every presidential election since 1992 and will do so again this year: STFU, you blind, deaf, and parroting sheep. Now that that’s out of the way…

    The one thing Obama accomplished last night was to show he still might actually have a hint of interest in his job and give a shit about being president anymore (a big improvement compared to the first debate). Other than that, the majority of the content and policy talk was largely just repetitive, rhetoric fluff that was mostly blah and uninteresting. (That last sentence goes for both Obama and Romney.) If we’re grading at home, I guess I’d give Obama a B- and Romney a C… a better showing from Obama, but easily forgettable from both of them, and certainly nowhere near the “destroyed” angle Mr. Baaaahhhhh is trying to parrot.

  9. Paul, thank you for cross-posting this to the Mercury… When I lived in Seattle I read the Slog regularly, but just can’t keep up with it now that we’re down in Oregon, and I miss your posts! Thanks for remembering us down here…

  11. please stop bashing P. Constant – you’re going to make stjohnsrules head explode. his processor simply cannot take you librul sheeps agreeing with him on anything.

    does not compute, does not compute, error, error, er…, err, pshhhhh.

  12. You don’t know anything about me, Eric. Nice generalization, though. I’m here to speak the truth and to appeal to the liberals above that are smart enough to see through the bullshit Paul Constant is rubbing all over his keyboard.

    There is hope after all. I don’t hate liberals. What my very sophisticated processor cannot compute is why people like Paul Constant even have a column or why anyone would give any attention to his biased masturbatory dreams of blowing the CIC.

    I grew up in Portland. I grew up with liberals. I grew up during the Bud Clark days. I’m pretty tolerant until people start lying to the public to pimp out their ideology and it is taken as gospel. I’m glad some civil minded liberals have showed up and started calling Paul Constant out over this divisive crap. That honestly rocks and these people deserve credit. All the other useless, divisive trolls can go jump in a big kiddie pool of lubed up buttplugs while on fire.

  13. No one hate Mitt Romney I don’t I do not know him to hate him but he is not ready to be president he need to go to being governor it is a lot safer for this is a scary dude. Many wars will break out under Mitt. This guy do not care about any of you that are the 47% and all of you under 150,000 is part of this group. That let me know that american love someone who only care about himself. This man would sell his Mormon soul for a dollar what do you think he will do to all his supporter. Check Mitt Romney on You tube he has flip flop more than any politician in history he don’t care he just want to win. Obama is a politician and has make mistake like any other president in the pass. But you go ahead vote because of your false hate for Obama stop blaming people for your personal failure. I have three jobs and I am doing well because I make thing happen for myself if I fail I can only blame myself. So vote Mitt Romney your life will still be the same if you do not make for yourself. So you over spend are spend money you do not have yeah blame Obama it works when you blame someone else. We are american remember that we must stand together wake up and live your dream
    May God Bless You

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