Clearly the president had a much better night than he did during the first debate, and he also had a much better night than did Mitt Romney. But more, and more importantly, the debate was just plain good. It was wide-ranging, featured legitimate differences in opinion, and not a lot of lying on either side (there was, of course, some). George Will, who has seen every presidential debate ever televised (so basically all of them in history, since such debates did not happen prior to 1960, not even on radio) opined that this was the best of all of them.
The first debate had no breadth. The issues were the Middle East, the Middle East, taxes, the Middle East, taxes, health care, and deficits. One of the debaters was disengaged, the moderator asked silly questions and even sillier follow-ups. China and Europe did not come up at all, nor did sequestration (half of the so-called fiscal cliff) to any real degree.
Tonight we talked about employment, energy, guns, education, contraception, health care, taxes, equal pay, immigration, Libya, China, and manufacturing. The moderator didn't have to goad the debaters to state their differences---they did so willingly and often.
Since everyone seems to be going with boxing analogies (probably my favorite sport that happens outside the olympics), I may as well do the same. Obama's corner had a better strategy, but as a fighter he was also just more nimble.
His answer regarding gas prices was stinging, but only because Romney left an opening. Romney framed the discussion as if $1.80 gas was a good thing, when in fact the collapse of the oil market was precipitated by a huge catastrophic loss of aggregate demand. The president argued, both persuasively and correctly, that the gas price surge is concomitant with a recovering economy (indeed, gas was $4 before the crash), but also put in a good jab linking Romney to the same Bush policies that arguably caused that crash. If you're going to take a cheap shot, make sure you don't leave yourself open to such an obvious counterpunch.
Shortly after that, though, is where things started to really look bad for Romney. Obama has a weak spot, but somehow in going for it, Romney ended up on the mat. The president is vulnerable on the death of our ambassador in Benghazi, as his press secretary and other surrogates went around for weeks saying inaccurately that the attack was part of the protests about a Youtube video. It ought to have been perfectly obvious to Romney's coaches how to approach this issue: solemnly and with gravity, questioning competence but not intentions.
Instead, stupidly, he said the president was partying in Vegas while the ambassador's wife wept. But the president took responsibility right off (counteracting the baffling news from the day that Hilary Clinton was saying she was to blame), added that it was he who was at the airport when the coffins came in, and that he had called the attacks terrorism right off the bat. Romney then decided not to back off, but to swing wildly: staring at the president, he said he had done no such thing. Candy Crowley, who was quite familiar with the Rose Garden address that day, knew Obama had said "these acts of terror", and corrected Romney. That, plus the president taking legitimate umbrage at the "offensive" implication that the administration was playing politics, was enough to put Romney off his feet. It wasn't a knockout, but I'd say at least a 3 count.
Romney seemed ill at ease with the question regarding immigration. Given that his campaign seemed to be going for moderation, I thought that in that answer he would retract the abominable suggestions that we should starve immigrants until they leave (he calls it "self-deportation"), but he didn't. He gave a boilerplate Republican response. He didn't lose points, but he didn't gain them either.
Obama kept Romney from scoring several times. The president explained clearly and concisely why drilling leases on public land were down (because the oil companies weren't using them) and even recalled how Romney himself said that coal plants are dangerous (they are!). He also swatted down Romney's attempt to say that the rich will be taxed the same under his plan, which is bullshit.
Finally, the 47% came up. I'm a little disappointed that Romney didn't have a chance to respond. But the president highlighted how really horrible it was by several sympathetic examples of this demographic, and it was a good shot.
The president is still not effective at countering the claim that 0 net jobs have been gained in his administration (due to his coming in while job losses were humongous). You'd think he could do that by now. He also failed to mentioned the Tax Policy Center's grading of Romney's aforementioned bullshit plan.
Lies I noticed:
- Romney did not endorse the Arizona "papers, please" law.
- Obama did not have a supermajority in congress for very long (it's complicated)
- Romney's claim of supporting Detroit's bankruptcy "which is what happened" is just not true. The government put $80B of TARP money into the companies to keep them liquid during Chapter 11, far different than Romney's plan.
That's not very many! Romney didn't repeat the lie that Obama is raiding Medicare, nor his lie about welfare-to-work being gutted, and no lies that his plan will cover pre-existing conditions. Obama didn't double-count savings for Medicare fee-for-service.