Last night, the real President Obama showed up. In doing so, he handily won the second of the three presidential debates and likely stopped the momentum Mitt Romney had achieved from the first one.
Always ahead on substance—even in the first debate—Obama clearly outperformed Romney on style as well. To continue our boxing metaphor from the last post, all the major blows of the night were delivered by the president. These included a solid shot to the chin in the debate’s closing moments, hitting hard at Romney’s disdain for 47% of Americans.
That last shot, in fact, typified Romney’s miscues throughout the night. In his closing remarks, Romney had said he was for “100% of all Americans”. Up until that point, no one had discussed what percentage of the country he cared about. It was a perfect opening, and Obama took it: Bam!
There were several other Romney slipups as well. His phrase “binders full of women” became an instant Internet meme because it nicely encapsulates his patronizing, out-of-touch attitude on women’s issues and rights. His repeated insistence that Obama had not called the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi a “terrorist attack” until two weeks after the fact had to be forcefully refuted by the moderator, Candy Crowley. “Say it louder, Candy,” the president smilingly urged. Finally, when Romney suggested that Obama look at his own pension, the president replied “I don’t look at my pension. It’s not as big as yours….”
Last night was all Obama, all the time. If he repeats this performance next Monday in the final debate, he can put Romney down for the count.
