Debate #1: Romney buries President Empty Chair McTeleprompter

Last night, my friends, was a classic butt-kicking.

Mitt Romney just dominated the debate in Denver. He appeared every bit competent and presidential. He was assertive but respectful to the President. He looked him in the eye both when he was speaking and when Obama was speaking to him. To the low-information voters out there who have just started to pay attention and tuned in to see if this Romney fellow has what it takes to be President, Mitt delivered. Big time.

Obama, on the other hand, was his usual bumbling stumbling self without his teleprompter. He often strayed all over the place getting in his varied memorized talking points. He was on the defensive most of the night and frequently reverted to the old excuse of blaming his predecessor.

He could rarely bring himself to look Romney in the eye. My mother-in-law texted me, "Why is Obama looking down so much?". Indeed, the President appeared to be very much wishing he was somewhere else.

Even his usual cheerleaders conceded that he got stomped. Check out the glorious meltdown by Chris Matthews who exclaimed, "What was Romney doing? He was WINNING!"



The Hill described it this way:

Mitt Romney dominated the critical first presidential debate Wednesday night, landing punch after punch on a noticeably subdued President Obama.

The GOP nominee came into the evening needing to shake up the narrative of the race, and he appeared to succeed.

One key policy related item that really struck me was during the subject of corporate tax rates. President Obama actually agreed with Romney that our rates, the highest in the world, are too high. He said he favored lowering the corporate rate, especially on manufacturers.

When it comes to our tax code, Governor Romney and I both agree that our corporate tax rate is too high, so I want to lower it, particularly for manufacturing, taking it down to 25 percent.

Does he seriously think that we believe him?

He has been in office for four years. For the first two years, his party had control of Congress. When exactly, did the president ever propose lowering corporate tax rates to help American manufacturers? He could have done it easily, and most Republicans would have voted with him!

No, his answer wasn't to encourage growth by lowering taxes on manufacturers, it was a massive spending package called the stimulus, which was a complete failure. Then, he proceeded to spend month after month pursuing a cap and trade bill, followed by Obamacare (which raises taxes on American manufacturers).

Obama will propose anything that sounds good, but we need to remember that he had his chance to make such proposals. Do we really think that he is serious about lowering taxes on the manufacturing sector when he could have easily done so in a bipartisan fashion at any time?

I hope that we see such a point brought up in a Romney ad, or even at the next debate. Obama needs to be held accountable for purporting to support such ideas when he has failed to implement them while he had the chance.

Update: Heh. The RNC put out this video highlighted how Obama kept looking down and smirking to avoid making eye contact with Romney.



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