SpicyTricks

Written by Maddie Norwood

President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney had their first debate on Wednesday, October 3rd. It took place at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado. Pundits and the media have mostly declared Romney the winner of the debate, but he and Obama both had a weak debate performance.  When Romney was speaking, Obama tended to look down at the podium. He appeared distracted or tired, and he missed many opportunities to attack Romney’s policies, choosing to spend the time defending himself against Romney’s attacks. Romney came across as disrespectful  and rude towards the moderator, Jim Lehrer, and he insulted PBS when he made the now infamous Big Bird comment.

Although both Obama and Romney could have been stronger in the debate, the media is correct when it declared Romney the clear winner. Romney, unlike Obama, took every opportunity to attack his opponent. Although Politifact has reported that Romney lied multiple times, he won the debate because he acted confident and was more aggressive. Some of the lies Romney said during the debate were, according to Politifact, that Obama has doubled the deficit, that the Congressional Budget Office “says up to 20 million people will lose their insurance as Obamacare goes into effect next year,” and that citizens who have pre-existing conditions will be covered under his health care plan.

Romney’s other issue was that he ignored and interrupted Lehrer. When he mentioned his plan to cut funding to PBS, he stated that, “I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too.” This was an unnecessary statement, and the “I actually like you” was especially unnecessary.

Many Democrats were asking after the debate, in the words of Chris Matthews, “Where was Obama tonight?” He may have physically been on the stage, but he mentally seemed to be somewhere else. His main problem, and the problem that made him the loser of the debate, wasn’t that he lied a lot or was aggressive. He was lethargic and appeared to be half asleep. The debate took place on his anniversary with Michelle Obama, so he may have been annoyed that he wasn’t spending the day with her, but he still should have acted like he cared about winning the election. The governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, called Obama’s disconnect with his surroundings “dignified reserve.” Al Gore blamed it on not having time to adjust to Denver’s altitude. Both of these excuses are almost certainly false. The fact is that Obama just had a poor debate. Whatever the reason was, he needs to come to the next debate with a completely different attitude if he wants to regain his lead in this election.