The first presidential debate between Romney and Obama
Article added on October 4, 2012 at 12:43 Italian time
  
In the first presidential debate in Denver on October 2, 2012 between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS's NewsHour, the Republican contender showed his attacking and presidential side as well as empathy for people and cruised to a victory by points over the Messiah himself.

The 90-minute showdown, despite some false claims by both sides, remained civilized and began with one of the toughest subjects for the sitting president, job creation, an issue that may well decide the election on November 6.

Obama claimed the creation of 5 million new private sector jobs over the past 30 months. He said that the auto industry came roaring back, subtly implying of course that his government's intervention had saved it from collapse. He stated that “housing has begun to rise”, Finally, he admitted that there was still a lot of work to do.

Obama characterized Romney's plan as follows: cut taxes for the wealthy and roll back regulations. He contrasted this scenario with his plan, which emphasizes to invest in education and training, to develop new sources of energy and to modify the tax code to help small businesses and companies ready to invest in the United States.

With the United States unemployment rate still over 8%, basically where he inherited it almost four years ago, Obama had a tough stand. His lack of economic understanding shone through in the tax code modification proposal for companies investing in the U.S., since investing abroad may help secure jobs in the U.S. too, it is not a zero-sum-game.

Obama continued with his statement saying that to wind down two war will create saving which can be used to rebuild America. His last point was to reduce the deficit in a balanced way to make the investments needed. He wanted his fellow citizens to embrace a new economic patriotism instead of a return to old policies which created the present mess in his eyes.

Throughout his remarks, President Obama did not look very self-assure. This was not only due to the fact that this was his first presidential debate intervention. It rather reflected the fact that both his economic understanding and his economic record are weak.

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Mitt Romney started his intervention with a reference to desperate people looking for jobs who approached him on his campaign trail, trying to show his empathy for the unemployed. He disputed that his plan just implied to cut taxes for the rich. Instead, he referred to his five-points plan: 1) Get as energy independent, which would create about 4 million jobs. 2) Open up more trade, particularly in Latin America, crack down on China if and when they cheat. 3) Make sure our people have the skills to succeed and the best schools in the world. 4) Get as to a balanced budget. 5) Champion small business. It's small business that creates the jobs in America. Romney said that over the past four years small business people had decided that America may not be the place to open a new business because new business startups are down to a 30-year low now. I know what it takes to get small business growing again, to hire again.

Romney accused Obama of having a plan very similar to the one he had four years ago: bigger government, spending more, taxing more, regulating more, trickle down government if you want; “trickle down”: a phrase normally used by the Democrats against the Republicans.

Later during the debate, Romney rightly accused Obama of having squandered his first two years in office with Obamacare (health care reform). He also said that Obama had come to power with the promise to cut the deficit in half, but instead it had doubled; in fact, Obama surely has not cut the deficit, but he has not doubled it either. Rather, he has “just” run trillion dollar deficits in all of his four years in office.

The contender had a few good punch lines such as: “Mr. President, you're entitled, as president, to your own airplane and to your own house, but not to your own facts, all right?”

Obama himself attacked Romney for his lack on specifics and rhetorically asked whether Romney's Obamacare repeal plans remained “secret because they're too good? Is it because that somehow middle-class families are going to benefit too much from them? No.” In defense of Mitt Romney, he had to compromise in Massachusetts Romney mentioned this correctly as a “bipartisan plan”, unlike Obamacare. He had also come up with specific ideas of how to make it better on the national level, but it is difficult to present in a few minutes in a debate.

The president abstained from attacking the Republican on Bain Capital, which was probably a wise decision.

In an instant CNN poll, tow-thirds of respondents said they saw Romney as the first presidential debate winner. I agree. The question is whether it was good enough to make enough Independents shift towards the contender and make even some Democrats change their mind.

President Obama has disappointed on so many fronts. He is no longer the Messiah. But the TV attacks by the Obama camp have managed to taint Romney as an evil creature. Will this effect last until election day?

During the first presidential debate, the Republican contender presented himself as a man with a bipartisan approach. Some may recall that Obama had presented himself as a bipartisan candidate four years ago, just to ran to the left after election day with the Democratic Congress in his back. Will the voters finally realize that a social democratic approach is not what the United States need? Will they come to the conclusion that a president with no understanding of the economy is not what the United States need in the current economic and financial crisis of global magnitude?