I’ve had a good night’s sleep since watching Barack Obama and Mitt Romney engage in Round One of their debate series and I’ll acknowledge that my initial off-the-cuff response to what I saw last night doesn’t comport with what most “experts” are saying about it.
I called the event essentially a draw immediately after it ended. The pundit class says Romney won the first round.
Maybe he scored more points. He was more aggressive. The president seemed a bit out of sorts. Obama didn’t bring his “A game” to the event.
But a larger question looms: Does a single debate determine who should be elected commander in chief of the greatest military apparatus in the world, or who should fix the economy or guide the nation through troubled waters? I hope not.
The next two presidential debates and the VP debate set for next week will help clarify many things for us. Only after hearing the combatants talk about the whole range of issues should we make up our minds.
And for those who now believe that they witnessed a “game changer” last night, I only would refer them to the 1984 debate series between President Reagan and Walter Mondale. Reagan was simply awful in that first debate, stumbling through answers. In the second debate, one the journalists on the panel questioned whether the president, who was 73 at the time, was too old for the job. “I am not going to make age an issue in this campaign,” the president said. “I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
Reagan brought the house down … and won re-election in a 49-state landslide.