Maggie's Farm

Romney slaps down Obama assertions throughout the debate. Romney: "Everything he described is inaccurate." Then adds the wham to the slam with specifics and statistics. At the end of part one, about jobs, Obama even says to the moderator:"Jim, you may want to move on to another topic," needing the bell to survive. The rest of the debate, took the same course, across the deficit (Romney: "you've been President four years" and employment is down and the economy, too); energy (Romney says that all the growth in oil and gas production is on private land while government land permits have been halved); entitlements (Romney won't rob Medicare to fund Obamacare); Obamacare (Romney says that private enterprise and individual choices, state by state, is better and more efficient than centralized dictates); regulation (Romney describes how Dodd-Frank created 5 too big to fail banks and failed to define "qualified" loans, so has stifled bank lending; Obama blames Wall Street for economic meltdown, avoiding the Democrat Congressional pressure to have loose lending standards.)

In the last round, Romney continues to pummel with specifics Obama's generalities, and tells Obama that Obama "is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts." Final Lehrer question for fast answer: how to break Congressional gridlock? Romney describes his successful experience working across the aisle and he will continue to do so, not to "compromise principle" but be "collaborative". "We need to have leadership in Washington to get the job done" among Democrats and Republicans. Obama says he has and will take ideas from anyone. (Gag alert!) But, "occasionally you have to say no." (That's all we've actually seen from Obama to Republican proposals.) 

Final spin by each: Obama says he has "faith and confidence" in the American people. He'll continue to do the same as he has done. Romney says "this is about the course of America" which leads in "very different directions", Obama's a continued "middle class squeeze", joblessness, lack of growth, health premiums increase by $2500 per family due to Obamacare, and "devastating" cuts to our military versus growth and security through unleashing free enterprise and individual freedoms.

PBS's Jim Leher did an outstanding job of covering the most pressing domestic issues, without any bias at all. Instant commentators on TV give the edge to Romney. Usual apologists for Obama says Obama looked "rusty" while Romney looked confident, comfortable, was politely aggressive, came across well, and won the debate. (Examples from Memeorandum here, here, here, and more here, and that's in just the first few minutes after the end of the debate.) If the liberals on TV are giving Romney the edge, you know that it was a Romney slap down!

CNN instapoll has it 67% win for Romney, 25% for Obama. 82% say Romney did better than expected. In effect, Romney went direct to the people, past the liberal press coverup for Obama. -- Email from a reader: Obama looked like he was "seeking his internal teleprompter." -- Excellent summary of details of the debate from Jennifer Rubin.