Debate Thoughts

A good night for Romney, as everyone seems to agree. The post-debate CNN poll was 67%-25% pro-Romney, a margin of victory rarely seen. Surely that 25% is only the hardest of hard-core Obama supporters, which means the independents must have sided with Romney in truly overwhelming numbers.

Still, a few tricks were left on the table. I wish Romney had held Obama's feet to the fire more on his record. For example, all those times Obama talked about how Romney would horribly cut the budget and throw grandma out on the street, all Romney had to say was: "For the sake of argument let's say we went back to the spending levels of 2000. Did Clinton throw grandma out on the street? No. But we had a balanced budget and spending was far below its current level. Obama's spending far more, and are you any better for it?" But he continually argued that he wouldn't cut X, wouldn't cut Y. It's OK, Mitt! Cut some stuff!

Also, Romney threw out some talking points without really explaining them. That's something that McCain did four years ago, and it's infuriating. In response to Obama's absurd claim that domestic oil and gas production is up due to his administration, Romney scored a telling blow by explaining that production is up on private lands, but not public lands, but then he just said Romney would (in contrast) "build that pipeline". I know he's talking about the Keystone Pipeline, of course, but it would have made sense to spend 20 seconds explaining this, because many people out there don't know about it.

I'll take it, though. Good performance out there. Next up is the VP debate on October 11, and that should be a joy to watch, kind of like watching your favorite NFL team face your worst football rivals... from high school.