“It’s a drag,” Barack Obama said earlier this week about his
debate prep. “They’re making me do my homework.” This foreshadowed
his lackluster debate performance on Wednesday night. He seemed
disengaged and defensive. He didn’t look at his watch, à la George
Bush Sr., but he was probably doodling (under the guise of taking
copious notes) as an energetic Mitt Romney offered a detailed brief
against his failed presidency.
Romney conveyed the command of a hands-on CEO while Obama looked
like a tired demagogue. His summation was pathetic, dribbling out
some sort of promise about equal effort in a second term. In other
words, he offers more of the same. Romney came up with a good
phrase for his stale liberalism: “trickle-down government.”
Nothing seemed to work for Obama: not his lame jokes about
Donald Trump (why would he attempt humor at a debate where the
audience is sworn to muteness?), not his rote and insincere
flashing of his Cheshire Cat grin, not his recitation of
small-ball, long discredited government programs. Occasionally he
would look up at the camera and address the television audience
directly, which is probably an easier mode for him. Demagoguery is
his reflexive posture and he tried mightily to scare seniors and
stir up hatred of the rich.
But it all seems so exhausted. The canned lines and themes from
2008 haven’t changed a bit. Obama is still rattling on about evil
“oil companies” and people who don’t “pay their fair share.” In
2008, Joe Biden said that the rich, who carry a huge percentage of
the tax burden, lacked patriotism for resisting Obama’s
redistributionist plans. This is still their claim. Obama called
acceptance of his socialism “economic patriotism” at the
debate.
Much of the debate was wonkish and Romney seemed in his element,
relishing the chance to out-wonk a retail pol who prefers the
trappings of the presidency to its policy rigors. Romney’s answers
were thorough, fluid, and detailed, rebutting many of Obama’s
distortions effectively.
He threw in Obama’s face his boneheaded “green energy”
investments. Quoting a friend, Romney noted sardonically that Obama
isn’t even in the business of picking “winners and losers.” Judging
by the Solyndras, he is just in the business of “picking
losers.” Obama pretended to take notes while receiving such
drubbings. (Romney, by contrast, didn’t bother with the charade of
taking notes when not speaking and just gave Obama bemused
looks.)
Obama was straining to present himself as the at-ease
presidential incumbent. But his acting couldn’t prevent annoyance
from registering on his face from time to time, and he snapped at
Jim Lehrer once for stepping on “five seconds” of one of his
answers.
The back-and-forth probably struck a lot of Americans as boring
and insiderish. It wasn’t exactly a debate of big ideas, more like
bickering over policy differences and partisan characterizations.
But this probably worked to Romney’s advantage. He delivered his
talking points with more gusto than Obama. Romney laid down a
good test for the existence of federal government programs: Is
it so critical that we need to borrow money from China to pay for
it? And he didn’t pander to Jim Lehrer while using this
test: Romney told him that he would zero out “PBS” for
that reason. PBS didn’t fare very well all around: Obama later
attacked Exxon Mobil as a greedy oil company of no redeeming value.
Doesn’t Obama at least appreciate its longtime support for
Masterpiece Theatre?
Obama seemed a bit testy and less polished than usual, using
inelegant phrases like “autistic kid.” Strangely enough, Romney
appeared more relaxed. It is probably good that Lehrer instructed
the crowd to remain silent. That’s an easier, less demagogic,
atmosphere for Romney to navigate. Romney lived up to his
credentials as an expert consultant who learns every possible
detail about the company he seeks to jumpstart. In this case, the
company is America and judging by at least this debate performance
he looks far more eager to run it than the president.
