I Lied--I Watched It

++The biggest loser besides the audience was Jim Lehrer who lost control of the debate. Mitt Romney won on aggressiveness and President Obama looked tired and listless but did manage to articulate his views. I thought Romney was forced to spend more time defending his various positions than was useful for a challenger. 

++Obama fans were annoyed that Obama didn't call out Romney on his Niagara of lies and never mentioned BAIN, the 47ers, Romney's poor record of job creation in Massachusetts and a host of other problems with Romney's record. Maybe they are right but what Obama was rewarded with was a series of ads to last the whole campaign. Romney reneged on his tax plan to cut taxes over $4 trillion--a centerpiece of his platform. Obama, in my opinion, scored on Medicare in a way that bloggers missed. Romney did admit he was introducing a voucher plan. He tried to cover himself by mentioning that Obama cut $718 billion from Medicare and Obama let him get away with it. Romney could not explain his plan for repealing Obamacare and lied about it covering pre-existing conditions.

++But think of it--Romney could not score on job creation and only blurted his talking point out at the end that he would create 12 million jobs in his first four years. He could not really put President Obama on the defensive on the economy as much as I thought.

++Obama needed to be a bit more aggressive than he was because he came across as too wonkish and long-winded. But he failed to create the impression that Romney's views were nonsense. In that sense he gave Romney more credibility than he deserves.

++The sky is falling crowd was joined by Andrew Sullivan , a champion of the President, who thought the debate was a calamity and could cost the President the election. I don't think one will know what the effect will be until the weekend. We don't even know the size of the television audience. Republicans expected 75 million but that would be slightly less than the Super Bowl, while Obama-McCain drew 35 million at the peak. 

++Tactically it was clear that Obama sought to play defense and not give anyone nasty soundbites. But he lacked the passion one loves to see on the trail. Whether this was wise we'll have to see. The negative effect of tonight could be to sap morale of his supporters. On blogger tweeted that Romney's over-aggressive act cost him everyone under 50. Alpha Male is only cool for the 60 and over. I thought he sounded like my son over-amped on Red Bull.

++It is clear that debates are over-rated. I did not get any sense that Romney should be President and I guess that should be the standard to measure the debate by. On the other hand, Romney supporters believe that he made President Obama to be incompetent and inarticulate. Early CNN polling had Romney winning the debate by a two to 1 margin. However, Huffington Post has it slightly pro-Obama--about one -third and one-third for Romney and about a quarter saying no one won.

++Romney didn't exhibit any presidential attitude. Reagan exuded likeability and managed to speak to a larger audience than those of his ideology. Romney failed to do that. His campaign wanted him to exude a sense of caring. Post debate polls showed he managed to climb to 60% thought he cared about them. Pretty impressive. We'll see whether that actually endures.

++In Obama's defense, he seemed preoccupied tonight and the reason might be that Turkey has just retaliated for the Syrian invasion of its territory. The United States is more heavily involved than the public knows. 

++Also, there seems to be a cagy strategy involved in the Obama campaign. The right will go haywire about Romney winning the debate, which will preoccupy them for days. The next debate is supposed to be the Right's dream debate of Paul Ryan against Joe Biden. Here Ryan is supposed to be far more articulate and intelligence. The reality is that Joe Biden is a much more experienced debater than Ryan and can give a full-throated defense of the President and make Ryan own voucher care and his nutty budget ideas, which will sap the momentum from their sails.

++Nate Silver expected a bounce from tonight for Romney anyway. It will be interesting to see what it is. The key here is whether it affects the state polling.