Yuval Levin @ NRO:
If you knew nothing about Barack Obama and Mitt Romney except what you saw in their final debate, you would have assumed that Romney was the incumbent president, that Obama was the challenger trying to unseat him, that Romney was clearly leading in the polls going in and that he remained there going out. You wouldn’t necessarily think Romney won the debate, but you would think he was winning the race.
It was absolutely clear that both candidates understood that this debate was entirely about Mitt Romney. Romney’s only goal was to seem presidential, and Obama’s only goal was to make Romney seem not presidential. By that measure, Romney clearly achieved his aim and Obama clearly did not. Romney did this by treating this debate very differently than the other two. He didn’t really try to score points, and he wasn’t afraid to express agreement with Obama, which he did remarkably often. His goal was to answer every question with a calm, responsible attitude and convey sobriety and level-headedness. The calculation must have been pretty simple: voters are not greatly concerned with foreign policy this year, but they wouldn’t elect someone they don’t trust on foreign policy. So having clearly conveyed his differences with Obama on domestic issues and his own domestic agenda, Romney merely needed to be a plausible commander in chief—to convey deep knowledge and the right attitude, to avoid getting rattled, to deny Obama the chance to label him a war monger or an amateur, and to waive off attacks on himself by returning to his core domestic message and reminding voters that the president is running on nothing.
Obama helped Romney a little more than he had to. He reinforced his own lack of agenda by the way he described why he should remain in office. It is downright peculiar for the sitting president to say again and again that we need nation-building at home after years of neglect. It is downright peculiar for anyone running in this economy to keep coming back to the need to build roads and bridges. And his little (clearly unintentional) “The nation, me” line (which sounded better in the original French) will be a fixture of conservative Obama critiques from now on.
Obama also made a couple of pretty stunning missteps. He seems to actually believe his campaign’s line about Romney and the auto bailout, for instance. The fact that the New York Times titled Romney’s now famous op-ed (written before Obama became president, by the way) “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” doesn’t mean Romney said the auto industry should be liquidated, or even denied federal assistance. He didn’t. He called for a managed bankruptcy followed by federal guarantees and support, which is basically what Obama ended up doing but without Obama’s lawless fleecing of creditors and giveaways to the unions. And more voters will now learn that than otherwise would have.
Even more astonishing, to me, was Obama’s ignorant and gratuitous insult to the U.S. Navy, describing Navy ships as the equivalent of horses and bayonets. It seemed like a prepared line, and it was appalling. Are the hundreds of thousands of sailors bearing arms under our flag (on the president’s orders) defending America’s security around the world tonight merely riders in some quixotic cavalry brigade chasing make-believe Indian chiefs? How exactly does a “pivot to Asia” work without those old fashioned ships? How does a global superpower project force abroad with fewer ships than it had when it wasn’t a global superpower? How does the advent of aircraft carriers make the Navy less rather than more significant? Is the sitting president really this confused about defense strategy? That line seems like a Romney ad in Virginia just waiting to happen.
None of this, however, is to say that Romney clearly won the debate. He didn’t land many punches against Obama’s foreign policy, surely in part because he didn’t really attempt all that many, and he certainly didn’t embarrass Obama. Anyone whose expectations were built by the first debate would have to say that Obama was far stronger in this one, and I think anyone scoring by points would probably say this was a tie and if pressed to declare a winner could easily choose Obama.
But this debate won’t be scored by points in the end, just as the first two debates weren’t. Romney got a far stronger wind in his sails from the first debate than his actual performance point by point should have earned him, and he got that because the debate changed people’s basic perception of him.
Romney’s face seemed a little distressed to me—imagine him going to a meeting with the heads of the world with that look on his face. He can memorize the notes which his puppeteers have given him, but will fail when give world officials a response which is not included in the rehearsals. Then his only response will be that of a salesman, “Ignore the objection and repeat the sales pitch”.
@Liberal1 (Objectivity): I expect it was hard for Romney to not respond to the lies being spouted by Obama. While some may think Obama has a point about Bayonets we still use them and the Army in 1917 numbered about 100,000 vs 567,000 September 2011. The Navy in 1917 while having perhaps more ships than today did not have them fully crewed according to Admiral Sims, who had stated that only 10% were fully manned and the rest were short 43% of the seaman. If they were not fully crewed were they really operational?