Romney dominates presidential debate

From the FINANCIAL TIMES:

An energetic and aggressive Mitt Romney challenged Barack Obama for “not getting the job done in government,” dominating the president for large parts of the first primetime televised debate which covered the economy, taxes and healthcare.

The Republican challenger, displaying the desperation of a candidate who went into this debate behind Mr Obama in the polls, was aggressive in his attacks on the president for following a policy of what he called “trickle-down government”.

But Mr Romney also may have opened up problems for himself on his tax plan, standing by his policy of 20 per cent cuts in tax rates across the board while insisting they would be deficit neutral and not benefit the wealthiest Americans, without detailing how this would be achieved…

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EDITOR: It seems a bit premature to judge the impression that the debate had upon the public. Polls over the next week will tell a lot more. The President did look tired. Gov. Romney had days for rest and to devote to this single task. Understandably, as president Barack Obama had his attention divided.

The President did seem more professorial than combative. As he complimented at the end, he perceived the evening as a real debate.

Romney sprinkled political magic dust throughout the evening, saying he would reduce taxes while reducing the the deficit and the national debt through closing “loopholes” in the tax code which he repeatedly neglected to identify.

He also blamed Obama for failing to come up with bi-partisan solutions to problems, totally disregarding the combative and uncompromising nature of Tea Party Republicans who dominate the House of Representatives.

He held the president responsible for not returning the country to prosperity  despite the historic severity of the Great Recession and trillion dollar annual deficit  he inherited from George W. Bush and the Republican controlled House of Representatives refusal to approve ‘job bills’ that the Administration had requested to provide fiscal stimulus.

Romney’s positions on almost all issues were in contrast to what he had maintained all through the Republican primary leaving the public with the question of who is the real Mitt Romney and, given the movement of his party so far to the right, would he be able to pursue the moderate approaches he did as governor of Massachusetts?

Romney is obviously a very competent guy, although no lover of the truth as we saw Wednesday evening. The big question about him is can he govern successfully, given his party’s extreme right wing beliefs as spelt out in the Republican Platform and demonstrated during the President’s term in office.