In Presidential Debate Romney Praised, President Obama Faulted

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, left, and President Barack Obama speak during the first presidential debate at the University of Denver, Wednesday, in Denver. (AP)

Wednesday’s presidential debate drew up to 60 million TV viewers, garnering a record 10 million tweets and a near-unanimous verdict that Republican challenger Mitt Romney “won” over President Obama.

FactCheck.org: Dubious Denver Debate Declarations
New York Times: Presidential Debate Video And Fact Checking
TIME: Obama’s Debate Strategy, Unilateral Disarmament

Guests:

Karen Kasler, bureau chief Statehouse News Bureau at Ohio Public Radio
Greg Moore, editor of the Denver Post

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

donniethebrasco

Poor Mr. President.
Pan2b

Why did Mitt Romney always get the last word in at the debate last night? Shouldn’t they have been taking turns? Did anyone else notice this?
- ST5789
  
  I also noticed the same.
- Vanessa D
  
  Yes. What’s up, Jim Lehrer? Romney was allowed to steamroller over the entire debate, although I think that revealed his true bullying personality. I can’t imagine him dealing effectively with foreign leaders when his style is relentless hammering.
Fs296

Watching the debate was very telling… the President did not know Romney’s proposed policies and less about his record. Seemed like the President was not listening. Romney told him several times what his economic plan was but the President just wanted to repeat the incorrect information over and over again. This maybe the real truth about our President – he does not listen. Without listening to the American people he is unable to help resolve problems. I was very disappointed with our President and his command of fact, even after weeks of being prepped for this debate.
- Tedpax
  
  The President did a poor job, no doubt about it. But in listening to Romney, how can anyone debate someone that keeps changing their position? Romney has a real problem… he will tell people things they want to hear, even if it means lying about his position. How many times has he said things, only to be rebuke by his own campaign hours after saying it?
  
  Also, during the debate, where did all that looking after the middle class thing come from? And healthcare, and medicare, and… Romney took the opposite side of all his previous policy statements.
  
  I have no idea what Romney really believes, and more importantly, I have no idea what he’ll do as a president.
James McGee

Please–how about some balance? You keep expressing your concern for Obama’s performance in your guests, your questions and your tone. All of your fact checking references are to supposed Romney errors. What about the President’s falsehoods? What about his obfuscation and his misleading approach of creating strawmen only to slay them with false representations of what he will do? LPR will continue to be under the threat of losing its funding unless and until it represents a more balanced view. I listen to FoxNews, which may be right of center, but my taxes do not go to it; I don’t want my taxes to go to a network that is clearly in the tank for a party that I do not support. Why can’t you be journalists that are true to the vision of unbiased reportage?
- Ed
  
  McGee: If you listen to Fox for your news you are no arbiter of what unbiased reporting looks or sounds like.
roman

What difference does it make? The country is at the crossroads. It is not about the candidate, it is about the direction the country will take. Those people who are with Romney chose their direction and there is no debate or the performance of their candidate that would change their mind. The same goes for Obama supporters – yes, may be their leader did not perform well last night, and may be he is not the best leader out there, but there is no other leader that would take them in the direction they want to go. So it does not matter how well anyone performed, because we all are going to stay with the direction we chose.
Let’s face it, if I do not eat meat – it does not matter who cooks it – I won’t eat it.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003000884786 Navin R Johnson

Why would anyone waste their time listening to these two lying sociopaths?
Mike

Romney said he’s concerned about and would help the poor. But the Republican party has been saying for the last 2 decades that we shouldn’t be a “welfare state” and poor people should have “personal responsibility”.

Romney says he will create jobs. But isn’t that “bigger government” ? Does he really mean that he will INDIRECTLY create jobs (give money to the “job creators” and hope they’ll hire Americans)?
Kjt9464

Does anyone know of people, including themselves, who watched the debate and have now changed their vote? I think Romney clearly out performed Obama, but my vote hasn’t changed. Romney still did not list specifically what specific tax cuts/breaks he would make. My vote will not change without full disclosure from him. Did anyone learn any NEW information about either candidate?
Mbmcq

Mitt Romney won the debate. However, I was left feeling like I just saw the high school bully that Romney once was. We don’t need bullying from the Oval Office.
- Ed
  
  Willard’s character is the issue that Obama failed to mention.
  
  Willard was a prep school bully; a draft dodger who chose his church and service to it in France over a war he supported in Vietnam; and he now runs from his landmark legislative success as Mass governor: healthcare for all!
Aaron

I expected Romney to do well. His full time job is running to be president. President Obama’s full time job is running the country.
- http://www.facebook.com/pauliela Paul LaFrancesca
  
  Running or ruining
Ed

Average Americans love a chatty performer over a wonk any day of the week. Willard from Boston is perky and sassy and snarky and rattles on about things that sound good but have no depth. He was super duper happy to be there, folks!

Obama chose a safe, sit on the lead, “I’m the President” approach, which was a disaster when he was facing a man who had nothing to lose and, thus, could say and do anything. Willard got away with murder and must have thanked his magic underwear last night for coming away unstrafed.

Obama had so many opportunities to remind viewers of what his achievements have been and what a flip flopper Willard has been and he just didn’t have it in him to do it.
Pwelder

There were two main reasons that Romney dominated last night’s debate: 1) Jim Lehrer was totally ineffective as the moderator, allowing Romney to run on and on repeatedly, which was an insult to Lehrer and to the debate format, and 2) President Obama acted like a deer caught in the headlights (was he really there?) Paul Elder
- http://www.facebook.com/pauliela Paul LaFrancesca
  
  No Teleprompter
RJWill

Obama’s biggest mistake during the debate was to shake his head “Yes”, as if he were agreeing with Romney’s list of the current administration’s failures. The split screen showed this time and again with Obama only once or twice shaking his head “No”. Subconscious body language here played a big part in Obama’s weak showing.
ST5789

It’s also strange that Obama keep elevating Romney by saying “both Romney and I share…” Why give Romney that much credit?
- Vanessa D
  
  Yes! almost from the beginning, I thought to myself, why is Obama just handing this debate over to Romney? Why is he validating him like that? Why is he being so conciliatory? To much of his behavior I kept asking WHY? WHY?
Daz W

Could Obama’s widely perceived failure last night actually be a tactical coup? With voting happening right now in many states and Obama’s strong lead in the polls till late, I suspect that there is no better way to motivate a slightly complacent Democratic base than to lose the first debate and make this election look like a fair fight once again. Being the underdog certainly has it’s advantages when trying to get your voters off the couch and to the polls.
Tedpax

Within a few minutes of listening to Romney debate, I thought why shouldn’t he be great at this? Romney’s a high powered business guy. He’s used to this type of environment, influencing people and doing whatever it takes to close the deal. This is his world.

The problem was that I started to feel uneasy about his style. He seemed like a bully, and then tried to throw every statistic out there, as though they were all true.

It will be interesting to see his demeanor if and when Obama decides to fight back. I’m sure Romney is pretty use to getting his way, and he usually seems agitated whenever he is seriously interviewed.
Mo

If the near unanimous verdict was that Romney “won”, I guess I’m in the minority who thought Obama spoke with decorum befitting a president and Romney came across as hyper and obnoxious, often interrupting the moderator and speaking so fast he often jumbled words. I agree with those who said they could see the high school bully in his demeanor. It sounded to me like Romney was always delivering well rehearsed bullet points, whereas Obama actually thought about what he said in the moment and explained things well.
A different Mike

You spoke with someone who had been getting responses from a focus group of undecided voters during the Presidential debate. He said that Obama scored well when he spoke about healthcare, Romney scored well when he spoke about jobs, Romney scored poorly when he attacked Obama, but people felt that Romney won. You then asked “If people like when Obama spoke, and didn’t like when Romney spoke, why do they feel that Romney won?”

The question ignores some very significant qualifiers from the data that had just been presented. They didn’t say that they liked when Obama spoke in general, they said they liked when he spoke about 1 or 2 issues. They didn’t say they didn’t like when Romney spoke in general, they said they didn’t like when he made personal attacks. You also ignored that they said they liked what Romney said about creating jobs. In short, you exaggerated anything good said about Obama, exaggerated anything bad said about Romney, and ignored anything good said about Romney.

For the last few years, it’s been said several times by just about every news organization that the most important issues on voters minds are unemployment and the economy. Is it really surprising that the candidate who speaks more persuasively on jobs is seen more favorably?

NPR keeps advertizing about being a “balanced news source.” Compared to most other news sources, especially on the radio, NPR is balanced. However, occasionally you get programs like this. These are the programs that cause people to say that public radio has a liberal bias.