Debate, Round Two: Spirits Run High, Likely a Tie

The first debate was defined by President Obama’s sleepwalking performance but this one was mutually pugnacious from the outset. Obama’s campaign has been promising blustery aggression for weeks and he certainly delivered. Romney countered with equal bombast, assailing Obama with direct questions, and then pointedly contradicting his answers. It seemed like both candidates showed up with a head of steam and deep reserves of readily tappable adrenaline. Instead of the tracking tweets per minute, as so many news stations did, they should have kept tabs on calories burned. The exchanges were’t always edifying but they seemed aerobically exhausting.

The town hall atmosphere was supposed to be a tonic to the brimming testosterone but it actually seemed to make the room even more tense. The 82 audience members didn’t know in advance who would be called on to ask a pre-prepared question and so they all seemed gripped by expectancy, and nervously read their questions after being introduced by moderator, Candy Crowley. Their trembling apprehension permeated the entire venue and seemed to contribute to the air of volatility. And since both candidates were itching for opportunities for alpha-male posturing, the questioners seemed anxious they would soon be entangled in rancorous dispute with whomever is the next leader of the free world.

Obama was predictably well-prepared this time around, rehearsing with lively engagement canned but generally succinct responses: never interesting, always spirited, clearly still contemptuous of his opponent. He called Romney a “good man” but that was one of his least believable lines of the evening. He was visibly eager to do well, often leaning forward in his chair like a predator getting ready to pounce on unsuspecting prey, and his focus sometimes devolved into agitation. He was at his best when he combined bald-faced prevarications with an expression of indignation: when he claimed to be offended at the suggestion that his administration covered up the truth of the Benghazi attacks, his sonorous resentment seemed to dramatically overwhelm his lies.

Obama was at his worst when he forced to confront his record, straining to strike a delicate balance between empathy (“I know things are tough”) and self-promotion (“We’re making things so much better!”). His limpest line in response to a litany of failures convincingly recited by Romney: “It’s not for lack of trying”. A palsied shadow of a self-endorsement for a man who once promised to stop the rising of the oceans and heal the earth.

Romney was at his best when playing the part of the Massachusetts Republican, touting his impressively bipartisan accomplishments in stark contrast to Obama’s legacy of polarization. He seemed flat when hitting familiar notes of general principle but taut and focused when directly attacking Obama’s record and presenting it as a reasonable predictor of what would follow in a second term. For example, on the issue of immigration, he powerfully challenged Obama’s stated conviction to produce comprehensive legislative reform, pointing out that despite having supermajorities in both chambers of Congress he never managed to even produce a bill, let alone defend one. This made Obama’s defense of himself seem small, even petty. He soared whenever hammering Obama’s record of falling short on promiscuously issued promises, and unambiguously holding him accountable for persistent economic underperformance. His most stirring line of the evening: “We don’t have to live like this”.

Romney was at his worst when he got lost in minutiae, like he was filing a legal brief rather than outlining a more powerful, general comparison between the two. He missed an extraordinary opportunity to capitalize on Obama’s transparently evasive response to a question about the administration’s bungling of the Benghazi attacks. Instead of pointing out his evasiveness, and highlighting the aching incompetence and dishonesty of the administration over the last several weeks, he made a less than compelling observation about Obama taking a campaign trip to Las Vegas, and his failure to properly label the invasion a terrorist one. Here, Obama took the opportunity to insist he always called it a terrorist attack, and Candy Crowley interjected to support him. (Is it fact checking if you’re simply wrong?)

Instead of focusing on parsing the transcript of the speech Obama referred to, he should have pointed out that his State Department denied it was a terrorist attack for weeks, that the president was still denying it weeks later to whomever would give him an audience, everywhere from The View to the UN.

Much like an explosive dispute that erupts over a family dinner, these sorts of contests are almost never resolved decisively. It was unlikely either candidate would concede defeat, as Obama nearly did after his dazed performance in the first debate. Both had their turns at sinewy rhetorical dominance, both sometimes flailed and floundered, both hit their familiar talking points, buoying their bases. Both sides will peremptorily claim decisive victory.Unlike the anomalous first debate, which produced a lopsided victory with substantive electoral results, this is the way these things more typically unfold.

It’s helpful to remember that all these arguments are now specifically addressed to self-labeled “undecideds”, those who at least claim to still procrastinate their decision, presumably waiting for some finally demonstrable evidence of the superiority of one candidate over the other to surface just before they head to the polls. At this late stage of the game, any undecideds are likely at least disenchanted with Obama, who has been ubiquitous for the last four years; if they really liked him, they would have figured that out by now. Nothing he says at this late stage will completely transform their disappointment. If what they now long for is some reassurance of Romney’s competence, his showing tonight will probably suffice. In this small but not insignificant way, Romney may have left the stage with the upper hand, however forcefully the media pushes the narrative of a resurgent Obama, now awakened from his disinterested slumber.

Category: Election 2012, Featured