AFP PHOTO / Pool / Michael REYNOLDS
In the first of three Presidential debates last night, Mitt Romney held his own with incumbent Democrat President Barack Obama. The candidates embraced the new format of this debate, which was meant to allow for deeper discussion. At times, the soaring rhetoric from both sides of the stage sounded like a series of campaign speeches. President Obama often to attempt to highlight Romney’s more moderate history.
Democrats have waited for Governor Romney to move closer to the center for months. On Wednesday night, that moment happened. Romney was consistent with his pledge to end President Obama’s health care plan the first day he is in office, but for much the first time since long before his striking move to the right for the Republican primaries, Mr. Romney spoke proudly of his reforms in the state of Massachusetts. As governor there, Romney enacted a very successful health care plan, which is remarkably similar to the plan that Romney supporters call “Obamacare”. For much of this campaign, Romney has rarely mentioned this as the plan is very unpopular among most in his party.
The candidates sparred back and forth frequently on every issue, and often disagreed on the facts. President Obama repeatedly noted a $5 trillion cut in tax revenue that he claims is part of Romney’s economic plan. Governor Romney repeatedly denied this claim, however fact checkers have confirmed that if put into effect, this would be the reality of the plan.
Mr. Romney also claimed that the president’s investments in green energy had amounted to nearly half of the supported companies having gone out of business. Also false, just three of the nearly three-dozen companies have indeed filed for bankruptcy.
President Obama also made a number of his own vaguely misleading statements about Governor Romney’s policies. Much of this was consistent with his campaign’s tactic of continuously taking advantage of the unknown details of Mr. Romney’s proposed policies. As many of the details of the governor’s proposals have yet to be fully explained, the Obama campaign has taken to ‘filling in the blanks’ with findings of independent research organizations.
Defending his claim that Romney’s economic plan could not work without raising taxes on the middle class, the President said simply “it’s math, it’s arithmetic.”
Prior to the debate, forecasters had said that Romney could be considered victorious if he could simply stand his own on stage next to the incumbent president. He did this, and as such the first debate has been generally regarded as a victory for the Republican candidate. How this will impact the polls remains to be seen. new europe.on line
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