Debate Reaction

I played poker tonight, so I didn't start watching a recording of the foreign policy debate until 9:45 or so, but my reaction was that it was just like the first debate, except this time it was Romney who was flat and Obama who was strong. A lot of that probably had to do with the format, Romney's inexperience, and the fact that Obama has been sturdy in this area, but there it is.

Obama did a good job at bringing up Romney's past statements concerning foreign policy. The President, of course, has been effectively dealing with these issues for almost four years, but he crushed Mitt on Iraq, on Israel, on bin Laden, and on general military readiness.

Although it wasn't as devastating as last week's "please proceed, Governor" trap, Obama's "horses and bayonets" retort should get a lot of replays over the next couple of weeks. The crowd certainly liked it. And when Obama didn't crush Mitt on an issue it was usually because Romney agreed with Obama's policies.

"Moderate Mitt" did make an appearance tonight just like he did in the first debate, but it didn't work as well as it did the first time around because a lot of the time he ended up agreeing with Obama (but Obama still went after him even when Romney agreed with the President's policy, which I though worked pretty well).

Romney did a good job pivoting to domestic policies as often as he could, but Obama was strong in his response to this tactic and did a good job pivoting back to foreign policy to tie it all together. And I loved it when Obama went after Romney on the "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" issue because Romney was clearly wrong on that and his error should be brought up repeatedly.

Although Bob Schieffer did his usual solid job as moderator, I was surprised that Europe's economic problems didn't come up tonight. Oh well.