Round One

Most people, myself included, think Mitt Romney won last night's debate. He took charge, was more assertive, and though he displayed his usual tendencies for lying and flip-flopping, dominated the narrative.

But as Mitt Romney himself has already pointed out, most people don't matter; 47% of us are voting for the President no matter what. A similar percentage of people will vote for Romney no matter what. Last night my Facebook wall was full of my Romney friends crowing about his success, and my Obama friends lamenting our guy's lackadaisical performance. I'll be the first to say I agree. I wish Obama had slam dunked some of the alley-oops Romney tried to throw him. I wish he had capitalized on Jim Lehrer's use of trickle down and made a case for how it is just that, trickling down. Put simply, I wish he'd worn his boxing gloves, not his mittens.

But who cares what I think? My vote is signed, sealed, and delivered. Much more important is what those undecided sliver of voters thought. And I see a lot of positive takeaways for the president there.

For starters, though he allowed Romney to dictate the pace and direction of the conversation, Obama exposed Romney for the flip-flopping fraud he is. It seemed at times that the President's approach was to bait Romney. Obama says X, Romney interrupts and interjects in an overly aggressive manner, refutes himself or gives few specifics, while Obama sits back and looks austere and presidential.

This happened on numerous occasions last night. It happened first early in the debate when Obama described Romney's tax plan, only to have Romney hijack the debate to characterize Obama's description as inaccurate. Obama ceded the ground, let Romney talk himself in circles and then simply said, "Well for 18 months he's been running on this tax plan. And now, five weeks before the election, he's saying that his big, bold idea is 'never mind.'"

Now personally, I would have liked the President to take Mitt apart right there. I would have liked to have seen Obama pound home the truth in stronger terms, and call Romney out for his hypocrisy. But instead he made his point more subtly and came off looking presidential. Meanwhile, while poor Jim Lehrer - who couldn't have imposed his will on a cow last night - argued with Romney who was over eager to rebut the president.

This happened time and time again, to the point where even Jim Lehrer - doing his best carpet impersonation - finally told Romney, "No, let's not" when Romney tried to interject. Would I have liked more talking points, more sound bites, more aggression from the President? Absolutely. I would have like him to destroy Romney last night, and it wouldn't have been all that difficult. Romney may have dominated the narrative, but his lies, his flip-flopping, and his gross lack of specifics (something of which the President is also guilty but to a lesser degree) were on full display. Obama could have had his way with Romney, but he didn't. But he made his points, he got his jabs in, and he did it in a way that I think was probably more thought-provoking to the undecided voter.

Of course that doesn't mean the strategy worked, if in fact, that was the strategy. Perhaps Obama was just tired, or bored, or wishing he were spending time with his wife on their anniversary. But Obama is smarter than to overlook this; he knows what is at stake - his job; and I believe he went into last night knowing it was the first debate of three and that he could collect his ammunition - and Romney gave him plenty - and sit back and play president to Romney's bull-in-a-china-shop.

Whether this was actually the plan, I can't say for sure. Whether it was effective if it was the plan, I also can't say for sure. And while I do think that Romney "won" last night's debate by dominating the narrative and dictating the pace, he also exposed himself as a hypocrite and failed to give many specifics. He gave Obama a lot of ammunition, and if the President brings the thunder next time, he will not only be able to reclaim the narrative, he will win the fact war too.