Mitt Romney Unbound

I was pleasantly surprised by Tuesday night’s debates. Mitt Romney presented himself as articulate, knowledgeable and strong-willed. I must admit that I was very concerned about how Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign was being conducted and I think one of his biggest mistakes was allowing the President to define him early. As a result of the Obama’s smear campaign it badly damaged Romney early on. Thanks to his strong showing Tuesday night, Romney’s campaign and base have now been reinvigorated.

Fortunately, the debates are a way for candidates to bypass the media and directly address voters. The debate’s moderater Jim Lehrer came across as inept and did little to enforce many of the debate’s rules. However, because of Lehrer’s weak moderation the debate itself was a smashing success! Lehrer’s weakness enabled the two candidates to clearly contrast one from the other in which Romney concisely and consistently not only took Obama to task for the failure of his policies but demonstrated style and substance that the President obviously lacked.

Upon taking office, Barack Obama has been able to remain distant from such scrutiny and criticism to the point where the President obviously thought he could walk into the debate thinking it would be a one sided ordeal. Romney took charge from the start and, rightly, put Obama in his place. Consequently, liberals are in panic mode while the Obama campaign is conducting damage control.

There were some noticeable flaws in Mitt Romney’s logic. I was disappointed by his stressing the phrase by his Creator as to imply some sort of religious nature of the Declaration of Independence (when there isn’t). I also didn’t like his claim that you can’t have a free market without regulation and giving the example about people shouldn’t be able to open banks in their garages and make loans. I don’t think it was wise for Romney to make that point in light of numerous start up companies (like Microsoft) started off in people’s garages or even out of the trunks of people’s cars. Despite these minor flaws in his logic, at least Romney did point out: The private market and individual responsibility always works best. Romney discussed how a specific hospital improved the quality of care while holding down costs which would be replaced by the panel of bureaucrats created by the Affordable Care Act. Not entirely a full throated defense of capitalism but he made a very good case for free markets none the less.

In the end it was the overall substance and style of how the candidate(s) presented themselves that mattered and Mitt Romney did so handily. Obama has not only lost the ability to continue to define Mitt Romney but he will not get a good chance to recover. The wind is clearly at Romney’s back and the media now has to take him seriously since their filter is no longer credible.