Mitt Romney wins first debate against Barack Obama

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney won a landslide victory in the first election debate with Barack Obama. The success of Mitt Romney, who was significantly behind the incumbent president in opinion polls a month before the election, could change the course of the campaign. After the first television duel, almost two-thirds of respondents admitted that the Republican “proved himself a stronger leader.”

According to Mitt Romney's campaign headquarters, he had been preparing for his first public meeting with Barack Obama for several months. And it justified itself. The Republican challenger went on the attack from the very first minutes: "I entered the race only because I see how people are suffering in this country. We need a real leader who can unite people, regardless of whether they are Republicans or Democrats."

Over the past six months, Barack Obama's campaign has spent $164 million on television advertising - almost three times more than its opponent. Most of this money went to the production of attack ads - videos showing the opponent in a negative light. The advertising attack has so far given Barack Obama an advantage in the race. And on the eve of the debate, experts had no doubt that Barack Obama would also use attack tactics in a head-to-head duel with Mitt Romney. But instead, he was, in the Chicago Tribune's assessment, more like "a guy who reads messages on his phone while talking."

The debate focused on domestic policy, economics and health care. Barack Obama listed his achievements, not forgetting to mention that Americans owe the chaos in the economy to his predecessor. “We need to decide whether we want to return to the policies that led us to disaster, or whether we will support the core principle of the new economic patriotism, which is that America's prosperity depends on the prosperity of the middle class,” Barack Obama said.

To the surprise of many, the president made no mention of the scandal caused by his opponent's comments about 47% of Americans being too “government dependent” and therefore not voting Republican. The president also said nothing about the numerous accusations against Mitt Romney of using offshore schemes to evade taxes. Instead, Barack Obama noted that his opponent supports tax cuts for the rich, but did not say how he would close the budget holes. “Do the math for yourself, it’s simple arithmetic,” he suggested.

“I never said that I was going to cut taxes by $5 trillion,” Mitt Romney retorted. “That’s not in my program. The main thing is to reduce the tax burden for the middle class.”

Throughout the hour and a half of the debate, Mitt Romney addressed his opponent without taking his eyes off him. Barack Obama looked down somewhere, only occasionally smiling to encourage the moderator of the discussion.

The only thing that caused some semblance of emotion in the head of the White House was his opponent’s statement that too much time had been spent on the presidential health care reform. “I just don’t understand,” Mitt Romney said to him, “how a president who sees that there are 23 million unemployed and an economic crisis in the country can spend two years fighting for this reform, instead of taking care of creating jobs for Americans ". Barack Obama countered that the changes to the health care system were largely copied from the reform that Mitt Romney himself carried out in Massachusetts. “Now you are proposing to abandon this, but you have not been able to formulate what your program is,” Barack Obama recalled. “It seems to me that one day the Americans will still ask how good are the plans, the contents of which are constantly being hidden from us?”

According to experts, the president lost the first debate miserably. “Obama underestimated his opponent and fell victim to too high expectations,” National Journal concluded. So far, according to sociologists, the president is ahead of his opponent by more than three points, leading in almost all “undecided” states. However, the first defeat could change these statistics. According to a CNN poll conducted immediately after the debate, 67% of respondents gave the victory to Mitt Romney.

Kirill Belyaninov, New York

Newspaper "Kommersant Ukraine" No. 156 dated 10/05/2012, p. 4

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