Obama played checkers. Romney played chess. Obama played tactics. Romney played strategy. Obama went small ball. Romney went big picture. Obama sometimes went petty. Romney stayed the happy warrior throughout. Obama, especially during the last half of the debate, looked so intently at Romney (possibly overcompensating from looking down too often in the first debate which he lost so badly) that he almost seemed like a cobra coiled to strike at the first opportunity, but Romney just wouldn’t really give him one. Romney looked pretty relaxed throughout. Obama sometimes seemed defensive, whereas Romney seemed aspirational and optimistic for a restored America and her people.
I was one of those who wanted Romney to just bloody Obama about Bengahzi-gate, the security failures before and the coverup after, but Romney’s strategy of avoiding it, although Obama even tried to pull him back into it at one point, was probably the better idea. Romney probably knows that enough about Benghazi-gate will have to come out in even Obama’s liberal lapdog media now, because of Congressional investigations and Senatorial letters to Obama demanding answers, that Romney himself didn’t need to push it tonight.
So, Romney on style and, surprise, surprise, likability (happy warrior) and Obama on debate points, although some of them were small and petty. Romney also on a strong economy being the basis for projecting strong foreign policy, delivering the same devastating analysis of Obama’s failed economic policies as in other debates, for which Obama had no answer.
Romney, too, on laying out in more detail what he would have done differently, even about what Obama has already done on foreign policy, plus other measures and considerations in dealing with Iran and Pakistan, whereas Obama was left with simply stressing more of the same, much of which we know hasn’t worked.
Romney also on not allowing Obama to draw him into seeming to be some crazed warmonger, which Romney knew was part of the Obama strategy for this debate. So, overall, Romney. He did what he needed to do to sustain the momentum he gained in the first debate and sustained in the second debate.
Oh, and the post-debate fact-checkers? Obama got it wrong more than Romney and even what Romney got wrong was only partially wrong.
As to Obama’s condescending comments about Romney not understanding how our military works, that the days of horses and bayonets are gone, etc., suffice to say the post-debate tweet by one Marine, that Marines still use bayonets (as do Soldiers, by the way), shows maybe Obama also doesn’t understand all he pretends to about our military and its warrior ethos.
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