THERE WAS something feral about the way the two men seemed to stalk and circle one another, approaching menacingly as the tone rose, pointing at each other, retreating to their bar stools. Never was the mutual scorn between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney so evident as in their second debate on Tuesday night.
Obama calmed and re-energised the supporters who panicked after his October 3rd defeat by Romney. The Republican candidate put up a creditable performance that satisfied his camp. But the presidential aura that surrounded Romney in Denver evaporated in Long Island. Faced with an incisive, combative Obama, Romney seemed mean-spirited and condescending when he argued with the female moderator or told Obama, “You’ll get your chance in a moment. I’m still speaking.” One had only to read their wives’ faces. When the debate ended in Denver, Michelle Obama looked stricken, while Ann Romney beamed.
The opposite happened in the debating hall at Hofstra University. In Denver, the Romneys lingered to hobnob with supporters while the Obamas headed for the exit. In New York, it was the Obamas who smiled and gladhanded, the Romneys who retreated.
The polls, too, confirmed Obama’s victory, albeit by a lesser margin: 46 per cent of voters who viewed the debate told CNN Obama won; 39 per cent said Romney. On October 3rd, Romney had defeated Obama by 67 to 25 per cent.
When a member of the audience in the debate asked who had denied extra security to the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, he sounded like a Republican plant. For five weeks, the Romney campaign has harped on the administration’s handling of the attack that killed four Americans on September 11th.
Obama emerged from the most tense exchange of the evening with his presidential stature intact; Romney suffered a deer-in-the-headlights moment. “While we were still dealing with our diplomats being threatened, Governor Romney put out a press release, trying to make political points, and that’s not how a commander-in-chief operates,” Obama said.
Romney looked chastened, but he persevered, reproaching the administration for taking too long, in his view, to admit the assault was a “terrorist attack”.
“The suggestion that anybody in my team ... would play politics or mislead when we’ve lost four of our own, Governor, is offensive,” Obama said firmly. The two men locked eyes, and for a split second one wondered if they might come to blows. Romney continued questioning whether Obama had really spoken of “an act of terror” on September 12th. “I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror,” he said imperiously, as if negotiating a hostile takeover.
“Get the transcript,” Obama ordered. Candy Crowley, the CNN moderator, confirmed that Obama had evoked “an act of terror”. The audience defied instructions by bursting into applause. Romney appeared to punch both fists down in frustration as he walked back to his bar stool.
An earlier clash focused on energy. Romney’s plan “is to let the oil companies write the energy policies”, Obama said. Romney accused Obama of thwarting petroleum and gas production, citing Obama’s veto of a pipeline from Canada and “a criminal action against people drilling for oil” in North Dakota because some 20 migratory birds were killed.
Romney portrayed himself as the champion of coal. Obama reminded him that “when you were governor of Massachusetts, you stood in front of a coal plant and pointed at it and said, ‘This plant kills’ and took great pride in shutting it down.” Neither candidate mentioned the parlous state of public transport in the US, nor America’s addiction to gas-guzzlers.
Earlier in the week, the Romney camp was thrilled by a poll that showed Romney closing the gap with women voters. Asked what they would do to guarantee equal pay for women, Obama pointed to the fact that the first Bill he signed in office was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
Romney told how, as governor, he sought “whole binders full of women” to stock his cabinet. He spoke not a word about equal pay, but said employers needed to be “flexible” so that women could go home in time to cook dinner.
On contraception, Romney contradicted the position he took last February on the Blunt amendment to the Affordable Care Act, which would have allowed any employer to opt out of providing contraception in its insurance plan on moral grounds. “Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives,” Mr Romney declared on Wednesday night.
An African American member of the audience said he was not as optimistic as when he voted for Obama in 2008, that everyday life was too expensive. Obama listed his achievements and outlined his plans to favour manufacturing, education, deficit reduction and the development of energy resources over the next four years. That message doesn’t seem to sink in: Obama is often reproached for presenting no coherent vision of his second term.
Romney was at his best when responding to the disaffected black voter. “I think you know that these last four years haven’t been so good as the president just described,” he said. “If you were to elect President Obama, you know ... you’re going to get a repeat of the last four years.”
Asked what misperception they would most like to debunk, Romney said, “I care about 100 per cent of the American people. I want 100 per cent of the American people to have a bright and prosperous future.”
Obama pivoted from his own belief in free enterprise and equal opportunity to entreat the audience to “think about who was talking about . . . when he said behind closed doors that 47 per cent of the country considered themselves victims who refuse personal responsibility”. Those 47 per cent are “folks on social security . . . veterans . . . students . . . soldiers who are overseas fighting for us,” the president said.
Obama got the last word – until the two meet again for their final debate, on foreign policy, next Monday in Boca Raton, the Florida town where the “47 per cent video” was recorded.
