Obama Will Not Easily Recover from his Denver Debacle

Mitt Romney's performance in the first face-to-face meeting with Obama was surprisingly good.  His strength in defending his proposed economic policies from sound-bite attacks was the least of it.  His assertive attitude at the podium -- fairly stated as "I have as much right to stand here as you do, Mr. President." -- was not the biggest part of it, either.  The fact that he almost never looked down to refer to notes, but rather looked pleasantly at the President as he spoke was not the key, though the contrast with Obama's near constant smirk while staring at his notes was remarkable.

The most important part of Romney's performance was his focus on the way the President and his supporters want to change our nation, certain as they are that it is founded in evil.  Their sound-bite attacks have played well in the TV ad battle, but when the President comes to debate, he can't use those empty phrases and distortions of Romney's positions to counter the argument that his own progressivist policies will weaken our economy and lessen our freedom.

Obama is, at heart, the man who said "You didn't build that," but he cannot let his passion for redistribution show in these forums.

Here is Jonathan Tobin -- no friend to the right -- analyzing the consequences to the President of following the advice of his cheerleaders in the punditry to return to the sound bites in subsequent debates.  His closing paragraph is most telling:

The conundrum for Democrats is that the president has very little to say for himself or his record. Shorn of the demonization of the GOP, Obama is left with nothing. While such attacks work well on the campaign trail and in television ads, they are not likely to help in a face-to-face debate. Looking ahead to the next encounter, it won't be hard for the president to better his Denver performance, but what last night might have exposed is not so much fatigue or overconfidence as it is the emptiness at the core of his re-election campaign.

A lack of a positive record will hollow out any reelection campaign, leaving the candidate looking like the empty suit that showed up for Obama Wednesday night.