First Presidential debate broken down.

I think it is safe to say that the outcome of last nights debate, was nothing short of unexpected.  The democrats were touting this to be the deathblow to the Romney campaign in the form of an oratory slaughter delivered by the President.  It seemed that the media was even reporting that the Republican party was preparing to defeat.  What we had instead was  a VERY nervous and shaky appearing opening statement by President Obama followed up by a confident and to the point opening volley by candidate Mitt Romney.  As the debate went on, President Obama got himself in order, but never recovered to the point where he could both defend his current term, and present his argument for his plan for the next 4 years.

Josh, what do you think?

I completely agree that the President clearly did not perform well at all. My overall take of the debate was that Mitt Romney performed good, not great but good. However in such a contrast to the way President Obama debated, it made Romney look even more a winner. Some have said this was the best debate performance by a Republican presidential candidate not only since Ronald Regan but in the history of televised debates. Admittedly I can only go back to the years I have witnessed debates, I wasnt 2 years old watching Regan debate in 1984! But I will grant that Romney was amped and extremely well prepared while Obama was neither. 

Taxes:  The difference in strategies was made quite a bit more clear as the debate went on.  President Obama stuck to his policy that the only way to turn the economy around is to incentivize small business by creating tax breaks for creating new jobs, and to increase taxes on those in the highest income levels ($250,000/year and above).  This will help keep revenue up so that we can work towards a balanced budget, while at the same time giving releif to the middle class.  Candidate Romney came out with what to me, was at the very least a much better explanation of his policy's, or even maybe a change to them.  I am not sure at this point which description is more accurate.  Romney's plan lowers the base tax rate on all but the highest income earners (those above $250,000/year will see their taxes stay at the current Bush era rates).  At the same time he will eliminate or progressively phase out some of the current deductions.  This is where I believe the campaign adds claiming that middle income family's tax bills will go up by $2,000+ a year under Romney's plan come from.  President Obama repeatedly sited reports that this tax plan will result in a $5 TRILLION increase in the deficit, two which Candidate Romney repeatedly denied by stating that he will allow no tax cuts that are not revenue neutral.  Romney claimed that his version of tax reform would ease the strain on small business because many small businesses are not taxed under the corporate rate, but the individual rate.  Dropping the base rate would allow the small businesses to be able to hire more workers and jump start the economy.  

For me this was a small win for Romney, but fell short of what it could have been.  Till now MUCH of the campaign ads supporting Romney/against President Obama could pretty much be summed up as "are you better off now than 4 years ago".  Not much at all in the way of substance to them.  For the first time, I think the public saw a very clear explanation of Candidate Romney's plans, if he would have taken it one step further, could have really gotten people talking.  That one extra step was to explain (which he briefly began to but then stopped) that under his plan the purpose of the tax cuts are to stimulate the economy.  A growing economy can make the same net revenue, or more under a lower average tax rate because there is a bigger piece of the pie.  Grow that pie and a 10% slice of it is now bigger as well.

Josh, what do you think?

On taxes I know Romney has to make sure that he doesnt admit that his tax proposal would result in a 5 trillion dollar deficit increase but it has in fact been scored as doing just that. To Romney's credit, when Obama brought this up several times, Romney effectively ended it by calling the President out on the claims and striking it down. I do not see how it could make that big of a difference in taking the tax rates back to where they were in the Bill Clinton era. People must remember that by letting the Bush tax cuts expire, and lets be honest since Obama extended them as well they cant solely be attributed to George W. Bush anymore, that you would still be paying the lower tax rate on the first 250,000 of your income. It is only after you get above that mark that that portion of your income is taxed at the higher percentage. So if you make 300k a year, you are still paying the smaller percentage on the first 250 and only that last 50k is taxed at 39%. I am actually in full agreement with this plan going forward. Mr.Romney has specificed that he will balance the budget with economic growth. A fine promise and something that all Americans would want, however this could be overly optimistic. I for one to not believe we will ever have a balanced federal budget again as long as we have an endless state of war. 

I think that by directly confronting the President on his claims of a 5 trillion dollar deficit increase and at least in the debate shooting them down, Mitt Romney came out on the winning side of this debate as well. 

Health care:  This was a much more even area of the debate.  The President made the decision to embrace the "Obamacare" term (something he probably should have done a while ago thinking from his perspective).  This section of the debate had much of Obama's speech time defending Obamacare and attempting to point out that Mitt Romney wants to repeal it, but hasn't come forth with a plan of what to replace it with.  Candidate Romney countered with a few ideas, such as handing Medicare to the states to soley administer.  President Obama also stated that he modeled much of Obama care after Romneycare from Massachusetts . Candidate Romney stated that his state's health care law, works for his state (Romney then starts talking 10th amendment and states rights) but isn't something that the entire nation should have to work under.

It's no secret that I'm in favor of a few of Obamacare's changes (eliminating pre-existing condition clauses and lifetime limits on the dollar amount of care are two of them that I agree with based on personal experience, though I understand why they were in place before) but largely I am not in favor of the law.  Where Candidate Romney did a great job of articulating his tax plan, he didn't do quite as well with the health care portion.  I see this one as a draw, with neither side really gaining any ground.

Josh what do you think?

For the sake of a debate, both candidates offered differing views on health care and in particular Obamacare. However, seeing what Mitt Romney did as Governor of Massachusetts with the health care system in that state I think the truth is both candidates are much closer in their vision than perhaps they would like to admit. I thought President Obama by and large has the winning hand on health care. Not necessarily because of Mitt Romney and any policies or ideas he may offer for health care, but because of the corner he has been painted into by other members of his party who want the Affordable Care Act repealed and to start from scratch and build a new plan.  

There is definitely a need to reign our health care costs which have long been spiraling out of control. But this is one area where if left on their own the private sector could not and likely would not ever bring down costs and offer enough help to people who need it the most. We will save a health care debate for the future. But I do not believe that Mitt Romney would ever be able to appeal "on day one," as he likes to put it. The law was upheld by the US Supreme Court. It would take a huge majority in Congress to get it repealed. For better or worse, and I agree with John about the better parts of the bill while even I do not like the individual mandate, Obamacare will be around for a while. 

Takeaways:  Overall I think that today is proving to be a very different day than many expected it to be.  It honestly looked to me that Obama was going to cruise in for a solid victory in November, but that looks far from certain now.  The immediate poll results I saw after the debate showed that undecided voters were leaning heavily towards Romney based on the debate and it seems that most talk I've seen this morning on social media is agreeing that Obama had a very poor showing.  Romney seemed to have a well defined plan and strategy.  He stuck to his talking points and did a better job that I have seen him in any point in his campaign of outlining his platform.  Obama almost looked like he had planned to not be the first speaker.  He appeared more prepared to counter punch than to come out swinging.  I've been going back and looking at the fact checkers and it looks like each side had a fair number of misquoting of the numbers.  That is almost to be expected in venues like these.  You have the have a large wealth of information memorized for these events.

All in all, President Obama missed out on his chance to put away this race early. He was up in virtually every poll, he had significant leads in key swing states such as Ohio, but he missed his chance. The media always wants a horse race, they will even manufacture one if they can. They wont have to do it this time, Obama just gave it to them. I now think that this race will go down to the wire, I still expect Obama to lead in most polls by at least the margin of error, but after this debate Romney without a doubt showed Republicans he can put up a fight and get aggressive with the president. We can only speculate as to what happened to Obama and why he came out so flat in the debate early on. I agree he recovered as the night went on but the damage was already done. Any Mitt Romney will now attack rather than being put on the defensive as he has throughout this presidential campaign.