Alex Massie Alex Massie

Barack Obama wins the second presidential debate – Spectator Blogs

Barack Obama won the second of the three Presidential debates last night but he did not beat Mitt Romney as thoroughly as he had been beaten by the challenger in their first encounter. If you were compiling an aggregate score for the debates so far the President would still be behind.

I doubt Republicans will react to this modest reverse for Romney’s fortunes with the kind of panic that liberals embraced two weeks ago. The Democratic meltdown helped turn a setback into a rout. Suddenly momentum – whatever that is – was with Romney and it was easy for Republican raiding parties to mop up Democratic stragglers and put them to the sword. Discipline matters in victory but it matters even more in defeat.

In truth, Romney’s fightback had begun – albeit slowly – before the first debate. The debates, as we all know, don’t usually change the fundamental dynamic of the race. But there is always a first time for everything and one should remember to more often caveat one’s remarks with the reminder that the sample size for modern presidential elections remains small. The rules are not set in granite.

Even so, last night’s victory – narrow, yet clear – offers Obama a chance to check Republican momentum. It means changing the story from an administration on the back foot (Hello Benghazi!) and a suddenly punch-drunk campaign (Enough with the Big Bird nonsense already, folks!)

So Obama’s task last night was, in essence, to ask Romney a simple, traditional question: where’s the beef? It was not one for which Romney had a particularly compelling answer. His suggestion for a universal deduction is not necessarily a bad one but saying “one way of doing that would be say everybody gets — I’ll pick a number — $25,000 of deductions and credits, and you can decide which ones to use” does rather bolster the impression the candidate might just be making a lot of this stuff up as he goes along.

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