Wait… I’m Confused: A Recap of the First 2012 Presidential Debate

I know this is a little late.

But I watched the debate for a second time last night, and I have to say, the second watching did not help me any.

It was a debate filled with small surprises, not many shocks (obviously due to the tight ship collectively run by the “bi-partisan” Debate Commission – where bi-partisan means “don’t bring up anything controversial for either candidate or that candidate will throw a tantrum and drop out of the debate”). We had some Big Bird, many assurances to the elderly along a shit-load of bullshit and pandering.

But I could not figure out what was going on with Barrack Obama during the debate. He seemed, depending on your propensity to spin left, somewhere between “overly calm and relaxed” and “tired and underprepared.” Perhaps he thought the campaign was over after Romney insulting and writing off nearly half the country during a private fundraiser became public. Perhaps he did not expect Romney’s campaign staff to slip a few teaspoons of cocaine into his afternoon tea, in order to give him a little more pep.

Obama is Mr. Charisma, not to say that he doesn’t have facts or arguments structured on logic or empirical data. It is just that the man’s one-word essence is charisma. That is how he coasted to a victory in 2008. Like Usain Bolt at the Olympics of the same year, Obama destroyed McCain with an early lead and then seemed to float to the inevitable. And that early lead, that initial destruction of his opponent was centered around his energy. He made the maverick McCain, who – by the way – is still feisty as ever in the Senate, look like a crippled, wrinkled retiree.

But last night that energy was gone. Maybe he just wasn’t “feeling it.” Maybe he was taken by surprise by Romney’s own energy and joie de vivre.

Wait a minute! Maybe Romney hired a secret corporation to break into the White House during the night before the debate and steal Obama’s charisma like in some sci-fi movie. Then, minutes before taking the stage, the Obama energy was consumed by Romeny! That’s it, either that or Romney took an assload of uppers and Obama forgot to sleep for the last week.

But I did not find Obama’s missing personality to be the most confusing aspect of Wednesday’s debate. That spot was reserved for Romney.

To me, this man is an enigma, not just over this campaign, but over his entire political career. He starts fairly moderate in his 1994 race against Ted Kennedy for the Senate. Then he is moderate, but a little to the right when he runs for governor of Massachusetts. Then he becomes governor and shifts much more significantly to the right. Then he becomes a near-fundamentalist, Tea Party extremist during his current campaign.

Then last night, everything changed. The largest point of confusion I encountered was that , suddenly, he was preaching about lowering the tax burden on the lower and middle classes while raising the rates on wealthier citizens. For most of the past few months, at least to my knowledge, Romney’s platform seemed very much in line what we all are forced to call the “Republican” party platform. More Bush Tax cuts, subsidies to oil and natural gas companies, cuts to entitlements, cuts to education and welfare, more defense spending.

Then, last night, he spoke about slowly tapering off social security and medicare spending, rather than taking a hatchet to it as he and his running mate Paul “The Conservative Intellect” Ryan had spoken about, again, for the last few months. He refused to agree with Obama’s assertion that his economic plan would increase kill-machine spending (colloquially referred to as “defense spending”) by multiple trillions of dollars. He also completely side-stepped the issue of his tax cuts, again refusing to address Obama’s claim that the Romney plan would cut tax revenues by about 5 trillion dollars.

I have to disagree with those who claim that Romney “won” the debate last night. Perhaps he won the battle, but if he continues fighting this way, he may lose the war. Sure, in the short term, some undecided voters (like myself) may be convinced to support this new, much less radically Republican Romney. But he has a Massachusetts campaign gives him a definite history of going back on many of the campaign promises he makes, perhaps more so than the average politician. Objectively examining this history may indicate to some voters that Romney has not trouble lying to get into office and then throwing his campaign promises away and becoming something else entirely once he is elected.

Regardless of how moderate voters react to this new Romney, I think that if he spends the last month of his campaign completely undercutting the policies he espoused during the last six months of his campaign, Romney will very likely alienate his base of supporters, the ones who got , and most likely lose the election.