When President Obama entered the debate hall at the University of Denver on Wednesday night, the air was clear and warm. When he left, the winds where whipping and the temperature had dropped 20 degrees. Coincidentally, that was also the same number of undecided voters who thought the president had a good debate.
In two different polls of undecided voters by CNN and CBS, Obama received grim reviews. Instant polls are a small sample and only a momentary impression, but that's all the Romney camp needed. Going into the debate, challenger Mitt Romney was on the long end of three bad weeks. His advisers were looking simply for a pause in the race -- a moment for voters to take a second look. They got it Wednesday night.
Romney had two tasks. He had to explain why the president was a failure while also seeming appealing enough for voters to think he might have policies that will succeed. The risk was that he would get the mix wrong. He'd come off as too aggressive and turn people off. Romney was certainly aggressive. "You've had four years, " he told the president during the discussion of deficit reduction. "You said you'd cut the deficit in half. It's now four years later. We still have trillion-dollar deficits. You found $4 trillion to reduce or to get closer to a balanced budget, except we still show trillion-dollar deficits every year. That doesn't get the job done."
Romney seemed alive to the challenge, almost like he was enjoying himself. He looked in command, like he belonged on stage with the president. Voters polled by CBS after the debate showed a dramatic increase in the number who thought Romney cared about them.
The president's numbers also improved among those voters polled by CBS on the question of caring. It was the only bright spot of the night for Obama, who otherwise seemed listless and detached. When Romney spoke, Obama looked down at his notes and smiled, which conveyed something between low-stakes bemusement and "I can't believe I have to listen to this guy." Perhaps that's what happens when you're president and people don't often tell you that you're wrong.
In debates over Romney's tax plan, health care and Medicare, Obama didn't prosecute his case nearly as powerfully as his opponent. At times the president seemed to think merely by appealing to voters' deductive reasoning he'd make his point. "Does anybody out there think that the big problem we had is that there was too much oversight and regulation of Wall Street? Because if you do, then Governor Romney is your candidate." That's a circuitous way to make a rather simple point. Obama did that again and again.
The president seemed thrown off by the fact that Romney was far more like the man who won the governorship in Massachusetts than the one who had won the Republican primary. In a debate about tax cuts, Romney consistently denied that his tax cuts would total $5 trillion. Shouldn't Republicans boast about cutting taxes? What Romney meant is that his 20 percent across-the-board cut would be revenue-neutral and not increase the deficit. That doesn't mean, however, that they won't also be large tax cuts.
Romney also seemed to moderate his tone on regulations, particularly Dodd-Frank. Previously, his criticism of the bill had been much harsher, but on Wednesday he seemed to say that it's big problem wasn't so much the regulations but the fact that the regulations were unclear.