Payne: ‘This is a different Mitt Romney’

Posted by hpayne on October 3, 2012

“This is a different Mitt Romney,” said Jesse Jackson, leaning into me a half hour into the first presidential debate Wednesday night.

Well, it was different than the baby-eating Scrooge caricature that Obama & Media had been selling the last three weeks. But that caricature was never accurate, and so when Mitt Romney appeared in 60 million American living rooms – unfiltered – as his smart, competent, data-driven CEO self, he was bound to impress.

And impress he did.

Jackson and I were on a pre-debate panel organized by The Michigan Chronicle’s Bankole Thompson in downtown Detroit. The audience, a partisan Detroit crowd at the Seafood Market Restaurant, was revved for Obama. But as the debate unfolded, Jackson wasn’t the only Democrat who felt the earth moving under this campaign. At Fox 2 News at 10.30 PM, I joined Democratic consultants Debbie Dingell and Steve Hood who both acknowledged that this was Romney’s night.

But perhaps worse for Obama was where he goes next. His only weapon this campaign has been caricature. His opponent’s a One Percenter. He’s rich. He sends jobs to China. He doesn’t care about poor people. He’s rich. And now that the caricature has been punctured, he must run on his record. And that record is dreadful.

Romney took command of the debate by relentlessly citing the facts (facts a partisan MSM had buried of late) – middle class income down $4000 (eight percent) since Obama took office. Gas prices have doubled. The deficit has doubled. Tax dollars wasted on $90 billion subsidies to green failures like Solyndra, Fisker, and Ener1. Twenty-three million people out of work or not looking for work. A rise in food stamps from 32 million to 47 million. And so on.

Obama had nothing in response. (After the debate, the ever-loyal Juan Williams wondered why the president didn’t “attack him on Bain, attack him on the 47 percent, attack his tax returns.” But perhaps the president realized that such petty personal attacks would only have made the him look smaller.)

“Going forward with the status quo is not going to cut it,” said Romney, outlining the details of five-point plan after five-point plan from tax reform to health reform.

“I’m against giving tax breaks to companies to shift jobs overseas,” Obama shot back, trying to get back to his caricature fantasyland. Obamedia swallows that line whole on the campaign trail, but Romney isn’t the MSM.

“I’ve been in business 25 years and I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the GOP challenger.

Ouch. You could see Obama shrinking before your eyes.

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