Romney's Chances

We have to be wary of elections supposedly won in advance. The race for the White House just offered a startling twist to all those who believed Barack Obama had already won. After an hour and a half of dense and polite televised debate, the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, disposed of the caricature that his Democratic opponents had sketched of him for months. He skillfully negotiated his slide to the center without totally disavowing the rightmost base of the Republican Party, which is characterized by meetings where they boo Washington, D.C., the fight for the right to bear arms, the theology of tax cuts and the nostalgia for an America where success was easier than today.

Facing him was the president, outgoing, competent, precise and serious, but nearing boredom. The president criticized his opponent more than he explained why Americans should trust him with the destiny of the country for four more years.

Five weeks before the elections, the U.S. campaign re-launched at the debate. Barack Obama’s lead in the polls is existent but no longer insurmountable for the former governor of Massachusetts. In the three televised debates in 2000, Texas Governor George W. Bush assumed the presidential stature he had previously lacked, in the eyes of undecided voters, against outgoing Vice President Al Gore. After the first debate was clearly won, the Republican camp came out galvanized by the performance of a champion whom they had not chosen enthusiastically.

In many ways, Mitt Romney neither resembles the campaign he leads nor the party that supports him. Romney, who is not fundamentally an ideologue, is the candidate of a party that has never been so marked by ideology. We recall his wise management of Massachusetts and the adoption of consensual reforms, including in the matter of health care, is left to embark at the head of a populist crusade as we’ve rarely seen during an American presidential campaign.

In this final phase of the race for the White House, the tactical skill which he demonstrated against Obama will not suffice. Certainly, Romney knows how to find words that hit their target. In a sentence that is already a standout, he nailed his opponent whose economic strategy, to hear him describe it, can be summarized as counting on “trickle-down government.” But like Obama, he must still persuade Americans that the U.S. would be better off with him at its head. After the first debate, the two candidates are tied in the minds of those who are undecided. That is already a victory for Romney.