Obama: Revitalized, Inspired and Ready to Fight for His Re-Election

The Democrats and Barack Obama supporters in general must be relieved after the dominance of the president at the second televised debate last night. They may even ask themselves what happened to the president in the previous debate.

The Obama we saw yesterday had clearly learned his lesson from his disappointing first performance. He understood the need to put a stop to Romney’s newfound momentum, the speculations about his motivation, and the worrying trend of a decline in votes observed since the meeting in Denver. He proved to be rather revitalized, inspired and ready to fight to be reelected. He spoke about topics that, surprisingly, he did not bring up in Denver, such as the video of Romney insulting 47 percent of American citizens and the rescue plan for the automobile industry – something which is very relevant to the citizens of Denver and which Romney was rather quick to criticize.

In contrast with the first debate, Obama knew how to bring Romney down a notch. In particular, he managed to focus his arguments on the Republicans’ inability to change life, or to bring their own ambiguities into their discussions. In a nutshell, Obama jumped on several opportunities to reiterate certain truths and bring balance to the debate.

He set the tone of the debate from the start, describing an elitist and indifferent Romney who is fundamentally worried about protecting the rich, but is out of touch with current society and does not comprehend the challenges faced by the middle class. In the eyes of the average American, the challenge was deconstructing the new image of an aggressive, extremely empathetic, candidate that Romney has managed to portray himself as recently. Obama methodically applied this consistent strategy of making his opponent out to be an advocate for elitism, a method that was utilized on economic and financial questions, as well as social issues and even more controversial subjects like immigration. This resort to what was once a caricature caused Romney showing his defensive side from the start of the debate, a dynamic from which the Republican never truly extricated himself from until the end of the evening.

Romney, on the other hand, had the difficult task of proving that the Denver debate was not just a fluke. He tried to show the “real Mitt Romney” – a sensitive, sympathetic and reasonable republican, nothing like the ultra-conservative man depicted by the opposition. This time, the pressure was on Romney, as he could no longer rely on the element of surprise and knew that his opponents were waiting for him to trip up. Romney managed to deal a few blows to Obama, specifically concerning the economy, the financial trajectory of the country during his term in office, the policies that harm the middle class, and his excessive spending over the last four years. Again, he attempted to set out the differences between himself and the President on specific issues such as energy. His speech, which differed greatly from Obama’s, focused on the presentation of a global vision of a fairer future – a broad vision that was absent in the previous debate.

However, Romney’s few strong points in this tête-à-tête were shadowed by numerous tensions with the moderator, particularly regarding debate etiquette, which did not work in his favor. The debate ended with Romney mistakenly highlighting a supposed error made on the part of the president regarding his official statement on the Benghazi attacks. The Republican campaign, which tried to use this as fuel for the presidential fire regarding his foreign policy, could prove to have grave consequences. Not only does it display Romney’s weaknesses throughout the debates, but it gives the president – whose foreign policies are supported by voters – the chance to ridicule his opponent. Romney can now be seen as irresponsible, allowing his opponent to constantly remind voters that they can take his recent blunders (such as during his trip to Europe in the summer of 2012) as proof of his unsuitability to become the country’s commander in chief.

Until the upcoming poll, it remains to be seen to what extent the messages of both candidates have affected the most sensitive voting populations – particularly women, the undecided and voters in the swing states. Of course, Obama’s “victory” in last night’s debate has not fundamentally changed the dynamic of the presidential race; there is still a very small margin between both candidates and it will probably stay like that until the very last day. But Obama delivered very well, exploiting a number of issues in his favor, which, when all added up, seem to spell victory.