Less than ten minutes into the first presidential debate I put my gut feelings into words on my notepad. “Romney is going to win this debate.” It seemed obvious to me that Romney was (as the BBC’s Mark Mardell subsequently commented) far better than Obama in terms of “look and feel” and also more sure-footed and confident than the president. When it was over there were two questions in my mind.
The first was – Who is the real Romney?
Is it the Romney who was secretly filmed telling some of his campaign funders that it was not his job to worry about the 47% of Americans “who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it”?
Or is it the Romney who said with passion in his closing remarks “I’m in this race because people are hurting”? In the context of some of his statements earlier in the debate the clear implication was that a President Romney would fight for the little guys and gals who make up the 47% he had previously despised.
The answer is that the two Romneys are really one. In other words, he is a presidential candidate who is prepared to tell particular audiences what he thinks they want to hear. Until last night’s debate a majority of American voters were aware of this Romney game play and that’s why his chances of beating Obama seemed to be poor. For the reasons well summarised in an editorial in today’s New York Times (and which I will quote in a moment) that still ought to be the case. But we shall see…
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