Romney takes softer tone,
But Obama casts him as outdated
BOCA RATON, FLA. This time, President Obama wanted a fight. Mitt Romney was determined not to give him one.
At the third and final presidential debate — in battleground Florida, and focused on foreign policy — Obama accused his Republican rival of espousing “wrong ” and dangerous policies that would risk new wars, and he ridiculed his worldview and his demands for a bigger Navy as outdated.
“We have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets,” Obama said to laughter, adding: “This is not a game of Battleship.”
If the president wanted to shake things up, though, his opponent was trying to keep things calm. The fingerpointing Romney from the first two debates was gone. Instead, seated across from Obama at a table, the former Massachusetts governor was more measured and less confrontational. He opened by congratulating the president for the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, though he followed that brief praise by repeatedly questioning the strength of his leadership.
“I look around the world — I don’t see our influence growing around the world,” Romney said. “I see our influence receding.” He blasted Obama for tensions with Israel and questioned the effectiveness of his policies toward Iran. But his tone seemed to be one more of regret than anger, and on several fronts he said he agreed with the administration.
That prompted Obama to accuse him of “trying to airbrush history” by adopting more moderate policies on global topics than he espoused in the past.
The first two debates enabled Romney to achieve what millions of dollars in TV ads and the better part of a year of campaigning had failed to do: to persuade voters to see him as a plausible president, worthy of a second look. He seemed determined to capitalize on that opportunity by looking, well, presidential in the third one, even at the risk of letting some of Obama’s caustic jibes go unanswered.
Romney’s success in getting a second chance to make a first impression doesn’t mean he’ll win the election, but his credible performances shifted a close campaign that had been tilting in Obama’s favor. The president went into the first debate with a 4-percentage-point lead among registered voters in Gallup’s daily poll. He went into the second locked in a tie. And he headed into the third trailing by 1 point among registered voters and 6 among likely voters.
Could Romney, already favored over Obama on managing the economy, close the advantage the president has had in handling foreign policy?
The 90 minutes on stage at Lynn University offered his best opportunity to do that — and Obama’s best chance to prevent it from happening.
“Every time you have offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong,” the president told Romney, noting that he supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and questioned the wisdom of a full-throated search for bin Laden. Recalling Romney’s comment that Russia was the nation’s top geopolitical foe, the president said mockingly: “The 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”
“Attacking me is not an agenda,” Romney replied. “Attacking me is not talking about the challenges we’re going to face in the Middle East.”
Four years ago, the debates between Obama and Republican John McCain confirmed the outlines of a race in which broad dissatisfaction with George W. Bush’s presidency and a cascading economic crisis set the stage for a decisive Democratic takeover of the White House.
This year, the debates have changed the landscape. They gave Romney a chance before his biggest audiences ever to present himself as a man with an economic plan and to pivot to more moderate rhetoric on issues from immigration to contraception. That picture was at odds with the one the Obama camp had painted for months of a plutocrat who didn’t know and didn’t care about the lives of most Americans.
“The main thrust and in some ways the sole thrust of the Obama campaign from May through September was to render Mitt Romney unacceptable as an alternative to Barack Obama,” says William Galston of the Brookings Institution, a White House adviser to President Clinton and veteran Democratic strategist. “In my judgment, the first debate blew up that strategy beyond repair.”
The intended topics Monday weren’t the ones Americans say matter most — that is, jobs, the economy and the federal budget deficit. On the agenda instead were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nuclear program in Iran, the terrorist threats from the Middle East, the economic competition from China, the U.S. role in the world.
The underlying issue as well, and the larger point being pressed by both contenders, was that of leadership in the Oval Office. Romney portrayed Obama as weak and reactive. Obama portrayed Romney as feckless and opportunistic.
Still, Romney already had scored gains in being seen as a potential commander in chief. After the first debate, a nationwide USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found Obama preferred over Romney by a single point, 48%-47%, in handling international issues. In August, the president’s lead on foreign policy had been in double digits, 52%-42%.
In the debate, both men managed to turn the topic back to issues closer to home, from taxes and jobs to education. Both of them delivered closing statements that focused not on foreign policy but on the economy — and the election, now just 15 days away.