Thursday, October 4, 2012

Obama assails ‘real’ Romney’s debate claims

Obama assails ‘real’ Romney’s debate claims

Campaign team plans ‘adjustments’ after lackluster performance

DENVER — In his first appearance since his widely panned debate performance, President Obama Thursday accused Republican nominee Mitt Romney of deceiving voters in the rivals’ first face-off of the campaign Wednesday night.
“When I got onto the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,” Mr. Obama told supporters at a rally in Denver. “But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy.  The fellow on the stage last night said he didn’t know anything about that.”


The president didn’t refer to his own debate performance, which was criticized from the right and left as unfocused, stumbling and passionless. Instant polls showed that most viewers felt Mr. Romney won the debate by a significant margin.
Mr. Obama said Mr. Romney “does not want to be held accountable” for campaign promises of the past year. He called again for a “balanced” tax policy that includes raising taxes on families earning more than $250,000, something the Republican opposes.
Gov. Romney may dance around his positions, but if you want to be president, you need to tell the American people the truth,” Mr. Obama said. “I had to spend a lot of time last night trying to pin him down.”
Despite the president’s post-debate combativeness, his poor performance in the debate sent shock waves through his campaign. A senior Obama campaign adviser said Thursday that the campaign team will make “adjustments.”
“We’re going to take a hard look at this, and we’re going to have to make some judgments,” senior adviser David Axelrod told reporters. “I’m sure that we will make adjustments. There are strategic judgments that have to be made, and we will make them.”
Some critics of Mr. Obama’s debate performance attributed it to not using a teleprompter. At the rally Thursday, the president again was aided by the speech-reading device. But even his confidence seemed shaken, as he told the Colorado crowd at one point, “I don’t know how many of you will be with me this time around. I still believe in you. I’m asking you to keep on believing in me.”
Mr. Axelrod said the president and his team should have been more prepared to challenge Mr. Romney in the debate on a variety of issues, accusing the Republican of deceiving voters on his positions.
“The president viewed it as a great opportunity to talk to the American people,” Mr. Axelrod said. “He didn’t view it, as perhaps Gov. Romney did, as a performance,” claiming that a political performance in a debate is not Mr. Obama’s “strong suit.”
“You can’t allow someone to stand there and basically manhandle the truth… and not deal with that,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I know that he’s very eager for the next debate.”
A Romney campaign spokeswoman said Mr. Axelrod’s comments were “just like the President’s performance last night.”
“The campaign, like the president, offered no defense of the president’s first term record or vision for a second term, and instead, offered nothing but false attacks, petulant statements, and lies about Governor Romney’s record,” said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg.
Even some of Mr. Obama’s most ardent supporters acknowledged he performed badly in the debate. Rapper will.i.am tried to cheer up the crowd at the president’s rally in the park in Denver, which was held in frigid temperatures.
“I’m going to play music to bring the energy up,” he said. “I know people are low. It’s cold. But there’s a fire right here within us.”
The entertainer, whose real name is William Adams, said Mr. Obama “is a reflection of us.”
“So when people stop Barack Obama, they’re stopping us,” Mr. Adams said. “He is us. And we’re not going to stop. I came from the projects. I support President Barack Obama because I support neighborhoods like the one I come from. I support prosperity. It’s going to take awhile — four years, eight years, and the president to come after him, to follow the footsteps of what we started in 2008.”
Mr. Adams also referred to Republican Mitt Romney’s pledge to cut government funding for the Public Broadcasting System, saying, “I know it sounds funny, I was trending all night through Twitter — we need PBS.”
But Mayor Federico Peña of Denver said he was “very proud” of Mr. Obama’s presentation in the debate.
“The president spoke the truth, and the truth counts,” he said. Mr. Peña referred to the Republican as the “new Mitt Romney” for his newfound support for the middle class.
The criticism of Mr. Obama’s debate performance continued to pour in Thursday, even from friendly quarters. Simon Rosenberg, founder of the New Democratic Network, said the president’s campaign is too focused on winning nine battleground states.
“I still think Obama is likely to win this fall, but he needs to be the president of the entire country, not just nine states,” Mr. Rosenberg said in a post-debate memo. “It is important for the Obama campaign to use these remaining debates, and perhaps some limited national advertising, to make their case for a second term agenda and not just go for the ‘win.’ The president’s campaign is winning the election in the nine states, but he now needs to make sure he wins it in the rest of the country, too, or his second term could move to lame duck status much quicker than is good for him or the nation.”
Sen. Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, said Mr. Obama was “thoughtful, dignified and trustful” and showed that his focus is on the middle class.

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