US: Meeting The Real Mitt Romney At Last – Investors.com

Mitt Romney finally got his chance Wednesday night to break free of handlers and hostile media and to speak directly to the American people.
He made the most of it.
Where have they been hiding this guy? That was one thought crossing our minds while watching Romney deliver a debate performance for the ages.
It’s clear to all, left and right, that he beat Barack Obama by every measure — argument, clarity, control of the topics and personality. He was the Happy Warrior, having the time of this life. Obama acted like someone who just wanted it to be over.


But this wasn’t just a contest. It was, for Romney, an introduction. Most Americans had seen or heard him before, of course. But there had always been some kind of distraction or filter that got in the way of getting a full impression of the man.
The Obama campaign and its media allies worked hard to define him by a few verbal missteps — and sometimes to define as “gaffes” statements that were anything but. (It turns out that Romney was onto something about the Libya mess, wasn’t he?)
Opposition ads constructed an unfeeling “Mitt Romney,” now revealed to be fictional, who was driven by the callous pursuit of profit, mistreated the dog and was nicer to his cars than to real people. A lackluster speech at the Republican convention didn’t help him. His writers had let him down. Some were saying the same of his whole campaign.
Then came the debate. People learned — though alert viewers watching the GOP primary debates knew this already — that Romney is deeply knowledgeable, articulate and quick on his feet. He clearly is ready for the presidency on Day One.
But he went beyond simply showing he was qualified for office. He also gave us a window into his principles and priorities, and how these would define a Romney presidency.
The contrast with the current presidency could not be starker. Barack Obama has been a one-party president from the start. He reaches across the aisle for ideas (as he said Wednesday) as long as “they’re advancing the cause of making middle-class families stronger and giving ladders of opportunity to the middle class.”
That standard, as he applies it, is much stricter than he makes it sound. Republicans were frozen out of the legislative process when Democrats controlled Congress in Obama’s first two years. Since the GOP regained the House, Obama has preferred stalemate — and the opportunity to bash the opposition — to any meaningful action.
The president, in one of those slips that a skilled debating opponent can exploit, noted at one point how Ronald Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill worked together on a Social Security fix. A bit later, Romney picked up that cue and adroitly drew a contrast between how he would govern and how Obama has been operating:
“My experience as a governor is if I come in and — and lay down a piece of legislation and say, ‘It’s my way or the highway,’ I don’t get a lot done. What I do is the same way that Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan worked together some years ago.”
Romney didn’t talk much about his business experience at the debate. What he did mention, more than once, was his achievement as a Republican governor in a Democratic state. It’s a measure of his political skill that he seemed on Wednesday to please two very different groups.
Conservatives (who are not enamored of all his Massachusetts works) were inspired by his clear statement of principles.
Independents were drawn by his heartfelt promise to work together with political opponents to get things done for the greater good.
It’s not easy to balance principle and pragmatism in this way. But Reagan did so, and Romney has made a persuasive case that he can do so as well.
He was pitch-perfect with his pledge to be the type of leader who will “bring people together and get the job done and could not care less if — if it’s a Republican or a Democrat.”
The current president clearly does care which party gets the credit. Just that one point of contrast between the two men could put Romney on a path to a much-deserved victory on Nov. 6.