C9

1) Romney emphasized his promise to lower taxes. He believes in a small federal government and discussed the various ways he would take power from the national government and give it to state legislatures. He plans to decrease government revenue through high taxes and instead try to increase employment and make up the difference in income by receiving taxes from more people. Romney also hopes to repeal ObamaCare and give states more power in distributing well-fare to the poor. Obama emphasized the benefits of ObamaCare to justify the money he has spent on implementing it. Obama defended his efforts to increase healthcare coverage for all Americans from allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance longer to helping to lower premiums. One topic that both candidates discussed a lot was the middle class. Both Obama and Romney seem to have focused in on appealing to middle class voters.

2) Obama discussed Romney's lack of specificity, this is a key point in Obama's campaign against Romney. He said, “And at some point I think the American people have to ask themselves: Is the reason that Governor Romney is keeping all these plans to replace secret, because they are too good?. Is it because that somehow middle class families will benefit too much from them?”

Romney also zinged Obama. One of his main strategies of the debate was to deny the facts that Obama presented, especially regarding Romney's tax plan. Romney said, “Mr. President, you’re entitled to your own house and your own airplane, but not your own facts.”

3) Romney seemed much more energetic than Obama. Romney had clearly had a lot of preparation for the debate and he appeared fresh and excited. Obama was fairly laid back. He left a lot of opportunities go by to aggressively go after Romney. Obama looked at his notes a lot and seemed less engaged. I think Obama will try to turn up his energy for the next debate since Romney appeared much more energized in the first debate.

4) The environment was briefly touched on several times when Romney accused Obama of spending too much on green energy development and green businesses. Although the focus was mainly on economics and health care I was surprised that there was so little discussion of environmental regulation and protection. I hope to see more in the future.