I’ll give it to Mitt Rom­ney. Dur­ing the debate he looked and sound­ed pret­ty ​“pres­i­den­tial”: good hair­cut, pow­er tie, in com­mand (total con­trol, real­ly) of the debate. He fol­lowed the basic rules that I and oth­er con­sul­tants tell our clients when they pre­pare for a debate: Speak direct­ly to the TV cam­eras. Stick to your script and use every ques­tion to get back to the same points — whether or not those points actu­al­ly respond to the ques­tion, and whether or not they are true.

In Romney's America, the very rich would be protected while the rest of us fend for ourselves.

Romney’s per­for­mance had the intend­ed effect. Vir­tu­al­ly every poll across the nation had his num­bers soar­ing in the past week. Many show him lead­ing Oba­ma both in the pop­u­lar vote and in crit­i­cal swing states.

Pre­sum­ably, that means many Amer­i­can are now ​”look­ing at Rom­ney in a new light.” While his run­ning mate Paul Ryan did­n’t do as well, for those who were swayed by Rom­ney’s per­for­mance, it might be pru­dent to think past his style or what posi­tions he chose to take that night. Based on Romney’s record — as well as the agen­das of his par­ty, his run­ning mate and the Super PACs to which he would owe his vic­to­ry — let’s take a moment to envi­sion what life would be like under a Rom­ney presidency.

In Rom­ney’s Amer­i­ca, with Oba­macare repealed on ​“the first day,” women, who for the first time are now guar­an­teed life-sav­ing exams and con­tra­cep­tion at no cost, would be back on their own. They’d once again be faced with the choice of whether or not they could afford the Pap smears, mam­mo­grams and con­tra­cep­tion that not only improve their lives, but in some cas­es, save them.

And women who need to end a preg­nan­cy could very well be out of luck. Rom­ney has said that he would pick Supreme Court jus­tices who would over­turn Roe v. Wade. And in the worse-case sce­nario, the bills sup­port­ed by his run­ning mate Ryan and oth­er Repub­li­cans would deny abor­tions even in cas­es of incest or rape.

In Romney’s Amer­i­ca, those with pre-exist­ing con­di­tions (includ­ing hav­ing had a C‑section or, accord­ing to some insur­ers, just being female) are also out of luck. Out­side of Mass­a­chu­setts, they’re on their own, at the mer­cy of indi­vid­ual states and insur­ers who could legal­ly deny them cov­er­age or offer it only at exor­bi­tant rates, just as they can now. And if you are some­one who has lit­tle sym­pa­thy for the unin­sured, remem­ber that it is the rest of us who pay the bills, through high­er local prop­er­ty tax­es, high­er hos­pi­tal costs and insur­ance rates.

Seniors too would suf­fer — Romney’s repeal would mean high­er Med­ic­aid pre­mi­ums as well as high­er well­ness vis­it and pre­scrip­tion costs. And his pledge to restore $716 bil­lion dol­lars to providers be at the expense of health­care ser­vices for the aged and poor.

In Rom­ney’s Amer­i­ca, it would be hard­er than ever to find a job. Des­tined for the dust­bin would be the esti­mat­ed 1.9 mil­lion new pri­vate-sec­tor jobs that Obama’s pend­ing Amer­i­can Jobs Act would cre­ate. Not to men­tion that, if Rom­ney run­ning mate Paul Ryan’s pro­posed ​“Path to Pros­per­i­ty” bud­get were to pass, rather than pros­per­i­ty, the U.S. will like­ly see anoth­er 4.1 mil­lion jobs lost by 2014, accord­ing to the Cen­ter for Tax Pol­i­cy. Despite his recent dis­claimers, Romney’s pre­vi­ous endorse­ments of his run­ning mate’s bud­get, cou­pled with the fact that he will owe his vic­to­ry to the extreme Right, means that he’s like­ly to see it passes.

And that’s just in the pri­vate sec­tor. Romney’s pledge to cut gov­ern­ment pro­grams will also mean more cut­backs for teach­ers, fire fight­ers, police offi­cers, con­struc­tion work­ers, health­care pro­fes­sion­als and others.

In Rom­ney’s Amer­i­ca, it would be hard­er to attain the skills need­ed for a job that sup­ports a fam­i­ly. The Ryan bud­get would slash spend­ing on col­lege tuition grants by 42 per­cent and kick 1 mil­lion stu­dents out of the pro­gram. Ryan’s debt-ceil­ing bill would pre­serve $261 bil­lion for the mil­i­tary (a bud­get larg­er than those of the next top 10 mil­i­tary pow­ers com­bined) at the expense of those most in need: 1.8 mil­lion Amer­i­cans would lose food stamps; 280,000 chil­dren their school lunch­es, and 300,000 chil­dren their essen­tial health care benefits.

At risk, also, would be the air we breathe and the water we drink. With Rom­ney and Ryan at the helm, under the guise of free­ing com­pa­nies from the ​“tyran­ny” of reg­u­la­tion, the exec­u­tive branch would put its clout behind pend­ing Repub­li­can bills that remove lim­its on mer­cury in the soil and water, and slash the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency’s staff and author­i­ty. Such bills offer a wind­fall to com­pa­nies but place a great toll on Amer­i­cans, who would have to pay the costs of tox­ins in their bodies.

In Rom­ney’s Amer­i­ca, the very rich would be pro­tect­ed while the rest of us fend for our­selves. Just as Rom­ney’s Bain Cap­i­tal relied on gov­ern­ment wel­fare — a $10,000,000 bail-out in 1993 and var­i­ous tax loop­holes — Rom­ney’s tax cuts would over­whelm­ing­ly ben­e­fit cor­po­ra­tions and their mil­lion­aire and bil­lion­aire own­ers. Rom­ney and Ryan would extend the Bush-era tax cuts and dole out anoth­er $2.5 tril­lion to the wealth­i­est Amer­i­cans by reduc­ing the tax rate on top earn­ers from 35 to 25 per­cent, low­er­ing the cor­po­rate rate to 25 per­cent, and end­ing the alter­na­tive min­i­mum tax. In fact, the Ryan bud­get slash­es $5.3 tril­lion in pro­grams and ser­vices for poor and work­ing peo­ple, includ­ing both the Child and Earned Income tax credits.

These cuts are under the ban­ner of fis­cal respon­si­bil­i­ty, but in the mean­time, Rom­ney would con­tin­ue the kind of prof­li­gate mil­i­tary spend­ing that, along with Bush’s two wars, added more than $10 tril­lion to the nation­al debt. And as if that weren’t enough, Rom­ney would elim­i­nate the estate tax — again ben­e­fit­ing the super-rich — and deprive Amer­i­can cof­fers of anoth­er $1 tril­lion over ten years.

As a result, in Rom­ney’s Amer­i­ca, our prop­er­ty tax­es would be high­er and our qual­i­ty of life low­er. Fed­er­al funds for edu­ca­tion, law enforce­ment, food safe­ty, and hous­ing pro­duc­tion would be slashed, push­ing those bur­dens down to states, cities and towns. Our roads and bridges would go unre­paired and sci­en­tif­ic research would wane, dimin­ish­ing our com­petive­ness in the glob­al economy.

And, of course, in Rom­ney’s Amer­i­ca there would be no Big Bird. And per­haps that lit­tle quip says it all. In Romney’s Amer­i­ca, the wealth from our col­lec­tive efforts wouldn’t go back to the col­lec­tive good through pro­grams like Sesame Street. Instead, the Koch Broth­ers, the Shel­don Adel­sons, and oth­ers would take that wealth and claim it as their own.

Rom­ney was right, how­ev­er, about one thing. Novem­ber 6 is a defin­ing moment. How­ev­er flawed they were, the founders of the nation were bent on cre­at­ing a soci­ety that guar­an­teed oppor­tu­ni­ty and mobil­i­ty. And how­ev­er flawed Pres­i­dent Oba­ma may be, he has fought to ensure the real­iza­tion of that Amer­i­can dream. In Rom­ney’s Amer­i­ca, the poli­cies and pro­grams that have allowed for the pur­suit of that dream would be reversed.

Rom­ney looks good, talks a good game and is clear­ly not trou­bled by stick­ing to the facts or any par­tic­u­lar set of prin­ci­ples. That may be good enough for tele­vi­sion, but it’s not good enough for America.