The headline of the November 3, 1948 edition of the Chicago Tribune famously incorrectly named Gov. Thomas Dewey (R-NY) the victor over incumbent President Harry Truman in that year’s presidential election. The conventional wisdom of the political operatives at that time was that the Dewey-Warren ticket would win the election by an overwhelming majority and the Republicans would maintain both houses of Congress. The polls leading up to Election Day as well as the early returns further cemented this prediction. But as history indicates, there was no President Dewey or Vice President Warren, nor were either of the chambers of the 81st Congress Republican led. In fact, the opposite had occurred; President Truman won his re-election bid with Vice President Barkley, and the campaign against the “Do Nothing Congress” successfully flipped the House and Senate to Democratic majorities.

Going into the first presidential debate last night, the polls showed that Americans clearly believed that President Obama would win the debate rather handily. One ABC/Washington Post poll showed 55%-31% split claiming the President to be the likely winner, while a Washington Times/Zogby poll showed a 49%-26% spread. These polls also reflected the trend of the campaign overall, polls in battleground states had largely swung in the President’s favor, and he had even taken the lead, though slim, on the issue of handling the economy, a pervasive weak spot for the incumbent. It quickly became evident during the debate last night that the Obama campaign had fallen prey to the polls. They had written November 7, 2012 headline far too far in advance.

Governor Romney came prepared to spar. He had two things working in his favor before the first words were spoken by debate moderator Jim Lehrer: 1.) he is down in the polls, so he had nothing to lose; 2.) he is the challenger, making it easier to stick Obama to his record and evade being pinned to his campaign rhetoric and promises. Yesterday, Of Passion + Politics said there were three things the Americans wanted to see from the candidates in the debate, and Gov. Romney successfully executed on each of them. He seemed passionate in retelling the stories of struggles facing real American people he had heard on the campaign trail, he spoke of compromising with the Massachusetts legislature that was 87% Democratic at the time he was governor of the commonwealth, and was specific, laying out a five point plan on job creation. Though his plan deviated greatly from what he has been articulating for the past eighteen months of his candidacy and provided no numbers, Gov. Romney looked capable of leading, an important intangible of the debate forum. His campaign equipped him with a debate strategy of controlling the conversation; he pushed the moderator around, brought up subject matter that questions did not prompt, and rejected notions that he claimed to be false or misled. Romney was flat out effective.

Romney Fact Check:

$5 Trillion Tax Cut. Governor Romney proclaimed last night that he does not propose a $5T tax cut on the wealthiest Americans. The Obama team derived this number from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center’s analysis of Romney’s tax plan and extrapolating it over the course of a decade, a common practice regarding tax policy. The governor’s plan calls for a 20% reduction in individual income tax rates, permanently extending the Bush tax cuts, a reduction from 35% to 25% in the corporate income tax rate and eliminates the estate tax. The Tax Policy Center says that this plan will decrease revenue by $480 billion in 2015. Apply that to a ten year period, there you have your $5T tax cut. The explanation for paying for it has yet to be seen or heard. The Tax Policy Center also concludes, if this plan weren’t to impact the deficit, as Romney promises, a tax burden of $86B would be shifted onto the middle class in 2015.

President Obama opened and closed the debate the same way, stuttering and stammering his way through. As MSNBC’s Chris Matthews stated, “Romney enjoyed the debate; Obama endured it.” Obama has never been a great debater, it took an entire primary season against now Secretary Hillary Clinton for him to get his bearings, but he has also never been known to rest on his laurels. On the night that more people tuned in than will for the remainder of the campaign, he stood, one foot perched up and balanced on the other, took the hits and did not fight back. My frustration began with Jim Lehrer, whose moderating performance has been largely ridiculed, just or unjust, but I soon learned that it was Obama and not the moderator who needed to take control of the debate. It was clear that the President’s team had advised him to take the “presidential” route: remain above the fray, never seem agitated and whatever you do, do not come down from the presidential podium. However, his cool, calm demeanor quickly began reading as cold and flustered. Americans watched as the incumbent seemed uncomfortable, never taking command of the conversation or appearing sure of himself or the policies he says he passionately advocates.

Obama Fact Check:

$4 Trillion Deficit Reduction. President Obama claims that he has a plan to cut $4T from the federal deficit, the number determined by the Simpson-Bowles commission necessary to put the debt on a long term downward trajectory. Firstly, half of the “plan” has already been “enacted.” As a product of continuing resolutions last year that froze department budgets and the debt reduction deal reached by the President and Congress to prevent default, $1.7T has already been accounted for in savings. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget finds a remaining $2.1T in cuts, accumulating between 2013 and 2022. The second caveat, $850B is “savings” from ending deficit funded wars, $230B of which he plans to use for infrastructure spending.

Going forward, the Obama debate strategy must change drastically. In a debate, the candidate must marry his paid advertising with his free advertising, meaning the message your campaign is paying to promote in television, radio and internet advertisements should match that which is conveyed in the debate. Last night, Obama failed on that criterion. The Obama political machine is spending millions of dollars selling the President’s record on the auto bailout, only mentioned once in passing in the debate. The campaign is also dropping cash on disseminating the video of Romney speaking on the 47%, a group the challenger seemed exceptionally fond of last night, and it was not mentioned once. The President must clearly articulate his case for re-election and describe the shortcomings of his challenger, not seem that he is bothered by having to answer questions and rebuttals. Until this debate, the incumbent had managed to talk up his accomplishments and define his opponent, this has been reiterated in his stump speeches, the convention and most certainly in his ads. If he wants to win this election he has to convey that message, the same message that has seen him perform very well in the swing states, in person, onstage next to his opponent, while looking him square in the eye. Lastly, and most importantly, President Obama, in the words so passionately spoken by Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) at the 2012 Democratic National Convention: