Obama comes out fighting in Romney re-match

Making up for lost time, the president came out fighting from the very start. He didn’t even bother with the usual niceties of thanking the host, the audience or the commission on presidential debates, as he launched into a fierce critique of Romney’s plans.

In fact the atmosphere in the town hall style meeting at New York’s Hofstra University was frequently downright hostile, putting paid to the assumption that having to debate in front of a more intimate audience would keep things all cosy and friendly.

Both men constantly leapt from their stools, criss crossing the floor and invading each others’ space. But this was more than just a one-off encounter: Obama was under immense pressure to rescue his sliding campaign, while Romney needed to keep up the momentum he’s been building and avoid any crashing mistakes.

And the verdict? There was no clear winner, according to instant polls, which gave Obama a slight edge. Most pundits, on the other hand, decided Obama had managed to win on style, showing the energy he lacked 12 days ago, defending his accomplishments and attacking Romney’s record.

I don’t look at my pension. It’s not as big as yours, so it doesn’t take as long. Barack Obama

This time, the president had certainly done his homework. He immediately hammered Romney’s tax proposals as a “sketchy deal”, calling it a “one point plan… to make sure that the folks at the top play by a different set of rules”.

He finally delighted liberals by laying into the Republican’s own financial arrangements, castigating him for paying 14 per cent tax on his own income, and lambasting the way he did business: “You can invest in a company, bankrupt it, lay off the workers, strip away their pensions, and you still make money.”

You had to wait till the end, but Obama managed to shoehorn in that 47 per cent remark, although there wasn’t much effort to engage with the voters in the room. This was all about the fight.

As for Romney, he was able to hold his own for the most part, delivering an effective critique of Obama’s record on jobs and growth. Obama, he said might be effective as a speaker: “That’s wonderful, except we have a record to look at”. His constant theme: we can’t afford four more years like the last four years.

Row over Libya

The governor managed to avoid any major gaffes, although he was called out by the moderator, CNN’s Candy Crowley, when he went too far over the attack on US diplomats in Benghazi, claiming President Obama had failed to call it an “act of terror” for two weeks.

“He did call it an act of terror”, Crowley interjected, referring to remarks Obama made in the Rose Garden a day after the incident. Conservative commentators were all over that one, accusing her of siding with the Democrats, even of giving the president 9 per cent more time than Mitt Romney.

But it was a significant missed opportunity for Romney to nail the Libya issue, once again showing his vulnerability on foreign policy issues.

Obama landed another hit, when Romney admitted he had investments in China and the Cayman islands, but tried to tell Obama he should look into his own pension plan. “You know, I don’t look at my pension”, fired back the president. “It’s not as big as yours, so it…it doesn’t take as long”.

They brought us binders full of women. Mitt Romney

And prize for the most lampooned moment of the night also went to Mr Romney, who managed to inspire another host of spoof internet sites with his rather bizzare response to a young woman who asked about wage inequality.

While Obama brought up his grandmother’s frustrated efforts to earn a fair wage, and highlighted his commitment to equal pay with the Lily Ledbetter Act, Romney tried to explain how he’d sought out female cabinet members when he was governor of Massachusetts.

No women had applied for the jobs, he said. “I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’, and they brought us whole binders full of women.”

So women come in binders now? The whole phrase conjured up a surreal image of groups of rich white businessmen sitting around flipping through perspex folders filled with pictures of women. No wonder there was an instant #bindersfullofwomen Tumblr feed.

And the anecdote also provoked numerous claims that Romney hadn’t even managed to find that many female staffers in those binders. The Boston Globe pointed out that there were no women partners while he was CEO of Bain Capital during the 1980s and 1990s.

Equal opportunities?

And another Boston paper claimed a local women’s group had compliled the binder itself, offering it to Romney after he was elected in 2002. He did appoint 14 senior level women, but, says the paper, the proportion of top level women actually declined during his time in office.

But despite the aggressive atmosphere, there were no killer blows at the Hoffstra debate. Obama failed to give very much away about the next four years, or describe how he’d change things for the better, while Romney was still short on those specifics.

In the end, it seems Obama has breathed new life into his campaign, while persuading his supporters to keep the fight going, making up for the crushing disappointment of his last debate outing. And Romney? The rather hasty post-debate analysis suggests he did enough to hold his ground.

Both men, then, showed they were plausible candidates for president. The journalists got their “Obama comeback” story, the spin masters and surrogates on both sides claimed a win. What that tiny sliver of undecided voters made of it all, is quite another story.

Felicity Spector writes about US politics for Channel 4 News