A lot is being written about Obama not winning the debate against Romney (whatever the criteria is for winning) and I also wondered why Obama seemed so subdued against Romney’s animated performance (performance is what these debates are more so than mastery of facts).

Last night I had this thought and played with it for a while. Here it is. I think Obama did not want to go in there and attack Romney. I wanted Obama to attack. I am sure every Democrat did also, but Obama over these last 4 years has not attacked the GOP at all even when they went full on Tea Party loony tunes.

That is exasperating to Obama’s base. So why does Obama play at Mr. Cool? Maybe being cool in this crisis after 8 years of Bush colored panic alerts is what the plurality if not majority of Americans want in these times? They did not like that McCain went crazy and called for campaigns to be ended for late night rushed congressional sessions as the economy was collapsing. The American people were in a panic. They did not want their president to panic.

So Obama came to the debate determined not to attack Romney. To just answer the questions in a professor like manner and get back to work.

Romney did not do bad either but he did not come off as someone you like. Neither did Obama. But we know Obama by now and we know what he said at the debate was what he has been working on over the last 4 years (and not always able to put it into law but there were no surprise policy shifts). Romeny on the other hand, while he performed well, was all over the place in terms of his past policy statements. Romney looked like a slick Wall Street investment banker trying to sell grandma a reverse mortgage loan.

That is the take away I got from the first debate.