Post-debate: Romney basks, Obama challenges

DENVER (AP) — An invig­o­rated Mitt Rom­ney basked in rave reviews Thurs­day after his first face-off with the pres­i­dent, envi­sion­ing an inau­gural cel­e­bra­tion, while Pres­i­dent Barack Obama and his allies tried to rebound by vig­or­ously accus­ing Rom­ney of dis­hon­esty on the debate stage.

Obama told sup­port­ers gath­ered on the brisk autumn morning-after in Denver’s Sloan’s Lake Park that the Rom­ney who showed up for the debate isn’t the can­di­date he’s been run­ning against.

“He knows full well that we don’t want what he’s been sell­ing for the last year,” Obama said. “Gov. Rom­ney may dance around his posi­tions, but if you want to be pres­i­dent, you owe the Amer­i­can peo­ple the truth.”

Romney’s spokesman dis­missed the crit­i­cism as “dam­age con­trol,” while the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee sent a fundrais­ing email to sup­port­ers with the sub­ject “Vic­tory in sight” and was vis­i­bly buoyed as he headed out of Den­ver. Rom­ney laughed with aides at the front of his plane before the entourage broke into clap­ping and whis­tles as the pilot announced that the con­trol tower com­mended the for­mer governor’s per­for­mance when the plane was approved for takeoff.

The for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor ignited loud sus­tained cheers ear­lier when he sur­prised a gath­er­ing of Colorado’s Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence by appear­ing unan­nounced. He said the debate was “an oppor­tu­nity for the Amer­i­can peo­ple to see two very dif­fer­ent visions for the country.”

“I saw the president’s vision as trickle-down gov­ern­ment, and I don’t think that’s what Amer­ica believes in,” Rom­ney said. “I see instead a pros­per­ity that comes through freedom.”

Stand­ing toe-to-toe with the pres­i­dent for the first time in the cam­paign, Rom­ney held his own and more at a time when there already were signs that the race is tight­en­ing in some of the bat­tle­ground states where Obama has enjoyed an advan­tage. Even the Obama sup­port­ers attend­ing his rally gave Rom­ney credit for a strong showing.

“I didn’t think Rom­ney was going to do as well as he did,” said Suzanne Hetts, 52. She said she still thinks Obama is lead­ing, but he needs to step up his game. “I thought he should have gone after him more.”

The Obama cam­paign looked to recover with a coor­di­nated mes­sage ques­tion­ing Romney’s hon­esty. The cam­paign quickly pro­duced a tele­vi­sion ad that argues Rom­ney wasn’t lev­el­ing with the Amer­i­can peo­ple in the debate about his tax plan and ques­tions how he could then be trusted in the White House. The attacks were echoed by other Democ­rats, includ­ing Sen­ate Major­ity Leader Harry Reid, who said Rom­ney was “ped­dling snake oil” by hid­ing the details of his plan.

Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden also ques­tioned Romney’s hon­esty while cam­paign­ing in Coun­cil Bluffs, Iowa.

“Ulti­mately, pres­i­den­tial races, unlike any other race, get down to char­ac­ter. They get down to the char­ac­ter of the man or woman and the char­ac­ter of their con­vic­tions: Do they mean what they say and will they do what they say,” Biden said. “What I find fas­ci­nat­ing, though, is that on nearly every issue, they don’t tell you what they are for any­more, and they delib­er­ately mis­rep­re­sent what they say we are for. You saw it again last night in the debate.”

Obama cam­paign strate­gist David Axel­rod held a con­fer­ence call with reporters to accuse Rom­ney of hid­ing the truth. But Axel­rod also acknowl­edged the pres­i­dent learned some lessons and said he would adjust his strat­egy in the next two debates.

“Obvi­ously mov­ing for­ward we’re going to take a hard look at this, and we’re going to have to make some judg­ments as to where to draw the line in these debates and how to use our time,” Axel­rod said.

Rom­ney cam­paign spokesman Ryan Williams responded to the accu­sa­tions of dis­hon­esty by say­ing Rom­ney demon­strated in the debate why he should be president.

“In full damage-control mode, Pres­i­dent Obama today offered no defense of his record and no vision for the future,” Williams said. “Rather than a plan to fix our econ­omy, Pres­i­dent Obama sim­ply offered more false attacks and renewed his call for job-killing tax hikes.”

Obama also ridiculed Romney’s promise to cut fund­ing for pub­lic tele­vi­sion to help reduce fed­eral spending.

“That was his answer,” Obama said with a laugh. “I mean, thank good­ness some­body is finally get­ting tough on Big Bird. It’s about time. We didn’t know that Big Bird was dri­ving the fed­eral deficit. But that’s what we heard last night. How about that? Elmo, too.”

Both can­di­dates were head­ing in the com­ing days to some of the most hotly con­tested bat­tle­ground states: Obama was trav­el­ing to Wis­con­sin, then on to Vir­ginia and Ohio. Rom­ney and run­ning mate Paul Ryan were off to Vir­ginia, before Rom­ney was mov­ing on to Florida.

Rom­ney told the exhil­a­rated audi­ence of Col­orado con­ser­v­a­tives they need to get vot­ers who have con­verted away from Obama to the polls.

“You guys are going to have to cheer here, and then go out and knock on doors, and get peo­ple who voted for Pres­i­dent Obama to see the light and come join our team,” he said. “And if you do that, we’ll all be able to come together and have a won­der­ful inau­gu­ra­tion cel­e­bra­tion in Jan­u­ary. So let’s make sure that happens.”

Before leav­ing Col­orado, Rom­ney brought in more cam­paign cash to fund the final push. He went to a man­sion on the Cherry Hills Coun­try Club south of Den­ver, where a Bent­ley and other lux­ury cars were lined up for a pri­vate break­fast with donors who con­tributed at least $50,000. Their money will help fund Romney’s cur­rent adver­tis­ing gap in the final weeks, putting out mes­sages like the ads his cam­paign revealed Thurs­day out­lin­ing his job cre­ation plan and accus­ing Obama’s bud­get deficits of rais­ing the tax bur­den on Americans.

With a 13-day break before their next debate, Obama and Rom­ney have time to hone their argu­ments while their cam­paigns con­tinue to bom­bard the most hotly con­tested states with neg­a­tive ads that go far beyond the more restrained jibes the can­di­dates lev­eled from their respec­tive podi­ums. Obama made no men­tion, for exam­ple, of Romney’s caught-on-tape remark that he’s not wor­ried about the 47 per­cent of Amer­i­cans who don’t pay fed­eral income taxes. Demo­c­ra­tic ads, though, have been mak­ing hay with the comment.

In the next few weeks, Rom­ney is expected to give a num­ber of pol­icy speeches fill­ing in details as he tries to sharpen the con­trast with Obama while answer­ing crit­i­cism that he hasn’t clearly out­lined his plans. The Repub­li­can chal­lenger begins with a for­eign pol­icy speech in Vir­ginia on Mon­day. Sub­se­quent speeches are expected to focus on his plans for job cre­ation, debt and spending.

Next up on the debate stage are Biden and Ryan, who meet Oct. 11 at Cen­tre Col­lege in Danville, Ky., for their lone cam­paign debate. Obama and Rom­ney go back at it on Oct. 16, in a town hall-style for­mat at Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­sity in Hemp­stead, N.Y. Their final face­off, devoted to for­eign affairs, is Oct. 22 at Lynn Uni­ver­sity in Boca Raton, Fla.

___

Pick­ler reported from Wash­ing­ton. Asso­ci­ated Press writ­ers Matthew Daly in Coun­cil Bluffs, Iowa, Nicholas Ric­cardi in Den­ver, Nancy Benac in Wash­ing­ton and Julie Pace in Den­ver con­tributed to this report.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Oct 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.