Republican candidate Mitt Romney took the points over Barack Obama in the first presidential debate on Wednesday evening. EPA/Shawn Thew

“Romney won the first presidential debate (on a 12-round boxing score card I scored it 115 to 105). He did so, in part, because he was so good, in part, because Obama was so poor. Most incumbents perform poorly in the first debate – see Reagan in 1984 (and he then won in a landslide – so Obama can clearly make up the ground he seemed so willing to cede in Denver).

“How do we account for the surprising distance between both men on Wednesday evening?

1. Match fitness. Romney has been debating some very able opponents for the last 18 months; Obama has not. Romney dispatched Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry – primarily in debate with them. Obama, unlike Julia Gillard and David Cameron, gets no regular opponent to debate in a formal setting. It showed. His mock debating partner has clearly been pulling punches. Get a new one.
2. Desire. Romney has been running for president for at least the last six years. This was his moment. He performed much, much better than at his nominating convention. Obama wants a second term but was enervating in defense of that proposition, especially compared to the man we saw in 2008. A playing-safe, running-down-the-clock strategy only partly explains this puzzling absence of desire.
3. Issues. We are used to progressives haranguing conservatives, with numbers, morality, equality, history: this did not happen in Denver. Instead, Obama seemed cowed, looked down (watching the debate in split screen is highly instructive). The challenger seemed much more in control of his brief. Even if parts did not add up he made them sound as if they did. He was especially good in explaining why Massachusetts’ healthcare legislation represented the best of American federalism and Obamacare the worst of federal government overreach.
4. 47%. Why didn’t Obama cite this Romney gaffe? He was content to imply Romney was part of the “well-to-do”, “corporate jet”, “Donald Trump” set but elided his challenger’s seeming dismissal of 47 per cent of the nation. Instead, the president was playing defence for most of the ninety minutes. Romney got to present his plan essentially unmolested. I was amazed at times. The challenger got to deliver his best line of the campaign – “Look, I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about” – the incumbent was mute.
5. Romney is no Romulan, after all. Instead he was variously warm, deferential, funny and human. After the debate, he was clearly the candidate that most people would want to have a beer with. The Obama attack ads were suddenly exposed as caricatures. Romney was not the man they depict.

“Does this matter?

“YES: Remarkably Romney has presented himself as not just a component economic manager but as a human being. If he can sustain this persona through November 6 he may well squeak a narrow victory. Expect the polls to tighten to a dead heat.”

Continue reading this viewpoint from another vantage point, Australia, in The Conversation.