Did Obama just say that “the genius of America is the free enterprise system?” Why, yes, he did. Does anyone in America believe that he means it? No.
Look, I am biased. I know it. You know it. But I sat down tonight half fearing that Romney would do the things that have occasionally annoyed me during primary debates. But he has moved to a new level. And Obama, who sounds intelligent enough, is a bit halting. He is having a bad night. That has nothing to do with what I think of his policies. Perhaps his previous debate experience — against Hillary Clinton, who pulled punches, John Edwards, who was a lightweight, and John McCain, who was a man of action and a bit over the hill — has not prepared him for a fellow Harvard grad who has worked hard for decades and has real experience actually solving problems in the unforgiving word of financial reality.
Nothing Obama has said tonight is sticking. Mitt immediately countered the accusation that he doesn’t care about education or teachers, and he made it hard to doubt him. Obama is now floundering. His attack on Romney has now moved to the (ill-advised) old Romney statement to a kid about borrowing money from his parents. He pulled that from the wrong part of the debate handbook. That was filed under “out of touch,” not “doesn’t support education funding.”
Mitt’s response about how many teachers $90 billion in support for green jobs would buy: brilliant.