Nick Whitfield of Springfield said he believed Romney flip-flopped during the debate about his tax break plan for the wealthiest Americans. “How do you debate a guy that doesn’t stay on the same spot?” he said.Nich hits on one of the two things Obama did best at the debate. First he hammered away at Romney as a flip-flopper. That's a powerful, ugly label independent voters will remember long after they forget the specific issues discussed.
Second, he let Romney lie. By not responding to each lie, he escaped the "he said, she said" cop-out stories. It will be more difficult for the press to cover Romney's lies as countering claims made by competing candidates. They'll be forced to fact check Romney and plainly admit themselves that he lied frequently.
Climate Progress has a good post on Romney's biggest lie of the night: his whopper that half the companies getting clean energy stimulus funds failed. The fact that he believed anything remotely close to that shows he's out of touch with reality on energy.
Ok, one last thing. Jim Lehrer is getting a lot of criticism but I liked the debate format. Even hosts of talking head soundbite shows complain that debates consist of nothing but pre-packaged soundbites. Lehrer let candidates get into details and talk at length about specific issues. So...isn't that what people who complain about soundbites wanted to see? I like it a heck of a lot better than the 30-second answers in the overcrowded primary debates.