President Barack Obama seemed to finally figure out what to do in a debate—to assert and negate, in essence to clash and cross swords with Governor Mitt Romney on any issue on the table. As a result, the second debate was far from the steamroller for Romney as in the first debate.
In this town hall format of undecided voters assembled at Hofstra University, both men asserted and countered, both within the rigid format and outside of it. It created a challenge for the moderator Candy Crowley, who did an admirable job keeping decorum and keeping the debaters on point, and at one time correcting Romney on Obama’s actions on Libya, the feistiest moment of the debate. But it’s clear, while Romney seemed to be level with his last performance, the president’s more energized approach left the lasting overall impression that his performance on this night was greater than Romney’s— enough to erase the memory of the president’s first debate lapse.
Education was mentioned from the start. But that was mostly because the first questioner was 20-year-old college student Jeremy Epstein, who linked his education to one of the campaign’s key issue, jobs. Epstein wanted reassurance—for himself and his parents–that he’d have a good job after college to sufficiently support himself.
Romney was first to answer and showed some empathy mentioning a young woman in Pennsylvania who just graduated and needed three part-time jobs just to survive. “We have to make sure we make it easy for kids afford college, and also make sure when they get out of college, there’s a job,” Romney said.
Romney mentioned a program in Massachusetts where if you graduated in the top quarter of your high school class you got a scholarship, four-years tuition free to a public college. “I want to make sure we keep our Pell Grant program growing, we also have our loan program so that people are able to afford school. But the key thing is to make sure you have a job when you get out of school,” Romney said. “I know what it takes to get this economy going. With half of college kids graduating this year without a college level job, that’s just unacceptable. And likewise you have more debt on your back. So more debt and less jobs. I’m going to change that.”
If he knows what it takes, he didn’t really say.
But he did ask Epstein when he would graduate. “2014?” Romney asked. “ I’m going to make sure you get a job.”
