Jonathan Jones

Why wasn’t Barack Obama more focused in the debate?

OK, cards on the table: I’m a big Obama fan. I desperately hope he wins next month, and I’m reasonably confident he will. But even to my biased eye, he clearly put in the weaker performance of last night’s debate. He knew his stuff, and had plenty of good points, but threw them out in such a way that none of them really stuck. ‘Is the reason that Governor Romney is keeping all these plans to replace secret because they’re too good?’ would have been a great line had it not been smuggled out at the end of an overlong response. The President’s answers were just too waffling to make an impact.

It’s very rare that I watch Obama speak and think ‘I could’ve said something better’. In fact, I don’t think it’s ever happened before. But it did a few times last night.

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