Presidential race reset, Romney backers say

The reviews are in: Mitt Romney won the first debate and the presidential race has entered a new phase, supporters of the Republican presidential candidate — and even some Democrats — say.

Dogged by criticism from his party and by flagging poll numbers in key swing states, Romney pulled off a clear victory in the first debate Wednesday night, according to several viewer polls, besting President Obama by a wide margin.

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According to a CNN/ORC International poll, 67 percent of viewers thought Romney won the debate, with 25 percent judging Obama the winner.

Obama and Romney met in Denver over 90 minutes, a matchup that left Republicans crowing and Democrats in despair over what some viewed as a lackluster performance by the president, who spent the debate looking down at his notes and letting many of Romney’s challenges go unanswered.

At the Weekly Standard, conservative standard bearer William Kristol, who has been critical of Romney, summed up the change of tune among Republicans, who had hoped for a Romney breakthrough after several challenging weeks.

“Mitt Romney stood and delivered the best debate performance by a Republican presidential candidate in more than two decades,” Kristol wrote. “Romney spoke crisply about the next four years as well as the last four years, was detailed in clarifying the choice of paths ahead, and seemed more comfortable, more energetic — and even more presidential —than the incumbent. Romney comes out of the debate with momentum. Can his campaign turn a very good debate into a true inflection point in the presidential race?”

For their part, progressives faulted Obama (and moderator Jim Lehrer) for a weak, uninspired performance that left Romney with an opening to gain the upper hand.

“Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn’t there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment,” wrote Andrew Sullivan at the Daily Beast. “The person with authority on that stage was Romney — offered it by one of the lamest moderators ever, and seized with relish. This was Romney the salesman. And my gut tells me he sold a few voters on a change tonight. It’s beyond depressing. But it’s true.”

Democratic strategist James Carville also gave Romney the upper hand. “I had one ho-hum impression — I did everything I could not to reach it, but I had to reach it — and it looked like Romney wanted to be there and President Obama didn’t want to be there,” Carville said Wednesday night on CNN. Romney “seemed like he was happy to be there debating. President Obama gave you the impression that this whole thing was kind of a lot of trouble.”

Thursday morning Carville sent out a message to supporters titled “splash of water in the face,” that sought to turn the debate into a fundraising opportunity for Democrats.

The Obama campaign gave Romney points for style and presentation but accused him of playing a “shell game” with the facts and lacking specifics in terms of his tax plan — much of the first 15 minutes of the debate was spent on whether Romney’s tax cuts would cost $5 trillion.