what s the headline coming out of tonight s debate? i think from the point of view of the democratic base, the abortion issue that martha asked in the context of religion was a crucial thing. i think the obama people were rightly pleased with that emphasis as they reach out to undecided, middle class women in states like ohio and pennsylvania and florida and so forth. so that was important for them. benghazi, i think, will not loom as large because, chris, as you know, any poll of the american people at this point says that what they care about, above all, overwhelmingly, almost to the exclusion of anything else, is the economy. that s what even though all the time wasn t about the economy in the debate tonight, that s what s going to have legs. that and cultural issues such as abortion.
but the question is, how do you win a debate if you don t fight it. i think you do have to fight it. i think the president, from my vantage point and again, i didn t see it on tv, i saw the barack obama that i ve seen over the last four years is somebody that s been consistent about the policies. consistent in the way he describes his health care stuff. consistent in what he said he believes that romney s positions don t add up. and he did call him, maybe too generally, on the question of the deductions and that stuff. for my part i don t think mitt romney has earned the ability to be as vague as he is on all of these things since he s changed his position on all of them. here s the problem for those who think this is an intellectual discussion on c-span. today the new poll came out cbs, 56%. the 13%, the die-hards. they were going to say he looked
should be fired. that he didn t do. but step one for romney was becoming a credible alternative and i think he did that. thank you, chuck. , you were talking about how this looked very much to you like george w. bush and john kerry. is it inevitable? is there a way a president cannot do this? can you mortgage president obama in ap second debate behaving differently? i think david pluff is steady and they understand. what david was previewing, i think, is the line of attack you ll see in the second debate. i think it s almost unthinkable to think the president is going to come into the second debate passive and unprepared in the manner that he was tonight. i think there s going to be a lot of sparks in the second debate. one of the things that s interesting that s true about presidential debates is in the flash poll. that number will spread over the next 48 hours because people who are undecided or who believe it will is a tie, will side with the conventional wisdom that
he s not the flashiest politician in the world. he s had his nose to the grindstone for four years. all of the sudden romney looked like a flash where politician tonight. anyway, thank you michael, and lovely weather out here, until about an hour ago. howard fineman, thank you and the great michael steele. coming up, did romney get a game-change moment? he came prepared and scored major points pushing the moderator aside in coming the debate and the instant polls play that out. he s getting good numbers. this is msnbc s live coverage of the first presidential debate. as president i ll sit down on day one, actualbly, the day after i get elected i ll sit down with the democratic leaders as well as republican leaders. first of all i think governor romney is going to have a busy first day which he s also going to repeal obama care which won t be very popular among democrats as you re sitting down with them.
there are a lot of undecided voters up here and a lot of the folks that are supporting governor romney are supporting him because they think he s going to win and you re going to be with the winner. i think a lot of folks are looking not just for the winner here in new hampshire, but who is going to be the winner long-term? i think you re going to see our numbers start to pop up in some of these other early primary states. our numbers already more than doubled in the cnn flash poll and that was even before the announcement and before i even gave either of us came out and spoke last night. we feel very good. we ve been able to raise almost a million dollars today. bill: that is amazing. we ll have resources. we re going to be a much bigger player than i think everybody anticipates. bill: certainly you can t be underestimated based upon your performance last night. you are are you ready to be demonized, because that s going to come and it will come hard at you. are you ready fo