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Late to the thread, but adding my :twocents: worth nonetheless...
If you're judging the winner based on how aggressive (not to mention rude) your candidate was, then Romney won. Even I will admit that Romney stayed on offense throughout most of the debate.
If you're judging the winner based on who providing details of his plans and policies, then Obama won. However, I would agree with those who have said that the President didn't bring the energy and he didn't attack Romney forcefully enough, specifically, on his tax policy or what he'd replace ObamaCare and Dodd-Frank with if repealed. The interesting thing here is while Romney admits to liking certain provisions within ObamaCare (i.e., eliminating pre-existing conditions, retaining young adults on their parent's insurance plan through age 26 and allowing states to implement health care initiatives), he'd still fight to repeal the law while never providing specifics on how his version of health care reform would work other than throwing health care and health insurance responsibilities back to the states. But this is one of many reasons why insurance markets are broken within several states.
For example, on his Health Care website, Romney says he'd "prevent discrimination against individuals with pre-existing conditions who maintain continuous coverage". Apparently, he's unaware that state high risk pools are extremely expensive. But the big kicker is that last bit "...who maintain continuous coverage". If this was in reference to people w/pre-existing conditions finding affordable health insurance on the open market, they can forget about it since private insurance companies will just go back to denying these people coverage and their only recourse would be to get insurance from their respective states from their high risk pool, if offerred at all. As such, he'll never be able to convince states to open their borders and compete across state lines not over pre-existing conditions provisions and certainly not over general health insurance policies. Why? State's Rights! States are very territorial; unless the fed steps in and forces them to open up interstate commerce avenues where the health insurance market is concerned, they will be very reluctant to "share their turf" with another state.
On bank/finance reform, it was interesting to hear Romney be critical of Dodd-Frank classifying five banks as "too big to fail" yet say absolutely nothing about consumer protections. Of course, why would he when his focus was on how bank finance reform alledgedly hampers financial creativity? (Okay, he didn't use those words but that's what he was eluding to since he tied Dodd-Frank to the economy). But wait! The Dow is back up to pre-economic collapse levels, banks are more solvent now than they were 4 years ago and the economy is growing. So, if Romney believes that regulations are necessary and that smart regulations are effective, why is he insisting on repealing Dodd-Frank?
Romney was quick to remind the viewers that $5-7 million in tax cuts isn't his plan and I agree. For his plan isn't a long-term tax plan except if you assume that what he's currently proposing he'd extend beyond 2015. According to Factcheck.org, only one independent economist, Harvey Rosen of Princeton University concluded that Romney "could pull off his tax plan without losing revenue assuming an extra 3 percent 'growth effect' to the economy resulting from Romney’s rate cuts. That’s an extremely aggressive assumption, and in conflict with recent experience." Now, think about what his tax plan would really mean to the middle-class...
He's reduce the marginal tax rate for all by 20% which means that high wage earners who currently pay at a federal tax rate of 35% would pay only 15%; low wage earners who pay a federal tax rate of 25% would pay 5%. Sounds good except he'd also eliminate the estate tax, repeal the ATM and keep tax rates on interest, dividends and capital gains the same. He claims he'd eliminate these taxes for those individuals whose Adjusted Gross Income is less than $200K, but all that means is you'd have to earn more than $200K first in order to claim this tax benefit. That eliminates well over half the country from being able to claim this benefit. Now, some would say the middle-class paying a mere 5% in federal income taxes would be a God-Send, and it would be except unless you earn over $200K and have enough exemptions to get to that $200K AGI level, you likely won't get any other tax deductions under the Romney tax plan. In other words, unless middle-class wages increase substantially, a 5% federal tax rate won't mean much despite being able to keep more of what you earn.
On Romney's energy plan, there's really nothing different about it; it mirrors Obamas very closely. The only hits on the President were Solyndra, clean coal and the KeystoneXL Pipeline. Despite Solydra's failue, there have been several success stories in the solar panel manufacturing industry. Clean coal remains an important part of domestic energy reform moreso for environmental reasons, and the lower-half of the KeystoneXL pipeline has been approved for construction. I suspect, however, that the Pres. will keep his promise to go forward with approving construction of the upper-half later this year should he win re-election. So, other than a few jabs here or there, I really didn't see a difference between Romney's energy plan and that which Pres. Obama has been advocating from Day-1.
So, again if you based the winner of this first debate on who was more aggressive, Romney won. But if you base it on who provided the more comprehensive details on his reform measures and how they've helped many of this nation's citizens and will do so in the future, then Pres. Obama won.
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