WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney's strong showing in the first debate has recharged his campaign and ignited a presidential race that had seemed all but won by President Barack Obama, US commentators said Thursday. Morning editorials were almost unanimous in saying that an energized and aggressive Romney had gotten the best of a tired-looking Obama Wednesday, potentially tightening the race five weeks before the Nov. 6 vote. “Barring revelations by the Obama campaign that Mitt Romney has an identical twin, whoever that guy representing the GOP ticket was in Denver has just given the United States a real presidential election. At last,” the conservative Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger wrote. “We may all wonder why he waited until now to liberate the real Mitt, but five weeks from election day, that question is beside the point and behind us.” Conservative columnist William Kristol of the Weekly Standard went further, saying Romney had “stood and delivered the best debate performance by a Republican presidential candidate in more than two decades.” The more centrist Washington Post largely agreed, saying Romney had regained momentum after weeks of campaign missteps. “Romney needed a strong performance after roughly a month of unrelenting bad news -- and even worse polling in swing states. And, he got it,” Chris Cillizza wrote on the newspaper's political blog. “Obama's debate performance seemed purposely restrained -- striving for a workmanlike competence but achieving something well short of that.” Roger Simon of the Politico news website went further, writing that “President Obama looked like someone had slipped him an Ambien.” “It's not that Romney's performance was perfect or polished — it wasn't — it's just that Obama's was so mediocre.” Liberal commentators preferred to focus on Romney's alleged distortions, decrying what they saw as Obama's failure to fight back. The left-leaning New York Times said the Romney of the debate “seemed to be fleeing from the one who won the Republican nomination on a hard-right platform of tax cuts, budget slashing and indifference to the suffering of those at the bottom of the economic ladder.” Romney badly needed a strong showing in the first of a trio of clashes with the president in Denver — and got it — spurring new hope among Republicans. At the debate on Wednesday night, Romney appeared crisper and clearer than the president, who seemed tired after an exhausting four years in the White House amid the fallout of the worst economic crisis in decades. “There's no question in my mind that if the president were to be re-elected you'll continue to see a middle-class squeeze with incomes going down and prices going up. I'll get incomes up again,” Romney said. “(With Obama) you'll see chronic unemployment. We've had 43 straight months with unemployment above 8 percent. If I'm president, I will create — help create 12 million new jobs in this country with rising incomes.” Obama hit back by suggesting Romney would make $5.4 trillion in tax cuts geared towards the wealthy and said his Republican foe hadn't been clear on which loopholes in the tax system he would close. Obama was marking his 20th wedding anniversary on Wednesday and began the debate with a shout-out to First Lady Michelle Obama, apologizing for the unromantic setting. “Congratulations to you, Mr. President, on your anniversary. I'm sure this is the most romantic place you could imagine, here with me,” Romney joked in a rare moment of levity as the duel began. — Agencies
