The consensus is that Barack Obama turned in lackluster performance during last night debate with Mitt Romney. But the president was back on stride today on the campaign trail.
First, Obama jumped on Romney's flip-flopping sales pitches on taxes, health care, education and Medicare, painting debate Romney an impostor.
"The real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the past year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy," Obama said to supporters this afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin. "This Mitt Romney says he did not know anything about that. It was all news to him."
"He may be dancing around the truth - he may do a tap dance and a two-step but if you want to be president, then you owe the american people the truth," Obama added.
Then, Obama came up with the perfect word to describe Romney's "same top-down economic policies that got us into this mess."
"It's not change, it is a relapse," the president said. "And we're not going to do it!"
Obama also made fun of Romney's threat to cut PBS to make a serious point.
"He'll get rid of regulations on Wall Street but he's going to crack down on Sesame Street! Thank goodness somebody's finally cracking down on Big Bird! Who knew he was responsible for all these deficits. Elmo's gotta watch out!"
All good lines, but will Obama change his strategy for the debate?
The campaign says yes.
The president "made a choice last night to answer the questions that were asked … and not get into serial fact-checking with Governor Romney," said senior strategist David Axelrod. "We’re going to take a hard look at this and we’re going to have to make some judgments about where to draw the lines."
