By Matthew Barrett
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Mitt Romney and Barack Obama met for the first of three presidential debates last night. Expectations were high for Obama going into the debate, with a majority believing he would be the better debater, a majority believing he would win the election, and polling for the last few weeks which has shown the two candidates a little less even than they had been a month ago.
Despite all that expectation, any serious person would agree that Romney won the debate pretty handsomely. Obama appeared to be tired and distracted, often looking down, and rarely engaging in eye contact with Romney. Romney, on the other hand, looked voters in the eye regularly, and often talked to the President when making his points.
While Obama gave long, rambling, introspective and academic answers, Romney gave clear replies and got his points across often. Indeed, after the debate, statistics showed Obama had spoken for several minutes longer than Romney, but it felt quite different at the time.