National pundits and pollsters are saying former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the Oct. 3 debate against President Barack Obama. If the president was surprised, he should have listened to Romney’s past debates here in Massachusetts.
In 1994, Romney took on Sen. Ted Kennedy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNiIEKhAF1k
Then in 2002, Romney debated Shannon O’Brien on his way to winning the governor’s race. In that debate O’Brien was seen as impatient and argumentative, while Romney stayed cool under pressure.
Consultant Dennis Becker coached Romney against O’Brien in that debate, and has been watching Romney for years. He says Romney’s confidence and commanding presence in the debate against president Obama helped him shine. “He was more assertive. More aggressive.”
But Becker says Romney was rude to the moderator and stretched the truth on more than one occasion. “When we first coached him for the O’Brien debates, I found him to be a very ethical, very moral, very ‘I want to be the best guy, be the smartest, but the most respectful guy in this race.’"
Becker says he was at a meeting at Romney’s house one time when an adviser suggested going after the skeletons in O'Brien’s closet. The candidate refused.
“He says, 'No, I don’t want to run that kind of campaign. I’m not that kind of a guy. We’re not going to do that. And he chastised the person who brought it up," Becker recounts. "So coaching him in those days seems to be a lot different from the way he’s coached now.”
Becker says during the first presidential debate, Romney was rude to the moderator and stretched the truth on more than one occasion.
“The constant reiteration of the $716 billion, we’ve been over and over that. We know that’s not accurate. So I was bothered ethically that he kept bringing that stuff back, but it’s probably what his handlers are telling him to do,” he says.
Whether or not Romney was accurate on Oct. 3, the perception is he won the debate.
