Opinion: Voters are the real winners

President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney finish their debate in Denver on Wednesday, October 3. View behind-the-scene photos of debate preparations. Romney stands with his wife, Ann, and family following the first presidential debate. President Obama kisses first lady Michelle Obama after the debate Wednesday. It took place on their 20th wedding anniversary. Jim Leher of PBS moderates the 90-minute debate on Wednesday. It was the candidates' first time debating face to face. Obama defended his record and challenged his rival's proposals. Romney was more aggressive Wednesday in criticizing Obama's vision. People watch the debate at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, New York. The event was expected to draw the candidates' largest nationwide audience to date. Romney answers a question from the moderator. Obama argues his view. Both candidates said the other's proposals won't work. Michelle Obama listens to the debate. Romney said Obama has failed to bring down high unemployment and get the economy surging again. Obama reacts to Romney's remarks on Wednesday. Obama listens during the debate in Denver. Romney, who has been unable to catch the president in most polls to date, sought to generate enthusiasm for a change in the White House. Romney's shadow is projected beneath text from the Declaration of Independence at the University of Denver's Magness Arena. The first of three presidential debates focused on domestic issues: the economy, health care and the role of government. Obama and Mitt Romney clashed over the economy on Wednesday. Romney speaks during Wednesday night's debate. The candidate called for a new economic path. Obama called for "economic patriotism" and said Romney's plan of tax cuts for the rich failed before. Romney and Obama wave to the crowd at the start of the presidential debate. Obama greets Romney on Wednesday. The candidates meet on stage less than five weeks before Election Day. Obama and Romney shake hands Wednesday night. The presidential race has been dominated so far by negative advertising as both camps try to frame the election to their advantage. Leher takes the stage Wednesday. It's his 12th time moderating a presidential debate. Michelle Obama points to Lehrer before the start of the debate. Ann Romney and first lady Michelle Obama hug on Wednesday. The candidates wives were in attendance for the most highly anticipated campaign event to date. Michelle Obama sits with White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, right. Rapper Will.i.am, left, speaks with Jarrett before the debate on Wednesday. View behind-the-scenes photos of debate preparations. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 David Rothkopf: Obama blew it at debate, but it's a useful wake-up call for him to get in game He says other winners include media, which now has a story, and Romney's prep team Big winner, he says, is the electorate, which got to see the candidates on their feet Rothkopf: It's one event and still four weeks for candidates to make case; a lot can happen Editor's note: David Rothkopf is CEO and editor-at-large of the FP Group, publishers of Foreign Policy Magazine, and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. (CNN) -- To say Barack Obama stunk it up on stage at the University of Denver in the first presidential debate would not be an overstatement. He was as limp as day-old ramen. But to focus on Obama's muted, spluttering performance or to characterize the debate as a high point for Mitt Romney that was as vital for his languishing campaign as it was overdue would be to miss the other important stories of winners and losers from Wednesday's 90 minute face-off. One clear loser, for example, was Obama's campaign team. They have chosen a defensive campaign course for the past couple of months based on their assumption that they had the election in the bag. They had replaced Bill Clinton's "it's the economy, stupid" with Hippocrates' "first, do no harm" as their campaign motto. They had prohibited senior officials from within the administration to go on national television without White House approval because they felt that the benefits normally associated with multiple high-level messengers supporting a president's campaign were outweighed by the risks that somebody might offer up a gaffe. Leave those to Romney, they thought. He will beat himself. Until 9 p.m. ET on Wednesday, that approach seemed to be working. But within minutes of the beginning of the debate, it was clear that the president was facing an energized, well-prepared challenger -- one who had been surrounded by people willing to criticize him and offer suggestions for how to do better. Meanwhile, the country's chief executive found him suffering from one of the risks of incumbency: the side effects of living in a bubble of sycophants in the White House. It is a not very well-kept secret in Washington that the president is a supremely self-confident man surrounded by a handful of equally self-satisfied handlers. Inside that bubble, the atmosphere is equal parts rarified air and arrogance. As a consequence, the president did not prepare as well as he should have for the debate, and no one dared to push him harder. Opinion roundup: Romney shakes up the race After Wednesday's drubbing, however, the president -- who is also an earnest, exceptionally intelligent and hard-working man -- will not make the same mistake twice. Consequently, we have two other winners to cite. One is the president himself. He got a wake-up call at the best possible time -- while he had a good lead and early enough that he can use future debates to reassert his leadership and his reputation for being a great communicator. A more important winner, however, is the typical voter. Not only did they finally get relief from the incessant geyser of shallow, mean-spirited campaign propaganda from their televisions, but they got a chance to see the candidates for more than a few soundbites in a message that they approved. Obama: President needs a specific plan CNN Focus Group: Worse Moments CNN Focus Group: Best Moments Obama: Occasionally you have to say no Obama: Occasionally you have to say no Once again, despite the prevarications and the semi-truths, the zingers and the stumbles, listening to two intelligent, committed candidates for 90 minutes offered more illumination than the preceding two years of this campaign added up. But better, because the challenger did so well, they are likely to see both candidates upping their game in the coming weeks. They are likely to tune in to the next debates. They are likely to have a clearer view of the momentous choice they are being asked to make. This elevation of the next phase of the campaign -- and Romney's credibility -- is also a big win for the media. It's no longer the runaway race it looked like before Wednesday night. It's a story again. Were they wrong about Romney? If it sells newspapers and draws eyeballs, they hope so. Being wrong is nowhere near as bad as being ignored. CNN Focus Group: Best Moments Obama: Occasionally you have to say no (I say this having a little skin in the game. I wrote a column Monday for Foreign Policy saying the race was over. I still think Obama will win; the gender gap is too big -- even though Obama failed to make more of the woeful GOP record on women's issues during last night's domestic policy debate. And significant gaps have emerged in key swing states. But I'll admit it, I'm nervous about my prediction. Two more performances like last night, and Obama could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.) Romney's team and his debate prep opponent Rob Portman are also winners. As skillful and confident as Romney was, his strength was that he was very, very well-prepped. He had studied hard, seemed to have facts or reasonable facsimiles of them at his fingertips and fluidly moved from key point to key point. Also, thanks to this performance, the GOP money machine and party establishment are going to lean into a little thing you might call "the audacity of hope." Had Romney faltered, they might have ditched him and refocused on congressional races. Now, the big bucks will continue to flow. Almost certainly, Michelle Obama was also a loser. Her 20th anniversary celebration after the debate couldn't have been too much fun. Similarly, the people who had been hoping to meet with the president and vice president before their next debates and whose appointments will be canceled to make time for more debate prep are could consider themselves victims of Mitt's big night. Jim Lehrer can't be too happy with the prevailing view that as a moderator, he ended up as road kill. And it was win-lose for the Twitterverse. The event was the most tweeted political event in the (short) history of Twitter. And it also brought out the very worst in the snark-saturated medium. But in the end, for all the winners and losers who are celebrating or sobbing in the wake of Wednesday's exchanges, it is important to remember that this was just one debate and that over the next four weeks, there will be three more, plus hundreds of campaign appearances, gaffes and unexpected developments at home and overseas that will likely overshadow this one set piece. In other words, it is tempting but dangerous to read too much into this debate -- but fair and, yes, exciting to note this was just the sort of twist this tedious, small-ball campaign needed. Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter. Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Rothkopf

Debate disappoints some in crisis

Merced, California, has one of the nation's highest foreclosure and unemployment rates Debate watchers in that city wanted the candidates to lay out plans for the economy Many felt Romney's polices were off track and Obama's performance fell flat (CNN) -- Groups of graduate students who hang out at The Partisan, an indie band bar near the University of California-Merced campus, like their liquor and their politics straight up. Many of them felt they only got one of those things after watching the debate between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday night. "I don't know what universe Romney is living in," said Beth Hernandez-Jason, a doctoral student in American Latino literature. "I was kicked off my parents' health insurance by age 25 as was my little sister and she was reinstated because of the changes in the health care system." And Hernandez-Jason, like several people in the bar, felt Obama's performance fell flat. CNN Poll: Romney wins debate by big margin "I am disappointed in Obama. I felt like he was holding back. He's too nice," she said. "I understand that he has to come across nice but come on. After you hear Bill Clinton talk at the convention, he was willing to say it straight and not pull punches and it's unfortunate that (Obama) doesn't feel comfortable doing that." Obama and Romney sparred over differences on the economy. In their points and counterpoints, both men drew regularly on examples of people who they met on the campaign trail who've been hit hard by the economic downturn. Some of those people were from towns like Merced, a community at the crossroads of the nation's foreclosure and unemployment crises. The city has the nation's second highest foreclosure rate and an unemployment rate that at 17.5% is twice the national average. It is also a city that is nearly 50% Latino, a voting block both candidates are trying to woo. "We're on just about every list it seems like," said Mike Murphy, a Republican and Merced city councilman who helped lead a community discussion on the University of California-Merced campus after the debate. "People's priorities here (are) jobs, jobs, jobs." For generations, many people in Merced have depended on the land, growing things like almonds, strawberries and grapes. But times are hard and farm work is harder to come by these days as growers are forced to tighten their belts in a down economy. In an area that some residents call California's "fruit basket," the housing crisis has further compounded the area's woes. Obama, Romney clash over economy, health care At that debate watching party, people gathered at the university library's "Bobcat Lair" were glued to the television as the two candidates faced off. When the debate ended, the room full of students wanted to talk about education funding and student loans -- a topic the candidates spent little time discussing -- and jobs, Murphy said. People in Merced want "to see what either administration is going to do with unemployment and foreclosures," said Josh Pedrozo, a Democrat and Merced city councilman who also helped lead the post debate discussion. Speculators flooded the area at the height of the housing market in a frenzy to build and sell homes. Just a few short years later, many of those homes were often left half finished when builders ran out of money or empty when their owners faced foreclosure after losing jobs and being unable to make mortgage payments. "Merced is ground zero for all of those concerns," said Dorie Perez, a Merced native who is pursuing her doctorate in political science at the local University of California campus. "I want a plan and articulation of policies that I haven't seen. I want the bread and butter." Perez has watched her community struggle to recover from the recession. She moved back to her hometown in the San Francisco Bay area after working for the state of California and the city of Oakland. She returned to a city vastly changed. "The Central Valley is struggling as a whole. Merced and Merced County is not the most affluent place," Perez said. "People need governmental services and the threat to those programs is scary for this area. ... We need government help for the average person. It's pretty tough here." In a place struggling to recover, the new college campus is seen as a symbol that things are turning around. The school, which opened in 2005, is one of the nation's first research universities built in the 21st century. On Wednesday night, Perez, too, felt the president gave a lackluster debate performance. "It was surprisingly dry. I was unimpressed to be honest. I know the expectations weren't that high for the president but I wanted him to be more aggressive," Perez said adding that classmates talked about the topic at The Partisan. Most evenings, Perez spends her time poring over her studies in the hopes of one day getting a doctorate and a highly coveted tenure track teaching position. In the process she's taken out thousands of dollars worth of student loans, so she listened with keen interest to the any mentions by the candidates' of addressing student loan rates and soaring tuition costs. "I'm under 30. I'm trying to start a career and a life," she said. "Academic departments are shrinking their budget and the idea that I'm going to put next five years of my life into it is terrifying."