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"    Do you think they coordinated tie colors? Remote in hand, laptop at the ready, only two out of my four children hanging off of me and whining, I went into the first presidential debate prepared with the best of intentions. I was going to learn stuff, have adult conversations on Facebook, and participate in our grand political system. At first, it all was blindingly white smiles and party-approved tie colors; that was, until President Obama called Governor Romney bad at math, and the Governor responded by calling the President childish. My first official thought about the debates? With all of that name calling, eye rolling, and interrupting, they should have had a mom as moderator what because that crap would not fly at my dinner table. Poor Jim Lehrer. But then things started to get fun. Romney cracked a joke about Obama having to hang with him on his wedding anniversary. Obama invoked Donald Trump, and Romney countered with Big Bird. Romney told a funny story about his kids; Obama offered a sweet story about his grandma. If you want the really short version of the debates, here it is in one happy sentence: Both candidates agree that better energy sources, a stronger middle class, more jobs, and better education are important. The rest of the time was spent pointing out how their opponent&amp;#039;s plans for getting those things was ill-advised, ill-conceived, and just ill all around. There was a brief argument where Pres. Obama accused Gov. Romney of wanting to add seven trillion to the deficit, to which Gov. Romney responded that he most certainly did not! And Pres. Obama (essentially) retorted he did, too, liar liar pants on fire! Back and forth it went: &amp;quot;Did not!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Did, too!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Did not!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Did, too!&amp;quot; \u2014 until the moderator called a timeout to bang his head on the table because he&amp;#039;d already had to listen to an hour of that nonsense while driving the carpool that afternoon. Oh wait, that was me. Both candidates were really into their numbers. For instance, 40 minutes into the debate, during a discussion of social security and Medicaid, Romney told anyone over 60 years old that &amp;quot;you don&amp;#039;t need to listen any further&amp;quot; because nothing was going to change for them under his plan. Obama countered that &amp;quot;If you&amp;#039;re 54 or 55, you might want to listen.&amp;quot; Romney further clarified that people under 40 could listen, too. Everyone was accounted for! Unless you&amp;#039;re 41-53 years old, and then nobody cares about you. Kidding! If you&amp;#039;re 41 through 53 years old and in the middle class, then everyone cares about you. Deeply. Passionately. Because most of the numbers were aimed at tax cuts, tax brackets, deficits and spending plans designed to help the middle class. Then, there was the moment where it sounded like they were still arguing, but they were actually both agreeing that Gov. Romney&amp;#039;s health care plan in Massachusetts was brilliant. I think the candidates had a moment of confusion when they realized they were both saying the same thing and had to overcome a sudden impulse to hug it out because they&amp;#039;d just solved the healthcare crisis in two minutes or less. This shining bipartisan moment was interrupted by Mr. Lehrer asking the candidates if they believed there was a fundamental difference in the way they viewed the role of government. Which, with all due respect to the venerable newsman, has got to be the dumbest question ever. Of course they do. Isn&amp;#039;t that why we&amp;#039;re here? By the time we made it to closing arguments (interrupted only by having to put a toddler back in bed eleventeen times) I&amp;#039;d learned that the acronym for the Affordable Health Care Act sounds like a sneeze which is kind of funny and ironic (&amp;quot;AHCA!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Bless you?&amp;quot;), neither candidate is any good at estimating how long two minutes is, and that someone needs to introduce them to the concept of the &amp;quot;talking stick&amp;quot; before the next debate. So who won? According to the political commentators it was either Romney, Obama, or a tie. I think it was Big Bird. He was trending on Twitter all night. Did you watch the debate? Did it change your mind about whom you will be voting for? Anyone else want to sneak some Red Bull into Jim Lehrer&amp;#039;s water glass? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/news/a14487/debate-obama-romney-1/>